The Twenty-Four Directions and the Seats of Yin and Yang

How the compass is divided

The courtyard is divided into four faces and then into twenty-four directions: the ten heavenly stems, the twelve earthly branches, and the four corner trigrams Qian, Gen, Kun and Xun. That is the whole grid — twenty-four slices of the circle around your home.

The next move is the book's core rule. Qian leads the three male trigrams (Zhen, Kan, Gen) and marks the yang positions; Kun leads the three female trigrams (Xun, Li, Dui) and marks the yin positions. Crucially, neither side should dominate: a yang house does best when its yin side is also cultivated, and vice versa.

The analogy makes it memorable: winter is virtuous through warmth, summer through coolness, a man through a woman, a woman through a man. Each side is completed by its opposite — this is balance, not preference.

Practical takeaway: build high, dense and sheltered on the side that supports you, and never let one polarity take over the whole plot. Doubling down on yin, or on yang, is the error.