Why You Should Know About Your 8 Chinese Characters

I’ve touched on compatibility testing and 8 characters a lot, but I have yet to clearly explain what 8 characters are and why they are important.

By the end of this article, you should have gained some basic knowledge about 8 characters and understand how 8 characters affect you.

In Chinese astrology, the 8 characters actually refer to the date and time of a person’s birth. There are 4 pillars, viz. . .

1. The pillar of the year

2. The pillar of the month

3. The pillar of the day

4. The pillar of the hour

These 4 pillars form the 8 characters since each pillar is made up of a heavenly stem and an earthly branch.

I can hear you ask, what is a heavenly stem and an earthly branch?

Heavenly stems and earthly branches are used to represent each year. As you probably know, there are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac and for each element, there is a different element. The 5 elements and the 12 animals form 60 combinations.

After every 60 years, the cycle repeats itself.

The 5 elements actually represent the 10 heavenly stems. There are 2 heavenly stems for each item. One for the “yin” version of that element and the other for the “yang” version.

There are 12 earthly branches, representing each of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac.

For each year, there is a heavenly stem and an earthly branch. Similarly, for each month, each day, and each hour, there is also a heavenly stem and an earthly branch.

This is how the 8 characters are derived.

Next, there is something called the pillars of luck. The lucky pillars are derived from the pillar of your month, either backwards or forwards. Depending on whether you are a man or a woman and the year you were born.

The luck pillar is very important as it determines your lucky cycle for a period of 5 to 10 years.

So how do you determine if your lucky cycle is good?

From your 8 characters, you will be able to determine which elements favor you and which do not.

When you find favorable elements in your lucky pillar, your lucky cycles turn good and vice versa.

From your pillar of the day, you will determine which element represents you. Next is your birth month. Is the month in which you are born favorable to your element?

I’m going to simplify the process here for you. Let’s say you are born on a day of Wood, Metal month.

You probably know that Metal destroys Wood. Therefore, its Wood is weak. You will need more wood or water (water produces wood) for your luck cycle to be good.

Whenever you find Wood or Water on your lucky pillars, your luck cycle turns good. If you come across Metal or Fire, your luck cycle turns bad. As Metal destroys Wood and Fire burns Wood.

Do you know why people die?

Based on 8 characters, you can determine whether a person will survive a serious illness. Let me explain with a real life story.

I have a friend whose relative suffered from cancer. I was curious, so I asked for the relative’s date of birth.

The element of this relative was Water, and he was born in Summer, a month of Fire. Now, when Water is born in a month of Fire, what happens?

Water evaporates right?

Therefore, this relative must have Water and Metal (Metal produces Water) in its luck pillars to have a smooth luck cycle. I checked his lucky pillars to see if he would survive the disease.

I was shocked.

He was going through a period of fire for 5 years. From 2003 to 2007, everything was Fire in his lucky pillars. He discovered that he had cancer in 2006 (year of the Dog of Fire, a year of double fire). He somehow knew that he would not survive due to the “intense fire” he was going through.

But I kept quiet because I didn’t want my friend to get angry.

In fact, he passed away in June 2007, which happened to be a Fire Horse month (Double Fire again).

Before that, I tried to advise my friend to help his relative to improve his luck cycle. But my friend, being a Christian, did not believe in all this.

Things might have been better if you had increased Water and Metal in your daily life. But this is where fate comes into play. As much as I would like to “save” him, but I can’t. It saddens me.

Let me share another case study. This time it’s my brother.

My brother is from Earth born in a month of Metal. The favorable elements of him are Fire (Fire produces Earth) and Earth.

I checked his lucky pillars, he was going through a Fire lucky pillar. In fact, he started going through the Fire period from the age of 16, and he was 25 years old as a Fire lucky pillar. Before the age of 16, he did not do well in his studies.

The age of 16 was his turning point. She has been doing well in all areas of her life ever since.

So from here, you can see that by knowing your 8 characters, you can tell when your good times and bad times are. You won’t be taken by surprise and you can take steps to reduce the effect of unfavorable elements.

I will share with you how to do it in another article.