無極而太極
Whichever way that I go,
whether I rise or fall,
I remain in your place.
Where all that was divided learns to flow as one.
道生一，一生二
The Dao gives birth to One
Before heaven and earth, there was something formless and complete. From absolute stillness, the first movement. From Wuji, Taiji.
陰陽相濟Yin and Yang are not at war
What creates and what receives are two hands of one gesture. The ancient ones called this the mutual arising — each giving the other its meaning.
八卦成列The eight trigrams take their places
Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Wind, Water, Fire, Mountain, Lake — eight powers that pattern every life, each with its own virtue and its own shadow.
The cosmology descends as the sages described it — from the nameless origin through Yin and Yang, the Four Phases, and the Eight Trigrams, into the living situation of a human being who has forgotten their original nature.
Begin the descent