“Ba” in Chinese means “Eight” (八), Zi in Chinese means “Word” or “Character” (字), it does not necessarily mean the person’s “Character”, but somewhat more of his/her “Characteristic”. And directly translated, it means “Eight Characters”

According to Ancient Chinese, “Ba Zi” is a person’s “Life Blueprint”. It represents a person’s Hour, Day, Month and Year of Birth. ie. What time, which year, the person is born.

And it is also the person’s “Pillar of Destiny“, or “Four Pillars“. Each of this four pillar is made up of two rows of “readings”. The first row shows four columns (Hour, Day, Month and Year) of the person’s Heavenly stem elements and the second row shows the person’s Earthly branches elements, thus it forms the Eight Characters.

From the person’s BaZi, we can determine a person’s career, wealth, health, relationships, characteristics, past, present, future, and anything under the sun, star, moon..

However, a person’s future is not really “fixed”, thus even by telling your “future” with BaZi, you still have control of your life, and there are things that you can do that can “change your future”.

There is a saying,

一命二运三风水, 四积功德五读书

one’s life is determined in this order, First is Fate, Second is Luck, Third is Feng Shui, Forth is attributed by your Good Deeds or Karma, and Fifth is your Education. (It goes up to “Twelve”, see below)

Therefore, even if one is “fated” to have “bad luck”, he/she can still change his/her destiny with Feng Shui remedies, or perform good deeds and increasing his/her knowledge.

In addition to the above Chinese saying, it continues to “twelve”, ie.

一命二运三风水, 四积功德五读书,

六名七相八敬神, 九交贵人十养生,

十一择业与择偶, 十二趋吉要避凶

 

Sixth is Name, Seventh is Facial, Eighth is Respect to Gods and Religion, Ninth is Getting Help from People, Tenth is Health, Eleventh is Career and Twelfth is about Superstitious Beliefs.