Wake Forest University

East Asian Languages and Literatures, Chinese,

Patrick Edwin Moran





Zhu Zi Yu-lei, Juan 1, item 45

Traditional:

天地統是一箇大陰陽。一年又有一年之陰陽,一月又有一 月之陰陽,一日一時皆然。端蒙。陰陽五行。

Simplified:

天地统是一个大阴阳。一年又有一年之阴阳,一月又有一 月之阴阳,一日一时皆然。端蒙。阴阳五行。

big5:

ѦaάO@jC@~S@~A@S@ 뤧A@@ɬҵMC

ݻXC

C

GB:

ͳһһһ֮һһ ֮һһʱȻ

ɡ

С

Translation:

Heaven and Earth, considered together, is a great yin and yang. A year also has that year's yin and yang. One month also have that month's yin and yang. One day and one hour are also thus.

Commentary:

One of the things that the tradition of philosophy has taught humankind is that words can be misleading when they have different meanings in different contexts.

In some of the cases above, it is easy to see what Zhu Xi is talking about. A year has its yin and yang because it cycles between a minimum when the days are short and cold and a maximum when the days are long and hot. A month has its yin and yang because it starts with the moon in complete shadow, moves to a time two weeks later when the moon is full, and then cycles back to total darkness. Similarly, the days cycle from midnight to noon and back around. I have taken liberties in translating "shi2" as "hour" above, betcause Zhu Xi was probably talking about a "watch," which is actually a two-hour period. But it doesn't matter because both are arbitrary lengths of time, and neither involves any kind of process that cycles around once per period.

Heaven and Earth are not cyclical entities, and the reason for calling them Yang and Yin is entirely different from the reasons that the years, months, and days are said to have yin and yang characteristics. Heaven and Earth engage in continuous intercourse, which is what produces the myriad creatures (which can participate in the cosmic intercourse by having intercourse among themselves). "Yang" names the characteristics that are waxing, bright, masculine, male, etc. "Yin" names the characteristics that are waning, dark, feminine, female, etc. The greatest exemplars of the masculine and feminine characteristics in human experience are Heaven and Earth. But there are no phase changes occuring such that Heaven turns into Earth and later Earth turns into Heaven.

The mixture of two different kinds of Yin and Yang goes back at least as far as the Appendices (i.e., the later parts) of the Yi Jing. This mixture is probably based on the fact that sexuality and seasonal changes are both productive of life, and are both profoundly important to the lives of individuals living in an agricultural society. The sixture of factors was reinforced when the operations done upon stalks of milfoil (yarrow) were recorded as broken and unbroken lines, the broken lines were called hard or rigid and the unbroken lines were called soft or flexible, and then as soon as somebody popularized the idea that what was hard and rigid was also yang and what was soft and flexible was also yin, the ideas became fused and guarded by the tradition-shrouded antiquity of the text.

-- PEM


Chinese text checked against the Zhu Zi Yu-lei, 05 July 2003.