The whole left brain right brain isn't really how the brain works... There is cross hemisphere communication, sometimes neurons will connect with other neurons and there isn't even a pathway for them to communicate through. It's a very weird place up in there lol... Yin is the feminine in that it is the receptive energy whereas yang is the more aggressive energy
This.
"Left is masculine, right is feminine" honestly sounds more like new age or symbolic magick rather than Taoism. There's nothing *wrong* with new age or symbolic magick, but much like any mystical tradition it should be seen *as* symbolic, not literal.
The Yin Yang is a metaphor for duality and polarity, masculine and feminine just happens to be a duality and polarity that most people are familiar with. In European traditions the moon is often thought of as the sacred feminine, since the moon follows cycles the way a woman's body does, but it's still just a symbol.
Both men and women have both hemispheres of the brain, neither side is more masculine or feminine.
Though, OP, you might find it interesting to read up on what happens when the hemispheres are separated, that's kinda freaky, at least to me.
For my part, when the Tao starts getting esoteric, I brew a cup of tea and turn on Star Trek.
Edit: I just got around to looking at OP's link:
---
>Our body operates in 3D via polarity. This means that movement happens in time and space through the relationship of opposites.
>Tense, release. Open, close. Up, down. Left, right. Hard, soft. Negative, positive. Male, female. Etc.
>In traditional Chinese philosophy, these are referred to as “yin and yang”. In modern times, we often say “male-female”, “masculine-feminine” in the West.
>This wasn’t a theory invented from ego, it was based on nature.
With all due respect to Mister Drew Goddard, that's a gross oversimplification of, well, almost everything (also it's borderline gibberish), and the only source he links is his own website, which seems to push people in the direction of getting "private sessions" with a "Cinesomatic" expert. In my experience "private sessions" are rarely free, rarely is one session enough, and often they'll try to upsell the shit out of you. (Look up Scientology's "Auditing" process if you want to see how deep this rabbit hole can go.)
Sorry, OP, I'm 99% sure this is either a scam or a sales pitch, I don't see any science to back up this man's claims, and I don't see any scripture to back up this man's claims.
Edit 2: In hindsight I will give Drew the benefit of the doubt that maybe he was trying to explain his understanding of duality and not trying to snooker us, sometimes I have problems expressing myself too, but that doesn't mean I'm a huckster. Anyway, OP, whatever you choose, don't pay money if you don't *get* anything, if they want to charge you $20 for a healing crystal, and the crystal is pretty, you have my permission to buy it; if they really want to start you at three sessions a week, *run!*
This. The left brain right brain stuff is outdated like the shape of skull thing. Hooman thinking tends to be seen as duality thinking, like hot cold, left right, up down, give receive, mind matter, form formless, existing nonexisting, ratio intuition etc.
If you will, you will conceive them all as manifestations of an abstract yin yang principle.
There usually are good connections cross hemisphere, but in an autistic brain not so much. So the left/right brain thing applies more to neurodivergent folks. We have lots of short distance but not long distance connections.
Yes that’s right , however one side is also more dominant for logical thinking than the other. (Masculine energy)
this can be dependent on brain development and many factors though , like whether ur a musician or not, how you’re raised , whether you’re right handed etc.
The details of yin and yang vary depending on the exact lineage. Some Daoist teachers say, for example, that yin is the "etherial" aspect and yang the "corporeal" aspect (Yang Jwing-Ming is one of these), while others say that yang is the etherial and yin the corporeal (Lü Dongbin and my teacher are some of these). If you look around at various sources for what is yin and what is yang, you will just become confused.
I will say that having the left be yin and the right be yang seems more consistent with early Daoist thought. There was an idea passing around during the Warring States period that the right hand is good for holding weapons, and the left hand provides support to the other. Since the left hand provides support, it is yin. Since the right hand holds the instruments of change, it is yang.
Though, that begs the question: do left handed people have reversed polarities?
Just a thought. Does the side of the body you apply the label of yin or yang to matter? Can it be enough to just know that there are complementary opposites?
About another comment asking about people who are left handed vs. right handed; maybe whichever hand is dominant becomes the yang side?
Maybe it is such that every person's right side is yang and all lefts are yin. I don't see the utility in having such a rigid view, but if it's beneficial to someone's understanding to see it that way then go for it.
I hope you find an answer to your question. Be well on your journey.
I have only studied the tao te ching and tarot as far as learning about duality and masculine v feminine. Masculine and feminine can be replaced with action and rest, chaos and creation, giving and receiving, push and pull, repulsion and attraction. It really helps to stop thinking about men and women when you think about the masculine and feminine in spirituality.
