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Sanming Tonghui · A Comprehensive Account of the Three Destinies
Volume Eleven
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
On the Configuration of Influence
The note attributes this work to Zuixingzi.
Now, establishing four pillars takes the Five Phases; determining one progression concerns ten years. Clarity and turbidity, purity and mixture vary in countless ways. Likes, dislikes, right, and wrong cannot be governed by one fixed principle. Ancient discussion of destiny investigated fine subtleties, comprehending function through substance. Modern discussion clings to configurations, holding the false and losing the true. First observe the atmosphere, scale, and structure: the governing outline of wealth, distinction, poverty, and low standing. Next discuss Useful Spirit's source and destination, exhausting the subtleties of life, death, obstruction, and passage. The eight characters need not be ornate; the Five Phases need only harmonious influence. Careless pointing to Three Origins and Six Jia cannot grasp myriad threads and details. Students must probe the profound and hidden, bring expression back to roots, seek emptiness through substance, and take being from absence. Though destiny's principle is subtle, this carries thought more than halfway. Yet a great sea begins with a spoonful of Water, Lesser Yin is born from Old Yang, completion is failure's mechanism, and change transformation's gradual advance. These too require deep examination. Thus one Yang thaws ice and cold arises in the Three Hottest Periods. An editorial note says the annotation was already cited earlier under Winter Meeting Blazing Heat and Summer Grass Suffering Frost.
Yang firmness out of balance causes harm at its height; firmness able to yield is the path to good fortune.
The note says: This image is excessive Yang without control, containing no hidden Yin, with progression further traveling east and south. Yang firmness loses balance and must cause harm. Its use gives solitude, poverty, fierceness, and death amid Water or Fire. But if the five Yang stems are born in a Yin month, stems and branches flank and combine with yielding Yin things, and progression also travels through yielding Yin regions, it is auspicious. Such use may originate in cold poverty but ultimately brings glory.
Yielding weakness and one-sided withering is the petty person's image; vigorous, balanced rectitude the gentleman's style.
The note says: The first is a way of imbalance. Four pillars showing only yielding Yin, without entering a configuration or containing Yang within stems and branches, remain weak all day. Such use gives scheming, hidden venom without limit. Vigor is the gentleman's substance, balanced rectitude his virtue. Yang in the four pillars containing Yin, firmness and yielding under control, without breaking, restraint, punishment, or clash, gives outstanding conduct and unmatched integrity: hence the gentleman's style.
Excess cold and thinness hardly develops even in warm regions; excess dryness and fierceness instead suffers calamity where Water strikes.
The note says: Four entirely Yin pillars born in the tenth month, with the Five Phases' roots empty and extinguished and a weak day stem lacking strong flourishing influence, finds advancement difficult even in a harmonious, warm region. Four entirely Fire pillars born before the summer solstice have dry, fierce Fire. Sudden Water striking in annual influence or progression not only fails to control it but causes harm. This use gives early death, solitude, poverty, and frequent penal law offenses.
Excess insistence on substance makes affairs unclear; excess clarity and cold gives desolate thoughts.
The note says: Insistence on substance uses one thing without passage. Using Office without Wealth, Seal without Killing, or many combinations with little completion leaves affairs lacking openness. Metal and Water excessively clear and cold without warming progression, as Geng or Xin born in the tenth month with pure Water in the pillars and northwestern progression, gives lifelong solitary meals, lone sleep, and a lonely livelihood whose sorrow others could not bear.
Excess Affinity Leaves Ambition Unable to Reach Far
The note says: Things within a configuration must not have excessive affinity. Too much entangles and bewilders, preventing escape and vision beyond it. Jia Wood taking the printed Si-designated Earth as wife should indeed have affection. But if Jia and that Si-designated stem further ride Zi and Chou below, adding combinations within and without, and no external Wealth, Office, or Seal stirs Jia's heart, Jia remains beneath that Earth. How could ambition reach far?
Translator's note: The source repeatedly prints a Si-shaped graph for the Earth partner in this example. It is identified without silently replacing it with Ji.
Excess Effort Makes Even Accomplishment Difficult
The note says: Naturally obtained things within the pillars are finest; forced support is never beautiful. Suppose Wealth is used but absent from the configuration, requiring Hurting Office or Food Spirit to generate it. If those lack season and influence, Companions are sought for further assistance, or external clash and remote combination. All are excessive effort, and accomplishment must be difficult.
Abundant Nobleman makes calamity heal itself; abundant harmful Killing makes blessings hard to enjoy.
The note says: Many original Noblemen and the Two Virtues supporting useful Wealth and Office without punishment or breaking leave no danger even amid distress. Many original harmful Killings, Three Punishments, and Six Clashes opposed to Wealth and Office leave what foundation for enjoying blessings, even on reaching Wealth-and-Office regions?
At Five-Phase Extinction, Emolument and Horse support the Body; amid the four pillars' wonders, Companions divide blessings.
The note says: Do not immediately call Extinction harmful: Blessed Spirits can support within a harmful place. Wood at Extinction in Shen, for example, finds Ren Water as Seal and Geng and Wu as Wealth and Office, all things I use, able to support the Body and advance blessings. Only fear spirits restraining and harming the palace used, making its use extinguished: this is harmful. Office makes Nobility, Wealth the Wondrous; obtaining them in the configuration is favorable. Fearless Companions competing for Office and robbing Wealth prevent complete beauty.
Yin and Yang Have Firmness and Yielding: Can Stems and Branches Not Reverse?
The note says: Yang firm and Yin yielding is Heaven and Earth's Way. Turning them upside down means reversal and repeated change. This opens the discussion that follows.
Though a Wife Is Betrothed, She Does Not Recognize Her Husband
The note says: Once husband and wife enter their palace, how could they fail to recognize one another? But separated affection cannot communicate, so she does not see her husband. Yi Wood using Geng Metal as husband, for example, has Bing Fire cutting them off between. Geng is injured by Fire or sits at Zi and Wu, places of Failure and Death, leaving the wife unable ever to see her husband.
A Son Is Present Yet Does Not Attend His Mother
The note says: A son attending his mother accords with both principle and affection. But if the self is bound, lifelong support cannot be completed. Jia taking Bing as son may have Bing combined by Xin Metal: affection for wife replaces love for mother. Thus Bing Fire, though present in the configuration, cannot be used. Discussion of destiny reaching this level should approach freedom from error.
A Father Without a Son Need Not Be Alone; A Son With Parents May Yet Be Orphaned
The note says: Wood takes Fire as offspring. If the four pillars lack Bing, Ding, Si, and Wu positions, there is no son. But Fire hidden in the branches, or usable control and transformation in the stems, prevents judging complete childlessness. Wood takes Water as parents. If Water is damaged and restrained, Wood cannot obtain what generates it. Jia or Yi days born with Hai and Zi in year and month, for example, meet the Four Seasons and have Water injured by Earth: the person generating them is lost. How could they not be orphaned?
Life Can Be Generated Again; Death Cannot Die Twice
The note says: Things within the configuration may originally have Long Life, first damaged by restraint, then again meeting Birth and Flourishing in annual influence and progression. The Body's force strengthens anew, as though born again. Death is an ending. A thing in the four pillars originally occupying Death or Extinction is not judged more harmful when later annual influence and progression revisit that place: there is no second death.
Though Dead, It Is Not a Ghost; Meeting Birth, It Still Does Not Become Human
The note says: Wood born in spring obtains its time and flourishes. Though the pillars meet Death and Extinction palaces, progression through Birth and Flourishing prevents calling it dead. Wood born in autumn loses its time and weakens. Though the pillars meet Birth and Flourishing palaces, progression through Decline and Extinction prevents calling it alive.
Many children make the mother ill, like cultivating great fields; many mothers make the child ill, like approaching a deep abyss.
The note says: Children are what the mother generates. Numerous children drain the mother's influence: children can empty the mother. If she further declines and falls ill, her vitality cannot suffice to nourish them. Is this not like cultivating great fields? A mother has no second superior, so her kindness is complete. Numerous mothers gather Yin, breed jealousy, and produce harmful schemes: in the Five Stars, two mothers contend for authority. Excessive indulgence makes the mother lose what she loves; upon what can the child rely? Further approaching Illness and Death must bring the Shensheng catastrophe at any moment.
Without direct opposition there is no clash; without partiality no combination; without crossing no punishment; without straightness no breaking. Clash opens divergent gates of the Six Extremes; combination unfolds the forms and traces of all things; punishment changes and corrects; breaking opposes and injures. Thus producing Metal in thorny ground is inferior to cultivating jade at Lantian.
The note says: These four are images of combat, restraint, striking, and stripping. Within them are uses of punishing emptiness and hooking the distant. Taking Useful Spirit for distinction and blessing out of overturned disorder is inferior to the natural subtlety of Wealth generating Office or Seal obtaining Killing. Is this why Ziping discusses Wealth, Seal, and Food exclusively?
Translator's note: The source's Shensheng allusion remains an allusion to familial catastrophe, without an added chart rule. The four opening conditions for clash, combination, punishment, and breaking are translated as supplied.
When an Auspicious Spirit Assists Me, Seek What Assists That Auspicious Spirit
The note says: A weak destiny, or one unable to function because of punishment, injury, breaking, and harm, needs an auspicious spirit's support to complete blessings. Examine the assisting spirit's force. If rootless, out of command, or itself injured, first seek what assists it. A Jia day born in summer, burned by Fire, obtains rescue from Ren, Gui, Hai, or Zi. But if Water first suffers Fire and Earth's draining restraint, it cannot bless me. Metal must turn to generate and strengthen Water, allowing Water's affinity to attend me. The achievement then lies in Metal, not Water. Again, with Wu breaking and Zi clashing, Wei combining with me and piercing Zi serves as my assisting spirit. If Wei is injured and unusable, seek a powerful spirit generating and supporting Wei Earth before Wei can function.
A Harmful Thing Injures the Body: Resolve It Through What Injures the Harmful Thing
The note says: A harmful spirit restraining one's Body palace requires seeking what in the pillars can control the injuring spirit. Busy resolving its own danger, how could it reach me? Jia Wood originally injured by Metal faces unavoidable calamity, but Fire restraining Metal removes the danger. Mao clashed with by You likewise finds this resolution if Wu appears in the pillars.
The Five Phases Each Obtaining Their Place Gather into Blessings
The note says: The Five Phases must not have empty names or lose position. They need command and return to their own domains for distinction. Gathering into one configuration has indescribable subtlety.
An Entire Configuration Losing Its Domains Drifts Without Reliance
The note says: Day master and Useful Spirit both need a place to settle. If neither can root and rely within the four pillars, further meeting Void, Death, Extinction, Bathing, punishment, and clash prevents all establishment. Wandering and loss of place are inevitable.
Major Progression Converts the Interval into Years; Minor Progression Takes Its Direction from the Hour
An editorial note says both annotations have already been cited in the first volume's discussions of major and minor progression.
Clashing open the Literary Storehouse makes literary brilliance flourish; closing the Military Storehouse brings peace to weapons.
The note says: Xu is Literary Storehouse because Fire is literary brilliance. Eight characters originally without Wealth, Office, Seal, Food Spirit, or generating influence lack the capacity for literary learning. Merely having Fire's storehouse locked shut makes an unlettered person. Hidden Hurting Office or Seal also indicates intelligence. Chen, Wei, or Chou in the pillars clashing with or punishing Xu, followed by southeastern progression, makes Fire shine and literary brilliance flourish. I have seen many attain high Hanlin appointments this way. Chou is Military Storehouse because Metal is weapons. Autumn influence, Shen, You, Geng, or Xin as Killing or Indirect Office, with Yang Blade in the same palace, makes a fearless lover of war. Zi, Si, or You spirits combining in the pillars, with southeastern Wood and Fire progression controlling stubborn Metal, close off martial activity and bring peace to weapons. I have seen warriors lay down armor and retire this way.
A flying Dragon leaves Heaven and follows Cloud into the depths; a hidden Dragon in the depths follows Cloud up to Heaven.
The note says: Dragon is Chen, Heaven Hai, Cloud Ren. Dragon obtaining Cloud flies. Hai in the year, Chen in the month, and Ren above year or month put Dragon in Heaven. Water flourishing in day and hour, joining Dragon's configuration, makes Dragon follow Cloud into the depths: Water is Dragon's home, so it leaves Heaven above and hides in Water below. This image gives unsurpassed writing and a life of obstruction and passage. Though achievement and fame emerge in high office, one's work finally returns to woods and springs. Si and Wu in the pillars make a poor, low destiny. Hai in year and Chen in hour, with day and month gathering Water, puts Dragon below in the depths. Punishment, clash, restraint, or breaking in stems and branches prevents its peace. Ren in day or hour makes Dragon follow Cloud to Heaven. Without Hai in the year, using Si to clash it out is also favorable, but origin is humble, without ancestral reliance. Later someone lends strength for vigorous achievement and fame, with distinguished close attendance. Si or You progression, in Failure and Extinction, loses household and office. This is Ren Riding the Dragon's Back.
A Great Forest Dragon meeting Heavenly River, with all Four Earth Storehouses, occupies the sovereign's place.
The note says: Great Forest Dragon is Wuchen. The four pillars' Nayin must obtain Heavenly River Water for Dragon to fly in Heaven. All Four Storehouses complete the Four Seas, letting all under Heaven receive rain and benefit: surely a sovereign. The Ming founder's destiny was Wuchen, Renxu, Dingchou, Dingwei. This statement too arose from an example.
A Long-Flowing Dragon returning to the Great Sea, gathering Five Lakes' waters, governs the people.
The note says: Long-Flowing Dragon is Renchen. Dragon meeting Long-Flowing Water and Hai in the branches is Dragon Returning to the Great Sea, also Dragon Leaping Heaven's Gate. Its subtlety lies in Great Sea Water Nayin. All four pillars carrying Water complete and deepen the Five Lakes, delighting Dragon further. Geng and Xin must generate it, so that its movement shakes mountains: is this not a noble image? Wang Yangming, enfeoffed Earl of Xinjian, had Renchen, Xinhai, Guihai, Guihai. This discussion likewise derives from Yangming's case.
Sixfold Combination Accomplishing Its Work Gives Authority over the Six Ministries
The note says: Punishment, clash, restraint, harm, and a broken image in the four pillars are originally judged harmful. A spirit with force drawing them into combination reverses this into good fortune, with lofty, far-reaching blessings. Function completed in year and month brings great distinction; in day and hour, the next degree.
Three Punishments Becoming Useful Spread Authority across Three Frontiers
The note says: Punishment is originally unfavorable. Useful, it gives wealth, distinction, and intelligence; useless, solitude, poverty, calamity, and early death. What makes it useful? Three Punishments having influence and a firm, strong day master. The useless case is the reverse.
Zi and Wu's Main Gates: Double Arching, Outer and Proper
The note says: Zi and Wu are upright and unbiased, hence Main Gates. Flanking and arching without injury or breaking add force and must give intelligence, vigorous establishment, and achievement. Proper arching is Hai and Chou arching Zi, Si and Wei arching Wu. Outer arching is Shen and Chen arching Zi, Xu and Yin arching Wu. Avoid Void, restraint, and breaking as harmful.
Translator's note: Two graphs in the supplied heading are irregular or unclear. The explicit proper-and-outer distinction in its annotation is retained without inventing an additional category.
The Printed Ji Position and Yin as Birth Places: Refined Influence Combining Qian and Kun
The note says: The printed Ji-shaped position and Yin as Birth have force and can combine with Hai and Shen. Hai is Qian, Shen Kun. Without clash or mixture, Shen and Hai ride noble influence, giving talent surpassing others.
Translator's note: Both heading and note print a Ji-shaped graph where a branch is expected. It is identified rather than silently changed to Si.
Heaven and Earth Encompassing Concealment: Useful Spirits Give an Open Heart
The note says: Hai is Heaven, Shen Earth, manifestly forceful. If the eight characters lack them, spirits on either side may arch them up. With noble influence and without Void, the result should be open and expansive. Or Shen and Hai enclose You and Xu: examine what thing they are for the heavenly stem; usefulness makes distinction.
Wind and Thunder fierce, with Nobility unimpaired, send the name flying.
The note says: Si is Wind Gate, Mao Thunder Gate. The eight characters empty-arching these positions with Nobleman must develop when annual influence or progression clashes them into activity.
Establishing a Household in Bandit Ground: Renewed Bandit Disorder Ruins Family and Life
The note says: This method uses what the source calls the five Yin in the month branch. If spirits in year and day compete to combine with it as wife, the month branch is trapped, unable to escape: hence Bandit Ground. If those year and day spirits further punish themselves and have no leisure to combine with me, the hour branch may seize the opportunity to combine with the month branch. This is Establishing a Household in Bandit Ground, with substantial wealth and distinction. Major progression removing the bandit brings peace; renewed bandit disorder brings misfortune. An alternative says: soothing the bandit brings peace, suppressing it brings misfortune.
Translator's note: The supplied five-Yin wording and the opposing removing-versus-soothing alternatives are retained without changing the count or merging the rules.
Beam Timber Goes to Be Hewn: Much Wood and Deficient Metal Make Use Difficult
The note says: Wood relies on Metal's cutting to become a useful vessel. If another spirit detains Metal in combination so it cannot restrain Wood, Wood must neighbor Metal and go to it for carving. But abundant Wood and weak Metal leave even adjacent Metal unable to cut it into use. Wood and Metal combining, with both strong, is judged distinguished.
Pure Yang at Earth's Door Encompasses Yin: Brilliant Military Authority
The note says: Eight entirely Yang characters originally form a partial party. Yet Zi, Yin, Chen, Wu, Shen, and Xu secretly arch the Yin of Chou, Mao, Si, Hai, Wei, and You. The two images complete and respond to one another, instead fulfilling Heaven and Earth's correct influence. No Void in the four pillars and vitality in the heavenly stems are especially fine. This image exercises frontier authority, reaches duke or marquis, and develops no small blessings.
A Lone Tiger at Heaven's Gate Carrying Wood Gives Pure, Lofty Court Office
The note says: One Yin position in year and month requires Heaven's Gate in the hour. Tiger must face Heaven and howl at the sun. Further Mao and Wei in the pillars combine; abundant Wood generates Wind, and Wind follows Tiger: how magnificent! Punishment, clash, restraint, or breaking, without Seal, Wealth, or Office, renders it useless.
Academy Meeting Post Horse Gives Literature Revered Like Mountain and Dipper
The note says: The Body seated at Long Life is Academy. Post Horses racing across one another, one clashing and one combining, with a lofty, great atmosphere and Wealth, Killing, and Nobleman, give the highest distinction: writing outstanding beyond the ordinary.
The Day Master Seated on Salty Pool: Rivers, Lakes, Flowers, and Wine
The note says: Salty Pool is also Peach Blossom Killing. Men and women meeting it must be sexually disordered, often drifting through rivers and lakes because of sensuality and wine. But Wealth, Office, Nobility, and Virtue in the same palace instead give a clear, remarkable style and peaceful enjoyment of wealth and distinction. Punishment and combination are greatly avoided; Void alone is favored.
Full Blessings Must Guard against Calamity; Many Harms Need Not Exclude Good Fortune
The note says: Seal generating the Body brings my blessings. Original Office and Killing in the pillars turning to generate flourishing Seal, without Wealth's injury or Food Spirit's drainage, gives distinction. Progression through flourishing Companions and Seal brings excessive generating support: how could full blessings lack the birth of calamity? Thus the gentleman fears occupying fullness. Numerous original Office and Killing followed by Office-and-Killing years and progressions make harm extreme. After enduring every danger, there must come restraint or Body-strengthening progression: extreme obstruction turns to passage. A Jia day originally distressed by Office and Killing meeting Shen or You progression suffers greatly, yet forward comes Hai and Zi Seal progression, backward Si and Wu controlling progression, offering rescue: is this not good? These lines describe Yin and Yang's increase and decline, blessings and calamities lurking in one another, and Heaven's Way communicating with human affairs. Savor them carefully.
A Horse with an arrow at its head is born in Qin and dies in Chu; a whip behind Horse gives morning in the north and evening in the south.
The note says: Post Horse beneath day and hour needs combination, called Joined Reins, gathering great Wealth and blessings and surpassing others in enterprise. Punishment and clash ahead of Horse are Carrying an Arrow, the image of Severed Reins. A Metal clashing influence with Wood restrained makes the calamity especially severe, indicating death abroad. Taking Post Horse follows year to day and hour in forward use, hour to day master in reverse use. Horse without containment runs unrestrained. Further punishment and clash behind it whip it into rapid travel, leaving nowhere to settle: lifelong labor and competitive travel in all directions. If the punishing or clashing spirit meets Threefold or Sixfold Combination, it is not Adding a Whip.
An insightful nature in an unattractive form often comes from clarity flowing within turbidity; a handsome appearance and benighted mind from turbidity contained within clarity. The note says: Confused, punished, and clashed Useful Spirit cannot immediately be called turbid and useless. Examine hidden things within it. One isolated point of clarity flowing from turbidity makes a plain, unattractive person perceptive and unusually strategic. Conversely, a clear, remarkable, independent Useful Spirit without mixture or injury cannot immediately be called clear. A hidden thing injuring what is used leaves an incurable flaw. Thus even a beautiful person may remain unlearned and unaccomplished, lost in wine and sensuality.
One General Guards the Pass and All Evils Submit
The note says: General is the noble, weighty spirit; pass the crucial place; evils what envies me. Jia or Yi days born in Metal-flourishing year and month face restraint from all sides. Bing emerging in the month restrains Killing into authority, and Killing submits. Ren or Gui meeting Wu, the printed Si-shaped stem, and chaotic Earth branches cannot resist their restraint. At the crucial point Geng and Xin as Seal must transform Killing, preventing disorder.
Translator's note: The Earth-stem list prints a Si-shaped graph. It is retained explicitly rather than silently changed to Ji.
Many Harmful Influences Restrain the Master: A Lone Force Cannot Prevail
The note says: Heavy Killing and a light Body, solitary and unaided, lack a spirit guarding the pass to rescue them. Unable to withstand restraint, the person surely suffers early death or illness.
Leaving this category, avoid seeing it again; transforming into this spirit, welcome seeing it.
The note says: Following transformation's subtlety cannot be exhausted abruptly and requires careful attention. Jia and the printed Si-shaped stem transforming into Earth leave Wood influence to follow the wife's household. Jia, Yi, Yin, Mao, Wei, and Hai are all my Companions, providing reliance on original flourishing: how could there be no attachment? Companions and Blade also compete to combine with my Wealth, preventing the pair's completion and bringing resentment from separation. Yi and Geng transforming into Metal favor flourishing Metal so wife can rely on husband; Ding and Ren transforming into Wood favor flourishing Wood so daughter can rely on mother; Bing and Xin transforming into Water favor flourishing Water so mother can rely on child; Wu and Gui transforming into Fire favor flourishing Fire so master can rely on Wealth. Greatly fear Void, Killing, and jealous contention from Companions: if not an eminent minister, one becomes an orphan of another surname.
Translator's note: The Jia transformation pairing repeatedly uses a Si-shaped graph in the source. The original sequence of wife, daughter, mother, and master relations is retained without replacing it with a uniform formula.
Post Horse Without Reins: A Traveler North, South, East, and West
The note says: Horse without reins means Horse without combination. It goes everywhere, north, south, east, and west. A person whose destiny meets this must wander.
Peach Blossom Carrying Killing Makes Courtesans, Entertainers, Servants, and Soldiers
The note says: Peach Blossom is seen in day and hour. Not only punishment and affectionate combination are avoided; the Five Killings in the same place are especially avoided. Whoever meets this does not receive the teaching of propriety, righteousness, integrity, and shame.
Mother and child have reliance from beginning to end; husband and wife depend on one another through life and death.
The note says: Mother-child and husband-wife refer specifically to substance and function, with month and day most important. A Wu day seated on Chen and born in a Shen month takes Metal as child. Metal is at Nurture in Chen, relying on mother when young and becoming strong; Earth is born in Shen, relying on child in old age. This image is remarkable, greatly fearing annual influence and progression breaking it. A Bing day seated on Zi and using You Metal in the month takes Metal as wife. Xin Metal is born in Zi, going to the husband's household to nourish itself. Fire dies at You, relying on wife's Wealth to sustain life. This image uses Wealth and Office nobly and greatly fears punishment and clash dispersing the configuration.
Both eyes without pupils: Fire and Earth dry Gui Water away.
The note says: What the source calls Gui Wood corresponds in the person to kidneys, the whole Body's foundation and the eyes' root. Eyes concern the Five Phases, but pupils alone belong to Water. Water dried and kidneys weak leave pupils without reliance. Gui as day stem born in Fire-and-Earth months, seated on Earth in day and hour to block its source, with Wood and Fire draining and parching it in the pillars and no completed Following Transformation, often gives eye illness. In year, month, or hour, even obtaining autumn influence, without northwestern major progression and upon meeting excessively blazing Wood-and-Fire regions, loss of sight is feared. Even Water with a little rooted passage may have illness of the lower origin.
Translator's note: The final note prints Gui Wood while the heading and ensuing discussion describe Water. Both readings are identified instead of silently harmonized. The medical and social judgments are those of the supplied historical text.
Large-Intestine Illness: Bing and Ding Injure Geng Metal
The note says: Geng belongs to the large intestine and should meet Water and Earth. It dislikes Bing, Ding, Yin, and Mao forming an uncontrolled configuration. Even rooted Geng Metal, punished, clashed with, restrained, and broken, then entering Wood-and-Fire major progression where Water and Earth decline, has this illness.
Earth traveling through damp ground overturns its roots and leaves Boniu's sorrow; Fire forming its configuration in blazing Heaven leaves Yanzi without worry.
The note says: Wu Earth belongs to the spleen. Without rooted Birth and Flourishing in the four pillars, born at a damp Yin time, further soaked by Water so Earth is hollow, traveling through damp ground and meeting Earth restraint in the year, spleen Earth is injured and illness follows. Fire is literary brilliance. Born in summer's nine divisions with the Yin-Wu-Xu Threefold configuration, Fire shines still brighter. A little Wood should support its force; Water dragging at its root and checking its flame is unsuitable. This gives joy in the Way without worry. Fire reaching its extreme and meeting much generating Wood instead indicates poverty and early death, most unfavorable.
Flooding Water floats Wood: death without a coffin. Blazing Fire dries Earth: life in solitude.
The note says: Wood following flooding Water without progression's Earth embankment, further reaching Death and Extinction with clash and joined Killing, must fall from cliffs, enter Water, suffer violent harm, or die by poison, rarely favorably. Earth dried by Fire cannot generate things. Early southern progression abandons it as useless; even later Wealth and Office cannot function, giving solitude, poverty, running about, and no home.
Many wives with little force give a livelihood from flowers and powder; weak Horse and many Companions leave the person drifting.
The note says: Wealth used as wife most needs time and position; day master favors firmness and strength, reliance in year and month, and properly placed Yin and Yang, indicating a good match. Numerous scattered Wealth, uneven punishment and combination, and a solitary weak day master unable to bear its use must bring profit through the wife to sustain the self. Conversely, Wealth nourishes life and cannot be absent from use. Flourishing Wealth and a strong Body give lifelong ease. Light Wealth and many Companions cannot suffice, leaving wandering through rivers and lakes and laborious pursuit of Wealth: how could peaceful enjoyment come?
Harmful spirits meeting together make good difficult to complete when few; auspicious luminaries approaching together transform even numerous evils. The Way is understood through principle; spirit arises from the mind. Read thoroughly and seek diligently, and the great and subtle will be evidenced.
Translator's note: The bodily correspondences, predictions of disease or death, and judgments about marriage and livelihood are the source's historical assertions. They are translated without modern diagnostic interpretation.
On the Six Spirits
The Five Phases' subtle uses cannot escape one principle. Advance, retreat, survival, and loss require understanding flexible change. Proper Office wearing Seal is inferior to riding Horse.
