The Supreme Ultimate

Emblazoned across the backs of Young Guns leather jackets, melting into the amorphous realms of the Third Eye, adorning the walls of hippie student's dormitory walls, sparkling on the end of a silver earing as the sun catches it's twirling motion. The Supreme Ultimate, the Yin Yang (as it is known in the West) has become the universal symbol of something beyond, something destabilising, a call to arms to begin the revolution of the mind and a badge of one's commitment to all and anything that is not the way it is now. It's a trinket, an adornment, a puzzle and a revelation. It is a finger up to the establishment and a gateway to the realm of the Gods. A pattern, a badge, a symbol of power...whatever you want it to be, the Supreme Ultimate is it.

Whether we are familiar with the meanings, the origins and the uses of this archetypal, universal symbolic form, we all know it. We have all seen it countless times. It seems to have seeped into the consciousness, subconsciousness and meta-consciouness of the West and thus of the world. Owned by none, claimed by many, it is, according to the ancient Chinese sages, the physical manifestation of the concept of the ethereal omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence of all that is.

The Supreme Ultimate is a deeply provocative act of revolutionising consciousness and has its physical and thus conscious origins within the realization of opposing forces. Essentially, the symbol is a representation of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things and how one gives rise to the other. In classical Chinese thought, all natural dualities are cast in terms of yin and yang: male and female, light and dark, good and bad, full and empty....all of these things are reliant for their existence on their opposite. There cannot be light without darkness, there cannot be male without female, there cannot be good without bad..there is an intrinsic interdependence of one on the other - and each gives rise to the other. As the sun climbs in the sky, as it reaches its zenith, there is within it, the seed of the coming night and slowly but surely it gives way to darkness, which in turn carries within it the seed of the coming day. It is a continuous motion of one leading to the other. The symbol is indeed designed to give the impression of movement.

The two aspects of the Yin Yang symbol constantly interact and never exist in a state of stasis. The outer circle of the symbol represents the whole, whilst the black and white sections represent aspects of the whole, and within each we can see the seed and the coming birth of the other aspect - its opposite. The Yin apsect of the symbol is the dark area and is characterised in terms of the feminine: slow, soft, cold, wet, tranquil and pliant, whilst the Yang aspect; the white section is characterised as male: hard, fast, dry, hot, aggressive and rigid. The white aspect rises on the left, whilst the dark aspect descends on the right.

The concepts of Yin and Yang are the fundamental principles behind all of the traditional Chinese martial systems - whether they be active or passive. In each we see the principles of passivity and pliancy in a constant dance of submission and assertion with the principles of activity and resistance; and all to astonishing effect. The Chinese martial arts, whilst being some of the most complete and boundlessly destructive methods of combat known to man, have within them the submissive grace of a debutante. They are the perfect encapsulation of the principles of yin and yang and thus express and live out in microcosm, the concepts of the Supreme Ultimate. Yet the Supreme Ultimate is empty as well as full. It is devoid of anything and expresses nothing at the same time that it expresses all and is full of everything that there is in existence. It is beyond expression and definition. Full amd empty are mutually counteractive concepts - but they express the duallity of existence. This duality is contained within the emptiness of the Supreme Ultimate.

The outer circle of the symbol - the whole - is the One. It is all that is and ever was and is greater and smaller than any other concept or theoretical construct known to man. Macrocosm and microcosm. The One gives rise to the two and thus opposition as well as harmonious co-existence. In the martial arts, we see this constant interplay and arising and falling of opposing forces, each containing the acceptance and potential of the ensuing form as it progresses. But more than this, the mind, the being that gives rise to and commands the arising and diminishing of these forces for the form and the art to be successful, must strive to become the outer circle of the symbol. He or she must become empty and full at the same time: ready to be placid and pliant, ready to be aggressive and submissive, ready to concede and grasp everything - to be empty and full at the same time is to have a deep knowing of the nature of the Universe beyond this Universe. To be still and concede that the arising of one or other of the aspects known as Yin or Yang can be called upon and infuse one's being at will.If you have ever studied Tai Chi and are familiar with the practice of 'Pushing Hands' you will understand the ideas, expressed through the Supreme Ultimate of rising and falling, pushing forward and giving way in an endless series of pliant, yet strong hand and arm movements. This basic Tai Chi exercise has much in common with the passage of our lives as we go from day to day. So how does the Yin Yang symbol relate to our everyday lives and how can we use the concepts behind it to help us move through life in a more peaceful and conscious way?

