TAIJI. In the Yi jing (Book of Changes; a wisdom book in ancient China that is widely believed to have been a major source of inspiration for Confucianism and Daoism), the term Taiji ("great ultimate") signifies the origin and ground of Heaven and earth and of all beings. It is the Great Ultimate that is said to engender or produce yin and yang, the twin cosmic forces, which in turn give rise to the symbols, patterns, and ideas that are, indeed, forms of yin and yang. The interaction of the two modalities of these cosmic forces bring about the eight trigrams that constitute the basis of the Yi jing. Combining any two of the eight trigrams, each of which contains three broken (yin) and three unbroken (yang) lines, forms one of the sixty-four hexagrams. These are taken as codes for all possible forms of change, transformation, existence, life...