Yin and yang and the five elements: generating and controlling

Each of the eight characters in a Four Pillars of Destiny (BaZi) chart carries two things: one of the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) and one of the two polarities, yin and yang. The elements feed one another in a generating cycle and hold one another in check in a controlling cycle, and the classical books hold that a chart needs both, just as a year needs autumn and winter as well as spring and summer.

Everything that comes later in the series, from the ten relationships and strength to structure, decade phases and annual phases, is expressed in these two terms. So this lesson lays the groundwork: where yin and yang come from, how the five elements generate one another and keep one another in check, and why the books consider both indispensable to a chart.

One energy divides into yin and yang

The True Interpretation of Ziping (子平真诠; Qing dynasty, 18th century) does not open with the five elements. It begins with a single energy: between heaven and earth there is nothing but one flowing energy. That energy moves and rests, and so it divides into yin and yang. Movement and rest each have an early stage and a full stage, which gives the four images: at the full stage, greater yang and greater yin; at the early stage, lesser yang and lesser yin.

Within the four images, the five elements are already present: Water is greater yin, Fire is greater yang, Wood is lesser yang and Metal is lesser yin. Earth does not hold an image of its own. It forms from the blended, harmonizing energy of the other four, so Earth belongs to no single season; instead it has its own time of strength between each of the four seasons.

The True Interpretation of Ziping · On the Ten Stems and Twelve Branches

Laid out this way, the elements match the climate of the year: Wood is the rising growth of spring, Fire the heat of summer, Metal the gathering in of autumn and Water the storing away of winter, with Earth in between, carrying all four. Commentary on the True Interpretation of Ziping (子平真诠评注; ROC, 1936) adds here that Wood, Fire, Metal and Water stand for the energies of the four seasons, and that all things are born from Earth and return to it.

Commentary on the True Interpretation of Ziping · On the Ten Stems and Twelve Branches

Each element has a yin and a yang side: the ten heavenly stems

Yin and yang give rise to the five elements, and each element in turn has its own yin and yang side. That gives the ten heavenly stems:

Take Wood as the example. The book treats Yang Wood as the energy of Wood: the living force that moves through the sky and spreads into all things. It treats Yin Wood as the substance of Wood: the form on the ground that receives that force and grows into branches and leaves. These are not two separate things but two sides of the same Wood: Yang Wood already holds the energy of Yin Wood, and in Yin Wood the substance of Yang Wood becomes solid.

The book also points out that in energy Yang Wood is the stronger, while in substance Yin Wood is the firmer. So a yin stem is not the same as a weak stem, and a yang stem is not the same as a strong one; they are two states of one element. The other four elements follow the same pattern.

The True Interpretation of Ziping · On the Ten Stems and Twelve Branches

The earthly branches are likewise divided into yin and yang and matched to the elements: the Tiger, for example, is yang Wood and the Rabbit yin Wood. How the stems and the branches share the work is covered in the next lesson.

See also: The ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches

Generating: the seasons follow one another

The seasons turn by generating: Wood generates Fire, Fire generates Earth, Earth generates Metal, Metal generates Water, and Water generates Wood again. Link follows link without end, so the seasons flow on and never run dry. This order is the order of the year itself: spring Wood is followed by summer Fire, autumn Metal by winter Water, and winter Water by the Wood of the next spring, with Earth carrying each change in between.

The True Interpretation of Ziping · On Yin and Yang, Generating and Controlling

Controlling: restraint that gathers inward

Generating alone is not enough. The book goes straight on:

然而有生又必有克，生而不克，则四时亦不成矣。

Our translation: Yet where there is generating there must also be controlling: generating without controlling, and even the four seasons could not take shape.

The five controlling pairs are: Wood controls Earth, Earth controls Water, Water controls Fire, Fire controls Metal, and Metal controls Wood. As the book reads it, controlling restrains and halts: it draws back what has spread outward, so that it is ready for the next round of outward growth. Take Wood again. Wood is at its fullest in summer, and in autumn it meets the cutting chill of Metal; that chill gathers the life force that had spread outward back inside. It looks like an attack, but in fact it serves the next round of growth.

The book also draws an analogy from caring for one's health. People certainly live by eating and drinking, but someone who eats at every moment and never leaves room for a little hunger will find it hard to live long. So in the turning of the seasons, generating and controlling are equally useful, and equally to be credited.

The True Interpretation of Ziping · On Yin and Yang, Generating and Controlling

Yin and yang within generating and controlling

Generating is always generating, and controlling is always controlling, yet each takes on a different character depending on how yin and yang are paired. The book's examples: Water always generates Wood, but there is an indirect and a direct form of it; Metal always controls Wood, but there is the Direct Officer and there is the Seven Killings. This is where the ten relationships get their pairs, Indirect Resource and Direct Resource, Direct Officer and Seven Killings, which the lesson on the ten relationships covers in detail.

The True Interpretation of Ziping · On Yin and Yang, Generating and Controlling

See also: The ten relationships to the Day Master

Why a chart needs both

Carrying the lesson of the seasons over to the chart, Commentary on the True Interpretation of Ziping puts it plainly: support with no control or drain is like spring and summer with no autumn and winter, and the natal chart would no longer be a chart at all. In a chart, support and control or drain do the same work, and both come back, in the end, to balance.

Commentary on the True Interpretation of Ziping · On Yin and Yang, Generating and Controlling

The Precious Mirror of Adversity and Success (穷通宝鉴; Qing dynasty, 19th century), in its general discussion of the five elements, confirms the same idea: generating is there so the elements hold one another together, and controlling is there so they hold one another in check. Too much and too little both stray from the proper way; what is valued is the middle course.

The Precious Mirror of Adversity and Success · General Discussion of the Five Elements

So when you see "control" in a chart, there is no need to worry. The element that controls the Day Master (日主) is often the force that gives it discipline and shapes it into something capable. The elements that support the Day Master are certainly a help, but too much support also throws a chart off balance. A chart's strength often lies in generating and controlling each having its proper place.

Try it on your chart

1. Find the stem of your day pillar. This is the Day Master, the "I" of the chart. Write down its element and its polarity: Yang Fire, for example, or Yin Water.
2. Use the table below to find the five elements related to your Day Master.

1. Look at the other three stems and mark which support the Day Master (generates it, same element), which control it (controls it), and which are elements the Day Master itself generates or controls (it generates, it controls). Add the elements of the branches after the next lesson; the stems hidden inside the branches come in with the lesson on hidden stems.
2. Do not count or score anything yet. This step only shows whether, in your chart, both support and control are present. Whether your Day Master leans strong or weak depends on the month branch, its roots, and its allies and opponents, and is left to the lessons on Day Master strength.

See also: Hidden stems: what each branch holds