Our day to day existence is full of choices and decisions. Some of these are significant, some are not - or appear not to be, but all, in their own way have profound impacts on us - for our long term health and sense of wellbeing and for our spiritual growth. Even something as seemingly insignificant as our feeling in the morning when we rise and see that it is raining outside is a decision that we make, based on the principles of Yin and Yang. Regardless of the external conditions - the rain - we have the abillity to chose how we feel about it. We can be happy because it will water our garden or because we just like walking in it, or we can be miserable, because it is yet another wet, cold and unpleasant day. The rain is just the rain and expressing it's nature, but we are entirely in control of our feelings towards it and as a consequence of that decision, our feelings and mood may be coloured for the rest of that day. In becoming the emptiness of the Supreme Ultimate - embodying and realising the Oneness within our being, it is necessary to simply let the rain be. To not allow the arising of any thoughts as to our feelings towards it - whether we would think of them as positive or negative.

We might rightly say that it is a good thing for us to feel positive about the fact that it is raining, or our boss is not going to give us the promotion that we wanted, or that our car won't start today...or any of the plethora of events that happen to us throughout our days and our lives. Of course, having a positive approach to these things is eminently more desireable than a negative view, but if we wish to really see the world as it is, it is necessary to move beyond the duality of this or that, right and wrong, positive and negative. Each time that we raise a thought of any kind, we colour the world with the imprint of our minds. The consequence of this is that we never actually get to see or experience the world as it truly is.

When we are presented with a chair and asked "What is it that you see?" We answer "A chair" - but we only know it as a chair because of all our other experiences of chairs. We know what it is for, we know if it is comfortable, we know how to use it, we know if it is aesthetically pleasing...we know much about it because we have a data bank of knowledge on the subject of chairs. What we do not see is what it actually is that we are being presented with; stripped away of the clutter of thoughts and processes that we impose upon it. Try to see anything in the world around you, devoid of your own preconditioning - it is almost impossible.

But if we want to find true peace for ourselves, if we want to find the way to a life of bliss, we really do at some point need to not only realise the emptiness of the Supreme Ultimate within ourselves as more than a theoretical and spiritual construct, we must become the Supreme Ultimate. We must empty ourselves and simply accept the world as it is - see it as it is - experience it as it is and have an understanding and control of the nature of our potential to express duality in which ever way we chose. We live in a dual world, governed by the laws of duallity, and while we exist here on this earthly plane, we have no choice but to move through it in a dualistic fashion - choosing this or that, black or white, up or down but we need to do it from the space of emptiness that is the outer circle - the Oneness of creation. And we need to do it in the full knowledge that whatever choice we make, it has within it the seed of it's opposite that will also one day come to fruition.

As we watch the pendulum of our lives, we must see that it is riven with constant swings backwards and forwards between events, circumstances, emotions that we can characterise as positive or negative. It is all very complex and there are many interwoven strands and threads that mitigate against us being able to label one aspect of our lives as totally positive or negative, but in broad terms, we are all aware of the constant movement back and forth between one extreme and another. If we want to stop this swing for good instead of resting in the illusory space of the good times that will inevitably come to an end, then we must focus on the emptiness of existence. We must try to bring to our minds the understanding and feeling and knowing of being, in fact, the Supreme Ultimate given birth within the illusory world of duality.

Metta and many blessings,

Steve