Sunday, December 16, 2012

Research is Important

New invention should always be welcome in the world of Chinese Metaphysics. However, the invention or discovery of a new theory must sit on solid grounds from the metaphysical point of view.

When Li Xu Zhong 李虚中 in the Tang Dynasty 唐朝 started the study of Four Pillars of Destiny 四柱推命學, he employed the 24 jie and qi 節氣 to define the beginning and the midpoint of the 12 months. Thus he was able to establish a method of assessing the timeliness of the five elements. His work was not complete as he used the year branch to represent the person and his analysis was based on special combinations of stem and branches known as Shen Sha 神煞. Xu Zi Ping 徐子平 in the Song Dynasty 宋朝 modified and expanded the work to have the day stem to represent the person and defined the 10 spirits based on the elemental relationship with the day stem. It then became a complete system.

Later, Zi Wei Dou Shu 紫微斗數 was invented and the charting method employed the Lunar Calend
ar. This new system does not depend on the timeliness of the five elements to define the brightness of the stars. It has its own foundation and is more romantic in a sense. I spent a lot of time to try to reinvent the charting method to use the Solar Calendar in order to avoid the leap month. However, the many case studies I accumulated proved that it simply did not work.

Likewise, I spent a lot of time to try to use the Lunar Calendar to do Four Pillars charting. It was just out of curiosity to see whether the calendar that everyone was familiar with in ancient China could be used instead of Solar Calendar. First I must admit that I was unable to establish a method to deal with the leap month to convince myself. Anyway, I examined all the cases I accumulated with different solar and lunar charts and found that the results were less than acceptable. Even though it affects only a little bit about the timeliness, it affects clashes and combinations a lot. The luck pillars also change with different points of entry.

Well, I do not consider it was a waste of time. It was in fact time well spent.




3 comments:

Jodi Brunner said...

Dear Joseph, I can't help but think, when you talk of your research, about Master Shen Zhureng. You are so alike, you are a modern-day version of him, your research will also live on.

Joseph Yu said...

Dear Jodi,

Shen was a researcher and his knowledge about San He Feng Shui was superior to a lot of practitioners holding the San He lineage. In Shen Shi Xuan Kong Xue 沈氏玄空學, there is a chapter where he commented on different masters. At least I comment only on the teaching but not the master as I do not want to steal the light from another person. Shen did not get personal with other masters with his comments on their teaching. He did, however, denounce the practice of witholding knowledge and mentioned that Yang Yun Song and Jiang Da Hong were doing something negative to the Feng Shui world.

In this blog, I share the results of my research and unfortunately it was viewed as an attack on other people's teaching. Perhaps I should remember the teaching in the Bible: Don't cast pearls before swine .... but this is an open park where the pearls will be picked up and treasured. If swines come and tramp them under their feet, it is just a pity.

Joseph

diana said...

Thank you Master Yu, not only for sharing your knowledge, but also for reminding us that an accurate, scientific method, can and must be adopted in a field where too often wild, ungrounded ideas are presented as "truths".

Diana