The note says: Using Office principally requires vigor, flourishing, clarity, and loftiness; shallow thinness is most avoided. Flourishing Office suits Seal; weak Office suits Wealth: an unchanging principle. Saying Seal is inferior to Wealth has a particular explanation. With a flourishing Body and light Office, many Seals further strengthen the day master and weaken Office. Huzhongzi says: Light Office is inferior to light Killing. Thus a flourishing Wealth region is favored to generate Office and restrain Seal, balancing within and without and enabling blessings to develop.
Seven Killing Using Wealth: How Could Obtaining Emolument Be Suitable?
The note says: Excessively flourishing Killing, a day master without reliance, and further Wealth generating Killing make the day weaker and Killing stronger. Unable to face or escape it, one can only abandon the destiny and follow, avoiding encroachment. Progression through flourishing Wealth and Killing should preserve the original following intent. Annual influence or progression Returning to Emolument makes the day master rely on strength and fight Killing: how could few overcome many? The harm is evident.
Seal Meeting Wealth Loses Office; Wealth Meeting Seal Gains Promotion
The note says: Seal is clear, lofty, upright, and great; seeing Wealth prevents preserving name and rank. Originally using Seal without relying on Office or Killing, progression through Seal and Office gives a pure official path. A Wealth region restrains Seal; without Companions in the pillars for rescue, dismissal and retirement are unavoidable. Heavy injury must bring death abroad through Water or Fire in the source's compressed wording. A flourishing Body using Wealth clearly brings glory. Further flourishing Wealth progression may exceed the master's capacity, requiring a flourishing Seal year to assist the root. This instead advances rank and office and is not judged Greed for Wealth Ruining Seal.
A Destiny of Early Death: Lone Food Spirit Meets Owl
The note says: Seven Killing injures the Body, with no original Proper Seal to resolve it, and only one Food Spirit to restrain Killing. Prime-life progression favors controlling Killing. Powerful Owl Spirit restraining Food Spirit, without Indirect Wealth in the pillars to oppose it, must release Killing to injure the Body, intensifying calamity.
Progression Reaches Danger: Repeated Yang Blade Breaks the Configuration
The note says: This refers specifically to using Wealth without Killing. Yang Blade is greatly avoided as harmful. Annual influence and progression repeatedly meeting Yang Blade and Robbing Wealth to break the configuration must bring household ruin, imprisonment, sorrow from injured wife and harmed children, and every kind of Water, Fire, weapon, and blade calamity.
Competition for Proper Office Requires Injury
The note says: Office is Emolument, desired by everyone. Many Companions and Blades in the pillars, with only one Office Star, must contend and seize, bringing calamity when met. It is better for progression to reach Hurting Office and injure Office Star completely: Companions then have nothing to contest, allowing peace.
Returning to Seven Killing Most Dislikes Restraint
The note says: This too concerns Companions. Many Companions in the four pillars must compete for Emolument and Wealth, seizing things from annual influence and progression and causing harm. One Seven Killing emerging in year or month makes Companions fear its force and submit. Annual influence or progression bringing Food Spirit to restrain Killing removes the governing spirit from the pillars. Companions resume their original disorder, dispersing Wealth, ruining enterprise, and bringing violent death through reckless greed: clear evidence exists.
Office dwelling in Killing's ground cannot preserve Office; Killing in Office's region cannot transform Killing.
The note says: Office is a pure, cultured noble person; Killing a treacherous, violent guest. Office among Killing's party cannot stand alone and must blend into Killing. Even with its pure, cultured style, how could it preserve itself? Killing is fierce and violent. Though in Office Star's region of propriety and righteousness, it does not transform through them, so Killing cannot become Office.
Greed for Wealth Ruining Seal Can Win High Examination Honors: Distinguish Seal's Weight
The note says: Heavy Seal and light Killing never ultimately make distinction. Flourishing Wealth progression must restrain excessive Seal and generate deficient Killing. Killing and Seal balanced must enable exceptional achievement. Light Seal meeting Wealth instead brings great harm. Assess the distinction carefully.
Meeting Companions and Using Wealth Gives Vast Riches: Companions Receive Support
The note says: Wealth is what I use, so obtaining it is good. One Seven Killing exclusively holding authority in the pillars restrains the day master, leaving no leisure to use Wealth. Companions and Robbery emerging, or annual influence and progression generating and supporting the day master, prevent weakness, enable resistance to Killing, and finally let Wealth serve me.
Progression Reaches a Flourishing Region Yet the Body Instead Weakens
The note says: This is an incomplete image of Following Wealth or Following Killing. The weak day master refuses to abandon the destiny and follow Wealth and Killing. Major progression supplying support must make it contend against them. Unable to win, it instead suffers their harm and appears weaker still. This must mean calamity constructed through Wealth and disaster or illness burdening the Body.
Wealth Meeting Robbery Can Make Calamity Lighter
The note says: A weak Body cannot bear much Wealth. Progression meeting Companions and Robbery divides Wealth and assists influence, instead lightening calamity.
Wealth Is Uninjured, Yet Secretly Scheming Thieves Are Still Feared
The note says: Using Wealth without Companions or Blade to rob it leaves no injury. Particularly avoid Companions and Blade hidden within branch storehouses: punishment or clash can bring unavoidable harm through secret theft.
Killing Without Manifest Control Requires Seeking Troops Lying in Ambush
The note says: Killing is a stubborn, violent person. Food Spirit's manifest control is required for use. If no controller is visible in the pillars, do not immediately judge harm. Search the four branch spirits deeply. Hidden Food Spirit meeting punishment, clash, or a Threefold Combination can also be troops lying in ambush. Major progression through a Killing-controlling region must give fame and advancing Emolument.
Nobleman Wearing Wealth and Office: Four-Horse Chariots at the Gate
The note says: This specifically concerns year and day exchanging Nobleman, without Void, Robbery, Harm, Killing, or Blade in the same palace. Wealth and Office worn above, in proper position, with combination, roots, season, and advancing influence, give wealth and distinction and command of armies and penal affairs: an extraordinary destiny. The Jade Well says: Walking gold and jade has Office Star above Nobleman. Thus Office is even more important than Wealth.
Translator's note: The supplied heading has an irregular graph between gate and four-horse chariots; the image is retained without inventing a separate technical operation.
Death and Robbery Hidden in Birth-and-Flourishing Palaces Give Courage Surpassing Three Armies
The note says: Death Spirit and Robbing Killing in the eight characters, meeting genuine Long Life and the year branch's Nayin, or obtaining Long Life, Assuming Office, or Imperial Flourishing, indicate extraordinary military strategy and courage to lift cauldrons and uproot mountains.
Riding Horse Can Lose Life; Obtaining Emolument Can Require Leaving Office
The note says: Many original Companions and Robbers without Wealth for use meet Wealth in annual influence or progression. The day master desires its use, and Companions and Blade must seize it. Severely, life and household are lost; mildly, office is relinquished. Originally using Office Star with Wealth as distinction, progression Returning to Emolument reaches flourishing Companions, which must contend for Office. Thus competition among Companions instead loses one's salary, requiring withdrawal.
Seal Resolves the Distress of Two Worthies; Wealth Provokes Six States' Contention
The note says: Two Worthies means two Killings; Seal is benevolence. A day master not weak, with two Killings emerging in the stems and jointly abusing it, without Food for rescue, or Food seized by Owl, is most harmful. Seal transforming Killing into submission not only gives wealth and distinction above others but enjoyment of blessings. Another account says Two Worthies are Office and Killing; taking both solely as Killing repeats the next line about many mixed Killings. Wealth is desired by everyone and often constructs calamity. Hidden Blade in the pillars has nothing to contest without Wealth. Wealth used or seen in the year provokes Companions' mixed robbery, with unavoidable punishment, depletion, and injury to wife.
Many mixed Killings can be transformed by one benevolence; one Killing stirring disorder can be captured by a lone force.
The note says: Killing awaits control before submitting. Numerous Killings cannot be controlled by insufficient force; attempted control provokes rebellion. Seal is therefore better: benevolence transforms Killing so it submits of itself. Flourishing Seal's region strengthens transformation. Further restraint is unsuitable: excessive hatred brings disorder. A lone Killing stirring disorder has limited force; one Food can subdue it, how much more many Food Spirits controlling it?
Seal in Killing's ground transforms through virtue; Killing in Seal's ground orders through punishment.
The note says: A Jia day using Shen as Killing faces restraint without control, clearly harmful. Yet Water Seal has Long Life at Shen and naturally transforms Killing, preventing violence. Many Wealth in stems and branches make an inferior configuration; flourishing Companions and light Wealth make its use finer. Yi Wood using Xin Metal as Killing may find Xin rooted at Zi and relying on strength to restrain me. Though Zi is my Seal, it is Killing's generating palace. Further Xin emerging encroaches on the day master. Without Food Spirit in the stems for rescue, flourishing Wu should clash with Zi and remove Killing's generating palace. Xin then lacks reliance, offering escape from injury to the Body.
Siblings breaking Wealth can make Wealth useful; Office and Killing bullying the master require its following.
The note says: A configuration of Companions, with the day stem on Dedicated Emolument and no Wealth or Office in the pillars, has nothing to use. Companions must form a party and clash through emptiness to break open a flourishing Wealth palace, making Wealth usable. Greatly fear filling the clashing palace or detaining Companions in combination. A Xinyou day with many You clashes Mao; many Mao break Wu: this fits the correct use. Excess Office and Killing, a powerless day master without roots in the pillars, and further Wealth-and-Killing progression make abandoning the destiny and Following Killing preferable. A flourishing Killing region must develop blessings. Greatly avoid Body-flourishing or Food Spirit progression.
One Horse in the stable dares none pursue; one Horse in the wild everyone pursues.
The note says: Horse is Wealth, a thing Companions must contest. Wealth manifest in the four pillars, standing independently without obstruction, resembles Horse in the stable: its allotment is established and Companions dare not pursue. Greatly fear progression turning away from Wealth into Threefold or Sixfold Combinations, where Companions secretly steal and cause substantial harm. Wealth used but not manifest, hidden within branch storehouses where people do not know it, attracts Companions' schemes to steal it. Even deep hiding and firm closure cannot guarantee safety.
Wealth at Birth and Storehouse with its Birth palace broken serves two families' ancestral lines.
The note says: Seal is mother and Wealth father. Wealth takes Seal as household and Seal Wealth as master. Noble Wealth makes Seal honored; a failed husband leaves wife without reliance. Thus ancestral foundations and parents must be assessed through Wealth first. Wealth having a Long Life palace and also Tomb and Storehouse, with a spirit breaking the Birth palace but not offending the Storehouse, makes an adopted heir or a child abandoning father to follow mother. Birth begins instruction; Storehouse gathers at the end. Abandoning the beginning to follow the end gives this result.
The Body seated on Companions forming a Companion configuration should be a bridegroom several times.
The note says: Without Hurting Office or Food Spirit, Wealth must serve as wife, whose palace is beneath the day. Companions occupying it and further forming a Threefold configuration must seize Wealth seen in year, month, or hour. Without Wealth in the pillars, seeing it in annual influence or progression is also harmful. Harm to concubines and wives will hardly stop at one or two.
Translator's note: The source's stable-and-wild analogy assigns visible Wealth to the stable and hidden Wealth to the wild. These assignments and the alternative explanation of Two Worthies are preserved without reversal.
Parents Parting and Reuniting: Recognize Seal Approaching Wealth
The note says: Wealth and Seal in the pillars are the spirits of father and mother, not allowed in the same palace. Though named parents, their relation contains restraint and stripping: how could separation's resentment be avoided? Yet if Seal and Wealth connect in one palace, both firmly placed with Birth and Emolument sharing the region, they eventually reunite and form a household without estrangement.
Wives Harmed as Soon as Married: Companions Lie Hidden beneath Horse
The note says: Wealth is wife. A year when Wealth flourishes for use, or receives generation, assistance, or advancing influence, should bring a wife. If Companions originally hidden beneath Wealth were restrained by Killing and denied the chance to seize it, then meeting Wealth together with Food Spirit controlling Killing releases their will to seize Wealth. The wife cannot remain long.
Child filling the child's position gives Bodao's solitary sigh; wife guarding Wife Palace equals Meng Guang's virtue.
The note says: Child means Office and Killing; child's position the birth hour. Wealth in the hour, and Office or Killing used with Birth and Flourishing, without punishment, harm, solitude, or emptiness, and without missing Useful Spirit's timing, gives a son. Office out of command, with jealous Hurting Office or Food Spirit directly filling the hour, instead gives Bodao's lament. Wife is Wealth; Wife Palace the day branch. Wife appearing in her palace obtains position. Without Companions, Blade, punishment, clash, Peach Blossom, or harmful Killing, and with Heavenly and Monthly Virtues and Nobleman there, she not only surpasses Daoyun's talent but has Meng Guang's virtue.
Hurting Office entering storage: Yin lives and Yang dies. Yang Blade assisting the Body favors combination and dislikes clash.
The note says: Hurting Office has Yin and Yang, Birth and Death; judge which applies. Hurting Office returning to storage and met in annual influence or progression often brings death and violent calamity. Yet the five Yin forms of Hurting Office return to life here without fault. Blade assists the Body and greatly fears being met by an already flourishing Body. One Killing combining with Blade transforms it into Authority Star. Office and Blade clashing and fighting instead form harmful Killing. Judge the weight, likes, and aversions carefully.
Authority and Blade again progressing through Authority and Blade ends life by sword or medicine; Wealth and Office again meeting Wealth and Office brings dismissal for corruption. The note says: Authority is Killing, Blade weapons. A flourishing Body using these two is foremost in military and penal affairs. Flourishing Killing favors controlling regions; flourishing Blade Killing's ground. Originally flourishing Killing followed by further flourishing Killing must end beneath swords where enterprise and achievement are established. Many Blades again meeting Yang Blade's ground must end through medicines or food where Emolument and Wealth are gained: this is the allotted number. Wealth is salary, Office Emolument. A strong Body meeting them gives outstanding fame and gain. Weak Office favors flourishing regions; flourishing Wealth flourishing Seal's ground: both develop blessings and establishment. But Seal meeting Office makes Emolument excessive; flourishing Wealth meeting Wealth gives excess salary. A gentleman with excess Emolument and salary must face corruption and dismissal.
Emolument reaching Long Life with original Seal gains a pure appointment; Horse traveling to Imperial Flourishing without former injury gains official rank.
The note says: Originally weak Office cannot match Seal's glory. Office meeting Long Life becomes clear, remarkable, and independent, with affinity attending Seal. Seal supports the Body; all three functions complete must advance rank. Originally used Proper or Indirect Wealth may obtain position but lose season, leaving office unimportant. Wait for Imperial Flourishing or Assuming Office in annual influence and progression: Wealth suffices and Horse runs vigorously. With no former Companions or Blade injuring or robbing it, promotion, rank, enterprise, and surplus Wealth are evident.
Flourishing Wealth and a Declining Body: Meeting Birth Brings Death
The note says: Flourishing Wealth and a declining Body lack force to bear their intent. Forgetting one another instead leaves what is kept secure. Meeting Long Life makes the Body rely on strength and rashly scheme. Wealth is not yet gained before calamity follows.
Strong Blade and Thin Wealth: Seeing Killing Generates Office
The note says: Office is minute and Wealth thin because Yang Blade robs Wealth, preventing it from generating Office and leaving Office without reliance. One Seven Killing combining with Blade makes Blade abandon Wealth, relieving Wealth's affliction enough to generate Office, which naturally flourishes. Students must not object here that Killing mixes Office.
These methods are profound beyond profundity. Familiarity has now formed them into this chapter, offering a little assistance to ignorance and perhaps illuminating one part in ten thousand.
Rhapsody on Aversion and Affection
Nothing is wealthier than purity; nothing poorer than warfare. Nothing is nobler than refinement bearing fruit; nothing lower than injury turned back upon oneself. Brocade-like writing comes when Noble Horse meets Academy; broad generosity when Water and Fire combine in disposition. Deep strategy and far-sighted thought have Virtue Star in a quiet palace; profound technical arts have Imperial Seat guarding Literature's Hall. Chief Strength holds the mechanism of agile change; Li and Kan are intelligence's doors. Nobleman, Emolument, and Horse should be met; Robbery, Blade, and Void kept distant. Long Life invites Nobleman's affection; Decline and Failure meet petty people's dislike. Four palaces in collapse give neither benevolence nor righteousness; Five Phases generating one another loyalty and filial devotion. Seal and Emolument at punishment and clash give a distracted mind and busy Body; day and hour within Ghost Storehouse much worry and little joy. A flourishing day stem has few calamities; declining Wealth and Destiny much distress. Toil for clothing and food comes from restraint at flourishing places; fame and gain's success and failure from injury in noble ground. Lifelong blessings and calamity depend on day and hour; one year's good and ill on influence and progression. Blessed Star with influence moves into promotion; the year restraining harmful progression parts people and scatters Wealth. Dangerous major progression produces a hundred calamities; auspicious annual influence removes a thousand disasters. With no Extinction, reaching Extinction endangers Wealth and Destiny; seeking Birth and obtaining Birth satisfies fame and gain. Threefold and Sixfold Combinations make good weighty and harm light; Seven Killing and Four Harms make calamity deep and blessings shallow. Official promotion must come in a year of Emolument gathering; purchases and increased fields in a place combining Wealth. The annual ruler clashing and pressing indicates calamity; injured major progression has little good. The year should generate progression; progression likes generating the Body. Three positions generating in sequence satisfy the year. Wealth and Office both flourishing give conspicuous official advancement; Wealth and Food equally glorious cannot remain long in a humble house. Emolument entering gathered Birth makes wealth and distinction evident; Horse racing into flourishing Emolument makes glory certain. Profit through transactions requires Sixfold Combination. Hour stem carrying Emolument back to origin must give peacefully obtained blessings. A declining month and flourishing hour give abundant early years; a heavy root and light master lifelong wandering. Habitual gains in markets must come from Wealth at flourishing places; sudden distinction and household establishment from Nobility within punishment. Master and root in season receive a lady's support; noble Emolument with affinity finds a gentleman's assistance to auspiciousness. Southern merchants and northern travelers have an open Horse road; eastern traders racing west favorable carriage progression. A distressed, weak day stem leaves Boniu to resent Heaven; declining Emolument and Horse leave Yanzi unable to escape short life. Nothing is more harmful than branch Blade, more favorable than strong stems. Poor Horse and meager Wealth send men fleeing and women running. Heaven's Snare and Earth Net bring disaster or violent calamity. Robbery on a desperate road must offend Self-Punishment amid danger and doubt; Wealth at Extinction makes aging together with wife and children difficult. Great and Small Depletion often ruin a household through gambling; Official and Death Talismans must bring prison and lawsuits. If the four pillars meet Extinction repeatedly and the Three Destinies suffer punishment and injury, exile and strangulation are hard to escape, and facial tattooing is ultimately suffered. Five Ghosts give certain lightning injury or tiger bites; further gathered harms surely bring dreadful violent death. Women become sexually disordered and lowly, men wild. Asked about worthy or foolish, good or evil disposition, first infer Nobility and Killing's flourishing or decline, then investigate skill and agile change. Lofty ambition has Chief Strength acting harmfully; a compliant nature Sixfold Combination auspiciously. Quiet, free, untroubled people meet Canopy, Solitude, and Empty lodges; domineering people relying on force offend Indirect Office, Robbery, and Blade's authority. Robbery and Blade breed meanness and stinginess and dangerous schemes. Strategy often comes from Ren and Gui; fierce authority from Bing and Ding. Jia and Yi in accord are benevolent and generous; Geng and Xin deficient are decisive without firmness. Solitude and Confinement lack vitality; Breaking and Failure bring much carelessness. Punishment and combat make stupidity and obstinacy; quiet peace worth and talent; restless failure abundant Fire; concealed endurance much Metal. Metal and Water commanding and generating one another, Fire and Earth in season and assisting one another, give sufficient clothing and food without anxious labor and a household established without exertion. Further Virtue spirits' support must bring local respect; noble Emolument arched into position a name in high administration. The worry is blessings failing to bless, the concern success failing to succeed. Blessings fail when auspicious places suffer harm; success fails when configurations break. Injure its pattern and blessings suffer; break its configuration and calamity comes. Like seedlings meeting autumn drought and winter granaries empty, or flowers struck by spring frost and summer fruit failing, abundant strategy finds no accomplished use. Though possessing a mechanism to turn Heaven and its axis, one cannot attain enterprise and achievement. Have you not seen Li Sheng boiled in a cauldron, Fan Zeng's back abscess, Yuanming returning east, Zimei departing west, Mengyu without opportunity, Feng Yan returning empty, Maichen carrying firewood and singing, Jiang Ge reading in bitter cold? Some seedlings never flower; some flowers never fruit. Further excessive injury and failure leave one's only blessing no more than a woodcutter's livelihood. Even a hundred arts and many abilities cannot escape hunger, cold, illness, suffering, and the ditch: destiny makes it so. Asked how both wealth and distinction excel, nothing exceeds a nourishing foundation, nothing is more remarkable than refinement bearing fruit. Sages and worthies exist in every age; supreme wealth and distinction have always followed this. One may be born in a Killing configuration yet excel in literature and arms, or dwell beneath Cap and Belt with great enterprise and rare talent. How are these subtleties inferred? First discuss Three Wonders and Four Blessings within Academy; next examine one auspicious and two fitting conditions beyond the configuration. Jiwei seeing Jiazi is auspicious; Renchen seeing Dingsi fortunate. Renzi and Bingwu give graceful, cultured people; Xinyou and Bingshen refined, glorious persons. Yin and Yang rely wholly on pure beauty; creation most favors mutual generation. Difficult to distinguish are Sun Essence and Moon Brilliance; unfathomable Jade Hall and Golden Coffer. Obtaining them brings glory; meeting them distinction. Worth, folly, display, and concealment all come from creation's molding. A phoenix may be born from an owl, a snake transform into a dragon; fragrant orchids do not cease among coarse weeds, and withered trees still live in wild hills. Youthful distinction and low old age, early obstruction and later passage, arise from major progression's flourishing and decline, changing wealth and distinction. A pure configuration turning mixed brings sorrow in a waning spring; old progression obtaining time gives leisurely late years. Thus time has spring and autumn, the moon fullness and lack. Children sheltered by inherited Wealth lose their parent and become helpless; plowing and fishing people find open progression and become remarkable. Many years' rank and Emolument may cease in one day. Timely progression meets its time, yet Birth and Flourishing need not lack harm. Affinity gives passage, its absence stagnation; command good fortune, clash harm. Office and Seal arriving in the year surely promote officials; Food and Wealth progression also allows common people prosperity. Some rely on ancestral glory in youth and children's distinction when grown; others endure hardship in childhood and remain unsupported when old. This comes from four pillars' flourishing and decline and major progression's passage or obstruction. Have you not seen withered Wood unable to flourish even in spring, or abundant branches surviving frost? Further deficient hour and day, with year and month fixed, leave no late result; flourishing birth-hour influence returning to origin must give late blessings. There was jade whose polishing made it worth linked cities; there are solitary people who establish their own households, uninjured after smelting and unwithering after seasonal cold. Increase and decline find subtlety in flexible change; blessings and calamity must be examined through decline and flourishing. May gentlemen who know destiny judge this together.
Translator's note: The supplied verse gives both general claims and exceptions and includes historical and literary allusions. Its early-years prediction for a declining month and flourishing hour is retained as printed rather than harmonized with other chapters' late-life rules.
Rhapsody on Increase and Decline
The source note names Luoluzi and gives Yuwuzi as the explanatory commentator.
The original single influence precedes Heaven; clarity and turbidity are naturally endowed. Establish the Three Powers to form images; distribute the Four Influences to make the year.
The note says: This traces creation's beginning and the source of the Three Destinies. They take the stem as Emolument, called Heavenly Origin; the branch as Destiny, called Human Origin; Nayin as Body, called Earthly Origin. The ancients glimpsed creation, modeled Heaven and Earth, embodied Yin and Yang, and matched four pillars to form eight characters. This is the meaning of Luoluzi's opening.
Take the stem as Emolument: facing and turning away determine poverty and wealth. Take the branch as Destiny: examine reverse and forward in their cycles. The note says: Stem is like a tree trunk, branch like its branches. Taken together, stem is Yang and branch Yin; separately, both have Yin and Yang. The ten stems' Emolument lodges in the twelve branches. Yang proceeds forward, Yin reverses. Count each from Long Life and lodge it at the original tone's Assuming Office. This is the natural principle of Yang's Birth and Yin's Death, Yin's Birth and Yang's Death. Inferring stem Emolument gives facing and turning away: Jia Emolument is at Yin, so Chou faces it and Mao turns away. Thus one position before Emolument is Yang Blade, one behind Emolument Storehouse. A classic says facing Emolument gives Birth, turning away gives Death: is this not determining poverty and wealth? Examining branch Destiny gives reverse and forward. Yang males and Yin females proceed forward from the birth month; Yin males and Yang females reverse. The received influences of Yin, Yang, forward, and reverse lie within stems and branches, ending and beginning again, cycling like cold and heat through endless seasons. Hence the line about branch Destiny. Tan Ying says: Stem Emolument has facing and turning away; good and ill have depth and shallowness. Turning away and reversing can determine poverty; facing and proceeding forward can reveal wealth. Yet no single track governs it, and turning away from Emolument need not mean poverty. Branch serves as Human Origin; merchants circulate through gains and losses. Men welcome and women see off; obstruction and passage occupy one another. Auspicious and harmful gatherings determine their effects.
Progression travels one branch in ten years; conversion takes three days as one year. Refine Rest and Flourishing for subtlety; exhaust flexible change for profundity.
The note says: Stems and branches establish the eight characters. Progression is most crucial to the Three Destinies, so its method is presented first. One branch for ten years and three days for one year is the ancient progression rule. Conversion requires understanding actual calendrical numbers. Destinies differ in depth within seasonal nodes; progression may refer differently to birth or seasonal boundary. Rest or Flourishing must accord with the eight characters. Some favor Birth and Flourishing and dislike Rest and Failure; others suit Rest and Failure and avoid Birth and Flourishing. With myriad transformations, who can participate without penetrating the profound and hidden and exhausting creation's subtlety through increase and decline?
As influence, what is coming advances and what has completed achievement retreats, like a snake in ashes or an eel in dust. The note says: Influence is the Five Phases' influence distributed through the seasons. In spring Wood flourishes, Fire assists, Earth dies, Metal is confined, and Water rests. Facing Assuming Office and Imperial Flourishing, the coming advances; turning toward Rest, Abandonment, Death, and Extinction, completed achievement retreats. Five-Phase influence cycles in advance and retreat. In each progression branch, assisting influence advances and flourishing influence retreats. Influence holding authority brings blessings when used; without authority its use gives no benefit. Past influence retreats. Snake and eel belong to Fire's category; Fire at Confinement and Death becomes Earth, at Rest and Abandonment ashes. Si's three creatures are snake, eel, and earthworm. Thus snake and eel as Fire at Confinement, Death, Rest, and Abandonment lie in dust and ashes: Earth advances and Fire retreats. Monk Ying says: Eel and earthworm belong to Water and Earth and must suffer in dust; Flying Serpent is the ash-and-Fire spirit and enjoys ashes. Directions gather by category and things divide by groups. Following their desire is favorable, opposing their tendency harmful. Things reveal creation. People may progress through the same palace yet influence advances or retreats; the place is alike yet destiny has life or death. Hence Rest and Flourishing and flexible change must be investigated precisely. This explanation is accepted.
As being, it establishes being from absence; as absence, Heaven hangs images to display their patterns. The note says: This explains the Five Phases' influence establishing being from absence, borrowing the heavenly images of the Five Planets to clarify it. At the first distribution of things, who made being? After the Supreme Ultimate, who makes absence? Being emerges from absence; absence is born from being. In influence it forms images, on Earth shapes, and transformation becomes visible.
As constants, it establishes benevolence and righteousness; as affairs, it is seen or heard.
