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Yuanhai Ziping · The Deep Sea of Ziping Astrology
Ziping Verses and Methods of Chart Interpretation
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
Song of the Essentials of Ziping
In creation's working, first examine the day master;
judge Officer or Resource beneath it through decline and flourishing.
Heaven's season and the month's command are the governing outline;
weigh strength, whether originally present or absent.
Officer should generally be pure;
mixed direct and indirect instead lack favorable relation.
Exposed Officer with hidden Killings brings fortune;
exposed Killings with hidden Officer is disaster's embryo.
How should exposed Killings and Officer together be judged?
With mixed Wealth and Officer, take Wealth into consideration.
Strong Officer fears more Officer and dislikes punishment and clash;
light Officer seeing Wealth gains benefit.
Hurting Officer in the year is most unwelcome;
repeated Hurting Officer that cannot be removed is greatly feared.
Hurting Officer using Wealth brings fortune;
with Wealth extinct and Officer declining, fortune is likewise present, as the line reads.
Craving combination and forgetting Officer leaves glory insufficient;
craving combination and forgetting Killings benefits self.
Distinguish weak self, which fears abundant Wealth;
further Officer territory makes disaster follow disaster.
Much Wealth and weak self meet Food Spirit;
Food Spirit joining Killings must bring disaster.
Heavenly conjunction and earthly combination have punishment and restraint;
a discerning person must infer and judge them carefully.
Elucidation of the Treatise on Establishing Truth
Taking the birth day as master is like carrying out the ruler's command, following the movement of the four seasons. It concerns yin and yang, hardness and softness, and obstruction or prosperity within and without. Advance and retreat overturn one another; movement and stillness contend. Examine stability and success, the urgency or slowness of entry and exit, and the great and subtle workings of assistance, return, dispersal and gathering.
The method of selecting the day has three essentials: the stem is Heaven, the branch Earth, and what is hidden in the branch the Human Prime. Divide these into Four Pillars: year as root, month as seedling, day as flower and hour as fruit.
Within the Four Pillars, year as ancestors reveals the flourishing and decline of lineage through generations. Month as parents reveals whether parental protection brings reputation and profit. Day is self.
Examine its stem and search the Eight Characters for the source of generation, restraint, selection and rejection within and without. A weak stem seeks support from flourishing qi; surplus calls for management through insufficiency.
The same stem category gives siblings. Yi takes Jia as elder brother and dislikes repeated Geng; Jia takes Yi as younger brother and fears much Xin.
What the stem restrains is wife-Wealth. Much Wealth with a flourishing stem brings satisfaction; a declining stem instead brings disaster.
Identical stem and branch damage Wealth and injure wife.
Men take what restrains the stem as heirs; women take what the stem generates as children. Survival and loss follow these examples. Use the hour's divisions to distinguish poverty and lowliness from wealth and rank.
The Song for Putting Ignorance in Order says: 'Few know the true and false workings of the five phases; knowing the time requires revealing Heaven's hidden mechanism.' Popular practice calls Jiazi Metal in the Sea, yet before Lou Jing, the text says, this account of Metal in the sea was unknown.
Taking the year as master would give countless people the same wealth and rank; birth in a Jiazi year could then merely provide the natal basis for prohibited days.
Using month for siblings, a Fire destiny born in You, Xu, Hai or Zi months is judged to receive no assistance from siblings.
Using day for wife, a position of clash, punishment, restraint or Killings is judged to harm wife and concubines.
Using hour for children, Death or Extinction territory is judged to give few children.
In this account, none of this is made by people: it comes from creation's yin and yang. Worldly practitioners do not understand this principle and secretly confuse ordinary custom. Words alone cannot transmit it; investigate its hidden subtleties.
Likes and Dislikes
Arrange the Four Pillars and distinguish the Three Powers. Take the day's Heavenly Prime alone and match it with the Eight Characters' stems and branches. Forms both seen and unseen are present at every time. Symbolic influences entangle one another; compare their weight.
Seven Killings in the hour need not be unfavorable. With the month controlling it and a strong stem, Killings instead becomes a seal of authority.
Wealth, Officer and Resource complete together are stored within the concluding seasonal months.
Officer and Wealth qi find Long Life in Yin, Shen, Si and Hai.
A Wu day meeting a Gengshen hour is the place of Food Spirit and a flourishing stem. Jia, Bing, Mao or Yin in year or month make the encounter no encounter. Pattern: Combining Emolument.
The month generating the day stem without Heavenly Wealth is called Resource Seal. Pattern: Resource Seal.
Day Emolument residing in the hour without Officer is called Finding the Road to the Blue Clouds. Pattern: Returning Emolument.
Yang Water repeatedly meeting Chen is Ren Riding the Dragon's Back. Pattern: Ren Riding the Dragon's Back.
Yin Wood alone meeting the Zi hour is the place of the Six Yi Rat Noblemen. Pattern: Six Yi Rat Noblemen.
A Geng day meeting the complete Moistening Downward frame dislikes Ren, Gui, Si and Wu territory. Zi or Shen in the hour halves its fortune. Pattern: Well-Rail Fork.
Hurting Officer established in the month need not be unfavorable even where it seems so. Within it are upright and reversed Flying Emolument patterns, which dislike Officer and also entangling restraint.
The six Gui days meeting Yin in the hour fear Wu and Ji in year or month. Pattern: Punishment Combination.
A Jiazi day again meeting the Zi hour fears Geng, Xin, Shen, You, Chou and Wu. Pattern: Zi Distantly Inviting Si.
Xin or Gui days with repeated Chou dislike Officer. Zi or Si in year or hour gives empty reputation and profit. Pattern: Chou Distantly Inviting Si.
Arching Emolument and arching Nobleman become unfavorable when the arched position is filled. Patterns: Arching Emolument and Arching Nobleman.
