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Ba Zi/Four Pillars of Destiny

Ba Zi/Four Pillars of Destiny

What is BaZi? In English term, sometimes BaZi is interpreted as Four Pillars of Destiny. Actually BaZi (八子) literally means Eight Character. Why the English term is Four Pillars? Ancient Chinese noted our date of birth consists of 8 Chinese characters, two for the year, two for the month, two for the day and two for the hour. Tzu Ping, a Chinese person who lived in China about the end of Tang Dynasty and beginning of Sung Dynasty about 1.000 A.D., reorganized the system and put the focus on the day of birth. 
This reorganized made the day as the center of analysis, the self element or what we called as Day Master. The Four Pillars of Destiny actually is a logical forecasting system. The system is also used the five elements: metal (金), wood (木), water (水), fire (火) and earth (土).

On the left side image, it is a sample of one of my program that I used to calculate the BaZi of a person. Please ignore the colorisation of red, green and blue, because I just want to give you an introduction of what is BaZi.
BaZi is all about nature. There are 10 Heavenly Stems which are located on top of the row as we can see through the images, ie: 甲乙 (Wood Collection) 丙丁 (Fire Collection) 戊己(Earth Collection) 庚辛(Metal Collection) and 壬癸 (Water Collection). There are 12 Earthly Branches which are located on below of the row, ie: 亥子 (Water Collection), 寅卯 (Wood Collection), 丑辰未戌 (Earth Collection), 申酉 (Metal Collection), and 巳午 (Fire Collection).
All these collection are groups into Yang and Yin, as everything in the world have the Yang and Yin side, you can go through this link if you want to read about The Science of Yin and Yang.
In the example image, the first Pillar from the left (戊辰) is the Hour Pillar, the second Pillar is the Day Pillar, the third Pillar  is the Month Pillar, and the fourth Pillar is the Year Pillar.
The tenth Pillar below is the Luck Pillar which is running every ten years.

The Day Master of this person is 己. As 己 is a Yin Earth, which can represent garden earth. As we know, garden earth can absorb everything which can mean this person can easily learn anything either good or bad one. Sometimes we call 己 Earth as an intellectual person and typical sample of Yin Earth Day Master is Barrack Obama, Abraham Lincoln. All Yin Earth people usually are slim. They are also charismatic. They are also many Yin Earth people who are famous scientists and they contributed to humanity, ie. Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Leonardo Da Vinci, MichaelAngelo, etc.
This person is surrounded by lots of Earth (戊辰戌) and Fire (丙). A lot of supporting element or same element makes this person a Strong person, as if you are supported by lots of people that are the same with you. 
What other characteristic that can you read from this Four Pillars? Well, they are Yang Fire (丙) which can be compared to the Sun. As we know the Sun quality is warm, people with Yang Fire usually are warm-hearted. They are also honest and care to make friends also.
We can compare the Yang Metal (庚) to a weapon or sword, so this person has also a masculine characteristic and possess a leadership qualities also. 戊 as Yang Earth which represents a mountain, can mean that this person is a bit stubborn, why? We cannot move the mountain, and mountain in nature is heavy, firm and a little inflexible.
In a nutshell, we can conclude that this person is charming, intellectual, masculine, possess a leadership qualities, and warm-hearted, with a little bit inflexible.
With Four Pillars of Destiny, we can also know about the health of this person, suitable profession, and so many other things including the future spouse of this person. Well, this is just an introduction, I will write again for another topic on BaZi. I hope you are enjoying this article.

Layout

Layout

A good feng shui master can tell your life story through the layout of your house. Even your new house can also tell you a story. It is liked a doctor who has to diagnose your problem’s first before you are treated. To some, this may sound scary, but actually the master just want to point out which part of your house causing your problem before he/she puts some remedy. 

Some of you may have known that kitchen should not be placed in the NorthWest sector for it renders how much you make as a living will be absorbed by the unexpected costs. So bear in mind, this NorthWest sector must be treated well.

Southwest sector also must be well taken care, cause this sector can represent the mother in the house. An interruption in this sector will harm the mother especially when the house showing that mother is the weakest link in this house.

Another interesting things that we can deduce from the house instead of relationship is the financial ups and downs of the one who stay in the house. In what year, you should hold your investment and in what year, you can make money, it is all in your house where you stay.

Your house can represent your life, so bear in mind, pick a good house to support your life.

