Positioning of the Ten Gods

The fortune - telling method we're talking about today is called the Ziping method. Ziping refers to a person named Xu Ziping. For the general public, it's simply about calculating the eight characters of one's birth date. The content of the Ziping method can be divided into three areas: The first area is for amateurs who are interested and buy a book to read. They can learn the theory from the book, but they're not very good at predicting good and bad fortunes for others. This process usually takes about two or three months, and there are a great number of people at this level. After this stage, when someone asks them about something and they give a response, they enter the second stage, which is the second area. The difference lies in whether they charge money or not. Professionals charge for each case, while amateur friends just have simple consultations. Well, the scope we're discussing today belongs to the practical area, that is, truly predicting good and bad fortunes, which belongs to the third area.

So, what does the scope of fortune-telling cover? There is a definition. What aspects of a person's life does fortune-telling deal with? It deals with five aspects, namely, wife, wealth, children, official career, and lifespan. "Wife" refers to one's marital status. How is your marriage? "Wealth" means money. Will you get rich? "Children" refers to the number of your children. If you want a more professional analysis, it can be further divided into questions like when you will have children and how many boys and girls. "Official career" means one's position in the government. "Lifespan" means how long you will live. These five aspects are what people care about. However, for the purpose of fortune-telling, there are significant differences. Since life is not perfect. Take "wife" for example. Whether you have a wife is one thing, and whether you and your wife get along well and whether you will get divorced are details. The same goes for "wealth". Ten thousand yuan is money, one hundred yuan is also money, and one hundred million yuan is still money. So, how much exactly? These are all details. The analysis can be either general or detailed.

Wife, wealth, children, official salary, and longevity are the five legal regulations, but it doesn't tell how to get the answers. To find the answers, one has to arrange the eight characters of the birth date. Everyone knows that the eight characters refer to the year, month, day, and hour of birth. Then, when calculating with a person's life, how can the time of a person's birth be related to the whole life? It's just like a mold of a tool. When you press it down, what kind of force will produce what kind of shape. The year, month, day, and hour of your birth are determined by the angles of the five stars of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, which decide your magnetic field, and it keeps changing every day. This is the fleeting year. So the first rule is to arrange the eight characters according to the year, month, day, and hour of your birth, such as Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, etc. There is no good or bad luck here, just symbols. Then, the year, month, day, and hour are divided as follows. The year pillar covers from one to fifteen years old, for example, the year of Jiazi. The month pillar also consists of two characters, covering from sixteen to thirty years old. Each pillar is in charge of fifteen years. The day master covers from thirty - one to forty - five years old. The hour pillar covers from forty - six years old until the end of life without a fixed limit.

So, once the Four Pillars are calculated, when you talk about one's wife, wealth, children, official rank, and longevity, you need to make distinctions based on the Four Pillars. We don't pay much attention to the Year Pillar. From the age of one to fifteen, no matter how wealthy your family is, you still take the bus to school; no matter how poor you are, you still walk to school. It doesn't have much of an impact on you. So, from the age of one to fifteen, the Year Pillar completely refers to your ancestors. Although your ancestors are worth mentioning, they are not the main focus of fortune - telling. We can only say as a formality: "You come from a scholarly family." A person's real life starts from the Month Pillar. Now, we need to distinguish by era. The current way of fortune - telling is different from that seventy years ago. Why is it different? In the Qing Dynasty, there were imperial examinations, and one could become a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examination) in one day. But there are no such imperial examinations now. So, in ancient times, the Month Pillar was very important. Since we're talking about passing the imperial examinations, the earlier the better! The Day Pillar represents the age from thirty to forty - five. Therefore, the most important pillar in one's life is the Day Pillar!

