Bazi Introduction

In order to allow the reader to understand and appreciate the technical articles in this site, we have prepared a brief introduction for readers who may not have any background knowledge on this subject at all. Hopefully, this helps and more people can know and appreciate the ancient art of our Chinese culture. 

Everything in Bazi is revolved around the 5 elements and its interaction with one another. Therefore a good understanding of the basics will take you a long way for the learning and understanding of Bazi. It will be very useful as well if you advanced further into other subject of Chinese Metaphysics like Fengshui (the study of Qi and landform) as they also uses the concept of five elements.

The five elements are namely metal, water, wood, fire, and earth. The basic relationship between the five elements are categorised into producing cycle, weakening cycle, and controlling cycle.

The producing cycle

 

 

 

 

Water produces wood: Water grows wood just like plants need water to grow.

Wood produces fire: We burn wood to produce fire.

Fire produces earth: Fire burns everything into ashes and returns it back to the earth. Earth can be referred to as soil, sand, dust, or ashes.

Earth produces metal: Metal refers to the natural minerals that grow in the earth.

Metal produces water: Metal does not really produce water but attracts water during its condensation process.

The weakening cycle

 

 

 

 

The five elements are weakened by element that they produce or grow, just like a mother is weakened after giving birth to her child. Therefore, metal weakens earth, earth weakens fire, fire weakens wood, wood weakens water, and water weakens metal.

The controlling cycle

 

 

 

 

Metal controls wood: As wood can be chopped down by axes which is made by metal.

Wood controls earth: The earth or soil is held together by the trees.

Earth controls water:  Just like the river or ocean which is contains/bounds the earth.

Water controls fire: Water can extinguish fire.

Fire controls metal: Fire is used to melt metal.

The Ten Stems/Ten Day Master

The five elements can be broken down into what we called ten stems by assigning a yin or yang polarity to each of the elements.

The Day Master is referring to the Day stem of a Bazi chart, which is circled in red in the chart below. As there are only ten different stems (yin and yang polarity of each of the five element), therefore we have ten Day Masters.

Day Master is very important in the chart as it represents the person, the ‘self’. What the rest of the 7 characters in the chart means will be derived by their relationship with the Day Master. 

 

 

 

 

Table 5: 10 Day Master table

Element	10 stems	Image	Description/Key characteristic
Wood	Yang Wood 甲 Jia		Big and tall trees. Benevolence, Straight forward, likes stability
	Yin Wood 乙 Yi		Twine and bushes. Flexible, adaptable
Fire	Yang Fire 丙 Bing		The Sun. Energy, passion, generous
	Yin Fire 丁 Ding		The light of candle. Meticulous, sentimental, motivator
Earth	Yang Earth 戊 Wu		Rocks, mountain. Loyal, dependable, trustworthy
	Yin Earth 己 Ji		Soil, dirt. Nurturing, productive, resourceful
Metal	Yang Metal 庚 Geng		Axe. Righteousness, power, fighter
	Yin Metal 辛 Xin		Jewelry. Elegant, attention-grabber, negotiator
Water	Yang Water 壬 Ren		Water in the ocean. Wisdom, adaptive, constant movement.
	Yin Water 癸 Gui		Mist, cloud. Mysterious, intuition, creative

 

Relationship with other element

Element that you (The Day Master) control is your wealth element

Element that controls you (The Day Master) is your influence element

Element that you (The Day Master) produce is your output element

Element that produces you (The Day Master) is your resource element

Element that is the same as you (The Day Master) is your companion element

 

Day master Element	Wealth element	Influence element	Output element	Resource element	Companion element
Wood	Earth	Metal	Fire	Water	Wood
Fire	Metal	Water	Earth	Wood	Fire
Earth	Water	Wood	Metal	Fire	Earth
Metal	Wood	Fire	Water	Earth	Metal
Water	Fire	Earth	Wood	Metal	Water

Table 6: Five elements relationship with the Day Master

The Ten Gods

The Ten Gods are derived when you further breakdown the five elements from table 6 above into yin and yang polarity.

