Dou Shu Zhun Sheng

The two opening lines deal with the Life Palace and the Body Palace in turn. For the Life Palace, look at 「生旺」: Chang Sheng and Di Wang among the twelve Chang Sheng spirits are where qi is fullest, and a Life Palace there has a thick foundation for wealth and rank. For the Body Palace, look at 'emptiness': if the Body Palace falls in Xun Kong or Jie Kong, the rise and fall of a life needs especially careful study. Treating Life and Body separately is a common view in the Quan Shu: the Life Palace is the inborn pattern, the Body Palace is where one puts in effort later, and if the Body Palace is empty, effort easily fails to land. On a Xingge chart, the Body Palace is marked with the character 身 beside one palace, and you can see directly whether that palace has Xun Kong, Jie Lu or Kong Wang; the Chang Sheng spirit is marked under the Life Palace.

The note explains that 「南極」 here has two readings. It is worth adding that the Quan Shu itself rates Zi Wei in Wu highly: volume three's Star Combinations: Zi Wei says 「紫微居午無刑忌，甲丁己命至公卿」, the volume three table gives Zi Wei Miao in Wu, and Xingge's brightness table also has it Miao. If 'southern pole' means the Wu palace, this line runs against the Quan Shu's main view. The other reading takes 'southern pole' as the domain of the Southern Dipper: Zi Wei is lord of the Northern Dipper, and its commands do not work among the Southern Dipper stars, while Tian Fu, the commanding star of the Southern Dipper, can bring blessings in full on its own ground. The second reading makes more sense, but there is no settled answer.

The note explains the problem with 「天機七殺同宮」 in the first line. The second line is very concrete: Tai Yin sharing a palace with Huo Xing or Ling Xing 「反成十惡」. Tai Yin is water and stands for softness; Huo and Ling are fire and stand for haste; water and fire clash, and Tai Yin's sensitivity turns gloomy and extreme. This echoes the Xing Yuan Lun's point about water and fire balancing each other: in balance it is fine, in conflict it is malign. The Health Palace chapter also says Tian Tong and Tai Yin in the same palace with 「加羊火」 stand for illnesses of the blood and qi. Read today: sharp emotional swings, calm outside and agitated within, prone to extreme decisions under pressure. When Tai Yin is Miao or Wang it is milder; Tai Yin Xian (Mao, Chen, Si) with Huo or Ling calls for the most care.

This line calls Tan Lang a 「善宿」, a benign star, which is not how the Xing Xing Fu puts it when it calls Tan Lang a 「善惡之星」, a star that can go good or bad, but the conclusion is the same: in its temple it is not malign. Ju Men is an 「惡曜」, and in a suitable enclosure it is especially fine. On Xingge's brightness table Tan Lang is Miao in Chen, Xu, Chou and Wei; Ju Men is Miao in Yin, Shen, Mao and You and Wang in Zi, Wu, Si and Hai. The point of the line is that so-called good and bad stars are not fixed; brightness matters more than the star's name. Read today, with Tan Lang in its temple, desire turns into ambition and social skill; with Ju Men in a suitable enclosure, the gift of the gab turns into professional analysis and persuasiveness.

「緊要之鄉」, key places, usually means important palaces other than the Life Palace, such as Wealth, Career and Travel. Malign stars there are best held down by some other star; if the malign star is in the Body or Life Palace itself, it stands for loneliness. Why loneliness? With a malign star in the Life Palace the personality is hard and difficult to approach, and prone to harmful clashes with family. Read this line together with the Tai Wei Fu's 「諸星吉，逢凶也吉」 (Tai Wei Fu): a malign star is not a conclusion in itself; the question is whether auspicious stars or Hua Lu and Hua Ke hold it in check. When reading a chart with Qing Yang, Tuo Luo, Huo Xing or Ling Xing in the Life Palace, first look for stars that can control malefics, such as Zi Wei, Tian Fu and Tian Liang, in the San Fang Si Zheng.

This line is about luck periods: when the Decade Luck or Annual Luck reaches a palace with a Sha star, it is most malign; but if Tian Tong (福) or Tian Liang (蔭) comes in, it may be resolved. The Quan Shu repeatedly says Tian Liang's 'shelter' can dissolve disaster, and the Tai Wei Fu also says 「蔭福聚不怕凶危」 (Tai Wei Fu). The word 「庶幾」 is carefully measured: 'it may perhaps', not a guarantee. When reading a chart, open the Decade or Annual Luck and see whether the luck period's Life Palace has a killing star such as Qi Sha or Qing Yang, then whether its San Fang Si Zheng has Tian Tong or Tian Liang, or Hua Lu or Hua Ke. If so, that luck period carries pressure but still leaves room for things to turn around.