The note says: In Heaven the Five Phases are Five Planets, on Earth Five Sacred Mountains, in people Five Organs. Applied in conduct, they are the Five Constants, whose way can endure. The Changes says: Heaven's Way is Yin and Yang; Earth's yielding and firm; humanity's benevolence and righteousness. Humanity cannot stand without benevolence and righteousness. The Documents names Five Affairs: appearance, speech, seeing, hearing, and thought. Five Constants and Five Affairs are transformations of the Five Phases communicating with human matters. Disposition, approach and withdrawal, seeing and hearing, movement and stillness cannot escape these numbers. Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth are seen; gong, shang, jue, zhi, and yu are heard. Appearance, speech, seeing, hearing, and thought are seen; reverence, ordering, discernment, planning, and sageliness are heard. The Five Phases' uses are inexhaustible. Who but someone of flexible understanding and clear wisdom can investigate precisely and recognize them silently?
Elevation makes treasure, singularity Nobility. General Star supports Virtue and Heavenly Yi descends. The printed Wood Master at Rest and Confinement sinks in public and private life.
The note says: Elevated is the opposite of low; singular the opposite of paired. Accumulation makes things high, hence elevated: in the Five Phases, the upper generating the lower. Something without a mate is singular: in the Five Phases, differing things forming a group. General Star is Monthly General, Virtue Heavenly and Monthly Virtues, Heavenly Yi Noble Spirit. Birth year is root, birth day master. Rest and Confinement contrast with Birth and Flourishing. Year, month, day, and hour with Five Phases generating from above to below, the Three Wonders Yi, Bing, and Ding, and General Star, Virtue, and Nobility, with master and root generating, flourishing, and obtaining ground, are Auspicious Generals Descending Together and Blessings Arriving in Celebration: the highest distinction. The rhapsody first calls elevation and singularity precious and noble, then says master and root avoid Rest and Confinement. Elevation and singularity are rare; master and root are crucial, spirits and Killings of the directions secondary. Thus destiny puts the Five Phases first and Birth and Flourishing highest; General Star, Virtue, and Nobility are also the most auspicious spirits. Xu says: Elevation concerns master and root; positions governing longevity, Wealth, calamity, and blessing are also elevated. Singularity concerns Emolument and Horse; Wealth, Office, Seal, and Food are also singular. Virtue is the day's interacting Virtue position, namely Sixfold Combination. Renyin year, Gengxu month, Guimao day, Yimao hour has the ninth month's General at Mao supporting the birth day; the ninth month's Five Phases are Metal and Earth, with Mao-Xu, Yi-Geng, and Wu-Gui combinations. All Five Phases outside Rest and Failure give distinction. The commentator concludes this seems not the rhapsody's meaning.
Gouchen obtaining position does not diminish small trust in completing benevolence; True Warrior holding authority reveals great talent receiving auspicious investiture.
The note says: Water and Earth exemplify the others. Gouchen is Earth's general and Trust among the constants; True Warrior Water's spirit and Wisdom among them. Trust reaches sageliness; wisdom can compose its Way. The Five Phases' use is especially fine here. Obtaining position means Wu and its printed Si-shaped partner born in the seventh month, mother in child's region. Holding authority means Ren and Gui born in the seventh month, child in mother's household. Both share a source and are born at Shen. Xu takes Wu and its printed Si-shaped partner seated at Yin or Mao and Hai-Mao-Wei, or Ren and Gui seated at Wu or Si and Chen, Xu, Chou, or Wei, with flourishing or stored Office, Seal, Emolument, and Horse below, as obtaining position and authority. This seems contrary to the rhapsody; better to take Earth born in the Four Seasons and Water meeting winter's three months.
Neither benevolence nor righteousness when Geng-Xin cross Jia-Yi; sometimes right and sometimes wrong when Ren-Gui and Bing-Ding fear one another.
The note says: Authority and position above avoid crossed relationships and mutual fear. Jia seeing Geng, Yi Xin, Bing Ren, Ding Gui resemble two women living together or two men sharing a place: Yin and Yang do not combine and celebration cannot form. Geng and Xin govern righteousness, Jia and Yi benevolence; crossed, neither virtue is fulfilled. Bing and Ding govern propriety, Ren and Gui wisdom; mutual fear gives right and wrong. Geng combining with Yi and Xin with Jia instead let firmness and yielding ride together and benevolence and righteousness complete one another: no crossing. Bing seeing Gui Office and Ding combining with Ren Emolument pair Yin and Yang and bring Water and Fire Already Across: no mutual fear. Another account calls Jiashen and Yiyou unbenevolent, Gengyin and Xinmao unrighteous, through Yin-Shen and Geng-Jia crossing, Mao-You and Yi-Xin secretly fighting. For Bing and Ren, Bing is wrong and Ren right; for Ding and Gui, Gui right and Ding wrong. Zi-Wu and Si-Hai follow likewise. Only a destiny actually meeting such a position permits this discussion.
Thus earlier worthies humbled themselves in ordinary life and sought immortality: honoring Buddhism, they cultivate stillness in Li's palace; returning to the Way, they seek profundity in Water's mansion.
The note says: Benevolence and righteousness often diverge amid gain and loss; right and wrong bind glory and withering. Daily use goes unrecognized and never rests. Thus earlier worthies humbled themselves, sought immortality, cut attachments, and reduced selfishness and desire. Some honored Buddhism to extinguish the heart's Fire; some returned to the Way to nourish kidney essence. Inwardly guarding spirit and vitality, outwardly removing illusion, they understand things and self as without fixed being and clarify form and emptiness to their conclusion: all follow this.
Know that the Five Phases communicate with the Way and have many gates of use: ordered in the worthy, disordered in the unworthy; completed by subtle use, ruined by inability.
The note says: The Way is everywhere and no thing is outside it. The Five Phases' transformation communicates with the great Way and encompasses everything. Its uses differ, hence many gates. Understanding people take it to cultivate stillness; immortals to seek profundity. Who but one awakened directly can participate? The worthy obtain it, exhaust principles and nature, and reach subtle use; fools lose it and remain obscure, gaining nothing. The able cultivate it for blessings; the unable ruin it for calamity. The Changes says: Without the right person, the Way does not act in vain.
Visible forms of the unseen are always present; threads drawn and undrawn continue through all antiquity.
The note says: Forms visible and unseen exist in the ten stems' Emolument lodged in twelve branches. Jia Emolument at Yin is manifestly visible. Without Yin but with Xu, Five Zi Origin Escape reaches Jiaxu: Xu is Jia's Emolument Hall, unseen Emolument. Jia takes Xin as Office, Xin Emolument at You, and Jia receiving the Metal Rooster is visible Office. Without You but with Wei, Heavenly Office Escape has Jia Entering the Sheep Flock: Xin above Wei is unseen Office. Threads drawn and undrawn are like Yang influence born at Zi, flourishing at Mao, ending at Wu; Yin born at Wu, flourishing at You, ending at Zi. Yang's Birth is Yin's Death; Yin changes and Yang transforms. Zi and Wu are beginning and end of inexhaustible Yin-Yang generation. Extreme Yin gives Yang's Birth, extreme Yang Yin's Birth. Influence sprouts and draws out through husks at Zi and Wu, entering and leaving without affliction, coming and going endlessly, like threads continuing unbroken through antiquity. The Supreme Mystery says: Forms visible and unseen, threads drawn and undrawn, shift by day and transform by month. Heat departs and cold arrives; abandonment and development alternate, as do Rest and Flourishing, display and obscurity, contraction and drawing out. Continuously seeming to exist, they are always present. Yin-Yang and the Five Phases have seen and unseen, drawn and undrawn; profound principle and issuing mechanism are in everything at all times. Since Heaven, Earth, and humanity existed, it has been so. What is needed is direct awakening.
Thus River Master feared his Seven Killing and Master Xuan his Original Influence. Emei expounded Three Births without full disclosure to scholar or commoner; Guigu spread Nine Destinies in concise stellar observation. Now I gather schools' essentials and set aside partial views' abilities. What explanation cannot fully convey in its intricate passage requires spiritual insight.
The note says: Original Influence and Seven Killing are the most harmful Killings. Who endowed with the Five Phases can escape their trouble? Ancient sages and worthies, River Master among immortals and King Wenxuan at sageliness' height, still feared them; how much more others? Thus they wrote to aid the world, revealing good, ill, calamity, and blessing before manifestation. Emei Immortal expounding Three Births lacked no precision; Guiguzi spreading Nine Destinies lacked no penetration. Yet their profound, hidden words were hard to measure, hence concise stellar observation and no full disclosure. Three Births are Emolument, Destiny, and Body. Nine Destinies are Body and Destiny palaces, Emolument and Horse positions, birth year, conception, month, day, and hour. Luoluzi gathers schools' essentials, sets aside partial views, and expresses his own insight in this writing. Broad explanation of profound meanings and intricate passage through subtle mechanisms require students' spiritual insight and flexible change: then it is good.
Your servant comes from Lanye and admired the authentic way in youth. Entering the market, I lack the Hanging Gourd's wonder; traveling roads, the Transforming Staff's power. I rest the single influence to concentrate spirit and let the Five Phases wane to communicate with the Way.
The note says: Servant addresses a ruler; Lanye is a place, naming the author's origin. Admiring the authentic way in youth shows great aspiration. Hanging Gourd and Transforming Staff are stories of Hugong and Fei Changfang: praise of predecessors' utmost subtlety and regret at one's own inability. Outwardly cutting desire, inwardly without thought, one rests the single influence to concentrate spirit and lets the Five Phases wane to communicate with the Way. Thus the rhapsody is named Increase and Decline: creation has waning and growth.
Qian and Kun establish female and male; Metal and Wood determine firm and yielding. Day and night alternate as ruler and minister; blue-green and red become father and child.
The note says: This is creation's great pattern of increase and decline. Qian belongs to Yang, Heaven's Way, ruler's Way, husband's Way. Kun belongs to Yin, Earth's Way, minister's Way, wife's Way. Qian takes movement as substance, called Opening the Door; Kun stillness, called Closing the Door. Qian and Kun establish Yin-Yang and female-male union; their intercourse contains the Five Phases' transformations. This is why the Changes begins with Qian and Kun. Benevolence yields and righteousness is firm: Wood and Metal govern their natures. Yin and Yang, firm and yielding, push one another. Firmness alone cannot generate change; yielding alone cannot generate transformation. Day is firm and generates change by advancing; night yielding and generates transformation by retreating. Accumulated firmness and yielding make transformation; accumulated days and nights advance and retreat. Day is Yang and images ruler; night Yin and images minister. Their subtlety has increase and decline, their manifestation fullness and emptiness, their division darkness and light, their numbers Birth and Death. Passage and obstruction, loss and gain, beginnings and endings, new replacing old, honor and shame, blessings and Emolument all originate here. The Five Phases' spirits are called emperors. Eastern Blue-Green Emperor as father generates Southern Red Emperor as child: blue-green and red transmit the father's Way to the child. Yin-Yang and the Five Phases contain ruler-minister, father-child, and husband-wife relations. This is creation's great meaning communicating with human relationships.
Do not follow a single track or infer through one principle. There are winters meeting blazing heat and summer grass suffering frost; there are Yin rats dwelling in ice and divine turtles lodging in Fire.
The note says: Yin-Yang and the Five Phases are subtle, hidden, and hard to penetrate, not governed by one track or principle. Winter cold and summer heat are constant principle and proper season. Winter heat and summer frost are out of season: can an out-of-season command be confined by ordinary principle? Rats with Fire and turtles with ice are normal category relations. Yin rats in ice and divine turtles in Fire are outside their category: can these be discussed along one track? The constant is easy to investigate, the exceptional hard to exhaust. Is creation easily described? Zouzi's pitch pipes returned spring to a cold valley; a filial woman's injustice brought flying frost in the sixth month. Ancient and modern records of anomalies contain many such cases, all Yin-Yang and Five-Phase changes. Fire-rat fur woven into cloth and ice-silkworm fat served on platters are known in the world. The Classic of Divine Marvels says: In the north, layered ice stretches ten thousand li, a hundred zhang thick; a rat weighing ten thousand jin, with fur over a chi long, hides inside. This is Yin rat dwelling in ice. The Erya names Divine Turtle first and Fire Turtle tenth. Guo Pu praises Heaven's divine turtle of Ten Peng, sometimes swimming in Fire: divine turtle lodging in Fire. Xu Ziping identifies one Yang born at winter solstice and one Yin at summer solstice with winter heat and summer frost. He takes Gui Emolument at Zi as Human Origin, Bing taking Gui as Office and Seal, and Wu Emolument at the printed Yi-shaped position as Human Origin, Gui taking Wu as Office and Seal, for Yin rat in ice and divine turtle in Fire. The commentator fears this is not the rhapsody's meaning.
Thus Yin and Yang are rarely fathomed, and the purposes of things hard to exhaust. Generally winter's three months have little heat and summer's nine divisions much Yang. Calamity and blessing resemble omens; practitioners hope for eight or nine parts in ten.
The note says: Winter heat, summer frost, ice rat, and Fire turtle are neither ordinary Yin-Yang principle nor normal category response, hence hard to fathom. The next lines illuminate the preceding contrast: even with winter heat, winter generally has little heat; even with summer frost, summer generally has much Yang. Cold and heat have constants, so Yin-Yang's depths can be glimpsed. Calamity and blessing should be inferred by principle, omens responding by category. Specialists in Three Destinies, Five Phases, annual periods, and progression call flourishing, assisting, properly placed progression Passage, and resting, confined, misplaced progression Obstruction. Speaking only of the constant, eight or nine successes in ten suffice. Alternatively, calamity and blessing responding in destiny's annual periods and progression resemble anomalous omens and inexhaustible purposes of things: even practitioners can hardly hope to grasp eight or nine parts in ten. Heaven and Earth lack complete accomplishment, how much more people? This explanation also works.
Born in Rest and Failure, one is solitary and poor early; meeting Established Flourishing when old, one may be obstructed in later years. Initial harm and later good resemble a turbid source and clear stream; early good and final harm a sweet root and bitter descendants.
The note says: Although the Body follows progression, progression must supply the Body. Force needs the right time, and time lends its force. Youth suits flourishing progression; declining old age suits constrained ground. This adjusts Rest and Flourishing appropriately. Initial decline and late prosperity are a turbid source and clear stream; youthful Established Flourishing and lonely old age a sweet root and bitter descendants. Weigh progression influence, exhaust roots and sources, first examining foundations' thickness and thinness and progression's beginning and end. Though not a hundred hits in a hundred, eight or nine may be hoped for. Destiny honors the year; conception, month, day, and hour supply it in order. Year is the four pillars' ruler and father, governing good and ill. Month reveals progression's basis and substance or emptiness; day signs of safety or danger and roots of joy and suffering; hour high or low standing and the time of life or death; conception the beginning of childhood protection and the time before independent establishment. Month governs the initial master, day middle, hour final; year governs all. Beginning and end must complete one another and earlier and later respond, giving both wealth and distinction and manifest Wealth and Emolument, without early good and late harm or the reverse. Such cases are hard to obtain, but prosperity only in middle or later periods can also make a fulfilled destiny.
Observe budding signs and examine their source: roots precede seedlings, fruit follows flowers.
The note says: Destiny discussion takes conception as root, month seedling, day flower, hour fruit. Exhausting the root reveals seedling; seeing flower then reveals fruit. Thus the sage observes early signs before sprouting, examining their source to know their later growth. Xu says: To know good and ill within progression, first examine the root's victory or defeat. Noble root meeting noble progression must give distinction; Wealth root meeting Wealth progression develops Wealth; calamity root meeting calamity progression produces calamity. This explanation also works.
Conception, birth, and Original Destiny: Three Creatures determine lineage. Pitch standards and gong-shang tones: Five Tigers discuss success and failure. The note says: Creatures divide into thirty-six positions, branches twelve, three creatures per branch. Zi has rat, bat, oriole; Chou ox, crab, softshell turtle; Yin tiger, wildcat, leopard; Mao hare, fox, raccoon dog; Chen dragon, flood dragon, fish; Si snake, eel, earthworm; Wu horse, deer, elk; Wei sheep, hawk, goose; Shen monkey, ape, long-armed monkey; You rooster, crow, pheasant; Xu dog, wolf, jackal; Hai pig, boar, and the creature Yu. Ningshenzi says: Resembling the spirit is Heavenly Emolument and great wealth and distinction; not resembling it means Heaven grants no Emolument. Judge by form, spirit, nature, and influence. Conception, birth, and Original Destiny include a Jiazi person born in Guiyou month, with Jiazi conception matching Original Destiny; or a Yichou Metal person in the printed Si-Mao month with Gengwu conception, Earth generating Metal. Both explanations are detailed and their intentions similar. Another says: Take month from year and conception from month, examining the three positions' inherited affiliations as Three Creatures. Whether they swallow, devour, or injure form determines lineage's origin. Six Yang are lu pitch standards, six Yin lü; the Five Tones are governed by them. Their combination divides branches and fixes stems; Five Phases combine as Five Tones. Thus Jia with the printed Si-shaped partner is gong Earth, escaping from Bingyin; Yi-Geng shang Metal from Wuyin; Bing-Xin yu Water from Gengyin; Ding-Ren jue Wood from Renyin; the printed Ren-Gui zhi Fire from Jiayin. Five Tones all begin at Yin, first of twelve months and of twice-six hours. Human success, failure, good, and ill begin here.
Combination where none is seen is hard for later students to know; obtaining one and dividing three was not recorded by earlier worthies.
The note says: The Way stands in two, completes in three, changes in five, and Heaven and Earth's numbers fulfill ten: pairing, nothing more. Combination unseen is like Jia combining with its printed Si-shaped partner, absent in the pillars but Wu present because Wu contains the printed Yi-shaped Emolument; Yin combining with Hai, absent but Ren present because Hai has Ren Emolument; or Yin-Wu-Xu combination lacking Yin but obtaining Jia, whose Emolument is within Yin. Obtaining one and dividing three is Jia obtaining its printed Yi-shaped partner as first combination, Wu second, Hai third: one Emolument divided into three. This connects with visible unseen forms and drawn or undrawn threads. Li Xuzhong's Complete Stem-and-Branch Combinations configuration has year, month, day, hour, and conception capable of complete combination: say Zi and Chou is present, Yin and Hai present, Jia and its printed Si-shaped partner present, Yi and Geng present. Five Emolument stems Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu naturally combine up Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui. Branches Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu naturally combine up Wei, Shen, You, Xu, Hai. Emolument and Horse added at Zi and Chou complete all ten stems and twelve branches. Xu says unseen combination means Punishment-Combination, Chou-Zi Remotely Reaching Si, and similar configurations. Obtaining one means Yin punishes Si and Chou breaks Si, drawing Bing and Wu out through punishment and breaking. They then divide into three, the Si-You-Chou Threefold Combination. An old song says: Tiger born runs toward the printed Yi-shaped position; Pig and Monkey depart. Sheep strikes Pig and Snake, naturally bringing glory. This explanation also works.
Though the year meets Cap and Belt, residual disaster remains; though progression first reaches Decline, a little blessing is still worn. The note says: Year is Grand Duke, progression major progression. A Cap-and-Belt year still wears residual disaster of Violent Failure; progression at Decline still carries slight blessings from flourishing Office. Hence progression is discussed in preceding and following five-year periods. The two lines explain one another reciprocally.
When Heavenly Origin is greatly weakened, an auspicious palace cannot bring glory; when middle and lower flourish, a harmful trigram cannot create its calamity.
The note says: Heavenly Origin is the ten stems. Stems take Birth and Flourishing as glory. Decline, Illness, Death, Tomb, and Extinction weaken them, so an auspicious palace, even Wealth, Office, General Star, or Heavenly Yi, cannot bring glory. Middle means earthly branches, lower Nayin. Both at flourishing Five-Phase places prevent even a harmful Eight-Trigram assignment causing calamity. Xu says: Heavenly Origin may approach Wealth-and-Office ground but be born out of season, its original influence weak, with upper and lower Five Phases' Rest and Flourishing not assisting. Even the palace's auspicious Emolument and Horse cannot bring glory. Geng and Xin born in spring with Fire elsewhere restraining Metal see Yin, Mao, Jia, and Yi as Wealth; Wood's flourishing Fire harms Metal, and Metal lacks command, turning an auspicious Wealth palace to calamity. Middle is Human Origin, lower Branch Origin in Xu's formulation. Ding taking Ren as Office and Seal, with middle and lower Emolument and Horse established and flourishing, receives their distinction even though Fire approaches Extinction. The Mirror of Completion says Emolument at Extinction can establish Nobility; Taozhu says extinguished Emolument and lost Wealth need not be harmful omens. Another interpretation assigns One Auspiciousness and Three Births to Nine Palaces, Five Ghosts and Extinguished Destiny to Eight Trigrams; this also works.
If the superior is harmful and subordinate auspicious, rescue accomplishes nothing; superior auspicious and subordinate harmful, calamity heals itself. Emolument has Three Gatherings, disaster Five Periods.
The note says: Year is superior, conception, month, day, and hour supplying it in order; major progression superior, Grand Duke and minor progression supplying it. Natal destiny and major progression combining through Virtue in Established Flourishing prevent harmful year, minor progression, day, or hour causing calamity. Major progression and natal destiny fighting in Death and Confinement cannot be rescued sufficiently by auspicious subordinate positions. The Three Gatherings of Emolument are Long Life, Imperial Flourishing, and Storehouse, most auspicious places. Five Periods of Disaster are Decline, Illness, Death, Failure, and Extinction, most harmful. Emolument here contrasts with Disaster, not stem Emolument, and must be read flexibly. Students identifying Three Gatherings merely as Si-You-Chou for Metal, Hai-Mao-Wei Wood, Yin-Wu-Xu Fire, Shen-Zi-Chen Water are wrong. Xu identifies the strongest inner or outer Three-Origin influence as superior, namely Useful Spirit, which must not be injured. Injury cannot be rescued by auspiciousness elsewhere. Restraint and combat elsewhere without damaging the superior let calamity heal itself. Examine what the injured spirit governs: harming Destiny brings bodily disaster, wife wife's disaster, Office loss of office. This has principle, though the source's final wording about higher, lower, and calamity is unclear.
Many harms and little good resemble Great Exceeding's first line; shallow blessings and deep calamity Fellowship's Nine in the Fifth. The note says: Such a destiny, resting, confined, and without influence, should not seek advancement, like Great Exceeding's first line: Initial Six, spread white rushes beneath; no blame. Six is yielding Yin without exceptional ability; the initial place below is no time for action. Withdrawal and avoidance of office teach caution. The Master says: Proceeding with such caution loses nothing. Shallow blessings and deep calamity likewise have Five Phases restraining one another without influence, unsuitable for ambitious advance. Fellowship's fifth line says: Fellowship first cries aloud, afterward laughs; great armies overcome and meet. Its Image says the first response comes from central rectitude. The upright Way is difficult, and this teaches overcoming oneself.
Hearing joy without joy comes from Six Jia's deficiency and fullness; having cause for worry without worry relies on Five-Phase rescue. The note says: Hearing joy means fullness and increase; no joy deficiency and loss. Infer loss and gain through Six Jia. Another interpretation makes Void Heaven and Earth's empty, detached positions: six Yang destinies fear Yang palaces, six Yin destinies Yin positions. Annual influence and progression meeting Emolument, Horse, and Nobleman in Void have Five-Phase deficiency and fullness restraining one another: hearing joy without joy. Worry without worry is generation found in Five-Phase Rest and Abandonment, as Wood obtaining Jiashen or Guisi. A Wushen person obtaining Dingyou meets Violent Failure, Shattering, and Self-Punishment, yet Dingyou's dead Fire has transformed into Earth, child transmitting mother's Way. A Jiayin person progressing to Shen meets clash, punishment, Reverse Chanting, Emolument and Horse at Extinction, and flourishing Metal's restraint, yet escape reveals Renshen: stem rescue. Divine Arts says: At Extinction, meeting parents changes calamity to blessings. I find the Six Jia and Five Phases explanation flexible. Natal eight characters or annual influence and progression may each have deficiency, fullness, rescue, or aid; do not be rigid. Deficiency and fullness mean good or ill, rescue and aid controlling harm and supporting good.
Eight Solitudes approach Five Tombs: Xu and Wei travel east. Six Empties descend into Void: from Qian they head south. The note says: Xu and Hai are Void in the Jiazi cycle; opposite Chen and Si Six Empties. Xu and Hai occupy Qian Metal at the northwest corner. Through Jiaxu and Jiashen cycles they turn from Qian southward. Thus Yin, Shen, Si, Hai are Four Solitudes; Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei the Five Tombs' region, proceeding east toward Xu and Wei and turning backward along Void. Another interpretation makes Eight Solitudes the eight remaining positions after excluding Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei as Five-Phase Tombs. Solitude approaching Tomb includes Shen or You people with Solitary Star at Hai and Widow Lodge at Wei. Five-Phase Tombs lodge in the Four Influences and follow the monthly establishment. Xu and Wei moving east are Fire and Wood Tombs: Wood born from Hai, Fire from Yin, both traveling from Yin's east and gathering in Xu and Wei. A Yichou person has Hai as Six Yin Proper Void; Hai clashing with Si makes Six Empties. Hai is Qian Heaven, Si Xun Earth and the south's first spirit. Hence Six Empties descend into Void. Solitude moves east while emptiness circles west, always opposed. This generally describes spirits and Killings cycling forward and backward through twelve branches. Solitude, Emptiness, Void, and Five Tombs are most crucial to destiny.
Heavenly Origin's single influence determines promotion and glory as marquis or earl; branches serve as Human Origin, governing merchants' gains and losses. The note says: Stems as Emolument give distinction through clear Heavenly Origin with auspicious generals descending. Branches as Destiny give wealth through pure Branch Origin and harmonious four pillars. This distinguishes Heaven and Earth, stems and branches. Heavenly Origin's Single Influence does not mean all identical, as modern destiny interpreters claim; imaging Heaven, it is called one influence, administered by Heavenly Emolument. Emolument must carry Heavenly Virtue, Office, Seal, Nobility, and Food, with generating and flourishing influence in the Five Phases and four pillars, for highest distinction. Merchants use Human Origin to determine property gains and losses, examining influence or its absence and Advancing or Retreating Spirits. Hence the following line on influential Wealth and Destiny or extinguished Wealth and declining Destiny. Progression contrasts with determination: determination fixes, progression circulates, each term having its own use.
Examine only whether Wealth and Destiny have influence: even turning away from Emolument need not bring poverty. If Wealth is extinguished and Destiny declines, even Establishing Emolument cannot bring wealth.
The note says: Human life takes Wealth and Destiny as main. What the Five Phases restrain is Wealth. Influence means both Wealth and Destiny lodge in Birth and Flourishing. Even turning away from Emolument, leaving no office, does not bring poverty. If both lack influence, even the month's established Emolument and a small office cannot bring wealth and distinction. Gengyin Wood restraining Bingxu Earth as Wealth, with Earth flourishing at Xu and Body and Destiny's two Woods reaching southeast, turns from Geng Emolument at Shen yet is not poor because Wealth and Destiny have influence. A Jiachen person obtaining Bingyin Fire uses Metal as Wealth, extinguished at Yin. Chen Earth at Yin becomes Destiny's Ghost, further meeting Void. With Wealth extinguished and Destiny declining, monthly Emolument cannot bring wealth. The earlier facing-and-turning formula means both Wealth and Destiny palaces need flourishing places, in the eight characters and progression alike. Xu takes Jia and Yi seeing Si or Wu, for example, as influential Wealth and Destiny, and Jia and Yi born in Yin or Mao months as Established Emolument without wealth. Examine these together.
Body flourishing and Ghost extinguished gives long life though Destiny is broken; Ghost flourishing and Body declining gives short life though Destiny is established.
