Hey everyone! I am still very much alive. Busy juggling two jobs and, most of the time, burning my weekends. I hardly have time to write on my blog. If there’s anything I enjoy most about this sideline of mine, it’s writing blog posts and sharing my thoughts on this field. Many people have reached out, encouraging me and telling me they enjoy reading my blog, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me. I guess people find it refreshing that someone my age is doing this, and what’s more, the views I hold are very contrarian and not what you usually hear from other practitioners or feng shui masters in the field.
I will talk about ‘changing’ your BaZi & Zi Wei Dou Shu chart today. This isn’t a technical post, so don’t worry. I’ve put inverted commas because most people have a misconstrued idea of what ‘changing’ one’s chart means. You cannot change your BaZi or Zi Wei Dou Shu chart because it is fixed from the moment you are born. You are supposed to transcend it.
I’ve noticed some really interesting patterns in the way people approach metaphysics. Whenever I say that their BaZi chart lacks a certain beneficial element, people will always ask “How do I get more of my beneficial element?” However, when it comes to Zi Wei Dou Shu, no one seems to ask “How do I get that star in my Life Sector (命宮)”. Perhaps it sounds really silly. People tend to ask how to get a certain element because they’ve been made to believe that the 5 Elements (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth) are really referring to the literal, physical thing, and all we need to do is to wear a particular colour associated to an element or have one of these elements nearby. That is a completely wrong understanding of Chinese metaphysics.
There’s a lot I wish to say here: I’ll try to make it organized and I’m going to make this a very candid post to emphasize the sheer absurdity of the myths and false beliefs held by most people. Despite the tone, there’s still a very important underlying message, so do read on.
The Myths That You Have Been Made To Believe: Lucky Colours, Feng Shui Items & More
Let’s talk about colours first. You would probably hear each of the five elements is associated with a particular colour. Green is for Wood; Red is for Fire; Brown is For Earth. Fair enough – no arguments with that. But does Water look black or blue to you? I mean, it’s transparent. As for Metal, what kind? Gold, silver or copper? How about mercury – is it ‘watery metal’ or ‘metallic water’? The colours assigned to these elements are due to cultural reasons way back into the Qin (秦) dynasty for topographical reasons. There’s no magic in the colours. Really guys.. Come on… Does water look black to you? And wood technically should be brown – it’s the leaves that are green.
So, can colours change your life? Not in my opinion. If it could, I would have retired by now. The 5 Elements are an abstract way of describing how energy moves and the cycle of life and death – that’s it.
Some people go as far as to say if you lack Wood in your BaZi, be near trees and touch grass whenever possible. Okay… So if we go with that logic when Water is bad for my BaZi chart, do I stop drinking water? And I need Fire in my chart. Will my chances of striking the lottery be higher if I pursue a career as a fire eater? Let’s not start imagining the things you have to do with Metal.
Yes, metaphysics is esoteric and mysterious, but there is still logic and law behind the shroud. Most of the things you hear are just abstract representations and ways of expressing these laws. Making sense of metaphysics is tough enough. The least we could do is not to make it sound so ludicrous.
Can Paying For Rituals Change Your BaZi Or Zi Wei Dou Shu Chart?
Most of my clients have done a chart reading before and I’m not the first practitioner they have approached. I know there are people out there offering ‘BaZi changing services’, and for a sum of money (usually in the 5 digits) they can go to a temple and have your BaZi or Zi Wei Dou Shu chart changed into a better one. Now, some questions you might want to ask yourself:
- Can you change an apple tree into an orange tree? What makes you think you can alter the laws of nature just because some monk prayed for you? Wouldn’t the monk pray for world peace?
- What makes you think the gods, deities, Bodhisattvas or Buddhas will accept your ‘bribe’ consisting of some money, and perhaps some apples, bananas or whatever fruit you happened to get from the market, and change your life just like that? Doesn’t it go against the whole point of preaching karma?
