Ba Zi means the Eight Characters. More specifically it refers to the year, month, day and time of birth. In Chinese time-keeping, each of these components are represented by a Heavenly Stem and an Earth Branch. Two characters multiply by the four component of your birthday and time gives you eight characters.

Ba Zi these days commonly refer to the system of Chinese Astrology developed by Zi Ping over a thousand years ago.

In my practice, I use Zi Wei Dou Shui for destiny and luck analysis. Zi Wei is like Ba Zi. It uses a person’s date and time of birth and delivers the same results as Ba Zi. However the approach is different.

The month before and after the Chinese New Year is an interesting period. You will hear practitioners predicting your luck for the year using your zodiac sign. Have you wonder why some predictions are accurate while others are not. Find out here.

What can I hope to reveal in a Ba Zi or Zi Wei Reading?

A lot actually but in practice most of the reading will focus on potential and luck in career and wealth, physical and mental health, relationships with parents, sibling, spouse, children and friend, property, migration and travel.

A reading usually start with lifetime potential. For example, are you blessed with good interpersonal skills or are you awkward to deal with? Will you do better as an employee or run your own business? Which business sector is more suitable for you? Are you physically and mentally fit? What kind of health problems are you likely to face? How is your relationship with your parent and sibling? With spouse and children? Whether you are lightly to stay in one place or move around a lot and whether migration is good for you? People of which Zodiac signs are favorable to you? What you are better house facing directions? These and much more can be gleaned from a Ba Zi chart.

This is usually followed by a reading of your current and next decade (or 10 years) luck. Again the focus is primarily on your career and wealth luck, health, relation and travel luck. While the life time potential reading gives you a overall perspective, the decade luck is more time specific.

For example, let’s say that your lifetime potential says that you have the potential to start and run your own business. The decade luck reading will tell you whether this decade is a good period to do so, or is it better to wait a few year or until the start of the next decade.

Another example is health. Again your lifetime luck says that you are predisposed to a respiratory related ailment. Your decade luck will tell you when it is likely to happen to worsen. Knowing in advance, allows you to take the necessary preventive action such as taking helpful supplements, or a course of exercise to strengthen your respiratory system.

The annual and next year luck reading does the same. It tells you about your current year and next years luck. For example if your wealth luck is very strong this year, your should consider more investment options.

Many practitioners dig much deeper into the chart and are able to tell smaller details such as whether your spouse will come from far or near and from which location based on direction e.g. Penang or Kelantan.

For me I do a lot of Feng Shui consulting work and I get the opportunity to collect moving data. I can often predict quite accurately whether my clients will move this year or the next, beginning, middle or end of the year simply by looking at the birth chart. As well as what is likely to happen to the occupants in the months after moving in.

Every year I listen to practitioners talk about my luck for the year based on my Chinese Zodiac. It is not always accurate. Why is this so?

Let me based my explanation on the Zi Wei Dou Shu Chinese astrology system. A person’s luck for a year is dependent on the position of the major stars and the transformation of these stars. It in turn is based on the person’s date and time of birth. Unless we are born on the same date and time, our birth charts are different and so is our luck.

To find out your luck for the year you need a personalized reading.

The predictions that you find in magazines, that you see or hear on Radio and TV are usually derived from your year of birth only i.e. Chinese zodiac sign.

These predictions are based on minor stars that are associated with the year of birth. So while the minor star may say “blood letting incident due to metal objects”, the event may be negated because your major stars has a “helpful person” configuration.

Further more, the minor stars give an indication but how it manifest may differ. Taking the above blood letting example, the first thing that comes to mind is getting involved in an accident. However it could be a dental surgery. Or blood donation. Or slashed by someone. And there are many more variations.

In the next segment, I will answer questions related to renovation and moving.