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Sanming Tonghui ยท A Comprehensive Account of the Three Destinies
Esoteric Formulas of the Jade Well
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Profound Formulas of the Jade Well
The note attributes this work to Du Qian of Andong.
In investigating the principles of creation, the method takes the day as master.
The note says: Set it apart as the substance, recognizing at the outset what serves as master, whether transformed influence or original substance. From the beginning one must understand change. Recognize that the master stem has an original image and a transformed image before assessing it closely. Jia, for example, has Wood as its original image and the printed upper-position graph as its transformed image.
Translator's note: The source prints a graph meaning upper where an element name would be expected in the last example. It is identified rather than silently changed to Earth.
First Seek the Meaning of the Branch Spirit Seated Beneath the Day
The note says: This is what sits beneath the day stem. First examine how this earthly branch relates to the month, hour, and year branches through punishment, clash, breaking, harm, generation, restraint, companionship, and harmony. Determine what the master stem likes or avoids and what each brings. Do not treat it as an ordinary detail or merely glance at it.
Which Influence Holds Authority at the Month's Particular Depth?
The note says: Beneath the monthly establishment, examine the season's shallow or deep influence. Which stem spirit among the Five Phases' influences properly commands the particular day and its five-day seasonal interval? Another account says to examine whether Virtue and Refinement are present.
Earthly Branches Are Crucial: The Strongest Party Prevails
The note says: The earthly branches are the branch spirits of the four positions. Their crucial importance exceeds that of the heavenly stems. Examine which provides the master stem's residence and which the Useful Spirit's foundation, and which has light or heavy force. Residence means the region where ground is obtained; foundation means the place where distinction is ridden. First, see which branch spirit its force clashes into activity. Second, which it arches into activity. Third, which it punishes into activity. Fourth, which it combines into activity. Fifth, see how the earthly branches govern this method: it establishes something present out of emptiness. Clash, arching, punishment, and combination are the four crucial approaches in discussing branches. One method takes only the day stem as master to select what is used. Yet auspicious spirits may suffer punishment and clash, while harmful Killings may receive arching and combination; their Birth, Flourishing, Rest, and Abandonment intersect in differing ways, making judgment difficult. It is better to examine only the foundations of the four earthly branches and ask which of the Five Influences is heaviest. Assess which spirit it can drain and disperse, generate and support, clash with or combine with, and transform. Then see which of the Five Influences the day stem belongs to and how it governs with that heaviest influence. Take the Useful Spirit's influence, whether Wealth, Office, or the like, together with those Five Influences, and lead them to the hour seat. Compare what is light and heavy. Principles that adjust harmoniously are auspicious; the reverse is discordant. Once this is established, examine what each branch influence favors and avoids in detail. The Five Influences mean Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water; remember each heading separately. Whichever has the most allies is weightiest. Much Wood manifest or hidden, inside or outside stems and branches, means Wood influence has the strongest party. Its favorable and unfavorable conditions have already been discussed in the earlier Five Phases section.
Hold to the Useful Spirit and Examine Its Likes and Aversions Closely
The note says: Hold exclusively to one Useful Spirit as senior, authority, command, capacity, and support. This is no small matter. Hold to it in making deductions, without venturing freely beyond it. Useful Spirit may be Wealth, Office, Blade, Killing, Food, Nobleman, Seal, Emolument, Horse, or the like; take each by its category and examples, with no originally fixed method. It most avoids injury and offense and also fears division and theft. Excess and deficiency are both unsuitable. An excessive thing is already unfavorable; if annual influence or progression further generates and supports it, it overturns and is ruined. Wood breaks, Water spills, Earth collapses, Fire flares and is extinguished, and Metal fractures and is damaged. A deficient thing is already unfavorable; if annual influence or progression further restrains and steals from it, it is entirely ruined: could this bring only a little calamity? The Useful Spirit's likes and aversions are most profound and subtle, separately detailed later. Balance must be obtained for distinction.
Exhaust Each Influence's Principles; At Each Thing's Limit, Turn the Pivot
The note says: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth each have Yin and Yang, together making ten kinds of increase and decline. Examine each one's decline and flourishing, lightness and weight, brightness and obscurity, breadth and narrowness. At exhaustion, investigate the principle to its end: which spirit does it generate, restrain, punish, or combine with? What affairs belong to the thing ruined or the thing generated? Follow the inference from thing to thing, always finding reliance and a place of settlement. At the point where nothing further can be done lies the turning pivot: which configuration or style does it enter? A turn at the limit establishes achievement. Penetrate it flexibly and fully, but reach a definite conclusion about whether it becomes a useful vessel.
Influence Makes a Matter Urgent; Affinity Makes It Crucial
The note says: Having influence means being in season. Examine manifest and hidden, inner and outer stems and branches among the eight characters. At the Major Heat seasonal node, the central influence of the sixth month, Earth and Metal flourish and assist, thus having influence. This is most urgent; other cases are not. Having affinity means combining influence, such as Jia seeing Ji, Bing seeing Xin, and Ding seeing Ren. All manifest or hidden combinations within stems and branches are taken as most crucial. Another explanation says affinity is not limited to combination: an auspicious spirit generating or restraining me also has affinity. Empty arching of noble influence generating, restraining, punishing, or combining with me is no different.
The year stem governs; next examine month and hour. The hour is a balance, adding and subtracting the smallest amounts.
The note says: Examine which branch the year stem rides and how it governs with me; this is crucial. Lead it also into an influential, noble place so that the substance and configuration become great. Examine which auspicious or harmful spirit the Useful Spirit constitutes as annual ruler. If Useful Spirit and annual ruler are harmonious and complete, distinction is certain. Next examine the relations of the month and hour stems. Do not dismiss them as remote or slow, with no involvement. The pillars' images, numbers, transformations, Five Influences' truth or falsity, and auspicious or harmful spirits should all be led back to the hour seat. Distinguish weight closely and compare even the smallest amounts. It further says: Grand Duke is the year's leader and ruler of all spirits, with utmost use. Xu Ziping's making the day master and taking Wealth and Office exclusively has caused many later readers to misunderstand the meaning. Thus year is like the scale hook holding up the thing; month like the scale's suspension lifting its governing cord; day like the beam, whose marked ounces are exact; hour like the weight, adding and subtracting heaviness. The analogy is truly apt.
Following combination remains important; remote combination is not idle.
The note says: Following combination is like vigorous Bingwu, immediately implying the two characters Xinwei, as a shadow follows a form. Examine whether Xinwei is a benefactor or enemy to our own household. Remote combination means spirits hidden in one branch combining with influence hidden in another, such as Shen and Mao, Zi and Si, Hai and Wu. Their categories of influence combine remotely, so their implications cannot be set aside.
Translator's note: The source's criticism of later readers of Ziping is part of the text, not an added editorial conclusion. Noble influence arising through empty arching remains a technical expression.
The Overall Structure Must Have Breadth
The note says: Examine the eight characters' atmosphere, scale, substance, and force: open and broad, Heaven and Earth balanced, vigorous and substantial. The Five Influences restraining in the following direction should have force; reverse generation and contrary transformation should accomplish something. Noble influence coming and going without mixture must form an exceptional pattern. Also consider the overall substance of the eight characters. Excessive clarity may be cold or thin; excessive thickness turbid or stagnant; excessive splendor light or floating; excessive freedom wandering or dissipated; excessive affinity indiscriminate or lustful; excessive solitary rectitude isolated and unable to accommodate things; excessive bravery violent or impatient, lacking cultivation; excessive yielding weakness foolish or slow, accomplishing nothing; excessive insistence on substance confined and aware only of self; excessive openness broad in plans but refined without fruit.
Distinguish What Comes Before and After Among the Characters
The note says: A crucially needed character may be far behind, with another character or idle spirit taking precedence and separating it. If it suffers no injury, annual influence and progression must generate and support it for complete excellence. A crucially needed character may be near and first, yet an idle character far behind stirs forcefully and obstructs the Useful Spirit's character. Then examine what within the pillars can eliminate and remove that obstruction.
For Heavenly Stems, Discuss Generation, Restraint, Control, and Transformation
The note says: Generation means mutual generation, but there is a principle whereby generation is not desired. Restraint means mutual restraint, but there is a circumstance whereby restraint is not desired. Control is like Water restraining Fire with Earth controlling that Killing, allowing Fire to revive. Transformation is like Water originally restraining Fire, then Wood appearing to steal its influence so that Fire instead receives generation. Infer all other cases similarly.
For Earthly Branches, Take Punishment, Clash, Breaking, and Harm
The note says: Punishment may draw something out, as with a Chou day and Xu hour, or bring it home, as with a Si day and Yin hour. Harmful things should be punished away; good things are welcomed when punishment brings them back. For clash, an auspicious image should clash with a harmful image; noble influence should clash toward our household. Breaking generally destroys a thing, with auspicious and harmful cases within it. Mao breaking Wu, for example, is Yi restraining the Earth of Wu's household, written with an Yi-shaped graph, which suffers breaking. If the source's Si-designated Earth is Killing, with force in its ground, its harm is certain once revealed through annual influence or progression. Even unrevealed, it is like sleeping while embracing a tiger. Further examine whether You has influence and can command and subdue it. If the source's Si-designated influence is noble, manifest, powerful, and forceful, breaking can likewise make it arrive as a blessing. Harm means the Six Harms: if an avoided spirit or harmful Killing comes to restrain or steal, it truly constitutes hostile injury.
Translator's note: The Earth and noble-influence examples contain irregular Yi/Si-shaped graphs. They are identified rather than silently standardized into a single stem, since that would change the supplied rule.
An Image Forms One Household: Do Not Cling to Noble Influence
The note says: Why can someone whose eight characters entirely lack noble influence such as Wealth and Office nevertheless develop wealth and distinction peacefully? Because mutually generating influences establish an image of themselves. Generating vitality flows without limit, lofty, far-reaching, firm, and substantial. Pair original image with original, such as Jia, Yi, Bing, and Ding; transformed image with transformed, such as Wu-Gui and Ding-Ren. Wood and Fire, Fire and Earth, Earth and Metal, Metal and Water, or Water and Wood form images. Three images following in sequence use the same method, such as Fire, Earth, and Metal. Four images generating harmoniously do likewise, such as Water, Wood, Fire, and Earth.
One Influence at the Root Generates Things to Fullness
The note says: Suppose Metal influence occupies the season's sequence of established flourishing, with neither restraint nor theft. Its influence proceeds entirely to generate its child, Water Spirit. Water then emerges in the stems or floods the branches. Excessive things are inauspicious: how much Fire and Earth can still be relied upon to contain them? Infer the rest similarly. The principle of creation's fullness and deficiency then has clear grounds and cannot fail.
Eight Methods Are the Key; Five Influences the Starting Point
The note says: The Eight Methods were discussed earlier. The Five Influences differ in gathering and scattering, completeness and deficiency, substance and emptiness, depth and shallowness, opposition and crossing, narrowness and breadth, lightness and weight, thickness and thinness, cold and harmony. Stems and branches both having force, restraining things into their proper nests, with vigorous spirit, is Gathering. It favors auspicious spirits, avoids harmful Killings, and still needs assistance. Clash without accord and punishment without return is Scattering: harmful Killings suit it, auspicious spirits are avoided. All Five Phases present in sequence make Complete Influence; one missing, awaiting annual influence or progression to supply it, makes Deficient Influence. Substance is like Jiaxu seeing Bingyin, with combination and generation confined to one image and one region. Without stirring and uplifting influence in the pillars, this produces merely a wealthy old man: substance without function. Even if distinguished, the person occupies a post without contributing. If Earth influence is excessively heavy in the pillars, a little Office arriving brings distinction; infer the rest similarly. Emptiness is like Earth entering You and Yin, Wood approaching Yisi, Metal reaching Chen and Hai, Water heading toward Mao and Xu, Fire dwelling at Chou and Shen: influence is empty and cannot be firm. Infer the rest similarly. Deep influence is like Wood's original or transformed image near the Clear and Bright seasonal node; shallow influence is like that image just reaching Rain Water. Opposing influence is like Xinyou seeing Yimao, generally very harmful. Seeing Jiwei or Jichou instead supplies reliance and reverses it to good fortune. Without reliance, examine host and guest strength: a weak host makes a Ghost image, a weak guest a Wealth image. Crossing is like Dingsi seeing Xinhai, Bingxu seeing Jichou, or Gengchen seeing Guiwei; distinguish which influence flourishes before speaking. Narrowness confines the Useful Spirit's affinity to one or two branch spirits. Though places of Birth, Flourishing, guidance, and use exist, their influence cannot arrive. Breadth allows that influence to arrive at its places of guidance and use, with vigor still at its generating source and access to Threefold or Sixfold Combination influence. Lightness is like Wood's original or transformed image entering Metal's region out of season. Weight is like a Wood image meeting Yin and Mao, its own original-image branches. Thinness is like a Wood image meeting its own Death and Extinction out of season. Thickness is like a Wood image meeting Storehouse, Tomb, or Long Life, obtaining the season or another stem's aid. Cold is like withered Wood, scattered Fire, chilly Metal, cold Water, frozen Earth, stems at Rest and Confinement, and branches at Death and Extinction. Harmony has combination, generation, affinity, assistance, Assuming Office, and Imperial Flourishing, without Rest, Abandonment, Death, or Extinction; or a flourishing and assisting spirit helps, or seasonal influence is obtained. Some influence is full and abundant beforehand or afterward, yet the thing lacks reliance or containment and soon overturns. Some influence is deficient and declining, with an insubstantial root, out of season, insufficient, and without generating support: such abandoned things are beyond description. Some influence has long declined without the season and further approaches Death and Failure, yet hidden stems generate it and lead it back toward Birth and Flourishing. Some influence flourishes but cannot last: at first its force develops and flows freely, but at the end it gathers and returns to hiding with no reliance at its destination. It disperses easily; abundant intent lacks a source, renewed generation, and continuation of momentum. Some influence is tender and easily crushed: everyone calls the arriving influence flourishing and assisting, yet stubborn, thick influence restraining or stealing it within brings indescribable harm. Some influence is past yet enduring: a far-passed season is called Rest and Abandonment, and completed achievement is said to retreat, yet residual influence can suddenly be supplied and stirred from a flourishing place. Vitality returns to substance and endures seasonal cold better. The residual influence, though resting and abandoned, has separately transformed into another image.
