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Yuanhai Ziping · The Deep Sea of Ziping Astrology
Generation, Restraint and Collected Chart Discussions
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Rhapsody on Generation and Control among the Five Phases
Great indeed are stems and branches, the beginning of living things. Rooted in Heaven and Earth, they are the source of the myriad images. They contain the workings of yin and yang's transformations and the uses of depth and shallowness in seasonal timing. Thus Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth have no fixed form, and the principles taken from generation, control, restraint, and transformation are not uniform.
Dead Wood, for example, especially suits constant moistening by living Water.
Obstinate Metal, by comparison, most welcomes refining in a red-hot furnace.
The Fire of the sun avoids forest Wood as an enemy.
Timber for beams and pillars seeks axes and adzes as friends.
Fire separated by Water cannot melt Metal.
Metal sunk in Water: how can it control Wood?
Living Wood avoids iron buried at its roots.
Dead Metal dislikes mud covering its head.
Jia and Yi wishing to become one solid piece require the work of piercing and chiseling.
Ren and Gui can reach the Five Lakes because they have the nature of joining their streams.
The ailanthus cannot withstand a sharp axe.
Genuine pearls most fear a bright furnace.
Weak willows and tall pines have their decline and flourishing distinguished by the season.
A cun of gold and a chi of iron use qi according to hardness and softness.
Earth upon a ridge is difficult to loosen with little Wood.
Metal within a furnace is instead obscured by wet mud.
How can rain and dew nourish rotten Wood?
City walls do not produce genuine gold.
Swords and halberds, once completed, are instead ruined upon meeting Fire's domain.
City walls, once built up, fear injury upon reaching Wood's region.
Gui and Bing born in spring form an image of neither rain nor clear sky.
Yi and Ding born in winter make weather neither cold nor warm.
Sharpest is Metal embracing Water; dullest is iron away from the furnace.
Jia and Yi meeting strong Metal send their souls back to western Dui, You.
Geng and Xin meeting flourishing Fire scatter their qi in southern Li, Wu.
Dry Earth and blazing Fire leave Metal with nothing to rely on.
Floating Wood and flooding Water cannot generate Fire.
Metal melted in the three summer months: how could it restrain firm, hard Wood?
Wet Earth in the three winter months finds it difficult to bank up flooding waves.
Fine dust and a pinch of Earth are ultimately no foundation for living Wood.
Scrap iron and melted Metal: how could they be a source that nourishes a stream?
Abundant Wood can make Metal itself deficient.
Empty Earth is instead bullied by Water.
Fire without Wood ends its radiance.
Wood without Fire has its substance obscured.
Yi Wood born in autumn is as easily broken as rotten and withered material.
Geng Metal dying in winter: how difficult could it be to sink into sand and fall into the sea?
Grass congealed with frost: what use has it for meeting Metal?
Metal emerging from Earth cannot overcome Wood.
Before Fire flames, it first smokes.
After Water has passed, dampness remains.
In general, cold Water does not flow, cold Wood does not sprout, cold Earth does not generate, cold Fire does not blaze, and cold Metal does not melt. None is the correct qi of Heaven and Earth.
Yet all things are incomplete when first born, and after remaining complete for long they perish. The workings of surpassing the ordinary and entering sagehood, the subtlety of escaping death and returning to life, bring completion without an image and transformation without form. Securing the use is inferior to securing the root: how could profuse flowers compare with deep roots?
Northern Metal loves Water and sinks its form: much Water sinks Metal. Southern Wood turns to flying ash and sheds its substance: flourishing Fire burns Wood. Eastern Water makes Wood flourish and dries up its own source: abundant Wood reduces Water. Western Earth fills Metal and empties itself: much Metal changes Earth. Fire darkened by Earth is likewise excess: much Earth buries Fire.
The Five Phases prize balance and harmony.
Seek this through principle and take care not to speak carelessly. Scoop the cold pool dry: its bottom must be seen.
Luoluzi's Rhapsody on Increase and Decline
The primal single qi belongs to Prior Heaven; purity and turbidity are received naturally. The Three Powers are set out as images, and the four seasons spread out to make the year.
Take stems as Emolument, determining poverty and wealth by whether they turn toward or away. Take branches as the configuration, examining the circulation of forward and reverse courses.
Cycles proceed through one earthly station in ten years.
