YIN AND YANG

This famous symbol of YIN and YANG shows a beautiful symmetry of the black and white images. Very similar to the symmetry of the two opposite triangles touching at their tips

The YIN and YANG concept has been the backbone of Chinese medicine for thousands of years. In any illness there is either an excess of Yin or Yang. The treatment is aimed at restoring the balance.

The adjacent diagram was originally drawn by tracing the movement of the sun, by the shadow it casts, as can be seen on Wikipedia, which has an abundance of detail.

Whereas Ayin and Ein Sof tend to refer to the absolute ends of the spectrum of creation from the Absolute All, (Ein Sof) to the Absolute Nothing, (Ayin), Yin and Yang tend to consider direction and movement towards largeness or smallness. Getting bigger and bigger or getting smaller and smaller. Going from black to white. Going from full to empty, or vica versa. Everything has a yin or a yang quality.

Walking is a good example of the changing balace of Yin and Yang. In these terms , it means the weight moves from the one leg to the other as we walk, from the supporting leg to the less supporting leg. The supporting leg is Full or Yang and the weight slowly moves to the unsupporting, or Yin, leg.

Like Ayin and Ein Sof there is a division into light and dark. Dark representing nothingness, Ayin. The white light is associated with illumination from the unending Divine or Ein Sof

In the diagram there is a point of the opposite colour, suggesting that in the depths of despair, it is always possible to find a ray of light and at the same time to be cautious at times of bounding optimism and vitality that problems can be lurking somewhere. See Rabbi Tatz homily