To Form Things, Trace Their Original Substance
The note says: In the east, Yang disperses by release, producing Wind; Wind generates Wood. In the west, Yin stops by gathering, producing Dryness; Dryness generates Metal. In the south, Yang reaches its extreme and produces Heat; Heat generates Fire. In the north, Yin reaches its extreme and produces Cold; Cold generates Water. At the center Yin and Yang interact and produce Dampness; Dampness generates Earth. The Five Phases' substantial images and their sources have already been discussed earlier.
A Complete Vessel Emerges from Its Foundations
The note says: A formed image is a Complete Vessel. Noble influence returning to one is also a Complete Vessel. The close relatives likewise arriving at one has what I generate as child, such as Bing and Xin seeing Wood. Another explanation takes what the wife generates as child; the two meanings are selected flexibly and each has its rationale. What generates me is mother; what combines with me wife. Their things and images are complete together; what the close relatives generate arrives at one and forms completeness. If an image forms in progression, its intention must already have been present in the foundations. Wood and Fire, for example, are not necessarily balanced; each has weight or lightness. With heavy Wood and light Fire, Fire stems or branches in progression complete the true image. Only if the original four branches carried Fire's Assuming Office, Imperial Flourishing, Long Life, Storehouse, Tomb, or similar characters is the vessel complete. Otherwise it is not true, substantial, complete, or correct: seemingly right but actually wrong. Infer the rest from this meaning.
Search and Inspect the Methods: Each Carries Good or Ill
The note says: Across the eight stem-and-branch characters of hour and day, month and year, search vertically and horizontally, coming and going, linking and combining, and taking one another for use. Leave not the smallest point unilluminated. The four stems riding the four branches each occupy Nobility or Killing; or the year stem takes distinction from the month or hour branch; or year stem takes day branch, day stem month branch, month stem year branch, finding Nobility or Killing. Or the two year-and-month branches and the two hour-and-day branches themselves take noble influence from stem spirits. Searching this way should prevent mistakes.
Bring Things into View Before Distinguishing Their Weight
The note says: First examine the four branches, bringing out the stem influences hidden in each, one by one. Closely infer which has many allies or little force, which flourishes or weakens, which is light or heavy. Only then can one understand the Useful Spirit's auspicious and harmful principles. Without bringing each out, the outline remains obscured and selection is hard to judge.
Glory that readily withers brings only temporary advancement; distinction without display forms a thing that endures seasonal cold.
The note says: Brittle, empty, floating, tender influence in regions of Rest, Abandonment, Failure, or Extinction may receive stems and branches' flanking support, combine temporarily, and develop for a moment. If annual influence or progression injures the assisting spirit or weighs upon its lack of influence, failure is easy and endurance impossible. But when a thing is not displayed, Useful Spirit has influence, combining spirits form an image and ride one another, and the whole progression route has no breaking, it endures for a long time. Annual rulers' yearly mixtures are then only floating clouds obscuring the sun or tree shadows crossing shade. Thus revealing a stem is not essential: influence hidden within a branch and receiving generation can instead reach farther and greater results.
Exchanging the embryo and changing the bones arises naturally; abandoning the root to chase the tip was never the true meaning.
The note says: If the original image has Wealth, Office, or Noble Spirit, with another position accessing influence and transformation, image, or category, the guidance and use become clear and should ride a blessed place. This is not forced action; categories of influence respond and must reach a result. Suppose true transformation is intended, such as Ding and Ren transforming into Wood, but jealous combination and contention leave it incomplete. If progression suddenly supports the original image and gives it substance, riding that original image's Wealth, Office, or other distinction is described as abandoning the original image's truth to pursue influence at its final extremity.
A great vessel's nourishing foundation naturally suppresses evil and raises good.
The note says: If substance and configuration are great, their source weighty, Useful Spirit exclusive, and Nobleman, Virtue, and Refinement also present, even Great Depletion, Original Influence, Blade, Killing, and the like, acting harmfully, instead help its authority. This is what suppressing evil and raising good means.
Translator's note: The exchange-of-embryo explanation is compressed and its final evaluation is not harmonized with the preceding contrast. The foundation heading uses an unusual cultivation-related graph; it is rendered descriptively rather than replaced with a different technical term.
A Thinly Endowed Structure Harms Things and Injures People
The note says: If year and day positions have empty, thin force without concentration, auspicious and harmful spirits manipulate them. They drift with influence, their vitality serving others, without settled judgment of their own. Usually harmful Killing images, including Blade, Killing, Death, Robbery, Metal Blade, and White Tiger, act within them, unlike pure, substantial Virtue and Refinement. Even if building an enterprise or undertaking occasionally succeeds, how could it avoid harming things and injuring people?
Nobleman, Emolument, and Horse Intertwine; Hook, Entanglement, Origin, and Death Take Many Forms
The note says: Noble influence should not be confused and numerous. Using Wealth, use only Wealth; using Office, only Office. Emolument, Horse, Nobleman, Food Spirit, Seal, and the like should provide one item. Two noble influences should assist one another, as Wealth aided by Office, Office and Seal supporting in sequence, or Emolument and Horse proceeding together. Three or four flood outward without gathering. Another statement says one noble influence needs Nobleman and a Virtue spirit's aid for great distinction. Hook, Entanglement, Robbing Killing, Original Influence, and Death Spirit help the Body exercise authority if noble influence is heavy, but wreak severe harm if harmful Killing is heavy. Another account says these Killings' many forms particularly need careful assessment.
Auspicious spirits are supported by Heavenly and Monthly influences; harmful Killings entering void require appraisal.
The note says: Noble Spirits, Emolument, and Horse are all auspicious; Heavenly and Monthly Virtues make them especially favorable. Hook, Entanglement, Origin, and Death are all harmful Killings; entering void reduces them by half. Stated reciprocally, auspicious spirits dislike void and harmful Killings also need the Two Virtues. An old note says: Even if auspicious noble influence is clear, returns to one, has no turbidity, or enters another subtly inferred configuration, absence of assistance from Heavenly and Monthly Virtues, Heavenly and Monthly Combinations, Monthly Void, Heavenly Pardon, and the like reduces its measure and leaves blessings incomplete. Determine void from the birth day's ten-day cycle: in the Jiazi cycle, Xu and Hai are void. Void has three spirits: the stem spirits hidden after the cycle, such as Jia and Yi in the Jiachen cycle; the stem spirits reached by escape after the cycle, given as Geng and Xin for Bingwu in the Jiachen-cycle example; and Road-Cutting Void, whose addition is more urgent, such as a Jia or printed Si-shaped day at a Shen or You hour. Harmful spirits should sit in void; auspicious ones fear it. Another account says Metal and Fire suit void, while Wood, Earth, and Water avoid it. Another says Water also favors void. Another says: Harmful Killings combined in the pillars disperse of themselves on encountering danger if Virtue spirits are present, preventing unnatural death. Their presence in day and hour is especially urgent.
With perfectly complete noble influence, still examine lurking Calamity Stars; in an entire configuration of harmful spirits, recognize hidden blessings. The note says: Even with noble influence fully complete and unbroken from beginning to end, could no Calamity Spirit hide within it? Harmful Killing spirits coming and going in confusion may yet contain one deeply hidden Blessed Spirit, whether through empty flanking, remote combination, punishment drawing it out, or clash bringing it home. This too is a crucial intentional point. Do not simply judge the entire chart harmful. Wait to see which progression raises the configuration's blessings, making it favorable, or raises Calamity Star to break distinction and ruin what is used, making it harmful.
When style is severe, configuration solitary, momentum exhausted, and force spent, principle calls for flexible change.
The note says: Investigate the day stem and Useful Spirit and search manifest and hidden creation, auspicious and harmful spirits, and concealed and revealed places. The substance may be solitary and severe without influence fully exhausted, yet difficult to use. At this utmost turning pivot, exhaustion brings change and change opens passage. Which influence does progression welcome, what vitality restores the whole course, and what source of affinity begins to develop? Their meanings are limitless.
Influence and things are overfull; progression joins and the year clashes. How can the Body Master stay calm?
The note says: To observe the general meaning, influence may be full or flowing. Examining subtle principles, what is abundant and extreme already shows signs of not enduring. Annual influence and progression suppress it into decline or raise it into flooding. If they further clash with or join this Body's master, there is no principle allowing undisturbed calm.
Year, month, day, and hour stems and branches have sequence; sovereign, minister, guest, and host form an ordered court.
The note says: The month stem should follow the year stem, the hour stem the day stem; a circulating sequence is even more remarkable. Year is sovereign, day master, month and hour guests or ministers assisting noble influence. Like the preceding method, they have sequence, attend to governing principles, support order, and establish proper dignity. Another statement says Yang desires cautious independence, Yin following a group. Still examine where Nobility and Killing are added.
Translator's note: The three void formulas are compressed and contain irregular stem references. Their wording and the alternative Water-and-void statements are retained without deriving an additional formula or resolving them into one rule.
The Day Master Favors the Preceding Stem and Should Dislike the Following Position
The note says: The preceding stem means, for example, a Jia day seeing Gui. It has three benefits: combining Wu Wealth to supply me; skillfully nurturing and developing me; and transforming its image to generate me. But its already-past influence is somewhat slow. The following position means, for example, Jia seeing Yi. It has four injuries: robbing wife and Wealth to empty me; combining Killing to damage me; transforming its image to drain my influence; and blocking the road ahead as Blade to harm me.
Influence Ahead of the Branch Spirit; The Palace Behind It
The note says: Many earthly branches welcoming influence ahead make a person open and upright in spirit throughout life. A Jiazi year or Zi day seeing Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, and the printed Yi-shaped position is an example. Branches in the palace behind indicate regret and obstruction in affairs, setbacks, and many advances and retreats. A Jiazi year or Zi day seeing Hai, Xu, Shen, and Wei is an example. Infer the rest similarly.
Translator's note: The forward list ends with an Yi-shaped graph rather than an unambiguous branch; the backward list omits You. Neither has been silently completed or standardized.
The Annual Ruler Cast Off Alone; The Day Master Isolated and Empty
The note says: Month, day, and hour stems and branches may link, form a party, flourish, combine, form one image, or transform into one influence, while Grand Duke alone occupies another position, seemingly distant and estranged. This must bring departure from ancestors and lineage, separate establishment, or sometimes secondary-wife birth or adoption, with poverty and solitude. If year, month, and hour act as above while the day master alone occupies a solitary place, without combination or generation, separately placed at a deficient, sunken point, the person either lives together under separate or different family ties, begs for adoption and dependent support, or becomes a resident son-in-law and establishes elsewhere.
Parties Combine or Contend: Wife and Wealth Have Two Meanings
The note says: If Earth has many allies in the pillars but Wood flourishes in the season, consider how suppression and promotion should be used. Do not immediately treat them as two hostile parties competing. If Earth is substantial and thick, Wood has influence and emerges, and branch sounds have neither punishment, harm, clash, nor restraint, Earth can cultivate refined Wood into a forest: an even more remarkable use. What combines with me is wife; what I restrain is Wealth. People merely taking what I restrain as both wife and Wealth are mistaken and imprecise. Examine further how the transformed image works.
Useful Spirit is one character, yet noble influence returns repeatedly. The image wants brightness; injured influence grows slack and scattered.
The note says: Some pillars use only one character throughout life, termed Not Following a Configuration in the supplied wording. Characters combine or scatter, each forming its own party, while beneath the day one character hangs separately, without reliance or support; hence it is used. A single Useful Spirit used with concentrated, rigorous vitality is finest. Once Office Star is used, another Office Star and repeated Establishing Emolument, or once Wealth is used, additional Food Spirit and Nobleman, all make layered noble influence: seedlings fail to flower and flowers to fruit. A vigorous Useful Spirit forming an image, with concentrated intent and manifest force, not empty or contrary to day and night, as Earth, Wood, and Water born by day or Metal people by night, must give exceptional fame and gain. But if stems and branches disregard me, Useful Spirit does not combine, the star master is solitary and empty, punishment, clash, restraint, and harm turn away, and theft of influence grows, the image lacks aid and repeatedly meets Rest and Abandonment: a configuration establishing and accomplishing nothing, unworthy of discussion.
What I generate or restrain lets affinity retreat; what restrains or generates me makes influence return.
The note says: What I generate or restrain naturally retreats and disperses in meaning. Others generating or restraining me both bring influence inward: branch generation and restraint entering. With auspicious spirits this is supremely fine.
