A Note on The Tao from Dr. Sidney Edsall
There is no exact translation or definition for The Tao in English. Perhaps the best translation is “The Way” or “The Path”, such as the way of nature or the path of existence. The Tao is reflected in the path a river takes, cutting between mountains to form a valley over thousands of years, or the way clouds change shape in response to the moving air currents above our heads. The Tao also embodies a sense of wholeness, as well as the unknowable and ineffable unity with the Divine. The Tao directs the unfolding of every aspect of the Universe. It is the natural law of the Cosmos.
The Philosophy of the Tao te Ching
According to the Taoist origin story, there was once a divine unity of everything in the universe. Once there was One, and then One divided to create Two; two opposing yet complementing forces, yin and yang. The Taiji is an ancient Taoist symbol representing this balance and wholeness. It reflects the harmonizing creative powers flowing unendingly, swirling and twisting about each other. It reflects our inner nature and the natural forces all around us. Yang energy is seen in the light half of the Taiji, rising to the top of the wheel, and yin energies flow to the bottom. There is never yang without yin, nor yin without yang. Even at maximum states of yang or yin, there is always a little spark of opposing energy, as reflected in the small circles of dark or light at the top and bottom of the Taiji wheel. Yang is warm relative to yin’s coolness. The sun is yang, while the moon is yin. Nature unfolds in this rhythm, as seen day by day, in the arc of the sun moving across the sky, then joined by the moon in the evening and the stars revolving around the North Star in the night. We see the Tao flowing year to year, in the wheat that grows to maximum height in the peak of the summer and then dies away to seed by the end of the fall, only to sprout again the following season.
The origin of the Taiji is found in the ancient Chinese time-keeping system, which used a pole to measure the changing lengths of shadows over the solar year as long ago as 600 BCE. Yin and Yang were originally used as descriptions of topography. For example, the yin aspects of a mountainside are the darker, more shady parts of a mountain, in comparison to the more yang, sunny, or higher parts of a mountainside. Yin and yang are also always in relationship to one another. They reflect relative degrees of yin in comparison to yang. For example, water is yin compared to fire, but water is more yang compared to ice.
Yin Energy vs. Yang Energy
Over time, yin and yang began to imply masculine and feminine aspects of nature, as well as the differing qualities of energies. Yang energy is fast and impulsive, while yin energy is slower, receptive. Yang energy embodies the ethereal heavens, while yin energy is heavier and more substantial, in and of the body and the flesh. Yang energy is active and productive, while yin energy encompasses breaking things down, letting go, and disintegration into darkness or the Great Abyss. Yang is represented in the intellect and the critical-thinking mind in contrast to the more yin unconscious mind; dark, mysterious, and mystical.
Yin and Yang in Modern Society
In recent centuries, in the modern age, world civilizations have been evolving into increasingly more patriarchal societies, to greater and lessor degrees. This patriarchy can be interpreted as an over-valuation of yang forces, while undervaluing the yin aspects of our existence. In our modern day existence, the balancing harmony that is represented in the Taiji symbol is skewed to reflect excess yang. The era of industrialization and more recent technological revolutions have increasingly driven us to live faster, more productive, more profitable, and more intensely yang existences, while relegating the more yin parts of our nature as a less attractive state of being. Modern cultures have adopted a preference for yang over yin, considering yang activities to be more pleasurable, desirable and good, while viewing yin activities as undesirable, unpleasant, or even ‘evil’ or bad. We encourage assertiveness at work and discourage quiet passivity. We cherish our youth, but quietly house away the elderly in nursing homes. We celebrate the new beginnings of birth, marriage, and business, but hide our grief, loss, and experiences with death. And even sleep, a relatively yin activity, while it is encouraged, it is encouraged in service to yang endeavors, preparing us for ‘successful’ and productive daytime activity. Less attention is given to our dreamlife, the musings of the mind while sleeping, minimizing the potential symbolic meanings to either superstitious silliness or simple regurgitations of our waking realities. Even the archetypes of darkness have been demonized. Ancient feminine goddesses were revered, seen as powerful enchantresses with special access to the mysteries of darkness and presiding with dignity over death and its transformation to rebirth. But more modern versions of this feminine archetype is seen in the evil witch of fairy tales wanting to eat little children and steal our life’s breath. The underworld has turned into a place to be feared and avoided at all costs.
According to The Tao, yin and yang were never intended to reflect ‘good’ or ‘bad’ energies and aspects of nature. The Tao teaches us that yin and yang co-exist and complement one another. Both yin and yang are necessary and equal parts of the whole. The flow and movement between yin and yang are essential for life to exist with vitality. To obstruct movement between yin and yang energies causes a build-up of energies which can manifest as pain and inflammation in the body as well as excess heat in our environment. Stagnation of energetic flow manifests physically as fatigue and sluggishness, and psychologically as depression. Yang energy rising quickly presents as anxiety and a lack of presence in the here and now.