Mirror

Mirror

What do you know about mirror placement in feng shui? As we know, a mirror will reflect what is in front of it. Wrong placement and wrong reflection will cause a bad impact for the one who stays inside, vice versa.

This is my opinion in regards of the mirror placement in the bedroom. I usually do not recommend to place a mirror in the bedroom, but sometimes when the owner of the house insists on it, I recommend to place the mirror behind the cupboard. The reason is because it can attract or repel the qi coming inside to the room as I have stated before.

Most Chinese restaurant have a big mirror in their dining room. As long as it reflect the good qi from the clients who are dining in the restaurant, I think it is good to have a mirror there. But cautious decision have to be made before putting a mirror in a restaurant, remember it must not reflect any bad figures or figurines that will cause more trouble rather than revenue.

You should be careful when you want to place a mirror covering a sector. Sometimes it can mean bad things, sometimes it can be good. Not all sectors will be prosper as I notice.

As a summary, the list below is for your concern when you want to place a mirror:

  1. Know which sector that you are going to put
  2. How big is the mirror that you are going to place
  3. Look out for the reflection, if you see any reflection of bad things like sharp objects, etc., please remove it ASAP
Yin Yang - The Science of Yijing

Yin Yang – The Science of Yijing

At this present state, many people still wrongly believed that the ancients of Chinese Metaphysics like Feng Shui, Yi Jing, etc. had no notion of science. Guo Pu 郭璞, author of “Book of Burial” 葬书, one of China’s foremost commentators on ancient texts, also mention that the effects of Feng Shui must have been appeared as a logical scientific causes and not without any clear reason. Nowadays, there are enough scientific evidence to show that Feng Shui effects have scientific basis and its explanations.

Yin Yang 隐陽 is the concept of duality which apparently looklike an opposite but actually these duality are complementary forming the wholeness. These duality is represented by the picture here which is called Taiji 太極 (Supreme Ultimate). As you can see from the picture here, within the white part, there are black dot, and within the black part, there are white dot. The shape itself also is not divided in a straight line, but rather of a merging shape of white and black within each other. They are related and connected to each other. Taiji is considered as the basic foundation of the Universe.

Taiji emerged from Wuji 無極 (Without Ultimate) which means a state of nothingness. Wuji is represented by a black circle which correspond to the boundless movement because we didn’t know where it started. Wuji itself actually does not mean emptiness because within Wuji contains infinity.

In the state of Wuji, there will be no difference between right or wrong, no difference between day and night, no difference between happiness and suffering, no difference between above and below, no difference between man and woman. It is a state of a meaningless world.

Then the appearance of Taiji brings changes, we started to differentiate between man and woman, day and night, happiness and suffering, black and white, good and evil, true and false, then all kinds of meaning begin to appear. The same concept can be found in the Bible. Adam and Eve living in Paradise, everyday living in the same way and same manner, until the day when Eve picked the apple and tasted it, then we started to realized there are difference between good and evil, and everything seems started to happen as it is now.

Shao Yong (1011 – 1077), a Song dynasty philosopher and cosmologist, describe Taiji as:

The Supreme Ultimate is the One
It produces the Two
Without engaging in activity
The Two in their wonderful changes
And transformations constitute the spirit
Spirit engenders number
Number engenders form
And form engender concrete things.

In the Taiji stage, the energy which is in tranquil state has no characteristic. When the energy move, they differentiate into two core energies which are called the Yin and Yang.

In modern world, the concept of Yin and Yang inspired the Binary Digit system in the computer, which is the foundation of all computer data information. All the information is represented by a multiple combination of zero and one (yin and yang). Multiple combination of zero and one can also include all information on everything in the universe. That is why, they called Taiji as the foundation of our Universe. This duality of Taiji lies the origins of many branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy, as well as the primary guideline in traditional Chinese medicine and different forms of Chinese martial arts.

In western cosmology, we know the Big Bang theory, which can be compared to the concept of Taiji in eastern cosmology. The Big Bang theory try to explain what happened at the beginning of the universe. According to the theory, our universe sprang into existence as “singularity” around 13.7 billion years ago. The universe is created in a big explosion according to the Big Bang theory. Before the explosion, all matters were pulled up within a black hole then suddenly the “singularity” object expanded, and the density and the temperature suddenly fell which causes various kinds of gases were released. These gases eventually condensed into matter, planets and stars. In Chinese philosophy, after Taiji emerged, then comes up the concept of Five Basic Elements which are Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal.