Translator's note: The Not Following a Configuration phrase and the compressed branch-sound wording are rendered as supplied. Wife and Wealth are distinguished according to this passage's own rule.
Generation and Restraint Come and Go: Which Support the Master?
The note says: Within the pillars, a combination into emptiness may contain an assisting spirit, a solid combination a destructive one. Generation may have control, restraint support, and coming, going, advancing, and retreating differ. An error of the smallest amount can lead a thousand miles astray. Recognizing which spirit combines with and assists the master is therefore the most crucial and urgent task.
When Good and Evil Are Entangled, the Hour Distinguishes Many from Few
The note says: Good and evil positions may both be numerous, crossed, or mixed. Examine at the hour seat whether the many gather in rest or flourishing and whether the few do so. Many harmful influences amass misfortune and Killing; many good influences assemble auspiciousness and blessings. Few good influences have timid force and few blessings, with only some hope. Another account says: Year and hour reciprocally seeing Nobleman, with Birth and Flourishing harmonious with the day, is supremely fine.
Generated and Generated Again: Upon What Does Reliance Complete Itself?
The note says: Bing-and-Xin people seeing Wushen progression, then a Gengshen year, gain renewed reliance and generation. Ren Water's vitality comes of itself; moreover Bing and Xin transform into Water, hence obtaining generation. This answers what completes the reliance.
Transforming and transforming again: to what place does the boundless influence return?
The note says: Ding and Ren transform into Wood, with Yin, Mao, Hai, and Wei as their ground and additional Water and Wood spirits assisting. How can such burgeoning, stubbornly nurtured Wood use still more Water's nourishment? Boundless influence lacks reliance. Examine progression's guidance: only containment, command, and restraint can make blessings. Meeting further generation sends everything into unbounded diffusion and prevents establishment.
The Five Images ride one another, bringing auspiciousness or obstruction; the Five Influences fight, bringing injury or vigorous advancement. The note says: Auspiciousness means Wood-Fire, Fire-Earth, Earth-Metal, Metal-Water, or Water-Wood images obtaining time, position, and authority. Time means Heaven's season; position Birth or Flourishing, or riding Establishing Emolument and the like; authority riding Wealth, Office, Nobleman, and the like, as someone with authority, force, and office. Obstruction reverses these three: noble influence beneath the seat may ride a noble place, yet branches punish, clash, restrain, and harm. Fighting means equal substance and balanced force: one thing relies on season, another many allies; one obtains ground, another authority. Examples are Water fighting Fire or Earth fighting Water, or conflict among Water, Fire, Earth, and Wood. Injury means Useful Spirit restrained, master stem harmed, Wealth and Emolument injured, or Office restrained. Or one thing has allies and completes transformation, then a restraining spirit ruins it, as Bing and Xin transforming into Water suddenly see Earth restrain it. Vigorous advancement means thing and self at peace, guest and host harmonious: I ride flourishing influence and challenge it; it obtains ground and welcomes me. My strong force drives the opponent away; it has influence and comes to attend me.
For Wealth and Office to Reach True Subtlety, Understand Transformed Influence
The note says: Bing and Xin seeing Wu-Gui as Wealth and Jia with the printed Si-shaped stem as Office constitute true creation, with indescribably refined influence. Infer all others similarly.
Translator's note: The second pairing contains an irregular Si-shaped graph. It is identified without silently substituting Ji, although Earth is the transformation implied in the following passage.
For Wealth and Office to Form a Refined Image, Rely on the Configuration Spirit
The note says: Bing and Xin seeing Wu-Gui as Wealth must obtain a Fire configuration; Jia with the printed Yi-shaped stem as Office must obtain an Earth configuration. Only then is the vessel complete, incomparably clear and pure. Infer the rest similarly.
Translator's note: The second pairing uses an Yi-shaped graph in the supplied source. Its explicit Earth-configuration requirement is translated without replacing that graph with an assumed stem.
Mixed Influence of Wealth and Office Is a Storehouse When Auspicious, a Tomb When Harmful
The note says: Wealth and Office influence evenly balanced, with arching and further noble influence above, is auspicious and a Storehouse. Three items of mixed influence are in the Storehouse. If flourishing and assisting, noble, and beneficial to me, they are fine. But Office transforming into Ghost and entering the Tomb, or Wealth Spirit resting and confined and entering the Tomb, is harmful and no Storehouse. Even an auspicious spirit entering storage is no Storehouse if it carries Rest and Abandonment, comes to punish, and further restrains me.
Clashing Spirits, Good or Evil: Restraint Enters, Generation Opens Passage
The note says: Noble influence coming to clash through the earthly branches cannot immediately be called favorable, nor a harmful spirit immediately unfavorable. Stem and branch must restrain together for good or ill to enter through restraint. Or one generates while another restrains, one harmonizes while another controls: transformation and passage lie within these relations.
The upper generating the lower drains influence and causes concern: child flourishing, mother declining. Three steal from one generator; Useful Spirit instead favors child declining, mother flourishing.
The note says: The upper generating the lower first means a stem generating its branch and branch its Nayin. Second, year generates month, month day, day hour. Third, the recipient is child, but may be an idle spirit. Wood generating Fire in summer is precisely child flourishing and mother declining; infer the rest similarly. Three stealing from one generator is like Metal generating three or four Waters: the mother produces many children and must become empty. It therefore favors a declining child with mother in a flourishing region. Wood generating Fire at Hai is child declining and mother flourishing. Infer the rest similarly.
A Call Ahead Has an Answer Behind: Generation Continues, Restraint Orders
The note says: This configuration has a branch position and a stem, substance and function, root and tip, call and response: difficult indeed. Generation continues without extinction, winding with affinity. Restraint cuts, shapes, forges, refines, brings completion, builds embankments, and opens channels: crucial ordering in the making of things. To confine such a configuration to petty details of generation and restraint prevents penetrating the original mechanism.
Enclosing Left and Supporting Right: Gathering Returns, Scattering Empties
The note says: A stem or branch standing upright within the pillars generally has an implication of support from left and right: enclosure, return, diffusion, or withdrawal. Compare light and heavy, gains and losses, additions and reductions according to what is fitting. Do not pursue the small and abandon the great, or leave the root to chase the tip.
Nothing can be taken from the configuration spirit; an idle influence arrives, clear and cold in one stream.
The note says: Taking the day master's Wealth, Office, Useful Spirit, or the like may yield mixture, turbidity, complexity, confusion, no decisive superiority, or no control, leaving no distinction between better and worse. Suddenly an idle stem, neither master nor Useful Spirit, finds sources on both sides and can ride a noble influence. Determine its relation to the day master and what Advancing Spirit it is, distinguishing its use. Form an image from emptiness, perhaps combining Office or Wealth, and take a completed configuration with crucial use. At first idle and useless, later the idle spirit reaches its time, becomes a complete vessel, and finds opportunity and use. This is what is meant by nothing under Heaven being discarded: how much more so in creation?
When Office Influence Is Mixed, the Subtlety Lies in Pairing Each Branch
The note says: This belongs with the Repeated Wondrous Forms configuration. When Office and Killing are confused, one has a mate and another remains unattached. Annual influence and progression must pair the unattached one for a favorable result. It is also fine if Office and Killing each find combination or restraint within the pillars. Excess and deficiency still require assessment: a most crucial matter. Two Offices and one Killing, or two Killings and one Office, belong here. Earth as day master, with Jia and Yi emerging as Office and Killing, and Shen or You, or Chen or Si, in the branches, exemplifies the combining or restraining relations.
Reciprocal exchange has intent: examine whom it supports. Arching and flanking may be true, but guard against harmful exposure.
The note says: Intentional reciprocal exchange is like Bingwu seeing Renzi, each having reliance. Bing uses Gui Office; Ren uses Ding Wealth and the printed Yi-shaped Office. Examine which the other spirits most urgently support and which is less urgent. True arching and flanking is like a Yi person meeting Guiwei and Yiyou, clearly flanking Jiashen: its True Office noble influence is certain. But if another spirit hides Fire, and annual influence or progression brings Fire, Geng, or filling of that position, calamity is beyond description.
Combination raises manifest force: do not treat it as ordinary. Drained, abandoned vitality may instead receive timely rain.
The note says: With combining heavenly stems, the branches' good and ill are essential. Forceful branches naturally make it exceptional. With combining earthly branches, examine the force of the stems they carry: greater weight gives greater vitality. Another account says upper and lower combining together gives True Combining Killing, such as Jihai seeing Jiayin, and also Combining Killing, such as Jiazi seeing Jichou. Another says Killing Spirit avoids combination and favors clash, punishment, breaking, and harm. If either stem or branch spirit has idle intrusion, annual influence and progression combining it give a hundredfold vitality. Another says Emolument and Horse favor Sixfold Combination and avoid punishment and breaking. Thus manifest force from combination in the pillars is no ordinary matter. Drained, abandoned vitality is the essence of what I generate or restrain, originally dispersing my influence. If added to the Useful Spirit in the hour, it restrains and commands what is harmful, then turns back to generate and assist master and root: the subtlety of restoring vitality.
Groups divide with the day master proceeding exclusively: day positions must occupy places of good or ill.
The note says: Auspicious spirits are Wealth Origin, Office Nobility, Seal, Food Spirit, Day Virtue, Monthly Virtue, Day Emolument, Nobleman, Virtue Spirit, Heavenly and Monthly Virtue Combinations, Heavenly Pardon, Monthly Void, Hour Emolument, Hour Image, Wondrous Treasure, and Academy. Harmful spirits are Metal Spirit, Yang Blade, Seven Killing, Void, Six Harms, Solitude and Widowhood, Separated Corners, Three Punishments, Clashing Spirit, Death Spirit, Death and Extinction, and Hook and Entanglement. One account places these in the year; Death Spirit and Original Influence are discussed as above.
Categories gather with the year spirit leading what is used: Grand Duke participates in auspicious and harmful residence palaces.
The note says: Auspicious spirits are Establishing Emolument, Post Horse, Residence Spirit, Heavenly Physician, Blessed Virtue, Palace Gate, Advancing Spirit, Birth and Flourishing positions, Canopy, and Three Wonders. Harmful Killings are Shattering Killing, Target Killing, Salty Pool, Bathing, Death and Robbery, White Tiger, Yang Blade, Flying Blade, Breaking Residence, Great Depletion, Hook and Entanglement, Mourning Gate and Mourning Guest, Official Talisman, Illness Talisman, and Death and Extinction.
Translator's note: The Ren example prints an Yi-shaped Office graph; it is retained explicitly. The two spirit lists and alternative placement statement are supplied classifications, not additional formulas reconstructed from their names.
Assessing the Hour Seat Involves Five Necessary Principles
The note says: First, harmful influence at the hour, such as Death, Robbery, Blade, Killing, Void, Original Influence, Solitude, Widowhood, Death, Failure, Metal Spirit, and White Tiger, may gather and turn back toward the day with punishment, clash, restraint, and offense: inauspicious. Noble influence gathering there is auspicious. Second, draw the noble influence of year, month, and day and the Three Origins' Blessed and Emolument Spirits inward, distinguishing weight precisely. What arrives securely, what cannot remain, and can the self carry it, like a boat, cart, or house? Another statement says the hour's household lies in year, month, and day: examine mutual reliance and response. Another treats the hour seat alone as the basis of judgment. I have not dared do so; the subtle principles distinguishing good and ill must agree, grasping creation precisely. One of year, month, and day harmonizing with the hour gives an ordinary result; two give a little wealth and distinction; all three give great, ready-made wealth and distinction. The day is urgent, year shallow, month slow. Third, matters in the hour such as restraint, breaking, clash, harm, harmonious assistance, linking and drawing, Void, Death, and Failure provide the essential summary. A Gengyin hour taking Yihai for use, for example: can flourishing and assisting generation and support obtain influence and ground as reliance? Compare annual influence and progression to assess the causes of auspicious or harmful development and abandonment. Fourth, the hour wants flourishing, assisting influence, not Rest, Confinement, or lack of affinity. It also has initial, middle, and final phases: Yin hour's beginning belongs to Earth, middle Fire, end Wood. Fifth, the hour clashing and punishing is crucial: what it carries is not secure. These Five Urgencies of the hour seat are the most essential principles. The birth day and position are shared by people across the world as a general outline of creation. Only the hour's subdivision must not err by the smallest amount; uncertainty requires a standard. At the exchange of hours, the sun's course may already place it in the first subdivision of Wei while the bronze water-clock arrow still marks the seventh or eighth of Wu. How much more uncertain is a nighttime birth in a remote mountain village?
Three Subtle Techniques in the Escape Method for Empty Positions
The note says: Emolument, Horse, Nobleman, and other auspicious influences, and Blade, Killing, Death, Failure, and other harmful ones, each have fixed positions. Use Five Tigers Escape to establish the original stems and branches, capable of administering their respective offices: the responses are especially effective. Another explanation refers to good and ill in the twelve palaces approached by Grand Duke. Escape only the year spirit's stem; auspicious places create blessings, harmful places calamity. Then use the day master to take Wealth, Office, and the like. Examine precisely which auspicious or harmful spirits are governed by the natal escape of the year and day stems, distinguishing weight. It is like a person's place of origin: to which lineage, source, and qualification does it belong?