In conversion and deduction, three days count as one year. This conversion concerns the year's twenty-four seasonal qi and seventy-two seasonal periods.
A configuration has depth and shallowness within the seasonal qi: using this is subtle.
As for qi, what is approaching advances, and what has accomplished its work retreats: like a snake in ashes or an eel in dust. Qi is the qi of the four seasons turning toward or away. As for being, it is established from nonbeing. As for nonbeing, Heaven hangs down images to form its patterns. Thus the Five Phases, arriving at Extinction, can establish distinction. At the Five Phases' place of Extinction there are Emolument and Horse. As for the constant, it establishes benevolence and righteousness. As for events, some are seen and some heard. What is exalted is substantial; what is exceptional is noble. The General Star supports virtue, and Heavenly Yi arrives. If the natal master is in Rest or Imprisonment, proceeding or withdrawing alike sink into obscurity.
When Gouchen obtains its position, one does not fail in small trustworthiness and thereby completes benevolence. When Zhenwu holds authority, great ability is recognized and auspicious tokens are distributed.
Lack of benevolence and righteousness comes when Geng and Xin contend with Jia and Yi.
Uncertainty over right and wrong comes when Ren and Gui and Bing and Ding fear one another.
Thus earlier worthies humbled themselves, living in the common world while seeking immortality. Revering Buddhism, they cultivated concentration in Li's palace; returning to the Dao, they sought mystery in Water's mansion. The form of what is seen and unseen exists at every time; the thread of what is drawn out and not drawn out continues through all antiquity. Master He feared his Seven Killings; the venerable Master Xuan feared the Primal Chen. Emei explained the Three Births, encompassing scholars and common people alike; Guigu set out the Nine Allotments, relating them through observation of the stars. Now the essentials of the various schools are gathered, with the abilities arising from one-sided views set aside. Where their winding connections remain unexplained, subtlety requires understanding through the spirit.
I come from Lan's countryside and admired the true way from childhood. Entering the market, I had no marvel of hanging a jar; traveling the streets, no spirit-power of transforming a staff. I stilled a single breath to concentrate the spirit and dissolved the Five Phases to penetrate the Way. Qian and Kun establish female and male; Metal and Wood determine hardness and softness. Day and night divide ruler from minister; seasonal periods divide father from son. They cannot be taken by one approach or inferred by one principle. There are times when winter meets blazing heat and summer grass encounters frost; there are creatures such as yin mice dwelling in Water and divine turtles lodging in Fire. Thus yin and yang are seldom measurable, and the natures of things difficult to exhaust. In general, the three winter months have little heat, while summer has much yang. Misfortune and blessings resemble omens, and practitioners hope to reach eight or nine out of ten.
Some are born in Rest and Defeat, with Emptiness in early years; even meeting a vigorous and flourishing domain, they suffer obstruction year after year.
Ill fortune first and good fortune afterward resemble a turbid source with a clear stream. Good fortune at the beginning and ill fortune at the end resemble a sweet root with bitter outcome. Observe the first signs and examine their origin. The root precedes the seedling, and fruit follows flowers. Womb, birth, and original allotment: the three beasts determine their lineage. Pitch pipes, gong, and shang: the Five Tigers discuss their success and failure. Combination within no combination is difficult for later students to understand; Obtaining One and Dividing Three was not recorded by earlier worthies.
Though the year meets Cap and Belt, residual calamity remains.
Though the cycle is about to reach Decline's domain, a little blessing still clothes it.
In broad terms, with a weak Heavenly Origin, an auspicious palace is insufficient to sustain one's endeavors. With flourishing beneath the day, an inauspicious month cannot create its harm.
If the superior is inauspicious and the inferior auspicious, rescue and treatment achieve nothing. If the superior is auspicious and the inferior inauspicious, disaster heals of itself.
Emolument has three meetings; disaster has five periods. Much ill fortune and little good resemble the first line of Great Exceeding. Shallow blessings and deep misfortune are likened to Nine in the Fifth of Fellowship with Others.
No joy upon hearing good news comes from the fullness and deficiency of the six Jia. No worry at what seems worrying relies on rescue and assistance among the Five Phases.
The Eight Solitudes arriving at the Five Tombs: Xu and Wei move east. The Six Vacancies descending into Emptiness begin southward from Qian.
Heavenly Origin as a single qi determines the honor and distinction of marquises and earls.