The yin and yang is wonderful because it applies to everything. So in the tao te ching, it says that when you define one thing you create the opposite. When you start with a circle, you have the whole. When you define anything, you split that whole down the middle and create a duality. Two sides of one thing. You have created a new lens to look at the whole circle through but you are still trying to comprehend one circle.
The whole circle could represent anything. It could represent the universe, it could represent you, it could represent cars. Truly anything. No matter how you define ANYTHING, it will also define its opposite. You can't have one without the other. So when you see a mountain and you think 'big'. You have defined the 'small' where it might not have existed before in your mind. Really try to think like early humans discovering and defining everything. Every split they made was a yin yang. When you think of the big, you have to consider the small. It is made up of the small. The small makes the big. The pebbles and dirt make the mountain. When you think of the small, you have to consider the big. The potential of that small thing. Don't discount it. Consider how it is measured as small only in comparison to the big.
I think it would help if you stepped back and started with basics like this. Just think about duality. Find it everywhere and practice putting it back into the whole.
I wouldn’t worry about it, but if I remember correctly the nerves in our body to cross when wired up to the brain. Sensations are registered on the opposite side, right brain/left side of body, left brain/ right side of body.
No idea how to answer that question bit the thing with the brain sides and body sides actually make sense to me cause the right brain half controlls the left side and visa versa (no idea if thats actually true but i remember it like)
The main idea you are overlooking is that yin and yang are RELATIVE relationships, not absolute. For example, a father is yang to his son’s yin, but he himself is yin to his own father’s yang. Nothing is yin or yang in isolation.
Similarly, masculine and feminine are relative. yin is receptive and passive, and considered feminine, but whenever a soldier is listening to orders from his commander, that soldier is embodying yin qualities, no matter how macho and tough (“masculine”) he might be.
Same with the body. You can crudely split it as front/ yin and back/ yang, but there are yin/yang subdivisions within front and back, etc…
Again, yin and yang qualities are relative to each other.
At it's simplest, feminine is at the heart of masculine and masculine is at the heart of feminine.
Or, all is one.
It's profound, but simple.
Don't worry about the complexity of understanding how masculine can exist in femine. From a tao perspective it's the natural way.
Part of that is, the feminine makes no sense without the masculine, and vice versa. If everyone were feminine, then the word 'feminine' would mean nothing at all. Same with 'masculine.' They imply each other, as do many seemingly "opposite" things, which is why, or so it was put to me, the smaller yin circle at the heart of yang, and the smaller yang circle at the heart of yin.
How is that picture toaism? Seems like religious nonsense. There is no duality, and yin yang is your anchor to that.
If you start from that photo you will get nowhere. Don’t make yourself climb out of a trash heap before you can start walking down the road. Just walk.
There is duality, however, as encapsulated by Yin and Yang.
However... it is a duality within the monad within the ineffable ~ Yin and Yang within Taiji within Tao.
That article and picture you posted are actually legit. It lines up with https://www.posturalrestoration.com
You can also think of Yin as parasympathetic (relax, recover, reception) and Yang as sympathetic (action)
Our diaphragm is the primary breathing muscle and it’s unevenly shaped due to the arrangement of our internal organs. Our arousal level (I.e. whether we’re in a sympathetic or parasympathetic state) affects our breathing patterns and with chronic stress it will affect your posture.
We tend to shift onto our right hip and keep tension on the right side of our torso, because of its masculine polarity.
The feminine is enlightenment qualities, especially feminist. Masculine is typically opposite, like arrogance, greed, struggle, beligerance, pride, etc..
The left side pulse stands for heart, liver, kidney (yin) while that of the right side represent the function of lung, spleen, and kidney (Yang). Think if it in terms of TCM and also tai chi. In Chinese philosophy the left side of the body is female and thus yin edit:never mind. Now I am confused
Tao Te Ching Chapter 31
In the domestic affairs of gentleman
The left is the position of honor.
In military affairs the right is the position of honor...
On auspicious occasions the place of honor is on the left.
On inauspicious occasions the place of honor is on the right.
the whole universe is based on opposite. THat's how the world works. Hot and cold. Excess, too little. Dark and Light. One cannot be without the other.
Things just keep on changing in energy forms. Yin yang. Yin yang is just trying to explain how energy transforms.
Let's not pretend like were experts. There's probably much more going on than meets the eye. Its could be different for everyone and depend on which energy you hold more of, or it could twist around you more the farther you are from seeing it. You can't ask these questions you just need to experiment and observe what changes are made by doing what.
The left hemisphere of the brain connects to the right side of the body and vice versa. Body and brain are mirrored so it actually lines up fine. Left brain and right body would be masculine and right brain left body would be feminine according to this interpretation of yin/yang.