10 Day master	Wealth element		Influence element		Output element		Resource element		Companion element
	Direct Wealth	Indirect Wealth	Direct Officer	Seven killings	Eating God	Hurting Officer	Direct Resource	Indirect Resource	Friend	Rob Wealth
甲 Yang Wood	己 Yin Earth	戊 Yang Earth	辛 Yin Metal	庚 Yang Metal	丙 Yang Fire	丁 Yin fire	癸 Yin Water	壬 Yang Water	甲 Yang Wood	乙 Yin Wood
乙 Yin Wood	戊 Yang Earth	己 Yin Earth	庚 Yang Metal	辛 Yin Metal	丁 Yin Fire	丙 Yang Fire	壬 Yang Water	癸 Yin Water	乙 Yin Wood	甲 Yang Wood
丙 Yang Fire	辛 Yin Metal	庚 Yang Metal	癸 Yin Water	壬 Yang Water	戊 Yang Earth	己 Yin Earth	乙 Yin Wood	甲 Yang Wood	丙 Yang Fire	丁 Yin fire
丁 Yin Fire	庚 Yang Metal	辛 Yin Metal	壬 Yang Water	癸 Yin Water	己 Yin Earth	戊 Yang Earth	甲 Yang Wood	乙 Yin Wood	丁 Yin Fire	丙 Yang Fire
戊 Yang Earth	癸 Yin Water	壬 Yang Water	乙 Yin Wood	甲 Yang Wood	庚 Yang Metal	辛 Yin Metal	丁 Yin Fire	丙 Yang Fire	戊 Yang Earth	己 Yin Earth
己 Yin Earth	壬 Yang Water	癸 Yin Water	甲 Yang Wood	乙 Yin Wood	辛 Yin Metal	庚 Yang Metal	丙 Yang Fire	丁 Yin fire	己 Yin Earth	戊 Yang Earth
庚 Yang Metal	乙 Yin Wood	甲 Yang Wood	丁 Yin Fire	丙 Yang Fire	壬 Yang Water	癸 Yin Water	己 Yin Earth	戊 Yang Earth	庚 Yang Metal	辛 Yin Metal
辛 Yin Metal	甲 Yang Wood	乙 Yin Wood	丙 Yang Fire	丁 Yin fire	癸 Yin Water	壬 Yang Water	戊 Yang Earth	己 Yin Earth	辛 Yin Metal	庚 Yang Metal
壬 Yang Water	丁 Yin Fire	丙 Yang Fire	己 Yin Earth	戊 Yang Earth	甲 Yang Wood	乙 Yin Wood	辛 Yin Metal	庚 Yang Metal	壬 Yang Water	癸 Yin Water
癸 Yin Water	丙 Yang Fire	丁 Yin fire	戊 Yang Earth	己 Yin Earth	乙 Yin Wood	甲 Yang Wood	庚 Yang Metal	辛 Yin Metal	癸 Yin Water	壬 Yang Water

Table 7: The Ten Gods

Strength of elements in a chart based on season

Element	Spring	Summer	Autumn	Winter
Wood	Prosperous	Weak	Dead	Strong
Fire	Strong	Prosperous	Trap	Dead
Earth	Dead	Strong	Weak	Trap
Metal	Trap	Dead	Prosperous	Weak
Water	Weak	Trap	Strong	Prosperous

Table 8: strength of elements based on season

The twelve Earthly Branches

People are familiar with the twelve animal zodiac signs that are associated to each year. For example, 2013 is a snake year. The table below shows the five elements that the animal sign contained. Determining the strength of the element will be based on the season that the person is born in, which is the same way as determining the strength of the stems’ element (Please see table 8 above)

Spring
Feb	Mar	Apr
寅 Yin Tiger	卯 Mao Rabbit	辰 Chen Dragon
甲 Yang Wood 戊 Yang Earth 丙 Yang Fire	乙 Yin Wood	戊 Yang Earth 乙 Yin Wood 癸 Yin Water
Summer
May	Jun	Jul
巳 Si Snake	午 Wu Horse	未 Wei Goat
丙 Yang Fire 庚 Yang Metal 戊 Yang Earth	丁 Yin Fire 己 Yin Earth	己 Yin Earth 乙 Yin Wood 丁 Yin Fire
Autumn
Aug	Sep	Oct
申 Shen Monkey	酉 You Rooster	戌 Xu Dog
庚 Yang Metal 壬 Yang Water 戊 Yang Earth	辛 Yin Metal	戊 Yang Earth 辛 Yin Metal 丁 Yin Fire
Winter
Nov	Dec	Jan
亥 Hai Pig	子 Zi Rat	丑 Chou Ox
壬 Yang Water 甲 Yang Wood	癸 Yin Water	己 Yin Earth 辛 Yin Metal 癸 Yin Water

Table 9: 12 earthly branches table by season. The small character in bold indicates the strongest main qi for the respective animal sign.

We will use the table below to show how the season of birth can determine the strength of all the elements in the chart.

 

 

 

 

Table 10 shows that people who were born in Feb will have a tiger sign as their month branch. This also indicates that the strongest element in the chart will be wood element as he/she is born in spring. The strength of each element in the chart can be determined by using table 8 above (e.g. In spring: wood prosperous, fire strong, water weak, metal trap, and earth dead).

After knowing what the element in your chart means to you and the strength of the element, you can know what your basic strength is and where your weaknesses lie. All this takes time and practice to master, but Bazi is definitely something worth investing for in your life.

I will stop here for the time being, and will come back to explain a little bit more when new concepts are introduced in other articles. If you want to learn more, you may also buy books like ‘The Destiny code’ and ‘The Destiny code revealed’ written by Master Joey Yap of the Mastery Academy, which is simple and easy to understand, and suitable for beginners who would like to know more about Bazi.