I used to be someone who thought all I had to do was pray and be sincere as I offered some of my spare cash and do my ‘fruitful’ offerings, but I soon realized where I went wrong after digging through books on religion and spirituality when I was going through a rough patch. When you head to a temple to pray, you’re supposed to remind yourself of the teachings and pray for guidance. It’s not some 1-on-1 exchange where “I give you money and fruits and you give me whatever I want” session.
Only you can help yourself. If you think the above examples, especially the one about bribing the gods are something a young guy like myself made up – it isn’t. I first came upon this example when I was reading a book on Tao Te Ching (道德經) written by Nan Huai-Chin (南懷瑾)。 After you read up on him on Wikipedia, you’ll know that it might be wise to seriously consider the example he gave and bear in mind he’s a Buddhist master and scholar who understands Chinese metaphysics extremely well.
Do you really think paying someone at some unknown temple to pray for your BaZi to be changed can do you good? Is life that simple? If your answer to this is “no”, the next question is whether a feng shui item can achieve this. If even the gods and deities in the temple can’t change your BaZi, what makes you think a crystal dragon or some random feng shui item can turn your life around?
Then comes the question: “How about Prosperity Live Burials (種生基)? It’s Feng Shui isn’t it?” Do you want to give your fingernail, blood and clothes and put them in a grave while you’re still alive? Anita Mui did this whole ritual, but she still passed on due to cancer at the young age of 40. Her real-life example is good enough to make you seriously question the legitimacy of this Prosperity Live Burial ritual. I personally don’t buy this nonsense.
I lost count of the number of clients who shared with me the amount of money they’ve spent on feng shui items and pointless rituals, only to realize nothing has changed in their lives.
So Does This Mean I Can’t Change Anything? My Life’s Bad And I Die?
No! Please don’t think that way. This is not the first I’m writing this, but I keep saying it repeatedly that our ancestors would not spend centuries developing this art just to tell us we can’t do anything about it! There are chapters in the BaZi Chinese classics that write about how one’s BaZi chart is meant to be transcended, but yes, I know you’re asking, “How the heck do I transcend it then”?
There is no easy way to answer this, but I can only say transcending BaZi and Zi Wei Dou Shu charts are going to be different for everybody.
Sorry, But There Are No Short-Cuts
I think some of my most emotionally charged articles where I touch on such topics are buried deep in the archives. I’ll find time to make them more visible on the website soon. This is really not something new and it’s not the first time I’ve written about it, but it seems like the new clients who come to me didn’t get a chance to read through those articles, so I do try to write refresher articles once in a while.
To put it extremely simply, when I say transcend your BaZi chart, I’m really saying all you have to do is to be self-aware and focus on your own development. Yes, it sounds cliché, but that is all that’s required of you. There are chapters within the BaZi Chinese classics themselves that emphasize this, and you can find one in 《三命通會》and it can’t get any more classical than that book. There is also 《了凡四训》(Liao-Fan’s Four Lessons) written by a Ming dynasty Chinese scholar who transcended his chart. I usually try not to write too much about this topic of transcending because I don’t feel like I’m in the position to ‘preach’ about such things as a very flawed human being myself. Still, when I write about the topic, it’s more like a professional duty because of all the lies being spread out there.
I’ve always felt that being self-aware starts with being comfortable asking yourself tough and uncomfortable questions. Let’s take a few aspects of human life, for example, and these are the two most talked-about topics:
Wealth & Career
- Am I that capable of commanding a high salary? What does that person with a high wage have that I don’t?
- Do I have what it takes to start a business? Is my business feasible and sustainable, and do I have a plan for myself if it ever fails?
- Do I have a skill that is in demand and monetizable? When was the last time I learned something new?
Love
- I want someone to love me, but do I know what it means to love someone first? Do I have that emotional maturity?
- I want a good partner; what can I do, and how can I attract someone like that into my life?
These are some of the things I had to ask myself when I was at the lowest point of my life. I definitely do not see myself as someone worthy enough to preach such things, but I have been through some pretty tough crap in my life, and I wish to share my journey with you. If you stumbled upon this post and still have no idea what my background is like, please read through my older blog entries, or go to my personal Facebook page to get an idea. I am completely open with my past and how it led me to this field.
