Four Pillars of Destiny Chinese Astrology

What is 4 Four Pillars?

Four Pillars is also known as BaZi.

Ba Zi: means Ba = Eight, Zi = Word.

Four Pillars which use the birth day and birth time (year, month, day and time) as a data source to read or analyse a person's whole life. By calculating the Four Pillars can analyse weatlh, relationships, career and many other aspects of an individuals destiny.

The Chinese use the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches to represent the year, month, day and time of a persons birth date.

Each BaZi has a year pillar, month pillar, day pillar (also called Day Master) and hour pillar - For each pillar consists of one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch - four pillars x 2 Chinese Characters which creates eight words (Characters) in total. The correct way to write out a BaZi is the start at the right hand side with the Heavenly Stem year then work left to the time and repeat the process by moving down to the Earthly Branch year (see example below).

1955 October, 28, 0700-0900 (This is an example of a very wealthy mans' Four Pillars)

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The Basics

In Chinese Astrology, the birth hour is very important in realtion to calculate the Four Pillars of Destiny.

The birth hour is known as Time. And Solar Time should be used in Chinese Astrology - Four Pillars.

In Chinese Astrology there is a saying: “If the birth hour or time is faked, the destiny is not true.”

Time in Chinese character written as “”, It is formed by three different characters.

1. The Sun. ()

2. The earth or land. ()

3. the inch. ()

Time which has a meaning of: “The Sun shines on every inch of the land”. It implies the solar time.

In Chinese Astrology, 12 Earthly Branches is used to represent time.

For the Zi Rat hour, there are Morning Rat Hour and Evenning Rat Hour.

There are also 10 Heavenly Stems.


If you want to understand more Chinese Astrology or Feng Shui, firstly you must remember these 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches by heart. Even when you are sleeping and dreaming, someone asks you and you should be able to answer them.

The 10 heavenly stems (HS) & 12 Earthly Branches are the basic units for the Chinese Astrology Four Pillars of Destiny.

The HS and EBs are like abc in English.

One HS & one EB make a Pillar. There are 60 pairs of Pillars.

These 60 pairs Pillars’ arrangements are not only for the year. It is also for the Months, Days and Hours.

Since the HS and the EB are codes. I called them the fate codes. They are not mystery at all if you know how to interpret those codes.

The HS & EB are the codes with characteristics of Yang, Yin, Five Elements, Times, Places, Directions, Animal signs, Bonding, Attraction, Expel, Helping, Reduce and so on.

By understand the basic codes, we will be able to decode our own or someone else’s Four Pillars Chart. (The birth Chart)

Together with the Chart, the Earth Luck must be incorporated into the Chart. The Earth Luck (the Social trend) is progressing with time. Technological advancement, Medical breaking through are factors should add in to the chart for prediction. For example, here is a Female chart. This chart was handed to me by one of my students. He wanted me to have a look of this chart.

I told my student that this person in 2006 had an abortion and since her health is not too good.

My student confirmed with the owner of the chart.

The answers were correct.

Then, he thought for a while and asked me why it was an abortion but not giving birth to a baby. He knew Abortion and Giving birth to a baby have same kind of signals.

This is a very good question. Obviously he is using his brain.

My answer to him was if this person was born 60 years ago in 1927. She would have giving birth to a baby in stead of an abortion. Reading a chart we need to incorporate the Earth Luck (the social trend) into it. It is because nowadays, the average marriage age is high. The sex mindset is more opened. If it was 60 years ago, she would be married and having kids. But now the society is changed.

He nodded.

If you are interested to learn more about Chinese Astrology Four Pillars of Destiny, Edgar runs Four Pillars workshop for beginners and advanced level workshops regularly. Please visit the four-pillars-of-destiny-course to find out more.

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What is Wu Xing ?

Wu Xing, the direct English translation is Five Elements. In an easy understand term, they are the Qi or energy. They are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. The ancient Chinese Saints believed that we are all living under the Five Elements. In Four Pillars of Destiny Chinese Astrology, a person is born with either one of the Five elements. As time goes by, the Five Elements represent by the years have some impacts to our life. In short, Four Pillars of Destiny is calculating the Time (Luck Pillars, Yearly pillars) and the Five Elements interact with the inborn Five Elements.

There are two main interaction cycles for the Wu Xing.

The Enhancing Cycle and the Controlling Cycle.

The Enhancing Cycle.

