什么是八字 · What is BaZi

BaZi · The Four Pillars, lesson 1: Four pillars, eight characters, and a weather map for your life

第一模块 · 基础 · Module 1 · Foundations · 约 15 分钟，另有约 75 分钟的动手练习 about 15 minutes, plus a hands-on exercise of about 75 minutes

您出生的那一刻，年、月、日、时各对应一组干支——两个字一组，四组共八个字，所以叫“八字”，也叫“四柱”。这八个字不是判决书，而是一张天气图：它标出您这一生哪里多雨、哪里干旱、什么季节适合播种。天气不能改，但看得懂天气的人，出门会带伞。

The traditional Chinese calendar gives every year, every month, every day and every two-hour period its own pair of characters. So the moment you were born has four pairs: one for the year, one for the month, one for the day and one for the hour. That makes eight characters in all. This is why the system is called BaZi (八字), which means "eight characters". It is also called the Four Pillars (四柱). These eight characters are not a verdict on your life. They are more like a weather map. They show where your life tends to get rain and where it tends to be dry, and which seasons are good for planting. You cannot change the weather. But if you can read it, you know when to take an umbrella.

上图是排盘的骨架，四根柱子从右往左依次是年、月、日、时，和解读页的排法一样，所以日柱是左数第二根；下面这一张不一样，它读的是您自己的盘——已经排过的话，您的八个字就直接显示在这里。学这门课最快的方式，就是每讲一个概念，立刻回到自己盘上找一遍：概念留在纸上是知识，落到自己身上才是本事。

The diagram above shows the basic layout of every chart: four pillars, for the year, month, day and hour. They are read from right to left, the same way the reading page lays them out, so the day pillar is second from the left. The panel below is different. It shows your own chart. If you have already cast one, your eight characters appear right here. The fastest way to learn in this course is to take each new idea straight back to your own chart and find it there. An idea that stays on the page is just knowledge. Once you can find it in your own chart, it becomes a skill.

文字讲完结构，不如听老师在盘上讲一遍。本课的讲解视频就在页首：四根柱子按年、月、日、时依次写出来，最后停在日柱的天干上。那个字，就是日主。

A chart's structure is easier to grasp when you watch a teacher go through one. The video at the top of this page writes out the four pillars in order, year, month, day and hour, and ends on the stem of the day pillar. That character is the Day Master.

看视频时请留意一件事：四根柱子是同时存在、互相拉扯的，不是四个各自独立的标签。年柱不会因为您长大了就失效，时柱也不是等到晚年才开始起作用。八个字自出生起就在同一张桌上互相影响，只是不同的人生阶段轮到不同的柱子起主导作用。

As you watch, notice one thing. The four pillars all exist at the same time, and they pull on one another. They are not four separate labels. The year pillar does not stop working once you grow up, and the hour pillar is not waiting for old age before it starts. All eight characters have been acting on one another since the day you were born. What changes from one stage of life to the next is which pillar plays the leading part.

上面就是一张真实排出的命盘（本课程所有图都由本站排盘引擎实时计算）。每根柱子上面一个字叫天干，下面一个字叫地支。四根柱子里，日柱的天干最重要——它代表“您自己”，叫日主。后面整个课程，都是围绕日主展开的。

What you see above is a real chart. Like every chart in this course, it is worked out live by this site's chart engine. In each pillar, the top character is called the Heavenly Stem (天干) and the bottom character is called the Earthly Branch (地支). Of the four pillars, the stem of the day pillar matters most. It stands for you, and it is called the Day Master (日主). The rest of the course is built around it.

从出生时刻到一段解读 · From the moment of birth to a reading

1. 记下出生时刻：年、月、日、时
   Write down the time of birth: year, month, day, hour
2. 按节气历换算成四柱八字
   Turn it into the four pillars, using the solar-term calendar, whose months begin at fixed points in the sun's yearly path
3. 认出日主：盘里的“您”
   Find the Day Master, the "you" in the chart
4. 掂日主的处境：季节、强弱、喜忌
   Size up its situation: its season, its strength, its favorable elements
5. 叠上大运流年，讲成一段人生
   Add the ten-year luck pillars and each individual year, and tell the story of a life

八字能看什么、不能看什么 What BaZi can and cannot tell you

能看：性格底色与天赋、五行的强弱偏好、一生大运的节奏（哪十年顺、哪十年要守）、适合的方向与行业、感情与合作里的模式。不能看：具体某天会发生什么事、彩票号码、别人的隐私。八字给的是概率与倾向，选择权始终在您手里——这也是它千年来真正的用法：知命，然后造命。

BaZi can show your basic temperament and natural talents, and which of the five elements are strong or weak in you. It can show the rhythm of your life in ten-year periods: which decades go smoothly and which call for caution. It can also show the directions and industries that suit you, and your patterns in love and in partnerships. It cannot tell you what will happen on a particular day. It cannot give you lottery numbers, and it cannot reveal other people's private lives. BaZi gives probabilities and tendencies, and the choices are always yours. That is how it has really been used for a thousand years: first understand your fate, then shape it yourself.

这里先拆掉一个最普遍的误会：属相不等于八字。属相只是年柱的地支，八个字里的一个——而且严格说它连“哪一年”都定不准（年以立春为界，第4课细讲）。同一年出生的人，光是月、日、时三柱就能排出八千六百四十种不同组合；把年柱也算进去，全部八字共五十一万八千四百种。拿一个字去代表八个字，误差有多大，算一算就知道。所以“属虎的今年运气差”这类说法，听听就好。

First, let us clear up the most common misunderstanding. Your zodiac animal is not your BaZi. The animal is the branch of the year pillar, just one character out of eight. Strictly speaking, it may not even match the year pillar on your chart, because the BaZi year begins at the Start of Spring (立春), not at Chinese New Year. Lesson 4 explains this in detail. People born in the same year can still have 8,640 different combinations of month, day and hour pillars. Count the year pillar as well, and there are 518,400 possible charts in all. A little arithmetic shows how far off you will be if you judge eight characters by just one of them. So when you hear that people born in the Year of the Tiger will have a bad year, do not take it too seriously.

再给一个立刻能用的读法。天气图的价值不在“预报得多准”，而在“提前多久知道”。老师傅拿到盘，第一件事不是断吉凶，而是先定位：您现在站在哪一段大运里，这十年的主题是攻还是守。知道自己在雨季，就会把重要的谈判排到天晴的那一周；知道自己在旱季，就会先把水存好。同一场雨，落在有备的人身上是灌溉，落在没备的人身上是水灾——这门学问真正的价值，从来在这里。

Here is a way of reading a chart that you can use straight away. The value of a weather map is not how accurate it is. It is how early it warns you. When an experienced reader picks up a chart, the first thing they do is not to call it lucky or unlucky. First they find where you are. Which ten-year period, or luck pillar, are you in now? Is it a time to push forward, or a time to hold your ground? If you know you are in a rainy season, you plan an important negotiation for a week when the weather clears. If you know you are in a dry season, you store water first. The same rain waters the fields of someone who prepared and floods the house of someone who did not. That has always been where the real value of this study lies.

本课要点 · Key takeaways

• 八字 = 出生年、月、日、时的四组干支，共八个字
  BaZi is the four pairs of stem and branch for the year, month, day and hour of your birth: eight characters in all
• 日柱天干 = 日主 = 命盘里的“您”
  The stem of the day pillar is the Day Master, the "you" in the chart
• 八字是天气图，不是判决书：知势而后动
  BaZi is a weather map, not a verdict: understand the conditions, then act

排我的命盘 · Cast my chart

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