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The dynamic unity of polar opposites can be illustrated with the simple example of a circular motion and its projection. Suppose you have a ball going round a circle. If this movement is projected on to a screen, it becomes an oscillation between two extreme points. The ball goes round the circle with constant speed, but in the projection it slows down as it reaches the edge, turns around, and then accelerates again only to slow down once more-and so on, in endless cycles. In any projection of that kind, the circular movement will appear as an oscillation between two opposite points, but in the movement itself the opposites are unified and transcended. This image of a dynamic unification of opposites was indeed very much in the minds of the Chinese thinkers, as can be seen from the passage in the Chuang-tzu quoted previously: That the \u2018that\u2019 and the \u2018this\u2019 cease to be opposites is the very essence of Tao. Only the essence, an axis as it were, is the centre of the circle responding to the endless changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n