Wood enhances Fire, (Think of burning wood)
Fire enhances Earth, (Fire becomes ashes)
Earth enhances Metal, (Minerals comes from underground)
Metal enhances Water, (Metal becomes liquid after heating up)
Water enhances Wood. (Water grows the Trees)



The Controlling Cycle

Wood controls Earth (Tree roots go down the earth)
Earth controls Water (A dam blocks Water)
Water controls Fire (Wate put out Fire)
Fire controls Metal (Fire melts Metal)
Metal controls Wood (Axe cuts Wood)



There are 2 Wu Xing cycles. But if we stand on any one of the Elements. There are five kinds of relationships with the other elements, including itself.

The Wu Xing relationship are.

1. Enhanced by a specific element, eg Wood enhanced by Water.
2. Conquered by a specific element, eg wood was conquered by Metal.
3. Help by a specific element, eg Wood help Wood.
4. Given birth to a specific element, eg. Wood gives Fire.
5. Control a specific element eg. Wood conquers Earth.

With the above, each element has five relationships with the others. So, 5 Wu Xing times 5 Wu Xing makes up 25 different relationships among the Five Elements. It is a bit too much to remember. However our clever ancestors invented the 10 Gods. The Ten Gods are not only for easy rememberring of the relationships between the Wu Xings. But also the 10 Gods are important for reading and simplifying the complexity of the Four Pillars of Destiny.

The Ten Gods are the keys to open the lock or decode the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches in Four Pilllars of Destiny.

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What are the 24 Solar Terms

A solar term is one of 24 points in traditional East Asian lunisolar calendars that matches a particular astronomical event or signifies some natural phenomenon. The points are spaced 15° apart along the ecliptic and are used by lunisolar calendars to stay synchronized with the seasons. Solar terms originated in China, and then spread to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.


The odd one in these 24 Solar Terms called Jit “". I have put an * next to it.

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How to construct a Four Pillars Natal Chart!

Four Pillars of Destiny in Chinese Astrology is used to calculate one’s destiny.

To construct a 4 Pillar natal chart, we need the person’s birth year, month, day and birth time, and then convert them to the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches.

After construction the chart, then we have the

Year Pillar.
Month Pillar
Day Pillar
Hour Pillar

The year and month use for constructing a 4 Pillar chart must base on the 24 Solar Terms.

For a 4 pillar birth year, a year offically start on the day of “Start of Spring”. This means 2009 the year of the Ox, the Start of Spring is at 0050 on the 4th February 2009. So anyone was born after 0050 on the 4th February 2009, this person carries an animal sign of Ox. For anyone was born before 0050 on the 4th February 2009, even thought the Chinese new year was on 26th January 2009, nine days before, this person carries an animal sign of RAT, not OX. (This bit is important)

In short, regardless the Chinese New Year’s date before or after the Start of Spring, In Chinese Astrology or Feng Shui, the Start of Spring is the cut off point for the Chinese Astrology or Feng Shui Year.

The Start of Spring is also the starting point for the first month.

There are 24 Solar Terms, in Chinese Astrology or Feng Shui, the odd one in these 24 Solar Terms called Jit “". They are more important!

There are two ways, easy and hard, to construct a Four Pillars Natal Chart. An easy way is just using a four pillars Bazi software or web tools to generate the charts. By using Four Pillar or BaZi plotting software or web tools, just key in the Four Pillars birth data, hit the Enter key on the keyboard or Click OK on the screen, the Four Pillars Bazi Feng Shui Software will generates the Four Pillars or Bazi Chart for you within seconds. It is that easy to use a Four Pillars BaZi software.

The hard way to construct a 4 pillar Natal Chart is to do it manually. But there are benefits to do it manually over computer Four Pillars Bazi software.

First you can understand the procedures how to construct the 4 pillar natal chart and the Luck Pillars.

Secondly it gives you more opportunities to practise and write the Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branches in Chinese Characters. If you want to be really good at doing something, I mean writing the Chinese Characters and reading the Four Pillars Charts, you need to practise more.

Thirdly, if in the future, you are really good at Four Pillars of Destiny and you decide to teach or run your own four pillars workshop, you need to know and show your students how to construct a Four Pillars Natal Chart manually. You don't just show your students how to key in the birth data in a Four Pillars Bazi Software.

Ok, let’s start construct a Four Pillars Natal Chart manually now.