Branches serving as Human Origin bring gains and losses in the cycles of merchants.
A flourishing self and extinguished Ghost bring long life even if the configuration is broken. A flourishing Ghost and declining self bring premature death upon meeting Established Emolument.
Turning away from Emolument and pursuing the Horse leave one sorrowfully keeping to a road of poverty.
Emolument and Horse in the same domain bring either the Three Terraces or the Eight Seats.
High office and distinguished position surely indicate a domain enclosing Emolument.
Small gains and great losses may indicate the Robber of Wealth's region.
Emolument in the birth month brings entry into office and a position of brilliant distinction.
Repeated exceptional insignia store up an ability that surpasses the multitude.
For yin men and yang women, observe the years of entering and leaving. For yin women and yang men, also examine the year of the Primal Chen and its encounter with the earth.
One should withdraw and avoid office. Inauspicious and auspicious meetings, Reverse Chant and Repeated Chant, Yin Error and Yang Discrepancy, Heavenly Clash and Earthly Strike may occur, or the Four Killings and Five Ghosts, Six Harms and Seven Injuries, Heaven's Net and Earth's Web, Three Origins and Nine Palaces. Blessings arriving create celebration; misfortunes joining congeal danger. Support comes swiftly; suppression comes slowly.
Pass through a noble domain and await the proper time.
Meet Peers and engage in competition.
When the person is weary and the Horse inferior, still rely on Wealth's flourishing domain. Or if Wealth flourishes and Emolument declines, what need has a vigorous Horse to avoid it? A concealed clash arriving with the year still need not make disaster; advancement of the year should accordingly obtain blessings.
The Great Auspicious master meeting Small Auspicious reaches a long span of years.
Heavenly Dipper's cycle arriving at Heavenly Chief continues life and extends longevity.
Congkui reaching the Azure Dragon's mansion brings Wealth from Heaven.
Heavenly Clash arriving in Mao and Wei's lunar-mansion region harms the Human Origin.
Metal Emolument is exhausted at the first beginning, with Geng heavy and Xin light.
A Wood person is constrained in Metal's domain, with Yin deep and Mao shallow.
The subtlety lies in recognizing adaptation through change; even a plain explanation then seems inspired. Shamans and blind diviners ignorant of tuning strings cannot hope to understand the pitch pipes.
Geng and Xin arriving at Jia and Yi allow an exemplary person to seek office.
A northerner whose cycle reaches the south obtains substantial profits from trade.
Joy opening in the morning and swiftly arriving belongs to the blazing yang of abundant Fire.
The distant reach of control over misfortune and blessings often arises from Water and Earth.
Metal and Wood not yet fashioned into implements make it difficult to discern decline and joy by listening: like abundant Wood with profuse flowers, like dense clouds without rain. Riding in a carriage and wearing ceremonial robes and cap: how much Metal and Fire there are! Position exhausted and rank low: yin and yang are unsettled. Thus the Dragon chants and Tiger roars, with wind and rain assisting their favorable omens. Fire about to rise first smokes and then flames. Often good lies within ill, with ill preceding the good; ill lies within good, with ill serving as a sign of good. As the ten-day period of misfortune nears its end, blessings may be inferred nearby. Just upon entering a declining domain, disaster should be examined by a reverse calculation. Men welcome and women send off; obstruction and peace dwell alternately. The two qi, yin and yang, undergo forward and reverse conversion. Divination within Metal and Wood becomes manifest in directions and regional divisions. Marking what lies between south and north may indicate unfavorable coming and going.
Within a ten-day period, ask about the month within the year; within a year, seek the month and ask about the day. Turn toward three and avoid five, pointing out directions to determine blockage and passage. Examine good and investigate ill, setting out the year's obstruction and peace.
Bingyin and Dingmao should be preserved and guarded in autumn.
Jisi and Wuchen escape danger upon crossing Qian's palace, Hai.
Meeting Illness brings concern over illness; delayed Birth obtains birth. Flourishing and Vigor bring prominence; Rest and Imprisonment bring extinction. In discussing family, worry over their Death and Extinction, with Tomb amid Ghosts. Peril and uncertainty are especially severe: mourning arrives at one's feet and can be seen directly ahead.
Rely on yin to examine yang blessings: the annual sovereign must not offend Solitary Chen.
Rely on yang to mirror yin calamities: Heavenly Origin avoids Widowhood Star.
