BBC Lesson 7b

BaZi Boot Camp San Francisco March 2012 by Sherry Merchant 1

The A -‐ Z of Ba Zi & Beyond. San Francisco,

24 – 29 March 2012. Prep Lesson # 7: Plotting a Chart Plotting a BaZi chart is a basic requirement of BaZi studies. At its simplest level, it is all about filling in 8 characters in two rows of 4. There are 4 stems above and 4 branches below, to start with. After that, we have to plot luck pillars that tell us the luck of the chart in blocks of ten years. This is a fairly simple approach, and it can be done by following instructions to the letter. FYI:

• A pillar consists of a stem on top and a branch below. These pairs are also known as Jia Tze’s. A Jia Tze looks like this:

• 4 Jia Tzes make a BaZi NATAL chart. This is what it looks like:

• A BaZi chart is always written from right to left. • Each column represents an aspect of ones life, and is derived from

specific data.

s Stem

n Branch

o Hidden stem


• The outermost column on the right is the jia tze of the year of birth, the next is of the month of birth, then the most important, the day of birth and the last is the hour of birth.

• The Chinese consider you are a year old when you are born. • A pillar is either completely Yin or completely Yang, meaning if the stem is

Yin also the branch will be Yin. • The day Stem is called the DAY MASTER.

In order to plot a BaZi chart, at this early stage, we will use a 10 thousand year calendar. It does not really cover that many years, just a 100 or 150. (Joey Yaps “The Ten Thousand Year Calendar” is 150 years, from 1900 to 2049, ISBN983-‐40761-‐5-‐0) A page of a 10K calendar looks like this:

Hour Day Month Year 52-‐death 36-‐51 18-‐35 Birth-‐18 Heavenly Stems:

DAY MASTER is the main reference point of the SELF element.

Earthly Branches:

Hidden Stems:


PLOTTING A CHART In this example, you can find and plot the pillars for an individual born Year: 2005 (Yi You) uh Month: (Ji Mao) zt Day: (Ding Si) cx

Hour: 10.30 am. (Si) x To plot a chart: Step 1. First locate the year pillar: You will find the Chinese characters along the margin on the right hand side of the page of the calendar and the year is also clearly visible in English. Begin by writing YI YOU uh in the place for the year on the extreme right of the chart like this. hour day month year

u Stem

h Branch Hidden

stems Step 2: Locate the month on the page. Each month is listed in the topmost row and should be copied on to the “Month pillar column”. Be careful to see the correct month as per the day since the Chinese & Gregorian (English) months are not the same. In this case it is JI MAO zt. hour day month year

z u Stem

t h Branch Hidden

stems


Step 3: Then locate the day pillar, in this case it is circled in red; DING SI cx and should be written in the “Day pillar column”. This is very easy, as the Gregorian (English) date is alongside the Chinese date. You must remember that in this case it may be written side by side instead of the stem on top and the branch below, and that is how you may get confused while transferring the date to the chart. hour day month year

c z u Stem

x t h Branch a

g y u i Hidden

stems Step 4: Hour Pillar Table

For the Hour Pillar, we will refer separately to the “Hour Pillar Table” based on the Day Stem and the hour of ones birth. It is very simple to use: simply locate what time frame one is born in, in the outermost right side column, and then locate the day stem in the top row of the chart (they appear in pairs of stems). The point where the two intersect, is the HOUR PILLAR.

This example shows a person of Yi u or Geng g day master born at 8 pm.


In our example, the day master is cx. To locate this hour pillar, we look at the row on top that has the stem c. We then look at the column on the right that contains the hour 10.30 am, which is the snake hour (x) This intersects (see green highlight) at the Jia Tze ux

Finally, you can now fill in the hour into this table:

hour day month year u c z u Stem

x x t h Branch a

g y a

g y u i Hidden

stems


Early and Late Rat Hour: Special attention must be paid to those who are born between 11 p.m. to 11.59 p.m. also called the “Late Rat Hour” The Rat Hour starts at 11.00 p.m. at night, until 1.00 a.m. in the morning. A rat hour is divided along two days. From 12.00 mid night to 1.00 am it is called the “Early Rat Hour” and from 11.01 pm to 12.00 mid night it is called “Late Rat Hour”. For example: Up to 12.00 at night it is still 13th November. Then from 12.01 it is the next day i.e. 14th November, but the hour is still the rat hour. Therefore, effectively there are 13 charts for each day.

• One for the period 12 am to 1 pm, (also known as the EARLY RAT HOUR) • then 11 for each of the two hour slots that constitute one BaZi hour, • and the 13th for the 11pm to midnight rat hour, (also known as the LATE

RAT HOUR) The Jia Tze order: There are totally 60 Jia Tze and they come in a particular pre-‐determined order. You need to know the sequence of the stems and branches to follow this order. As the name suggests, the first pair of stem and branch is, yes, Jia and Tze. Stems s u a c y z i g m n s u Branches n p r t v x b d f h j l Formation of the jia Tze:

• There are 10 stems and 12 branches.