Indirect Wealth in the hour dislikes appearing in another palace. Pattern: Indirect Wealth in the Hour.
The six Xin days meeting Wuzi dislike Wu and Wei positions; cycles favor the west. Pattern: Six Yin Facing Yang.
With Indirect Officer in the month branch, year, month and hour should provide control. Some cases remove Officer and retain Killings; others remove Killings and retain Officer.
Purity or mixture in the Four Pillars, when controlled, can establish first-rank honor. Even one Direct Officer may instead make mixed Officer and Killings lowly.
A Wu day in a Wu month must not be read as Blade. Much Fire in hour and year instead makes Resource.
Even with Established Emolument in the month's command, joining Killings is strictly forbidden as unfavorable.
When Officer and Seven Killings alternate, combining away Killings gives distinction.
Excessively flourishing Officer in the pillars means a weak Heavenly Prime.
An extremely strong day stem without support becomes either a Buddhist monk or a Daoist.
Resource in the birth month dislikes Wealth in year and hour. Entering Wealth territory calls for retiring and yielding position.
Robber of Wealth and Yang Blade are strictly forbidden in the hour. Their arrival together in year and cycle brings immediate disaster.
The ten stems turning from Emolument welcome Wealth in year and hour. Peer cycles are called Turning from Emolument to Pursue Horse.
Proper distinction of the five phases dislikes palaces of clash, punishment, restraint and break.
Stems and branches of the Four Pillars favor threefold and sixfold combination.
A day stem without qi is not harmed by Yang Blade in the hour.
When Officer and Killings are balanced, retain the favored and discard the disliked.
Many combinations among stems and branches are also called Craving Combination and Forgetting Officer.
Flourishing Killings in the pillars with pure cycles and strong self makes a pure, distinguished official.
When the Heavenly Prime is very weak, a weak place within may again generate it.
Seven Killings fully exposed in the pillars with strong self brings extreme poverty, as this copy states.
A woman's chart without Killings can, with one noble influence, make a proper wife.
Many Noblemen and many combinations determine a religious woman, prostitute or maidservant.
Indirect Officer in the hour with excessive control makes a poor scholar.
Hurting Officer in the Four Pillars must suffer loss when cycles enter Officer territory.
The five phases' Extinction place is the Womb Prime; meeting it on the birth day is called Receiving Qi.
Yin and yang are therefore difficult to measure and cannot be inferred by one rule. Balanced qi is essential. The influences distinguish high and low; these are brief expositions from ancient sages' surviving books, gathered through the broad reading of present worthies. The author claims that understanding and examining this method removes errors in chart judgment.
Chapter on Continuing Goodness.
People receive Heaven and Earth; destiny belongs to yin and yang. Born within what Heaven covers and Earth supports, all lie within the five phases.
To know high or low status, first inspect the month's command as the governing outline, then judge good and ill.
Use the day stem alone as master and foundation. The Three Primes must form a pattern, and the Four Pillars welcome Wealth and Officer.
The useful influence must not be injured.
The day master should especially be robust and flourishing.
The year injuring the day stem is called Discord Between Master and Foundation.
Mixed Killings and Officer in year, month or hour are greatly feared.
Select the useful influence from the birth month and investigate its depth. Manifestation appears in day and hour; examine strength and weakness carefully.
Proper-qi Officer dislikes punishment and clash.
Indirect Wealth in the hour fears siblings.
Generating Qi and Resource benefit from Officer cycles and fear Wealth territory.
Seven Killings and Indirect Officer favor control, but not excess.
Hurting Officer followed by Officer cycles brings unforeseen disaster.
Yang Blade clashing or combining with the annual sovereign brings sudden calamity.
Wealth together with distinction must arise from flourishing Wealth generating Officer.
Early death or poverty must arise from declining self meeting Ghost.
The six Ren days born at Wu are called Emolument and Horse Sharing Territory.
A Gui day born in Si is called Wealth and Officer Both Beautiful.
Much Wealth with weak self is precisely a poor person in a rich house.
Transforming Killings into authority brings a distinguished guest from a poor household.
Examination success requires Officer in an unbroken palace.
Obtaining a registered title through grain contribution requires Wealth's treasury in Birth and Flourishing.
Excessive Officer distinction must topple on reaching flourishing territory.
Injured Resource means glory may not last long.
Officer and Resource without break make material for high state office.
Without Officer or Resource, a valid pattern can still serve the court.
A name on the golden examination list requires strong self meeting Officer.
Assisting a sage ruler rests on clashing Officer and meeting combination.
Without pattern or frame, what is remarkable about the encounter?
Weak self meeting Officer only wastes effort after attainment.
Petty people's charts also contain Direct Resource and Officer.
Gentlemen's patterns also contain Seven Killings and Yang Blade.
A fondness for killing means Yang Blade must encounter Indirect Officer.
Vegetarian practice and a compassionate heart come when Resource meets Heavenly Virtue.
Few illnesses throughout life come from a strong day master.
Lifelong ease comes when Wealth in the chart has qi.
Avoidance of official punishment comes when Resource and Heavenly Virtue share a palace.
Little pleasure and much sorrow arise from the day master's own weakness.
Strong self with slight Killings borrows Killings as authority.
Heavy Killings with light self brings lifelong injury.
Decline turns Officer into Ghost; flourishing turns Ghost into Officer.
When the month generates the day stem, cycles dislike Wealth territory.
When the day master has no support, Wealth cycles are instead favored.
The hour returning to day Emolument dislikes Officer throughout life.
If yin faces yang—a Xin day in a Wuzi hour—Bing and Ding in Li's position are strictly forbidden.
The Grand Year rules the many harmful influences. Entering a chart need not bring disaster, but a place of battle must signify punishment to the natal chart.
The year injuring the day stem brings only light disaster.