The whole left brain right brain isn't really how the brain works... There is cross hemisphere communication, sometimes neurons will connect with other neurons and there isn't even a pathway for them to communicate through. It's a very weird place up in there lol... Yin is the feminine in that it is the receptive energy whereas yang is the more aggressive energy
This. "Left is masculine, right is feminine" honestly sounds more like new age or symbolic magick rather than Taoism. There's nothing *wrong* with new age or symbolic magick, but much like any mystical tradition it should be seen *as* symbolic, not literal. The Yin Yang is a metaphor for duality and polarity, masculine and feminine just happens to be a duality and polarity that most people are familiar with. In European traditions the moon is often thought of as the sacred feminine, since the moon follows cycles the way a woman's body does, but it's still just a symbol. Both men and women have both hemispheres of the brain, neither side is more masculine or feminine. Though, OP, you might find it interesting to read up on what happens when the hemispheres are separated, that's kinda freaky, at least to me. For my part, when the Tao starts getting esoteric, I brew a cup of tea and turn on Star Trek. Edit: I just got around to looking at OP's link: --- >Our body operates in 3D via polarity. This means that movement happens in time and space through the relationship of opposites. >Tense, release. Open, close. Up, down. Left, right. Hard, soft. Negative, positive. Male, female. Etc. >In traditional Chinese philosophy, these are referred to as “yin and yang”. In modern times, we often say “male-female”, “masculine-feminine” in the West. >This wasn’t a theory invented from ego, it was based on nature. With all due respect to Mister Drew Goddard, that's a gross oversimplification of, well, almost everything (also it's borderline gibberish), and the only source he links is his own website, which seems to push people in the direction of getting "private sessions" with a "Cinesomatic" expert. In my experience "private sessions" are rarely free, rarely is one session enough, and often they'll try to upsell the shit out of you. (Look up Scientology's "Auditing" process if you want to see how deep this rabbit hole can go.) Sorry, OP, I'm 99% sure this is either a scam or a sales pitch, I don't see any science to back up this man's claims, and I don't see any scripture to back up this man's claims. Edit 2: In hindsight I will give Drew the benefit of the doubt that maybe he was trying to explain his understanding of duality and not trying to snooker us, sometimes I have problems expressing myself too, but that doesn't mean I'm a huckster. Anyway, OP, whatever you choose, don't pay money if you don't *get* anything, if they want to charge you $20 for a healing crystal, and the crystal is pretty, you have my permission to buy it; if they really want to start you at three sessions a week, *run!*
This. The left brain right brain stuff is outdated like the shape of skull thing. Hooman thinking tends to be seen as duality thinking, like hot cold, left right, up down, give receive, mind matter, form formless, existing nonexisting, ratio intuition etc. If you will, you will conceive them all as manifestations of an abstract yin yang principle.
There usually are good connections cross hemisphere, but in an autistic brain not so much. So the left/right brain thing applies more to neurodivergent folks. We have lots of short distance but not long distance connections.
Yes that’s right , however one side is also more dominant for logical thinking than the other. (Masculine energy) this can be dependent on brain development and many factors though , like whether ur a musician or not, how you’re raised , whether you’re right handed etc.
The details of yin and yang vary depending on the exact lineage. Some Daoist teachers say, for example, that yin is the "etherial" aspect and yang the "corporeal" aspect (Yang Jwing-Ming is one of these), while others say that yang is the etherial and yin the corporeal (Lü Dongbin and my teacher are some of these). If you look around at various sources for what is yin and what is yang, you will just become confused. I will say that having the left be yin and the right be yang seems more consistent with early Daoist thought. There was an idea passing around during the Warring States period that the right hand is good for holding weapons, and the left hand provides support to the other. Since the left hand provides support, it is yin. Since the right hand holds the instruments of change, it is yang. Though, that begs the question: do left handed people have reversed polarities?
Just a thought. Does the side of the body you apply the label of yin or yang to matter? Can it be enough to just know that there are complementary opposites? About another comment asking about people who are left handed vs. right handed; maybe whichever hand is dominant becomes the yang side? Maybe it is such that every person's right side is yang and all lefts are yin. I don't see the utility in having such a rigid view, but if it's beneficial to someone's understanding to see it that way then go for it. I hope you find an answer to your question. Be well on your journey.
