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Yin-Yang
In Taoist symbolic system Yang 
(solid line) and Yin 
(broken line) represent two opposites,
which however don’t fight each other, as they do in Western Philosophy, but rather complement and move each other.
These two powers create everything in the Universe. And a collaboration between this opposites is the reason and the source of change. 
(solid line) and Yin (broken line) represent two opposites,
which however don’t fight each other, as they do in Western Philosophy, but rather complement and move each other.
Yang
Yin
Heaven, positive, active, male, creative, direction up, south, spirit, light, day, warm, hard, dry, summer, sunshine, odd numbers.
Earth, negative, passive, female, receptive, direction down, north, matter, dark, night, cold, soft, wet, winter, shadow, even numbers.
These two powers create everything in the Universe. And a collaboration between this opposites is the reason and the source of change.
Taoist philosophers strongly believed, that when something in Universe reaches its top level (over-develops) it will eventually start morphing to its opposite. In other words, what today is Yang, tomorrow can be Yin and vice versa. These transformations however don’t happen instantly – as it can be seen in the nature, young slowly grows until it reaches its full form and, when overgrown, becomes its own opposite.
In I Ching symbolic language this process can be expressed as a four step cyclic transformation – a Young Yang 
(also called a Lesser Yang) grows and becomes the Old Yang 
(Greater Yang),
which later gradually transforms to Young Yin 
(a.k.a. Lesser Yin),
which in turn grows and transforms to Old Yin 
(Greater Yin) to become later the Young Yang .
One fundamental cycle of transformation is completed !
This cyclic process is depicted below.
(also called a Lesser Yang) grows and becomes the Old Yang (Greater Yang),
which later gradually transforms to Young Yin (a.k.a. Lesser Yin),
which in turn grows and transforms to Old Yin (Greater Yin) to become later the Young Yang .
One fundamental cycle of transformation is completed !
Above considerations bring us closer to another important concept in I Ching - the concept of Digrams as the combinations of two stable Yin / Yang lines. We are discussing these concept in more details in a separate web page - visit Digrams link on the main left menu in this page or just click here.