Decline and Flourishing (Shuai Wang)

The single most important judgement

The book says that if you truly understand when an element is flourishing and when it is declining, you already understand more than half of the whole art. Flourishing and declining are not just 'more' or 'less' but whether the element has the season, the root, and the support to act. Get this wrong and every later conclusion inverts; get it right and the structure of the reading falls into place.