What is Birth chart (Ming Pan)?

A Zi Wei Dou Shu birth chart (Ming Pan) is a twelve-palace grid cast from the year, month, day and hour of your birth, with more than a hundred stars placed into the twelve palaces by fixed rules to describe a person's character and the rhythm of their life. It isn't a single verdict but a map: each palace looks after one area of life, and the stars living in it decide what that area looks like. If you'd like to follow along with your own, draw your free chart first.

The short version:

• Formula: a birth chart = twelve Earthly Branch squares + twelve palace names + the fourteen main stars, minor stars, Four Transformations and luck periods.
• What you need: birth year, month, day, birth hour and sex. The hour matters most.
• Where the Life Palace comes from: your birth month and hour alone fix which branch it falls on; there's a lookup table below.
• How to read it: the Life Palace first, then its San Fang Si Zheng, and only then the Decade and Annual Luck.

How a chart is cast

Casting a chart comes down to four steps, using the verses in volume two of the Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu (The Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu). Charting software just does the hand calculation faster.

1. Convert to the lunar calendar and a double-hour. Zi Wei Dou Shu uses lunar months, and time is counted in twelve double-hours of two hours each.
2. Find the Life Palace. Starting from the Yin palace as the first month, count clockwise to your birth month; from there, treating it as the Zi hour, count counterclockwise to your birth hour. Where you stop is the Life Palace.
3. Set the Five Elements Bureau. The stem and branch of the Life Palace give one of five bureaus: Water 2, Wood 3, Metal 4, Earth 5 or Fire 6. See Five Elements Bureau.
4. Place the stars. Zi Wei is placed by the bureau and your birth day, the other thirteen main stars follow at fixed intervals, and then come the minor stars, the Four Transformations and the lesser stars.

The Quan Shu puts step two in a single sentence in volume two:

In general, everyone's chart starts the first month at Yin and counts forward to the birth month; then from the birth month, start the Zi hour and count backward to the birth hour to place the Life Palace, and forward to the birth hour to place the Body Palace.

The same sentence also sets the Body Palace: count clockwise from the birth-month palace to the birth hour. A full worked example is in the lesson how your chart is cast.

Life Palace lookup: birth month by hour

You can skip the counting in step two. Find your lunar birth month on the left and your birth hour along the top; the branch where they cross is your Life Palace:

For example, born in the fourth lunar month at the You hour: row 4, column You gives Shen, so the Life Palace is in Shen. Two patterns show in the table. For the same hour, each later birth month moves the Life Palace one palace forward; for the same month, each later hour moves it one palace back. One double-hour's difference, and the whole chart starts from a different square.

What each of the twelve palaces covers

Once the Life Palace is found, the rest follow counterclockwise from it, in the same order for everyone:

Since everyone's Life Palace sits on a different branch, the same branch is a different palace on different charts. Palaces also have fixed relationships: the one straight across is the opposite palace, the two right next door can flank it, and those four palaces away are its trines.

What all those labels are

The first reaction to a chart is usually that there's too much writing. It helps to see it in layers:

The seven brightness levels are on star brightness, and how the transformations move between palaces is on flying stars.

The fourteen main stars aren't placed independently. Once Zi Wei is seated, the positions of the other thirteen follow, so every chart in the world has one of only twelve basic main-star layouts. Two of those layouts fill all twelve palaces exactly; the other ten leave squares with no main star, called Empty Palaces.

Chart, Life Palace, Decade chart, Annual chart

These words often get mixed up, but they mean different things:

The natal chart is the base; the Decade Luck and Annual Luck are layers of time on top. A time layer changes which square is read as the Life Palace for that period; the stars themselves don't move.

Where to start reading

Volume three of the Quan Shu lists the old order of reading a chart. Its first three steps are:

First, look at the Life Palace: good and bad, temple and prosperous, transformations to good and to Ji, generating and overcoming.Next, look at the Body Master: good and bad, generating and overcoming.Third, look at the stars of the Travel, Wealth and Career trines for clashes and breaks.

Today it can be simplified into three steps:

1. See who lives in the Life Palace. Its main star is your base color. If the Life Palace has no main star, follow the Empty Palace rules and borrow the stars opposite.
2. Then read the San Fang Si Zheng. Read the Life Palace together with the opposite Travel Palace and the two trine palaces, Wealth and Career. Only the four together show how a person earns, works and comes across in the world. See San Fang Si Zheng.
3. Look at time last. Once you understand the natal chart, see which palaces your Decade Luck and Annual Luck are moving through.

The order matters. Drawing conclusions from this year's Annual Luck alone is like deciding whether to move house from today's weather. The full reading order is in the beginner's guide.

Reading one chart

Say the Life Palace is in Yin, with Zi Wei and Tian Fu together. In the Zi-Wei-in-Yin layout, the Travel Palace opposite (Shen) holds Qi Sha, the Wealth Palace (Xu) holds Wu Qu, and the Career Palace (Wu) holds Lian Zhen with Tian Xiang.

• Life: Zi Wei and Tian Fu: steady and self-assured, used to holding the room, and keen to keep things safe.
• Wealth: Wu Qu: practical about money, happy to earn it step by step through skill.
• Career: Lian Zhen and Tian Xiang: suited to work with structure and clear boundaries; plays by the rules.
• Travel: Qi Sha: decisive and bold once out in the world; the outside stage brings out the tougher side.

Together: calm at home, a fighter outside, someone who values order at work. That's the "Life Palace first, then San Fang Si Zheng" method; the time layers go on top afterward.

Common misunderstandings

• A chart isn't a sentence passed on your life. It describes tendencies and rhythm, and people with the same chart live very different lives. Quite a few people in the world share your chart; the difference is how each of them uses it.
• Different results don't always mean someone is wrong. Software differs on the late Zi hour, leap months, daylight saving, true solar time and where the first Decade Luck starts. Xingge's rules, and every place they depart from the Quan Shu, are listed on How Xingge casts a chart.
• The birth hour matters most. One double-hour earlier or later and the Life Palace moves a palace, turning every palace on the chart. If you're unsure of your birth time, both charts are worth reading.