Issue 54 - Tse Qigong Centre

or I were born there was no you and no me. If we are talkingabout the world and the universe, then Wuji is before theuniverse was created when nothing else existed and nothinghappened.Then on one occasionsomething happened and sothere was no more Wuji.The emptinessbecame Taiji.Tai meansbig or very. Jiis the sameas in Wuji. Sotogether Taijimeans big andending or limitand this translatesto mean ‘something’.So the wholesentence “Wuji createsTaiji” means “Nothingcreated something”, andthis is a very fundamentalprinciple. Everything happensbecause there is something. Ifthere was nothing, how couldit create anything good or bad?How could we have children,buy a house, drive acar, lose a job,become ill,grow oldor evendie? Soit meanswheneverthere issomething,all things willhappen. When thingshappen, thengood and bad willalso happen.So why worry aboutthese things.One day all goodthings will turn bad and alsothe bad things will changeto become good.M o s tof you will have seen the Taijisymbol. On one side it is black and the other is white. Somepeople like to use different colours and this is all right as longas one side is dark and the other is light to balance it as thisshows the meaning of the symbol. You also do not have todraw the symbol this way and can draw it in many ways. Iremember once I was asked this question. Actually, you canhave many different styles of Taiji symbols as long as they showtwo opposite ways.However, if you look at the light side you can see asmall dark circle contained within it and also on the dark sidethere is a small light circle. Why do we draw this? This is becausein the dark side you can find the light, and in the light you canfind the dark. For example, a vicious killer is a bad person, butyou might find that he loves his wife, his parents and children.So there is some good in him as well. On the other hand, agood man, maybe even a monk who helps so many people,might like to sleep a lot or even drink a lot. This is the darkside inside the light.A knife might be very sharp and strong, but it may breakmore easily than a dull piece of metal. A piece of cotton is softand gentle, but if it is too light then it can easily be blownaway. This all about the principle of nature and actually, theprinciple of everything. Once something happens, we can seeboth sides, both good and bad. This is what we call Yin andYang.So the next question is which is Yin and which is Yang?Which is the dark and light side?“You can have manydifferent styles ofTaiji symbols aslong as theyshow twoways”Don’t think this is too obvious,a lot of people make a mistake forthis. When people look at the Taijisymbol and see the dark sidethey think that this is heavy,so they think that the darkside represents Yin.When they see thelight side, they thinkt h a tthis is light, so itmust be Yin.However, if youlook at it likethis, then I amafraid you are wrong. Theprinciple of Yin and Yang isbased upon nature. Yina l s orepresents the night timeand sofollowing this, Yin is dark. Yangis thedaytime and so is light. Try not tog e tconfused by the colours, theprinciple looks at the substance ofthings and the rules of nature.In the Taiji symbol you can see thatboth sides are connected together and this is becauseit is one object. When something is created, it must be onething first, but inside it is made up of two opposite parts. Forexample, a child is created by a man and a woman. Steam iscreated by water and fire. Everything that exists in nature hasboth good and bad sides, Yin and Yang.When we say we practise Taiji, actually we should saywe practise Taijiquan. Do not forget the Quan. We know themeaning of Taiji. Taiji is something that has two opposite parts,Qi Magazine 37