So, in fortune - telling, the four pillars and eight characters are based on the Day Master. For example, if you were born on the day of Jiazi, your destiny belongs to the element of wood because Jia represents wood. All punishments, clashes, combinations, and meetings are measured by the Day Stem. Therefore, Confucius said, "A man should establish himself at the age of thirty." The Hour Pillar represents old age. Then you may ask which of the four pillars is the most important. It's not up to us to decide, but up to the guests. If the guests are over fifty years old, of course, the Hour Pillar is important. If parents are asking for their children, then the Month Pillar should be considered first. So, it is all about serving the guests. This is from the perspective of time, without discussing good or bad fortune. Now, there are several ways to calculate good or bad fortune: The first way of fortune - telling involves punishments, clashes, combinations, and meetings. Everyone has heard of the clashes between Zi and Wu, Mao and You, and the suppression of wood by metal, etc. When beginners in the introductory class are just starting to study, they can only memorize the three - punishments, six - clashes, and three - combinations, but they don't know how to apply them. When they reach the practical class, the concepts of punishments, clashes, combinations, and meetings are combined with time, relatives, and personality, and then they can start to analyze the eight - character horoscope. Suppose a person was born in the year of Xinmao. If this person was born in August, there will be a clash between Mao and You, which means the clash hits the Year Pillar. This indicates that this person had a lot of troublesome things in their childhood. Even if they were born into a good family, there would still be problems. When they reach the age of thirty. Suppose it is a woman. When she reaches thirty, although we can start to talk about her finances, the most obvious thing is that it is best for her to get married after thirty. That's why we advise her not to get married early.

Therefore, if there are clashes and punishments in the year and month columns, they govern the period from birth to the age of 30. Another example is naming a child. Whether the child will enjoy wealth and honor in the future is not the most important thing. First of all, there should be no clashes between the year and month columns. At least he can live a smooth life before the age of 30. If there are clashes between the month columns, it is the most troublesome thing in life. For example, the clashes between Mao and You, Zi and Wu, or between the month and day columns. From the age of 16 to 45, which is the prime of life, if there are clashes and punishments at the age of 45, the scope they govern is of course very wide. What's the most obvious thing? That is what we call "A poor couple has a hard time with everything." If you have financial difficulties and your career is not going well, the first thing that will show is disharmony in the family.

In all the eight-character birth charts I've seen in my life, for those with the sun and moon in opposition, none of them could maintain a monogamous relationship until the end. When there is an opposition between the hour of birth and the day pillar, it pertains to one's later years. For such clients, we suggest that they retire early. Many people ask us whether they should retire at the age of fifty. Well, it depends on the relationship between the day and hour pillars in their birth charts. If the hour pillar is favorable, we'll advise them not to retire and to keep working. If there is an opposition, we'll advise them not to engage in work after retirement. This kind of fortune - telling only has a general principle and no details. It doesn't take into account factors like wife, wealth, children, and official salary. This is what we call "punishment, opposition, conjunction, and meeting".

Those who have the "he" (harmonious) element in their fate naturally have good popularity. However, good popularity doesn't necessarily mean you have great capabilities; it just means you have more friends and acquaintances. Among all the divine signs of punishment, conflict, harmony, and combination, the calculation methods for male and female fates are different, and the structures vary greatly. If a person has the "he" element, they have good popularity. For women, it's the opposite. They are most afraid of having good popularity. Unless she is a movie star or a singer and needs people to support her. If a housewife has good popularity according to her eight - character horoscope, she might go to work and take on part - time social duties. This is about the first kind of fortune - telling based on punishment, conflict, harmony, and combination.

