A Bazi chart defines a specific moment in a specific location and is composed of four pillars: the Year pillar, the Month pillar, the Day pillar, and the Hour pillar.

Each of these pillars is composed of a Heavenly Stem and an Earthly Branch.

The Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches contain information related to the five Chinese “elements,” among other characteristics. The combination of these different types of qi (气) allows the practitioner of divinatory art to conclude about the probability of certain personal characteristics and events throughout life.

The central starting point for the analysis of a Bazi chart is the Heavenly Stem of the day of birth, known as the Day Master or Personal Element. Only by knowing its Day Master is it possible to know what the different factors of the chart are and how they interact.

Another very important component is the so-called Luck Pillars, which divide a person’s life into periods of ten years with different characteristics. These periods, also composed of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, can both compensate for the imbalances of the four birth pillars and eventually accentuate these same cosmic imbalances. While in former case, the ten-year period tends to be easier and more productive, in the latter case, they will be less comfortable or less productive phases.

Even so, Bazi masters do not see these life periods as fatalistic but only as phases in which certain attitudes and actions are more advisable than others.

Learn how Chinese tradition deals with the antinomy of determinism/fatalism versus free will.