It [But Su Wen states: ‘The Supreme Dao is imperceptible; its changes and transformations are endless’ ( Larre et al., 1986 ). The study of those ‘changes and transformations’ led to the realisation that the unity of the Dao was divided into yin/yang (duality) and the Five Elements. The Huainanzi , a Han dynasty Daoist text written at approximately the same time as the Nei Jing , describes the relationship between the Dao , yin/yang and the Five Elements: It [the Dao ] softens Heaven and Earth and harmonises yin and yang . It regulates the four seasons and harmonises the Five Elements.the Dao ] softens Heaven and Earth and harmonises yin and yang . It regulates the four seasons and harmonises the Five Elements.The Dao, as revealed through the patterns of nature, also sets out the ‘path’ or ‘way’ by which humanity should live. Water, for example, symbolises the characteristics of stillness, power and adaptability that humans should seek to emulate. Trees that bend in the wind and therefore do not break were proposed as models for how people should respond to the varying changes of fortune in life (for example, Dao de Jing , Chapters 8 and 22 ). The sage infers the far from the near, and concludes that the myriad things are based upon a single principle. ( Huainanzi ; Needham, 1956, p. 66)

The unity of the microcosm of human life and the macrocosm of nature was a guiding principle for Daoist thinkers in their efforts to understand how people should conduct their lives. The Daoist classic, the Huainanzi, put it like this: I have gazed upwards to study Heaven and examined the Earth below me and about me, and sought understanding of the principles of humanity. (De Bary et al., 1960, p. 185)