Yuanhai Ziping: Rhymed Essays II

'On Timely Flourishing' -- A person born with the radiance of wealth and nobility, who rightly flourishes in fortune and is able to enjoy blessings while preserving them for life: what accounts for this? The Four Pillars' Day Master is focused and strong, and the auspicious spirits employed -- whether Wealth, Officer, Seal, or Food God -- each carry Salary and authority, obtaining the command, neither biased nor mixed, with no Punishment, Clash, injury, overcoming, or harm. This is the uncontaminated source of wealth and nobility. Such a person will later become a person of talent, glorifying the ancestors' foundation and achieving fame in the present generation, neither inviting slander nor causing harm. Moreover, step by step in the Luck Cycles, all is auspicious, and the Four Pillars are further enhanced. This is called 'source clear, stream pure.' Thus one can enjoy blessings surpassing others and preserve the outcome without regret. All because chart and luck flow smoothly in generation and strength. This is not luck -- it is destiny. Should one not discern this? 'On Sudden Rise' -- Then there are those born into hunger and hardship, sorrow and cold destitution, who suddenly encounter their time and rise vigorously. Some amass wealth to satisfaction, building estates from nothing. Others serve the ruler and benefit the people, ascending alone to the highest councils. Such people seem entirely different before and after. What accounts for this? The Day Master's life-qi is not yet strong, but the noble spirits employed are all properly positioned and in phase, and the pattern is well-formed. Yet the Day Master lacks strength and cannot bear the fortune, so one toils and struggles. Then suddenly a supporting period arrives, the Day Stem gains health and vigor, and the Useful Spirit emerges like a tiger's roar with rising wind. The original chart's Useful Spirit finally serves me, and I ride upon it -- rising vigorously. This is biased qi encountering harmony, decline meeting strength. Fortune arrives and one rises suddenly. As for building enterprises and establishing merit, there are great and small differences. One must discern by the weight of the chart encountered. 'On Collective Rise' -- Then there are cases where the Day Master is strong, the Four Pillars' Five Phases show pure Killing without mixture, and both Self and Killing are strong. The root originally has no control, so wealth and nobility do not form. Only when the Luck Cycle brings control does the Killing spirit transform into authority, enabling sudden flourishing -- talent and virtue moving dukes and ministers, fame and advancement prominent, surpassing the common herd. The Self is strong, and the Killing spirit meeting control transforms into authority. When the controlling spirit's force is strong, fortune is extraordinary. How can such a person not become prominent, reaching the highest nobility? It is truly destined. Yet one also needs the Luck Cycle's support before vigorous flourishing is manifest. If the Luck Cycle does not arrive, one remains an ordinary person. There are also cases where the Four Pillars have a healthy, strong Day Master, and the Useful Spirit is also strong, evenly balanced -- born into a wealthy household of vermilion gates, a worthy child of noble destiny. Upon growing up, established and prospering. Then one malefic period arrives, adding to the original chart, seizing one's Wealth, injuring one's Officer, ruining one's Seal, damaging one's Food. Encountering such a period, disaster is beyond words -- mid-life decline without recovery. When the bad period passes and a good period supporting the Self arrives, refreshing the Useful Spirit, it is like withered seedlings receiving rain, rising vigorously; like a goose feather meeting wind, lifting and soaring -- unstoppable. 'On Mid-life Revival' -- Then there are those born with strong Five Phases Self, with Yang Blade and Shoulder each competing for dominance, while Wealth, Officer, and pattern spirits are scant and floating, without strength for achievement. Entering the Luck Cycles, the territory is not one of fortune-building, so a lifetime of hunger, cold, toil, and hardship passes without success. But at mid-life or twilight years, one suddenly encounters a Killing period, borrowing the Killing as authority to control the Yang Blade. Whether gaining authority and nobility for prominence, or attracting assets for fortune -- one must distinguish by the Five Phases' clarity and turbidity and the Luck Cycle encountered. 'On Late Blooming' -- This is a lifetime of poverty suddenly rising in mid-life or twilight years. It means the chart's original Wealth-Officer had no qi throughout life, and only when the Luck Cycle arrives does wealth and nobility form, with each venture profitable. Late Blooming is the result of the Luck Cycle. Should the student not strive? 