In order to construct a four pillars natal chart, we need the birth data of a person and the gender of this person.

We need a Chinese Alamance. In Chinese it is called “Ten Thousand Years Calendar”. It has all the information need to build a Four Pillars chart. The information includes the year in Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch that is the Year Pillar. The particular month in Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch that is the Month Pillar. The date in Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch that is the Day Pillar. In Four Pillars of Destiny's jargons, the Day Pillar also called the Day Master or DM.

There is also information about the 24 Solar Terms in the “Ten Thousand Years Calendar” too.

The Hour Pillar is not included in the “Ten Thousand Years Calendar”. At the beginning, you need a table to find out the Heavenly Stem for the hour. However, there is a way to store the hourly Heavenly Stem into the palm. Once you have learnt it you will never forget. So if you forget to bring the hourly Heavenly Stem table with you, that is fine. You will never forget to bring your own palm with you.

Have you ever seen a Feng Shui Master using the thumb pointing over the four fingers? After the moving around the thumb, the Bazi Master can tell you the Heavenly Stem of the hour. Or sometimes, the Bazi Master can tell you what is going to happen. Well, it is hard to teach you now. I will draw a table for you instead.

Here is a part of a page of the “Ten Thousand Years Calendar” in 1965.

The birth data, western calendar, 10pm 11th August, 1965. I circled the year, month and day in red.

After checking at the “Ten Thousand Years Calendar” we have the following 4 pillars

How does the Hour pillar –Metal pig come from? Just look at the following table.



The person was born on the Ding day at 10pm, so just look at the Ding day in the fifth column and go down to the 21-23 Pig's intersection. The Heavenly Stem is Xin. So the hour pillar is -Xin Pig.

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How to build the Luck Pillars

From the above example, we have constructed the Four Pillars Natal Chart for a person born at 10pm 11th August, 1965.

The Four Pillar Natal Chart shows the Ge Ju. Ge Ju is the layout, pattern or arrangement of any Natal Chart.

Luck Pillars are made of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches too.

Each luck pillar consists of one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch.

The Luck Pillars are the time portion for the Four Pillars Natal Chart.

The Luck Pillars are the time table for the Natal Chart

Luck Pillars are also called Big Luck Pillars or Decade Pillars. It is because each luck pillar controls or influences a period of 10 years of luck in the chart. However, the starting age for the first Luck Pillar is not counted from 1 to 10, then 11 to 20. There is a formula for working out the starting age for the first luck pillar. So for the first Luck Pillar starting age can be 1, 2, 3….up to age of 11.

For now just remember that the Luck Pillars start from the Month Pillar of the Natal Chart. Depends on the gender and the birth year of a person, the birth year Heavenly Stem is either Yin or Yang, it decides the Luck Pillars go forward (clockwise) or backward (anti-clockwise).

Using the Month Pillar as the starting point:

Going forward (clockwise) means the first Luck Pillar is the NEXT month pillar in the “Ten Thousand Years Calendar” of the birth year. The second Luck pillar is the NEXT NEXT month pillar.

Going backward (anti-clockwise) means the first Luck Pillar is the PREVIOUS month pillar in the “Ten Thousand Years Calendar” of the birth year. The second Luck Pillar is the PREVIOUS PREVIOUS month pillar.

The formula for the Luck Pillars to go forward (clockwise) or backward (anti-clockwise) are:

1. The Yang Male Yin Female (+Male –Female) the Luck Pillars go forward (clockwise).

2. The Yang Female Yin Male(+female –Male) the Luck Pillars go backward (anti-clockwise).

Each Luck Pillar controls 10 years of luck. In general practice, 8 Luck Pillars will be constructed for any given natal chart. As 10 years by 8 Luck Pillars = total of 80 years. Then plus the few years prior to starting of the first Luck Pillar, we have 80 odd years of luck in total. That is well enough for an average person’s life expectancy.

Let look at the example above. The Month Pillar in the Natal Chart is Jia Monkey. The birth year is Yi wood. Yi is Yin.

For a female natal chart, it is Yin Female. The NEXT month pillar (Yi Rooster) will be the first luck pillar. The NEXT NEXT month pillar (Bing Dog) will be the second luck pillar and so on…

For a male natal chart, it is Yin Male. The PREVIOUS month pillar (Gui Goat) will be the first luck pillar. The PREVIOUS PREVIOUS month pillar (Ren Horse) will be the second pillar and so on…

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