There is nothing wrong with asking yourself such questions and nothing demeaning about it. If there’s anyone who should be posing such questions to you, it should be yourself.
There Is Really No Such Thing As ‘Luck’ In Chinese Metaphysics
There’s an old article I wrote on what I feel ‘luck’ really is, or rather, there is no such thing as luck. I argued that the word “luck” is a really bad translation for what we commonly use in Chinese metaphysics, which is 運, because “luck” suggests that we don’t have to do anything and that something good will happen to us. My hope for metaphysics is for people to stop thinking this way. 運 was never about good things happening arbitrarily for no reason. There is always a cause and always an effect. The word 運 already suggests movement or action, which is why terms like 運動，運輸 etc exist. It’s more accurate to see 運 or ‘luck’ as an action, which includes thought, rather than a random arbitrary event.
I no longer use the word “luck” in my reports when I realized how misleading this word is, and I have begun to use “elemental phases” instead just to keep things neutral. If I ever use the word “luck”, it will always come with single inverted commas because this word really doesn’t belong in metaphysics.
I am one of the more fortunate people whereby my ‘luck’ takes an upturn when I reach 30. Still, as I said in my blog entry about this whole debate about “luck”, what if our “luck’ is really about our mindset, attitude and how we engage with the world? We Chinese often like to use the word yun (运) in Chinese metaphysics, but yun and “luck” are not interchangeable. The concept behind it is vastly different.
I noticed that people with an eventual upturn in their so-called “luck” have a very different mindset from those who will never meet this upturn. BaZi was developed based on nature’s laws, and human life is the natural embodiment and physical manifestation of those laws. Your chart basically tells a practitioner whether you will survive, grow and thrive in the environment you are thrown into, or wither, die and decay like the weaker plants or animals we see in nature. When I look at someone’s chart, I am basically able to tell the mettle of this person and whether he/she will survive and thrive or eventually wither off and perish.
Inanimate objects in nature don’t have the luxury of choice; they just take whatever Mother Nature throws at them. If a tree so happens to be planted in an arid environment with no Water, it will die sooner or later – it can’t grow legs and crawl somewhere else with water. We, as humans, are not inanimate and sentient, so we will have a choice eventually. I know it’s unfair to say such things, especially when one is born into a challenging environment and it shapes who they are, but we still have to make the right choices to have a better life. I wrote in my article on the differences between a good BaZi chart and a bad one that we can only use our background as an excuse for that long – two people can come from a poor, abusive environment but yet turn out very differently. That being said, I’m not invalidating the suffering people have to go through.
BaZi, Zi Wei Dou Shu & Metaphysics Aren’t Everything
Your astrological chart isn’t everything. There is so much more to life than metaphysics and mysteries on how the world works that are still unknown to us. Your BaZi and Zi Wei Dou Shu charts describe the unfolding of your life based on nature’s laws, but the beauty of being human is that we have free will and can influence things. Our charts are meant to be transcended and we are not supposed to be bound by them. It’s not going to be easy transcending your chart, but if you’re not even going to even try, then please don’t ever let anyone hear you complain about your life, especially when they are making an effort to improve theirs. If you were to put a Buddhist spin to this whole debate – we are all here to return some form of debt, so let’s just get on with it and return it, and then focus on living a good life and be happy.
The main message I want to deliver in this post is to stop believing in all the nonsense you see and hear. If you want your life to change, you must start from within. Of all the things you should do to change your life, believing in all this hogwash is the last thing you should do. In fact, it shouldn’t be in the last position – it shouldn’t even be there. Paying some metaphysics person so that he can pay some monk at a temple isn’t going to help, and neither is erecting a grave for yourself while you’re still alive.
– Sean
Recommended Post: What Does Transcending Your BaZi and Zi Wei Dou Shu Chart Truly Mean?