'On Rise and Fall' -- When a person's chart has pure Killing as the Useful Spirit, and the Killing has no control, this is a person of the thatched-roof cottage on a dead-end road, or a retainer striving within a powerful household. Therefore one needs a period of controlling the Killing; borrowing the Killing for authority, one rises, serving at court, wielding authority over fortune and disaster, with merit beyond measure. But the moment the controlling period enters the Wealth region, Wealth supports the Killing, and disaster arises. With Officer strong and Killing strong, and the original Luck Cycle potentially miscalculated -- if the chart supports the Killing period, and then misfortune arrives with the annual Wealth-Killing slightly strong, Killing spirits supporting each other and jointly producing calamity -- the Self is left in cold isolation, harmed. Lightly, one loses the family estate and is exiled; heavily, punishment and execution. The Killing spirit jointly combining in lethal ruin -- this is fearsome indeed. Then there are charts where the Monthly Command is the proper-qi Officer star, serving as lifetime noble qi. Only encountering a Seal period is favorable, since the Officer star welcomes strong Wealth to generate it and strong Seal to protect it. Thus such a person can practice benevolence and spread virtue, governing the state, with heavy authority and high rank. But later encountering the Killing's strong region, with the Killing's Salary position and the annual Killing arriving together, the Officer transforms into Ghost, and death of the body is certain. If not entering a Killing period, perhaps encountering a Hurting Officer period without Seal to control it, the Hurting Officer gaining ground, Salary suffers damage -- losing a wife, harming children, stripped of office and beset by disaster. Then there are charts where the Four Pillars' Useful Spirit has no Officer-Killing qi, only Indirect and Direct Wealth at their peak. The Wealth spirit commands the road, with quiet and steady prosperity, accumulating riches -- but lacking nobility. One must observe the Luck Cycle: if Wealth encounters the Officer-Salary-strong region, wealth and nobility form together. But if unfortunately the Wealth spirit falls out of the pattern and the Yang Blade is encountered, Wealth collapses and fortune is ruined, with much misfortune. When the annual luck Clashes and Combines with the Yang Blade, the Wealth spirit is completely harmed, the original chart Declines and Extincts, the Yang Blade generates violence -- ruin reaches its extreme. 'Precious Method, Part One' -- Receiving yin and yang to be born between Heaven and Earth, creation endows a person, born from creation's design. All things are likewise -- none escape the transformations of yin and yang. Therefore, to deduce a person's fortune, misfortune, rest, and calamity, this principle is clearly manifest. Though the methods of practitioners are many, the investigation of evidence beyond Ziping's method is unmatched. Ziping's method focuses exclusively on the Day Stem as master, taking what is stored in the Guiding Framework (Monthly Command) as the decree, and next using the Year, Month, and Hour Branches to express its aspects. For any pattern, use the Monthly Command as the Guiding Framework. Do not seek the pattern from the Year, Day, or Hour alongside it. Many people today do not know this method, and fail one hundred out of one hundred times. For the Monthly Command, Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth are essential. Having one matter settles the determination. If one seeks alongside it, errors occur. Take the Monthly Command's actual matter, then comprehensively seek the light-heavy, shallow-deep pattern and its destructions and clashes. Master Yijian of Western Mountain grasped the adaptive variation and divided the Stem patterns into six essential patterns: 'Officer, Seal, Wealth, Killing, Food God, and Hurting Officer,' examining their dynamics -- without fail in verification. His method states: 'When encountering the Officer, examine Wealth; when encountering the Killing, examine the Seal; when encountering the Seal, examine the Officer.' There is a profound and untransmitted method here. Taking the four elements -- neither biased nor askew, in generation, overcoming, control, and transformation -- one finds that encountering destructive, imprisoned patterns makes a lower fortune; having generation and removal brings fortune; having support and stripping brings disaster. The principle runs deep and far -- one must examine it in thorough detail. 'Precious Method, Part Two' -- Ziping's method takes the Day as master. First examine the Guiding Framework as primary; next use Year, Day, and Hour Branches to assemble the pattern, and only then may one render judgment. All use the Monthly Command as the function; one cannot take the pattern from the Year. When examining Ziping's methods, if the pattern is not settled, nine out of ten will err. Only Master Yijian's method: Monthly Command using Metal, use only Metal; using Fire, use only Fire. If the eight characters have much Water, take Water -- do not go take Fire; otherwise this error compounds. Judging by this method, more than half will be wrong. Master Yijian of Western Mountain penetrated the profound mechanism: within the eighteen patterns, he selected six as essential, using mutual generation to settle the pattern and complete the structure; still using the Year and Day below to deduce light-heavy and shallow-deep, with not one error in ten thousand. The six-pattern method states: 'Encountering Officer, examine Wealth.' 'Encountering Wealth, examine Killing.' 'Encountering Killing, examine Seal.' 'Encountering Seal, examine Officer.' For example, using the Seal does not fear the Killing -- the Killing restrains the Seal, the Seal restrains the Self, and this still constitutes an upper pattern. If the Four Pillars encounter the Seal and one examines the Seven Killings -- as long as Officer-Killing is present and the Luck Cycle travels to the Officer-Killing region, this also constitutes a noble pattern. Monthly Command connecting to the Officer, with Wealth in the pillars: Wealth generating Officer is superb -- a pattern of wealth and nobility. Wealth visible in the pillars requires the person and Wealth both strong -- then fortune manifests. But seeing even one Killing: the Killing takes precedence, and one must not enter the Wealth-strong region, for Wealth generating strong Killing becomes a pattern of poverty and baseness. In all patterns, discuss them in terms of Killing and Officer.

