Destiny Reading for John Doe (1)

What is a destiny reading? 

There are numerous different answers to this question depending on how one defines “destiny”. To me, destiny is just a wide path to walk on from the day a person is born until the day he leaves this world. He has freedom to choose to walk on which side of the path. There are also crossroads where he can make a choice about the path he is going to walk on for the rest of his life. There is just one thing that is fixed – what the person is about to encounter, including when there is a crossroad. The person is also destined to meet with other people who may have important influence on his life. However, his reaction to listen to or ignore these influences is his choice. His character may lead him to his choice but his character is also subject to change with time and space.

Destiny reading is to give guidance to people to make the best choice to improve his life. A lot of people have forgotten about the basic teaching of the Yijing – change is the word. We can talk about accuracy of what we are going to encounter but we cannot talk about accuracy of the outcome. Destiny is in our own hands although most of the time we are quite helpless when we want to make a better choice. We fail because of our inability we are born with. 

How to read the destiny of a person with the Four Pillars chart? Understanding the theory is a must but you really understand the theory only when you can forget about the complicated details. These details are to help you understand the theory but not the theory itself. Do not look at the finger pointing to the moon but look at the moon itself.

A destiny reading will be most uninteresting if you talk about the type of chart, the useful god (yong shen 用神), and a lot of other gods. It is even worse when you talk about direct and indirect whatever because the term is simply misleading. The so called 10 gods are ingredients making up the life of a person and therefore all directly affecting the person. “Useful god” is also not good translation because it does not bring out the real meaning.

So far are you following what I say? Then how to do a reading? I will demonstrate this with the Four Pillars chart of John Doe. There are thousands of people having the same chart. What are the similarities in their lives?

First of all, we have to point out that the chart consists of four columns or pillars similar to those supporting a house. Each pillar has a foundation below ground and a visible part above ground. The strength and beauty of the visible part depends on whether the foundation is solid and whether the entire pillar is made of good material. The foundation of the four pillars are inter-related. Whether the visible parts are well arranged will also determine whether the whole structure is good.

The next thing to mention is that the ingredients in life are labeled with everyday used terms: wealth, power, resource, self together with siblings, friends, enemies and colleagues, and lastly output or performance. We do not expect our readers (or clients if we do it as a professional) to understand the detail implication of these terms but they are definitely better than telling the reader or client that he is water and is ocean water and that fire is his wealth and his wife, etc. Imagine someone gives a reading saying that you are strong water and that more water brings bad luck to you. Are you going to advise him to stop drinking water?

Sometimes a diagram is better than a thousand words.

The third pillar counting from the right is most important as it represents the person and his marriage. Marriage to a person’s life is undeniably the most important support for the person. For someone who remains single throughout his life time, this support comes from his belief and we can say that he is married to his belief.

We must also emphasize on the importance of the month pillar, the second pillar from the right because of its intimacy to the third pillar and this is something born with that cannot be changed. The fourth pillar is also very important because of its intimacy with the third pillar again but it deals with what the person can do after birth. There is, of course, limitation to what a person can and cannot do and it is revealed by this pillar. 

So far, I think the man on the street can understand what I have been talking about. In the next article of this series, I will give a reading to John Doe based on his Four Pillars chart without all the uninteresting technical terms so that he can understand what I say.