Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Polarity

Introduction

A short text explaining a diagram of circles that Zhou Dunyi probably adapted from Daoist sources. It begins “Non-Ultimate, and yet Supreme Ultimate” (wuji er taiji) and describes how the Supreme Ultimate generates yang through movement and yin through rest, from which the five phases, the male and female principles and the myriad things arise; humans receive the finest of these, and the sage establishes the human standard through stillness. Zhu Xi placed the text at the beginning of the anthology Reflections on Things at Hand (1175) and wrote a commentary on it. The meaning of the first sentence and the Daoist origin of the diagram became the subject of a famous dispute between Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan.