There are
many studies out there that can be used to predict the outcome of a human’s
destiny, and coincidently (note that some believes that there is no coincidence
in life), I have gotten the chance to learn more about Bazi / Four Pillars of
Destiny Analysis, which is one type of destiny analysis methodology in Chinese
Astrology, when I was trying to understand myself more.
Before
being exposed to Bazi, being a Chinese, my only exposure to Chinese Astrology is
through the Chinese Zodiac annual readings based on animal signs of the year
that I was born in. The years were divided into 12 animal signs, and there will
be prediction on luck capacity of the year for each of the 12 animal signs
every year by various masters, which is a famous topic especially during
Chinese New Year. Back in those days, I have always found it fun and
entertaining even though the accuracy of the forecast is not high.
After I began
to learn Bazi, I am finally able to understand why the annual forecast based on
the 12 animal signs is not very accurate. This is because in Bazi (which is also
known as the four pillar of destiny), we use not only a person’s year of birth,
but the month, day and hour of birth as well! There will be an animal sign for
each one of them. For example, a person who was born at 12pm on the 14th of
February in 2013 will have the following Bazi animal signs:
1)
The
year 2013 is a Water Snake year, of which is written as 癸巳 in Chinese.
2)
The
month and day for 14 Feb in 2013 is Wood Tiger (甲寅 )and Metal Pig (辛亥) respectively.
3)
And
the Hour of birth at 12pm is represented by Wood horse (甲午)
Bazi of
a person born on 14 Feb 2013, 12pm
|
Hour
|
Day
|
Month
|
Year
|
|
甲
Jia
|
辛
Xin
|
甲
Jia
|
癸
Gui
|
|
Wood
|
Metal
|
Wood
|
Water
|
|
午
Wu
|
亥
Hai
|
寅
Yin
|
巳
Si
|
|
Horse
|
Pig
|
Tiger
|
Snake
|
There are
all together 4 different animal signs for this person, namely the snake, the
tiger, the pig, and the horse, while the annual forecast for the 12 Chinese
Zodiacs is only referring to the snake sign for the year. Notice that this
corresponds to only 1 of the 8 characters in a Bazi as per shown in the table
above, and this causes the animal sign forecast to be less accurate because the
other 7 characters has an impact to our life as well. By the way, a direct
translation of Bazi into English means Eight Characters.
Based on
these 8 characters, there would be hundreds of thousands of possible combinations
of Bazi that we can get. Thus, for entertainment purposes for the mass market
and due to time and cost constraint (the annual predictions are normally given
free), it is only commercially viable to do a prediction for just the year
animal sign for which there are only 12 signs.
By combining
all these 8 characters or 4 pillars (each pillar consists of 2 characters, one
sitting on top of another. We have the Year Pillar, Month Pillar, Day Pillar, and
Hour Pillar), analysis can then be performed to access the interactions between
the 4 pillars. Based on the analysis, we could derive and understand who the
person is and how their life will generally be like. Further analysis on the interaction
between the 4 pillars and the current time period would allow us to understand
how well the person will do in this period, or how well their luck /
opportunity is during this period.
There is
this concept that nothing is permanent in our world; there will be a life cycle
for everything. People tend to say that what goes up, must come down or vice
versa. For the share market, the difference is the time factor; some fluctuate
in days or months, but some cycle has period in years or even longer. For our
lives, the same fluctuating cycle is applicable. From the moment that we were born,
we will go through lots of ups and downs in our life and this is what we call the
luck cycle.
In the past, people recognize Bazi or Chinese Astrology as a means of ‘fortune telling’. But in the modern context, people use this information to gain an advantage by being able to see the ‘big picture’ of their lives well in advance, thereby allowing them to plan ahead and capitalize on the good times and be prepared and minimize the losses during the bad times. It also helps to save valuable time as some people may spend years exploring what they really want in lives by going round in circles without achieving anything. As ‘time’ is a constraint for everyone, knowing what to do and the right time to do it will definitely leads you to the pathway for success.