See the full translation within the Discourse on Collective Flourishing (section 1 above), which includes the complete text of Precious Method Part One as transmitted in the source edition.

See the full translation within the Discourse on Collective Flourishing (section 1 above), which includes the complete text of Precious Method Part Two as transmitted in the source edition.

By Chan Master Yinjing: Verse: 'Creation and transformation: first examine the Day Master; / Then take the Guiding Framework and look at the sequence. / The Four Pillars focus on Wealth and Officer; / Self strong with Wealth and Officer: much wealth and nobility. / If the Self is strong but Wealth-Officer damaged, / One merely begs from morning to evening. / Wealth-Officer strong and the Day Master also strong: / Purple robe and golden belt -- what doubt is there? / Wealth-Officer strong but Day Master weak: / Entering a strong-Self period is most marvelous. / Day Master strong but Wealth-Officer weak: / Entering Wealth-Officer periods, fame and profit gallop. / Day Master sitting below on Wealth-Officer / Meeting the Monthly Command -- nobility is not hard. / Wealth and nobility through Wealth-Officer is the general theory; / Early-years wealth and nobility, climbing high salary. / Self strong without support, one changes ancestral home; / If not moving, one dies in a foreign land. / Self strong without support: damaging Wealth, harming wife; / Either the wife's family is cold and neglected, or one is adopted into another household. / Self strong, Seal strong: Wealth breaks and does not accumulate; / Having Wealth is only good for charitable dispersal, or buying property and building houses; / The gate is grand but the granary is empty -- inside insufficient, outside having surplus. / The Officer should be exposed: exposed means pure and lofty. / Wealth should be hidden: hidden means rich and substantial. / Killing hidden, Officer exposed: evil concealed, good displayed; / A person encountering this -- fame resounding through the land. / Officer-Killing too heavy, Self even stronger: / Upon meeting control, one becomes a worthy and good person. / Killing and Officer embracing the Seal: nobility is not slight; / Brilliant authority and prestige surely resound in fame.' 'Born in the height of summer with much Fire and Earth: / Meeting Water's aid, the noble Mean is achieved; / Water and Fire originally require mutual completion; / Assuredly fame and profit shake mountains and rivers. / Born in deep winter: Water cold, Metal frozen; / Gaining Fire's support must not be taken lightly. / Fire's momentum blazing without Water: / Entering the Water region in luck is also fine. / Water's momentum surging without Fire: / Entering the Fire region in luck is also marvelous. / Southern Fire blazing: favorable entering northern Water periods. / Northern Water frigid: favorable entering southern Fire periods. / Eastern Wood abundant: should enter western Metal periods. / Western Metal strong: should enter eastern Wood periods. / Water and Fire have the merit of mutual completion. / Metal and Wood have the theory of achieving fame. / Five Phases achieving mutual aid: / Majestic fame gloriously resounding to the ninth heaven.' 'The Three Mounds of Five Phases: Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei; / If seen repeatedly: kin suffer Punishment-grief, parents are insufficient, / Siblings separate, relatives grow distant, and wife and children suffer more. / Clashing the Guiding Framework: parents suffer loss, / Whether through Punishment, or through separation and estrangement. / Self strong with Shoulder sitting on the Post Horse: / Siblings drift like tumbleweed, free and easy. / Eight characters with four Horses all racing: / The Self prospers but toils, accepting east and west; / If the body is at leisure, the mind is not at rest: / In motion, dissolute; at rest, melancholy.' 'Wealth star entering the Treasury: accumulating wealth. / Wealth star in the Treasury: the wife is tight-fisted, / Guarding assets and not acting as a proper person. / But if the Wealth star sits on the four Horses: / The wife is virtuous, joy everywhere. / Officer-Killing layered without Wealth: / The wife assists within but without harmony; / Disrespectful to parents-in-law, the wife is rude, / Seizing the husband's authority -- arranged by destiny.' 'If the Officer star meets generation and strength, / And further gains Long Life thriving at the Hour: / Children and heirs are intelligent and handsome; / Sons and grandsons, every one, wear crimson robes. / Shoulder, Rob, Hurting Officer strong: / Harming wife and further damaging children; / Adopted sons are mostly disobedient; / Taking in children never suits.' 'Day Master with Seven Killings carrying the Owl Spirit: / The wife suffers phantom pregnancies and frequent miscarriages, / Blood-qi not regulated becoming blood illness; / One must further examine the Luck Cycle. / A man with Owl and Food seen repeatedly: / Weak Self, frequently followed by consumption illness. / A woman with Owl and Food is not auspicious: / Childbirth complications alarm, and illness is perilous.' 'A woman with strong Officer and strong Wealth: / Gaining a worthy husband and fine children; / If Wealth and Officer are both damaged, / Harming the husband, punishing children, guarding an empty curtain. / Seal strong, Self strong, Self even stronger: / Punishing and harming others, lonely and poor; / If Officer is prominent and Wealth is also prominent, / One is also a person surpassing the crowd.' 'Stirring up trouble: only because Water-Fire mutually overcome, / Or dim eyes and dark vision. / A woman with strong Hurting Officer: / Sitting below the Hurting Officer, she scolds the husband; / Morning and evening muttering without cease -- / A hundred years finally bearing Punishment and solitude.' 'Days like Yi-Si, Wu-Chen, Geng-Wu, Xin-Wei: / Day Stem carrying these means an authoritative and noble wife; / Further indicating a virtuous wife and also nobility -- / But examine the Four Pillars further. / Days like Bing-Zi, Ding-Chou, Wu-Yin, Ji-Mao: / People born on these all follow the former path. / Xin-Si, Ren-Wu, Jia-Shen, Yi-You: / All sitting below Wealth-Officer, encountering them brings much wealth and nobility. / Ding-Hai, Wu-Zi, and Geng-Yin: / Day Master encountering these, the chart is not light. / Xin-Mao, Bing-Shen, Ding-You positions: / Wealth-Officer hidden within, displaying fame. / Ji-Hai, Jia-Shen meet Geng-Xu: / Seal, Wealth, Officer hidden within the interior; / Further gaining Bing-Chen and Ren-Xu arriving: / The four-season Seal is extraordinary.' 'Jia-Zi, Bing-Yin with Ding-Mao, / Ji-Si, Ren-Chen, Gui-Si -- the same; / Empty fame, empty profit, drifting in the wind. / Yi-Hai, Geng-Shen, and Ji-Si: / Born below, Wealth-Officer is entirely absent; / Wife's palace, children and daughters carry empty blossoms; / East, west, south, north -- all are home.' 'Jia-Wu, Wu-Xu, and Geng-Zi: / Women harm the husband; men harm the children. / Yi-Si, Bing-Wu, Ding-Wei -- the same: / Layer upon layer of Ren-Zi indicates lonely poverty. / Jia-Yin, Yi-Mao, and Wu-Wu: / Branch and Stem of same kind -- children insufficient. / Ji-Wei, Geng-Shen, and Gui-Hai: / Monthly Command further strong becomes a calamity.' 'Monthly master with Wealth, Officer, Seal all complete: / Month and Hour matching, fortune stretches on. / Stem-Branch of same kind with strong Self: / Harming children, punishing wife, destroying ancestral fields. / Take the Four Pillars carefully, divide strong from weak; / Do not stubbornly hold one rigid view of yin and yang. / This is the true marvelous formula of the Five Phases; / Without meeting a wise person, do not transmit it falsely.'

