During my present trip to the US, I’ve had the opportunity to really engage with a couple of BaZi practitioners and students here and gain some insight into the challenges that BaZi students face in the process of taking the theoretical knowledge they have of BaZi and turning it into PRACTICAL information.

At the heart of it all is quite simply what Trekkies (yeah, I’m a nerd) would describe as a problem with the Universal Translator.

See, when students first get into BaZi, they start by having to learn the language of BaZi. Your 10 Stems, 12 Branches, and Combo, Clash, Destruction, Eating God, Hurting Officer. After a while, everytime they talk about a BaZi chart, they talk in BaZi-Speak or they discuss BaZi Math (my term for figuring out the chart). Any of these phrases sound familiar:

Too much water.

Too hot.

Oh, there’s a Clash between the Spouse Palace and the Child Palace.

No Spouse Star.

Missing Wealth Element.

Hidden Spouse Element.

You have 7 Killings Star.

Blah blah blah. And as far as non-BaZi speakers are concerned, we might as well be speaking Martian Pig Latin because it’s all absolutely incomprehensible to ANYONE except people who are into BaZi. And even then, they only understand what you mean from a technical standpoint. To the average person, what the hell does to much water in the chart mean? To other BaZi students, it means exactly that: TOO MUCH WATER IN THE CHART.

Which actually means nothing really because it all depends on WHAT IS WATER TO THE DM. Uh huh.

So after awhile, BaZi speak means nothing to people who speak it and means even less to the people who don’t speak it.

Frankly I think this happens to every subject – first year law students become adept at speaking legalese very quickly, and immediately take the first step to becoming impossible to understand to anyone except other law students.

Why do I say BaZi speak means nothing?  Because as long as you can’t translate the BaZi speak into a practical human context, it simply is nothing more than metaphysical gibberish. Take the simple example of a missing element or an excessive element in the chart.

Student: This chart has an excess of Water.

Practitioner: So?

Student: There is too much water.

Practitioner: And?

Student: So…we need to control the Water.

Practitioner: Why?

Student: Because there is too much water.

Or…

Aspiring Practitioner: Your chart has a missing Fire element.

Concerned Client: Oh. What does that mean?

Aspiring Practitioner: It’s not good.

Concerned Client: Can I do something about it?

Aspiring Practitioner: Well, you have to find a way to introduce Fire into your life.

Concerned Client: How?

Aspiring Practitioner: Use Wood. Because Wood produces Fire.

Concerned Client: What is wood?

(okay, I exaggerate but you get the point).

So what are the reasons why students find it hard to navigate the chasm between BaZi Speak and Human Speak? (in other words, why can’t they explain themselves in a way that NORMAL PEOPLE can understand?).

95% of the time, this simply has to do with a lack of understanding and grasp of the 10 Gods from a conceptual standpoint. Many many students mug the 10 Gods as a list of attributes or matters or persons. That’s a good way to START, but when you ultimately are problem solving in BaZi, the client doesn’t waltz in and say: Oh, I have a 7 Killings problem. Or if you are doing BaZi for yourself (bad idea really but…that’s another post), you do not look in the mirror in the morning and say to yourself: Oh, looks like I’m having a Direct Resource problem.

YOU HAVE TO FIGURE THAT OUT.

90% of the time, clients have no clue what their problem is – they just know “SH*T IS HAPPENING” or “MY LIFE IS F**CKED UP”. Or both. It is your job as the consultant to help them define exactly what the ‘sh*t’ is and in what exact way and why their life is “F**cked up”. So after you listen to their rambling explanation of their life issues (or if you are handling Asian clients, attempt to pry forth some relevant information from them) and determine which parts are outright lies (first clue: they come into the consult and say, I’m just here for fun.) you have translate their problem into BaZi speak.

After you have done that (for example, you decide that the person, based on their account of their current situation, is facing a 7 Killings problem), then you look at the chart and see if this is indeed the case or is the problem something that LOOKS like a 7 Killings problem but is really something else. Assuming that the chart confirms the clients problem as it has been described, you now need to look for the solution inside the BaZi chart. So for example, let’s say the client does indeed have a 7 Killings problem.  You now have to find the BaZi solution.

Now, at this point, most students will be able to parrot out the usual answer which is that since Sha is dissolved by Resource, but similarly, Sha must be controlled by Eating God, the answer is to use the Eating God or the Resource Star.

Full points on the theory. But, the client does not speak BaZi speak. They do not know what the hell is an Eating God. And they have no clue what this Direct Resource Star is.  So sometimes the aspiring practitioner will complicate the problem by adding Elemental Speak to their BaZi Speak.

“You need to use the Eating God. The Eating God is the element of Metal. So you need to use Metal”. 

And at this point, the client will either nod politely whilst racking their brain wondering if they are being royally conned or be completely in awe of you for this mind blowing secret that you have given them which they will not be able to use but hey, cosmic wisdom is supposed to be…mysterious right?  Until they realise, they have no idea how to use that information.

The point of this all is that mastering BaZi speak is the first step in learning BaZi but then to effectively USE BaZi (either for yourself, in your work/job or career or as a consult) involves being able to translate BaZi into Human Speak (which clients can understand) but also being able to fluently go back and forth between BaZi and Human speak instantaneously in your head. Giving clients prescriptions and solutions or forecasting their problems can only happen when you know what the Human Speak equivalent of your BaZi speak is. Of course, that is assuming you got the technical solution correct in the first place (meaning, your BaZi math wasn’t wrong).

So how does one go about mastering the translation between BaZi speak and Human speak? A fundamental understanding of the 10 Gods but more importantly, the capacity to perceive the 10 Gods together with the inherent character of the person is the key. Prediction and forecasting involves not just understand the type of problem the person might get into, but appreciating what kind of specific problems a specific type of person is likely to find themselves in. In effect, profiling their tendencies and weaknesses based on their character, and extrapolating that into the world in which they work, function and live in. But in the same vein, you have to be able to understand the 10 Gods conceptually, thereby enabling the determination of any action, process, activity or situation as a 10 God, so you can see where the origins of the problem is within the BaZi chart.