Zhou Dunyi portrays the cosmos as unfolding from an ultimate, undifferentiated source into the rich diversity of the “ten thousand things.” At the deepest level stands Wuji, the “Ultimate of Non-being,” an absolute, quiescent state beyond all distinction. From this arises Taiji, the “Supreme Ultimate” or “Great Ultimate,” not as a creator deity, but as the fundamental principle of being that contains all potential. Taiji is the unity that underlies every polarity and serves as the organizing pattern of reality. In this vision, creation is not an external act but an inner self-disclosure of the ultimate ground of existence.

The first movement of this principle is expressed through the alternation of movement and stillness. Movement gives rise to yang, the active, expansive force, while stillness gives rise to yin, the receptive, contractive force. Yin and yang are not rigid opposites but mutually dependent and continuously transforming aspects of one underlying reality. Their ceaseless alternation is the engine of cosmological change, ensuring that no state remains fixed and that every peak of activity naturally yields to repose, and every depth of stillness contains the seed of renewed motion.

From the interaction of yin and yang emerge the Five Phases—water, fire, wood, metal, and earth—understood as dynamic modes or forces rather than inert substances. These Five Phases structure the patterns of nature and time through their cycles of generation and restraint. As they combine and recombine, they give rise to qi, the vital energy-matter through which heaven, earth, spirits, and the myriad phenomena of the physical universe are manifested. The “ten thousand things” are thus the concrete expressions of this layered process, from ultimate unity to differentiated multiplicity.

Human beings occupy a distinctive place within this unfolding. Receiving the purest qi from the harmonious interaction of the Five Phases, humans possess both physical form and a spiritual nature that reflects Taiji as moral principle. To cultivate virtues such as humaneness is to align personal life with the harmonious order that pervades the cosmos. The universe, in this perspective, is not only a field of material transformation but also a moral and spiritual order, in which all beings arise through the differentiation of Taiji and remain subtly linked to the stillness of Wuji that grounds all things.