The methods for assessing destiny in detail cover the systematic examination of each pillar and its interactions. The Day Master's strength relative to the Monthly Command determines the starting framework. From there, one must assess: (1) whether the chart's Useful Spirit is damaged or intact, (2) the balance of generation and overcoming among the four pillars, (3) the trajectory of the Luck Cycles through favorable and unfavorable territories, and (4) the annual Grand Year's interaction with the natal chart. Each factor modifies the base reading, requiring careful weighing of evidence before pronouncing judgment.

Verse: 'The Heart's Mirror reflects what the eye cannot see -- / Buried deep within the Stems and Branches, truth resides. / When Self is strong and Killing weak, authority is borrowed; / When Killing is strong and Self is weak, one's life hangs by a thread. / The wise practitioner sees beyond the surface form / And reads the spirit-mechanism turning within the pattern.'

This rhapsody addresses the interplay of fair omens and foul ones within a single chart. Auspicious configurations can coexist with malefic ones; the practitioner must determine which predominates by examining the Monthly Command, the Useful Spirit's condition, and the trajectory of the Luck Cycles. A chart with fundamentally sound structure can weather unfavorable periods; a chart with structural defects collapses when pressure arrives.

The Rhapsody of Continuous Threads traces the interconnections between the Four Pillars as continuous threads of qi flowing from Year to Month to Day to Hour. When these threads form an unbroken generative chain, fortune is sustained. When the chain is interrupted by overcoming or clash, the thread breaks and fortune dissipates. The practitioner must trace each thread from root to fruit to understand the chart's overall trajectory.