Selected readings from the Gu Sui Fu

What the Gu Sui Fu is

The "Gu Sui Fu", in full the "Dou Shu Gu Sui Fu" (The Marrow Rhapsody of Dou Shu), is in volume one of the *Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu*. "Marrow" means the essence. It compresses rules scattered across the book into paired lines of rhyme for easy memorization, like an ancient exam-prep summary. Volume one also has a separate "Marrow Rhapsody for Women's Charts", devoted to women's charts and heavily colored by its time.

It opens with a caution

The first lines of the Gu Sui Fu say "first understand the pattern, then look at the stars", then admit that people "born in the same year, month, day and hour" can still differ in wealth and standing. Then comes this line:

Good and bad fortune do not come by one road alone; good and ill cannot be judged by one example.

Good and bad don't come by only one road, and one example can't be applied to everything. The line before it even says "some, in a poor luck period, gather a fortune in gold and silver; some, in prosperous ground, meet years of hardship": people in bad periods can make a fortune, and people in good periods can struggle for years. The chart is a starting point, not a script.

The reading order

First look at Fortune, then examine Travel again and again; separate the substance and function of the opposite palace, and settle the source and flow of the trines.

This line reads like a chart-reading procedure:

1. First the Fortune Palace: whether your heart is at ease.
2. Then the Travel Palace: how you are out in the world.
3. Tell the palace and its opposite palace apart: which is primary and which supporting.
4. Use the trine to connect the related cells.

The last three steps are how the San Fang Si Zheng is read. Why Fortune first? If someone earns a lot and does well at work, yet can't sleep or let go after hours, you'd hardly say they're doing well. That's what the Fortune Palace looks at.

Star natures in one line

In reading a chart, one must weigh the stars' nature: Ju Men, Po Jun and Qing Yang are surely firm. Tian Fu, Tian Xiang, Tian Tong and Tian Liang are surely good-natured; Huo Xing, Di Jie, Di Kong and Tan Lang are changeable. Wen Chang, Wen Qu, Lu Cun and Tian Ji are refined and clever; Tai Yin, Tai Yang, Zuo Fu and You Bi are the most kind.

These lines sort more than a dozen stars into a few temperaments: Ju Men, Po Jun and Qing Yang lean firm; Tian Fu, Tian Xiang, Tian Tong and Tian Liang are good-natured; Huo Xing, Di Jie, Di Kong and Tan Lang change a lot; Wen Chang, Wen Qu, Lu Cun and Tian Ji are refined and clever; Tai Yang, Tai Yin, Zuo Fu and You Bi are the gentlest. As a beginner's shorthand for star natures, it's very handy.

The same piece changes direction

The Gu Sui Fu has two lines right next to each other: "Lian Zhen and Qi Sha instead become people who build wealth; Tian Liang and Tai Yin instead become wanderers." The next line says "Lian Zhen governs a lowly and lonely life; Tai Yin governs a lifetime of happiness". The same Lian Zhen builds wealth in one line and is lonely in the next; the same Tai Yin wanders in one line and is happy for life in the next.

The ancients didn't make a mistake; each line has its conditions: which cell it falls in, which stars it meets. Take away the conditions and read a line alone, and you'll reach opposite conclusions. That's exactly what the opening line means by "cannot be judged by one example".

Some lines are very heavy

The middle and later parts of the Gu Sui Fu include many historical figures, like Li Guang, Yan Hui and Deng Tong, and some verdicts are absolute, tying certain combinations directly to poverty or short lives. That's the style of chart books in that era. Xingge doesn't read them literally and only takes the tendencies they describe.

The Gu Sui Fu itself leaves room further on: "hidden virtue extends life and adds a hundred blessings; even in fallen ground, no harm comes", and "a good heart with a weak chart still brings long life". "Hidden virtue" means doing good quietly. Volume three even devotes a chapter, "On Hidden Virtue Extending Life", telling the story of Song Jiao weaving a bridge of reeds so ants could cross the water. In plain terms: kindness and doing good matter more than positions on a chart. The ancients knew themselves that people aren't decided by the stars alone.