When we compare the Big Bang theory with the concept of Taiji, it seems that our concept of Taiji has more advantage than the Big Bang. Why? Because in western theory, everything has to come from something. If we probe back to the singularity, what the singularity was created, we cannot get the answer clearly, but in the concept of Taiji we can get the answer on how Taiji come out from emptiness. It is very simple, Taiji is positive and negative, the total value will cancel out each other, so the total amount still will be zero, nothing.

Qi in Feng Shui

Qi in Feng Shui

Most of you probably have ever heard the “Feng Shui” term. There are some who mentioned it as “Hong Shui”, which is basically the same meaning with Feng Shui. In the past decade, the practice of Feng Shui has gained recognition in the Western world because of the benefit in prosperity and health they felt after applying this art.

Feng Shui is an art in Chinese metaphysics that studies the influence of the environment on human fortune. Feng Shui can also be regarded as a lesson about the environment, which includes our earth, landscape, ocean, river, and the house where the man lived in it. Humans are considered as part of the universe so that the power of the natural environment will affect humans and fate.

Reflection of Chinese culture is almost dominated by Feng Shui, for example, most of the palaces and important buildings in China (such as the Forbidden City in Beijing) are constructed with Feng Shui consideration. Chinese culture also believes that if we bury our ancestors in a place with good Feng Shui, it will provide prosperity for all the descendants of the deceased.

The term Feng Shui is first believed to be found in an ancient Chinese book entitled “ Book of Burial ” (Zang Shu 葬書) written by an expert named Guo Pu 郭璞 (276-324). The book discussed the influence of energy on topography and he described that “The energy of the Dragon will be dispersed by the wind and will stop at the boundary of water.” From this description, the term Feng (風-wind) which represents the direction and Shui (水-water) which symbolizes wealth were taken. The Dragon in here refers to the mountain or the landscape.

The energy term mentioned in this context is not very clear, but in general this term refers to a vital force of nature and abstract moving on a landscape which can affecting the human life. This energy is known as Qi氣in Chinese. In some other languages ​​the word Qi is often paired with the pneuma to the Greeks, prana to the Hindus, ankh to the Egyptians, ruah to the Hebrews, tane to the Hawaiians, arunquiltha to the Australian Aborigine ​​and ki to the Japanese.

The energy of the Dragon will be dispersed by wind, so in order for the energy not to be dispersed, it should be well protected against strong wind. If the Dragon is moving, then energy will also move with the Dragon, so if the Dragon stops then the energy will stay. We can only use the energy when it stops. The “boundary of water” in here means an open place or water.

We cannot find the Qi definition or translation in the English dictionary that can describe about what qi like. Qi is sometimes translated as “energy” in English. We use the Qi term better than translated as energy because it is not actually the equivalent of that fit. Although Qi is without any shape, can not be seen and its existence cannot be proven scientifically using quantitative measurement and somewhat abstract to westerners, but in the eastern culture of China, Qi is considered as the basic forming of the entire life material in this universe (holistic life force). The Qi is always all around us and governs our health, wealth, and happiness. Physical deterioration is the destruction of Qi and death is the total lost of the Qi.

Albert Einstein quotes “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” This quotes can be precisely describing the Qi.

Feng Shui master uses this qi settings which properly fit with the existing environment so that it can offer positive effect for all residents of the building. The Chinese divided qi into three forms of qi, heaven qi (Tian Qi 天氣), earth qi  (Di Qi 地氣) and human qi (Ren Qi 人氣).

Heaven Qi (Tian Qi 天氣) comes from the sun, moon, planets and stars. Earth Qi  (Di Qi 地氣) comes from the forces of earth like mountains, deserts, rivers, plains, etc. Mountain force governs our health and relationship, while water force governs our wealth. The magnetic field of our mother nature is also a component of Earth Qi. Human Qi (Ren Qi 人氣) is build up when you first inhaled your first breath when you were born. The Qi that within yourself will determine how compatible you with the others and to your environment like your house. You will learn about this notion later on in my other articles.

Qi is always moving. It can moves slowly, quickly, up, down, in or out. The ancient Chinese have discovered how to manipulate this qi in order to to achieve harmony in living. When it is in balance, then our healthy and wealthy being is also within balance state.