Black and White

A Quick-and-Dirty Look at Provisional Dualism

I think it safe to assume that most all of us are familiar with the circular, black-and-white symbol of yin and yang. It is easily the most popular and recognizable representation of Taoism, and of Far Eastern philosophy more generally, here in the West. And the notion that it teaches—the idea it seeks to get across—is for us to view the world through a provisional dualism. There are two sides to everything, as it were.

The white area within the symbol represents yang, which is considered to be hard, brittle, bright, masculine, hot, solid, dry, known, rational, and orderly. The black, then, represents yin, which stands in for all that is soft, flexible, dark, feminine, cold, fluid, wet, mysterious, passionate, and chaotic. In Taoism, everything that exists in this world, from elements to ideas, contains within it both of these aspects, the yin and the yang.

Note that these two work here in a cycle, blending into one another. When yin is at its height, yang begins to grow, eventually to supplant it; and vice versa at the other extreme of the spectrum. Moreover, the white dot within the black and the black within the white indicate that each aspect contains within its very heart the roots of its own downfall. Too much order, then, breeds chaos; and too much chaos demands new order.

One might well be tempted to use a Star Wars analogy, to speak of a Light Side and a Dark Side of the Force. But this is misleading. Yin and yang are not good and evil. The white is not benevolent, nor the black malevolent. Rather, morality is to be found in proper balance between the two: thus we have in the middle of the diagram the Tao, or the Way, which is the winding path between the yin and the yang.

A better Western analogy might be Joseph Campbell’s famous notion of the Hero’s Journey, in which any given mythological or legendary character only grows by leaving comfort and security, setting out into the risky unknown, only then to return home, having changed. The Hero’s Journey and the Tao both remind us that if we seek to grow, to mature, to strengthen our bodies, minds, and souls, we must ever have one foot in the secure and orderly, and another in the adventurous unknown. We go out and we come back in a cycle.

We find this also in the philosophical heritage of Hermeticism, which was until fairly recently a firm pillar of any comprehensive classical education. Hermetic alchemy speaks of provisional duality, and of seeking a properly balanced path between two given extremes. Only the terminology differs. In alchemical practice, quicksilver stands in for yin, and sulfur for yang, while salt represents any given composite of the two, any particular instantiation.

Alchemy, in whatever form it takes—be it spiritual, chemical, or horticultural—seeks balance (that is, Tao) by breaking down improper salts into their composites (sulfur and quicksilver, yin and yang), then recombining them into new and more properly proportioned forms. This is why small bowls of sulfur, quicksilver, and salt are to be found in Chambers of Reflection. The lesson we take from these is that we are to reshape our lives to make good men better, in whatever time is allotted to us.

Other places that we more commonly encounter yin and yang, quicksilver and sulfur, are the checkerboard tiled floors so often found in churches and fraternal lodges. Here black and white again are taken to represent the trials and blessings of life, how they intermix and interact; how we will inevitably encounter both throughout life and indeed throughout each day. Our duty then is to properly navigate between the light and the dark, order and chaos.

When we do so, we chart a path of balance between yin and yang, and thus find ourselves happily within the Tao, as salt of the earth, making for ourselves the Hero’s Journey—a higgledy-piggledy mixture of metaphors, I’ll grant you, but one that hopefully illustrates a common thread of human moral teaching.