Cold and Warm (Han Nuan)

Climate comes first

Heaven's way has cold and warmth, and it is by these that the myriad things are born. A chart born into deep winter is not the same instrument as one born into high summer, whatever else its elements do; the human path that ignores its own climate pushes past the point where things can grow. The chapter is the shortest possible statement of the climate rule that later readers call tiao hou — adjust the season first.