To know the cock yet hold on to the hen is to be the valley of the world...
To know the white yet hold on to the black is to be the pointer of the world...
To know honour yet hold on to shame is to be the gully of the world.
Daodejing, mwd 72 - Laozi, translated by Edmund Ryden
The two fundamental "drives" of all [things]... show up in various fields as, respectively: time and space, coherence and correspondence, rights and responsibilities, metaphor and metonym, intrinsic value and extrinsic value, determined and probabilistic, necessity and chance, consistency and completeness, consciousness and communication-the list is virtually endless. But the central point is that these typical dualisms... are dual partners forever fated to battle it out with each other, . . . and never, never win.
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, pg 531 - Ken Wilber
Yin and Yang is the Chinese philosophical concept of equal opposites, dualities that exist in the universe in an attempt to balance one another out. Each represents male (yang) and female (yin) energies*. All things have yin and yang energy because all things are simultaneous parts and wholes. That is, all things are autonomous wholes that are parts of greater wholes. For example, atoms are parts of molecules which are parts of cells which are parts of organs etc. Because all things are wholes and parts all things are simultaneously self-preserving and self-adapting.
Self-preserving refers to something's tendency to "want" to maintain itself, to keep order. Atoms attempt to stay in their most stable form; our bodies are in constant homeostasis; a country will defend its borders and protect its citizens, etc. Therefore all things work to hold onto their autonomy, their yang energy. It manifests as self-sufficiency, agency, activity, and control.
Self-adapting refers to somethings tendency to "want" to give itself up, to work with others. Cells interact with other cells to keep our bodies functioning; families come together to build communities; we constantly change as we interact with our environments. Thus all things seek communion and interaction, this is yin energy. It expresses itself as compassion, passivity, and letting go.
So all things are dynamically and constantly trying to both preserve themselves while adapting to everything else. In other words, yin and yang are necessary and complementary, are agency-in-communion, are interdependent. This creates a lot of tension! And when the tug of yin or yang is too great pathologies occur.
Too much self-preservation dominates. A cell becomes cancerous and begins to take over the body; Big Brother establishes an oppressive regime; a rogue atoms becomes radioactive; someone definitely wears pants in that relationship, etc. When agency becomes too powerful it oppresses. Likewise, too much self-adaptation negates. When something adapts too much it loses itself in the crowd. The over-expression of communion sucks the autonomy out of that thing until it has no identity whatsoever. Think of the person that tries so hard to please that they garner no respect. Or the person who never says anything because they're afraid the group will reject them. Or the fly on the wall. When adaptation becomes too powerful it represses. In short, hyper-preservation dominates and oppresses; hyper-adaptation negates and represses. Neither is good.
When it comes to the physiology of our own bodies the duality of yin and yang is present in the autonomic nervous system.** This is a regulatory complex that helps maintain homeostasis and prime the body for whatever it may face. It has two branches: the sympathetic (yang), or fight-and-flight; and the parasympathetic (yin), or rest-and-digest.
Both systems are active in the same places at different times and affect things like heart rate, blood pressure, pupil size, organ function, hormone release, waste disposal, and sex in order to divert energy to bodily systems in a context-dependent manner. For example, if there was a sudden zombie apocalypse and you had to run for your life, adrenaline and cortisol would be released, blood pressure and heart rate would go up, you'd start sweating, and blood would be taken away from organ function to be used for go-fast muscles. But if you're sitting eating a donut and reading this post then your blood is likely aiding digestion, you're (hopefully) not sweating, metabolism is relatively low: you're calm. This is good because your body has opportunity to do maintenance and nurture itself.
Together both systems are dualistic, that is, equal and opposite. Neither is good nor bad and both are absolutely necessary for the health of the individual. The issue that arises is when one system gets too much air play. Over-activation of the parasympathetic nervous system is akin to being in a coma. If you have no stress in your life then you're either an enlightened yogi or a bum. Over-activation of the sympathetic nervous system is a stressed filled life, doomed to be constantly fried and on edge, like an egg about to slide out of the skillet.
But if these are part of the autonomic nervous system then how can we "control" these systems? To activate the sympathetic nervous system exercise is the easiest way. There are plenty of other ways to positively stress the body (cold showers!) but exercise is the funnest and arguably the most beneficial. To activate the parasympathetic nervous system just breathe. Breathing is both autonomic and controlled. Via a reverse feedback loop you can activate all parts of the parasympathetic nervous system (it's non-discriminatory) by controlling just that one aspect. The art of breathing alone is perhaps one of the most underrated and powerful mechanisms available for transforming experience. But don't take my word for it, try for yourself.
Coming back to the point, the autonomic nervous system is a fundamental part of our gross body but it has the curse of duality. It is constantly running back and forth in order to keep us in tip top shape for whatever we do. But if we run part of it too long or too hard problems occur. Which is an indication that all of us can benefit from settling within the golden mean and making sure we have just the right amount of stress.
*These are by no means exclusive to males and females, they are just associated. Both are necessary for all individuals.
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