  This is essentially the reading of the Heshanggong commentary. Although the Laozi may not have entertained a fully developed yin-yang cosmological theory, which took shape during the Han period, it does suggest at one point that natural phenomena are constituted by yin and yang: the “ten thousand things” or myriad creatures, as it rather lyrically puts it, “carry yin on their backs and embrace yang with their arms” (ch. 42). That which gave rise to the original qi-energy, however, is indescribable. The Laozi calls it Dao, or perhaps more appropriately in this context, “the Dao,” with the definite article, to signal its presence as the source of the created order.