The note says: Broken Destiny with long life has the original destiny in a flourishing palace meeting an extinguished Ghost: Fire at the printed Yi-shaped palace seeing Water, Wood at Yin seeing Metal, Earth toward Shen meeting Wood, Metal returning to Hai meeting Fire. Established Destiny with short life has natal destiny in decline meeting flourishing Ghost: Earth at Yin seeing Wood, Fire at Hai seeing Water, Metal at the printed Yi-shaped region obtaining Fire, and Fire at Shen meeting Metal. Take all by Nayin. The Five Phases' principle gives shortened life under restraint and longevity when controlling things. An old saying claims Established Destiny gives long life and Broken Year early death, but the Bamboo Wheel Classic says establishing Destiny need not extend years and breaking Destiny need not shorten life. This is Luoluzi's flexible assessment. Heavenly Origin discusses distinction, Human Origin wealth, Wealth and Destiny poverty and wealth, Body and Ghost longevity and early death, each emphasizing its own weightiest point.
Turning from Emolument and dispersing Horse keeps one distressed on a desperate road; Emolument and Horse sharing one region gives the Three Platforms or Eight Seats. The note says: Emolument means rank and salary, Horse carriage and horses. Destiny values both because both can bring wealth and distinction. Emolument turning away departs, Horse dispersed scatters; both lost leave distress. Turning away is Yin and Yang opposed, not facing; dispersing means driving apart, not pursuing. A Guihai person in the first month's Jiayin has Gui Emolument at Zi, turned away by Yin, and Post Horse at Si, punished and dispersed by Yin. Horse is ahead, Emolument behind. Pursue Horse and Emolument does not come; wait for Emolument and Horse recedes. This opposes Driving Emolument and Blocking Horse. For Shared Region, use day stem escaping Emolument and hour stem escaping Horse through Five Zi Origin. A Gengwu person with Renchen day and Dingwei hour uses Ding-Ren from Gengzi to Wushen: Geng Emolument and Wu Horse share Shen. Accord with natal destiny is especially fine. A Jiashen person with Dingchou month, printed Si-You day, and Bingyin hour gathers Emolument and Horse at Imperial Seat in the birth hour. Jiashen, the printed Si-Hai, and Bingyin also receive clear flourishing Five-Phase vitality. Hence extraordinary late opportunity, Three Dukes rank, and life beyond seventy. Xu calls Emolument Office and Horse Wealth, Hurting Office Turning from Emolument, Companions and Robbery Dispersing Horse. Examples include Jia born in spring's three months or summer's nine divisions with Bing, Ding, Jia, Yi, or Hai-Mao-Wei. Shared Region includes Renwu or Guisi days, with Ding, the printed Si-shaped position, Bing, and Wu returning Emolument to Wu and Si. Examine all together.
High Office and manifest rank surely arise in a region flanking Emolument; small gain and great loss may come in Robbing Wealth's ground. The note says: Flanking Emolument is Arching Emolument, as Guichou obtaining Guihai. Robbery means Robbing Killing. Dingchou obtaining a Bingyin year has Water restraining Fire as Wealth; Bingyin is self-born Fire, a small gain. Chou has Solitude and Robbery at Yin; Chou Earth restrained by Yin Wood turns Wealth to Ghost: great loss. Three Destinies take flourishing Wealth as auspicious and people take Wealth as blessing, but Robbery ground still gives great loss despite one or two auspicious Emolument or Destiny points. Xu's Guichou day with Guihai hour must not have the original Emolument position occupied by year or month, nor other positions restraining stems or stirring branches. Flanked Nobility cannot remain if its influence is driven away. Thus gathered blessings must not be injured; gathered calamity needs rescue. Five Yang stems seeing five Yin give Robbing Wealth; five Yin seeing five Yang Ruining Wealth. Robbery is worse than Ruin. His explanation is especially good.
Birth month carrying Emolument enters office in splendid dignity; repeated Wondrous Forms contain a capacity surpassing others.
The note says: Wang Tingguang interprets birth-month Emolument as monthly Progression Origin carrying generating and flourishing Heavenly Emolument into progression, making a warm, substantial life with many blessings. Birth day and hour can be inferred similarly; reciprocal Emolument in the four pillars with Birth and Flourishing also gives distinction. Monk Ying has natal Emolument Origin matching the birth month, sought through day stem. A Gengzi person in Jiashen month, with a Yi or Geng day, uses Bing and Ding to infer Jiashen. Xu Ziping has Jia and Yi born in autumn or Bing and Ding in winter carrying Proper Influence Office Star in the birth month. Father-child influences are near and need one another as Emolument. Original Heavenly Origin within the day branch flourishes, birth hour avoids Rest and Failure, and annual period returns to Emolument's region. I find Wu day in Yisi month, Ren day in Jihai month, Gui day in Wuzi month carry Office and Emolument in stems and branches. Or year, day, or hour branches obtain the month stem's seat, as Renyin day in Jiachen month or Xinyou day in Xinsi month: office must bring splendid dignity. For Repeated Wondrous Forms, Wang calls Yi, Bing, Ding Three Wonders and Wu with its printed Si-shaped partner, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui Six Forms: ten stems use nine and hide Jia. A Yisi person with Xinsi month and day has Xin Form and Yi Wonder. Yi takes Xinsi as generating and completing Office, also seated at Office Emolument, Long Life, and Academy: two Si repeat Wondrous Forms, Heaven and Earth's paired, outstanding Yin-Yang influence. Monk Ying uses Jia-Wu-Geng and Yi-Bing-Ding to model the Two Powers; Li Tong places Zi upon Yin and counts forward until year and month meet natal destiny. Consulting Escape Jia's Three Wonders and Six Forms, I regard Wang's explanation as correct. Above concerns noble foundations, below encounters within progression.
For Yin males and Yang females, observe entry and exit years; for Yin females and Yang males, further examine Original Influence years. The note says: Sex distinguishes honored male and subordinate female in this historical formulation; Yang originally male, Yin female. Yin male and Yang female lose that order, so forward and reverse progression make transition years vulnerable to unexpected calamity. Yang males and Yin females each have their fitting place, yet major progression's change year still requires examining Original Influence and other Killings. Good, ill, regret, and shame arise in movement: how crucial progression is to Three Destinies. Xu Ziping explains this most fully: Original Influence means a natal position originally injuring Office and Seal. Earlier entry-and-exit years and here Original Influence years share one principle. His seasonal depth and Wealth-and-Office facing or turning away also express things predecessors had not developed.
Meeting Birth ground, withdraw and avoid office. Harmful and auspicious gatherings: Repeated Chanting, Reverse Chanting, Yin Error and Yang Difference, Heavenly Clash and Earth Strike.
The note says: This concerns progression's good, ill, calamity, and blessing. Monk Ying interprets Birth-ground encounter as flourishing Ghost within the natal year's Long Life: Metal meeting Yisi Fire, Earth Gengshen Wood, Fire Jiayin Water, Wood Xinhai Metal. Wang says Five Phases have father-child succession: strong father means young child, strong child declining father. Together, child has arrived and father completed achievement, so father should withdraw. The other generates me and rests; child replaces father. In the Changes, Zhen as eldest son acts while Qian father retreats northwest: the same principle. Xu has Geng or Xin people progressing to Shen or You, using Fire as Office and Emolument but Fire at Illness and Death there, Wood as Wealth but Wood at Death and Extinction there: no Office or Wealth, Established Emolument without riches. The commentator fears this misses the rhapsody's meaning. Annual period, year, progression, Emolument, and Horse, all five at Birth and Flourishing jointly assisting natal destiny, make an Auspicious Gathering; jointly restraining it a Harmful Gathering. Repeated Chanting is major progression opposite Original Destiny in this explanation. Yin meeting Yin is Error, Yang passing Yang Difference. Destiny has mixed Yin-Yang; progression crossed Yin-Yang. Natal destiny and progression southeast meeting Grand Duke northwest is Heavenly Clash; northwest meeting Grand Duke southeast Earth Strike. These patterns may contain good or ill, not necessarily all harmful. Jiazi Metal destiny with Repeated Chanting at Gengzi Earth is favorable, Wuzi Fire harmful; Reverse Chanting at Wuwu Fire harmful, Gengwu Earth favorable. Northwest clashing southeast causes movement, alteration, entry, and exit: inside clashes outside. Southeast clashing northwest does not move despite clash: outside clashes inside. Both disturb peace and contain good and ill. Yin-Yang Error and Difference are pure Yin or Yang, ungenerating and incomplete, producing singular rather than paired actions. Another says Heavenly Clash and Earth Strike mean major progression's stems and branches striking Original Destiny, not solely Yin-Yang Five-Phase Extinction grounds. Added Repeated and Reverse Chanting makes a Harmful Gathering clear. Four pillars lodged there give short life even with distinction.
Meeting Four Killings, Five Ghosts, Six Harms, Seven Injuries, Earth Net and Heaven's Snare, Three Origins and Nine Palaces: blessings arriving make celebration, harms joining danger and doubt. Support acts swiftly; suppression slowly.
The note says: These are spirits and Killings met in progression. Four positions ahead of Destiny are Four Killings, the Robbing Killings of the four clashing Yin, Shen, Si, and Hai positions. Five ahead are Five Ghosts, as a Zi person seeing Chen or Hai person Mao. Another identifies Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei as Four Killings and Five Phases meeting restraint as Five Ghosts. Six Harms includes Yin-Si; Seven Injuries Death Killing and similar spirits. Another makes One Auspiciousness, Two Fittings, Three Births, Four Killings, Five Ghosts, Six Harms, Seven Injuries, Eight Difficulties, and Nine Distresses names within Three Origins and Nine Palaces, mostly harmful in annual influence and progression. But Five Phases generating and flourishing there bring blessings and celebration, because Five Phases precede spirits and Killings. Declining and failed Five Phases in Origins, Palaces, and pillars, with harmful Killings in annual influence and progression, join calamity and doubt. Killing supported swiftly makes disaster; blessings suppressed slowly make celebration in one reading. I take the two lines together for calamity and blessing: support of calamity swift, support of blessings slow; suppression of blessings swift, suppression of calamity slow. Xu calls natal Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei revisited by major progression Four Killings. A progression stem as Ghost controlling Wealth and restraining Office, identical with Grand Duke, is Five Ghosts. Chou- or Wei-born people originally carrying Chou or Wei, progressing through Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei while Grand Duke is Zi, Wu, Mao, or You, have Six Harms. Seven Killing in progression is Seven Injuries: Jia or Yi using Geng or Xin for the printed palace role, progressing south or meeting Yin, Wu, Xu, Si, or Wei as Grand Duke, for example. Four Killings light, Five Ghosts heavy; Six Harms light, Seven Injuries heavy; progression light, annual encounter heavy. Xu-Hai is Proper Heaven's Snare, Chen-Si True Earth Net. Hai seeing Xu and Chen seeing Si are heavier, bringing repeated disaster and illness. First examine birth-year Grand Duke and progression's generation and restraint, then spirits and Killings: good and ill will be verified.
Traveling through noble ground, await the time; meeting Companions, contend. Even person weary and Horse poor can rely on flourishing Wealth's region.
The note says: Mencius says having a nourishing implement is inferior to awaiting the time. Progression in Noble Spirit's ground brings blessings when timing and number accord. Companions are most avoided: accompanying Companions contend, the weak submitting to strong, as auspicious and harmful spirits rise or fall. Declining Emolument and Horse can still be supported by flourishing Emolument Wealth or Destiny Wealth. Another gives two Geng seizing one Ding or two Bing consuming one Wu as divided blessings and reciprocal disputes. Weary person means natal branch Human Origin, poor Horse Post Horse, both in declining, failed, uninfluential Five-Phase ground. Flourishing Wealth prevents disaster: a Wuwu Fire destiny has Horse at Shen, where Metal flourishes and Fire declines. Xu explains Renchen or Guisi people using Earth as Office Emolument and Fire as Wealth, but born outside summer or the Four Seasons: even noble ground awaits time and whether the foundation originally has the needed influence. Their birth in summer or the Four Seasons obtains Office Emolument's time. Fire-region major progression then meeting Ren or Gui years, or Hai, Zi, or Chou, brings Companions' contention, clash, punishment, breaking, or harm, with sudden calamity amid satisfaction. A Jiawu person progressing west has Fire Human Origin Wu at Death and Extinction: weary person. Jia takes the printed Si-shaped partner as its own; Wu contains Si-designated Earth, also declining in the west: poor Horse. Yet weary Wu relies on western Metal flourishing as Wealth. Autumn Metal holds Ren and Gui, able with that partner to break Ghost and generate Wealth. The commentator accepts this explanation.
Wealth flourishing and Emolument declining, with Horse established, need not fear concealment or clash. The year arriving need not cause disaster; the year's abundance should bring blessings.
The note says: What is restrained is Wealth, where lodged Emolument, what ridden Horse. Horse supports the Body; Emolument nourishes life. Noble Emolument promotes office; Horse carrying Wealth obtains blessings. Both give wealth and distinction together, one the next degree. Even declining Heavenly Emolument with flourishing Body Wealth and Post Horse riding can escape disaster despite concealed or clashing annual influence and progression. Later years and progression at Five-Phase Birth, Flourishing, and abundant combinations bring many blessings. Concealment is Repeated Chanting, clash Reverse Chanting. A Guihai person meeting a Yisi year has Emolument Water extinguished at Si, yet Water restrains Fire as Wealth, Fire flourishes at Si, and Horse rides Si. Even Si-Hai clash and Reverse Chanting cause no harm because Body Wealth flourishes. Without clash, at Threefold or Sixfold Combination and Five-Phase Birth and Flourishing, with Wealth and Horse, the abundant year should bless. Xu says this resembles the preceding passage but differs in principle. A Bingwu person progressing west has flourishing Wealth and declining Emolument, yet lower Origin's established Horse assists: Xin in You combines with Bing, removing fear of concealment or clash, like flourishing middle and lower Origins. Earlier Wealth progression's concealment and clash are not avoided; here an annual ruler arriving at progression's position also cannot immediately be called harmful. Grand Duke rules creation and all Killings; pressing progression generally gives much harm and little good. Yet useful inner and outer Three-Origin Office and Seal permit an auspicious meeting with a great person; useful Wealth permits prosperity through Nobleman. Renwu birth day, Gengwu major progression, and Wuwu year together can form an Auspicious Gathering. The following Xinwei progression has similar influence: useful Office, Seal, and Wealth appropriately bring blessings.
Great Auspiciousness born meeting Lesser Auspiciousness instead gives long life; Heavenly Gang progression reaching Heavenly Kui lodges generation and continues years. The note says: Chou is Great Auspiciousness, Wei Lesser. A Guiwei day progressing to Chou, or Dingchou day to Wei, is generating influence rather than Reverse Chanting. Gui receives influence at Si and forms at Wei; Ding receives influence at Hai and forms at Chou. Six Ren course initiation placing Ding at Wei and Gui at Chou has this meaning. Chou and Wei are Yin-Yang's central meeting and Heavenly Yi's places: master and root meeting them gain long life. Chen is Heavenly Gang, Xu Heavenly Kui. Gengxu people progressing to Chen or Jiachen people to Xu likewise meet generating influence, not Reverse Chanting. Geng receives at Yin and forms at Chen; Jia receives at Shen and forms at Xu. Guiguzi says Gang contains Yi and Kui conceals Xin. Birth encounter and lodged generation share a meaning. Another says the next eight lines show Reverse Chanting's good and ill are not fixed. A Yichou Yin male born in the sixth month escapes to Guiwei Wood. Natal destiny and month restraining might imply injury and early death, yet Yichou Metal Nayin restrains Guiwei Wood, instead giving longevity. A song says: Take birth month as Body and Nayin as Destiny; weak Body restraining Destiny shortens life, Destiny restraining Body lengthens it. A Wuchen Yang male born in the third month begins progression at five; at fifty-six reaches Renxu Water Nayin generating Wuchen Wood. The third month's Heavenly and Monthly Virtues are Ren, lodged at Xu and generating Wood: lodged generation continuing life. Monk Ying uses True Seals for the next four sections: Yichou Metal Seal, Guiwei Wood Seal, Renchen Water Seal, Jiaxu Fire Seal, Wuchen Earth Seal. Generation and longevity through lodging and reversal are known through these five stems. Chou contains Yi Wood and Wei Gui Water; Gui generates Yi, increasing Emolument Origin and longevity. Xu contains Jia, Chen Ren; Ren Water generates Jia Wood and continues Bing Fire. The ten stems as Emolument determine long or short life.
Congkui reaching Azure Dragon's lodge brings Wealth from Heaven; Taichong approaching Mao and Wei's constellational region harms Human Origin.
The note says: You is the constellations Mao and Wei's region, called Congkui; Mao Azure Dragon's lodge, called Taichong. Branch Origin takes Wealth. Coming from Heaven means Xin above You restraining Yi within Mao, bringing Wealth. You Metal restraining what the source calls Mao Water, with Yi Wood fearing Xin Metal, injures Emolument and restrains Human Origin. Thus You people meeting Mao are favored, Mao people meeting You harmed: high and low, firm and yielding are determined. Xu says Azure Dragon belongs to Chen. A You person meeting Chen has Xin Metal within You restraining Yi Wood within Chen as Wealth: Heavenly Origin inside a branch used as Wealth. A Mao person progressing to You has Metal restraining Wood and reciprocal punishment. Branch is Human Origin, hence harm. Harm is Seven Killing, whose partial Yin or Yang remains even without punishment, clash, or restraint.
Metal Emolument exhausted at the proper beginning: Geng heavy, Xin light. Wood people distressed in Metal's region: Yin deep, Mao shallow. The note says: Extreme Yin generates Yang, extreme Yang Yin: nature's principle. Yang Metal is born at Si, dies at Zi, extinguishes at Yin. Yin Metal is born at Zi, dies at the printed Yi-shaped position, extinguishes at Mao. Proper Death and Birth are heavy, partial Birth and Death light. Yang Wood is born at Hai, extinguishes at Shen; Yin Wood born at Wu, extinguishes at You. For Yang Wood, Shen is deep and You shallow; Yin Wood the reverse. Yin and Mao represent Woods, Geng and Xin Metals. Shen is Water's Birth ground, where Wood is called distressed; Yin Fire's Birth palace, where Metal is exhausted. Another says Bing-Xin combination makes Xin light, Yi-Geng combination makes Mao shallow.
The subtlety lies in recognizing flexible change: plain words can be divinely effective. A blind diviner ignorant of tuning strings can hardly hope for harmony of the pitch standards. The note says: The rhapsody gives only a general outline of destiny and progression's good, ill, calamity, and blessing. Its subtlety is knowing flexible change. Though words are plain, principle responds with divine efficacy. Without flexible understanding, hoping for harmonious pitch resembles a blind diviner ignorant of tuning: difficult indeed.
Geng and Xin approaching Jia and Yi allow a gentleman to seek office; a northern person progressing south gains rich profit in trade.
The note says: Metal and Wood can obtain one another, Water and Fire become Already Across. Naming Geng-Xin and Jia-Yi implies the other eight stems; naming north and south implies east and west. Gentleman excludes the petty person; northern person specifically requires Hai and Zi. Jia takes Xin as Office, Yi Geng, so Geng-Xin progression or years approaching Jia-Yi people let a gentleman seek office; for a petty person they instead become Ghost. Hai and Zi are northern Water; the printed Ji-shaped position and Wu southern Fire. Water progressing to Fire restrains it as Wealth, hence rich trading profit. Another calls Ren-Gui Kan and Bing-Ding Li, Water returning to Fire ground as Wealth progression. Yet Ren and Gui are Emolument, while the printed Si and Ox positions are Destiny, and stems and branches do not enter one another. Ren-Gui obtaining Bing-Ding can only be Emolument Wealth, not trade. Destiny interpreters must distinguish Emolument, Destiny, and Body.
Hearing morning joy and evening weeping comes from abundant Fire's blazing Yang; delayed calamity and blessing often arise from Water and Earth.
The note says: Five-Phase nature explains the speed of calamity and blessing. Fire is violent and injurious: drilling Wood sends smoke flying, striking stone flashes light. Morning joy quickly becomes weeping, today's right yesterday's wrong. Fire transmitted through fuel has no known limit. Water and Earth are yielding and harmonious, bringing calamity and blessing slowly: Wisdom and Trust. Fire and Wood are quick, readily developing and resting; Water and Earth slow, difficult to complete and difficult to ruin.
Metal and Wood not yet useful vessels leave sorrow and joy hard to name; like abundant Wood and many flowers, or dense clouds without rain.
The note says: Speaking of Metal values Wood: Metal obtains use and Wood completion, firmness assisting yielding. Speaking of Wood values Metal: Wood becomes useful and Metal manifests, for benevolence must have courage. Metal without Wood gives courage without propriety and disorder; Wood without Metal gives deficient Geng-Xin and little righteousness. Metal, western instrument, governs sorrow; Wood, eastern thing, joy. Joy without excess is Wood meeting Metal; sorrow without injury Metal obtaining Wood. These are great people's destinies. If one understands Water and Fire returning to balance and uses the interval between Metal and Wood, sorrow and joy cannot move the heart: a person beyond ordinary categories, hard to name. Partial Yin or Yang resembles abundant Wood and many flowers, the partial Yang description linked with concealment, or dense clouds without rain, partial Yin linked with manifestation in the source's compressed wording. Destiny requires Yin and Yang balanced to fit a configuration. Another says Metal cannot become a vessel without Fire's smelting, Wood cannot complete without Metal's carving. Joy takes sorrow as master; benefit takes loss first. Wood and many flowers are refinement without fruit; dense rainless clouds obscurity difficult to clarify. Both remain uncertain and invite deliberation. Flourishing cannot lack control; decline cannot lack generation. Finding harmony with its peers restores purity.
Riding an official carriage and wearing ceremonial crown: how abundant Metal and Fire! Low position and humble rank: Yin and Yang unsettled.
The note says: Earlier Water and Fire complete one another in celebration, then Metal and Wood form Office's region. Water values ascent, Fire descent; Wood needs firmness assisting yielding, Metal reduced hardness and increased softness. Reciprocal use brings celebration. Metal's hardness and Fire's strength require special understanding. Metal is extremely hard and needs abundant Fire to transform; Fire extremely violent and needs Metal to display its use. Balanced Metal and Fire form Casting Seal, hence carriage and crown: a gentleman's vessel, requiring both balanced. Much Fire and little Metal or abundant Metal and light Fire both make fierce, harmful destinies. Metal flourishing west and Fire south each rely on their force, causing self-punishment. Even useful day and hour leave low position and humble rank because Yin and Yang cannot settle their allotment. Metal is Yin, Fire Yang. Both partial, high and low standing cannot be fixed; Metal without Fire or Fire without Metal more clearly makes a harmful person. Another says much Metal and Fire in the pillars is insufficient for distinction: hard Metal cannot accord with things, violent Fire cannot aid generation, and unstable influence rarely follows a gentleman's Way. Geng obtaining Bing or Xin Ding is pure Yang or Yin, restraint and Ghost, unsettled Yin-Yang. Even an official beginning yields humble rank without great distinction. This also works.
Thus Dragon calling and Tiger roaring have Wind and Rain assisting auspiciousness; Fire about to rise has smoke before flame.
The note says: This follows Five Phases restraining one another, not yet forming vessels, or meeting Nobility without distinction. It now describes generation and restraint's natures through Dragon, Tiger, smoke, and flame. Each phase obtaining its place resembles rain with Dragon's movement and wind with Tiger's roar, or smoke before flourishing Fire's flame. Another takes Dragon and Tiger as an auspicious natal year with auspicious annual influence and progression. Initial harm and later good differ: like Fire first kindled, smoke precedes flame. Smoke comes from Fire but can suppress it, signifying influence present but not yet open. Fire bright outside yet dim within, then living after smoke clears, resembles initial harm and eventual good. Xu interprets Dragon and Tiger specifically as Wuchen and Jiayin in great detail; failing that, simply Yin and Chen obtaining one another. He takes smoke and flame as orderly Yin-Yang influence like the earlier influence passage. The commentator says this ultimately is not the rhapsody's meaning.
Harm often contains good, though that good begins with harm; good contains harm, yet that harm is an auspicious sign.
The note says: This follows the mutual concealment of good and ill. Congkui reaching Azure Dragon's lodge brings Wealth from Heaven, favorable because Xin in You restrains Yi Wood in Chen as Wealth. But Chen is Water's region and can seize Xin Metal's Office: Wealth is sufficient yet office lost, hence harmful. Taichong reaching Mao and Wei's region harms Human Origin, yet Wood uses Metal as Office and You does not turn from Office Emolument: harm reverses to good. The rhapsody begins with progression, then Five Phases, then details these matters again. Fire people progressing through Water meet harmful Seven Killing, or may use Water as auspicious Office. Water progressing through southern Si and Wu gains Wealth, yet Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner below are harmful Seven Killings. Such cases are many. Students must study deeply and change flexibly, speaking from what is weightiest at the root. Tan Ying says: Good and ill following, calamity and blessing depending on one another, are ordinary Yin-Yang principle. There may be good people harmed by good and harmful people favored by harm, but the gentleman does not dwell on this, describing only the constant. If harm outweighs good, good is contained within harm; if good outweighs harm, harm hides within good. Mixture arises from purity, harmony from warfare: hence harm within good is a sign of good.
As calamity approaches its end, blessings can be inferred ahead; just entering Decline, assess disaster backward. Men welcome and women see off, obstruction and passage intermingled; Yin and Yang influences convert in forward or reverse direction.
The note says: Calamity, blessing, good, and ill arise through progression. Near the end of harmful ten-year progression, auspicious progression lies ahead. Deep natal seasonal influence, or annual support facing Emolument and approaching Wealth, can allow welcoming blessings before the formal change. A person long in blessed ground just entering progression turning from Emolument and extinguishing Wealth cannot immediately be judged harmful: disaster is assessed backward. Men welcoming and women seeing off concerns forward progression of Yang males and Yin females. Ten years divide into two five-year periods. In auspicious progression with deep seasonal influence, welcoming males develop blessings in the first five, seeing-off females the latter five. Another says men examine what the entry year welcomes and women what the exit year sends away. Welcoming good and sending harm, or welcoming harm and sending good, are intermingled obstruction and passage. Yin males, Yang females, Yang males, Yin females follow their respective directions; conversion is the earlier three-days-to-one-year rule. Examine the old and new progression's good and ill through its number. Tan Ying takes each phase's Long Life and subsequent Decline. Metal born at Si declines at Xu. From Xu, men proceed through Death, Confinement, Rest, and Abandonment; women reverse through Imperial Flourishing and Assuming Office. From Si, men flourish forward at Shen and You, women become distressed backward at Yin and Mao. Hence the line about calamity's ending. Yin-Yang's two influences also describe minor progression as annual influence and major progression as monthly influence. Day stem is progression, month branch influence; minor progression changes after the birthday, major progression by the passing seasonal influence. Both travel according to destiny.
Occupy Metal and Wood to reveal regional allotments; mark south and north, where travel may be unfavorable. Within a ten-day cycle, ask the year's stem; within one year, seek the month and ask the day. Face Three and avoid Five, exhausting direction's obstruction and passage; weigh good and ill to describe the year's fortunes.