This line is a reminder to whoever is reading the chart: the key is 「機變」, flexibility, together with careful study. Having given a few rules, the text immediately adds that rules are not rigid. This is a consistent attitude throughout the Quan Shu: the Tai Wei Fu opens by saying 「不可一概論議」, and also says 「不察其機，更忘其變，則數之造化遠矣」. Read today: do not apply every line of a rhapsody as a formula. The same line on different charts has to be weighed by combination, brightness, transformations and luck periods to decide how far it holds.

This line names two tools of judgment. The first is 「生剋制化」: the Five Elements relations between star and star and between star and palace, used to settle 窮通, whether a life goes against the grain or with it. The second is 「好惡正偏」: whether stars are good or bad, main or secondary, used to speak of misfortune and fortune. 'Main and secondary' is generally understood as the difference between main stars and supporting and minor stars: the main stars set the general direction, the supporting and minor stars adjust the details. Reading a chart goes in the same order: first look at the main stars' brightness and their generating and overcoming to set out the overall pattern, then look at the supporting stars and the transformations to judge specific good and bad fortune.

「官星居於福地」: a star of rank in the Fortune Palace brings one close to noble patrons, with honour and wealth. 「福星居於官宮」: Tian Tong in the Career Palace is of no use instead. This is interesting, because the Quan Shu's own Career Palace chapter says 「天同入廟文武皆宜」 and does not rate Tian Tong in the Career Palace low, so the two passages disagree. One possible reading: Tian Tong is the star of enjoying blessings and stands for ease, and placed in the Career Palace, which calls for striving, it lacks drive; but if it is in its temple and meets auspicious stars, it can still hold a stable post. In today's terms, people with Tian Tong in the Career Palace value a comfortable working environment and suit stable workplaces with a human touch, not high-pressure competition.

This is a very practical principle: good stars in the Body and Life Palaces matter most, and luck periods must meet auspicious stars for honour to come. Neither can be missing. A good chart with poor luck leaves talent with nowhere to show itself; a poor chart with good luck brings a spell of success on an unstable foundation. The close of the Tai Wei Fu, 「人生榮辱限元必有休咎」 (Tai Wei Fu), means the same. When reading a chart, first look at the stars in the natal Life and Body Palaces to establish the person's foundation; then look at which palaces the Decade Lucks pass through in turn. The decade whose Life Palace and San Fang Si Zheng have the most auspicious stars, Hua Lu and Hua Quan is the ten years in which the person can do the most.

For descendants, look only at Qing Yang, Po Jun (耗) and Qi Sha; meeting them harms the children, and the Spouse Palace is the same. This is not quite the same list of 'lonely stars' as in the Xing Xing Fu: the Xing Xing Fu names Tian Ji, Qing Yang, Qi Sha and Tian Liang as lonely stars, while here it is Qing Yang, Po Jun and Qi Sha. Common to both are Qing Yang and Qi Sha, both of which stand for harm and severity. For a modern reader, with these stars in the Children Palace there is easily conflict between parent and child, or the children have strong personalities and leave home early; in the Spouse Palace, a marriage with many arguments and much time apart. Whether there is real 'harm' depends on whether auspicious stars and Hua Lu or Hua Ke hold them in check.

'Appearance' is another name for the Parents Palace, as the note explains. The Parents Palace is read for appearance, so malign stars there mean a disfigured face; the Health Palace is read for the body, so Hua Ji there means thinness and illness. This says the same thing as the Tai Wei Fu's 「忌暗同居身命疾厄，沉困尪羸」 (Tai Wei Fu). The 'Your chart' comparison lists Hua Ji in the Health Palace as each of the stars that can take Hua Ji. When reading a chart, open the Health Palace and look for the Hua Ji mark, then see which star carries it; the star's element and nature point to different parts of the body. It is a reminder about health, not a diagnosis.

The close says to look for 「同年之相合」, reading together with the birth year, and to take all the points above as the outline and the plumb line. 'The same year' is generally understood as the stem and branch of the birth year: the same set of stars gives different transformations, and so different good and bad fortune, for people born under different year stems. That is why the Quan Shu so often qualifies a line with 'born in Jia, Ding or Ji years' or 'born in Bing or Wu years'. On a Xingge chart, the birth-year stem decides the birth-year transformations, and every Hua Lu, Hua Quan, Hua Ke and Hua Ji is marked. The line reminds readers that the rules above must all have the year-stem transformations added before they apply to an individual.