Wake Forest University
Patrick Edwin Moran
Traditional:
陰以陽為質，陽以陰為質。水內明而外暗，火內暗而外明。橫渠曰
「陰陽之精，互藏其宅」，正此意也。坎、離。
道夫。
Simplified
阴以阳为质，阳以阴为质。水内明而外暗，火内暗而外明。横渠曰
「阴阳之精，互藏其宅」，正此意也。坎、离。
道夫。
big5:
HAHCӥ~tAtӥ~C
uAèvvAN]CBC
DҡC
GB:
ΪʣΪʡˮⰵڰԻ
֮լҲ롣
Translation:
Yin takes Yang as its zhi (substrate), and Yang
takes Yin as its zhi.Water is bright within and dark outside.
Fire is dark inside and bright outside. Heng-qu said: "The jing (seminal essences)
of Yin and Yang are each ensconced within the other," and that
means exactly the same thing.
[Pertains to the trigrams] Kan and Li.
Dao-fu
The key to this passage lies in the note that Zhu Xi's students appended to this conversation, the words "Kan" and "Li". Those names refer to two trigrams, one of which has broken lines at the top and bottom and a solid line in the middle, and the other has solid lines at the top and bottom and a broken line within. They are drawn curved together in the Kan-Li diagram which is near the top of Zhou Dun-yi's Tai-ji Diagram. The solid lines map to the brightness mentioned this passage and the broken lines map to the darkness mentioned in this passage. So the one with broken lines at the top and bottom is a schematic diagram of Water, and the one with the solid lines at top and bottom is a schematic diagram of Fire. But the two parts of this Kan-Li diagram are equated to Yin and Yang, and the whole Kan-Li diagram is taken as being equivalent to the more widely known Yin-Yang diagram composed of two comma-form elements.
The most familiar Yin-Yang diagram has a dot of the opposite color in the center of the largest part of each of the main elements. Those dots remind the viewer that Yin has its beginning at the height of Yang, and vice-versa. That is just another way of saying that "Yin takes Yang as its zhi (substrate), and Yang takes Yin as its zhi."
Shen (spirit) evolves from jing (seminal essence) in somewhat the same way that steam evolves from water. Yang evolves from Yin, and Yin evolves from Yang.
This passage is a brief demonstration of some of the ways that Zhu Xi and those in his circle believed these several metaphysical categories to be related to each other.
-- PEM