The note says: Progression through east, west, south, north and Metal, Wood, Water, Fire has benefit or harm, alongside the year's obstruction and passage. Wang says each of Wood, Fire, Metal, Water monopolizes a direction, as spring Xinmao, summer Wuwu, autumn Guiyou, winter Bingzi, each holding its own flourishing influence without offense. Flourishing Five-Phase influence takes one Four-Middle position as White Tiger Killing. Eastern Wood going west meets Metal; southern Fire coming north Water: Killing avoids Four Middles, things must not lose their Way. Ruler and father must not both perish; restraint makes travel unfavorable. Declining, extinguished, uninfluential phases clashing instead find reciprocal use and blessings: Yihai Fire obtaining Guisi Water sees Fire flourish at Si and Water at Hai, exchanging flourishing places without harm. Renyin Metal as minister is not strong, Gengshen Wood serving ruler not violent. Alone in a corner, what creation occurs? Flourishing Emolument values its own passage; difficulty wants rescue. Asking the year's stem within one cycle reveals where Jia lodges and thus the cycle of birth. Asking the day through the month within one year distinguishes Yin-Yang and sex and seasonal day counts to determine the major progression's starting age. Progression should face generating influence of Three Origins and avoid Five Ghosts' extinguished paths, examining directions, Emolument and Horse's facing or turning, and major progression's strength. Another makes Facing Three Generating Influence, Blessed Virtue, Heavenly Physician; Avoiding Five Severed Substance, Wandering Soul, Five Ghosts, Extinguished Destiny, and the printed Original Office. Xu reads occupy with the departing tone, examining natal year and month positions. Wood using Metal as Office, with Yang male leaving Wei for Shen or Yin male leaving Hai for Xu, faces Emolument and Wealth at Metal-Wood boundaries. Metal using Wood as Wealth, with Yang male leaving Chou for Yin or Yin male leaving Si for Chen, does so at Wood-Fire places. Add Grand Duke and monthly season's aid. Mark contrasts with root and also means standard, thus destiny's foundation. South goes toward brightness, north comes facing north: progression's entry, exit, movement, and stillness may be good or ill and must not be confused. A transition year forbids rash action. Within a cycle ask the year's stem means seeking day through month; within a year seek month and day means seeking month through year. Facing Three and Avoiding Five seeks favorable annual directions, crucial to all action and retreat. A cycle is ten days; within the year means birthday. Pair the birth day's Heavenly Origin within month and cycle to know daily good and ill, establishing birth day as master. Take monthly command through generation, restraint, and pairing to know monthly fortune. Even someone obtaining ground honors Grand Duke: seek birth-month Emolument within the year, and whether Office and Seal originally exist. This is the general method.
Ren and Gui are born in autumn and flourish in winter, with Hai and Zi one course; Jia and Yi die in summer and glory in spring, with Yin and Mao one rule.
The note says: Destiny has Birth, Flourishing, Death, and Extinction, and progression may suit or not suit them. This refers generally to Five Phases. Geng masters Metals, dwells at Shen, and generates Water, which flourishes at Hai and Zi in winter. Ren sources gathered Water, dwells at Hai, and generates Wood; the source then says Water returns to Yin and Mao and flourishes in spring. Jia heads Woods, dwells at Yin, and generates Fire, flourishing at Si and Wu in summer. Wu honors Earths, dwells at Si, and generates Metal, flourishing at Shen and You in autumn. Ren, Gui, Hai, Zi are Water, born at Shen and flourishing at Zi. Jia, Yi, Yin, Mao are Wood, flourishing at Mao and dying at Wu. Hence autumn birth and winter flourishing for Ren-Gui, summer death and spring glory for Jia-Yi.
Bingyin and Dingmao should be preserved in autumn; Jisi and Wuchen crossing Qian's palace escape distress. The note says: This concerns Nayin. Bingyin and Dingmao are Furnace Fire, flourishing Fire that needs protection in autumn because Fire dies there, how much more other Fire? The printed Si-Si and Wuchen are Great Forest Wood, flourishing Wood escaping distress at Qian because Wood is born at Hai, how much more other Wood? Another asks: Fire restrains Metal, so why protect Bingyin and Dingmao in autumn? Because Water is born in autumn. Wood is born at Hai, so why does Qian escape distress? Because Hai has Qian Metal. Understand Five-Phase Rest and Flourishing and natural creation. Natal destiny, progression, and annual influence all require caution.
Meeting Illness, fear illness; meeting Birth, obtain Birth. Flourishing and Assistance stand high, Rest and Confinement perish. Discuss relatives and fear their Death and Extinction.
The note says: Fear of illness concerns Rest, Confinement, perishing, and Extinction; obtaining Birth Flourishing and Assistance. Illness meeting Ghost includes Wood seeing Xinsi Metal, Fire Jiashen Water, Earth Gengyin Wood, Metal Yihai Fire: Rest, Confinement, perishing, and Extinction. Birth places meeting generation include Wood seeing Guihai Water, Fire Gengyin Wood, Water Renshen Metal, Metal Dingsi Earth: flourishing and assisting. These may occur at birth or in annual influence and progression; examine beginning and end flexibly. What generates me is parents, what I generate descendants, what restrains me Office-Ghost, what I restrain wife-Wealth, what harmonizes siblings. Avoid their Void, Death, and Extinction, and fear Rest, Confinement, Decline, and Failure, speaking according to each relative's position. Five Phases between Heaven and Earth lodge in twelve branches as Long Life, Bathing, Cap and Belt, Assuming Office, Imperial Flourishing, Decline, Illness, Death, Tomb, Extinction, Womb, and Nurture: four auspicious, four harmful, four ordinary.
Tomb within Ghost brings great danger and doubt; mourning beneath the feet shows calamity before the face.
The note says: Tomb within Ghost is a Five-Phase Tomb meeting Ghost: Metal fears the printed Si-Chou Fire, Wood Yiwei Metal, Water Bingchen Earth, Earth Wuchen Wood, Fire Renxu Water. Such configurations in annual influence or progression bring grave danger. Mourning beneath the feet takes two positions ahead of Destiny as Mourning Gate. A Xinhai person seeing the printed Yi-Chou enters Tomb and Mourning together, joining harm below the feet: calamity before the face means swiftness. Grand Duke, Killings, or major and minor progression approaching it requires fear of unexpected disaster and mourning for relatives beyond the immediate household.
Rely on Yin to inspect Yang calamity: Annual Star must not offend Solitary Star. Rely on Yang to discern Yin disaster: Heavenly Year avoids Widow Lodge.
The note says: Yin-, Mao-, and Chen-born have Si as Solitary Star and Chou Widow Lodge. Yin and Chen are Yang, Chou and Si Yin, hence the Yin-to-Yang line. Si-, Wu-, and Wei-born have Shen Solitary Star and Chen Widow Lodge. Wei and Si are Yin, Shen and Chen Yang, hence the Yang-to-Yin line. Heavenly Year resembles minor progression, Annual Star Grand Duke. Yang emphasizes Solitary Star, Yin Widow Lodge. Xu says Yin pairs with Yang and Yang with Yin; mentioning either implies the other, permitting reciprocal discernment. Annual Star is Grand Duke and must not occupy Solitary Star. Yin-, Mao-, and Chen-born meeting Grand Duke at Si have respectively Hook and Entanglement, Mourning Gate and Guest, or Controlling Spirit Killing, also Inviting Spirit Killing, indicating obstruction. Heavenly Year is also Grand Duke and must not occupy Widow Lodge. With Grand Duke at Chou, Chen-born have Hook and Entanglement, Mao-born Mourning, Yin-born Peeping Spirit Killing, also Pressing Spirit Killing, indicating secret theft, pressure, and entrapment. Three Origins fighting and annual influence and progression discordant make a year of Five-Phase Emolument-and-Horse injury, particularly harmful.
First discuss the Two Influences, next assess continued life. Father's illness is inferred through child's Emolument; wife's calamity through husband's year. The note says: Five Phases generating form father-child transmission, as blue-green and red. Yin-Yang controlling form husband-wife union, as stems and branches. Metal ill fears Fire; urgently seek Water's rescue: Metal generates Water as child, which can restrain Fire. Metal's calamity may come through Fire, so examine Fire's Rest and Flourishing. These two rescue methods are crucial. Xu says Two Influences are Yin-Yang, continued life destiny and progression: distinguish Yin-Yang, then destiny and progression. Father and wife illustrate advancing and retreating influence. A Gengchen person born in the tenth month has Geng Metal ill at Hai: father ill. Geng generates Ren as child, Ren Emolument at Hai: child with Emolument. Geng takes Yi as wife; major progression to Si finds Yi Wood ill, wife's calamity, while Geng Metal regains continued years. All phases follow similarly. Ren or Gui day people taking Geng and Xin as father, progressing through Hai and Zi where Metal is ill or dead, have parental calamity or mourning. Bing or Ding day people taking Geng and Xin as wife, progressing through Yin and Mao where Metal is extinguished, have wife's calamity or bereavement. Bingyin progressing to Wushen has Fire ill, yet Bingyin fathers Wushen and Earth has Long Life at Shen. Child's Emolument born, father receives its protection and illness need not kill. Dingmao progressing to Jiawu has Fire restraining Metal as wife and Metal failing at Wu: wife's calamity. Yet Dingmao Fire flourishes at Wu and meets Heavenly Emolument; Metal and Fire obtain one another, Yin-Yang unite. Husband's flourishing year prevents wife's Five-Phase calamity becoming harmful. Father-child is Heaven's union, husband-wife human union, closest kin. Their destinies meeting harmful spirits that punish parents, wife, or children deepen father's illness and wife's calamity.
Three Palaces originally auspicious can delay encountered harm; beginning and end all harmful bring sudden, swift disaster. The note says: Three Palaces are Long Life palaces of Emolument, Destiny, and Body Origins. Four pillars lodging there with Emolument, Horse, Nobleman, and Five-Phase Birth and Flourishing are Originally Auspicious. Harmful annual periods and progressions then delay calamity without early death. Three Origins and Five Phases without influence, further meeting harmful annual influences and progressions, make beginning and end harmful and disaster swift and unrescuable. Xu says auspiciousness within inner and outer Heavenly, Human, and Branch Origins in year, month, and hour, avoiding Rest and Failure, makes roots and master fundamentally auspicious. Even dangerous annual periods, Grand Duke, and progression permit delaying harm. Conversely, inner and outer noble Emolument-and-Horse influence punished, clashed with, broken, and harmed in the eight characters gives Nobility without distinction and ultimately a harmful destiny. Good progression then requires guarding against blessings breeding calamity; harmful progression makes it sudden and swift. Both interpretations share one meaning.
Residence and Tomb receiving Killing make groans shake dust from beams; Mourning Gate and Guest approaching Human Origin change gong-shang music into the funeral song Xielu. The note says: Five positions ahead of Destiny are Residence, five behind Tomb. Killing means Robbing, Disaster, and Annual Killings. Two ahead is Mourning Gate, two behind Mourning Guest. Human means Human Origin. Ancient singers' voices circled beams and fitted gong-shang; now groans and grief replace them with funeral songs because Mourning arrives and Residence and Tomb receive Killing. Grand Duke's harmful Killings joining major and minor progression with punishment and clash must bring calamity; prepare carefully. Annual Grand Duke, Mourning Gate, Mourning Guest, Yellow Banner, Leopard Tail, Great Yin, Great Depletion, General, and other harmful Killings entering Residence or Tomb bring four sounds: groaning, endurance of pain, separation, and crying. These are Four Sounds Entering Residence. Some say relocation can avert them. This concerns annual harmful encounters; natal presence is heavier.
Twofold stem restraint is heavy: guard the head's region. Three branch entanglements are light: beware harm within limbs. Lower Origin's single influence cycles through periods of staying and departing.
The note says: Stems are Heavenly Origin and image the head: Virtue and Nobility favorable, Killing and Ghost harmful. Two restraints, as Jiazi birth with Gengwu month and Gengwu day, are heavy because stems cannot withstand repeated restraint; guard head, eyes, chest, and back. Branches resemble bodily joints and govern Destiny. Threefold or Sixfold Combination is favorable, Four Clashes and Three Punishments harmful. Injury through three branch punishments, as Xinyou birth, Gengyin month, Dingsi day, Wushen hour, is light because punishment does not reach natal Destiny itself: guard abdomen, organs, hips, and limbs. Another takes injured Threefold Combination; also possible. Lower Origin is Nayin, governing Five Phases as stems and branches shift through obstruction and passage; its harm is not confined to head or limbs, hence cycles of staying and departing. Two stems heavy, how much more three? Three branches light, how much more two? This distinguishes their weight. Another says major progression's stem counter-restraining Grand Duke is Ghost Over the Head, giving head and facial illness. Branch positions where Body and Destiny meet Birth, Death, Flourishing, and Five Ghosts give limb, waist, and foot illness, lighter than stems. Tao the Recluse's influence-progression song says Jia with its printed Si-shaped partner five years, Yi-Geng four, Bing-Xin three, Ding-Ren two, Wu-Gui one. Nayin progression influence generating gives blessings and virtue, restraining harm; compliant Five Phases give satisfaction. Metal people meeting Metal offend calamity; Wood people seeing Wood fulfill plans; Water people meeting Water move restlessly. Remember direction and influence. A Guiyou male born in the third month begins from Bingchen for three years, Dingsi Earth two: five years Earth Nayin, without other punishment or restraint. Wuwu stays one year, the printed Si-Wei five: six years Fire Nayin, harmful to Metal. Gengshen four, Xinyou three: seven years Wood Nayin, satisfying plans from twelve through eighteen. Count the rest cyclically. A palace stays five years or one, hence staying and departing periods. Major progression in flourishing ground cannot be harmed even by restraining influence.
Benevolent yet unbenevolent: fear cutting injury to Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner. Even sleeping, eating, attendance, and protection contain Ghost things among things and Ghost people among people. Meeting them brings disaster, removing them blessings.
The note says: Jia and Yi are Benevolence among Five Constants, yet called unbenevolent because restraining Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner is harmful. Jia seeing Wu and Yi the printed Yi-shaped stem are partial Yang or Yin: restraint, cutting, solitude, and turning away make Five Phases unbenevolent. Jia seeing the printed Si-shaped partner and Yi Wu let firmness and yielding ride together and each obtain its place: not unbenevolent. Infer other phases similarly. Their transformations communicate with human affairs, even sleeping, eating, attendance, and protection, all within benevolence. What I restrain is Wealth, what restrains me Ghost. Xinmao meeting Dingyou has Xin Emolument at You and Ding as Ghost: Ghost at Emolument's head, a Ghost thing among things. Destiny branch Wood meets You Metal's restraint: Human Origin restrained, a Ghost person among people. Such patterns bring disaster when progression meets them, blessings when removed. Another says the gentleman should maintain and protect himself from morning to night. Disordered food and rest and excessive movement bring calamity: Ghost within combination, harm hidden in good, human action still governed by Yin-Yang. Sleeping and eating are crucial nourishment; attendants and guards one's nearest surroundings. Ghost things and people make changing good and ill spread swiftly from near to far. Wu seeing Jia is unbenevolent, but Geng or Xin in year, month, or hour makes benevolence: Wu consumes Geng, which controls Jia. The printed Si-shaped partner likewise combines Jia and can attend and guard it. Thus Wu meeting Jia is harmful, but Geng and that partner in food, rest, and protection remove it for blessings.
Within this, Naked Form accompanied by Killing sends the bodily soul to Fengdu; injurious offense returns the ethereal soul to Mount Dai.
The note says: Among the foregoing Ghost things and people, the heaviest encounters include Five-Phase Bathing, called Naked Form. Natal Nayin Bathing met in major progression brings calamity: Water and Earth people at You, Wood at Zi, Fire at Mao, Metal at Wu. Guiguzi calls it Waves Limit. Accompanying Killing is Original Influence and Seven Killing. Bathing progression joining Grand Duke brings calamity; a harmful spirit already offended in natal year or hour also sends souls to Dai and Fengdu, names of utmost harm. Another takes accompanying Killing as Arching Seven Killing. Naked Form seeing Killing is especially unfavorable: Wu is Xin's Killing, You Yi's, Zi Ding's, Mao the printed Si-shaped stem's. Xinsi day and Yiwei hour exemplify it. Another has Jiazi Metal person obtaining a Wuwu year: Metal Naked Form at Wu, with Wuwu flourishing Fire carrying Self-Punishment, Reverse Chanting, and Disaster Killing, breaks Jiazi Destiny and injures what is offended.
Traveling, entering, or leaving may offend harmful directions; marriage and building take roads marked Yellow or Black.
The note says: Travel and passage are actions; marriage and construction great actions. Good, ill, regret, and shame arise from movement, so a gentleman is cautious. After Three Destinies and Five Phases, Luoluzi gives directions to avoid: Four Demons, Five Ghosts, Six Harms, Seven Injuries, Eight Difficulties, Nine Distresses are harmful; One Virtue and Two Births favorable. Examine each year's Grand Duke spirits: Yellow Path favorable, Black Path harmful. Another takes progression influence entering auspicious and harmful regions from Progression Origin, Five-Phase generation and restraint forming marriage and construction principles. What I restrain is wife, whom one may marry in Birth and Flourishing for assistance; what restrains me husband, whom one may marry there for blessings. Construction means despite the Five Phases' proper natures, unexpected changes occur between Heaven and Earth; the gentleman cultivates virtue and livelihood while awaiting time. Yellow and Black roads refer to Progression Origin's monthly establishment on Black Path, going ten years forward to Removal and Fullness on Yellow Path. Yellow progression favors all affairs, Black obstructs all. Cultivation, action, advance, retreat, facing, and turning all rest on Yin-Yang and accord with progression influence; none escape good or ill.
Calamity and blessing lie within the year's position; manifestation comes through day and hour's stirring. Five Spirits restrain one another, Three Births determine Destiny. Noble people drawing Emolument are always in Emolument-and-Horse regions; turbid source and Repeated Chanting bring sorrow in Resting Palace ground.
The note says: Annual good and ill depend on day and hour's generation, restraint, punishment, and clash with Grand Duke. Birth day is wife, birth hour child. Harmony, useful Wealth, and no ruin are discussed according to affairs. Grand Duke punishing day or hour, or Original Influence and Seven Killing within Sixfold or Threefold Combinations, are harmful according to category. Another says year means Grand Duke and annual period: their good or ill responds to day and hour's stirring through Five Phases. Five Spirits are Five Phases, Three Births Three Origins. Examine roots, establish palaces through Origins, pair phases, and seek day-hour Emolument and Horse through Five Zi Origin. They may generate at natal Established Flourishing or conflict at natal perishing and Extinction. Progression limits then manifest good or ill. Extinguished Five-Phase creation and Void, with clashing and punishing progression and harmful stars joined, give much worry and little joy, a fatal end, sorrow, and groaning: Resting Palace. Another identifies Sorrow as a Killing, Zi people seeing Hai, Mao Yin, Wu Si, You Shen; Five Spirits as Severed Substance, Wandering Soul, Five Ghosts, Extinguished Destiny, Original Palace; Three Births as Generating Influence, Heavenly Physician, Blessed Virtue. Then this continues the travel, marriage, and construction method, not Three Destinies: examine Grand Duke's Five-Phase positions for calamity and blessing and choose auspicious day and hour for action. This also works.
Wildness arises from Hook and Entanglement, ruin from Origin and Death. Residence and Tomb together fear little joy and much worry; returning ten thousand miles comes at Three Returns ground.
The note says: Spirits and Killings are Heaven and Earth's refined Five-Phase influence, each governing good or ill. First infer Five-Phase Rest and Flourishing and configuration, then spirits and Killings and categories of affairs. For Yang destinies, three positions ahead are Hook and three behind Entanglement; for Yin, ahead Entanglement and behind Hook. Meeting progression limits brings wild, violent disaster. Original Influence and Death Spirit with natal harmful Killing and annual punishing stars often produce official entanglement and needless bonds. Residence and Tomb there worsen it. A Guihai birth seeing Wuchen five positions ahead meets Water's Tomb; annual influence or progression carrying Killing there makes Residence and Tomb Together. Three Returns are Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei, also Three Hills or Five Tombs: things return to roots, mandate, origin, and source. The four positions image return. Another takes Three Origins' Five-Phase destinations: Jiazi obtaining a Hai year returns Wood Emolument, a Shen month Water Destiny, Si progression Metal Body, each at the original tone's Long Life. Even abroad ten thousand miles, return is indicated. Xu says Hook and Entanglement must not occupy natal day, hour, or either progression, especially joined by Original Influence and Seven Killing. Residence-Tomb includes a Wuzi person meeting Xinwei Grand Duke, with Wei and Zi in day positions, or day, hour, and major progression sharing the palace, making it heavy and harmful to women, children, and household. Major progression cycles forward or backward through twelve branches; reaching the Three Origins' original Emolument and Wealth destinations gives ease and blessings.
A Four Killings father often begets a Five Ghosts son; a Six Harms person has Seven Injuries affairs. The note says: This concerns blood relations. Four Killings means Robbery, Disaster, Heaven, and Earth, or Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei as Four Yin Killings. Five Ghosts are Zi seeing Chen; Chou Mao; Yin Yin; Mao Chou; Chen Zi; Si Hai; Wu Xu; Wei You; Shen Shen; You Wei; Xu Wu; Hai Si. Three Origins injured in the year raise a Five Ghosts son, reciprocal control and restraint making discord. Six Harms, such as Zi piercing Wei, are discord in twelve branches. One or two layers, or harmful Killings repeatedly joining clash, must give Seven Injuries, harming six relatives and the self. Another makes Four Killings exclusively Four Robberies: Five Phases born at Four Beginnings are fathers of things. What restrains me is Ghost; Birth, Failure, Flourishing, Death, and Extinction are five changes encountered. Jiashen self-born Water, for example, fathers Wood people's Robbing Killing and begets Gengshen Wood. Jia fathers Geng, yet at Shen reaches Extinction and meets Geng as Ghost; Dinghai further makes Jiashen's Six Harms. Thus Seven Injuries occur. It is also a Killing's name, evident from the earlier Four Killings through Seven Injuries list.
Relatives' affection is like Water and Fire meeting at Bathing; blood kin part midway, Solitary Lodges especially disliking Separated Corners.
The note says: This joins the preceding discussion. Bathing is the second Long Life stage, at Zi, Wu, Mao, You. Solitary Star and Widow Lodge were discussed earlier; Separated Corners are Yin, Shen, Si, Hai. Bathing restraint with Solitude and Widowhood at Separated Corners includes a Mao day and Chou hour or Chou day and Mao hour. Chou is northern influence, Mao eastern spirit, their tendencies differ. Relatives like Water and Fire means no accord; separation is worse still.
Understand spirits and Killings and weigh their force: Body restraining Killing is relatively light, Killing restraining Body especially heavy.
The note says: Five Phases govern Destiny. Begin with Five Phases and the four pillars' configuration, then spirits' good and ill, to weigh calamity and blessing. Phases reveal foundation's thickness and configuration's height; comparison prevents error. Spirits and Killings include the foregoing Hook, Entanglement, Origin, Death, Solitude, Widowhood, Separated Corners, Bathing, Residence, Tomb, Mourning, Repeated and Reverse Chanting, Three Returns, Four Killings, Five Ghosts, Six Harms, and Seven Injuries. Emolument, Horse, Wealth, Office, Seal, and Food Spirit are proper Five-Phase generation-and-restraint principles, not names of spirits and Killings. Body refers to year stem or year stem-and-branch Nayin. Good and harmful spirits arise in day and hour or annual influence and progression. Killing restraining Body is heavy, Body restraining Killing light, always assessed through phases, pillars, and configuration.
Cycling Eight Trigrams derives from the River and Luo's surviving writings. In outline it fixes one beginning; investigated, it becomes myriad threads.
The note says: Luoluzi's Three Destinies and Five Phases remain within Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams; cycling investigation yields many principles. This is not conjecture but derives from River-and-Luo writings. One beginning is the Changes' Supreme Ultimate; myriad threads the sixty-four hexagrams, three hundred eighty-four lines, and innumerable good, ill, regret, and shame. Outline or investigation depends on the student. Another calls the single beginning the opening original influence preceding Heaven, and myriad threads the rhapsody's Five Phases, Three Origins, progression influence, annual periods, Emolument, Horse, Nobility, Virtue, and auspicious or harmful spirits.
Climbing Saddle and Treading Emolument bring Seal and official carriage; poor Horse and slight Wealth drifting without return.
The note says: Number begins at one and ends at nine; nine is ultimate, exhausting number's end. Nine Yang's excess reaches generation and transformation's extreme. High and low standing, success and failure all arise through number. Guiyou birth, Renxu month, Dinghai day, Gengzi hour sits on Heavenly Emolument. Month, day, and hour Nayin Water and Earth obtain three Yang's generating and flourishing completed numbers. Yin-born Destiny's three positions gather Emolument, Horse, and Climbing Saddle: conspicuous distinction must follow. Yiyou birth, Dinghai month, printed Si-Mao day, Dinghai hour rides Water Horse in Hai month but Dinghai Earth restrains it as Ghost. Mao day sits on Heavenly Emolument, yet Water and Earth both die at Mao, and Body Ghost clashes and breaks natal Destiny: Emolument and Horse turn into Ghost disaster. Lost Emolument and Horse need Body Wealth's supply, but Water's Fire Wealth self-extinguishes at Hai, and birth month, day, and hour all stand at Wealth's Death and Extinction: exhausted Five-Phase number. Even Emolument and Horse leave Body Wealth seized by Ghost things. Progression cannot restore exhausted number in Rest and Failure: wandering without return. Another calls one position ahead of Horse Climbing Saddle, one behind Whip. Climbing Saddle properly placed and combining with Heavenly Origin gives distinction, with auspicious generals, annual support, and flourishing ground required for blessings. Weak Post Horse and resting, confined Wealth and Destiny give toil without establishment. Four pillars so placed surely indicate wandering.
For appointment and honor, Jiawu takes four times eight as its period; for disputes and documents, the printed Si-Hai label must beware thirty-two. Good and evil together stir movement and relocation; flanked Killing holding Hill brings relatives and in-laws weeping in farewell.
The note says: Annual periods and major and minor progression derive from number, whose odd-even changes generate good and ill. A Jiawu person at thirty-two has Dingyou minor progression, Metal's flourishing region, and Yichou Grand Duke, original Nayin's proper Storehouse, with Post Horse entering Residence and Heavenly Yi descending: appointment and honors. A person of the printed Yi-Hai label at thirty-two has Dingyou minor progression at Mourning Guest and Gengwu Grand Duke at Death and Six Distresses. Three Origins restrained bring disputes and documents. Annual influence and progression changing palaces require understanding their joint good and ill and interacting calamity and blessing, arising through relocation: movement generates good, ill, regret, and shame. Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei are Four Killings, also Three Hills, each taken through Five Phases' Five Tombs. A Jisi Wood destiny born on a Yiwei day has its own Three Hills and Yang Blade: flanked Killing holding Hill, grave danger. The section from traveling and passage through this line also supplies Yin-Yang geography, Three Origins, and Nine Palaces methods, determining calamity and blessing through annual wandering Grand Duke. It is not wholly Three Destinies and is not fully detailed here.
Also examine conduct and resolve, observe firmness and generosity, discuss bone and form: a useful vessel depends on the heart's source. Wood influence abundant makes benevolence flourish; deficient Geng and Xin make righteousness scant.
The note says: Five Phases determine destiny and reveal high and low standing, calamity and blessing, yet exceptional people, like ice rat or Fire turtle, possess rare qualities not exhausted by Three Origins and Five Phases. Examine conduct, resolve, bone, form, and heart's source: see what one does, observe the means and what brings contentment. Inner method and regulated conduct, appearance and virtue, reveal each other: where can a person hide? Luoluzi's way of observing people agrees with our Confucian discourse. Mayi says: With heart but no favorable appearance, appearance arises following heart; with appearance but no heart, heart perishes following appearance, as the supplied wording states. Jia-Yi Wood governs Benevolence, Bing-Ding Fire Propriety, Wu-Ji Earth Trust, Geng-Xin Metal Righteousness, Ren-Gui, here printed as Wood, Wisdom. Abundant Wood makes benevolence flourish, deficient Metal righteousness scant. Infer the rest from affairs to capacity and from present signs to what comes, pairing Five Phases with Five Constants to determine character's measure.
