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.

Location

Like many other Chinese metaphysics enthusiasts, I was bothered by the fact that the same Four Pillars chart for people may lead to very different lives. The same house may bring happiness to one family but disaster to another. I tried hard to explain why this was so and could not get a satisfactory answer until I studied Da Liu Ren 大六壬 in the nineteen eighties.

There are twelve Heaven Generals 天將 headed by the Nobleman 天乙貴人. This is an important Shen Sha 神煞 that plays an
important part in various Chinese metaphysics studies. There is one very important sentence in the classics:

The Noble Spirit is noble when he lands on good grounds. When Nobleman is at the wrong location, he loses his nobility. When
added to the life of a wicked person, he brings disasters. When added to the life of a nice person, he brings fortune and the person will be loved by others all the time.

貴神得地則貴，失地則賤，加小人之命則生殃，加君子之命則降福，愛寵常合。

I almost exclaimed "Eureka!"

Most people focus on timeliness when they study Feng Shui or Destiny. The more important factor "location" is neglected.
Location here does not mean where the house is built and the surrounding forms. It refers to the occupants.

A house with good Feng Shui can help us to live with prosperity but what is more important is the qi that grows in our heart. If benevolence and love is always in our heart, then we can enjoy what good Feng Shui can bring to us. Otherwise, the timely fortunate stars may just be abused and they bring disaster.

Number 3 Lu Cun today is considered untimely. Yet we can play a gentleman's game to win a competition with the help of the star and achieve our goals. On the other hand, a robber can also be helped by this star to successfully rob a bank but eventually he will be arrested and cast into jail.

Location, location, location! How many Feng Shui master really know the importance?

When falsity is copied and adopted a thousand times, ...

Reading with one's brain and not one's eyes is the number 1 rule everyone must observe. The sad thing about Feng Shui education is the bad habit of "authors" copying mistakes from other books ruining the entire industry.

One such example is the teaching of timeliness of the nine stars in the San Yuan Jiu Yun system.

The first book that talked about this topic could have something like this:

If today we are in the 8th Yun 八運 of the Lower Yuan 下元, then the ruling star (Ling Xing 令星) is #8 White Star Zuo Fu 八白左輔. #9 Purple Star You Bi 九紫右弼 is the next ruling star while #1 White Star Tan Lang 一白貪狼 is the distant future ruling star. These three stars are timely. The current ruling star is Wang Qi 旺氣, the other two are Sheng Qi 生氣。

#7 and #6 are considered Weakening Qi 衰氣, #5 and #4 are Dead Qi 死氣 while #3 and #2 have been dead for a long time and are considered Sha Qi 煞氣.

So far, so good. Names, perhaps suggestive, do not really matter if the proper understanding is taken care of.

What is detrimental is the following "rule":

Stars have characters, some good, some bad. No star is perfect. When a star is timely, it exhibits its good nature and brings fortunate things to people. When a star is untimely, it exhibits its bad nature and brings misfortune to people.

Then a table describing the good and bad natures of the stars is given. Practicing Feng Shui becomes routine work following instructions to "activate" the timely stars and "cure" the untimely stars. This has the beautiful Xuan Kong Fei Xing Feng Shui 玄空飛星風水 degenerated to the lowest form.

To make the practice a little more complicated, the so called 81 combinations of stars are tabulated with the expectation of the star combinations explained and "cures" recommended.

Thus, stars are compared with fresh apples and rotten apples with the former giving nourishment to people and the latter poisoning people by the "dead qi".

Well, comparing stars with apples is not much better than comparing apples with oranges. The ancients, however, have already given sufficient suggestion of making a valid comparison. The term Ling Xing 令星 implies that the ruling star is timely and in power 當時得令. He is like the prime minister heading a government on behalf of the emperor. The other two timely stars become his assistance and learning how to rule and give orders to other stars. The untimely stars can be looked upon as officers not on duty. Does it make sense to you that officers off duty all become bad guys bringing people misfortune? 

It is really unfortunate that such false ideas have been spread because of "authors" copying the mistakes from other "authors".

No wonder there are "masters" openly denouncing the Fei Xing system. The reason is simple: I have been trying hard to convince the frog in the well the sea is much larger than the well. I have also been trying hard to tell summer insects that water will form ice in winter. All such efforts are in vain.

It takes a lot of courage to write this article. Well, I remember the teaching of the ancient saints: 自反而不縮, 雖千萬人，吾往矣!
 

Feng Shui Video

A Sad Story About Life Reading

A man went to a Chinese astrologer for a Four Pillars reading. 

The astrologer said, “Your day master is weak fire born in winter. Fire and wood are your favourable elements while metal and water are unfavourable.”

The man asked, “Is drinking water bad for me?”

“Well,” the astrologer said, “Everyone must drink water to survive. In your case, you can drink liquor instead as liquor is wood which is good for you.”

“Why is liquor wood?” the man asked. 

“Because you can burn it to produce fire,” the astrologer replied with a smile and continued, “this is according to five elements theory.”

The man became a drunkard and died of kidney failure. He even refused to have a kidney transplant because operation is metal which the astrologer advised is bad for him. 

The astrologer felt very bad but did not understand what was wrong with his advice. He vowed to find this out and continued to drill deeper into the ox horn hoping that he could see light eventually at the end of the dark tunnel.

Drilling into the Horn of an Ox 鑽牛角尖

This is a Chinese saying meaning getting into a dead-end. It occurs when some people are too particular into the details ignoring the big picture.

An example is trying to classify everything into the five elements. This will lead to a comical scenario:

A: Electricity is Water because it flows like water in a pipe.
B: Please prove it by drinking electricity.

One student also asked me whether electricity is Wood. Her information is that the Trigram Zhen 震卦 is electricity and thereofore electricity is Wood.

In the first place, her information is incorrect. The trigram Zhen is thunder while the trigram Li is lightning. This is according to Shuo Gua Zhuan 說卦傳.

Lightning is the visible picture due to the movement of electrons while thunder is the sound produced due to the sudden change of local atmospheric pressure (like the burst of a balloon). We can loosely call lightning electricity but we cannot call thunder electricity.

If we base on the Ba Gua to classify electricity, then it is Fire because Li is fire.

The argument can also be based on the generating cycle. In hydro-electric power plants, electricity is generated by water. Since Water generates Wood, then electricity is Wood. However, there is an error in logic in this argument. A generates B and also C does not mean that B=C.

Trying to classify electricity as one of the five elements is indeed drilling into the ox horn!

Back to Basics

When teachers spend a lot of time on the basics, they are good teachers. Students must get the basics right before moving on to the application. It may be boring to some impatient students when the basics are brought out from time to time. Some people write tons of books on the same subject but they have a weak foundation. That is why a lot of wrong ideas are sprouting and being spread out like bamboo shoots after the rain.

One of these ideas is what people call "hidden stems" in the study of Four Pillars of Destiny 四柱命理. 

"Hidden stems" may have come from the term Di Zhi Cang Gan 地支藏干. It must be noted that the word Cang 藏 used here means "storage" or "storing up". If you have in your mind only "hide and seek", then it is totally off the point and the interpretation like "hidden talent" will be invented because of the wrong picture. In the Feng Shui classic Zang Shu 葬書, it is written 葬者藏也 "to bury is to place in storage". Graveyard may lead to another false picture leading to misinterpretation if the purpose of burial is misunderstood. 

The different layers of understanding the Shi Tian Gan 十天干 and Shi Er Di Zhi 十二地支 should be taught at different stages and cannot be taken for granted in BaZi 八字 courses.