The day offending the annual sovereign brings heavy disaster; rescue among the five phases may instead turn the year into Wealth.
The Four Pillars lacking favorable relation is therefore called Restraining the Year.
Geng and Xin injuring Jia and Yi are harmless if Bing and Ding appear first. Bing and Ding restraining Geng and Xin need not be feared when Ren and Gui appear. Wu and Ji dread Jia and Yi and need Geng and Xin exposed. Ren and Gui exposed to Wu and Ji gain rescue from Jia and Yi. Ren restraining Bing needs Wu at the forefront. Gui injuring Ding welcomes Ji to control it.
Geng obtaining Ren as a son to control Bing turns early death into long years.
Jia marrying his younger sister Yi to Geng turns an unfavorable sign favorable.
Even a flourishing Heavenly Prime is ordinary without support.
An excessively soft day master remains a poor scholar even on meeting Wealth and Officer.
A woman without Killings and carrying the two Virtues receives patents across two generations.
A man with strong self and the Three Wonders attains first-rank distinction.
Jia meeting Ji in Birth and Flourishing must harbor an upright, balanced heart.
Ding meeting Ren excessively must fall into sexual and deceptive disorder.
Bing at Shen meeting yang Water finds long life difficult.
Ji entering Hai and seeing yin Wood ultimately loses lifespan.
Geng at Yin meeting Bing has no danger when in Birth and Flourishing.
Yi at Si meeting Xin suffers disaster when self declines.
Yi meeting flourishing Geng maintains benevolence and righteousness.
Bing combining with Xin and receiving generation holds powerful office.
One Wood repeatedly meeting Fire is called the indication of Dispersed Qi.
A single Water meeting Geng and Xin three times is called the image of Complete Form.
Water returning to winter flourishing lives joyfully without worry.
Wood born toward spring lives peacefully and must be long-lived.
Weak Metal meeting blazing Fire territory leaves no doubt of blood disease.
Deficient Earth meeting flourishing Wood territory certainly means Spleen injury.
Painful sinews and bones arise because Wood is injured by Metal.
Dim and clouded vision must mean Fire restrained by Water.
Cold illness of the lower prime must mean Water injured by Fire, as this passage states.
Metal meeting Gen—Yin—and Earth is called Returning the Soul.
Water entering Xun—Si—and seeing Metal is called Not Becoming Extinct.
Earth reaching Mao becomes disheartened before middle age.
Metal meeting Fire territory suffers frustrated ambition even in youth.
Metal and Wood crossing in punishment and battle leave neither benevolence nor righteousness.
Water and Fire injuring each other bring disputes daily.
Wood is nourished by Water, but abundant Water makes Wood drift.
Metal relies on Earth for birth, but thick Earth buries Metal.
Thus the five phases must not be excessively one-sided or depleted; balanced qi is essential. Put aside anxious calculation and distracted thought, and the author claims that chart judgment will be free of error.
The supplied opposing rules, poverty claim for strong self with exposed Killings, and Fire-injuring-Water wording remain distinct from different statements elsewhere.
An Introductory Procedure for Reading Charts
The governing outline of the five phases: arrange the Eight Characters and take the day stem as master.
Take year as root and ancestral property, revealing the flourishing and decline of the lineage's fortunes.
Take month as seedling and parents, revealing the presence or absence of parental protection.
The day stem is self and day branch wife and concubines, revealing their worthiness and virtue.
Hour is flower and fruit and represents children, revealing the continuation of heirs.
Distinguish the depth of the month's qi and whether the season is obtained.
Wealth and Officer exposed in year and hour require strong self. Declining self with flourishing Wealth instead brings financial loss and injury to wife when Wealth is excessive.
With strong self, much Wealth and flourishing Wealth, abundance brings satisfaction.
Without Wealth or Officer, next examine Resource and the configuration it obtains, then judge good and ill.
Students must not cling rigidly to rules without understanding adaptation.
Eight Methods of the Spirit's Subtle Interest
Kind Image: Heaven and Earth are of one kind. A spring birth with Jia or Yi stems and complete Yin-Mao-Chen branches, without interruption or damage, is called Gathering the Refined Qi of the Entire East. Leading it through the hour into Death or Extinction breaks that refined qi; cycles reaching Death or Extinction are unfavorable. The hour or year leading it to Birth and Flourishing adds refined qi and is extremely excellent.
Affiliation Image: Jia and Yi Wood in the heavenly stems with complete Yin, Mao and Wei in the branches.
Following Image: a rootless Jia or Yi day master with branches entirely Metal follows Metal; pure Earth in the Four Pillars follows Earth; pure Water follows Water; pure Wood follows Wood. Refined qi is favorable, its absence unfavorable. Jia or Ji in the heavenly stems, or the presence of a root, is unfavorable, as the source states. Following Fire favors strongly flourishing cycles and dislikes Death and Extinction.
Transformation Image: a Jia or Yi day birth in a Chen, Xu, Chou or Wei month, with one Ji in the stems combining with Jia, is Jia-Ji transforming into Earth and favors Fire cycles. Jia-Yi Wood Birth and Flourishing cycles prevent transformation and instead become unfavorable. Two Jia exposed with Ji contend for combination; one exposed Yi makes jealous combination. Both break the pattern and prevent completion.
Illumination Image: a Bing day with Si, Wu and Wei in year, month and day, meeting a single Mao Wood in the hour, is Wood and Fire illuminating one another and is highly favorable. A Ren or Gui day with complete Shen-Zi-Chen as an Affiliation Image, meeting one Metal in the hour, is Metal and Water illuminating one another and is greatly favorable. Illumination in the year stem is also favorable.
Reversal Image: the useful influence obtained from the month's command is led into an hour position of Extinction, called Using What Is Not Used. These are reversal cycles; excessive reversal is unfavorable.