First discuss the two qi, then examine the extension of life. For a father's illness, infer his child's Emolument; for a wife's disaster, examine her husband's years. If the three palaces are fundamentally auspicious, misfortune is delayed and can be inferred farther off. If beginning and end are all inauspicious, disaster suddenly comes with great speed. Dwelling and Tomb receiving Killings bring groaning beneath dust falling from the beams. Mourning influences arriving transform gong and shang into the funeral song Xielu. Infer the stems as doubly heavy: guard against disaster at the head. Reduce the branches as triply light: guard against misfortune in the limbs. Lower Origin as a single qi marks the time of staying together or departing. Benevolent yet not benevolent, one fears injury and cutting within Wu and Ji. As for sleeping, eating, attendants, and guards, things have ghostly things and people have ghostly people. Meeting them brings disaster; removing them brings blessings. Naked Form enclosing Killings sends the bodily soul to Fengdu. An offense that suffers injury sends the spirit back to Mount Dai. Or in travel, coming and going, one offends an inauspicious direction; in marriage, construction, and repair, the road takes the Yellow Path. Disaster and blessings lie within the year's positions and manifest in the striking and stirring of day and hour. The Five Spirits control one another; the Three Births determine the configuration.
Whenever noble people enjoy emolument, it is always in Emolument and Horse's domain. A turbid source with Repeated Chant brings despondency at the palace of rest.
Wild violence arises from Hook and Strangle.
Misfortune and ruin arise from Primal and Death influences.
Dwelling and Tomb in the same place may bring little joy and much sorrow.
Returning from ten thousand li away occurs at the place of the Three Returns.
A father of the Four Killings often has a son of the Five Ghosts.
A person of the Six Harms has matters of the Seven Injuries in the configuration.
Family affection resembling Water and Fire meets within Bathing.
Kin parting midway: Solitary Mansion also dislikes the Separated Corner.
The spirits and killing influences must be restrained, and their weight compared. The self controlling Killings is relatively light; Killings controlling the self are especially heavy.
The circulation of the Eight Trigrams takes the River and Luo diagrams as its pattern. In brief it fixes one thread; investigated deeply, it turns into myriad strands.
Grasping the Saddle and Treading Emolument, when encountered, bring an official seal and a carriage. An inferior Horse and slight Wealth, when met, bring exile without return.
Good and evil accompany one another, producing movement and migration. Enclosing Killings and Holding the Hill make relatives by birth and marriage weep at the departure. One must also examine conduct and observe what the person maintains. Discuss a thin origin through the form of the bones; becoming an accomplished instrument depends on the source within the heart.
Abundant Wood qi makes benevolence flourish.
Deficient Geng and Xin bring little righteousness.
An auspicious luminary bringing joy gives cause to suspect a vessel of calamity.
A blessing star arriving while misfortune erupts reveals an inauspicious person.
Seeking movement from a settled place, when control has not yet advanced, makes relocation difficult. Considering danger while at ease allows good fortune to be divined within ill. Distinction that forgets low standing breeds disaster through luxury. Delusion without return brings misfortune from confusion. One should especially take ease, compliance, and changing circumstances as the beginnings. Blessings attend goodness and misfortune excess; good and ill have different omens.
Even Gongming and Jiyu had no writing on recognition through change; Jingchun and Zhongshu did not record the subtlety of comparing forms. Examine the earlier sages and take the former worthies as a mirror. Some point to events to set out counsel; others condense language to reach principle. The two meanings of many or few advantages are difficult to refine. Now gains and losses are considered together, and traces of the Way are pieced together into a mirror for the heart, hung forever clear and bright. Arranging beginning and end, one hopes to obtain nine out of ten.
Translator's note: Embedded explanatory statements are translated together with the rhapsody. The three-days-to-one-year conversion, seventy-two seasonal periods, numerical and stellar labels, superior/inferior rules, favorable and adverse reversals, and quoted hexagram lines are retained as supplied. Phrases concerning morning joy, distant control, the first beginning, triply light branches, the Hill, the vessel of calamity, and ease or compliance in changing circumstances are compact or uncertain readings; no different edition is silently substituted. Personal names and religious or literary allusions follow the source without added biographies. Its medical, lifespan, moral, family, and fatal judgments are historical claims.
