Step 0: make sure the chart is right
Most misreadings start with a wrong chart. Before interpreting anything, check: was the birth time recorded in local clock time, and did daylight saving apply? Was the year taken from 立春, not 1 January or Lunar New Year? Is the birth close to a solar term or a double-hour boundary? Our calculator prints every time correction and warns about boundaries, so you can see which pillars are secure. If the hour is unknown, work with three pillars and say so.
Step 1: find the Day Master
The stem of the day pillar represents the person. Note its element and polarity. Everything else is read relative to it. Yuan Hai Zi Ping gives the order of attention directly:
以日为主，大要看日加临于甚度，或身旺？或身弱？又看地支有何格局？金木水火土之数；后看月令中金木水火土，何者旺？又看岁运有何旺？“Taking the day as master, the main thing is to see what position the day stem falls on: is the self strong or weak? Then see what structure the branches form, and the count of metal, wood, water, fire and earth; then see which of the five elements is prosperous in the month command; then see what is prosperous in the year and luck periods.”— Yuan Hai Zi Ping 《淵海子平》, 论日为主. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.
That one passage is effectively the whole method, and the steps below follow it.
Step 2: read the season from the month
The month branch tells you the season and therefore which element is prosperous (see five elements). Ask: is the Day Master’s element in season, supported by the season, or out of season? Look at the month branch’s main hidden stem and its ten god: it is the strongest single influence on the Day Master.
Step 3: weigh the Day Master’s strength
Combine three things: season (Step 2), roots (does the Day Master’s element appear in the branches, especially as a main hidden stem?), and support (how many stems are Resource or Companions, compared with Output, Wealth and Officer?). Come to a provisional judgement: strong, weak, or balanced — or extreme. Write down your reasons; you will revise them. The Day Master page explains these factors with the classical texts.
Step 4: map the ten gods
Label every visible and hidden stem with its ten god (the calculator does this for you). Group them into the five families: Companions, Output, Wealth, Officer, Resource. Which family dominates? Which is absent? Which ten god is in the month branch and also visible among the stems — the traditional candidate for the chart’s “structure”?
Step 5: look for interactions
Check stem combinations between neighbouring stems, three harmonies and directional groups in the branches, and clashes. A combination can tie up the very element a chart needs; a clash can open a storehouse or uproot a stem. See combinations and clashes.
Step 6: decide what the chart needs
From Steps 2–5, decide whether the Day Master needs support or restraint, and which element would bring the most balance — the useful god. Check the climate too: a winter chart full of water and metal is “cold”, a summer chart full of fire is “dry”. The Di Tian Sui puts the aim of this step in a single phrase:
要在扶之抑之得其宜。“The key is to support or to restrain, each as is fitting.”— Di Tian Sui (Drops from Heaven’s Marrow) 《滴天髓》, 體用論. Original text: Wikisource · also on ctext.org (different edition). Translation: bazimethod.
Step 7: place the luck pillars
Finally look at the luck pillars. For each ten-year period, label its stem and branch with ten gods, and ask whether it supplies the useful god, adds to an excess, or forms combinations and clashes with the natal branches. This is how practitioners describe a life in phases.
A worked example: the Qianlong Emperor
We use a chart whose pillars are recorded in historical sources, not a living person’s: 辛卯 year, 丁酉 month, 庚午 day, 丙子 hour (born 1711). An article on the Palace Museum (故宫博物院) website gives this chart and the recorded birth date, and a famous commentary on it appears in the Di Tian Sui tradition.
- Day Master: 庚, yang metal.
- Season: 酉 month, the peak of metal in autumn. The Day Master is strongly in season; the month’s hidden stem 辛 is Rob Wealth, and 辛 also appears as the year stem.
- Strength: in season, with metal in the month branch; but no visible earth (only the 己 hidden in 午), and fire on two stems (丁 month, 丙 hour) and in the day branch 午. The traditional commentary judges it strong enough to handle fire.
- Ten gods: 丁 Direct Officer, 丙 Seven Killings, 辛 Rob Wealth; hidden: 卯 乙 Direct Wealth, 午 丁 己 Officer and Resource, 子 癸 Hurting Officer.
- Interactions: the branches 子 午 卯 酉 are all four peak branches, with two clashes: 子–午 and 卯–酉. The commentary praises the clashes: water restrains the fire under the Day Master, and metal restrains the wood that would feed fire.
- What it needs: fire to forge autumn metal — the classical image “fire refines autumn metal” — kept in check so that it does not overwhelm.
You can reproduce the chart in our calculator: enter 25 September 1711, 00:30, with a Beijing location and true solar time switched off, and you will get exactly these four pillars and the luck pillars 丙申, 乙未, 甲午, 癸巳… — this chart is one of our automated tests.
What not to conclude
Beginners often jump from one feature to a sweeping statement: “no wealth stars, so I will be poor”, “Seven Killings, so I am unlucky”. The classical texts do not work that way. Wealth can be hidden in the branches or arrive with a luck pillar; Seven Killings under control is praised as authority in Yuan Hai Zi Ping. Missing elements are common and are discussed as something a chart “needs”, not as a fate. If a reading of your chart sounds frightening, that is a sign that it has skipped steps.
Good habits
- Separate calculation from interpretation. The pillars are arithmetic; the reading is judgement.
- Name your sources. If you say “Hurting Officer meeting Officer is bad”, know where the idea comes from.
- Hold conclusions loosely. Classical authors disagree on almost every step after Step 2.
- Keep it in proportion. Bazi is a traditional cultural system, not a predictive science; do not make health, money or relationship decisions on the basis of a chart.
Ready? Calculate a chart and work through the steps.
Keep learning
More in Bazi basics, plus core guides — or go back to the Bazi calculator home page.
Classical quotations are copied from the public-domain texts on Wikisource; links let you check every line. English translations are our own. Traditional Bazi statements are reported as tradition, not as fact.