Translator's note: The heading promises three techniques, but the supplied note does not clearly enumerate three. No absent procedure has been invented.
Where Useful Spirit Is Born or Flourishes, Guard Against Restraint
The note says: Using Water as Office, avoid Earth reaching Shen, Zi, and Chen; using Wood as Office, avoid Metal reaching Hai, Mao, and Wei. Li Xuzhong calls this injuring and breaking the Useful Spirit's household. I alone explain it as the Useful Spirit's place of development being injured first, leaving Useful Spirit nowhere to return.
Where an Avoided Spirit Holds Command and Flourishes, Punishment and Injury Are Welcomed
The note says: If Metal is used as Wealth, Fire is an avoided spirit. A restraining and controlling spirit above it is finest. Water is needed at Yin, Wu, Xu, Si, and similar places to diminish the avoided spirit's foundation and residence of development and use.
Useful Spirit's Ghost and Tomb bring calamity; its noble affinity stands tall in assistance.
The note says: Useful Spirit has its own Ghost and Tomb; when favorable they are called Office and Storehouse. If they carry harmful Killings to punish, restrain, clash, or steal, Useful Spirit avoids them and the day master especially does. Useful Spirit also has its own Wealth, Office, and noble influence, which are not the natal household's own Wealth and Office. Coming with following generation, support, and combination, they multiply vitality a hundredfold. Useful Spirit favors them, and the day master especially should see them.
Tomb and Extinction joined by Killing and Blade that punish reveal calamity in a harmful gathering. Void and Pardon leading Wealth and Office as substance gather Emolument and increase blessings.
The note says: Tomb, Extinction, Death, and Failure are extremely deficient. If Blade, Killing, Death, Robbery, Hook, Original Influence, and the like come to clash, punish, restrain, or steal from day master and Useful Spirit, calamity immediately invades. Monthly Void and Heavenly Pardon are supremely auspicious; the four spirits Heavenly and Monthly Virtues and Heavenly and Monthly Combinations are judged similarly, each administering its own office and affair. If they also lead Wealth, Office, or other distinction, it is finer still: glorious blessings gather broadly together.
A category may have Hurting Office's Tomb Spirit, especially harmful in the pillars; hidden Robbing Wealth's Storehouse Ghost makes the destiny most calamitous. The note says: Hurting Office has its own Tomb and Storehouse. For a Bing person, Earth is Hurting Office and Chen its own Tomb Spirit. Carrying harmful Killings to restrain, steal from, punish, or clash with day master and Useful Spirit is most urgently harmful influence. Robbing Wealth's Storehouse and Tomb is, for example, a Bing person's Xu position with Ding flourishing above it. Harmful Killings arriving to restrain, steal from, punish, or clash with Useful Spirit and day master are most calamitous.
Seal's generating region should receive nourishment; harmful spirits' Death places must be feared when they inflict punishment and injury.
The note says: Seal originally generates me. If Seal's own Birth and Flourishing places further see generating and combining spirits, blessings turn and turn in continuous succession for the self. But fullness can overflow: Fire emerges and Wood burns; Wood floats and Water floods; heavy Earth buries Metal; heavy Fire hollows Earth; flowing Water sinks Metal. Excess fullness overturns and excess abundance breaks. A harmful spirit already in its own Death and Extinction, further carrying harmful influence to restrain, steal from, punish, or clash with Useful Spirit and day master, leaves one in distress. If the upper palace at Death, Extinction, Tomb, or Failure acts harmfully to ruin things, judge by the preceding note.
Why should the branches fully reveal Useful Spirit's harmful and submerged places? At Nayin's Birth and Flourishing, Useful Spirit is calm and unafraid.
The note says: Useful Spirit's Failure, Extinction, harmful and sunken positions should not emerge in the pillars. They mostly make low, humble configurations: how could further harmful Killings be suitable? One or two positions may still be bearable, but annual influence or progression raising harmful sunken influence and gathering a Killing configuration brings submergence, ruin, regret, deprivation, and loss. Severely, one dies without a burial place; Void together with Killing is required before making that judgment. A destiny's Nayin in constant Birth and Flourishing, the Four Noble Places, naturally welcomes the month spirit arriving above, with no fear or aversion, peacefully at ease.
Fire and Earth's Source Losing Balance Easily Becomes a Dust-Obscured Image
The note says: If Fire and Earth do not obtain creation's balanced influence, they may be dry or cold, one-sided or withered, readily obscuring things. This makes a stagnant, dark, dim image, unable to shine forth: encountered, yet not completed.
Death-and-Failure Images May Have Allies: Do Not Let Them Injure Birth-and-Flourishing Spirits
The note says: A Death-and-Failure image with allies may instead punish, clash with, restrain, and steal from Birth-and-Flourishing spirits: a sign of great obstruction. A Water person seeing Wood of Mao's household, You Metal, Chen Earth, or Si Fire, for example, may have them offend and restrain the day master's Birth and Flourishing, the Useful Spirit's Birth and Flourishing, and the palace master. The harm is not small and should be examined closely.
The Five Influences Are Set Across East and West: Ground Can Nourish or Exhaust
The note says: Hai and Zi are Water; Yin and Mao Wood; Si and Wu Fire; Shen and You Metal; Chen, Xu, Chou, and Wei Earth. Metal reaching Hai and Zi leaks influence and is exhausted; Wood reaching Hai and Zi receives nourishment and cultivation. Infer the rest similarly: a most crucial matter.
One Position Gathers Hidden Nobility and Killing; Nayin Has Its Own Flourishing and Birth
The note says: If one position gathers Nobility and Long Life carries Killing in day and hour, Birth and Killing share a path. Another says Killing carrying Nobility and its own Long Life is useful. This is Nobility carrying Self-Birth, and also Nobility Hidden within Killing. Another says: The year stem and Nayin following Long Life with spirits and Killings into day and hour makes True Long Life, gathering year, month, day, and hour influence. It is also One Strong and Four Weak. Another says the four pillars need only one Long Life position concentrating its flourishing influence to gather and contain vitality.
Translator's note: The source gives alternative formulations rather than one consistent enumeration. Its One Strong and Four Weak label is retained without adding a fifth pillar.
Void Has Several Forms: More Than Missing Places in the Ten-Stem Cycle
The note says: This Killing is most crucial; examine weight, truth, and falsity carefully. A cycle's ten days divide the void's upper and lower jurisdictions. In the Jiazi cycle, the five Yang stems take Xu void as crucial, the five Yin stems Hai void. One influence distinguishes weight: Jiazi seeing Renxu is True Void; seeing Wuxu is light. Another says the position immediately above the shoulder is too heavy, as a Jia person seeing Gui or Yi seeing Jia: this is Ten Evils and Great Defeat. Later Emolument within a cycle meeting void includes Renshen in the Jiazi cycle and Gengchen in the Jiaxu cycle. Another form has Five Influences falling into void, such as Water and Earth in the Jiazi cycle, Metal in the Jiaxu cycle, and Fire and Earth in the Jiashen cycle.
Translator's note: The compact later-Emolument examples and shoulder-position label are retained as the supplied text's examples, without deriving an unprovided algorithm.
Office Nobility Supported and Suppressed: Balance and Nourish the Whole Progression Route
The note says: Office Star is one's noble influence and source of blessings, the first crucial matter; Wealth Spirit comes next. If support and suppression stand together without either winning, like Yin and Yang influence neither rising nor descending, balance their paired strength and weakness throughout progression to examine development and decline.
Killing visible and Office hidden entrust affinity; Office manifest and Killing concealed establish meaning.
The note says: Killing visible, with a manifest spirit controlling or combining it in balanced pairing, and Office hidden, without Seal and further concealed, indicates outward authority, planning, and strategy, with inward treachery and unusual schemes. Heavy Killing without command and an unfeeling Office spirit reverses this. Office manifest and Killing concealed gives an inwardly harsh, unfeeling nature but outward righteousness, harmony, and careful restraint. This is the general meaning; investigate each thing further to assess it.
Avoided Killing has concentrated influence while Useful Spirit's affinity is false; Useful Spirit's force is crucial while avoided Killing runs outside.
The note says: Avoided Killing with generation and support, or seated in Birth and Flourishing and assisted or combined with by the Six Spirits, has indescribably concentrated intent. Useful Spirit in the pillars may merely appear in empty generation or combination with false affinity and revealed form. Even if it has influence, falling into Heavenly Void leaves no ground despite flourishing: false affinity disperses force and cannot match concentrated influence. But Useful Spirit assisted and combined with, supported and generated, or concentrated at Birth and Flourishing with generating spirits, may have affinity or powerful force. Distinguish this clearly. Avoided Spirit and Killing Spirit may obstruct within the pillars, yet their force is one-sided, and annual influence and progression further restrain and steal it. Naturally they cannot remain in the pillars; influence disperses and runs outside.
Where Use Is Missing, Nayin Supplies Influence
The note says: Danao's method of making Nayin provides a useful instrument through intervals of eight. How could it simply be discarded? Deficient influence still needs Nayin's supplement: if Earth is missing and Nayin has Earth, it supplies the deficiency. Rest and Confinement make its effect somewhat slower.
Things May All Have Subtle Meaning, Yet the Body Cannot Bear Them
The note says: Noble influence may be numerous or heavy, but with no influence of one's own, how can it be borne? Following its category, pursuing its transformation, following its image, or responding to its influence falls outside this judgment. Another explanation says inability to bear it is like illness preventing eating or flowers failing to bear fruit.
Full, pleasing force develops flourishing at its time; empty, cold images spend their days in seclusion.
The note says: The eight characters' season, force, disposition, and substance may resemble a vigorous, full person with a warm and joyful appearance. With a little access to the proper time, they can aid and benefit things and develop brilliance; how much more with annual influence and progression's support? But a solitary, empty structure, cold and desolate atmosphere, further carrying Void, Rest, and Confinement, leaves intelligence, skill, talent, and courage nowhere to display: years and months pass idly.
Completed influence transforms and returns to honor; reciprocal spirits coming and going are both noble.
The note says: Transformation after completion is like Ren Water in the twelfth month, its influence originally residual and abandoned, with Wood-image stems and branches guiding transformation: supremely fine. Both sides noble in exchange is like Dingsi seeing Xinhai, or Gengyin and Jimao. Though branches clash and are discordant, each has idle spirits and noble influence coming and going. Infer the rest similarly.
Rest and Confinement further entering Void brings ill timing and retreat; Flourishing and Assistance with generation and combination gathers support and exercises authority. The note says: Resting, confined things are already unfavorable; entering Void not only misses the proper birth time, but makes affairs retreat and disperse even if the time is ridden. Five flourishing and assisting images reaching void may still be acceptable; flourishing Metal and Fire entering void are instead good. A flourishing and assisting spirit is already in season; generation or combination adds vitality, adaptability, and gathered blessings. One can carry out ambitions, and advancing or withdrawing both retain order.
Influence already past wants withdrawal and concealment, favoring Tomb and Extinction; things just arriving seek advance and originally favor Birth and Flourishing palaces.
The note says: Jia Wood in the third month has passed its influence and should withdraw and hide. Tomb and Extinction alone suit it, according naturally with the Way. Birth and Flourishing instead bring discord. Arriving generating and flourishing influence includes Jia Wood advancing in the twelfth month and Yi Wood in the first. What is about to advance should stand in Birth and Flourishing: the effects on calamity and blessing are especially crucial.
Rest and Confinement with use still develops slowly; Flourishing and Assistance without affinity acts harmfully most swiftly.
The note says: Useful Spirit may be noble and useful, generating and assisting me, or meeting Heavenly and Monthly Virtues or Heavenly Yi, yet without Heaven's seasonal flourishing and assistance its useful development is slow. Flourishing and assisting spirits in the pillars may have no intent toward me. With half auspicious and half harmful, annual influence and progression supporting only harmful Killing makes calamity most fierce and swift.
Advancing Spirit holding authority is most precise and fitting; Nayin carrying Nobility should restrain or generate.
The note says: Advancing Spirit carrying noble influence is finest in the pillars; drawing Killing inward is worst. Noble influence may be auspicious but its affinity not yet crucial. Nayin should come to restrain or generate me to give it intention and complete its noble beauty. Without Nayin generating or restraining, its Nobility is borne in vain and does not govern with me.
A flourishing spirit clashes out influence that emerges for use, yet withers; harmful Killing exercising authority within the natal cycle is urgent.
The note says: A Dingwei born in summer, for example, obtains its time and punishes Xin and Gui from within Chou into emergence in the pillars for use: blessings are thin, and calamity also light. Harmful Killing flourishing and assisting is originally harmful; within the same ten-day cycle as the day position, calamity is swift and extremely grave. Noble Spirit within the natal cycle is most auspicious and urgent.
Metal Spirit Gaining Force Is Most Harmful; Void Meeting Clash Must Develop
The note says: Metal Spirit is originally harmful. Without Fire's region restraining it, support elsewhere or flourishing and assisting influence gives it force. Its violence and hardness make the harm especially great. Void is sunken and useless, a discarded thing; meeting a clashing spirit must stir it into development and make it useful, such as empty Yin seeing Shen.
Blade joined by Origin and Death, with Metal filling the configuration, relies wholly on Fire Spirit; harmful Killing and Fire burning emptiness must depend on a Water image.
