What is Monthly Luck and the Dou Jun?

Monthly Luck (Liu Yue) in Zi Wei Dou Shu is the luck period that divides a year into twelve months: first find the "Dou Jun," which marks this year's first lunar month, then move one palace forward each month. The Dou Jun, also called the Month General, is the starting point of the Monthly Luck. Monthly Luck is one of the finest layers of the luck periods and is read beneath the Decade Luck and Annual Luck; without the big picture, looking month by month only gets more confusing.

The short version:

• Formula: Dou Jun = start the first month at the Annual Life Palace, count backward to your birth month, then from there start the Zi hour and count forward to your birth hour.
• Shortcut: the Dou Jun depends only on your Life Palace branch and the year's branch. If your Life Palace is in Yin, the Dou Jun is on the Annual Life Palace itself.
• Moves one palace a year: the Annual Luck moves one palace forward each year, and the Dou Jun moves with it.
• How to read it: which natal palace the month lands on and where the month's transformations fall, layered on the Annual Luck.

How the Dou Jun is calculated

Volume two of the Quan Shu says:

From the Tai Sui palace of the year, start the first month and count backward to the birth month; then from the birth month start the Zi hour and count forward to the birth hour to place the Dou Jun.

The book also gives a mnemonic verse:

In the Tai Sui palace begin the first month; count backward to the birth month and stop; from that palace turn the Zi hour, and forward to the birth hour set the Dou star.

In plain terms, two steps:

1. Starting from this year's Annual Life Palace (the palace on this year's branch) as the first month, count counterclockwise to your lunar birth month.
2. From that palace, treated as the Zi hour, count clockwise to your birth hour. Where you stop is the Dou Jun, this year's first month.

Working through an example

Say you were born in the third lunar month at the Chen hour, and you want to look at the 2026 Bing Wu year:

1. This year's Annual Life Palace is in Wu. Starting from Wu as the first month, count counterclockwise to the third month: first month Wu, second month Si, third month Chen.
2. From Chen as the Zi hour, count clockwise to the Chen hour: Zi at Chen, Chou at Si, Yin at Wu, Mao at Wei, Chen at Shen.

You stop at Shen, so Shen is the first month of 2026, the second month is You, the third is Xu, moving one palace clockwise each month. Someone born in the third month at the Chen hour has the Life Palace in Zi, so this year the Monthly Luck walks through their natal palaces like this:

By this table, their first month of 2026 centers on money, the fifth month brings the Monthly Luck back to their own Life Palace, and in the ninth month it reaches the Career Palace, when work feels more present.

Dou Jun lookup by Life Palace

The Dou Jun and the Life Palace are counted in exactly opposite directions. The Life Palace counts from Yin as the first month forward to the birth month, then backward to the birth hour; the Dou Jun counts from the Annual Life Palace backward to the birth month, then forward to the birth hour. The two cancel out, leaving one rule:

Dou Jun = Annual Life Palace + (Yin − Life Palace branch)

In other words, in a given year, everyone whose Life Palace is on the same branch has the Dou Jun on the same palace, whatever their birth month and hour. Just look it up:

The person above, with the Life Palace in Zi, has the 2026 Dou Jun in Shen, the same as counting it step by step. For people born in a leap month, the month is counted by the same rule as for the Life Palace; see the leap-month part of the double-hour page. Once the Life Palace is fixed, the Dou Jun follows.

The Dou Jun moves one palace a year

The Dou Jun starts from the Annual Life Palace, which moves one palace clockwise each year, so the Dou Jun moves one palace a year too. For the person above, the first month of the 2027 Ding Wei year moves to You, and every entry in the 2027 column is one palace ahead of 2026.

When a leap month falls within the year, Xingge splits it at the 15th, the same rule as for a leap-month birth: days 1–15 belong to the month before, days 16 on to the month after. 2028, for example, has a leap fifth month; its first half is read with the fifth month's Monthly Luck and its second half with the sixth. Months change on the first day of each lunar month, not the first of the calendar month.

Where the month stems come from

Each month has a stem too, which produces another set of Lu, Quan, Ke and Ji. The first month's stem depends on the year's stem, and the following months continue in stem order:

Once you have the month stem, the ten-stem table on the Annual Luck page tells you which star takes Hua Lu and which takes Hua Ji that month. The first month of 2026, for example, is a Geng Yin month: Tai Yang Hua Lu and Tian Tong Hua Ji.

How to read Monthly Luck

The palace a month reaches is that month's "Monthly Life Palace." It's read like the Annual Luck, only on a smaller scale:

• See which natal palace it is. In the month it reaches the Wealth Palace, money matters feel more present; in the month it reaches the Spouse Palace, love does.
• See the transformations from the month's stem. Where Hua Lu lands is what goes smoothly that month; where Hua Ji lands asks for more patience.
• Layer it on the Annual Luck. When the Monthly Luck lands on a palace lit up by this year's transformations, that month is especially worth watching. The Monthly Life Palace has its own San Fang Si Zheng too.

Layering months on the year: an example

Say someone has the Life Palace in Chou with Tian Tong and Ju Men, and Tai Yin in the Spouse Palace in Hai. In the 2027 Ding Wei year their Dou Jun is in Shen (the Chou row of the table above), so the fourth month reaches Hai and the sixth month reaches Chou.

• The year's backdrop: the Ding year's Tai Yin Hua Lu falls in their Spouse Palace, and Tian Tong Hua Quan and Ju Men Hua Ji fall in their Life Palace.
• Fourth month (Yi Si): the Monthly Luck reaches the Spouse Palace. This palace holds the year's Tai Yin Hua Lu, but a Yi month gives Tai Yin Hua Ji; the same star gives for the year and takes back for the month, so good things in love or partnership need a little more patient tending this month.
• Sixth month (Ding Wei): the Monthly Luck returns to the Life Palace. Month and year share the Ding stem, so Ju Men takes Hua Ji in this palace a second time; being misunderstood when speaking is most noticeable this month, so write important things down and double-check.

That's how Monthly Luck is used: not as a separate chart, but to see which month presses again on a palace the year has already lit up.

The layers of luck periods

Monthly Luck is the bottom layer. Each layer only makes sense placed inside the one above it.

Keeping it in proportion

• Monthly Luck is very fine-grained. Stack the natal chart, Decade Luck, Annual Luck, Minor Luck and Monthly Luck, and every palace ends up marked with something. Catch the big things first, then the small.
• Monthly Luck describes rhythm, not a script. A month reaching the Hua Ji palace means that month needs a little more patience, not that something will happen.
• For beginners, knowing this layer exists is enough. Come back to Monthly Luck once you're comfortable with the Decade and Annual Luck.

The full lesson is Minor Luck and monthly luck, which also covers Minor Luck. For how the layers stack, see layering the charts.