4.  The earth is substantial, and it is a body. It is a substantial body in which mountains, fields, rivers and oceans take their place, and there is a hollow body in which dwell sun, moon, clouds and rain. If you reflect carefully on all this you will see that ki is contained both in the substantial body that is earth and the hollow body that is heaven, filling them to the brim without a gap of one hair's breadth.

The human body illustrates this. Flesh is earth, the substantial body, and heaven is the ki that gives rise to warmth and movement. We cannot say warmth and movement are nothing merely because they have no shape. That refined warmth and movement is the human spirit, because we want a name for it we call it "mind". Thus the flesh, which has a body, is a receptacle for the spirit, and the bodiless spirit is ultimately the life.

Where this ki gathers together it binds into an object, where it binds into an object spirit is found. A man is a small object, heaven-and-earth is a large object. Both large and small objects are composed of spirit and object. When we speak of objects as standing distinct, one to one, the object, heaven-and-earth is the object, heaven-and-earth, the objects of the manifold are the objects of the manifold, the spirit of heaven-and-earth is the spirit of heaven-and-earth, the spirit of the manifold is the spirit of the manifold.

In terms of the ri of division into one and one, although all objects and phenomena of the manifold seem to compete in their diversity, that which takes is diverse, but that which gives is not even two. All objects and phenomena of the manifold merge in the one spirit-and-object. We see this by combining them as opposites. Whenever things we see as opposites combine as one they must be true opposites, and if they are true opposites they will become one when they are combined.

We can illustrate this with an artifact such as a tenon and mortise joint. The tongue of the tenon is opposed by the groove of the mortise. If there is the slightest unevenness they will either come loose or jam tight. If they are not truly opposed they cannot become one. When artifacts are skilfully opposed jori stands distinct, and when fitted together they will merge without trace of a seam.

Spirit has no shape, and is active, objects have shape and are stable. The natural state of spirit may be described simply as animation or "spiritedness".

Heaven-and-earth is gradually divided by the way of jori. Things so divided are opposed in pairs and endlessly diversified. Each thing is divided as spirit and object and assumes the forms and activities of a thousand different fashions and ten thousand different faces. Fire has the body of fire and the activity of fire, water has the body of water and the activity of water, fish and birds have the bodies of fish and birds and the activities of fish and birds, and heaven-and-earth has the body of heaven-and-earth and the activity of heaven-and-earth.
 

4.1  This liveliness I call "dynamic flux" [utsubotsu], and a stable object as it appears before us is a "static form" [konron].

Although the ancients described the appearance of heavens as "konron" in contrast to the rough appearance of the earth, here I mean by it a static form, an object which comprises heaven and earth, in contrast to the dynamic flux of spirit. Every particular thing, be it a tiny wriggling shrimp, or a slow slug, is itself a static form.

To say more about static form, within the earth lies the centre point of all-pervading space, the smallness of that point is beyond our imagination. Never faltering, this point supports the earth and carries heaven around it. The smallness of this point is beyond our imagination because it cannot have any interior at all. If it had the slightest interior it would not be the smallest thing possible. If the centre point has no interior the great thing beyond it can have no exterior, whatever has no exterior is boundless. From this one point things stretch to infinity, this is the static form of the great object.

Thus is formed a boundless object with lively spirit active within it. So we say that the spirit is active as dynamic flux, and the object is stable as a static form. Small objects all take their shape from this static form, and their spirit from this dynamic flux, each one taking its place between heaven and earth and performing its own function.
 

4.2 Consider again that blue sky, like lapis lazuli, and those vast piles of rough stones and soil. This describes a very coarse heaven and earth. There are fine ki and coarse ki, and concealed objects and manifest objects. First we must explain the states of fineness, coarseness, concealment and manifestation, whether we are considering the blue sky above us or the rough ground beneath our feet.

Taking "fine" and "coarse", coarse ki has a concealed body, but nevertheless holds a place. Fine ki dwells within objects, but does not hold a place.

To illustrate holding or not holding a place, take a water pot. A water pot is made with two holes, what are these for? If the pot is made to hold two litres it will hold just that much water and no more. Even when there is no water in the pot it is not really empty, it is filled to the brim with ki whose body is concealed, so that when water is poured into the pot, this ki comes out of the other hole, and when water comes out ki enters by the other hole. The reason for this is that a place cannot be void for a single moment. Wherever there is no earth, heaven is in that place. A place must exist for sun and moon to hang within, for mountains and rivers to be arranged within, for wind to blow and rain to fall within, and for ourselves and all things to dwell within.

A thing with shape we call a "manifest" body, and a thing without shape a "concealed" body. That which holds a place although its body is concealed is heaven within the coarse.

If we look at heaven from within the fine it is just the same as earth.
 

4.3 Now, the spirit of dynamic flux does not hold a place. Because this spirit does not hold a place, where water is formed, water is active as dynamic flux, where fire is formed, fire is active as dynamic flux.  From the greatness of heaven-and-earth to the small scattered things of the manifold, all things have dynamic flux. As it says in the Doctrine of the Mean, spirit permeates every object without exception.

Spirit is active as dynamic flux, and makes every object stable as a static form. It is within the bodies of objects but is not itself a body. When it is concealed it becomes heaven, and when it is manifest it becomes earth.

An object is ultimately a heaven-and-earth within the earth. The blue sky and the heavenly bodies belong to the all-pervading, which is infinite in extent. The one great combined object is earth, and the spirit of dynamic flux exists as heaven.

Thus to see heaven as large and earth as small is not to see heaven and earth with insight. If we look at heaven and earth thoroughly and understand how jori swallows and ejects things, how could we take earth to be smaller than heaven, or heaven to be larger than earth?

Looking at spirit and object in their merged form, we see that object is the house in which dwells the spirit of dynamic flux. Spirit gives rise to activity, making the object stable as a static form.