The note says: Metal is an image of killing living things. Metal influence filling the configuration, with harmful Killings inflicting punishment and restraint, means either I kill others or others stab me. Without Fire's control, this must be verified. A strong image of blazing Fire often meets fire disaster, especially when annual influence and progression accord with it. A Water image is needed to bring completion.
Wood and Earth entrust influence and await development; balanced restraint and clash leaves victory undecided.
The note says: Wood cannot be planted and nurtured without Earth; Earth cannot be opened and channeled without Wood. Wait for annual influence and progression to support what is deficient and illuminate its influence: it naturally grows firmer and reaches nourishment. Clash and restraint have victory and defeat. With force balanced, neither is determined; observe and assess their influence before judging.
For support and generation, examine the spirit that turns to nourish; for combat, clash, and contention, observe influence entirely ruined.
The note says: With generation and assistance flowing abundantly, examine where the spirit turning to nourish provides the foundation for substance and function; decide by its sign of good or ill. In combat, clash, and contention, influence entirely ruined makes a person retired, idle, and useless.
For Yin stems taking Blade, distinguish clearly; when branch force holds authority, guard against hidden offense. The note says: Branch force is also called Noble Force. Yin stems taking Blade include a Dingsi seeing Wei, or a Xin person seeing Xu as Blade. Branch force holding authority is like Wei being a Noble Spirit or having heavy force: it combines with Wu; Wu clashes with Zi, which comes to offend Wei. Strong, weighty Wei may also clash out the Gui and printed Si-shaped things within Chou.
A flourishing spirit stands upright: nothing should confront it. Harmful Killings fill the chart: the stem has nowhere to remain.
The note says: A stem occupying Heaven's most flourishing seasonal influence stands out and monopolizes authority without anything binding it. How dare the spirit it restrains emerge? Even concealed, it dares not administer affairs. If year stem and day stem meet an entire configuration of Killing, Blade, and other harmful influences, the stem master has nowhere to stay: surely inauspicious, with poverty, early death, and a dreadful end.
Ghost within Ghost leaves no course of action; clash meeting clash lacks reliance.
The note says: What restrains and harms me is Ghost. If Ghost itself meets another Ghost's harm, rolling injury and restraint bring extreme influence pressing upon me. Without further turning control, it is a sign of hastened death. A branch spirit clashed with makes the stem spirit's noble influence unstable. If the clashing spirit is itself clashed with, our household has no foundation of reliance. Image cannot stand and thing cannot form: calamity or early death.
Repeated Swallowing and repeated restraint all become calamity; two provocations and double clashes are entirely inauspicious.
The note says: Jia seeing two Ren is Repeated Swallowing; seeing two Geng is Double Restraint. Repeated clashing spirits in the pillars, or punishment, harm, restraint, and breaking at combinations, are all inauspicious signs.
The Five Phases require balance; one-sidedness hardly benefits things. Four pillars should all be paired: flourishing and decline may prevent success.
The note says: Balance has five explanations. First, day master and Useful Spirit harmonize and complete one another, each relying on the other without bias. Second, a thing injuring Useful Spirit's influence has something to control it, preventing harm. Third, upper and lower stems and branches follow one another properly, without excess or deficiency. Fourth, dead influence facing a living thing has few allies unable to overcome many. Fifth, intended change or transformation may face jealousy and breaking, intended quiet and peace offense and provocation. Pairing has six explanations: a declining spirit with use needs progression supporting decline; good and evil evenly paired need progression's support distinguished to determine good or ill; even with Useful Spirit, one flourishing and one declining becomes one-sided and ineffective; mutual peace and completion let response and demand each have reliance; a flourishing thing wants completion while a declining one cannot be completed; or stems and branches each have paired noble influence, or discordant, inferior influence.
Lifelong blessings and virtue may conceal continuous transformation of things; a spirit arriving in the next position requires recognition of hidden injury and interception. The note says: Branches containing the printed Si-shaped stem, Yi, Xin, and Ding are all called harmful Seven Killings. Yet Si-designated Earth generates Yi-designated Metal, that Metal Xin-designated Water, and that Water Ding-designated Wood, continuously without interruption. How much more when manifest? Empty arching may contain Jia, Bing, Ren, and Geng secretly combining to complete influence: a greatly wealthy and distinguished configuration. The next arriving position before a stem or branch is harmful and must be recognized. Yi seeing Bing, for example, lets Bing combine with Xin for hidden damage, and there are Blade categories. Zi seeing Chou, Chou Yin, Yin Mao, and the like have Blade, Killing, Salty Pool, Companions, and many kinds of harmful influence.
The ten stems attend to True Influence overpowering one another; Seven Killing offending through a restraining spirit is most crucial.
The note says: Yiyou seeing Wuxu has Wu-designated Fire injuring Yi-designated Metal, also a Six Harms Tomb, with Fire developing and its wording concerning flourishing Metal influence. Infer the rest similarly. Seven Killing offending through restraint is illustrated by originally using Yi Wood, then You progression and Chou year injuring it: the Metal configuration is said to ruin Yi Wood Useful Spirit, while Chou also clashes with empty Wei and shatters the hidden spirits to the ground. A further source comment qualifies this: this passage may only say Seven Killing meeting clash is unfavorable; one must not argue that the Metal configuration ruins Yi Wood Useful Spirit.
The eight characters carrying Killing that punishes Womb needs recognition beyond the obvious; examine which stem rides the influence of the Four Seals. The note says: Womb Spirit's transmitted calculations vary by category. People now merely take a general ten-month position, without depth, causing errors. One method takes roughly ten months, using the corresponding birth day. For a Bingwu day, determine its month's seasonal interval, perhaps eleven or nine months, and apply escape. Punishment indicates early harm to parents. Empty sinking, clash, and punishment are the four most harmful Killings here. An old Four Seals song says: Chen, Xu, Chou, and Wei are Four Seals. Wu and the printed Si-shaped stem obtaining them particularly indicate trustworthiness. Jia and Yi meeting them are mean and greedy; Bing and Ding often poor and ill. Geng and Xin name the configuration Mother Generating Child; gathered Killing in Chou's palace often shortens life. Ren and Gui are not explained.
The Five Phases distribute through directions: dead Water and born Metal have different uses.
The note says: Fire is born at Yin, declines at Mao, and flourishes at Wu; Metal is born at Si, declines at Wu, and has Tomb at Chou, for example. A Jiazi person meeting Si meets born Metal: born Metal restrains Jia, extinguished Water generates Jia, and Office Fire steals from Jia. Meeting Mao gives dead Water generating Jia, flourishing Wood as allies, and declining Fire draining Jia. Each position administers something. Examine the remaining configuration's ordered support and suppression. Infer other stems similarly.
One idle spirit stands on either side; Hurting Office steals the root and awaits its time.
The note says: An idle spirit at the sides means month, hour, or year stems, usually not taken for use, hence dismissed and left resting and confined. It grows in capacity and nurtures illness that destroys the person. Or Hurting Office lacks influence and has no current role, until annual influence or progression raises such spirits to drain my influence and injure what I use. Half true and half false, in substance it is a confined thing gaining force, a petty person favored and empowered. How could this root of calamity be ignored?
Only stem spirits at peace with one another complete Emolument; branches clashing and provoking cannot keep Horse from running. The note says: A Jia person's Emolument is at Yin. Renyin carries Road-Cutting Void, giving blessings in Buddhist or Daoist religious life; Gengyin is Broken Emolument, half auspicious and half harmful. Xin's Emolument is at You. Guiyou gives Fire and Water offending one another; Dingyou is Void Nobility, with Ding-designated Wood receiving influence and Xin-designated Water at Bathing, indicating illicit sensual conduct. Escaping a stem over Emolument is called True Emolument. At what destination is it useful? Its stem sees Heavenly Yi Nobleman, whose manifest stem in turn sits on Noble Emolument. A Ding person's Emolument is at Wu; escape reaches Wu with Bing. Bing's Nobleman is at You and Hai; meeting Xinyou and Xinhai brings Xin's Nobleman back to Wu. Entering the configuration gives the highest rank. Li Xuzhong calls this Heavenly Emolument and Reciprocal Nobility. A Horse dislikes clash, which stirs it. Noble influence riding the stem above Horse is favorable, as is an escaped Horse stem with affinity. A Dingchou person meeting Xinhai needs useful noble influence there. A Horse stem carrying harmful Killing or Void is unfavorable; coming to restrain Body substance and Useful Spirit is unfavorable. If branch spirits fiercely punish and clash, turning Horse again and again, how could it rest?
Only after Office Star is entirely injured can Emolument be used; only after Emolument's position is broken open can Office be used.
The note says: If Hurting Office is in the pillars and Office Star is clearly restrained and injured, yet Day Emolument is present, using Emolument is stable and avoids two uses failing to return to one. If Emolument's position is ruined, use Office Star alone as the fixed substance. One sole point of noble use is finest; many disperse vitality.
Emolument's position may be clear, yet transformed influence may avoid it. Post Horse may be seen, yet the day position adds another layer.
The note says: Office Star, Establishing Emolument, and the like, clear and unbroken, must bring good fortune and blessings. But if substance and function transform while jealousy or seizure at that position prevents transformation, the thing cannot form: seedlings do not flower, Nobility is empty without Office, or blessings do not mean wealth. Post Horse is originally reckoned in Grand Duke's palace for use. A further Horse from the day palace makes repetition and instead a low configuration. Another account says day Horse joining year Horse, though repeated, is better if Horse is highly useful and noble influence remains at peace; another recurrence is unsuitable.
Translator's note: The supplied text contains irregular Si-shaped stems and transformation-designated element names, retained explicitly rather than standardized. The Yi-Wood restraint example includes its own corrective comment, translated in full. Four Seals expressly lacks a Ren-Gui explanation; none has been supplied. The title's void-and-clash claim remains the text's rule with the later qualifications preserved.
Remember the Emolument Guest for Use; Examine the Horse General as Origin
The note says: The stem escaped over Emolument is called Emolument Guest. Without year Emolument, examine the stem spirit escaped to the Emolument palace for use; the master's Emolument is most crucial. Then examine what spirit it serves for the day position. Horse General uses the same method. In a Dingsi year with a Bing day, for example, Horse is at Hai, and escape reveals Xin, the Bing day's wife, indicating a wife married on a journey or abroad. Distinguish Nobility, Emolument, Wealth, Office, and harmful Killings and speak according to their weight.
The image used fits in combination: guard against jealousy and contention. Noble influence communicates: closely examine division and seizure.
The note says: Useful Spirit originally combines with the day stem, with affinity, influence, and a companion. If a Companion appears manifestly or secretly to contend or be jealous, it is meeting yet not meeting. Contention or jealousy by Useful Spirit's own spirit is judged the same; so are annual influence and progression. Noble influence should be used exclusively. Divided among two or three places, it belongs to many people: not only do disputes over division frequently arise, but one's property is also divided by Companions. It is worse when others are heavy and oneself light.
Wealth and Office Depend on the Day Position; Death and Robbery Must Refer to Grand Duke
The note says: Taking Wealth and Office exclusively for use from the day position is most intimate. Their development, decline, flourishing, Extinction, generation, and restraint must be governed in relation to the year's household; the resulting public or private activity, calamity, and blessing are highly effective. Death and Robbery are the year's gravest harmful Killings. Infer them by the annual ruler. Each has advance, retreat, good, and ill in sixteen forms; the ways of activity, withdrawal, acceptance, and rejection were recorded earlier.
Distinction has grades: clarify weight. Wealth has heights and depths: distinguish thickness and thinness.
The note says: Examine configuration and structure. First, fierce, forceful intent, vigorous master and root, reciprocal noble influence coming and going, and harmful Killings assisting properly, without influence becoming overfull and directionless. Second, Useful Spirit most crucial and clear, unbroken and unruined, with equal, orderly configuration weight. Third, Blessed Spirit with affinity and a transformed image obtaining proper substance. Fourth, ordinary Wealth and Office useful, with progression continuously supporting them. Fifth, what is liked supported in the hour and progression, what is disliked controlled there, Virtue Spirit present at harmful points, and development repeatedly occurring at auspicious ones. For wealth, first, great wealth does not depend on Wealth Spirit's lightness or weight. Noble influence may also be complete, but examine substantial, vigorous influence lacking a clear, pure image. Second, vitality assisted, many idle spirits, day master with reliance, and Seal, Food, and Wealth Spirit most crucial. Third, Emolument and Horse support the Body; day master receives influence at Womb or Extinction, and Wealth palace is useful or meets generating influence, but the image-gathering influence flows far without breadth. Fourth, Storehouse Wealth arched or revealed needs substantial influence and clash or punishment. Among Wealth, Seal, and Food Spirit, one position is useful, while the day position is narrowly concentrated and noble influence scattered. Detailed examination makes their degrees clear. Fifth, punishment and restraint may be carried, or what restrains me may be Wealth Star's Birth and Flourishing influence, or the influence of Wealth Spirit, Emolument, Horse, and Nobleman.