Harmful luminaries arriving with joy suggest a great vessel; Blessed Star arriving with calamity reveals a harmful person. The note says: Cultivated in oneself, virtue is genuine. Loyalty, filial devotion, benevolence, and righteousness accord with virtue, so harmful Killings become Authority Stars. Wealth and distinction with arrogance bring self-caused fault; defiance and impropriety oppose virtue. Good receives good return; evil invites calamity. Luoluzi warns deeply. Suggest and reveal are meaningful: harmful stars should cause calamity, so contrary joy requires a great gentleman. Broad capacity and knowledge, loyalty and filial virtue, caution in propriety and law leave no opening for calamity: hence suggest. Blessed Star should bring joy, so contrary harm reveals a petty person recklessly relying on destiny, disloyal, unfilial, inhumane, unrighteous, defiant, and improper: how escape harm? A saying makes the harmful person harm his good and the good person benefit from his harm. This follows conduct, resolve, form, and heart's source, revealing gentleman and petty person.
Seeking movement from a settled place, restraint not exhausted makes change difficult; asking danger while safe permits divining good within harm. The note says: Luoluzi teaches seeking reputation and action, approaching good and avoiding harm. Heaven's mandate lies in virtue, but examine what restrains me and what I restrain: my restraint makes authority, the other's Ghost. Restraint is Wealth; without restraint no consumption. Annual periods and progression's Five Phases restraining natal destiny prevent an official's promotion or movement: keep still and wait. Yet without clash or restraint development is difficult. Asking danger while safe means the gentleman at rest observes images and ponders words, in movement observes changes and ponders divination. Thus Heaven aids and all good is beneficial. Who but a sage can perceive the rise of good, ill, calamity, and blessing before budding? Approaching good, avoiding harm, and considering danger while safe may bring freedom from blame.
Distinguished yet forgetting lowliness, calamity grows from extravagance; deluded without return, harm arises from confusion.
The note says: The gentleman sees Heaven's mandate and dares not demand blessings from Heaven. The petty person slights it and does not know to rectify blessings in himself. Forgetting lowliness after distinction, lost without returning, unable to consider danger in safety but seeking movement from settled ground, calamity grows from luxury and confusion. Ruining life and household without regret is deeply pitiful.
Departing from the constant and changing the old: change is where signs begin. Bless the good and harm the excessive; good and ill have differing omens.
The note says: Movement and stillness pivot benefit and harm; intelligence and reflection open calamity and blessing. Methods demand caution, mechanisms examination. The petty person, ignorant of Heaven's mandate and outside the constant Way, treats life lightly and exchanges things: harm to excess begins here. The gentleman acts at the right time, guards when untimely, embodies Heaven's Way, and fears rash action: blessing good begins here. The Changes says good, ill, regret, and shame arise in movement; good and ill image gain and loss. Families accumulating good retain celebration, those accumulating evil calamity. Who but the sage knows advance, retreat, survival, and loss? This is Luoluzi's great closing warning.
Even Gongming and Jizhu lacked writings fully knowing change; Jingchun and Zhongshu did not record the subtlety of comparing forms.
The note says: Guan Gongming, Sima Jizhu, Guo Jingchun, and Dong Zhongshu investigated Heaven and humanity, traced nature and destiny, exhausted Yin-Yang images and numbers, and knew future good and ill. Even they lacked full writings on change or comparative forms: creation is hidden and hard to measure. Luoluzi gives no surname or date. His rhapsody mentions coming from Lanye and refers to Guo Jingchun, suggesting a Six Dynasties person. The commentator considers Liang's Zhaoming a close possibility because he lived in Lanling's countryside. Identifying him with Prince Zijin, son of Zhou King Ling, is called false here.
Examine past sages and learn from earlier worthies, presenting plans through affairs or concise words close to principle. Much or little remaining, two meanings are hard to refine. Now compare gain and loss and mend surviving traces, shaping a heart's mirror to hang forever at the clear terrace. Set it at the compilation's end, hoping for one attainment in a thousand.
The note says: Five-Phase discussion apart from the Way is wrong, apart from worldly methods wrong, apart from people and things also wrong. Concise words near principle or affairs presenting plans mingle spirits and Killings, good and ill embodied in each other. Five Phases communicate with the Way and inexhaustible purposes of things; spreading these principles offers no small aid. Luoluzi closes by describing the rhapsody's examination of sages' surviving writings and worthies' gains and losses: broad learning in concise speech, subtle Way and deep meaning, benevolence displayed and function concealed, a guide to Five Phases and Three Destinies. Later students should develop it, making the deaf hear and blind see, enduring a hundred generations without exhaustion and unifying nature's constant presence. Its beginning, end, flexible changes, and far-ranging analogies never drown in other arts; its warnings often agree with the highest Way. Is Luoluzi not a person of rounded understanding and lofty character?
Translator's note: This supplied text combines the rhapsody, attributed explanations, alternatives, and explicit criticism of earlier interpretations. All are retained in their original sequence. It contains irregular Ji/Si/Yi-shaped stem graphs, an Ox graph in a branch list, Ren-Gui labelled Wood, Mao labelled Water, inconsistent stage and Origin classifications, and differing Void and progression rules. These are identified or translated as supplied rather than harmonized. Historical stories, moral judgments, bodily correspondences, and predictions are the text's claims; uncertain titles and named procedures are not expanded into invented algorithms.
Tongxuanzi's Compilation of Annotations on Luoluzi's Rhapsody
Metal meeting Yin, Wu, and Xu is favorable; Bing, Wu, Si, and Wu bring celebration and Virtue. Jia, Yi, Yin, and Mao are Wealth Spirits; Ren and Gui Flowing Down bring injury and restraint.
The note says: Geng uses Ding Office, Xin Bing Office. Bing and Ding, Yin-Wu-Xu, and flourishing Fire at Si-Wu-Wei are favored, facing Emolument and Office. Xinsi and Gengwu give Nobility. Gengshen, Xinyou, Gengwu, Xinwei, Gengyin, Xinmao, Gengzi, Xinchou, Gengchen, Xinsi, Gengxu, Xinhai: in these twelve palaces Metal takes Fire as Office and Wood as Wealth. Fire lacks influence at Shen, You, Hai, Zi, Chou; Wood declines at Shen, You, Xu, Zi, Chou. Uninfluential Wealth and Destiny give poverty and low standing. Month, day, and hour flourishing at Wu, Si, or Yin can make distinction. Without Fire no distinction; Ren, Gui, Hai, Zi Water turns from Office and Emolument and prevents celebration. Complete Yin-Wu-Xu brings Office Spirit into a configuration; Wu-Gui stems transform into Fire Office configuration; complete Si-Wu branches give hidden Office configuration. Wood's aid makes them superior. Ren, Gui, Hai, Shen, Zi, Chen Water favors Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner's restraint for rescue and noble Seal. Jia, Yi, Yin, Mao, Hai are Wealth; Wei Wealth Storehouse. Without punishment and harm, a solid Wealth Storehouse permits wealth development. Turning from Emolument without noble Office or Seal ground, but with flourishing Wood, gives merchant wealth.
Ren and Gui glory in Four Seasons and Si-Wu; Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner glorify Office, Bing-Ding Wealth. Jia-Yi Straight-and-Crooked is harmful ground; manifest Geng-Xin Seal follows Dragon's scales.
The note says: Ren and Gui are True Water, favoring Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner, Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei, Si, and Wu. Ren uses that partner as Office, Gui Wu. Si and Wu are Office Emolument; four Earth positions their own flourishing. Birth in fourth or fifth month's first third, sixth month's first or middle third, or third month's last third gives influential Office and celebration. Water takes Earth as Office; Jia, Yi, Hai, Mao, Wei, Yin Wood breaking it gives low, obscure office if light, no office if heavy. Flourishing Geng-Xin Metal can assist and rescue, instead giving distinction.
Fire favors Chen, Shen, Hai, and Zi; flourishing Ren-Gui Office, but Earth solitude and poverty. Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner are Retreating Spirits, Jia-Yi Advancing; Metal Wealth gives glorious Emolument.
The note says: Bing uses Gui Office and Ding Ren Office, true creation's Already Across. Hai and Zi are Proper Office; Ding Pig and Bing Rat Noble Spirits. Chen, Shen, Hai, Zi are noble. Earth as Six Harms gives poverty without rescue. Flourishing Jia and Yi rescue; Geng, Xin, Si, You, Chou are Wealth and Emolument Destiny.
Earth meeting Yin, Mao, Wei, and Hai has Jia-Yi glorious Office; Metal breaks Emolument. Geng-Xin turn from Emolument and favor Bing-Ding; Ren-Gui in Chen enjoy lasting blessings.
The note says: Wu and its printed Si-shaped partner at Hai-Mao-Wei are noble. Wu seeks Jade Hare, that partner Pig's Head, flourishing Emolument and Office regions. Geng, Xin, Si, You, Chou, or the printed Xin-Xu breaks Emolument and prevents distinction, especially fourth and eighth months. Bing-Ding rescue, but Wu seeing Bing and its partner Ding are partial Yang or Yin and do not rescue; Wu seeing Ding and its partner Bing do. Fire dead, confined, and uninfluential in seventh or eighth month cannot rescue. Hai, Zi, Chen are Wealth Storehouse and develop wealth. A Wood section is missing, but infer similarly: favor Si, You, Chou, Shen, Xin, Geng; avoid Bing-Ding and Flaming Up Fire configuration; Ren, Gui, Hai, Zi as Seal rescue; Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner, Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei are Wealth.
The worthy and accomplished understand this formula; the ignorant grow more bewildered.
The note says: First clarify heavenly stems, then branches and Nayin as Nine Palaces and Three Origins, divided into Heaven, Earth, Humanity. In Five Phases and four pillars, one Yin and one Yang is Way; partial Yin or Yang affliction.
Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner with Jia-Yi form a balanced Wood configuration; flourishing Noble Office approaches the emperor.
The note says: Wu and that partner meeting flourishing Wood in stems and branches, or Jihai and Guihai True Long Life Office Stars, indicate highest distinction. Further flourishing birth month without punishment or clash gives both wealth and distinction, assessed by weight.
Ren-Gui with Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner in flourishing Earth: great talent receives auspicious investiture in a superior configuration.
The note says: Ren-Gui seeing Wu and that partner, Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei Earth, born in Si or Wu month with flourishing, assisting Earth, gives distinction.
Geng and Xin after winter solstice's one Yang: Bing-Ding generating influence brings blessings like a forest.
The note says: After winter solstice one Yang is born, Fire warms, Wood gradually flourishes and can generate Bing-Ding Fire as Office and Emolument.
Bingzi born in summer as one Yin grows: Hai, Zi, Ren, Gui are Indirect Office's region.
The note says: This clarifies Wood and Fire's accomplishment in Already Across. Shallow summer influence gives early development; one Yin grows at summer solstice, Water gradually flourishes, and Office Emolument generates and flourishes.
Six-Jia people in a Yin month: Established Emolument without wealth, no distinction among them.
The note says: First month Bingyin gives birth-month Emolument but harm to wife, ended descendants, poverty, and low standing. Jia takes the printed Si-shaped partner as wife and Xin as Office Star and son; all extinguish at Yin, Metal's Extinction and Earth's Confinement. Emolument, Horse, wife, and child extinguished do not make noble influence. Using influential Bingyin Food Spirit requires Jia seeing Gengshen or Yi seeing Xin, You, or Xu, flourishing Seven Killing and Ghost ground. Yin generates Fire to subdue Ghost and transform Office into distinction.
A Yi person with much Xin born in a You month: flourishing Ghost and declining Body bring illness.
The note says: Yi seeing Xin is Ghost above the stem, called Seven Killing. Yi seeing You has the Body at White Tiger's uninfluential place, further restrained by Seven Killing: how could illness be absent? Jia seeing Geng is the same. Without illness, life must be short.
Literary Hall and Academy govern examination fame; without Office Nobility, fame is empty.
The note says: Literary Hall is Office Emolument's Long Life, Academy the original master's Long Life. With Office Nobility there is examination success and a distinguished destiny; without it, empty reputation. The earlier text also has Seal, as Jia seeing Gui, Hai, Zi.
Kui Star meeting Office's position surely gives a prodigy with hidden Nobility.
The note says: Kui Star is the ten days Jiachen through Guichou. Natal Office Star meeting Office Nobility and Academy indicates the prodigy examination, as a Guichou person seeing Wushen within the same Jiachen cycle.
Meeting Assuming Office brings respect; Heavenly Horse and Wealth Storehouse make a noble destiny.
The note says: Assuming Office brings esteem. Heavenly Horse is wife-Wealth: Jia seeing its printed Si-shaped partner as wife and Wealth, Chen Wealth Storehouse, permits a wealth-developing distinguished destiny. Wife flourishing in major or minor progression or Grand Duke often brings marriage, travel, or construction. A Jiawu person's wife and Horse are printed Yi-designated Earth. Progression to Shen, You, Xu brings Wu Fire Human Origin to western Death and Extinction; the Si-designated Earth itself fails, with flourishing Metal as Earth's Wealth and Emolument, while Human Origin Wealth lacks influence. A Bingwu person progressing west takes Gui as Office, failing there, so Office declines; Xin as Horse and Wealth flourishes at You and Xu, Horse established at You. Horse fears clash; without clash or concealed detention, judge wealth development.
Destiny meeting noble ground gains passage; declining Destiny meeting Flourishing does not welcome blessings.
The note says: Noble-seated Destiny progressing toward Emolument and Wealth can show glory. Originally flourishing Office Nobility need not suffer disaster even under harmful progression. Ren or Gui progressing through Si, Wu, Wei can develop, northern people trading south for rich profit. Resting, confined Destiny without Office Nobility cannot celebrate merely through noble progression. Originally flourishing Office with progression turning from Emolument and Grand Duke clashing or harming gives retirement; progression to master and root's Long Life can also dismiss. Jia or Yi seeing Hai is Rest and Confinement of Office, whose Illness or Extinction makes Birth-ground encounter a call to withdraw. Major or minor progression with Grand Duke joining Mourning, Hill, Tomb, and Accompanying Killing gives crying; Naked Form with Killing death.
Eight Solitudes and Five Tombs make Buddhist or Daoist religious life, ruined ancestry, wandering, and isolation.
The note says: In the Jiazi cycle, Xu and Hai are Void and Six Empties, with Qian at Hai-Xu. Xu moves three positions south to Wei, Wei three east to Chen, Chen three north to Chou, Chou three west to Xu. These four Solitude-Widowhood and Five Tomb positions often ruin ancestral foundations and give isolated wandering or miscellaneous callings. Three Origins restrained make solitude; light restraint permits entering another household; True Solitary Spirit harms wife and children. Tongxuanzi's explanation is not Luolu's original truth but his own compilation, like Xu Ziping's.
Translator's note: The supplied collection lacks its full Wood section but includes a short replacement inside the Earth note. All listed pillars and conditions are retained, including mixed stem-and-branch lists, Si/Yi-shaped Earth-partner graphs, Xin-Xu, the Bingzi verse, and variant classifications.
Rhapsody on Clear Understanding
The note attributes the work to Xu Ziping of Donghai and the explanation to Wan Yuwu of Yishui.
The Supreme Ultimate divides into Heaven and Earth; one influence separates into Yin and Yang, flowing as Five Phases and transforming to generate all things. Human endowment in destiny gives poverty, wealth, high and low standing. Practitioners knowing the mechanism determine good, ill, calamity, and blessing. The note says: This traces creation's beginning.
Judge destiny with the day stem as master, governing Three Origins and pairing the eight stem-and-branch characters.
The note says: Heaven's four seasons create things; a house's four pillars establish its structure; destiny's four pillars determine flourishing and withering. Take the day's heavenly stem as master of Destiny Origin, branches as Earthly Origin Emolument, and what branches hide as Human Origin Longevity. Eight characters are four heavenly stems and four earthly branches. The Continuing Goodness chapter says: Arrange four pillars, distinguish Three Powers, and exclusively pair day-stem Heavenly Origin with the eight characters.
Discuss progression from the month branch first, distinguishing four seasons and bringing forward Five-Phase growth and decline.
The note says: Major progression starts from month branch, hence month is Governing Outline. Examine seasonal depth and which node in spring Wood, summer Fire, autumn Metal, winter Water, or seasonal Earth applies. Initial and central influences grow or decline differently. Forward or reverse, flourishing or declining progression may assist, drain, restrain, or generate the eight characters from this basis. Day stem first, month branch next: the crucial points.
Approach flourishing Office for achievement, enter configurations for distinction. Office, Seal, Wealth, and Food are auspicious, peaceful, settled, and good. Killing, Injury, Owl, and Ruin are harmful, but redirected become blessings.
The note says: Five-Phase Assuming Office and Imperial Flourishing are each palace's completed achievement in the pillars. Entering configuration gives distinction, breaking it low standing. Office, Seal, Wealth, and Food need no injury, restraint, clash, punishment, breaking, or failure to settle well and enter configuration. Killing, Injury, Owl, and Ruin with control, removal, retention, combination, or transformation turn into blessings and also enter it. Subsequent configurations reveal their likes and aversions. These Four Auspicious and Four Harmful are most important, hence first. A rhapsody says day master should be vigorous and flourishing, Useful Spirit uninjured.
Complete stores are in Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei; Long Life resides in Si, Hai, Yin, Shen. Zi and Wu reverse completion and failure; Mao and You exchange exit and entry.
The note says: Twelve branches hide ten stems, each with Birth, Death, completion, failure, exit, entry, and exchange. Solitary Steps calls Chen-Xu-Chou-Wei Four Storehouses, Yin-Shen-Si-Hai Four Births, Zi-Wu-Mao-You Four Failures. Likes and Aversions says Wealth, Office, and Seal are fully stored within Four Seasons, Office Star and Wealth influence born at Yin, Shen, Si, Hai. Calling Zi-Wu Heaven and Earth's foundation pillars and Mao-You sun and moon's gates names the ground but misses the principle.
Stems and branches have unseen forms: take being from absence. Seasonal nodes retain residual numbers: seek distinctions within mixture.
The note says: These describe creation's subtlety: unseen stem-and-branch forms and residual seasonal numbers are Human Origin hidden in twelve branches. Remotely Reaching Si, arching, and flanking take branch things through stems: being from absence. Zi's first three subdivisions belong to Ren Water, Chou's first three Gui Water, Yin's first three Gen Earth. Seasonal influence lies within one character yet has separate rulers: distinctions within mixture. The rhapsody's unseen combinations and one divided into three, and Continuing Goodness's ever-present unseen forms, say this.
Good and evil interacting favor transforming evil and elevating good; mixed auspiciousness and harm most fear injuring good and adding harm. The note says: This turns to judging destiny through taking being and seeking distinctions. A Jia day seeing Bing and Ding turns from Emolument, harmful; Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner as Wealth are good. Bing and Ding transform Wood to assist Wealth: transforming evil and elevating good. Yi Wood restraining Wealth is injuring good and adding harm. Mixed Wealth and Seal favor Office and Killing's transformation; mixed Office and Killing Seal's transformation; without Seal, Wealth and Horse supplying transformation; without Wealth and Seal, Yang Blade's combination or Food Spirit and Hurting Office's restraint. Broken Killing-control releases Killing; Seal transformation seeing Wealth breaks transformation into harm. These are examples.
Configuration obtained and Origin attended gives wealth or distinction; domain offended and configuration broken, early death or poverty.
The note says: Configuration means Threefold or Four-Mixed proper palaces, as Hai-Mao-Wei Wood or Chen-Xu-Chou-Wei Earth. Hai-Mao-Wei is Jia-Yi's own configuration, Bing-Ding's Seal, Wu and its printed Si-shaped partner's Office, Geng-Xin's Wealth, Ren-Gui's Injury. Origin is one's own Origin domain and temple, as Gui at Zi or Si-designated Earth at Chou and Wei. Obtaining an Origin domain and using it as Destiny Origin gives longevity; Office or Seal distinction; Wealth riches; Turning from Emolument to generate Wealth greater riches. One unpunished, unclashed, unrestrained, unbroken instance gives fame, wealth, and distinction; the reverse does not. Offending Zi's noble domain includes Chou or Wei's restraint, Wu clash, Mao punishment. One Zi and two Wu break half and leave half blessing. Breaking Shen-Zi-Chen through Yin-Wu-Xu clash is greatly harmful. But an empty Useful Star forming Flying Heaven Emolument and Horse instead brings distinction. Infer the rest similarly.
Translator's note: The source's classifications of Three Origins differ from preceding commentators. Si-shaped Earth-partner graphs, a Heaven-shaped graph in the early-death phrase, and the alternative empty-configuration exception are retained or identified without harmonization.
Gain and Loss Balance Together; Advance and Retreat Recur
The note says: Obtaining, attending, offending, and breaking are creation's gain, loss, advance, and retreat. One gains as another loses, strong advances as weak retreats, balanced recurrence changing unpredictably. Only precise examination distinguishes them. Jia attending its domain at Yin avoids Shen's clash, yet two Yin against one Shen or two Jia against one Geng do no harm: powerful Jia advances. Yin clashed by Shen can be rescued by strong Hai for complete blessings. Hai restrained by Wu or clashed with by the printed Ji-shaped position fails; many Hai are unafraid and advance strongly. Repeated advance and retreat, success and failure, depend on which side annual influence and progression support for blessing or calamity.
Spirits and Killings Entangle: Weigh Light and Heavy
The note says: Here spirits and Killings include Wealth, Office, Seal, Food, Injury, Killing, Blade, and Ruin, with differing likes and aversions as later configurations show. Weigh which is timely and heavy for use, which out of command and light to discard. Retain heavy, remove light. These and preceding lines give the general method. Luolu's instruction to weigh spirits and Killings, Body restraining Killing light and Killing restraining Body heavy, concerned auspicious and harmful spirits. Xu Ziping instead explains through Office, Seal, Emolument, and Horse. Jiashen, Bingyin, Yimao, Xinsi has Yi using Geng Office and Xin Killing. Geng in Shen is clashed away by Yin; Bing combines Xin Killing; Yi Wood generates and flourishes, hence distinction. Jiayin, Dingmao, Guichou, Dingsi is Body restraining Killing, weak Body and flourishing Wealth unable to bear Wealth and Office, hence early death. Yichou, Xinsi, Dingsi, printed Si-You has flourishing Body and Wealth, able to bear Wealth, hence wealth alone. Jiazi, Xinwei, Yimao, Jiashen has Yi using Geng Office and Xin Killing. Geng inside Shen, with sixth-month birth, flourishes while Killing declines: Proper Office positioned and Seven Killing displaced. Body also flourishes, changing Ghost to Office, hence distinction. Xinchou, Gengyin, Yisi, Jiashen has declining Office, abundant Killing, and powerless Yi Wood, transforming Office to Killing. Lifelong drunken destitution ended in Yiyou progression's fifth year, Bingshen year, eighth month, nineteenth day.
Within are mixed-influence Wealth and Office together, Proper and Indirect Seals sharing a palace, Emolument and Horse called inner and outer Three Wonders.
The note says: This is entanglement: Wealth, Office, both Seals, same or different palaces, hidden or revealed, make good and ill hard to discuss and require weighing. A Three Wonders song says: Yin, Wu, Xu, You are Three Wonders; Hare and Snake following Monkey do not move. Si-You-Chou meeting Zi is fine; Horse and Monkey seeing Pig shine. Chen, Si, Zi meet at a wondrous place; Wu and Hai seeing Yin make noble steps. Pig chasing Hare delights Horse; Yin and You seeing Si accord. Pig pursues Horse with Snake's support; Water Rat and Wei person at Fire Turtle's pool. Another says: Divine Emolument flies to ride Horse; Wealth and office both fit. Flourishing with original Origin's aid gives a superior configuration's foremost glory. Jichou, Dingmao, Renwu, Guimao has Ren using the printed Si-shaped partner as Office and Ding as Wealth, both returning Emolument to Wu. This is the configuration and gives great distinction.
Translator's note: The supplied pillar lists contain Si-shaped irregularities; the Three Wonders song includes compressed animal and directional labels. All examples and the biographical death date are translated as printed, without adding omitted calculations.
True Office Met in the Hour, with a Strong Destiny, Receives Gold-and-Purple Honors Early
The note says: This is monthly-command Proper Office. Configurations are explained individually below. Wushen, Jiayin, the printed Si-Chou, Bingyin is metropolitan examination graduate Weng Zhongyi's example.
Translator's note: The heading mentions the hour while the note identifies monthly Proper Office. The irregular Si-Chou pillar is retained.
Fine Horse Ridden in the Month, with a Vigorous Hour, Later Gains Silver-and-Blue Office
The note says: This is monthly-command Proper Wealth. Office should give distinction, Wealth riches; both here discuss distinction because the day stem alone obtains monthly stem-and-branch Wealth without clash or restraint, sharing Proper Office's blessings. A poem says: Day stem loves taking month-branch Wealth; gold and jade pile in the household. Further see noble Wealth Horse in heavenly stems: abundant gold and silk arrive from Heaven.
Monthly Seal Attending the Day without Wealth Influence Wins Imperial Recruitment
The note says: This is monthly-command Proper Seal. Likes and Aversions says month generating day stem without Heavenly Wealth is Seal; Seal in the birth month avoids Wealth Star in year and hour, and Wealth progression requires retirement. Seal fears Wealth, so year and hour stems must lack it. Complete monthly Seal is rare. A Jia day in Hai month with Gui emerging changes Indirect into Proper and completes it, bringing imperial favor, distinction, and ancestral wealth. Yet initial humiliation or secondary-wife birth may precede ascent from lowliness to distinction, slight means to wealth, servant to wife, clerk to official, soldier to general: effects of Indirect Seal. Proper and Indirect both present bring slight calamity, acknowledgment of parents anew, mingled religious and secular life, adoption or fostering, secondary birth with legitimate upbringing, or legitimate birth with secondary upbringing. Companions competing for favor and dividing grace, many Yang Blades, combination removing Seal, or slight Seal make meeting yet not meeting. Even recommendation cannot then yield outstanding advancement. The rhapsody says flourishing Seal with generating Office must give chief ministerial responsibility.
Day Emolument Returns to the Hour without Office Star: The Road to High Office
The note says: This is Day Emolument Returning to the Hour. Seal is generally best. Hurting Office, Food Spirit, and Wealth progression also develop it. Avoid Office, punishment, clash, and Yang Blade. True Office, Wealth, Seal, and Emolument are proper Yin-Yang generation-and-restraint principles of the ten stems. Unbroken monthly attainment is finest; textual statements with breaking or injury are assessed by weight. Hour attainment develops later, all through one's own effort, founding enterprise and succession. Returning Emolument favors the hour alone; repeated month branch is Established Emolument Without Wealth. Month alone instead favors Wealth and Food in the hour. Office makes another configuration.
Monthly-command Seven Killing with both Killing and Body strong should make a young chief minister.
The note says: Monthly Seven Killing needs Body and Killing both strong for great distinction. Strong Body with shallow Killing needs Wealth generating it; strong Killing with weak Body Seal's aid or Yang Blade combining: all distinguished. Seal combination and controlling star attacking one another with a weak Body must give early death or disability. Guimao, Yimao, printed Si-Si, Yichou; Guimao, Dingsi, Renyin, Jiachen; Renyin, Yisi, Gengyin, Bingzi all have strong Body, flourishing Killing, and restraint, hence great distinction. Likes and Aversions says monthly Indirect Office should also have restraint in year and hour, correcting the rhapsody's partial statement.
Indirect Wealth in the hour with Wealth and Destiny flourishing must produce high ministers from humble homes.
The note says: One hour-position Indirect Wealth is favorable; combination gives no blessing. Avoid Companions and siblings competing, punishment, clash, restraint, and breaking. Bingxu, Wuxu, Wuzi, Renzi has Wu restraining Gui as Proper Wealth with repeated Zi, while Ren Indirect Wealth emerges. Dinghai, Wushen, Renshen, Bingwu has Ding Fire in the year but combination and restraint are welcomed; Yin Fire can seize Yang Fire's authority, hence distinction. Likes and Aversions forbids Indirect Wealth elsewhere when used in the hour, supplying what this rhapsody omits.
Established, Seated, or Returning Emolument meeting Wealth, Office, and Seal gives wealth, distinction, and long life.