Ghost Image: a Jia or Yi day born in an autumn month with all four branch positions pure Metal. Flourishing Ghost cycles are favorable. Death and Extinction territory is feared, and strong self is also unfavorable.
Concealment Image: complete Yin-Wu-Xu threefold combination, birth in a Wu month on a Ren day, no exposed Ding stem, and rootless Ren Water. Hidden Ding Fire within Wu is taken to combine with Ren and conceal it. This is Concealment Image. Wood and Fire cycles are favorable; flourishing Water territory alone is feared.
Miscellaneous Oral Rules
The Ziping method concentrates on Wealth and Officer, especially in the month. Manifestation is in day and hour; examine strength and weakness carefully.
When discussing Officer, do not discuss patterns.
When discussing patterns, do not discuss Officer.
Entering a pattern means wealth or distinction.
Failure to enter a pattern means early death or poverty.
Officer fears injury.
Wealth fears robbery.
Resource meeting Wealth: the more there is, the more disaster.
Hurting Officer meeting Officer brings a hundred troubles: illness injuring the body, official litigation and imprisonment, death of children or injury to wife.
Hurting Officer meeting Officer is heavier when originally present and lighter when not.
A heavy case brings relocation; a light case penal punishment.
It also signifies a devious heart, cunning deceit, disdain and pride, constantly thinking all others inferior. Distinguished people fear such a person and petty people dislike them.
Hurting Officer using Wealth gives wealth.
Hurting Officer with Robber of Wealth gives poverty.
Hurting Officer in the year makes wealth and rank short-lived.
In the month, parents are incomplete.
In the day, wife and concubines are difficult.
In the hour, descendants do not continue.
Hurting Officer and Robber in year and month mean birth into a poor, lowly family.
Wealth and Officer beneath day and within hour give poverty first, wealth later.
Wealth, Officer and Resource in year and month mean birth into a wealthy, distinguished family.
Thus Hurting Officer and Robber in day and hour give wealth first, poverty later, injury to children and no late fortune.
Hurting Officer meeting Officer and mixed Officer/Killings are said to give lust, sexual excess, petty cunning and low status.
Yi Wood at Si is Taiyi and at Hai Dengming: the source attributes lust to men and promiscuity to women.
Mixed Officer and Killings with Wealth is favorable; without Wealth or Resource, unfavorable.
Observe whether Wealth in the chart has qi. Even turning from Emolument need not mean poverty. Wealth extinct and the chart declining cannot become rich even with Established Emolument.
Robber and Defeating Wealth give pride, low status and greed.
Officer encountered amid Ghost must bring pressure.
What restrains me—Officer and Killings—gives distinction.
What I restrain—Wealth—gives riches.
What generates me—Resource—relies on mother's strength and nourishes my spirit.
What I generate—Food and Hurting Officer—keeps pressure in the heart.
Wealth entering the month's command gives diligence, thrift and miserliness.
Many Robbers, Peers and Blades in the pillars punish father, injure wife and prevent accumulation of Wealth.
For traveling performers and merchants, inspect Wealth that has ground.
For a chief minister, inspect proper Emolument obtaining its season.
Heavy Seven Killings and Owl make a traveler through foreign places.
Hurting Officer and Robber make a deceitful, defaulting person.
Repeated Wealth and Officer give distinction.
Repeated Lost Spirit gives early death.
Seven Killings should be controlled; standing alone is strong.
Visible Killings combined away gives the five phases a harmonious spring breeze.
Hidden Killings combined in brings punishment and injury to self.
Hour Killings likes clash and Blade without control. Women have many childbirth difficulties; men face penal charges.
Unbroken Two Virtues make women worthy and good, and men loyal and filial.
Hurting Officer using Resource must remove Wealth before reputation can spread.
Hurting Officer using Wealth should develop fortune in Hurting Officer territory.
A pure, remarkable completed pattern gives riches.
An uncompleted pattern gives poverty.
One or two patterns make a high official or minister. Three or four make Wealth and Officer impure: if not a servant or soldier, the person often belongs to miscellaneous occupations.
Six Yin Facing Yang in a concluding seasonal month is read only as Resource.
Favorable influences fear break and harm.
Unfavorable influences dislike punishment and clash.
Wealth, Officer, Resource and Food display kindness.
Hurting Officer, Robber and Blade cannot escape a reputation for harshness.
Clashing Heaven without combination makes a wanderer.
Six Ren Hastening to Gen—Yin—gives poverty in a Hai month.
Horse falling into Void gives anxiety and frustration.
Month combination means leaving ancestors; clash means adoption into another household. Killings with the three punishments makes mother visible and father hidden, often a secret birth.
Wealth, Resource and Indirect Officer determine birth to a secondary wife.
Destructive fierceness in exposed stems makes Ran Boniu lament against Heaven.
Punishment and clash at hour and day make the sighs of Bu Shang and Zhuangzi difficult to escape.
Much punishment makes a person unrighteous.
Many combinations make even distant people close.
Many combinations signify obscuration.
Many clashes signify harm.
Many Chen give fondness for fighting.
Many Xu give fondness for litigation.
Chen-Xu Kuigang has much harm and little good.
Void at hour and day makes wife and children difficult.
Traveling Horses crossing repeatedly mean leaving one's native place.
Food Spirit and a flourishing stem surpass Wealth and Officer. Favorable Food gives a lavish spread of dishes; Reversed Food gives only a basket of rice and a bowl of broth.
Declining Food and flourishing Owl bring disaster if not death.
Water Moistening Downward gives literary prominence.
Earth Sowing and Reaping gives wealth and distinction through trade.
Metal and Water both clear make a Daoist.
Fire and Earth muddy and mixed make a Buddhist monk.
Zi and Wu most dislike Si and Hai.