Poor and Lowly Yet Long-Lived; Wealthy and Distinguished Yet Short-Lived
The note says: First, all Useful Spirits fight through restraint without reliance, further resting, confined, and useless, or at Death and Extinction and mixed, while the Body alone obtains balanced influence and progression guides it without bias. Second, the Body receives influence at Womb, Death, or Extinction, carries no Blessed Spirit, and cannot be harmed by progression. Or Void, Shattering, Original Influence, Great Depletion, Six Harms, Ghost Tomb, Metal Spirit, White Tiger, dead influence, Blade, and Killing all combine into the configuration, with only one powerful Seal or Food Spirit. Progression guides it without severing that mixture: refer to the preceding discussion. For the opposite outcome, first, Blessed Spirit comes and goes with force, the self flourishes and assists, and annual influence and progression display it until overfullness overturns it. Or a spirit turning to generate is missing; the place restraining me has no course of departure or return; or an empty, sunken thing punishes or clashes with the place gathering my influence. Second, original and transformed images both obtain Useful Spirit as blessing, with sources on both sides, yet the Body transforms without truly transforming and the root is unstable. Third, the entire configuration has noble influence but a weak Body cannot bear it; annual influence and progression fight against the day master. Refer to the preceding discussion.
Solid Fullness Also Comes from Fire and Earth
The note says: Fire generating Earth has the best and most substantial intent; its atmosphere naturally gathers firmly. It must give sincerity, substantial character, attention to foundations, peaceful enjoyment of gain and reputation, and ease in the world, rather than establishing achievement and enterprise upon emptiness.
Smooth Passage Depends Entirely on the Root Source
The note says: Calm annual influences and progression limits, without storms, reversals, success, or failure, arise because the foundations originally contain effective noble influence guiding progression, with annual influence and progression assisting without ruin and providing reliance.
Intelligence Comes from Virtue and Refinement; Obscurity and Sloth from Rest and Confinement
The note says: Virtue and Refinement include Ren and Gui as Virtue and Bing and Xin as Refinement in Shen, Zi, and Chen months. Carrying these often makes a person accomplished in literary work, intelligent, and perceptive. Infer other configurations similarly. Rest, Confinement, Abandonment, and Death belong to Heaven's season; Death, Failure, Tomb, and Extinction to the Five Phases. An entire configuration carrying such influences leaves lifelong plans unfulfilled, with retreat, regret, and concealed ineptitude. Additional solitary influence makes one leave ordinary society for woods and springs.
Strong partial influence makes coarseness; the original source losing reliance brings wandering.
The note says: Eight characters entirely Yin or Yang lack combining spirits, Wealth palace, and other distinction. Useful Spirit is partial and strong, and things punished out or clashed into flight also arise from partial influence. Even if powerful, the person is coarse, lacking refined talent. The day master has no allied image to join or noble influence to ride. Mostly idle spirits and slow Killings in the pillars, with punishment, restraint, clash, theft, and dispersing influence, make lax wandering, many plans, and little establishment.
Fierce influence harms things and people; an entirely gentle image has neither control nor release.
The note says: Influence in Heaven's season can be brave, fierce, and strong. Further Metal Spirit, White Tiger, Blade, Killing, punishment, and harmful spirits make a robber and plunderer when harmful, or a butcher's livelihood when favorable. In the end the person still kills people and harms things, perhaps also being killed. Decisiveness and effective adaptability in affairs arise because harmful Killings are neither stagnant nor blocked but assist Useful Spirit in being directed. If the pillars' images and numbers are wholly gentle and good with substantial influence, the ability to maintain governing principles and order is lacking; even Useful Spirit has difficulty.
Lofty bearing and response depend on Blade and Killing's authority; humble wealth carries Storehouse-and-Tomb influence. The note says: Noble influence without Blade and Killing's assistance lacks not only authority and courage in affairs, but adequate correspondence in action. Blade and Killing supporting distinction enable decisive enterprise and achievement. Some of humble title develop Wealth and Emolument because mixed-influence Wealth, Office, and Seal within the Storehouse foundation are intimate, substantial, and beneficial to the day master, especially with progression's support and combination.
A strong Body exposing Blade instead suits busy accumulation; many biased stem combinations overturn vitality into vagueness. The note says: A strong, vigorous Body with hidden Wealth sources may see Blade emerge, originally Robbing Wealth. Yet if my force is concentrated and Wealth Spirit has affinity, exposed Blade is suitable because I can seize and gather the thing. Such patterns are stingy, industrious, and good at accumulating wealth. But if pillars, annual influence, or progression give Blade a flourishing place, I dare not judge this way without further examination. Many biased stem combinations are like Yi combining with two or three Geng: not only is influence unbalanced, it is one-sided, withered, and overturned. Even a transformed image is not fully beautiful: merely three surnames sharing a dwelling, two surnames joining lives, or an adopted graft of plum and peach.
One Killing spread over many positions merely bluffs with force; one noble influence divided among three places disperses its brilliance. The note says: Killing is not concentrated when a single Killing spreads to many places: force becomes thin and scattered, giving many plans and few fulfillments, words without intent, excessive hopes for great principles, and little strength bearing heavy responsibility. One concentrated noble influence is remarkable. Present in two or three places, it is dense clouds without rain, flowers without fruit, empty Nobility without Office, or much learning with little achievement.
Flat Head bringing Needle and Blade cannot lack injury; Hook and Entanglement joining Death and Robbery mean more than cunning. The note says: Flat Head means characters such as Jia, Bing, and Ding drawing Hanging Needle and Yang Blade to punish or harm day positions. One account says Killing and Canopy in the day indicate a wife previously married, disabled, or dull. Another says marriage often follows some affair, or beauty must accompany sexual misconduct, with examples printed as a Si person at a Wei day or Jihai, Jimao, and Jiwei. Another says Yang Blade in day and hour is Blade Close to the Body: wife suffers separation in life or death. Another says exchanged Hanging Needle indicates illness or official punishment; combined harmful Killings and self-punishment immediately show it, also for women. Hook and Entanglement indicate cunning and ruin, or authority when favorable. Approaching Death and Robbery must be harmful, especially without harmony with the day master.
Wealth in storage and the Body in decline make a mean, miserly nature and indolent influence.
The note says: Wealth Spirit hidden idly in storage, lacking punishment or clash to open and stir it, especially with a weak Body, makes a narrow, stingy person of little breadth.
Wood meeting Academy and Fire its birth ground give refined writing but especially haughty ambition.
The note says: Wood and Fire's literary-brilliance image in Birth and Flourishing gives penetrating learning and vigorous talent. But Wood and Fire rise in flames: the person disregards small matters, cannot yield, and is proud, arrogant, and dismissive.
Translator's note: The Flat Head and Si-person examples are compressed and contain mixed or irregular labels; their alternatives are retained as supplied. The judgments about temperament, disability, marriage, and social standing are claims of the historical source.
A Reputation for Virtue and Esteem; Keen Intelligence and Strategic Talent
The note says: Noble influence assisted, a powerful stem, and Heavenly and Monthly Virtue positions and Heavenly Yi exchanging back and forth indicate intelligence and esteemed reputation. Void, punishment, and clash becoming useful follow the preceding discussion. Killing and Blade supporting a noble image, with balanced restraint and the day stem able to command them, likewise follow it. Another says Water carrying noble influence, with assistance and containment, gives exceptional talent, adaptability, strategy, and wisdom.
Wealth's source confined to a configuration gives street shops and storehouse commerce; stealing influence without reliance gives travel through foreign lands. The note says: The configuration lacks breadth and its capacity fullness, but Wealth sources assist the Body and one or two branches skillfully generate and support, confined to a pure vessel. Useful Storehouse Spirit and Residence Spirit with affinity follow the preceding discussion; Food Spirit or Seal is judged similarly. Draining spirits with an unbounded, surging force, distant and powerful, gathered yet without reliance, likewise follow that discussion.
Drifting over rivers and lakes, eating in wind and sleeping in rain; dim nets bind with profit's locks and fame's reins.
The note says: Hai and Zi are rivers and lakes. If Wealth, Office, Emolument, Horse, or Useful Spirit has overflowing influence, livelihood often lies on roads beneath stars and moon. Judge only when Water floods and Horse is punished or clashed with. Chen and Si are Earth Net; Xu and Hai Heaven's Snare. Complete, with Useful Spirit losing ground there and the Five Influences unable to form an image, they give busy but fruitless fame and gain, like dust and dim fog. Annual influence and progression arriving together, further restraining and harming the day stem, bring early death.
Water and Fire shaking establish one amid disputes; Wood and Metal harmonious develop Wealth in a household of righteousness and propriety. The note says: Water and Fire are moving things in the human world. This pattern often draws disputes and argument; establishment comes from noisy contention. Favorably it gives decisive strategy; harmfully an unsavory name. Metal and Wood unbiased, balanced, with paired Yin and Yang completing one another, must attend to substantial foundations. If I restrain the other, I should obtain righteous Wealth. If crossed without affinity, with the guest overpowering the host, an unrighteous person harms my wealth unexpectedly, or unrighteous affairs bring injustice and humiliation.
Post Horse letting me restrain it or another generate me develops foreign Emolument; something within Void revealing influence often brings an unintended name.
The note says: A stem above Horse that the day master can restrain, or something at Horse's position generating me, often develops distant external Wealth, or Wealth and Emolument from going to a frontier. Void is a place of harmful failure, but desired images may gather there, as Metal and Fire favor void while riding flourishing influence as Office, Nobility, or other spirits with affinity: this fits the configuration.
The person draws official Emolument but the household is poor; the storehouse has surplus Wealth but the title is humble.
The note says: The eight characters may be light and clear, with Office Spirit riding noble ground, yet branches break its image, leave Wealth resting and abandoned, or enter Death and Extinction, without Storehouse, Tomb, or Residence Spirit's Nobility, and Residence Spirit also clashed with and broken: refer to the preceding line. Noble influence falling into Void, Useful Spirit into Death and Failure without vitality, with Salty Pool, Bathing, White Tiger, and Void nevertheless arched and protected, while Wealth Storehouse or Wealth Spirit alone flourishes and assists the day master through affinity and restraining assistance, follows the other line.
The year facing Palace Gate gives office near the court; influence clashing with the residence makes ancestral foundations unreliable. The note says: Opposite Grand Duke is Palace Gate. Arching there into a configuration must give official duties near the court and important routes. The fifth position ahead of the year, if clashed with and not noble influence generating, supporting, or governing with the day master, must separate and ruin ancestral foundations, preventing residence there. With Official Talisman and Death Spirit, official confiscation and sealing occur; Shattering, Robbery, and Blade must bring destruction and sale.
Two positions must not have Death and Robbery, which dismantle houses and sell fields; Four Middles meeting Salty Pool give greed for Wealth and beauty. The note says: The fifth position ahead of the year is Destiny Residence; the fifth behind Emolument Residence. Destiny Residence means family dwelling, Emolument Residence fields, estates, and graves. Death and Robbery indicate lifelong liking for spending on houses and fields, yet also ruin, especially with punishment, clash, harm, robbery, breaking, or restraint involving the day's household. All four Zi, Wu, Mao, and You were called Peach Blossom Covering the Fields, also Lianzhen Bathing and Violent Failure Peach Blossom. It gives love of romance and arts, clever disposition, urgency, and establishment amid disputes. Apply this only with punishment, clash, restraint, or theft against the day. Avoid Water indicating lust, and weigh noble spirits and Killings. Salty Pool is urgent, Bathing slow.
Void above Horse often brings Wealth from another path; Emolument in Heavenly Void often attracts a hateful reputation.
The note says: The escaped stem over Horse may be useful; its manifest stem may assist me or act as Wealth Origin, or Horse may sit where Wealth generates and flourishes. With meaningful Void, travel often gains foreign Wealth and Emolument or unintended profit from another field. Another path means Wealth outside one's ordinary occupation. Heavenly Void is Void; Emolument there at Decline and Failure follows the preceding line. White Tiger added in the day is urgent and may bring a transmitted bad name, especially with a Water-and-Fire image, Salty Pool, or Peach Blossom.
Mao and You favor moving households; Si and Wu should answer dreams of conception and birth.
The note says: Mao and You in day and hour give fondness for decorating halls and moving entrances; with Horse, frequent relocation. Womb and hour approaching Si and Wu, carrying year Emolument and harmonizing with the day master, indicate parents receiving a dream response before childbirth.
Flourishing Blade without other Killing especially likes unusual pursuits; Death and Robbery drawing other spirits seek only heavy drinking. The note says: Flourishing Yang Blade without other Killings gives firmness, integrity, uprightness, military courage, and liking for keeping animals, hunting, costumes, and festival performances. Academy and Office Nobility require separate assessment. Death Spirit, Robbing Killing, and Yang Blade gathering heavily, discordant with the day, give ravenous eating and whale-like drinking, daily drunken fullness, indifference to storms, and destitution without accomplishment.
Peach Blossom Pinning the Master indulges romantic feeling; Shattering Facing the Origin should bring destitution.
The note says: Peach Blossom Pinning the Master is a Mao person seeing Yin, Wu, and Xu, or a You person seeing Shen, Zi, and Chen. Also called Reverse-Inserting Peach Blossom, it gives romantic freedom, with apparent worthiness that is not true worthiness. Apply only with restraint or theft against the day. Shattering Facing the Origin is a You person seeing Yin, Shen, Si, and Hai, or a Chou person seeing Chen, Xu, Chou, and Wei. Also called Shattering at the Face, with restraint, theft, punishment, and harm to day positions it indicates cunning and early death; mildly, failure to develop and poverty.
Official Talisman in Heavenly Void gives much absurd speech; Void approaching Heavenly Yi gives fondness for singing. The note says: Official Talisman is Death Spirit. In Void, restraining or stealing from the day, it fits the first line. Heavenly Yi Nobleman in Void, restraining or stealing from the day, fits the second.