The note says: Established refers to month, Seated day, Returning hour. With a vigorous self, Wealth alone gives riches, Office alone distinction, Seal alone refinement. Flourishing stems also give longevity and peaceful blessings. All three together are fine. Dinghai, Jiyou, Renwu, Xinhai is Day Emolument Returning to the Hour; Office Star also lies within Wu, while You month supplies Seal, fitting the configuration.
Day, month, or hour Blade meeting Office, Killing, and Glorious Spirit gives unsurpassed achievement and fame.
The note says: Three Blades requires Office, Killing, and Seal controlling and transforming. Glorious Spirit is another Seal name. Office and Killing without Seal, or Killing without Office, can work; Seal transforming Killing is especially fine. Only fear entanglement: Office must not see Injury, Seal Wealth, Killing Food or Injury pressing it. Control removing it or combination taking it away all prevent a proper configuration. Renshen, Renzi, Wuwu, Yimao has Day Blade controlled by Yimao; Bingxu, Guisi, Wuwu, Dingsi has Day Blade transformed by Seal, hence both distinguished.
Monthly command exclusively controls Seven Killing; a vigorous Body rises like an eagle.
The note says: Likes and Aversions says hour Seven Killing need not be harmful; monthly control and a strong stem instead turn it into Authority and Seal. Another account says hour Indirect Office accessing monthly influence with a flourishing master rises like an eagle, slightly different.
Translator's note: The source's returning-Emolument rules and examples include differing restrictions and explicit qualifications. The irregular Si-Si pillar and alternative monthly/hour readings are preserved without combining them into one rule.
Progression Origin Generates Three Wealths; A Strong Destiny Transforms Like a Leopard
The note says: Progression Origin is monthly command, Three Wealths Emolument, Destiny, Body. This is day stem Turning from Emolument, the Injury-and-Food configuration, favoring Wealth Star. A Jia day meeting the printed Ji-shaped position and Wu as month labels needs Wu Earth emerging above, Chou, Xu, or Wei in day and hour, a vigorous day master, and eastern progression. Great Wealth and Emolument must develop, establishing a household from nothing. Another says monthly Proper Emolument gathering Wealth Origin with a strong Body gives leopard transformation: slightly different.
Proper Emolument, Seal, and Wealth in the year, unbroken, must inherit ancestral protection and transmit renown.
The note says: Unbroken is crucial; broken cases do not apply. Year is ancestors, hence the statement.
The day seated on True Office, True Nobility, and True Seal, completed, is called Blessed Spirit Governing the World.
The note says: Completion means no breaking, True means Proper. Mixing Indirect is borrowing rather than true. Bingzi, Dinghai, Xinsi, Gengwu days have True Office; Dingyou, Guisi, Guimao, Dinghai True Nobility; Jiazi and Yihai days or hours True Seal. Unbroken and assisted pillars bring blessings.
Monthly Indirect Wealth without Ruin or Killing gives exceptional riches.
The note says: Monthly Indirect Wealth resembles hour Indirect Wealth, fearing Companions and Robbery's restraint and Seven Killing draining influence.
Proper Horse beneath the day with assistance and generation spreads the name throughout the world.
The note says: Jiawu and Wuzi days are examples; Jiaxu and Yichou are Indirect. Judge like True Nobility seated beneath the day. Assistance means Wealth in another branch, generation Food or Injury in another branch.
A shallow Body seated on Killing develops Wealth and blessings through Body-flourishing progression.
The note says: Seated Killing is Jiashen or Yiyou, for example. No Earth in the pillars makes the Body clear; Yin-Mao progression greatly develops Wealth and Emolument. It favors Seal, avoids Proper Office and Food Spirit. Offense makes the Body unclear and the destiny inferior.
A lone master at Assuming Office gains appointments and honors through progression to the master's noble ground.
The note says: Dingsi and Guihai days exemplify lone Assuming Office. Nobleman clashing with Office Star gives distinction. Repeated Si-Hai in annual influence and progression doubles appointments and honors. Another takes the day meeting Office Star and progression again reaching Office ground; also possible.
Food Spirit generating and flourishing without Seal, punishment, or clash is mother consuming child's Emolument.
The note says: This is Food Spirit configuration. Wuchen, Dingsi, Renchen, Jiachen gives distinction and longevity. Dingwei, Bingwu, Jiawu, Bingyin transforms Food Spirit into a draining configuration; Ding injures Xin Office so it cannot fly in, giving poverty and early death.
Master and root at Assuming Office without Office, Killing, or Ruin lets younger brother inherit elder's rank.
The note says: Dingsi or Guihai days with Yin or Xu month exemplify it. Without Office or Killing, sibling Companions and self flourish, gaining a higher elder's place and founding enterprise. Ding Emolument is Wu, Gui Zi, yet Guihai dwells in Water's Proper Flourishing, Ren's Emolument; Dingsi Fire's Assuming Office, Bing's Emolument. Ding and Gui are younger to Bing and Ren and Si-Hai their Emolument positions. Thus younger takes elder's rank, rising through brother's achievement and a rank beyond him. Bingwu and Renzi days are purer and finer. Mixed Companion stems and branches fill the elder star, making it inferior. Office filled in makes siblings contend until the Body has no place, also harmful. Office not filled but merely emerging may divide stars and Emolument yet still succeed again.
Inverted Food at the natal palace's flourishing Office names an attendant receiving Emolument.
The note says: Gengzi seeing Wuzi in year or month has Indirect Seal above its own palace, Inverted Food as ruler or father. Seal sits in the day stem's palace at flourishing Office, receiving my mandate and generating my blessings. Attendant Emolument means close favor. Gengzi, Wuzi, Gengzi, Bingzi fits it.
Conception-born Original Destiny without Wealth Star receives favor like an infant.
The note says: Gengyin, Xinmao, Jiashen, and Yiyou days seat original master Heavenly Origin at Extinction, conception's palace: Womb configuration. Generation is slight, favoring Seal and fearing Wealth's restraint, indicating youthful imperial favor. Judge generally as Seal. Yiyou, Yiyou, Yiyou, Jiashen fits this, as does the Likes and Aversions statement.
Proper Office and Seven Killing mixed in year and month bring low standing; day and hour alone strong with exclusive control give high office and authority. Seven Killing and Proper Office confused in month and hour bring illnesses; annual influence or progression clashing open or combining away clarifies Office and reputation. Still dislike excessive control and most avoid competing strength.
The note says: Likes and Aversions gives controlled pure Killing the first rank, but a little Proper Office mixes it into low standing. Removing Office to retain Killing or removing Killing to retain Office can work. Flourishing Killing in the pillars with pure Body-flourishing progression gives pure official distinction. Established Emolument in the month avoids gathering Killing, while mixed Office and Killing can become noble through Killing's combination. These configurations differ: year-month Proper Office makes Office master and dislikes Killing's mixture; month-hour Seven Killing makes Killing master and dislikes Office's confusion. Day-hour exclusive control and annual clashing or combining explain each other. Excessive control prevents Killing's distinction; competing strength prevents removal or retention. Renzi, Jiachen, Jimao, Renshen has month-hour Proper Office and Mao beneath the day as Seven Killing; Geng in Shen combines Yi Killing in Mao for distinction. Vice Minister Zhang's Yi day uses Geng Office in Shen: near seventh-month birth Geng flourishes and Xin declines, while sixth-month Ding Fire removes Killing and retains Office, hence distinction. Bingwu, Bingshen, Jiayin, Dingmao has much Bing-Ding still unable to overcome monthly Killing, followed by flourishing Office progression and a flourishing Body transforming Ghost to Office, hence distinction.
Translator's note: The month-label and Si-shaped Earth references are retained as supplied. Several configurations explicitly differ from neighboring general rules; their separate conditions and complete examples remain intact.
Heavenly Origin Without Influence Favors Flourishing Middle and Lower
The note says: This is Seal configuration. Jia or Yi born in winter has uninfluential Heavenly Origin but Hai-Zi Water generating Wood in the branches as flourishing. Dinghai or Dingchou day has uninfluential Ding Fire further restrained by Ren-Gui; Hai-Zi form their party yet can generate Jia Wood, making branches flourish. Earth restraining Wealth is favored; Wealth obtained in Chou also benefits it. Ancients discussed middle and lower through day-hour branches. Weak day stem and monthly command can still form a fulfilled destiny with properly grounded day seat and hour. Weakness with declining, failed day and hour instead gives lifelong obstruction. Likes and Aversions says very weak Heavenly Origin can contain regeneration within weakness.
Indirect Office at the Year Root Must Avoid Injury from Beginning to End
The note says: This is Annual Virtue configuration. A Jia day meeting Gengshen Grand Duke has year Indirect Office, also Original Spirit or Solitary Star, the heaviest Killing, never removed throughout life. Thus injury persists from beginning to end, not only to ancestors and relatives but self. Dingsi, Dingwei, Xinsi, Renchen favors one Ren combining two Ding as control. Yimao, Bingzi, Jimao, Dingmao favors Ding-Bing transforming away three Yi. Both give distinction but cannot finally escape harm. Another says many-rooted Seven Killing must avoid lifelong injury; also possible.
Yang Blade Greatly Favors Indirect Office to Level Disorder
The note says: Yang Blade generally avoids Wealth: Blade breaks Wealth, Wealth generates Killing, Killing restrains Body. Also avoid punishment, clash, Threefold and Sixfold Combinations. Killing's control is favored, but Killing itself controlled is judged harmful.
Metal Spirit Should Only Be Controlled to Subdue Treacherous Might
The note says: Metal Spirit does not fear excessive control, only broken or lost control, also in annual influence and progression. Jia and the printed Yi-shaped day category obtaining these three hours qualify, but Jia alone is proper.
Yang Virtue and Yin Nobility, flourishing, bring glory; weak, preserve reputation.
The note says: Yang Virtue means Heavenly and Monthly Virtues and Day Virtue; Yin Nobility Heavenly Yi and Day Noble configuration. Weak is inferior to strong but permits self-preservation.
Heavenly Gang and Earthly Kui, declining, give poverty; strong, unmatched distinction.
The note says: This is Gang-Kui configuration, favoring strength, disliking decline, avoiding Wealth and Office, and needing repeated positions.
Office and Wealth Storehouses clashed open confer honors and Emolument; closed, poverty and lack of Wealth.
The note says: Mixed-influence Wealth-and-Office configuration gives Jia Office Storehouse at Chou, Wealth at Chen, own Storehouse at Wei, Food at Xu. Office first, Wealth next, own Storehouse next. Year or month Storehouse administers too early and makes youthful development difficult; day or hour is favored, giving late wealth and distinction. Punishment, clash, breaking, and harm should open the configuration's key; a closing star is feared. Ding using Chen as Office Storehouse blocked by Wu intruding or Wuchen pressing cannot hold Office. Jiaxu in the pillars or annual influence makes it favorable.
Hurting Office and Proper Office: complete injury gives exclusive high authority; partial damage must bring obstruction.
The note says: This is Hurting Office configuration; partial means incomplete injury. Likes and Aversions says four pillars' Hurting Office progressing into Office's region must break.
Day and month reverse-clashing Office Emolument, unfilled and unentangled, bring flying Emolument and Horse.
The note says: This is Flying Heaven Emolument and Horse.
Heaven and Earth controlling or combining Killing, neither excessive nor deficient, rapidly develop fame and gain.
The note says: Stems and branches may have Food Spirit controlling Killing or Yang Blade combining it, without excess. One Killing with two Foods or two Yang Blades is excessive and loses it. Balanced Body and Killing with proper control or combination suddenly develop because Killing is harmful. Likes and Aversions calls overcontrolled Indirect Office a poor scholar, showing excess is unsuitable.
Office and Seal Most Favor Meeting, with Benevolent Government Winning Honors
The note says: A Jia day obtaining Xin Office and Gui Seal, or You and Zi in branches, has Office and Seal, two restraints and one generation for the Body, paired Yin-Yang further generating one another. Thus a minister has talent to aid a king, a general strategic wisdom, a governor humane government. Body, Office, and Seal equally matched give highest distinction; otherwise assess rise and fall through force and weight.
Emolument and Horse Greatly Favor Sharing a Home: Office Can Be Properly Fulfilled
The note says: This Wealth-and-Office configuration includes a Jia day seeing printed Si-Chou or Si-You, and Renwu or Guisi days: Emolument and Horse sharing a home. Like Office and Seal meeting above, these are Three Wonders configurations. The Body must be powerful or obtain timely influence. Unequal strength of Emolument and Body lowers the judgment; a weak Body finds longevity difficult.
Seal meeting Killing develops, combination obscures, Wealth brings calamity; breaking combination and removing Wealth also develops. The note says: These are Seal's likes and aversions. Killing generates Seal and gives conspicuous achievement. Indirect Wealth combining it away or Proper Wealth restraining it gives calamity and obscurity. Vigorous day stem or Companions breaking the combination and removing Wealth lets Seal and Killing both be retained, also developing but not purely. A poem says: Jia and the printed Yi-shaped partner suddenly join a Metal configuration; Bing Fire commonly has cause to sigh. Progression through flourishing Fire generating the Body brings achievement and fame everywhere.
Established Emolument meets Office for distinction, Wealth riches, Seal refinement; Ruining Wealth breaking Seal is especially auspicious. The note says: Established Emolument strengthens the Body, so Office, Seal, and Wealth are useful. Ruining Wealth, Yang Blade, and Companions make it excessive, robbing Wealth, dividing Office, and seizing Seal. Established Emolument especially likes Seal and Wealth; Ruining Wealth breaking Seal therefore makes one-sidedness unable to complete creation. Wealth and Seal mixed together give neither riches nor refinement, an unaccomplished destiny.
Office and Killing balanced: retain what is liked, remove what is hated. Military use removes Proper to retain Indirect and turns Office to Killing; civil use removes Indirect to retain Proper and turns Killing to Office. Body-flourishing progression must add honors. Wealth and Seal crossed: desire advance, avoid retreat. Distinction sees righteousness and forgets profit, choosing Seal over Wealth; wealth sees profit and forgets righteousness, choosing Wealth over Seal. A strong Destiny year advances rank.
The note says: Office and Killing cannot be used together; Wealth and Seal are difficult to retain jointly. Remove one and keep the other according to preference, force, and weight. Civil, military, wealth, and distinction express categories, not universal outcomes. All four center on strong Body and Destiny with annual support. A flourishing Body balanced with Wealth can also use Office or Killing to transform Wealth and assist Seal, increasing blessings. A weak Body without Office or Killing's transformation cannot bear them, and crossed Wealth and Seal leave neither control nor protection: poverty and low standing must follow.
Ten stems Turning from Emolument favor abundant Wealth; failure comes through Companions dispersing Horse. Office and Killing together may resemble removing Killing and retaining Office. Seal aiding a strong Body must bring achievement and appointment.
The note says: This is Hurting Office. Likes and Aversions says ten stems turning from Emolument favor Wealth Star in year and hour; progression to Companions is Turning from Emolument and Dispersing Horse.
Five-Phase Food Spirit permits riding abundant Horse; disaster comes from Proper Seal and Owl. Office and Killing's arrival wrongly reverses worth and ruins virtue. Flourishing Owl and Seal immediately bring ruin and injury.
The note says: This is Food Spirit. The preceding extreme of turning from Emolument and dispersing Horse turns Office and Killing to blessing; here Wealth brings riches but Office and Killing assisting Seal instead bring disaster and great ruin. The passages explain each other. Food Spirit likes Wealth and fears Owl; Office and Killing generating Seal make Owl stronger. Injury likes Seal, Food fears Seal, hence their juxtaposition.
A Wu day in a Wu month should not be read as Blade; much Fire in year and hour turns it to Seal.
The note says: Blade and Seal share a palace. Much Fire strengthens Seal, turning weakness to follow strength. Blade strengthens the Body and Seal further assists, giving elevated literary principles and concealing evil while raising good. If the printed Yi-shaped stem emerges, still judge Blade. Seal and Blade together give a venomous nature; good progression succeeds, retreat bringing Blade or Wealth clashing it into activity is harmful. Proper Office's control is finest. Guihai, Wuwu, Wuwu, Wuwu fits this.
A Bing day at a Chou hour need not turn from Emolument; flourishing Metal in stems and branches instead makes Wealth.
The note says: Hour here refers to monthly command. Bing born in Chou month finds Si-designated Earth within Chou as Hurting Office turning from Emolument, indicating poverty. Strong Geng-Xin Metal lets Earth generate Metal, judged Wealth instead. Bing must be vigorous or have a flourishing Yin-Wu-Xu Fire configuration to bear Wealth. Chou hour branch with Si-You combining, Geng-Xin emerging, and Bing generating and flourishing also fits. Vigorous Bing with only Chou month, no Geng-Xin emergence or Si-You-Chou configuration, truly turns from Emolument.
Office seated above Blade ultimately suffers punishment; Nobility pressing Three Punishments must administer government.
The note says: Jia day with Xinmao month or hour has Office out of command, injured by what the source calls Ding Fire in Mao. Annual recurrence must bring punishment. Even proper Office-and-Killing control giving distinction ends harmfully in a Blade year: Yang Blade most ruins creation. Three Punishments with one correctly illuminating Heavenly Yi Nobleman, generating, flourishing, and timely, instead gives penal government and exclusive military authority. Even unflourishing Nobleman permits public administration, making Noble Spirit the most auspicious Killing.
Virtue covering Seven Killing makes a meditator; Peach Blossom meeting Sixfold Combination a sensual person. The note says: Heavenly and Monthly Virtues are charitable spirits; Seven Killing is Solitary Star Killing here. Their combination gives moral character, through which wealth and distinction arise. Peach Blossom is sensual Killing, Sixfold Combination affectionate Killing, together fondness for sensuality and singing, far from upright conduct. Wuzi birth seeing Guichou combines stems and branches as Rolling Waves Peach Blossom. Zi-Wu-Mao-You throughout four pillars is Peach Blossom Covering the Fields, making men and women marry without a matchmaker.
Solitude and Widowhood both complete, with Office and Seal, should make a religious abbot; without them merely ordinary practice.
The note says: Solitary Star and Widow Lodge fear repeated joint appearance; one alone is not judged thus. Office and Seal above give distinction even in religion; without them only ordinary Buddhist or Daoist life. Jiaxu, Wuchen, Gengchen, Bingzi and Jiaxu, Wuchen, Gengchen, Dingchou are lofty elders' destinies.
Controlling, Inviting, and Separated Corners at Birth and Flourishing require adoption into another household; at Extinction lifelong widowhood.
The note says: Controlling and Inviting are Solitude-Widowhood Killings. Yin-, Mao-, and Chen-born seeing Si gives Chen people Controlling or Inviting Spirit Killing; seeing Chou gives Yin people Peeping or Pressing Spirit Killing. Infer the rest similarly. Discordant annual influence and progression and Three Origins' punishing warfare make harm especially severe.
Swallowing and Devouring everywhere scatter family; Void throughout separates and injures relatives.
The note says: These are restraining, harmful Solitude-Widowhood positions. Only complete distribution throughout permits the text's categorical judgment. Food meeting Swallowing and Devouring, or Wealth, Food, noble Emolument configurations seeing Void, is especially unfavorable.
Wealth and Seal both injured surely leave neither upper nor lower kin; Office and Killing both removed indicate early loss of parents. The note says: Both concern blood relatives.
Pure Depletion and Blade crossed are compared to cattle and sheep; entirely Yin or Yang arranged in restraint to pigs and dogs. The note says: Great Depletion and Yang Blade are most harmful, solitary Yin or Yang disharmonious stems and branches. Their gathering in four pillars gives extreme low standing, hence the animal comparison. All stems one-sided with branches clashing, punishing, breaking, and harming gives no correct nature, hence the latter comparison. Post Horse, Six Harms, Canopy, Robbing Killing, Death Spirit, and annual or monthly Killings with partial Yin or Yang are especially harmful. Jiazi, Gengwu, Jiazi, Gengwu uses Xin Office but Geng Killing emerges, while command is lacking. Jia's Si-designated Wealth cannot form because Zi-Wu clash in Wu month: judge unbenevolent and unrighteous. Jiawu, Jiaxu, Jiawu, Jiazi has three Jia, Office unmanifest, Wealth and Seal both clashed with, and no reliance: insatiable greed, disregard for relatives, little affection or propriety.
Decline receiving many Owls makes a dependent hired laborer; Extinction meeting heavy Food a butcher or broker. The note says: Owl and Food oppose one another but both dislike Body Decline or Extinction. Decline with Owl is hard to use as Indirect Seal; Extinction with Food as Longevity Star, hence both harmful. Owl makes a dependent laborer hard to feed; Food gives a butcher or broker enough food but low status.
Pure Office, Killing, Horse, or Wealth with flourishing Body and no mixture gives the highest rank. The note says: Purity is superior, one-sided confusion inferior. Jia with only Xin and You has Pure Office; only Geng and Shen Pure Killing; Proper Wealth as Horse with only Chou, Wei, printed Si; Indirect Wealth with only Chen, Xu, Wu Pure Wealth. Flourishing Body makes great wealth and distinction. Established Emolument fitting it gives immediate abundance; day seat next, hour next. Established Emolument favors Proper Office first, Proper Wealth next; Killing shortens life. In Yang Blade month Pure Killing is first; Wealth configuration fears violent events. Guimao, Yimao, Jisi, Yichou has Pure Killing and highest distinction. Jiaxu, Dingmao, Jisi, Yihai mixes Office and Killing but Jia with the Si-shaped partner combines and transforms for distinction. Mixed transformation's force goes too far, preventing a peaceful end.
Complete Seal, Clash, Control, or Food with strong, unbroken Destiny receives vast Emolument.
The note says: Complete Seal is Jia seeing Zi, Gui, Ren, Hai, Proper or Indirect without mixture. Complete Clash is pure Hai, Si, Zi, or Wu branches clashing out Emolument and Horse, or all oppositions Yin-Shen, Si-Hai, Zi-Wu, Mao-You, Chen-Xu, Chou-Wei. Complete Control is Jia seeing Ding or Wu-branch, injuring Office entirely and generating Earth Wealth through emptiness. Complete Food is Jia seeing Bing with pure Yin. Generating and flourishing day master, Proper Storehouse, or Assuming Office in month, day, and hour makes Nobleman. Jiwei, Yihai, Bingyin, Xinmao has mixed Complete Seal and Xin Wealth's restraint and punishment: Body-flourishing progression gives distinction, Body-declining punishment and downfall. Xinhai, Jihai, Xinhai, Jihai has pure Hai clashing Bing and Wu from Si, Complete Clash's distinction.
An excessively flourishing day stem without reliance should be Buddhist or Daoist; weak Heavenly Origin unaided should practice a craft or shamanism.
The note says: Excess and deficiency are both unfavorable. Excess leaves Wealth and Office at Death and Extinction, hence solitude; deficiency cannot bear them, hence skilled work. Creation values balance. Reliance or assistance excludes this judgment. Likes and Aversions calls overly strong Office a weak Heavenly Origin, and an excessively flourishing unaided day stem a Buddhist or Daoist.
Translator's note: The source includes headings contradicted or qualified by their notes, notably Ruining Wealth breaking Seal, and interprets the Chou-hour heading through the month. It places Ding Fire within Mao and uses several irregular Earth-partner graphs. These readings and the period's demeaning social comparisons are translated as supplied, without recasting the rules.
A Weak Body with Generation Must Develop: Avoid Wealth and Horse Injuring It
The note says: Weak Body using Seal avoids Wealth injuring Seal, called Greed for Wealth Ruining Seal. Distinguish their weights. Likes and Aversions says an uninfluential day stem meeting Yang Blade in the hour is not harmful: Blade robs Wealth, so much Wealth and a weak Body do not avoid it. Discuss these together.
Food Spirit Meeting Owl Shortens Life; Wealth Star's Generating Rescue Is Favored
The note says: Food fears Owl and needs Wealth to control it, rescuing Useful Spirit. Weigh Wealth and Owl. Seal avoids Wealth, Food needs it: each rule has its proper context.
A Jiazi day at a Zi hour, without Geng, Xin, Shen, You, Chou, or Wu, is Flying Emolument and Horse. The note says: Zi Remotely Reaching Si, as in Likes and Aversions.
A Geng hour, with Shen supplied in a note, meeting a Wu day without Jia, Bing, Mao, Yin, Wu-branch, or Ding is Manifest Flourishing Food Spirit. The note says: Dedicated Food Combining Emolument. Likes and Aversions calls Gengshen hour with Wu day Flourishing Food-Spirit Stem, but Jia, Bing, Mao, or Yin in the month makes meeting yet not meeting.
Geng and Ren at Zi Clashing Wu Emolument Must Avoid Bing and Ding
The note says: This is Proper Clash Emolument and Horse.
Xin and Gui at Chou Combining Si Palace Must Dislike Zi and Si
The note says: Chou Remotely Reaching Si. Likes and Aversions says Xin and Gui days with many Chou dislike Office Star; Zi or Si in year and hour gives empty fame and gain.
Bingwu and Dingsi Follow This Principle, Most Avoiding Punishment and Clash
The note says: This is Reverse Clash Emolument and Horse.
Renzi and Guihai Follow the Same Example and Must Guard against Filling
The note says: Proper Clash, Reverse Clash, and Remote Combination above explain one another. Bing, Ding, and Si avoid filling; Zi avoids punishment and clash. Bingzi, Gengyin, Bingwu, Guisi and Gengyin, Renwu, Bingwu, Wuxu favor complete Yin-Wu-Xu. Xinyou, Guisi, Dingsi, Yisi and Guimao, Dingsi, Dingsi, Yisi favor many Si, with or without combination. Only Chen entangling them prevents clash; complete Si-You-Chou is welcomed as Proper Clash. Likes and Aversions says a Hurting Office month apparently harmful need not be so, since Proper and Reverse Flying Emolument within avoid Office Star and entanglement.
Six Xin days without Wu obtaining Wuzi hour combine Bing Office for distinction.
The note says: Six Yin Facing Yang. Wuchen, Xinyou, Xinchou, Wuzi; Wuchen, Xinyou, Xinyou, Wuzi; Yichou, Gengchen, Xinyou, Wuzi fit it. Likes and Aversions says six Xin at Wuzi dislike Wu and favor western progression.
Six Gui days without Earth stems obtaining Jiayin hour form Yin Punishing Si, especially remarkable.
The note says: Punishment-Combination gives a forceful temperament, quick judgment, and excessive scrutiny. Yiwei, Jiashen, Guiyou, Jiayin dislikes Geng in Shen injuring Jia Wood and Yin-Shen clash. Distinction is reduced, profit substantial but reputation low. Likes and Aversions says six Gui at Yin fear Si and Wu Earth in year and month.
Gui without Bing Fire, Wu, and the printed Si-shaped partner, at Gengshen hour combines Si's Wealth and Office.
The note says: Dedicated Seal Combining Emolument, judged like Dedicated Food.
Ren with Proper Influence Zi, Wu, Mao, and You also has Four Seasons Earth Emolument.
The note starts with the incomplete sequence Wu, Yihai, Bingzi, then says Nobility and Wu are broken and two Hai self-punish. The Body at Death with Self-Punishment has neither reliance, hence poverty and low standing.
Yang Water repeatedly meeting Chen without clash or restraint: Ren Riding the Dragon's Back is extraordinary.
The note says: Likes and Aversions gives the same meaning. Renchen, Jiachen, Renchen, Renyin uses the printed Si-shaped partner as Proper Office and Ding Proper Wealth. Many Chen clash out Office Storehouse within Xu and secretly combine Wealth and Office within Wu; Yin-Wu-Xu Fire configuration brings distinction. Renyin, Renyin, Renchen, Renyin sees Bing Fire born at Yin and Si as Wealth, and many Yin combine up Wu-Xu Wealth and Office: profit exceeds fame.
A Geng day fully meeting Flowing Down avoids Ren, Gui, Si, and Wu; Zi or Shen in the hour halves blessings. The note says: Well Railing Fork, matching Likes and Aversions.
Combining Office and Wealth makes high ministers; guard against humiliation through Rest, Confinement, restraint, and harm.