Mao and You strictly forbid Yin and Shen.
Ji entering Hai and seeing yin Wood ultimately loses lifespan. A Bingyin hour instead brings official cap, hairpin and tassels.
The five phases' Extinction place is the Womb Prime; meeting it on the birth day is called Receiving Qi.
Transformation has ten days: Jiashen, Yiyou, Gengyin, Xinmao, Renwu, Guiwei, Bingzi, Dingchou, Wuwu and Jichou. Even without the Eight Characters entering a pattern, wealth and rank can be more than sufficient. Separate fortune, virtue and refined qi exist, each with its heavenly and earthly spirits.
True transformation makes eminent dukes and great ministers; false transformation makes an orphan with another surname. Meeting Dragon brings transformation: the flying dragon in Heaven benefits from seeing a great person.
There are also winter meeting blazing heat, summer grass meeting frost, yin Rat dwelling in Water and the divine turtle lodging in Fire. Combination that is no combination is difficult for later students to understand. From one, distinguish three; earlier worthies did not record it.
Patterns have clear established examples, while collected oral rules give only one or two outlines. Consider the worthies' canonical intent; the compact instruction here says to take for use without combination, making understanding easier. The way accords without end and learning has no final method. The classic says: 'Put aside anxious calculation and distracted thought, and chart judgment will be free of error.'
Forms of Prosperity
Steady Prosperity.
Some people receive the glory of wealth and rank at birth, prosper at the proper time, enjoy fortune and preserve it throughout life. Why? The self master is firmly flourishing, and the favorable useful influences—Wealth, Officer, Resource or Food Spirit—each possess Emolument, authority and the season, without partiality or mixture. No punishment, clash, injury, restraint or harm damages the source of wealth and rank. Later the person develops ability, illuminates the ancestors' foundation and achieves contemporary fame without slander or injury. Each cycle is favorable and further benefits the Four Pillars: the source is clear and the stream clean. Thus the person enjoys exceptional fortune and keeps balance without regret. This comes from birth and flourishing throughout the chart and cycles. The author calls it destiny, not luck, and asks that the distinction be understood.
Sudden Rise.
Others begin hungry, poor, troubled, lonely and overturned, then suddenly meet their time and rise. They may acquire satisfying Wealth and build an estate from nothing, or serve the ruler, benefit the people and reach the highest state office. Why are earlier and later life so different? The day master's generating qi is not yet flourishing, while the useful distinguished influences all occupy strong, appropriate positions and form a pattern. The day master lacks the strength to bear the fortune and remains weary and frustrated. A supporting cycle suddenly strengthens the day stem; the useful influence emerges like a tiger's roar raising wind. The natal useful influence becomes available to self, which rides it and rises abruptly. Partial qi meets harmony, decline meets flourishing, and favorable fortune enables the rise.
The scale of the achievements and foundations thus created differs; distinguish it by the weight of the chart encountered.
Gathered Prosperity.
With strong day master, pure unmixed Killings and both self and Killings flourishing, original absence of control prevents wealth and rank. A controlling cycle must be awaited. Killings then transforms into authority and the person rises: ability and virtue move dukes and ministers, fame becomes prominent and the person stands above others. Strong self meets controlled Killings transformed into authority. Powerful control develops extraordinary fortune and may bring the highest rank. The chart truly contains this potential, but the supporting cycle is needed for sudden prosperity; without its arrival, the person is ordinary.
There is also a strong day master with a strong useful influence, evenly balanced: a worthy child of a wealthy, distinguished household. On reaching adulthood the person prospers, but an evil-luminary cycle may enter the natal chart and seize Wealth, injure Officer, break Resource or damage Food. Such a cycle brings indescribable disaster, overturning middle life and preventing development. When it leaves and a favorable cycle supports self, the useful influence is renewed like a withered seedling receiving rain. The person rises abruptly, like a light feather lifted irresistibly by wind.
Midlife Revival.
Some have strong self, Yang Blade and Peers all contending for strength, while Wealth, Officer and pattern influences are floating, slight and few, unable to achieve fame. Early cycles also provide no fortune, so life is hungry, cold, weary and frustrated despite ambition. In middle or late life, a Killings cycle may suddenly arrive. Borrowing Killings as authority controls Yang Blade, bringing influential position or property and fortune. Distinguish the result through the phases' clarity or turbidity and the particular cycle encountered.
Late Rise.
Lifelong poverty may suddenly turn into prosperity in middle or late life. The chart originally uses Wealth or Officer but lacks qi until the cycle arrives; only then do wealth, rank and profitable affairs develop. Late rise thus comes from obtaining the right cycle. Should students not apply themselves?
Prosperity and Decline
A chart may use pure Killings. Without control, its person remains in a humble home on a poor road, or manages business for a powerful household. A controlling cycle is needed to borrow Killings and rise into court service, wielding authority, rewards and punishments and achieving immeasurable merit. If that cycle enters Wealth territory, Wealth can ally with Killings and create disaster. With Officer and Killings flourishing, cycle planning may go wrong. When a cycle allies with Killings and generates harm, a year with slightly flourishing Wealth and Killings may join and bring calamity. Self becomes isolated, cold and restrained: a light case ruins the household and brings banishment; a severe case brings execution. Combined Killings makes destructive death fearsome. Those with such Killings and Blade find disaster difficult to escape.
Another chart has proper-qi Officer in the month's command as lifelong distinguished qi. Resource cycles benefit it: Officer likes flourishing Wealth to generate it and strong Resource to protect it. The person can practice benevolence, spread virtue, govern the state and attain great authority and rank. Later, flourishing Killings territory, Killings' Emolument position and annual Killings arriving together turn Officer into Ghost; the text calls loss of life certain. Even without a Killings cycle, a Hurting Officer cycle without Resource to control it gives Hurting Officer ground, damages Emolument, brings loss of wife, injury to children, dismissal and disaster. A further year injuring or restraining Officer must bring a terrible end. When official Emolument is injured, escaping dismissal and execution is difficult. Even one discerning enough to understand advance, retreat, survival and destruction and preserve the person may, with family spared, still die of severe illness.
