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Chapter 7 of 11
Li Xuzhong’s Book of Destiny
Overall Paraphrased Meaning
The Four Pillars refer to the four temporal dimensions: Fetal (胎), Monthly (月), Daily (日), and Hourly (时) 🌱📅☀️⏰. They serve as the roots and branches of all things, while the Three Origins (Heavenly, Earthly, and Human Origins) represent the essence. The Four Pillars assist the Five Elements, much like how the heavens and earth have four seasons, soil has four manifestations, and humans have four limbs. Luò Lùzǐ stated, "The root precedes the sprout, and the fruit follows the flower," meaning that if the Four Pillars are imbalanced, judgments of fortune or misfortune must be based on their dominant forces.
The Nine Fates (Three Origins + Four Pillars +禄马) require observation of clashes, restraints, growth, cycles, and directional shifts to distinguish clarity from turbidity. First, assess the weight, hierarchy, and direction of energy; then differentiate between host and guest, urgency, and emotional closeness or distance; finally, combine the interactions of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches with the effects of Na Yin. Overall, the Year Pillar serves as the foundation, the Day Pillar as the sovereign, the Monthly Pillar as the executor, and the Hourly Pillar as the assistant. If the sovereign and foundation are harmonious, poverty and low status are rare; if the Day and Hour Pillars clash with the Year Pillar, hardships are often encountered 🌊🔥.
If the Three Origins enter the tomb but the Day and Hour Pillars are self-strong, even encountering fate of extremity or ghostly煞 will not lead to death; if all Four Pillars are strong and meet禄马, they may become useless due to excessive strength. The Five Elements value balance and harmony, avoiding extremes of strength or weakness. Beware of "right stem with evil branch" (e.g., Wu meeting Gui Hai) or "right branch with evil stem" (e.g., Wu Wu, Bing Zi), as well as衰禄 with strong ghost (e.g., Bing Chen meeting Shen is衰禄, meeting Ren is ghost). Fortune hidden within misfortune (e.g., Geng Zi meeting Ding Mao escaping death) requires careful assessment of the weight and direction of growth and restraint—light energy with favorable ground can restrain heavy衰, while heavy energy without ground may be restrained by light energy. The natural interactions of strength and weakness across pillars, the suppression of lower hierarchies by higher ones through auspicious and inauspicious forces, and the sequence of growth and restraint determine the timing of events.
The Four Pillars form the spatiotemporal framework of destiny analysis, with the Fetal, Monthly, Daily, and Hourly Pillars carrying ancestral, climatic, individual, and final energies, respectively. Judgments of fortune and misfortune require a comprehensive analysis of the strength, growth, restraint, and directional relationships of the Three Origins and Four Pillars, emphasizing "balance as paramount, excess as detrimental."
"The root precedes the sprout" reveals the dialectical relationship between innate conditions and acquired development, acknowledging genetic and environmental constraints while emphasizing the agency of the Hourly Pillar (final outcome). The interplay of fortune and misfortune reflects crisis transformation thinking, aligning with modern chaos theory.
Embedded chart
| Pillars | Year | Month | Day | Hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ten Gods | 比肩 | 比肩 | Self (M) | 比肩 |
| Stem | 甲 | 甲 | 甲 | 甲 |
| Branch | 子 | 子 | 子 | 子 |
| Hidden Stems | 癸印 | 癸印 | 癸印 | 癸印 |
| Stage | 沐浴 | 沐浴 | 沐浴 | 沐浴 |
Embedded chart
| Pillars | Year | Month | Day | Hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ten Gods | 七杀 | 食神 | Self (F) | 偏印 |
| Stem | 辛 | 丁 | 乙 | 癸 |
| Branch | 亥 | 丑 | 巳 | 未 |
| Hidden Stems | 壬印甲劫 | 己才癸枭辛杀 | 丙伤戊财庚官 | 己才丁食乙比 |
| Stage | 死 | 衰 | 沐浴 | 养 |
(Note: The original text did not specify genders for the cases. By default, the first case is male; the second case explicitly states "坤造" (female造), hence labeled gender="female".)