"supreme ultimate") is a cosmological state of the universe and its affairs on all levels, including the mutually reinforcing interactions between the two opposing forces of yin and yang, (a dualistic monism),[1][2] as well as that among the Three Treasures, the four cardinal directions, and the Five Elements—which together ultimately bring about the myriad things, each with their own nature.

The taiji concept has reappeared throughout the technological, religious, and philosophical history of the Sinosphere, finding concrete application in techniques developed in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine.

By the transformations of the yang and the union of the yin, the 4 directions then the 5 phases (wuxing) of wood, fire, earth, metal and water.

While wuji is undifferentiated, timeless, absolute, infinite potential, taiji is often wrongly portrayed as conflictual, differentiated and dualistic, where as the core to this philosophy is their harmonious, relative and complementary natures.

Thus, though the hand can handle and examine extremely small things, it cannot lay hold of the brightness [of the sun and moon].

[11] This sequence of powers of two includes taiji → yin and yang (two polarities) → Sixiang (Four Symbols) → Bagua (eight trigrams).

The fundamental postulate is the "great primal beginning" of all that exists, t'ai chi – in its original meaning, the "ridgepole".

However, speculations of a Gnostic-dualistic character are foreign to the original thought of the I Ching; what it posits is simply the ridgepole, the line.

[12] In the Neo-Confucianism philosophy that developed during the Song dynasty, taiji was viewed "as a microcosm equivalent to the structure of the human body.

"[13] The Song-era philosopher Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073 CE) wrote the Taijitushuo (太極圖說) "Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate", which became the cornerstone of Neo-Confucianist cosmology.

Zhou's brief text synthesized aspects of Chinese Buddhism and Daoism with the metaphysical discussions in the I Ching.

The alternation and combination of yang and yin generate water, fire, wood, metal, and earth.

[15] The martial art tai chi draws heavily on Chinese philosophy, especially the concept of the taiji.

[16] Early tai chi masters such as Yang Luchan promoted the connection between their martial art and the concept of the taiji.

[17][18][19][20] The twenty-fourth chapter of the "Forty Chapter" tai chi classic that Yang Banhou gave to Wu Quanyou says the following about the connect between tai chi and spirituality: If the essence of material substances lies in their phenomenological reality, then the presence of the ontological status of abstract objects shall become clear in the final culmination of the energy that is derived from oneness and the Real.