Another chart's useful influence contains no Officer or Killings, only flourishing Direct or Indirect Wealth. Wealth holds command, gradually accumulating riches and treasures but little distinction. Examine the cycles. Flourishing Officer and Emolument can complete a frame of wealth and rank. If Wealth unfortunately leaves its arrangement and Yang Blade appears, Wealth collapses and fortune fails. A year clashing or combining with Yang Blade may exhaust Wealth, bring the natal chart to decline and extinction and let Blade generate harm, ending in complete ruin.
The Treasured Method, Part One.
People are born between Heaven and Earth through yin and yang, receiving creation's endowment. Other things likewise arise from its changes. Thus the principle of judging human fortune and disaster is manifest. Practitioners have many methods, but the author finds no investigation beyond Ziping.
Ziping takes the day stem alone as master and what is hidden in the governing outline as command, then uses year, month and hour branches to show its beginnings.
Every pattern uses the month's command as governing outline. Do not seek a pattern elsewhere in year, day or hour. Many people do not understand this and fail at every method.
For the month's command, Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth are essential. Establish the actual matter within it before judging. Searching elsewhere leads to error. Once its substance is selected, investigate weight, depth, pattern, break and clash throughout the chart.
Master Yijian of Western Mountain understood adaptation and emphasized six stem patterns: Officer, Resource, Wealth, Killings, Food Spirit and Hurting Officer. By assessing their waxing and waning, he claimed unfailing verification. His rule says: 'Meeting Officer, inspect Wealth; meeting Killings, inspect Resource; meeting Resource, inspect Officer.' This contains a subtle, untransmitted method. Take the four without partiality through generation, restraint, control and transformation. Breakage of form and imprisonment make a lower cycle. Generation and removal bring fortune; assistance and stripping bring disaster, as the text states. The principle is deep and requires precise examination. Do not remain in commonplace technique: read thoroughly and strive.
The Treasured Method, Part Two.
Ziping takes day as master, first emphasizing the governing outline, then using year, day and hour branches to complete a pattern before judgment. The month's command is always the useful basis; do not establish the pattern from the year. An uncertain pattern makes nine of ten judgments wrong.
In Master Yijian's method, a month using Metal uses Metal alone, and one using Fire uses Fire alone. Selecting Water merely because the Eight Characters contain much Water, rather than taking Fire, is an error and spoils most judgments. Western Mountain's Yijian penetrated the hidden workings and emphasized six of eighteen patterns, using mutual generation to establish the pattern and combine the frame. Year and day then determine weight and depth; the author claims no failure.
The six-pattern method says: 'Meeting Officer, inspect Wealth; meeting Wealth, inspect Killings; meeting Killings, inspect Resource; meeting Resource, inspect Officer.' Resource in use need not fear Killings: Killings holds Resource, Resource holds self, making a superior pattern. With Resource in the Four Pillars, inspect Seven Killings. Officer or Killings present, followed by their territory in cycles, can also make a distinguished pattern.
The month's command communicating with Officer, and Wealth in the pillars generating Officer, is excellent: a pattern of wealth and rank.
With Wealth in the pillars, both person and Wealth need to flourish for development and fortune.
Even one Killings must be given priority. Further flourishing-Wealth territory is forbidden, because Wealth generates flourishing Killings and makes a poor, low pattern.
Patterns should all be discussed through Killings and Officer.
Searching the Marrow for an Inch of Gold: Chan Master Yinjing.
In creation's working, first examine the day master, then consider the governing outline in order.
The Four Pillars focus on Wealth and Officer. Strong self with Wealth and Officer often brings riches and rank.
Strong self with damaged Wealth and Officer makes only a person begging from morning to evening.
With flourishing Wealth and Officer and strong day master, why doubt purple robes and a golden belt?
Flourishing Wealth and Officer with a weak day master especially welcome strong-self cycles.
Strong day master with weak Wealth and Officer gains reputation and profit in their cycles.
Wealth and Officer beneath the day master, also met in the month's command, make distinction easy.
Wealth and Officer are the general basis of wealth and rank, giving early success and high Emolument.
Strong self without support must move from the ancestral home; without moving, death comes elsewhere.
Strong self without reliance damages Wealth and wife, or means neglect by the wife's family, adoption or entry into another household.
Strong self and strong Resource break Wealth and prevent accumulation. Wealth is only readily spent, or used for purchases and house building; the gate may be grand but granaries empty, outward abundance masking inward lack.
Officer likes exposure, which makes it pure and elevated.
Wealth should be concealed, which makes it abundant.
Hidden Killings and exposed Officer conceal harm and display good. Such a chart makes a name throughout the region.
Heavy Officer and Killings with still stronger self become worthy when control is encountered.
Killings and Officer arching Resource give no slight distinction, with splendid authority and renown.
A birth in summer with much Fire and Earth gains balanced distinction through Water's aid. Water and Fire require completed mutual aid, making reputation and profit resound through the land.
Birth in the three winter months has cold Water and Metal. Fire's support is no ordinary benefit.
Blazing Fire without Water also welcomes Water cycles.
Surging Water without Fire likewise welcomes Fire cycles.
Southern blazing Fire benefits from northern Water cycles.
Northern cold Water benefits from southern Fire cycles.
Much eastern Wood should enter western Metal cycles.
Strong western Metal should enter eastern Wood cycles.
Water and Fire have the achievement of mutual aid.
Metal and Wood have the account of making a name.
The five phases helping one another make authority and renown reach the nine heavens.