The second type of fortune - telling involves the concept of "divine omens" or "auspicious and inauspicious signs". I wonder if you've ever heard this term. If you haven't heard of the term "divine omens", then let me mention a few words that you must know, such as "romantic luck", "travel luck", and "lucky benefactor". People often say in daily conversations: This person has romantic luck in their destiny; this person has a lucky benefactor in their destiny. This is a kind of characteristic. Some people never get help from others in their whole life, while some people are always getting help everywhere. However, these characteristics don't determine your good or bad fortune; they are just phenomena. For example, if one has romantic luck in their destiny, it may bring both wealth and love, but it may also lead to the loss of both. If one has travel luck in their destiny, a person with good fortune can take a plane to travel abroad, while a person with bad fortune may have to deliver pizzas all day long, extremely exhausted. The same goes for lucky benefactors. A person who gives you ten thousand yuan is also a lucky benefactor, and one who gives you a mansion is also a lucky benefactor. So in ordinary fortune - telling, the concepts of "divine omens" should be combined with "clashes and punishments". If there is a clash with the romantic luck, within that period, no matter who you are with, you will have bad luck. Therefore, when we calculate the eight - character horoscope, we first look at the clashes and punishments, and then at the divine omens. There is no mention of great wealth and honor here; it just describes the form of your life.

The third way of fortune - telling focuses on personality. After analyzing the divine omens, we start to talk about your personality. A person's personality is very important. Some people are impatient and even when they have opportunities, they dare not take risks. Some people borrow money to invest in stocks. That's their personality. So, time, divine omens, and personality are all aspects we must fully understand. However, in actual fortune - telling practice, we may not necessarily use all of them. What people usually ask about are the things they care about. For example, someone comes to me and asks: I'm thinking of investing in the Chinese mainland this year. Do you think it's a good idea? This is not a question of having a good or bad fortune. It's a question about a specific thing! There are two types of questions. One is just an idle question, and the other is a special - topic question. A special - topic question may even be difficult to handle in general fortune - telling practice. It requires professional fortune - telling. What is professional fortune - telling? For example, asking "Do I have a son?" This is a big question, not just about having money or not. Suppose a young lady has been divorced three times and she is scared. She asks, "Do I still have a chance of getting married?" This has nothing to do with personality or money. It's just about a specific person. Of course, it's best if you can figure out all these aspects clearly.

There is another scenario, also targeting the middle class. It's a binary choice: Do you want love or money? You can only choose one. Let's not discuss other things. It refers to women who are wealthy but unmarried, or men with several wives who are rich but have their household affairs in a complete mess. This is also one of the situations in our practical fortune - telling.

There is also another type of people who have suffered great misfortunes but later become prosperous. In fortune - telling, we talk about the "Three Lights": the light of the knife, the light of blood, and the light of the sword. These people have experienced all of them, yet they later possess billions. In practical fortune - telling, these three types of people do not include presidents, legislative councilors, or those who earn a hundred dollars an hour. This is the content of what we mean by fortune - telling. Why do we say so? People have different circumstances. For example, almost no one is not afraid of losing money. But if you ask a legislative councilor if he is afraid of losing money, he won't be. He is only afraid of not getting elected. What does losing money matter to him? That is to say, different people have different situations. For instance, the rich and the poor have different views on life. What would a poor person say? "It's okay to die, but not to be poor." However, the rich think differently. They believe that money is not that important, and life comes first. These cases do not belong to the scope of practical fortune - telling. I'm clarifying this scope for you first. So, practical fortune - telling is mainly for ordinary people.

Well, what this is talking about is the scope. This is salad oil, and this is soy sauce, but it's not "rong"! I give you an eight-character birth chart, and you still won't be able to do the calculations! Why do I talk about these things first? I'm afraid you'll mistake the object. You can't just do random calculations. For example, as I just mentioned about practical fortune-telling. Someone asks you: Will I go to jail if I have a lawsuit tomorrow? This can't be determined. For example, I ask you: Someone owes me money and defaults. Can I get the money back? This is not easy to handle. This belongs to another scope. Now, let's turn the topic back to the real practical stuff.

