Taijitu is still. In stillness it generates "yin"; yet at the limit of stillness it is also active. Activity and stillness alternate; each is the basis of the other. In distinguishing "yin" and "yang", the Two Modes are thereby established. The alternation and combination of "yang" and "yin" generate water, fire, wood, metal, and earth. With these five [phases of] "qi" harmoniously arranged, the Four Seasons proceed through them. The Five Phases are simply "yin" and "yang"; "yin" and "yang" are simply the Supreme Polarity; the Supreme Polarity is fundamentally Non-polar. [Yet] in the generation of the Five Phases, each one
Zhou Dunyi that "the many are ultimately one and the one is ultimate." This was the first 11th-century Chinese text to argue for the inseparability of metaphysics or cosmology and ethics, as well as the first major Chinese text to explore the concept of the taijitu or "yin-yang symbol". It contained his theory of creation, which can be summarized in the following paraphrase of its first section: "In the beginning, there was t'ai chi (taiji) (the great ultimate of being), which was fundamentally identical with wu chi (wuji) (the ultimate of non-being). Because of the abundance of energy within t'ai chi, it