The Taoist Concept of Unity with Nature
On a global level, overpowering yang energies are driving our earth out of balance, with excess heat leading to unpredictable and extreme climates. Greed and ambition for profit drives global warming, heating our planet with CO2 emissions and waste products. Seasonal fires blaze across the Earth leaving destruction and scorched debris in their wake. On a societal level, anger pulses through our government offices and in our streets, reflecting the deepening divides between political camps and those who have and those who have not. These growing imbalances within our societies permeate deep into the Earth, struggling in this disharmony. How can the Earth survive, we ask ourselves? How can humanity survive, as we recognize the precarious risks we have placed our world in? At times we are understandably fearful at what sort of earth our children may inherit, if we do not change the direction of the energetic tides now.
Discovering Your Own Yin and Yang Energy Balance
The potential for healing, whether the healing is done on an individual level or a global level, lies in restoring the universal balances as described in the Tao, and symbolized in the Taiji. Healing comes with realigning and finding value once again in the yin. On a psycho-spiritual level, the yin is our shadow-side or our unconscious. It is unfortunate that many modern psychiatrists are no longer able or willing to take the time in exploration of the unconscious’ shadowy depths. This is in part due to the pressures the healthcare system places on its ‘workers’ to be more productive and efficient in the care of individuals. It is also associated with the biological model of mental illness. While competent psychiatrists are trained in taking a bio-psycho-social history, this history is devoid of the psycho-spiritual aspects of life and living, and these aspects are generally thought in psychiatric academic institutions to be irrelevant. Many well-trained physicians today are more apt to write a prescription to ‘fix’ the biological errors contributing to an undesirable decrease in ‘productive’ functioning, rather than attending to the yin aspects of an individual. Exploring the yin requires tuning in to a patient’s heart with quiet listening. Cultivating the yin means paying homage to the mysterious, to dreams, spirits, and shadows, and honoring the process of letting go and disintegration. Yin cultivation is also sitting in meditation and/or supporting a spiritual practice, something Western medicine has all but forgotten in the wake of objective scientific measures and medical research.
When Ying and Yang Are Not in Balance
Philosophical writer and computer engineer Bernardo Kastrup gives a compelling explanation as to how and why modern Western societies have lost their sense of balance and harmony with the natural world. He suggests Western cultures collectively took a step away from religious and spiritual practices in the aftermath of WWII, as a way to cope with the grief brought on in the wake of the war’s incomprehensible death and destruction. As a means to move bravely forward, the Western world turned towards science for the answers to our future existence. Kastrup considers the Western post-war world felt a deep moral imperative to face reality with stark stoicism, to confront cold-hard truths objectively with scientific rigor, and to let go of frivolous or fanciful religious or spiritual stories and myths because religion had not saved the lives of so many. Science offered a beacon of hope to save lives and with an objective roadmap. It is convincingly apparent that America has elevated the scientific endeavor since post-WWII, while minimizing religious faith and spiritual experiences as intangible, unprovable, and therefore lacking in validity. This departure from spiritual practice may in fact be a reflection of yet another manifestation of energetic stagnation we are experiencing on a societal level. By overvaluing the yang intellectual endeavors of science while undervaluing the yin spiritual aspects on a societal level, we have thrown the natural harmony of the universe further out of balance. It is becoming increasingly apparent to me and others well-versed in both the merits and flaws of objective science, that re-establishing harmony on our planet requires that we lean into the yin. I believe this also translates into embracing the mystical and spiritual aspects of our existence.
Balancing Yin and Yang for a Harmonious Existence
It is very common for me to see clients who are struggling to find their way, their Tao, in the wake of both personal and societal disharmony. Societal expectations and marketing strategies both confuse and mislead us all the time, encouraging us to buy more, play more, think more, and be more, which only fuels the fire, and the yang. Re-establishing harmony does not mean ignoring the miraculous benefits and progress we have made with technologies and scientific rigor. Rather finding greater balance and harmony for the individual and the planet compels us to honor both sides of the Taiji wheel, the yang and the yin.
Using the Tao to Cultivate Inner Peace
My job, as a healer, is to act as a guide to whoever is seeking to find their Tao, and find their vitality again. My methods are varied, some simple, some more complex. First, I take time to listen. I support the practice of meditation and encourage spiritual growth and exploration. This does not mean I encourage my clients to go to temple or engage in religious prayer, as there are significant distinctions between religion and spirituality. Cultivating a spiritual practice might be sitting in a forest or learning to care for one’s own self. In addition to using the traditional medications of the western medical model, I work with acupuncture to unblock energy and stagnant emotions causing pain and limiting resiliency. I also use the psychedelic medicine ketamine in order to quiet the measuring and evaluating part of our mind, also called the Default Mode Network (DMN). Quieting the DMN allows us easier access to our more yin nature. It quiets the compulsions of the “Doing Mode’ and allows us to be in the ‘Being Mode’ of the mind. The ketamine helps to open access to our unconscious, to process memories of trauma, and let go of emotional burdens contributing to stagnation and limiting vitality.
Wisdom so often befriends paradox and we find paradox here as well; We must delve into the deep, dark abyss of the unknown, in order to find light and clarity again. This is the Tao. It is in the mysterious yin where we will find our saving grace, our capacity to heal ourselves and each other. One human being at a time. It is by embracing the yin, that we will find our way then to heal the Earth. And, so, despite all the fear present in our lives, I’m hopeful. First there was One, and then one became two, the yin and the yang. When we can find the simplicity in complexity, it is not so hard to find our Way, the Tao, back to One again.
