Taoism

China is another ancient culture. What do the ancient Chinese thinkers say about the question of existence of the universe?

According to the Chinese wisdom, everything which exists in the universe is a manifestation of energy termed by some as Chi and the others as Tao. It is formless. It does not lend itself to any defining attributes. It is limitless. It was there before the beginning of time and it will be there after the end of it. It defies comprehension. It is both existence and non-existence: it is neither existence nor non-existence.

It is the vital energy that pervades the entire universe. We all live in an ocean of this energy like fish live in water; unaware of it just like fish are unaware of water.

Tao or Chi is the inexhaustible potential that appears as all that exists in the universe and the universe itself. It brings the universe into existence; it sustains, nurtures, and supports the universe; then it, as the subtle source, draws the universe back into itself. 

The Chinese tradition describes the process of the subtle energy moving from the undifferentiated realm to the differentiated using the concepts of yin and yang: two apparent aspects of the vital potential, one undifferentiated and un-manifest aspect existing “before Heaven and Earth were born” and the other as the differentiated world of sense perception existing “after Heaven and Earth were born”.  Yang is like the former aspect and yin as the latter. The two aspects although talked about as two are in fact two aspects of the same vital energy.