The 12th century thinker Chu Hsi occupies a place in Chinese philosophy analogous to that of Thomas Aquinas in Roman Catholic theology: he is huge! I believe the following excerpt might be helpful in trying to understand the two forces said to be underlying the calculated birth symbol. Called the Heavenly Magnitude and the Earthly Magnitude, these numerical values are obviously meant to reflect respective strength of the Yang and the Yin, that is, the primary forces working in the background in the creation of our perceived reality.

Reading some classic Chinese philosophy is actually a good thing for coming to grips with this obscure method of representing the ever-shifting quality of Time! Chu Hsi here mentions the key term "Essence" or "Principle," by which we may very well understand something akin to Plato's "Forms" - a multitude of Principles go together to make up every manifest thing in our world. But just as Plato realized when old, and his successor Aristotle after him taught, Chu Hsi affirms that Principle and Material Energy always appear paired. We must beware of thinking their separate mention as implying dualism. Reality is, rather than is not, and being so there will always be a "Principle" or reason for material energy having coalesced into one thing rather than another.

Do note that the teaching on the Five Agents of Change (inaccurately known as the five elements in the West) is a sub-set appearing after the fundamental division of reality into an activating yang phase and a sedating yin phase. The view of the five stages of change as substances or elements is due to the lapse into materialistic thinking in the West during the more recent centuries, whereas the Chinese envisaged reality as continuous change. The five agents of change thereby serves more like landmarks in an entirely process-oriented thinking and would appear to have nothing whatsoever to do with physical substances.

Pupil: When essence and material force consolidate, is this principle attached to material force?

Chu Hsi: As the Way of Heaven operates, the myriad things develop and grow. There is (logically) principle first and then material force. Although they coexist at the same time, in the final analysis principle is basic. Man receives it and thus possesses life.

But material force may be clear or turbid. The clear part of material force becomes his vital force (ch'i), while the turbid part becomes his physical nature. The clear part belongs to yang while the turbid part belongs to yin. Consciousness and movement are due to yang, while physical form and body (bones and flesh, skin and hair) are due to yin.

The vital force belongs to the heavenly aspect of the soul (hun) and the body is governed by the earthly aspect of the soul (p'o). In his commentary on the Huainan Tzu, Kao Yu (3rd century) said, "Hun is the spirit of yang and p'o is the spirit of yin." By spirit is meant the master of the body and the vital force. Man is born as a result of integration of essence and material force. He possesses this material force only in a certain amount, which in time necessarily becomes exhausted.

When exhaustion takes place, the heavenly aspect of the soul and the vital force return to Heaven and the earthly aspect of the soul and the body return to the Earth, and the man dies. When a man is about to die, the warm material force leaves him and rises. This is called the hun rising. The lower part of his body gradually becomes cold. This is called the p'o falling.

Thus as there is life, there is necessarily death, and as there is beginning, there must be an end. What integrates and disintegrates is material force.

As to principle, [yes] it merely attaches itself to material force, but from the beginning it does not consolidate into a separate thing by itself. However, whatever in one's functioning that is correct, is "principle." It need not be spoken of in terms of integration and disintegration.

When a man dies, his material force necessarily disintegrates. However, it does not disintegrate completely at once. Therefore in religious sacrifices we have the principle of spiritual influence and response. Whether the material force (or vital force) of ancestors of many generations ago is still there or not cannot be known. Nevertheless, since those who perform the sacrificial rites are their descendants, the material force between them is after all the same. Hence there is the principle by which they can penetrate and respond. But the material force that has disintegrated cannot again be integrated...

Quoted from A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, translated and compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan (Princeton University Press, 1963)

This, then, would appear to be the meaning of the results obtained by calculating the birth "hexagram" for a particular moment in time. It is a pictorial representation of the "material energy" (the reality) supposedly resulting from the relative strength of the activating yang and the sedating yin, with the Heavenly (yang) magnitude representing a strong or weak "heavenly" aspect of the person born, and the Earthly (yin) magnitude indicating something of the degree to which the spirit is sedated or benumbed by appearing in a gross physical body! Much may be made of these hints, if bent on meta-physical speculation!

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