陰陽 - Ying and Yang; 음양 - Eum Yang

This is the Korean National Flag. In Korean it's called the 태극 (tae - guk).

I really appreciate the symbolism. I don't understand it all, but here's the gist:

The four black symbols represent the four opposing elements of fire, water, earth, and sky.

The symbol in the middle, however, is familiar to all of us. In Chinese it's called the 陰陽 - Ying and Yang, while in Korean (and the red and blue representation is a Korean adaptation) is 음양 - Eum Yang. It has the same meaning, however - the sun and the moon. It further means the ideas of male and female, strength and meekness, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, etc. In the Korean adaptation, the red specifically represents the sun and sky while the blue represents the sea and the earth.

But more than that, it is the representation of the opposition that is found in the world, both internally and externally, on a personal basis as well as in society at large. Each of us finds ourselves in a struggle for dominance between the better side of our natures and the "other" side. There is a conflict between the ideas of civility and brutishness, between ethics and greed, between love and hate. I think it is obvious which must prevail.

But what is also represented in this figure is a third symbol - that of the circle. The circle is whole, it is complete and encompassing. It suggests that there must be opposition in all things else there is diminishment. And it further suggests that there is a certain amount of perfection that is achievable when these two opposing forces are kept with specified bounds. Thus, denial of any part of our nature, whether speaking of ourselves personally or as a society in general, leads to imbalance and incompleteness and disharmony.

I am reminded of the scripture in 2 Nephi:


11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.

13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.

14 And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.

15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.

16 Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.

Lehi then goes on to explain that "All things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things" (v. 24).

It is this constant struggle, this friction, that refines us and makes us who we want to be. We are defined not by our struggles but by the fact that we continue to struggle to achieve this balance. Our task is to continue the way, hold the course despite the occasional corrections that are necessary, and to eventually find that inner peace that can infuse our souls and lives. Then, as peaceful people within ourselves, we can begin to share that peace with others and society can benefit thereby.