People who aspire to official positions may not necessarily get the chance to hold office, but everyone has relatives, a spouse, children, wealth, and longevity. Well, when it comes to a Bazi (Eight Characters, a traditional Chinese astrological system). At the beginning of learning, everyone knows that fortune - telling involves heavenly stems, earthly branches, the generation and restraint of the five elements, the clashes between Jia and Geng, and between Yi and Xin, and can recite them. However, there is no indication of good or bad fortune in these basic concepts. So in actual fortune - telling, the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth actually become useless. There is another way of combination, which takes the five - element attribute of the day pillar as the standard. For example, if the day pillar is Jiazi, it belongs to wood. As for the other seven characters, three are heavenly stems and four are earthly branches, all of which have their own five - element attributes. There is a relationship of "restraining out" and "restraining in" between the five elements. "Restraining out" and "restraining in" are not the same as clashes and punishments. Clashes and punishments occur when two pillars interact with each other. When the day pillar interacts with the heavenly stems and earthly branches in the four pillars, each clash, punishment, and restraint generates a different symbol. This is clearly explained in the table of Fundamentals of Ziping Fortune - Telling, and these symbols are called the Ten Gods.

It has no direct relation to good or bad fortune on its own. From this, kinship relationships emerge. The first type is called "peer and resource - robber" in relation to oneself. "Peer" means having the same five - element attribute as oneself, which refers to one's siblings. So, when we do fortune - telling, to determine if one has siblings or if they can offer help, we look at the "peer" element. The second type is "what I give birth to". For example, wood gives birth to fire. There is no inherent good or bad luck in this either. However, when using another term, "what I give birth to" is called "food god" and "hurting officer". For a female's fortune - telling, the "food god" and "hurting officer" represent children. If a female's eight - character horoscope has wood as the day master and there is no fire in the four pillars, it means she may not have children. This is how it is judged. The third type is "what I overcome". For instance, wood overcomes earth. "What I overcome" is regarded as wealth. In fortune - telling, the wife and wealth are in the same category. Calculating a woman's fortune and calculating wealth follow the same formula. It sounds quite realistic. The more money you have, the more opportunities you may have with women. Generally, this is indeed the case.

Wealth is divided into direct wealth and indirect wealth. Direct wealth represents the wife, and indirect wealth represents the concubine, which we can refer to as the mistress nowadays. Indirect wealth also represents the father. The fourth type is the element that restrains me. For example, when wood encounters metal, the element that restrains me is the official and the seven - killing. For a female's horoscope, this topic is very important. The direct official and the seven - killing represent your husband. It doesn't matter if a woman has no wealth in her horoscope. Marriage is of primary importance to a woman. Therefore, a woman's horoscope is most afraid of having no official or seven - killing in the four pillars, which means she will never get married in her life. The fifth type is the element that generates me, which is called the seal. Since the mother gives birth to me, the direct seal represents the mother, and the indirect seal represents the step - mother. After the emergence of the peer, the robbery wealth, the gourmet god, the damaging officer, the seal, and the wealth and official, the representatives of the six relatives are determined. This is just the beginning of fortune - telling. It's not about talking about your glory and wealth but about your kinship. The transition from the generation and restraint of the five elements to the generation and restraint of the ten gods marks the start of fortune - telling. If you can only recite things like the clash between Zi and Wu, the clash between Mao and You, metal generating water, and water generating wood, it won't work.

