The Yin-Yang Concept

“When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling. Live your life so at the end, your're the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

In my eternal search for balance I've always been interested with the concept of the Yin-Yang, or as some refer to it as Ying-Yang.  Looking upon the symbol most would assume it simply represents opposites (this is the extent to the explanation to my children before that bored expression creeps in their eyes as they twist their hair) but it's more than that.  It's male and female; light and dark; good and evil, all that can not exist without the other therefore you can not fully understand them fully individually.

It's a wonderful tool to use in your writing as well.  Go ahead and insert it into your characters-do they continuously transform one another?  Can one exist without the other?  Now move on to your internal vs. external conflict, are they connected and ascend together?

Shih-tou's poem "The Identity Of Relative And Absolute":

Within light there is darkness,
but do not try to understand that darkness.
Within darkness there is light,
but do not look for that light.
Light and darkness are a pair,
like the foot before and the foot behind in walking.
Each thing has its own intrinsic value
and is related to everything else in function and position.
Ordinary life fits the absolute as a box and its lid.
The absolute works together with the relative,
like two arrows meeting in mid-air.

Do you believe harmony has a place in your writing?