The Tai Chi Diagram is just the explicit display of its connotations, which seems simple but contains the complex philosophical ideas of the ancient Chinese. The black and white colors in the diagram represent yin and yang, heaven and earth, respectively, which are divided by the boundary line between black and white. The black dot in the white part of the diagram means there is yin within yang, while the white dot in the black part means there is yang within yin. The two parts are put together to perfectly express the profound connotations of Tai Chi.

The ancient Chinese had their own understanding of changes in nature and celestial bodies. They regarded natural phenomena, such as sun, moon, wind, rain, thunder, cloud and rainbow, as things that were quite divine, and observed changes such as alternate appearance of sun and moon, sunrise and sunset, moon waxing and waning, solar eclipse, lunar eclipse, alternate four seasons as a circular process. The change of all things on earth led the ancient Chinese to the concepts of circulation, change and ceaseless generation and finally to ancient dialectic philosophies.

For mysterious and vast things in the universe, the ancient Chinese adopted images as their best way of depiction. Images, regardless of the images of sun, moon, mountains and rivers, and animals drawn by primitive people in caves or on cliffs or the patterns on vessels for everyday use, had always been the first form that human beings used to perceive all things in nature.

The Tai Chi Diagram is such a graphic symbol the ancient Chinese designed to depict the universe, and it contains the implications of Tai Chi both in form and content. Tai Chi is not only the foundation on which yin-yang, Wuxing and all things on earth emerge and develop, but also the source of movement and stillness. This is clarified in the Tai Chi Diagram. The Tai Chi Diagram visually exhibits the relationship between opposites that they are in contradiction to and unite with each other and change to each other: no extreme holds long; at the end of yin, yin changes to yang, and vice versa; there is yang within yin, and vice versa, both promoting each other. The crystallization of wisdom of the ancient Chinese, the Tai Chi Diagram is acclaimed as “a perfect pattern” by the noted Western scholar Gombrich.