So, what about the transformation to the interactions among the Ten Gods? It is that the Peer and Robber produce the Output and Hurting Officer, the Output and Hurting Officer produce the Wealth, the Wealth produces the Officer and Slayer, the Officer and Slayer produces the Seal, and the Seal produces the Peer and Robber. This is the interaction among the Ten Gods in practical fortune - telling. When the eight - character horoscope is calculated, there are corresponding numbers for the interactions among the Ten Gods. For ordinary fortune - tellers, the relationships with relatives come first, and the external manifestations come second. I wonder if you have noticed that some people are very rich, but you can't tell; some people seem to be short of money, but they actually aren't. The difference lies in looking at the Wealth and Officer. If they are in the Heavenly Stems, others can tell; if they are in the Earthly Branches, others can't tell. This is the difference. If they exist in both the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, in fortune - telling, it is called "appearing in the Heavens and hiding in the Earth", meaning both externally and internally. This is what is introduced in the first step. After understanding this, the second - step skill is that after the interactions among the Ten Gods such as the Peer and Robber overcoming the Wealth, the Peer and Robber producing the Output and Hurting Officer, there are also degrees of severity. That is, if you have wealth, you need to know how much. You can't just say you have wealth without specifying the amount. Whether it is more or less is about the degree of severity. The degree of severity should be based on the Twelve Stages of Growth and Prosperity in "An Outline of the Basics of Ziping". The most prosperous stage is the "Lin Guan", and the worst is the "Jue" (the same as the "Jue" in "Jue Ming", meaning the end). It's like having a bowl of rice. A big - sized bowl of rice is still a bowl of rice, and a small - sized bowl of rice is also a bowl of rice. It's about comparing the strength and weakness. Comparing the strength and weakness requires two procedures. First, compare the strength and weakness among the Heavenly Stems like Jia, Yi, Bing, and Ding, and then bring in the Ten Gods to compare the strength and weakness. This is the principle.

How much time does it take to practice until you become proficient? Based on my experience, it takes about three months for you all to memorize things so well that they are as familiar as the multiplication table. So what should you do during these three months? Just sit there and wait? Of course not. I've been teaching the principles of fortune - telling for decades, and this is the second stage. In the first stage, it takes about a month to get started with arranging the eight - character birth chart, but at this point, you still can't make calculations. After you can arrange the eight - character birth chart, it takes about three months to learn how to check the ten gods and understand the interactions of the ten gods as I mentioned just now, including the associations like "Wood in the East represented by Jia, Yi, Yin, and Mao; Fire in the South represented by Bing, Ding, Si, and Wu" and so on. After three months, shift your focus to statistics. For the punishments, clashes, combinations, and the interactions of the ten gods, a young student may only need three days to memorize them. But you are all adults, and it will take you two to three months. Moreover, it's not just about memorizing them. Even if you can recite them, you still need to read them once or twice a day, and you can only start to get the hang of it after two months. So what about the time in between? That's the main topic of the practical fortune - telling we're discussing now. If you've studied or seen how to arrange the eight - character birth chart, you know that it's always about the ten terms like "Peer, Rob Wealth, Gourmet God, and Hurting Officer". It's just these ten words being shuffled around, and when certain ones meet, certain results will occur. This becomes a matter of statistics. For example, what happens when Peer sits on Wealth, and what happens when Wealth sits on Peer and Rob Wealth. You just need to know a little about who restrains whom, and that's enough.

As I just said, when I mention ten terms all at once, like "bi jie cai, cai jie yin", it can be really confusing to listen to. But when it comes to the positioning of the ten gods, it's different. It will mention "bi jian" and won't mention "jie cai"; it will mention "jie cai" and won't mention "zheng cai", so it won't be chaotic. Well, this is what we call the positioning of the ten gods for beginners. By looking at a Bazi (birth chart), one can roughly get about 60% of a person's situation regarding their wife, wealth, and lifespan. For amateurs, 60% can also be considered an achievement. Well, everyone should first remember that "bi jie" represents siblings, "shi shang" represents the children of a female in the Bazi, "cai" represents the wife of a male and also the father of both male and female in the Bazi, "guan sha" represents the husband of a female, "zheng yin" represents the mother, and "pian yin" represents the step - mother. This is about the six relatives. After knowing this, it also leads to an understanding of their personalities. For example, if there is "bi jian" in the month pillar, you can make relevant associations. "Bi jian" represents siblings, so of course this person has siblings. "Bi jie cai", and "jie cai" also means taking away the wife and causing financial losses. If it's in the month pillar, it corresponds to the age of 20 to 30. So this person is unlikely to get married early. Judging good and bad fortune is based on formulas combined with common sense in human relationships. Well, I will explain it to you point by point and paragraph by paragraph.