BaZi
How to read a BaZi chart: a step-by-step guide
A BaZi chart looks like eight Chinese characters in a grid. Read in the right order, it becomes a clear picture of your nature and your timing. Here is the order practitioners use.
Step 1: Lay out the four pillars
Write the pillars from right to left in the traditional way, or left to right as most apps do: year, month, day, hour. Each pillar has a Heavenly Stem on top and an Earthly Branch below. The year pillar is about roots and early life, the month pillar about parents and career setting, the day pillar about you and your partner, and the hour pillar about children, ideas and later life.
Check the calendar first. The BaZi year begins at Li Chun (about 4 February) and each month begins at a solar term, so a chart built on the lunar month or on 1 January can be wrong for anyone born near a boundary.
Step 2: Find your Day Master
The Heavenly Stem of the day pillar is your Day Master (日主). It is the reference point for everything else. There are ten: Jia and Yi Wood, Bing and Ding Fire, Wu and Ji Earth, Geng and Xin Metal, Ren and Gui Water. Our guide to the ten Day Masters describes each one.
Step 3: Judge the strength of the Day Master
Look at the month branch first, because it shows the season you were born in, and the season decides which element is in power. A Wood Day Master born in spring is “in season” and strong; the same Day Master born in autumn, the Metal season, is weaker. Then count the stems and branches that support the Day Master (the same element, and the element that produces it) against those that drain or control it.
Step 4: Count the five elements and find the useful ones
Tally Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water across all eight characters, including the hidden stems inside each branch. A strong Day Master usually benefits from the elements that drain, control or are controlled by it. A weak Day Master benefits from the elements that support it. These favourable elements (喜用神) are the source of lucky colours, numbers, directions and careers in a reading.
Step 5: Read the Ten Gods
Every other character relates to the Day Master as one of the Ten Gods (十神), grouped in five pairs:
- Companions (比劫): friends, peers and rivals.
- Output (食伤): creativity, expression and skills.
- Wealth (财): money, resources and, for men traditionally, the wife.
- Authority (官杀): career, rules, pressure and, for women traditionally, the husband.
- Resource (印): learning, support, mother and reputation.
Which gods are prominent, and whether they are favourable, gives the character of the chart.
Step 6: Add the luck pillars and the year
Below the natal chart sit the luck pillars (大运), each lasting ten years, and above them the annual pillar (流年). A luck pillar that brings your favourable elements tends to feel easier; one that brings unfavourable elements asks for more patience. 2027 is a Ding Wei (丁未) Fire Goat year, so it adds Fire and Earth to every chart.
Above all, read the chart as a whole and with a light touch. BaZi is a cultural framework for reflection, not a scientific forecast.
Common questions
Which pillar is the most important in BaZi?
The day pillar, because its stem is the Day Master. The month branch comes next, because it sets the season and the strength of each element.
Do I need my birth time to read a BaZi chart?
It helps, but three pillars still show your Day Master, its season and most of the element balance.