• The first stem (jia) s and the first branch (Tze) n form a pair, the second stem (yi) u and second branch (Chou) p form the next pair till we finish the 10 stems, but we still have 2 branches left, so, the 10 stems repeat and form new pairs so you get, as the 11th pair, (Jia)sand (Xu) j , and as the 12th pair, (Yi) u and (Hai) l and so on till we get 60 unique pairs.

• Each pair is made up of a yin stem and yin branch or a Yang stem and Yang branch.

• As a rule, the stems follow the production cycle and the branches go clockwise on the 24 mountain ring. (Just in case you want to make the table yourself!)


This is the traditional 60 Jia Tze Table.

The ORDER THE JIA TZES FOLLOW IN THE TABLE is: START at the top row right column, then down the column, then second column top row, repeating all the way down and so on. (follow the direction of the green arrows to see how the order is followed) again, taking the columns from right to left.


Luck Pillars. Luck pillars are what determine ones luck from each 10 year period to the next. The luck pillars can substantially alter the natal chart reading; therefore it is important to determine these accurately. The reference point for the luck pillars is the month pillar. You have to follow the month pillar to plot the luck pillars. Step 1:

• Isolate the month pillar. Step 2:

• Determine if you use the forward or the reverse cycle. Luck Pillars can go in either the Forward Cycle or Reverse Cycle. To determine:

If the year ends in an odd number it is a Yin year. ( -‐) If the year ends in an even number it is a Yang year (+)

• Determine the gender of the individual: Female ( -‐ ) Male (+)

RULE: Use the Forward Cycle for A Male (+) born in a Yang year (+) A Female (-‐) born in a Yin year (-‐) Use the Reverse Cycle for A Male (+) born in a Yin year (-‐) A Female (-‐) born in a Yang year (+) Now that we know the order of the 60 Jia Tzes, we simply go forward or backwards as per the deduction above. Forward Cycle: If a male is born in a Yang year, or a female is born in a Yin year, then follow the forward cycle as follows:

• Let is assume that his month pillar is yv

c a u s o m i g z y p n l j h f d b x v Again here we move from right to left. The original month pillar is not part of the luck cycle, it is only the reference point. Refer to the 60 Jia Tze table, the pair after yv is zx and so on.


Reverse cycle: If a male is born in a Yin year, or a female is born in a Yang year, then follow the reverse cycle as follows:

• Determining the month pillar, let us assume it is yv

z g i m o s u a c y d f h j l n p r t v Again here we move from right to left. The original month pillar is not part of the luck cycle, it is only the reference point. Refer to the 60 Jia Tze table, we are now using the reverse cycle, meaning, going backwards, in the order. The pair before yv is ct and so on. Step 3. The next step is to determine the age at which the Luck Cycle begins: Look at the reference of the 10 K year calendar page. You will see a black marking showing the transition date. This is where the month changes from one to another. Using this as a starting point,

• For Forward Cycle: count the number of days from the date of birth up to the first day of the next month (cut off point).

• For Reverse Cycle: count the number of days from the date of birth backwards up to the first day of that month (cut off point).

• Divide the resultant number of days by 3 and round off to the nearest

whole number. • The resultant number will determine the age to begin plotting luck pillars

from the first luck pillar in multiples of 10 years thereafter. • Each pillar will determine the validity of the age of that luck pillar.

85-‐95 75-‐85 65-‐75 55-‐65 45-‐55 35-‐45 25-‐35 15-‐25 5-‐15 c a u s o m i g z y p n l j h f d b x v

The result will always be within 1 and 9. If the result is say 5, then the first luck pillar begins at age 5.


You now have all the tools to make a BaZi chart. You need to make many of them to practice before you get it perfect. Practice with a friend if you feel you are inadequate at the beginning. Finally, you will be able to do it in your sleep, I promise! It is good to have an online assistant and I recommend that you get an ipad, iphone, itouch version from itunes, if you are a mac-‐friendly person. This way you can cross check your results. On a permanent basis, it is good to subscribe to Joey Yaps BaZi Ming Pan version 2, as it stores your data in the cloud, I have had one since it was version 1 right fro 2003, and have all my data on it. This is the online version. There is also an offline version, on cd which you can load onto your laptop or PC. See what works for you. Personally, I use the online version as it gives great printouts and detailed 4 page reports which are great for clients, but also carry around the ipad for an instant fix As far as 10K calendars go, the one at hand is the best, ofcourse, but Joey Yaps small version is great as its font is crystal clear for its size. Please ask Sasha to organize all your needs right away so you are prepared for the class. On the next page is a blank so you can print them out and fill in the charts easily. I hope by now you know your Chinese characters extremely well or then you are going to be lost. Take time off to recap and revise all the lessons you have received till date.


hour day month year

Stem

branch

Hidden stem

age

stem

branch

Hidden stem

BBC Lesson 7b

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Transcript of BBC Lesson 7b