The three mounds of the five phases are listed as Chen, Xu, Chou and Wei. Repetition brings sorrow through punishment of kin, insufficient parents, separated siblings, distant relatives and loss affecting wife and children.
Clashing and breaking the governing outline injures parents through punishment or separation.
Strong self with Peer seated on Traveling Horse makes siblings drift freely like tumbleweed.
All four Horses crossing in the Eight Characters give personal glory but toil east and west. Even when the body rests, the mind is unsettled; movement is wandering romance, stillness sorrow.
Wealth entering a treasury signifies accumulation.
Wealth entering a treasury makes the wife miserly, guarding property and neglecting human dealings.
Wealth seated on the four Horses gives a worthy wife and delight everywhere.
Repeated Officer and Killings without Wealth give a wife able to assist within, yet disharmonious, disrespectful of parents-in-law and seizing the husband's authority, as the chart is said to allot.
Officer in Birth and Flourishing, with Long Life and flourishing in the hour, gives intelligent, refined children and descendants all wearing official scarlet.
Strong Peer, Robber and Hurting Officer injure wife and children. Reared children are often unworthy, and adopted children are altogether unsuitable.
A day master with Seven Killings and Owl gives the wife false pregnancies or frequent miscarriages, disordered blood qi and blood illness. Examine the cycles as well.
A man with repeated Owl and Food and weak self often suffers depletion disease.
A woman's Owl and Food are unfavorable, with alarming childbirth difficulty and dangerous illness.
Flourishing Officer and Wealth in a woman's chart give a worthy husband and good children. Injuring both harms husband and children and leaves an empty bedchamber.
Resource flourishing together with still stronger self signifies harm to kin, solitude and poverty. Yet exposed Officer and Wealth can make an outstanding person.
Disputes and trouble arise from Water and Fire restraining each other, or dim and clouded eyes result.
Strong Hurting Officer in a woman's chart, with Hurting Officer beneath the day, gives abuse of husband and incessant muttering morning and night; lifelong punishment and solitude follow in the source's judgment.
Days such as Yisi, Wuchen, Gengwu and Xinwei signify a wife of authority and distinction, also worthy and distinguished. Examine the other Four Pillars.
Bingzi, Dingchou, Wuyin and Jimao follow the preceding account.
Xinsi, Renwu, Jiashen and Yiyou all sit on Wealth and Officer and give considerable wealth and rank.
Dinghai, Wuzi and Gengyin make a substantial chart when the day master meets them.
Xinmao, Bingshen and Dingyou hide Wealth and Officer and display renown.
Jihai and Jiashen meeting Gengxu hide Resource, Wealth and Officer within. With Bingchen and Renxu as well, the four seasons' talisman seals are extraordinary.
Jiazi, Bingyin, Dingmao, Jisi, Renchen and Guisi leave one drifting with empty reputation and profit.
Yihai, Gengshen and Jisi are born without Wealth and Officer; the wife palace and children carry empty flowers, and all directions become home.
Jiawu, Wuxu and Gengzi make women harm husband and men harm children.
Yisi, Bingwu and Dingwei, with repeated Renzi, signify lonely poverty.
Jiayin, Yimao and Wuwu have stems and branches of one kind and insufficient children.
Jiwei, Gengshen and Guihai become harmful when the month's command flourishes further.
The month containing Wealth, Officer and Resource complete, with month and hour corresponding, gives continuous fortune.
Stems and branches of one kind, together with strong self, harm children, punish wife and ruin ancestral fields.
Distinguish strength and weakness in the Four Pillars. Do not impose one saying rigidly on yin and yang. This is the true subtle formula of the five phases: do not transmit it idly to those without discernment.
The source's differing pattern rules and repeated day lists, including Jisi in contrasting groups, are retained rather than reconciled.
Detailed Methods of Chart Interpretation
Adoption with Seven Killings and the three punishments makes mother visible and father hidden: a secret birth.
Self visible or hidden follows the Transformation Image; at the father's death, the person does not accompany the funeral spirit.
Geng Metal transforming into Fire's phase means the father's death involves blood, without doubt in the source's judgment.
Peer with threefold combination brings harm from the clan; the three punishments bring dispersal and separation from wife.
Peer secretly damages the household branches; unfeeling siblings deceive and wrong the person.
Peer forming a different image signifies discord among brothers.
Wife carrying threefold combination, with wife seated below, means the wife was already known through kinship.
Seated and exposed wife forming a different image determines separation and remarriage.
Much exposed wife-Wealth means fear of the wife.
Wife returning to Extinction does not bear children.
Transformation into another image restraining the principal husband must signify bullying him and little propriety or righteousness.
Strong self and strong Food do likewise; visible flourishing Food brings an uncomprehending death, as the compressed line says.
Yang Mother in an exclusive position signifies injury at birth; mother coming above father brings fright.
Heaven's timing and Earth's advantage with birth beyond the month, Seven Killings and punishment, give an uneven crown.
Resource returning to Killings territory means mother is ill.
Doubled Bing and Ding give a double crown.
Day Emolument returning to the hour must correspond to a dream.
An infant lacks milk when Food has clash or punishment.
Renzi and Yiyou signify an angled birth; Bingxu and Dingchou give what the verse calls the wife's receiving spirit.
Birth with the back to the father is assigned to Jia, Yi and Mao: remember the distinction clearly.
For example, Shen-Zi-Chen follows Water; otherwise, in the fifth month without Water but with Fire, it does not follow. Wu-Gui transforms into Fire in Si and Wu, and stems and branches follow Fire; then consider Jia Wood of the seated day. Luoluzi says: 'Studying the Buddhist teaching, one cultivates concentration in Li's palace.' This is how the useful influence is taken. Elder Du taught the monk Jingtan to judge by this example. The monk examined the day and pondered morning and evening; after half a year, he suddenly found the point of entry. The account says: 'At first learning there were several advances and retreats. After acquiring this method, it is no ordinary yin-yang teaching, but another school's hidden subtle classic.'
