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Sanming Tonghui · A Comprehensive Account of the Three Destinies
On Major Fortune Periods
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Fortune periods are a person's traveling lodgings. First bring together the Three Origins, four pillars, five phases, Birth and Death, and configurations to establish the foundation. Then examine and coordinate fortune energy to determine lifelong good and ill. Why do the ancients allot ten years to one major-period position and convert three days to one year? A month completes dark and new moon in thirty days; a day completes daylight and night in twelve double-hours. Three days contain thirty-six double-hours, representing three hundred sixty days in a year. A month contains three hundred sixty double-hours; converting around solar terms yields three thousand six hundred days as ten years for one position. The conversion method must use the actual calendar and count days and hours elapsed to the term. For a yang man or yin woman, count from birth forward to the coming solar term and proceed forward. For a yin man or yang woman, count backward to the preceding solar term and proceed backward. Suppose a yang male in a Jiazi year is born in the twelfth month on the twenty-fourth at Si hour, with a variant spelling. Beginning of Spring falls on the twenty-ninth at Shen hour. Count future time: from the twenty-fourth Si hour to the twenty-fifth Si hour is one full day; to the twenty-ninth Shen is five days and three double-hours. The text first calls the actual interval sixty-three days, then sixty-three double-hours. Converting gives six hundred thirty days, one year and nine months, as the major-period start. It begins at Dingchou. From the twelfth-month birthday, the source says twenty-one actual days must pass before monthly fortune changes palace, then refers to within three years and nine months. It nevertheless concludes that the Jiazi-year, twelfth-month birth begins the major period at one year and nine months.
When fortune operates in a stem, also use the branch's spirits; in a branch, set aside the stem's objects. Major fortune emphasizes branches, hence distinctions of east, south, west, and north. What damages the Useful Spirit should be restrained by fortune; what benefits it should be generated. A weak self wants fortune leading into Flourishing ground. Office wants generation, not injury; Killings want restraint, not assistance. Wealth wants support, not robbery; Seal wants Flourishing, not Decline; Food wants generation, not Owl cutting it off. Further inspect the four pillars' strength, what was originally present or absent, light or heavy. A Wood person using Metal as Office, if a yang man, leaves Wei and enters Shen; if a yin man, leaves Hai and enters Xu. A Metal person using Wood as Wealth, if a yang man, leaves Chou and enters Yin; if a yin man, leaves Si and enters Chen. All approach Emolument and reach Horse. Original Office meeting Office fortune develops office; original Wealth meeting Wealth fortune develops wealth; original calamity meeting calamity fortune develops calamity. Further examine how deeply the birth year and hour receive energy. Deeply received energy in the pillars manifests as fortune approaches; shallow energy only after the period changes; intermediate energy at the period's middle. Long Life fortune indicates founding and creating new things. Assuming Office and Imperial Flourishing indicate prosperity, happiness, blessings, increased wealth, children, and family celebrations. Decline and Illness often give retreat, failure, loss of wealth, and disease. Death and Extinction indicate bereavement among kin, personal decline and calamity, dull distress, and obstruction in all affairs. Defeat fortune indicates dejection, laziness, and confusion through wine and sexual indulgence. Womb, Storehouse, Taking Form, and Cap and Belt give moderation, peace, health, and ease. Flanking Nobility, Canopy of Splendor, Noble Person, Six Combinations, or riding Birth and Flourishing all indicate good celebrations. Still inspect the natal foundation: ten parts may respond as five, while birth hour responds in all ten, for calamity and blessing alike. At Assuming Office or Imperial Flourishing, supported by the Grand Duke, officials have the joy of recommendation and changed rank.
Translator's note: The example retains five days plus three double-hours, both sixty-three units, six hundred thirty days, the twenty-one-day statement, and both ages one year nine months and three years nine months. These supplied inconsistencies have not been repaired into a usable calculator. The irregular punctuation around damage and benefit to the Useful Spirit is read by its contrasting clauses. All fortune-stage outcomes and natal qualifications remain historical claims.
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