What is Five Elements Bureau?

The Five Elements Bureau in Zi Wei Dou Shu is the "bureau" set by the Na Yin element of the Life Palace's stem and branch when a chart is cast, and there are five: Water 2, Wood 3, Metal 4, Earth 5 and Fire 6. It looks like a small line of text on the chart, but it governs two big things: which palace Zi Wei falls in, and at what age the first Decade Luck begins. Without the bureau, the main stars can't be placed at all.

The short version:

• Formula: Five Elements Bureau = the Na Yin element of the Life Palace's stem and branch. Take the Life Palace branch and its palace stem, look them up in the Na Yin verse, and you have the bureau.
• Quick lookup: all you need is your birth-year stem and your Life Palace branch. The lookup table below does the Na Yin work for you.
• What the number does: it places Zi Wei, and it's the age (counted the traditional way) at which the first Decade Luck begins, from 2 for Water 2 to 6 for Fire 6.
• Not good or bad: a bigger number isn't a better chart, and the bureau isn't your personal element.

The five bureaus at a glance

The last column is the starting point of the Twelve Life Stages, which also depends on the bureau; Earth starts from Shen just like Water.

How to find the bureau

When casting a chart, first find the Life Palace (see birth chart), then look at that palace's stem and branch. The branch is where the Life Palace sits. The stem is the palace stem, derived from your birth-year stem; volume two of the Quan Shu gives the rule:

Jia and Ji years start Yin with Bing; Yi and Geng years with Wu; Bing and Xin years with Geng; Ding and Ren years with Ren; Wu and Gui years with Jia.

In other words, the birth-year stem sets the stem of the Yin palace, and Mao, Chen, Si and the rest follow in stem order, one palace at a time. Look up that stem-branch pair in the Na Yin verse of the sixty pairs, and the element you get is the bureau. The verse gives two pairs per line, beginning:

Jia Zi and Yi Chou are Metal in the Sea; Bing Yin and Ding Mao are Fire in the Furnace.

Thirty lines cover all sixty pairs. You don't actually need to memorize them: the year stems fall into five pairs and the branches into six pairs, so the result fits in one table:

Find the row for your birth-year stem, then the column for your Life Palace branch. Born in a Yi year with the Life Palace in Wu, for example, gives Wood 3. The year stem follows the lunar year, which changes on lunar New Year's Day, not on the solar term Li Chun.

The Na Yin element isn't the stem's or branch's own element

This is the easiest place to go wrong. Jia is Wood and Zi is Water, yet the Na Yin of Jia Zi is Metal. So you can't guess the bureau from the elements of the stem or branch; you have to look it up:

Wu Chen shows it best: both the stem and the branch are Earth, but the Na Yin is Wood. Charting software uses the table, and when you draw your free chart, your bureau appears in the center.

Working one out

The Quan Shu's own example is someone born in a Jia year with the Life Palace in Yin. In a Jia year the Yin palace takes Bing, so the Life Palace is Bing Yin, whose Na Yin is "Fire in the Furnace": Fire 6. In the table above, the Jia-Ji row and the Yin-Mao column give the same answer.

Now change one thing: still a Jia year, but the Life Palace in Zi. Counting stems on from Bing Yin, Zi gets Bing, so the Life Palace is Bing Zi, whose Na Yin is "Water in the Stream": Water 2. Same birth year, a Life Palace two palaces over, and the bureau moves from Fire 6 to Water 2, so the first Decade Luck starts four years earlier.

Use one: placing Zi Wei

The bureau number, together with your lunar birth day, decides which palace Zi Wei falls in. The Quan Shu draws a table for each bureau, and many modern teachers use a division method instead:

1. Divide the lunar birth day by the bureau number. If it divides evenly, count that many palaces from Yin (Yin counts as the first).
2. If it doesn't, add the smallest number that makes it divide evenly, then count the quotient from Yin.
3. If the number you added is odd, step back counterclockwise that many palaces; if it's even, step forward clockwise that many.

Checking against the book's example: Fire 6 on the first day needs 5 added to divide by 6, giving a quotient of 1, which lands on Yin; 5 is odd, so step back five palaces counterclockwise from Yin to You. That matches the original: on the first day, start at You and place Zi Wei in You.

If you'd rather not calculate, use the table. The left column is the lunar birth day; the other five give the branch where Zi Wei sits:

For example, Fire 6 on the 10th: 10 doesn't divide by 6, so add 2 to make 12, quotient 2, which counts two palaces from Yin to Mao; 2 is even, so step forward two more to Si. The table gives Si for Fire 6 on the 10th as well. Once Zi Wei is seated, the other thirteen main stars follow at fixed intervals. That step is why Sha Po Lang are always in trine and why Zi Fu Lian Wu Xiang keep their fixed relationships.

Use two: the starting age of the first Decade Luck

The age at which the first Decade Luck begins is the bureau number, and the Decade Luck moves one palace every ten years after that. Ages are counted the traditional way, with everyone one year old at birth. In Xingge and in common modern practice, the first Decade Luck is the Life Palace itself; yang men and yin women move clockwise from there, yin men and yang women counterclockwise.

Someone in Wood 3, for example, has a first Decade Luck from 3 to 12 and a second from 13 to 22. Two people born in the same year and month, one Water 2 and one Fire 6, change Decade Luck four years apart: one at 12, 22 and 32, the other at 16, 26 and 36. When you read an Annual Luck and want to know which Decade Luck you're in, the bureau number is the fastest way to tell.

The bureau vs. other "five elements"

Common misunderstandings

• A bigger number isn't better. Fire 6 isn't "stronger" than Water 2; its Decade Luck just starts four years later.
• The bureau isn't your personal element. It's the Na Yin of the Life Palace, not your own element. The element balance in Ba Zi is a different calculation.
• Can the bureau describe personality? Some teachers read Water as flexible and Fire as quick-tempered, but that isn't how the Quan Shu uses it. In the Quan Shu, the bureau is mainly a tool for casting the chart.
• A wrong birth hour can mean a wrong bureau. The Life Palace comes from your birth month and birth hour; one hour off moves the Life Palace one palace, and the bureau may change with it.

To check your own, draw your chart and compare the bureau in the center against the two tables above.