Useful influence barely injured brings complaints and sighs; repeated riding of a strong Body brings reckless dissipation.
The note says: Useful Spirit may be uninjured at birth, but annual influence or progression restraining it turns satisfaction into disappointment, hence complaint. A flourishing person resembles someone dizzy with wine: it is impossible to demand no recklessness. If annual influence and progression further ride strong influence repeatedly, conduct naturally becomes lustful, dissipated, and reckless, destroying property and family enterprise in wild action. Control or reliance in the pillars needs separate examination.
White Tiger with Blade curses people fiercely; Canopy at its own Tomb enjoys pure blessings.
The note says: White Tiger sharing a palace with Flying Blade or Yang Blade, punishing, clashing with, restraining, or stealing from the day, gives this result. Another says if in day and hour restraining the year, marriage comes confusedly; otherwise the wife has an unusual illness. Marriage under the pressure of mourning or litigation can fit, and the wife also likes lawsuits. Canopy at its own Tomb, with its own Birth and Flourishing and annual influence and progression harmonizing with the day into a configuration, receives especially pure, lofty blessings. Otherwise there is Buddhist or Daoist religious life or the nine callings. Gengchen unable to be its own Tomb makes only a village shaman or rough manual worker. Another says Canopy carrying Tomb with influence gives blessings and longevity, but not enfeoffed rank, or a reputable religious person. With Ghost and Salty Pool, the person is an entertainer or village shaman.
Emolument and Destiny spirits provoking one another stir action; Nobility and Killing in four positions must be gathered for use. The note says: If the two residences of Emolument and Destiny meet provocation, punishment, clash, restraint, and harm, examine their good or ill and discord with the day; the response follows this line. Their influence striking destiny drums on the left and dances on the right. Two or three layers of Nobility or Killing may combine at one position; with auspicious and harmful spirits in all four pillars, distinguish where most gather to compare strengths and weaknesses. Yin, Shen, Si, and Hai without Long Life are harmful.
A light, clear Water-and-Fire image gives writing and unusual arts; punishment and clash Daoist practice or Buddhist meditation.
The note says: Water and Fire are Kan and Li spirits with Already Across creation. Clear influence gives outstanding writing; light influence exceptional technical arts; emptiness an immortal air and unusual nature; punishment Daoist methods and spirit talismans; restraint Buddhist emptiness, wandering robes, prior affinities, inquiry, and awakening. Discuss these exclusively by the day position's configuration, image, and weight.
Mature Metal-and-Earth sources give Wealth storehouses and towers; residual tenderness gives commerce and crafts.
The note says: Metal and Earth can generate the noble from the lowly. Mature influence completes the thing and suits rich storage, walls, residences, and extensive estates. Declining, residual, extinguished influence, or newly tender influence, instead makes a merchant or manual craft worker.
Canopy, Tomb Spirit, and Heavenly-Monthly Virtue Combination give a family style of springs and stones; resting, confined Day Virtue, with Death, Extinction, Failure, and generation, leaves an ordinary scholar in dust.
The note says: Those three cycling in the pillars must have an old affinity with watersides and stones and a deep intent to practice the Way and seek immortals. Day Virtue resting and abandoned has only virtue's empty name. If stems and Nayin further carry Death and Failure, harmful influence, and Void coming to generate or assist, the person is merely a busy, poor scholar.
True Ten Evils and Great Defeat makes the noble a general and the lowly a bandit; gathered Confinement, Death, and Void makes the generating Daoist, the declining Buddhist.
The note says: For Ten Evils, follow the Daoist Canon. Noble influence supporting a clear, substantial configuration must give military command. Harmful Killings gathering in the pillars, fighting and harming Useful Spirit and Body Master, are calamitous. Day master and Useful Spirit at Rest and Abandonment, falling into Void with Solitude, Widowhood, and Six Harms, make a yellow-capped Daoist at Long Life, Assuming Office, or Flourishing, but a black-robed Buddhist at Failure, Extinction, Tomb, or Death.
Chief Strength's weighty authority harms close relatives; Robbery and Widowhood, though solitary, favor three complete noble blessings.
The note says: Chen is Heavenly Gang and Xu Heavenly Kui, with greatest authority and force, but their solitary, harmful influence is too heavy to avoid harming relatives. Robbing Killing and Widow Lodge carrying Long Life, Nobleman, and Emolument have three blessings. Harmonious with the day, they must give wealth and distinction. Without the three, even development soon gives way to poverty.
Heavy Swallowing and Devouring means secondary-wife birth or lack of nursing; Solitude and Widowhood joining gives adopted association with another surname.
The note says: Swallowing and Devouring is Inverted Food. Numerous, powerful, forceful, authoritative, or urgently at Birth and Flourishing, it follows the preceding line. Solitude, Widowhood, and Six Harms combining, yet one useful Seal or Food Spirit with Residence Spirit clashed with and broken, follows the other line.
Acknowledging parents anew or twin birth has the printed Ji and Hai with matching stems and branches; shamanism, medicine, wine, and sensuality have Death and Robbery offending Salty Pool and Nobleman.
The note says: The destiny carrying the two printed Ji and Hai positions, with two or three other matching stems or branches, such as Jia seeing Jia and Zi seeing Zi, must give twins or acknowledgment of parents anew. Both stems and branches must match for certainty; further Robbery and Solitude does likewise. Religious teachers, shamans, medicine practitioners, brokers, and the like need distinction of grade. Death Spirit and Salty Pool lead these; with Yang Blade, Shattering, Tomb Ghost, and White Tiger, they make reckless, deceitful, wine-loving and sensual people of unaccomplished miscellaneous callings. Nobleman, Virtue Spirit, Wealth, Office, Birth, and Flourishing offer some hope.
Kan and Li meeting leave old age drunk in pleasure houses; clear, secluded images give youthful ascent to an immortal court.
The note says: Stems above Zi and Wu link and combine, as Renzi and Wuwu: Wu combines with Gui in Zi, Ren with Ding in Wu; or Ding combines with Ren and Gui with Wu. Water and Fire have affinity, leaving lifelong infatuation. Clear influence is romantic, turbid influence lowly. The Five Phases' utterly clear influence forming an image, guided into a pure, secluded place, with noble spirits returning to one, unmixed and far-reaching, and no harmful Death-and-Extinction spirits offending, follows the other line.
Exceptional literary learning has Long Life, Virtue, and Refinement; destitute attachment to wine and flowers has a flourishing Body and Salty Pool.
The note says: Long Life, Imperial Flourishing, the Four Noble Places, and Virtue and Refinement give outstanding, concentrated excellence in learning, talent, and arts. Attachment to wine and flowers has three cases: day stem flourishing upon Salty Pool; the self flourishing in its own right yet restrained by Bathing's spirit; or the self excessively flourishing with many Bathing positions, scattering blessings without gathering.
Wife seized by flourishing Companions is not a virtuous spouse; Wealth contested through Bathing cannot escape sensual turbidity. The note says: A hidden or manifest wife stem closely approached by Companions has its position occupied and seized. Flourishing Companions indicate the wife's secret relations with outsiders; otherwise marrying a servant, concubine, or courtesan averts this disgrace. Five-Phase Decline is Bathing, also Peach Blossom and Salty Pool Killing, all judged alike. Such a spirit gaining force and contesting Wealth, or Wealth standing above it and stolen or fought over by another spirit, with the Body's and Useful Spirit's influences ungathered and dispersed, follows this line.
Marriage caused by mourning or lawsuits is clarified by six stems; distinguishing children as worthy or foolish has five methods. The note says: The days are Bingzi, Dingchou, Wuyin, Xinmao, Renchen, Guisi, Bingwu, Dingwei, Wushen, Xinyou, Renxu, and Guihai. They often bring marriage under pressure of filial mourning or official litigation, or litigation or mourning suddenly arriving within a hundred days of marriage. Or there is no help from the wife's family, discord with maternal uncles, no maternal household, two sets of parents, no wife Wealth, or for women two sets of parents-in-law. Half true and half false, with combining spirits and Peach Blossom, wedding circumstances are unclear, the wife unvirtuous, or entry into an incomplete marriage household. Many of these six stems make it more urgent and excessive: this is Yin Error and Yang Difference. Peach Blossom at Imperial Flourishing often provokes litigation involving women, or in great households disputes caused by the wife's relatives, servants, or concubines; otherwise lawsuits involving children. Five methods distinguish children. First, what the wife generates and what restrains me is son: men take Indirect Office as child, women Proper Office. Another says women take what they generate. Lead it to the hour: Birth and Flourishing are good, with other spirits gathering in affinity required for distinction. Another takes what I and my wife jointly transform into: a Jia person takes Earth as child, led to the hour for examination. Another takes what transformed influence generates: a Jia person takes Metal as child, led to the hour for use. Another takes what my original influence generates: a Jia person takes Fire as child, led to the hour for assessment. Another takes Proper or Indirect Office with affinity, led to the hour and transformed into an image, as a good child; Nayin Long Life assisting is especially fine. A further account, when using what I generate as children, takes Water one, Fire two, Wood three, Metal four, and Earth five.
Harmful influences gathering in hour and day mildly give unruly sons and a foolish wife; severely an empty room and solitary shadow.
The note says: Death, Robbery, Solitude, Widowhood, and Three Punishments combining, if rescued, give many unfilial sons in the hour and a foolish, inept, or discordant wife in the day. Repeated, fiercely powerful, and unrescued, they give solitude, poverty, and lifelong guarding of an empty room.
Blade carrying Tomb Punishment, when favorable, increases longevity and blessings; when harmful, it gives a torn hat and thin clothing.
The note says: Yang Blade and Flying Blade offending the two Tomb-and-Punishment positions require Canopy for a favorable result. Noble stems above Chou and Wei also always enjoy blessings. Harmony with the day is suitable. Without Canopy, carrying Void, Death, and Extinction makes a solitary, cold, ruined person; discord with the day does likewise.
A harmful spirit in the day with assistance gives remarriage to a young woman; harmful Killing in an empty hour requires an adopted son. The note says: The day meeting the year's Death, Robbery, Great Defeat, or Shattering at Assuming Office or Imperial Flourishing harms the wife. Yet stems or Nayin generating and assisting the day master must give remarriage to a young unmarried woman or young concubine. Emolument and Nobility assisting gives beauty, worth, and ability. Another says the year's Emolument, Horse, Nobility, Food, or Sixfold Combination in the day gives not only a refined wife but one able to manage Wealth. Harmful Killing in the hour falling into Void must give no son. If it generates or assists Food Spirit, or the day clashes with or restrains it, the son must be adopted.
Salty Pool with Killing in hour and day gives the father a dreadful death; Rest, Confinement, and Great Defeat approaching Void leave the wife's family houseless. The note says: Salty Pool in day and hour as Annual Killing indicates the father's dreadful death, certainly so with further harmful Killings. Metal means weapons; Fire fire peril; Water water peril; Earth epidemic; Wood cangue and staff: infer through the Five Images. Another says flourishing Salty Pool offending Canopy, Shattering, or Yin Error and Yang Difference gives disgrace through the wife or divorce; in powerful wealthy households, disorder within the wife's parents, brothers, or relatives. Another says Salty Pool and Yang Blade give many skills and capacities but also chronic illness, most urgent when exchanged in day and hour. The day master's Residence Spirit sinking, together with wife's influence and Target Killing or a Ten Evils and Great Defeat day, resting and abandoned and falling into Void, as Gui Emolument at Zi in the Jiayin cycle, indicates no foundation or tile in the wife's household.
Womb Spirit restraining and stealing brings violent death: avoid its clash with a configuration character. Shattering, Void, and Solitude leave ancestors by offending the spirit behind Emolument.
The note says: Womb Spirit is White Tiger Killing, as Water at Wu or Metal at Mao. Clashing with a configuration character is like Shen, Zi, and Chen branches forming a Water destiny and fearing the Wu Womb Spirit White Tiger restraining and stealing from day master and Useful Spirit, indicating bloody, violent death. Infer through the Five Images. One position behind Emolument, if carrying Void, Solitude, Widowhood, Shattering, and the like, must indicate departure from ancestors and separate flourishing establishment.
Branches separated by combination and clash in two directions often indicate hanging; combination with River and Well positions gives drowning.
The note says: Self-Hanging Killing is a Xu person seeing Si or Si seeing Xu. With Metal Spirit, White Tiger, Death, Robbery, Ghost Tomb, Void, Official Talisman, Great Depletion, Blade, or Killing leading its Death-and-Extinction place to restrain the self, abandon Useful Spirit, offend Grand Duke, and punish major progression, apply the preceding line. Bingzi Flourishing Water, Guiwei Eastern Well, and Guichou Three Rivers, with Salty Pool, Metal Spirit, Yang Blade, or Death Spirit, often indicate death in Water. Another says Death Spirit means the initiating trouble arose from sensuality and wine.
Failed sight and hearing come when Useful Spirit sinks urgently and Death and Failure restrain the Body; a bent waist and lame foot when blessings decline and Blade and Killing punish the master.
The note says: Useful Spirit restrained and drained by Death, Failure, and the like, with Death, Robbery, Void, Great Depletion, and other Killings restraining and stealing from the Body, fits the first line. Noble influence at Rest and Confinement, with Hook, Entanglement, Void, Great Depletion, no reliance, manifest Death-and-Extinction influence, submerged auspiciousness from flourishing places, and Blade and Killing still punishing the day master, fits the second.