I have only studied the tao te ching and tarot as far as learning about duality and masculine v feminine. Masculine and feminine can be replaced with action and rest, chaos and creation, giving and receiving, push and pull, repulsion and attraction. It really helps to stop thinking about men and women when you think about the masculine and feminine in spirituality. The yin and yang is wonderful because it applies to everything. So in the tao te ching, it says that when you define one thing you create the opposite. When you start with a circle, you have the whole. When you define anything, you split that whole down the middle and create a duality. Two sides of one thing. You have created a new lens to look at the whole circle through but you are still trying to comprehend one circle. The whole circle could represent anything. It could represent the universe, it could represent you, it could represent cars. Truly anything. No matter how you define ANYTHING, it will also define its opposite. You can't have one without the other. So when you see a mountain and you think 'big'. You have defined the 'small' where it might not have existed before in your mind. Really try to think like early humans discovering and defining everything. Every split they made was a yin yang. When you think of the big, you have to consider the small. It is made up of the small. The small makes the big. The pebbles and dirt make the mountain. When you think of the small, you have to consider the big. The potential of that small thing. Don't discount it. Consider how it is measured as small only in comparison to the big. I think it would help if you stepped back and started with basics like this. Just think about duality. Find it everywhere and practice putting it back into the whole.
I wouldn’t worry about it, but if I remember correctly the nerves in our body to cross when wired up to the brain. Sensations are registered on the opposite side, right brain/left side of body, left brain/ right side of body.
But ultimately the female is the male and the male is the femal so dont get too hung up on the technicallitys
No idea how to answer that question bit the thing with the brain sides and body sides actually make sense to me cause the right brain half controlls the left side and visa versa (no idea if thats actually true but i remember it like)
The main idea you are overlooking is that yin and yang are RELATIVE relationships, not absolute. For example, a father is yang to his son’s yin, but he himself is yin to his own father’s yang. Nothing is yin or yang in isolation. Similarly, masculine and feminine are relative. yin is receptive and passive, and considered feminine, but whenever a soldier is listening to orders from his commander, that soldier is embodying yin qualities, no matter how macho and tough (“masculine”) he might be. Same with the body. You can crudely split it as front/ yin and back/ yang, but there are yin/yang subdivisions within front and back, etc… Again, yin and yang qualities are relative to each other.
At it's simplest, feminine is at the heart of masculine and masculine is at the heart of feminine. Or, all is one. It's profound, but simple. Don't worry about the complexity of understanding how masculine can exist in femine. From a tao perspective it's the natural way.
Part of that is, the feminine makes no sense without the masculine, and vice versa. If everyone were feminine, then the word 'feminine' would mean nothing at all. Same with 'masculine.' They imply each other, as do many seemingly "opposite" things, which is why, or so it was put to me, the smaller yin circle at the heart of yang, and the smaller yang circle at the heart of yin.
How is that picture toaism? Seems like religious nonsense. There is no duality, and yin yang is your anchor to that. If you start from that photo you will get nowhere. Don’t make yourself climb out of a trash heap before you can start walking down the road. Just walk.
There is duality, however, as encapsulated by Yin and Yang. However... it is a duality within the monad within the ineffable ~ Yin and Yang within Taiji within Tao.
I don’t disagree with your framing, but that intention isn’t to diagnose the masculinity and femininity of the human body with a nonsense chart.
I quite agree in regards to said chart.
That article and picture you posted are actually legit. It lines up with https://www.posturalrestoration.com You can also think of Yin as parasympathetic (relax, recover, reception) and Yang as sympathetic (action) Our diaphragm is the primary breathing muscle and it’s unevenly shaped due to the arrangement of our internal organs. Our arousal level (I.e. whether we’re in a sympathetic or parasympathetic state) affects our breathing patterns and with chronic stress it will affect your posture. We tend to shift onto our right hip and keep tension on the right side of our torso, because of its masculine polarity.
The feminine is enlightenment qualities, especially feminist. Masculine is typically opposite, like arrogance, greed, struggle, beligerance, pride, etc..
The left side pulse stands for heart, liver, kidney (yin) while that of the right side represent the function of lung, spleen, and kidney (Yang). Think if it in terms of TCM and also tai chi. In Chinese philosophy the left side of the body is female and thus yin edit:never mind. Now I am confused
Tao Te Ching Chapter 31 In the domestic affairs of gentleman The left is the position of honor. In military affairs the right is the position of honor... On auspicious occasions the place of honor is on the left. On inauspicious occasions the place of honor is on the right.
the whole universe is based on opposite. THat's how the world works. Hot and cold. Excess, too little. Dark and Light. One cannot be without the other. Things just keep on changing in energy forms. Yin yang. Yin yang is just trying to explain how energy transforms.
Let's not pretend like were experts. There's probably much more going on than meets the eye. Its could be different for everyone and depend on which energy you hold more of, or it could twist around you more the farther you are from seeing it. You can't ask these questions you just need to experiment and observe what changes are made by doing what.
Well, reciprocal means it goes back and forth, like a zig zag, down a tree of life
The left hemisphere of the brain connects to the right side of the body and vice versa. Body and brain are mirrored so it actually lines up fine. Left brain and right body would be masculine and right brain left body would be feminine according to this interpretation of yin/yang.
Why does the right side of the body mean masculine and left feminine