The Tao Te Ching presents harmony between yin and yang as a relationship of mutual dependence rather than opposition. It describes how qualities such as being and non-being, difficult and easy, long and short, high and low, beauty and ugliness, or good and bad arise together and define one another. Each pole is intelligible only in relation to its counterpart, so that no quality stands alone or possesses absolute meaning. This vision of paired emergence undercuts rigid dualism and invites a more fluid understanding of experience, in which every apparent contrast is part of a single relational field.

At the same time, the text portrays these opposites as engaged in a dynamic, cyclical movement. Extremes are never stable: when something reaches its peak, it naturally begins to reverse, and this reversal is described as the very movement of the Tao. All things are said to carry yin and embrace yang, achieving harmony through their blending, so that balance is not a fixed midpoint but an ongoing process of transformation. Wisdom, in this light, consists in recognizing that each state contains the seed of its opposite and will eventually turn into it, and therefore not clinging to any extreme.

This vision is grounded in the deeper unity of the Tao itself. The Tao is portrayed as the source from which all differentiations arise: it gives birth to the One, then to the Two, then to the myriad things, all of which bear yin and yang within them. Because both sides of every polarity emerge from and return to this underlying reality, harmony is not a matter of choosing one side over the other, but of seeing both as expressions of a single origin. To “embrace the One” is thus to perceive the play of opposites without being trapped by their apparent conflict.

The practice associated with this harmony is non-action, or wu wei, which does not mean literal passivity but refraining from forcing outcomes against the natural flow. By not pushing one side of a polarity—such as strength over softness, gain over loss, or advance over retreat—to an extreme, the sage allows the inherent balancing movement of yin and yang to unfold. This entails working with opposing forces rather than against them, and embodying both firmness and yielding, fullness and emptiness, as circumstances require. In such conduct, the Tao Te Ching suggests, the human heart-mind can resonate with the ceaseless, harmonious alternation of yin and yang that pervades all things.