Translator's note: The supplied chapter contains historical social, character, marriage, illness, disability, and death prognoses; these are translated as the source's assertions. Its many alternative rules, mixed stem/branch lists, irregular Ji/Si references, compressed family labels, and River/Well star names are retained without inventing an additional method or harmonizing the differing child formulas. The child's five-method heading is followed by extra alternative accounts in the source, all preserved here.
Ghost Howling Warns of a Dreadful Early Death; A Damaged Root Means More Than Poverty
The note says: Ghost Howling is like a Jia person meeting Geng and Geng meeting Bing, successive restraint. Only Xin combining with Bing can make it desire combination and forget restraint. Without Xin, one cannot say Jia goes to generate Bing. Root damage means harmful spirits forming a party to restrain the day's influence and harm the year's stem, giving poverty, difficulty, early death, and short life.
Heaven and Earth hold the virtue of encompassing concealment; Wind and Thunder sound fiercely from afar.
The note says: Shen and Hai manifestly powerful, with Useful Spirit properly placed at You and Xu, fit this configuration. Another says Shen and Hai unrevealed but their branches empty-flanked with noble influence give an exceptional structure. Noble influence within Mao and Si, empty-arched in the pillars, can transform and develop when annual influence and progression clash opposite the empty places. Another says even stable arching and flanking fear excessive punishment and clash driving noble influence away.
Arching General, Seat, and Seal must make a noble person; attending child, mother, and especially self makes no ordinary guest.
The note says: Arching General means the natal branch's Threefold Combination, as a Zi person seeing Shen and Chen. Arching Seat means the opposite palace, as Zi to Wu. Arching Seal means Seal's proper position, as Zi and Chou for a Jia person. Another says Seal is Storehouse; another the stem's Storehouse. Useful Wealth, Office, or noble influence, or regions where Wealth and Office generate and flourish, all create wealth and distinction. What generates me is mother; what I generate child. These and the self, all three uninjured, attending one another in coming and going with beneficial blessings, make a blessed person.
Three-position Wondrous Treasure using Office Spirit leaves heroic renown; Four Stems' Heavenly Yi approaching Canopy gives unmatched purity and loftiness.
The note says: The hour seat's Threefold Combination is Wondrous Treasure. Office Star above it, unbroken and unopposed, leaves an enduring name and achievement across generations. The ancient method does not call only year and day stems riding Heavenly Yi favorable; Nobleman ridden by month and hour stems is finer still. At the natal Canopy, it gives not merely absence of harm but a pure, lofty, exceptionally distinguished person.
Four Directions bright and flourishing give Emolument in the inner court; two Killings flanked and arched spread authority over frontier sands. The note says: Azure Dragon, Dark Warrior, Vermilion Bird, and Gouchen are Four Directions. Stem Emolument returns to its origin, each occupying a flourishing region: Jia and Yi at Yin and Mao as Azure Dragon, Bing and Ding at Si and Wu as Vermilion Bird, for example. Apply the preceding line. Death Spirit and Robbing Killing both empty and idle yet each arched and flanked fit the second line.
Metal and Water give outstanding literary splendor; Earth and Metal build lofty abundance.
The note says: Clear Metal and Water images, with no other influence muddying their source, form outstanding literary brilliance. Metal and Earth generating one another, neither biased and obtaining balance, resemble things gradually growing, with vitality rising higher. Such an image should be judged wealthy and distinguished; harmonious noble influence also gives achievement, fame, and official Emolument.
Glorious Wood and Fire have a developing source; purely distinguished Water and Wood proceed in sequence.
The note says: Wood and Fire readily blaze forth but have an origin and root: vitality in the pillars may guide annual influence and progression, supporting and leading to glory. People do not recognize the rooted influence, seeing only Wood and Fire's emergence in progression. Clear, remarkable Water and Wood, unbiased and sequentially supporting Birth and Flourishing with Nobility, must give pure important Hanlin or censorial posts.
Walking gold and jade has Office Star above Nobleman; carrying books and an umbrella has Post Horse within Academy.
The note says: Office Star manifest above Heavenly Yi is Office Star Sitting on Nobility and indicates distinction. Academy is where the day master generates and flourishes; Scholarly Hall where Office Star generates and flourishes. Assuming Office is used similarly. Post Horse within it without much noble influence gives talent and learning without achievement; even in official service there is much road travel, worse if Void is met.
A Hanlin name must receive Qian and Kun's auspicious influence; governing in the ministerial court should arch Zi and Wu's main gates. The note says: Powerful Yin and Si can combine with Hai and Shen as Qian and Kun; Threefold arching also exists, with Zi-Chen arching Shen and Mao-Wei arching Hai. Without mixture and with Shen and Hai riding noble influence, the destiny must surpass others. Zi or Wu with proper arching or outer Threefold arching, and noble influence gathering above, gives achievement and family fame beyond others. Chou-Hai arching Zi and Wei-Si arching Wu are proper; Shen-Chen arching Zi and Yin-Xu arching Wu outer.
Chief Strength meeting flanked Nobility gives censorial and judicial authority; Dragon and Tiger holding their offices give a Jade Hall appointment as chief minister. The note says: Chen and Xu meeting flanked Nobility give censorial and judicial office through stirring authority. Ren or Gui seeing Si and Mao arching Chen, and Bing or Ding seeing You and Hai arching Xu, are examples. Manifest Chief Strength gathering repeated noble influence is judged the same. Chen and Yin with proper or outer arching and auspicious noble spirits gathering above fit this configuration. Manifest Yin and Chen obtaining influence, gathered Nobility, and flourishing assistance, without clash, punishment, restraint, or harm, and with auspiciousness at Mao, are judged the same.
Partial Yin or Yang with exalted Nobility rises to the highest dignity; Mao and You's proper gates give authority over regional strongholds.
The note says: Partial Yin or Yang influence often advances fiercely, like flying wind and thunder. Concentrated, flourishing, powerful noble influence often rises suddenly to the highest rank. Partial influence contends, stands unpaired, and has heroic force; Indirect Office develops readily, but retreats quickly or ends unnaturally. Proper Office instead promotes stably by due measure without life-and-death authority. Mao and You are the sun and moon's entrance and exit. Noble influence arched and flanked there for use fits the line, as do manifest positions with Useful Spirit gathering strong, unbroken blessings.
The year's carriage, Emolument, and Horse carrying Wealth and Office make surpassing heroes; noble configurations in day and hour carrying Virtue and Refinement give outstanding talent and work.
The note says: Grand Duke's Emolument and Horse positions should carry the day master's Wealth and Office above them: is this not heroic superiority? Nobleman configuration in day and hour seeing Virtue and Refinement fits the line and indicates literary talent, great capacity, and outstanding excellence.
Weak use supported by progression is a dried fish reaching water; strong use with obstructive progression is a boat in a winding channel.
The note says: Useful Spirit may have scant force, or influence restrained and stolen, or be hidden without clash or combination, dull and unprofitable. Progression drawing generating and supporting influence then brings ease and fulfillment. Useful Spirit may be forceful, timely, or joined in affinity, but progression obstructing and ruining its influence causes collisions east and west, unable to steer smoothly. Even a moment's favorable wind cannot overcome this.
Progression Takes the Branch as Its Foundation; The Year Rides Influence Through Its Stem
The note says: A progression's branch spirit should suppress excessive things and support deficient ones. Connect it throughout with the natal branch spirits to examine whether root and tip accord or conflict. Merely assessing Useful Spirit's weight, support, and suppression is insufficient. Discuss generating and restraining influence: progression's branch is most important, then its stem. Examine conflict or harmony and which things in the pillars it governs; only affinity permits a favorable judgment. The annual influence's relation to Grand Duke's stem is most crucial, ruling all spirits' good and ill for the year. The day restraining the year brings calamity; combining brings obscurity. Transformation with affinity brings good events. To determine the speed of calamity or blessing, examine governance within progression, also using the annual branch's punishment, clash, breaking, and harm without bias.
Progression travels with one's equipment: distinguish what is weak and strong. The year commands armies: its urgent, weighty force holds affinity.
The note says: If the day is Body and Nobility function, neither can be discarded one-sidedly. Day master is substance, noble influence function; both desire balance. Another account likens Useful Spirit's noble influence to baggage, tools, and provisions for a journey, and progression to the public lodging where one stops. Which of the Five Influences, Nobility, or Killing is led to that region, and what suits or accords with its ground? Compare these for signs of obstruction or passage. Good and ill images not yet budding in Progression Origin cannot be stirred into manifestation without the year. The annual ruler is most stern, crucial, imposing, and weighty, holding authority with particular urgency. Its force comes like combat with an enemy: swift, dangerous, and too grave for sudden rescue or deliberation. Could iron gates and golden locks resist it? There are also cases where noble influence acts harmfully, or evil is suppressed and good raised through timely opportunity and aid: unpredictable.
Emolument and Nobility progression wants display; youth should also have flourishing ground. Harmful Killings should remain obscure; the old favor declining regions.
The note says: First are Womb, Nurture, Bathing, Long Life, and Cap and Belt places. At twenty, progression through Assuming Office and Imperial Flourishing suits strong Yang influence. At thirty or forty, progression through Decline, Illness, Tomb, and Extinction is described alongside Heaven's Gui drying out. At fifty or sixty, seek the fitting meaning within it. This is creation's flexible method of acceptance and rejection. In youth, progression fitting the substance should display noble Emolument; harmful spirit progression wants submergence. The old should travel through Death, Extinction, and similar progressions, yet the source further says not to generate day master and Useful Spirit within and without: such is truly blessed progression.
Progression influence with a stable source readily succeeds; seek affinity in the hour stem's transformed image and lead it for use. The note says: Examining progression accurately for blessings and calamity is straightforward. Assess each palace's increase and decline and examine its intention. If progression originates in year, month, day, or hour at Void, clash, Death, or Failure, even development is brief. A stable, substantial source endures hardship and enjoys wealth, distinction, and lasting blessings. Taking the hour stem's transformed image involves original substantial image and transformed image. The two obtaining a companion, affinity, and category form an image for use. Progression may support it or complete its vessel anew: supremely fine. This is a secret transmitted in Xuzhong's household. Such a profound discussion makes guiding and using other spirits' influence most crucial; select use through generation, restraint, strength, and weakness.
Flying Yellow leaps as progression opens a whole route of Office Star; a leopard's transformation prospers as the year governs lifelong Wealth influence. The note says: Office Star in the pillars is inferior to progression continually governing Office Spirit favorably, bringing glory at each step. Weak Wealth in the eight characters lacks affinity; even progression to Birth and Flourishing may not develop it because influence is dead, extinguished, or blocked. The year is the dignified ruler and master of auspicious and harmful spirits. Annual influence may lead Wealth Origin, generate and assist a Wealth image, clash open Wealth's storehouse, remotely combine or fly-clash into Birth and Flourishing places, or arch, flank, and secretly encompass palaces of Wealth Spirit, Emolument, Horse, and Nobleman. Wealth flourishes because the annual ruler governs it, suddenly developing like a leopard's transformation.
Progression subdues the Body to weakness while properly supporting Useful Spirit; progression changes the Body to strength while suppressing its blessings.
The note says: A flourishing natal Body or excessive Companions with timid Useful Spirit should have the Body's influence subdued and Useful Spirit properly supported; the reverse is inauspicious. A weak original substance with excessive Useful Spirit cannot bear it, or may be confused and unable to return to one. What is desired and its contrary follow this relation. If natal root and tip, substance and function, are balanced, progression excessively supporting the Body or constraining Useful Spirit is likewise improper.
Year or progression may accord with auspiciousness and suppress harm; year or progression may obscure good and indulge evil.
The note says: Heavy natal harmful Killing, light auspicious spirits, and scattered Wealth and Office can meet annual influence and progression that accord with Blessed Spirit and suppress harmful influence. Conversely, heavy auspicious spirits and thin harmful Killing can meet annual influence and progression losing principles and control, indulging harmful Killings and submerging the many good influences.
The Profound Formulas of the Jade Well was written by Du Qian of Andong. Its hidden import and subtle images reveal numbers while concealing use; categories of influence establish being from absence, reverse flight and hidden combination obtain one and divide three, exchanging embryo and changing bones to enter sagehood and transcend the ordinary. This is truly no easy matter. To exhaust its generation at Extinction, recognize withdrawal and concealment in flourishing. A full vessel must overturn; excess damages things. A strong party follows its category; declining influence entrusts affinity. Use or nonuse requires distinguishing truth and falsity; change or no change first requires separating images and categories. Thus endowed influence has thickness and thinness, clarity and turbidity, height and lowliness, obscurity and brightness: myriad threads and countless transformations. Influence generates and restrains: investigate until illuminating principles beyond principles. Things have creation and transformation: living methods penetrate the origin within the origin. This truly receives the authentic transmission of a branch of Li Xuzhong's remaining learning. Many in the world have never seen this book, so I have brought it forward and made it known. The note is signed Yuwu.
Bibliographic classification: Masters Division; Numerological Arts; Books of Destiny and Physiognomy; Sanming Tonghui.
Translator's note: The age sequence and the instruction about not generating day master and Useful Spirit in old age are compressed in the source and are retained without harmonization. Its final catalog classification is also part of the supplied record and has been translated.
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