The following question appeared in my inbox today.

I have just recently read about Bazi and find it very interesting. However I am confused about something. Let\’s say someone\’s day master is Fire and their favourable elements are fire and wood. So their Wealth factor is metal. Metal is one of their unfavourable element. There is metal on their day and month pillar. What does this mean? Can you please help?

I wanted to discuss this question because this is a very TYPICAL question that I often get or which often gets posted on this blog. And it also raises a few points which are very typical for BaZi newbies.

First off, the ‘confusion’ issue. It is very NORMAL to be confused after you have had your first exposure to BaZi. Typically this is an excited confusion as opposed to a depressed confusion. It’s an oh wow, so much information, oh wow…it’s like the dog that catches 50 different scents and doesn’t know which one to follow because they are all so interesting! So, confusion therefore is par for the course.

[For those who have gone through a Mastery Academy BaZi module 1 – if you are confused, this is NORMAL. Keep on going. By Module 2, you won’t know which way is the sky. But first there must be confusion for there to be clarity]

Secondly, the person in this question has discovered that thing called ‘Favourable and Unfavourable Elements’ and is now excited, thinking that there is some revolutionary piece of information in this revelation.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but knowing your Favourable and Unfavourable Elements is like knowing the first three alphabets of the entire series of alphabets. As such, the expectation that such information will somehow yield something exponentially revealing is a rather over-enthusiastic expectation.

Your favourable and unfavourable elements tell you exactly what: what are your favourable and unfavourable elements. Whilst a BaZi consultant could make some sense of that information, you, the BaZi novice, are unlikely to be able to decipher any USEFUL INFORMATION THAT YOU CAN ACT UPON. In other words, the fact that a certain element is favourable means exactly that – that particular element is FAVOURABLE. Same goes with the UNFAVOURABLE element. It means exactly that – that that element is UNFAVOURABLE.

This is not to say that Favourable and Unfavourable Elements is not useful information or is somehow irrelevant or that you have somehow been conned into learning something that seemed useful but is not. When you have more pieces of the BaZi puzzle (more letters of the alphabet, more Bazi vocabulary) then it can make sense. Those pieces, for those who are curious, are an understanding of the 10 Gods, and an understanding of the 10 Day Masters in greater depth.

Sidenote: 90 percent of the time, when a novice/newbie to BaZi tells me that they have worked out their fav/unfavourable element, I don’t take their word for it. Figuring out the strength of the element often confounds many students, and some students never really get past that point. Thus, when someone tells me their fav/unfav elements are [x,y and z], I cannot assume it is correct. It might be wrong. Which is why, it is not possible to provide an answer as to what is the meaning of the unfavourable elements in the month/day because that requires an assumption that the elements are actually UNFAVOURABLE.

The component of the question that asks about the positioning of the unfavourable element is not so much a difficult question as it is simply an unanswerable question. Which Metal element is it? (yin or Yang?) What is it located within? (which Earthly Branch? Monkey 申 ? Dog 戌? Ox 丑? Snake 巳?Rooster? 酉) and most importantly, WHICH IS THE DAY MASTER? Bing Fire or Ding Fire? And of course, that’s not taking into account the assumption of favourable/unfavourable element identification being correct.

SO, what should a BaZi novice who is at the above level of questioning do?

Well, for starters, learn a few more letters of the alphabet first. No one asks why they can’t read the Encyclopedia Brittanica after they learn the first 12 letters of the alphabet but everyone assumes that some gospel information will appear when they learn the 10 stems, 12 Branches and Favourable/Unfavourable Element. As the song goes – the road is long, with a many a winding path…

Finally, if one looks at the above question, one will realise that there is NO QUESTION.

The relevance of Metal (presumed unfavourable) in the month and day pillars can only be defined upon the provision of a question that relates to that element. In this case, since the question relates to the Wealth Element, the relevance of Metal (presumed unfavourable) in the month and day pillars will only come into play if there is a question ABOUT WEALTH or WEALTH MATTERS.

Posing a technical question (consider this entry on How to Ask a Technical BaZi question) is not easy Oftentimes, students must be clear in their mind WHAT THEY ARE ASKING. Indeed, I often begin all my seminars and classes with this question: WHAT DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?