Concise Method for Discussing the Eight Characters
If the influence used is Officer, it must not be injured.
If the influence used is Wealth, it must not be robbed.
If the influence used is Resource, it must not be broken.
If the influence used is Food Spirit, it must not be broken.
If the influence used is Emolument, it must not be clashed with.
If Seven Killings are present they must be restrained, but excessive restraint instead becomes inauspicious. If Hurting Officer occurs it must be quieted. This is the source of Ziping's myriad methods.
Hurting Officer most fears an Officer cycle.
In office, Nine in the Fifth sees the Wealth star.
Resource Seal likes Killings and dislikes Wealth's position.
Yang Blade fears clash and should welcome combination.
Peers need to meet Seven Killings' restraint.
Seven Killings welcome the Food Spirit's punishment.
Emolument present fears the Officer star arriving.
Food Spirit most welcomes Indirect Wealth arriving.
This is Ziping's concise method. Traveling practitioners of the arts should understand it carefully.
Translator's note: The terse "in office, Nine in the Fifth" line follows the supplied text and is not replaced by a reconstructed rule.
Cited Rules on Life and Death in Patterns
Patterns have their own established judgments. Here they are briefly set out.
Resource Seal seeing Wealth, proceeding through a Wealth cycle, and also encountering Death and Extinction must enter the Yellow Springs. If the pillars contain Peers, there may be some release.
Direct Officer seeing Killings, together with Hurting Officer, punishment, clash, breaking, and harm, must bring death when annual influence and cycle join.
Direct or Indirect Wealth seeing division and seizure by Peers, Robber of Wealth, and Yang Blade, and also seeing clash or combination in annual influence and cycle, must bring death.
The Hurting Officer pattern, flourishing Wealth with a weak self, repeated Officer and Killings, and mixed influences clashing with the Blade must bring death if seen again in annual influence and cycle. If one lives, there is injury or disability.
Flanking Emolument and Flanking Nobility with their empty positions filled, also seeing Officer, Emptiness, and a clash with the Blade, bring immediate death when repeated in annual influence and cycle.
The day's Emolument returning to the hour with punishment, clash, breaking, and harm must bring death upon seeing Seven Killings, Officer star, Emptiness, and a clash with the Blade.
Killings and Officer are greatly avoided; annual influence and cycle joining must bring death.
All the remaining patterns likewise avoid Killings and the filling of empty positions. Annual influence and cycle arriving together must bring death.
Gathering the inauspicious spirits and evil Killings, Hook and Strangle, Emptiness, Mourning Visitor, Tomb, Illness, and the Death palace's killing influences brings ten deaths and nine lives.
Officer star and Grand Year, much Wealth with a weak self, and original offense by Seven Killings: a light self with rescue is auspicious; without rescue it is inauspicious.
Much Metal brings premature death; abundant Water brings wandering; flourishing Wood brings early death; much Earth brings dullness; much Fire brings obstinate foolishness. These are excess and deficiency.
In making such judgments, first do not be rigidly confined, and second have the courage to judge. One must understand the principles and infer from them, seeking the decision on life and death.
Translator's note: "Ten deaths and nine lives" retains the supplied contradictory numerical expression rather than substituting a conventional probability. The source's categorical predictions of death, disability, and disposition are historical astrological assertions, not established outcomes or modern medical guidance.
Account of the Collected Destiny Books
In composing books on configurations, the earlier worthies have already exhausted the profound and subtle contents of Heaven and Earth. From the Tang figures Li Xuzhong and the Chan master Yixing, to the Song's Xu Sheng (Dongzhai) and the Ming's Wang Quan (Zuixingzi), these gentlemen brought to light the Yuanhai and Yuanyuan teachings. Their principles are alike: they have reached the utmost and exhausted the subject. All concerns nothing beyond the subtle workings of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.
Later students now add meanings and oral formulas, but these are merely further implications of what the earlier worthies already expressed, broadly the same with minor differences.
Now the two books Yuanhai and Yuanyuan are combined into one collection, so that a single reading brings understanding. There is no need to search separately through the purport of the two books. Removing the profuse and discarding the brief, it will forever serve as a model.
Translator's note: Personal names, sobriquets, dynastic attributions, and the account of compilation are the source's own. The unusual closing wording is literally "remove the profuse, discard the brief"; it has not been silently replaced with the familiar expression "remove the profuse and adopt the simple.
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