The same paragraph also discusses the Heart-Seal Oral Formula. A double crown may be stated only when the Eight Characters contain doubled Bing and Ding. With just one Bing and one Ding, and punishment or clash below, an uneven crown may be stated without error, according to the source.
Another method attributes pockmarked children to Wu and Ji restrained by Jia and Yi; otherwise there is a facial scar. Wu and Ji meeting Yisi, Yimao or Yihai are examples. Interconnect the rules in this way: stems and branches restraining each other, qi of transformation and combination, death, birth, break and defeat all govern the result. Stems and branches change in myriad ways. The source locates illness and success or failure within these transformations, asking whether a chart's subtleties could come from outside. Once the point is seen here, there is no need to return home with more explanations.
An original taboo within the Four Pillars' branches must not emerge as a defect in the cycle.
A cycle's forbidden Wealth becomes harmful Wealth; annual battle then makes disaster.
Anyone seated on Killings must not enter a flourishing-Killings cycle.
Strong self followed by a flourishing cycle, with year and cycle jointly bringing injury and Killings, lacks favorable relation to self.
Resource fears Wealth cycles, signifying a bad death or blood disease.
Much Resource means many mothers: feeding from several women's milk or being fostered in another home.
If Officer has circulating qi in the Four Pillars and the Grand Year clashes with it, litigation must arise. A Peer assisting means a person represented by Peer rescues the situation, leaving no trouble as circulating qi turns to generate Wealth and Officer.
On recognizing Wealth-generating Hurting Officer, the source gives three considerations. Incomplete injury often leads to clerical service. With original material qi, Hurting Officer and Resource cycles followed by annual Officer often bring harm. Transforming qi fears return to its original basis; without transformation there may be a changed frame. If transformation fails, judge only by the original day stem.
Ji Earth using Gui Water as concubine, with a cycle meeting Chen's treasury, means the concubine has an affair with someone of the household.
Bing using Yi as mother, on meeting Gengshen, means mother has many outside attachments.
Bing using Geng as father, on meeting Yin and Bing, often means a weak father.
Wu using Gui as wife, seated in You's palace, may mean fondness for wine.
Without original Wealth or Officer, cycles bringing them signify harm: others gain the Wealth and office.
Fire entering Water territory signifies blood disease.
Ren and Gui led back to Yin and Mao signify failure of yang to rise. The hour returning to Defeat and Extinction gives no accomplishment in old age.
The day stem combining with circulating qi—the flowing year—brings obscuration into the household.
For the six Jia days, yang Earth is father, yin Earth wife, yang Metal son and yin Metal daughter. Yang and yin Wood follow the same method; infer the other stems likewise.
The wife star entering Defeat signifies improper conduct. Jiyou, Gengwu, Guiyou and Dingchou are listed as Wealth entering Defeat.
Yin, Shen, Si and Hai are the four Long Life places and must give an intelligent wife.
Wealth, Officer and Resource obtaining qi are excellent.
Original Wealth and Officer signify traders, travelers or farming families.
Much Wealth with sunken Resource harms mother in youth. An unchaste mother must remarry.
In a woman's chart with the same day stem, if self flourishes and the other declines, self is principal; if the other flourishes and self declines, the other is principal.
Abundant Ren-Gui Water gives intelligence and wisdom, while the text attributes sexual excess to women.
Wealth in the hour requires entry into another household.
Officer within the branches without punishment or break brings office through wife.
Uncontrolled Killings within the branches brings disaster through wife.
For Ren or Gui days born in the first or second month with reverse-running cycles, Wu and Ji Earth are Officer, so Emolument is extinct: this is Turning from Emolument. Bing-Ding Fire is Wealth. If Wealth is not exposed in the Four Pillars, turning from Emolument need not mean poverty, because Yin and Mao hide the Fire of three yang and four yang as Wealth. Zi and Chou cycles meet Peers dividing and taking it. Entering Hai gives Wood Long Life and helps Fire, developing Wealth; Xu cycles do likewise. You cycles give Fire death and Water defeat, signifying financial loss.
For Ren and Gui born in Yin or Mao with forward-running cycles, Si and Wu develop Wealth and fortune. Exposed Wealth is still forbidden, including in years and cycles. If Wealth emerges and original Yang Blade or Peer is present, disaster comes through wife. Shen and You cycles are forbidden. Original Resource makes all things change, replacing the old with the new; annual Killings is unfavorable. The You cycle is Naked Form and Bathing, and Robbery Harm signifies death.
Bingzi, Dingchou, Wuyin, Xinmao, Renchen, Guisi, Bingwu, Dingwei, Wushen, Xinyou, Renxu and Guihai in the hour often mean marriage during mourning or illness.
In the method for children, Tomb and Treasury are disliked. Children entering Treasury means no children.
A treasury day using Jia as Indirect Wealth and father, seated on Jia and traveling west, puts Wealth in a Killings position: father dies without returning home. The supplied term is treasury day.
A woman's yang-stem chart with much Food Spirit is classified as prostitution.
A woman's yin-stem chart with much Food/Hurting Officer is likewise classified as prostitution; something removing it makes the woman respectable in the source's judgment.
Fire reaching the heavenly stems often signifies luo? lesions: the supplied disease word ends in a question mark. Much Fire in the branches produces sores. No missing disease character is reconstructed.
Using Killings that becomes light often makes a head of Buddhist or Daoist religious communities.
This is the monk Xun's Song of Correct Judgment and Transmission, identified here with Chan Master Yinjing.
The supplied uncertain birth expressions, damaged disease word, treasury-day label and historical attributions are retained without replacing them from another edition.
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