Kan and Li (Water and Fire)

Neither completes alone

Kan is water and Li is fire — the two that govern the central qi of heaven and earth. The chapter closes the volume with the same thought in a different key: nothing completes by itself. Water needs fire to circulate, fire needs water to be temperate, and a chart that maximises one at the expense of the other has bought power at the cost of function. Here the book's recurring theme is at its plainest — the working chart is the one whose opposites hold each other up.