The note says: Yi seeing Geng combines Office, Jia seeing the printed Si-shaped partner Wealth: ten stems' transformation. True transformation gives great ministers, false orphans of another surname. Yi-Geng transforming Metal rests and confines in Water ground and suffers restraint in Fire. Combination fails if one side flourishes alone and refuses union, clash or breaking occurs within, or one side is restrained. Transformation at Rest, Confinement, Death, or Extinction misses its combination and must stagnate: false transformation. The printed Si-shaped partner seeing Jia and printed Si-Wei obtains ground, its flourishing Storehouse. Bing seeing Xin and Xinmao loses ground because Bing Fire fails at Mao. Wu-Gui seeing Wuwu obtains ground, transformed Fire flourishing at Wu. Gui Water must first obtain ground to combine; season or ground lost shortens life. Noble transformed influence flourishing beyond a weak Body's capacity loses it despite distinction. Bing-Xin seeing Xinwei has weak Yang Fire at Wei, often early death or injury through sensuality. Ren in the pillars restraining Bing, or Ren at Shen self-generating and clashing Yin Fire's Birth palace, surely shortens life. Greedy combination may forget Office: a lone Ding seeing two or three Ren cannot prevail against many, making impure union without distinction. Strong Ding gains only half good. Jia combining its Si-shaped partner without Wood access while Earth has a proper position loses correct relation and is judged similarly. Both properly placed permit the following statement: Ren day without Office or Killing but with Four Cardinal Zi-Wu-Mao-You can combine out Chen-Xu-Chou-Wei as Office Emolument. All cardinal positions need not gather, but all four named characters are finest in the source's formulation.
Gui days are similar but Earth luminaries must not intrude: benefit and harm join, high Office with illness, weighty duties with poor household.
The note says: Gui day dislikes Earth Emolument; Zi-Wu-Mao-You works as for Ren, good and ill accompanying one another.
Jia Straight-and-Crooked and Bing Flaming Up give high Office but harm wife and lack riches; Wu Pliant Change and Geng Flowing Down give weighty office, few descendants, and poverty.
The note says: Jia at Hai-Mao-Wei is Straight-and-Crooked; Bing at Yin-Wu-Xu Flaming Up; Wu at Si-You-Chou Pliant Change; Geng at Shen-Zi-Chen Flowing Down. Jia-Bing Wood-Fire configurations are excessive and fork out an Office configuration through Threefold relations, hence high office, but Yang Blade and Robbing Wealth harm wife. Wu-Geng Metal-Water configurations drain influence yet likewise fork out Office, giving weighty duties. Originally no Office or Killing gives few sons. All four are partial parties, leaving blessings and Emolument incomplete.
Translator's note: The source contains a truncated Ren-chart example, irregular Si-shaped references, and competing statements about which cardinal positions must gather. The final part of the Combining Office and Wealth annotation discusses Ren's cardinal configuration in its supplied position; it has not been moved or reconstructed.
The Body in Rest and Confinement Clashing Noble Office Need Not Lament
The note says: A Xinhai day without Office or Killing and without a flourishing Body seems distressing. Yet many Hai can hook Office and Seal from within Si for distinction, hence no need to lament.
Exclusive Branches of Flourishing Office Likewise Hook Emolument into Distinction
The note says: Dingsi, Guihai, Bingwu, and Renzi seat themselves at Assuming Office or Imperial Flourishing. Many such branches clash out opposite-palace Office Emolument, as above.
Yin Wood alone meeting Zi hour without Office Star: Yi Holding the Rat Nest is most noble.
The note says: Six Yi Rat Nobility. Jiayin, Wuchen, Yihai, Bingzi has no other configuration disturbing the pillars and undisturbed Bingzi, hence peaceful distinction: Useful Spirit must not be shaken. Jiayin, Guiyou, Yihai, Bingzi has monthly Indirect Office injuring Body but flourishing Seal beneath the day, still giving sustenance. A source fragment mentioning Xinhai and Jia precedes a verse: Jia with the Si-shaped partner, Wood abundant in Earth's region, spreads benevolence and righteousness to aid an enlightened ruler. Bing-Xin with flourishing Bing and born Xin holds guarding authority. Yi-Geng entering Metal configuration with Wood itself flourishing gives civil benevolence and military righteousness. Wu-Gui obtaining flourishing Fire with Water alone flourishing completes propriety, law, wisdom, and courage. Ding-Ren Already Across makes fish and Water harmonious; Yin-Yang stems and branches combining give ruler-minister celebration. Phoenix heard on a high ridge must rise like an eagle on the frontier. Jiachen, Wuchen, Jisi, Xinwei has Ji day obtaining Jia Proper Office with third-month influence, led to Wei and also Proper Seal: highest distinction. Wushen, Gengshen, Guihai, Wuwu has Gui in seventh-month flourishing Seal and Heavenly Virtue, combining Wu Office and leading to flourishing Fire at Wu hour, also supplying Wu Earth. Office and Body both flourish, giving great distinction.
Arching Nobility and Emolument makes generals and chief ministers; avoid punishment, clash, and filling.
The note says: Dingsi, Bingwu, Jiayin, Jiazi arches Chou Nobility. Renzi, Dingwei, Dingsi, Dingwei has year Zi clashing out Wu, giving great distinction. Guimao, Gengshen, Wuchen, Wuwu arches Si Emolument. Xinchou, Xinchou, Jiayin, Jiazi fills Chou, so judge Xin as Proper Office instead. Printed Si-Wei, Wuchen, Wuyin, Wuwu has many Office and Killing, Yin clashing Shen opening it so arching fails. Renchen, Wushen, Jiwei, Jisi fits this configuration and gives great distinction.
Office and Seal secretly combining Heaven and Earth give evident distinction; Blessed Virtue hidden in branches concentrates virtue further. The note says: Food Spirit secretly combines Proper Office, Indirect Wealth Proper Seal. Jia uses Xin Office; abundant Bing secretly combines Xinwei as Office. Gui Seal with flourishing Wu secretly combines Guichou. Branch Zi must combine Chou and Wu combine Wei. Blessed Virtue means Blessed Star Nobleman and Heavenly-Monthly Virtues, or Blessed Virtue and Refined Influence, or Heavenly Yi: hiding in branches is finest. Jia, Wu, Geng without Chou or Wei but obtaining the printed Yi-shaped character is seeing the Si-shaped partner within Chou-Wei palace, especially fine. No Mao or Yi breaking it, with Four Seasons birth and that Earth in command, gives favor from nobles, esteemed prospects, a beautiful wife and her Wealth. Another says Jia seeing Chou favors a Yang-Blade seat as Heavenly Yi On Duty; Wei with night birth gives complete blessings, reverse half. Jia-Wu-Geng complete with Yichou is Gathered Nobility, adding blessings. One Geng and one Jia with three or four Chou-Wei is Assembled Nobility, also stronger. If original master and Nobleman both generate and flourish, one character suffices. Favor Threefold and Sixfold Combinations; avoid Rest, Confinement, Void, and breaking. A poem says: Nobleman at Imperial Seat meeting generation yields early name in flourishing Office; Rest, Confinement, breaking, and control leave empty fame far from Three Dukes.
Proper Five-Phase Nobility fears punishment, clash, restraint, and harm; four pillars' auspicious spirits favor flourishing Office, generation, and combination.
The note says: Proper Nobility is Proper Influence Office Star, as Jia born in You month, fearing You punishment, Mao clash, Ding restraint, Xu harm. Another takes Nobleman, as Jia seeing Chou, whose Xin is also Proper Office. Mao-Yi ruins Chou Nobility; Si-You Threefold Combination keeps Yi Wood's restraint and clash from entering Chou. Zi combining Chou also separates Wood restraint. With Yimao, Zi-Mao punishment prevents restraint of Chou-Wei Heavenly Yi in this formulation. Auspicious spirits include Office, Seal, Wealth, Food, Wonders, Nobility, Blessed Virtue. One at Long Life, Imperial Flourishing, Assuming Office, Proper Storehouse, Threefold or Sixfold Combination gives wealth and distinction. A poem says one strong influence at birth, day or hour in Emolument-and-Horse region, with earlier and later assistance and combination, must bring embroidered robes to the hall. Likes and Aversions favors combinations but also says many combinations greedily forget Office; discuss both meanings together.
Bathing meeting Killing sends the bodily soul to Fengdu; natal offense injured again returns the ethereal soul to the mountain court.
The note says: Following punishment, clash, restraint, and harm, Naked Form meeting Killing is feared because generation is slight and restraint heavy. Natal offense is already unfavorable; annual recurrence certainly brings death. Mixed Office and Killing unclearly matched, without Food Spirit for release, dies on recurrence; broken Seal repeated in annual influence likewise. All damaged Useful Spirits apply. These four lines are Luoluzi's original text.
Translator's note: The supplied Rat-Nobility annotation includes a fragment and a transformation verse; its arching examples and irregular Si/Yi-shaped graphs are retained. The Guihai-related rules and combination exceptions remain in their separate source contexts.
Feared Killing Met Again Shortens Life; A Feared Pass Entered Ends It
The note says: This extends the preceding warning. Originally feared critical-pass Killing, as Jia seeing Gengshen, repeated in annual influence or progression without rescue shortens life. Year Killing is heavier. Seal transforms it, Food controls, Blade combines, strong Body opposes, but flourishing Killing progression still shortens life. Jia day seeing Chen has extreme Yang number and Iron Snake Pass; Ren Chou, Geng Xu, Bing Wei or Shen are Yang Passes, heavier. Yi Chen, Gui Chou, Xin Xu, Ding Wei or Shen are Yin Passes, lighter. Natal offense repeated in the year with resting, confined progression causes death or harmful spirits' attack. Another says critical-pass Killings are many, not merely Seven Killing or Yang Pass: see earlier longevity and children's passes discussions.
Drawing critical-pass Killing into combination mistakenly injures the Body; middle and lower extinguished bring violent early death.
The note says: Weak Bing seeing Xinwei combines with Xin and goes to its Office, while Wei is Bing's Extreme Yang Pass. Ren restraining it then brings death; Xinhai Killing ground is more urgent. Bingxu, Dingyou, Xinyou, Yiwei died in a Renshen year. Middle and lower extinguished is like Renxu day seated on Wealth and Killing. If day branch can hold them, longevity; Renchen progression gathers Ren-Gui Water at Chen to break Fire and Earth in Xu. Without rescue, early death: Reverse Clash Destiny Origin. Earth flourishing makes Water flourish and Earth Body collapse, unable to rescue; Water flourishing extinguishes Fire. Middle and lower mean Earthly and Human Origins.
Hurting Office Seeing Office gives a hundred calamities; dispersing Horse meeting Horse a thousand labors.
The note says: A lone forbidden influence is harmful. Wealth Star can release Injury's poison and soothe Office's anger, turning calamity auspicious. Dispersing Horse meeting Horse needs Office or Killing to control Blade's robbery; despite labor Wealth is obtained. With many Companions, others strong and self weak, only a third or quarter remains rather than an equal share.
Wealth meeting Yang Blade suffers much injury; Seal seeing wife-Wealth need not be broken.
The note says: Blade breaks Wealth configuration, seizes Seal, and provokes Office. Seven Killing's control alone is welcomed; Yin Blade has slight harmless force. Seal seeing Wealth is Greed for Wealth Ruining Seal. Annual recurrence loses Wealth or injures wife, or lawsuits come through wife. No original Wealth or slight Wealth makes annual encounters lighter. Office and Killing advancing to generate Seal resolve it and instead bring recommendation and fame.
Food Spirit meeting Owl without Wealth shortens life; weak Body with Wealth and repeated Proper Seal is also harmful. Controlling Killing then meeting Seal and clash brings execution; strong Destiny without Office meeting one Seven Killing excels.
The note says: Likes and Aversions says manifest Seven Killing throughout the pillars with a weak Body gives extreme poverty without a place: this meaning.
Three Punishments clashing bring violent calamity; Yang Blade in opposing combination unexpected disaster. Bathing receiving generation makes a homeless guest; Rest and Confinement seeing Killing an unburied person.
The note says: Bathing, Rest, and Confinement all weaken Body. Generation floods it; Killing injures it.
Robbing Wealth under the month leaves no Wealth; Killing without Seal is welcomed for gain.
The note says: Killing controls Blade, Seal transforms Killing. Transformed Killing cannot control Blade, hence favor Killing and remove Seal.
Hidden breaking of Seal or kin ruining Seal favors Office without Food for added honors.
The note says: Wealth breaks Seal, Office generates it. Food injures Office and generates Wealth, worsening Seal's injury; favor Office and remove Food.
Mixed Office and Killing bring humble affliction, many siblings dispersal. Seal without control favors civil talent; control without Seal military. Both control and Seal leave busy failure.
The note says: Seal transforms Killing, Food controls it. With transformation do not control; with control do not transform. Excess leaves Killing uninfluential and is unfavorable. Blade relies wholly on Killing's control or transforming into Seal, as Wu day in Wu month. Either one alone can complete achievement.
Emolument and Horse turned away and dispersed bring hunger and cold; Wealth and Seal breaking one another tighten the purse. Office carrying Killing gives authority, Killing carrying Office distinction; one alone leaves petty frustration.
The note says: Such patterns need repeated Office and Killing to control Companions and Robbery and generate Wealth, or generate Seal and transform Wealth. One alone has scant force and cannot fulfill wishes.
Mixed Owl and Seal give favor and disgrace; excessive Wealth and Horse steal influence. Favor a flourishing Body for blessings, avoid weak progression's disaster.
The note says: Proper and Indirect Seal or Wealth together cannot both be borne by weak Body. Distinguish each one's strength. Strong Indirect Seal and Wealth with strong Body and progression suddenly develop blessings; Proper Seal and Wealth likewise.
Office and Emolument restrained and broken bring early death; Storehouse and Tomb scattered by clash leave no food. Avoid repeated breaking without reliance; favor Companions for rescue.
The note says: Office is Office Star, Emolument Proper Emolument. Jia seeing Xin and Yin, then Gengshen or the printed Si-shaped position and Wu, repeated in annual influence or progression shortens life. Strong Body with Companions can be judged flourishing. Jia takes Chou Office Storehouse and needs Wei to open it. With Wei, avoid two Chou; with Chou, two Wei. Avoid Dingchou and Dingwei, whose Ding injures Xin Office. Guiwei and Guichou restrain Ding; Jichou and Jiwei's Si-designated Earth generates Xin. That partner is Jia Wealth, Gui Seal, Bing Food. Stems and branches flourishing and unbroken give wealth and distinction; slight clash or restraint reduces them, excessive makes poverty. These varied Wealth, Office, Seal, Food, Injury, Killing, Blade, Companions, and Owl rules concern mutual need, aversion, control, and combination. Examine Useful Spirit and day stem's strength. A vigorous, flourishing day master and uninjured Useful Spirit summarize it concisely.
Robbing Wealth and Yang Blade must especially avoid the hour; annual influence and progression joining bring immediate calamity.
Translator's note: The categorical illness, death, and social judgments are the source's claims. The Seal-and-Wealth heading has a negative wording qualified by its annotation; irregular Si-shaped references and the different control-versus-transformation rules remain as supplied.
The Year Clashing with Progression Collapses; Progression Clashing with the Year Obscures
The note says: Year is Heaven's cover, progression Earth's support. Their mutual provocation is grave as collapse, light as obscurity; harmony brings passage and blessings. Grand Duke clashing progression is heavier, progression restraining Grand Duke lighter. Yet Yuanyuan and Yuanhai make progression restraining year heavier, year restraining progression lighter, like day offending annual ruler. In my Dingsi progression and Guihai year, Gui injured Ding and Hai clashed Si: year clashing progression. I lost office and mother that year and suffered terribly. Judge other cases by this example.
Yin influence ends and Yang influence breaks: even before death one sighs. Yang number reaches its extreme and Yin Destiny pursues: what waits but death?
The note says: Jia seeing Chen, Bing Wei, Wu Chou, Geng Xu, Ren Chou reaches Yang's extreme. Yi seeing Xu, Ding Chou, the printed Si-shaped partner or Gui Wei, Xin Chen ends Yin number. Annual recurrence is especially harmful. Another gives Yichen, Dingwei, Jichou, Xinxu as Yin Talisman pursuing, with Yang number already severed. Natal pillars alone need not harm; natal offense repeated in annual influence or progression immediately kills. Yin stems meeting Yang Extreme enter Yang Pass, Yang stems meeting Yin Ending Yin Pass. Weak Body and lone force die; strong Body with allied Companions is unharmed.
Five Phases with rescue need not worry; four seasons meeting Void hear joy without joy.
The note says: Harmful annual influence and progression, clashes, restraint, ended influence, or extreme number can be rescued by Five Phases. Auspicious annual Grand Duke meeting Void gives joy without joy. Another says Jia fearing Geng is rescued by Yi; spring without Earth neither fears Earth as harm nor welcomes it as blessing. Classics say Bing-Ding arriving first remove danger from Geng-Xin injuring Jia-Yi; spring has no Earth, summer no Metal, autumn no Wood, winter no Fire. An editorial note says twenty following lines on women were already cited in the women's section and are not repeated here.
Thus Yin and Yang are hard to fathom and cannot be inferred along one track. High and low standing require holding both ends in judgment. Examine ancient sages' surviving writings and recent worthies' study; following this method with understanding should make destiny judgment free from error.
The note says: This concludes the configurations above. Their earlier volume discussions contain detailed explanations, so none are repeated here. Likes and Aversions and Continuing Goodness develop from this rhapsody. People now know those two but not this, hence its inclusion.
On Likes and Aversions
Arrange four pillars, then distinguish Three Powers. Exclusively pair Heavenly Origin above the day with the eight stem-and-branch characters. Visible and unseen forms are always present.
Spirits and Killings Entangle: Weigh Light and Heavy
Seven Killing in the hour need not be harmful; monthly control and a strong stem instead make Killing Authority and Seal.
Wealth, Office, and Seal are completely stored within Four Seasons.
Office Star and Wealth influence have Long Life at Yin, Shen, Si, and Hai.
Gengshen hour meeting a Wu day is flourishing Food-Spirit stem. Jia, Bing, Mao, or Yin in year and month makes meeting yet not meeting.
Month Generating Day Stem without Heavenly Wealth Is Called Seal
Day Emolument Returns to the Hour without Office Star is The Road to High Office.
Yang Water repeatedly meeting Chen is Ren Riding the Dragon's Back.
Yin Wood alone meeting Zi hour is Six Yi Rat Nobility.
A Geng day fully meeting Flowing Down avoids Ren, Gui, Si, and Wu; Zi or Shen hour halves blessings. A Hurting Office month apparently harmful need not be harmful.
Proper and Reverse Flying Emolument within avoid Office Star and entanglement.
Six Gui days at Yin hour fear Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner in year and month.
A Jiazi day again meeting Zi hour fears Geng, Xin, Shen, You, Chou, and Wu.
Xin and Gui days with many Chou dislike Office Star. Zi or Si in year and hour gives empty fame and gain.
Arching Emolument and Nobility Become Harmful When Filled
Indirect Wealth in the hour avoids appearance in another palace.
Six Xin days at Wuzi hour dislike Wu; progression favors west.
Five Phases meeting monthly Indirect Office should also have restraint in year and hour.
Some remove Office and retain Killing, others remove Killing and retain Office. Controlled pure Killing in all four pillars gives the first rank; a little Proper Office mixes Office and Killing into low standing.
A Wu day in a Wu month should not be read as Blade; much Fire in year and hour instead makes Seal.
Even Monthly Established Emolument Must Avoid Harmful Killing Gatherings
Office Star and Seven Killing mixed can instead become noble through Killing's combination.
Excess Office Star in the Pillars Is Called Weak Heavenly Origin
An excessively flourishing day stem without reliance becomes Buddhist or Daoist.
Seal in the birth month avoids Wealth Star in year and hour; Wealth progression calls for retirement. Robbing Wealth and Yang Blade particularly avoid the hour; annual influence and progression joining bring immediate calamity.
Ten stems turning from Emolument favor Wealth Star in year and hour. Progression to Companions is Turning from Emolument and Dispersing Horse. Proper Five-Phase Nobility avoids clash, punishment, restraint, and breaking.
The Four Pillars' Stems and Branches Favor Threefold and Sixfold Combination Ground
An uninfluential day stem meeting Yang Blade in the hour is not harmful.
Office and Killing Balanced: Keep What Is Liked and Discard What Is Hated
Many stem-and-branch combinations are also called Greed for Combination Forgetting Office.
Flourishing Killing in the Pillars with Pure Body-Flourishing Progression Gives Pure Official Distinction
Whenever Heavenly Origin is very weak, regeneration may arise within that weakness.
Seven Killing Manifest throughout the Pillars with a Flourishing Body: Extreme Poverty and Short Life
The note gives an alternative wording: without rescue.
Translator's note: This heading prints a flourishing Body, whereas an earlier quotation in the supplied volume says a weak Body. Both source readings remain in their own entries.
A Woman's Destiny without Killing: One Noble Influence Can Make a Worthy Spouse
Many Noble influences and many combinations surely make a priestess, nun, courtesan, or servant.
Indirect Office in the Hour Excessively Controlled Makes a Poor Scholar
Hurting Office throughout the pillars progressing into Office's region must break.
Five-Phase Extinction is Womb Origin; birth day meeting it is called Receiving Influence.
Thus Yin and Yang are hard to fathom and cannot be inferred by one example. Receive balanced influence; spirits distinguish high and low standing. Briefly present ancient sages' writings and recent worthies' learning. Following this method carefully, destiny judgment has no deviation or error.
On Continuing Goodness
People receive Heaven and Earth, destiny belongs to Yin and Yang. Living beneath cover and above support, all are within Five Phases. To know high and low standing, first observe monthly command as Governing Outline.
Next Determine Good and Ill, Using Day Stem Alone as Master and Root
Three Origins need to form a configuration.
The Four Pillars Favor Wealth and Office
Useful Spirit must not be injured.
The Day Master Most Needs Vigor and Flourishing
Year injuring the day stem is called Root and Master in Discord.
Year, Month, and Hour Greatly Fear Mixed Office and Killing
Choose use from the birth month and investigate its depth.
Manifestation Lies in Day and Hour: Examine Strength and Weakness
Proper Influence Office Star avoids punishment and clash.
Indirect Wealth in the Hour Fears Siblings
Generating influence and Seal favor Office progression and fear entering Wealth's region.
Seven Killing and Indirect Office Favor Control but Not Excess
Hurting Office again traveling through Office progression brings unforeseen disaster.
Yang Blade Clashing or Combining with the Annual Ruler Brings Sudden Calamity
Wealth and distinction surely arise from flourishing Wealth generating Office.
Early Death or Poverty Must Come from a Declining Body Meeting Ghost
Six Ren born at Wu are called Emolument and Horse Sharing One Region.
A Gui Day Seated toward Si Palace Has Both Beautiful Wealth and Office
Much Wealth and a weak Body make a poor person in a rich house.
Killing Transformed into Authority Makes a Distinguished Guest from a Poor Household
High examination success has Office Star at an unbroken Office position.
Submitting Grain for Official Recognition Has Wealth Storehouse in Birth-and-Flourishing Ground
Excessively abundant Office Nobility reaching Flourishing must overturn.
Seal Injured Leaves Any Glory Short-Lived
Office and Seal unbroken make talent for high government.
Without Seal or Office, a Configuration Can Still Serve the Court
A name on the gold examination list requires a flourishing Body meeting Office.
Aiding a Sage Ruler Values Clashing Office Meeting Combination
Without configuration or pattern, how could the encounter be remarkable?
A Weak Body Meeting Office Expends Effort in Vain after Obtaining It
A petty person's destiny can also have Proper Seal and Office Star.
A Gentleman's Configuration Also May Offend Seven Killing and Yang Blade
Few illnesses throughout life come from a strong, lofty day master.
Lifelong Peace Has Wealth and Destiny with Influence
Official punishment does not offend when Seal shares Heavenly Virtue's palace.
Little Joy and Much Worry Come from the Day Master's Own Weakness
A strong Body and shallow Killing borrow Killing as authority.
Heavy Killing and a Light Body Bring Lifelong Injury
Decline changes Office into Ghost.
Flourishing Transforms Ghost into Office
Month generating day stem dislikes Wealth-region progression.
A Day Master Without Reliance Instead Favors Wealth-Ground Progression
Hour Returning to Day Emolument dislikes Office Star throughout life.
Yin Facing Yang Must Avoid Bing and Ding at Li's Position
Grand Duke rules the many Killings; entering destiny need not cause calamity. But meeting a place of warfare must punish natal destiny.
The Year Injuring the Day Stem Brings Harm That Must Be Light
The day offending the annual ruler brings calamity that must be heavy.
Five Phases with Rescue Must Instead Make That Year Wealth
Four pillars without affinity are therefore named Restraining the Year.
Geng and Xin Injuring Jia and Yi Are Harmless if Bing and Ding Appear First
Bing and Ding counter-restraining Geng and Xin need not be feared with Ren and Gui present.
Wu and the Printed Si-Shaped Partner Fear Jia and Yi: Geng and Xin Are Needed Above
Ren and Gui fear Wu and the printed Si-shaped partner; Jia and Yi arriving rescue them.
Ren Coming to Restrain Bing Requires Wu in Front
Gui going to injure Ding instead favors the printed Si-shaped partner's assistance.
Geng Obtaining Son Ren to Control Bing Changes Early Death to Long Life
Jia marries younger sister Yi to Geng, making harm an auspicious sign.
Flourishing Heavenly Origin Without Reliance Makes an Ordinary Person
An overly yielding day master, even meeting Wealth and Office, remains a poor scholar.
A Woman Without Killing and with Two Virtues Receives Honors of Two States
A strong male destiny meeting Three Wonders gives the first rank.
Jia Meeting the Printed Si-Shaped Partner in Birth and Flourishing Holds an Upright Heart
Ding meeting Ren in excess must offend through sensual falsehood and disorder.
Bing at Shen Meeting Yang Water Finds Extended Years Difficult
The note says: Seal in the month instead gives peace, riches, honor, and glory.
The Printed Si-Shaped Stem Entering Hai Palace and Seeing Yin Wood Ultimately Loses Years
The note says: Bingyin in the hour instead brings ceremonial cap and official honors.
Geng at Yin Meeting Bing Has No Danger if the Master Flourishes
Yi at Si seeing Xin suffers calamity if the Body declines.
Yi Meeting Flourishing Geng Constantly Preserves Benevolence and Righteousness
Bing combining with Xin at Birth holds authoritative office.
One Wood Repeatedly Meeting Fire Positions Is Dispersed Influence's Pattern
Lone Water three times meeting Geng and Xin is Complete Substance's Image.
Water Returning to Winter Flourishing Enjoys Lifelong Freedom from Worry
Wood born in spring lives peacefully and must have longevity.
Weak Metal in Blazing Fire's Ground Surely Has Blood Illness
Hollow Earth in flourishing Wood's region gives certain spleen injury.
Sinew Pain and Aching Bones Come from Wood Injured by Metal
Darkened sight and dim eyes must come from Fire restrained by Water.
Metal Meeting Earth at Gen Is Called Returning Soul
Water entering Xun and seeing Metal is called Not Extinguished.
Earth at Mao Loses Heart Even Before Middle Age
Metal meeting Fire's region must suffer frustrated ambition even in youth.
Metal and Wood Contending in Punishing Warfare Have Neither Benevolence nor Righteousness
Water and Fire alternately injuring one another bring daily disputes.
Wood Is Nourished by Water, but Excess Water Sends Wood Adrift
Metal relies on Earth's generation, but thick Earth buries Metal.
Thus the Five Phases must not be one-sidedly withered; receive balanced influence. Further extinguish anxious thought and forget preoccupation, and destiny judgment will have no deviation or error.
Bibliographic classification: Masters Division; Numerological Arts; Books of Destiny and Physiognomy; Sanming Tonghui.
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