ShiXiang of http://artoflifez.blogspot.com/ has selflessly contributed a lot on the art of deciphering BaZi the structural manner instead of the imagery manner. He has acquired such knowledge almost without much investment, thus he is able to share what he learnt via his blog and I find it very informative indeed. Such a noble task is worth praising. I take notice of the manner in which the self (some called the day master) is categorised as strong or weak. I put aside the debates of the need to identify the strength of the self for some other time and just narrow down to the manner of which it is categorise.
The first principle is to determine the self is born: -
In the season that supports the self (some called it as in season),
Supported by the Heavenly Stem (HS) (some called in location),
Supported by the Earthly Branch (EB) (some called in formation).
If either 2 out of the 3 conditions are fulfilled, the self is known as a strong self and a strong self will need to be weakened. Whereas, a weak self will need to be strengthened. Kindly note that this method is not what has been advocated by an academy that instantaneously qualifies the self as strong when the self is born in season as many real case studies shown otherwise.
Special cases were reserved for the followings: -
The storages and graveyards of the Earth months,
The extremely weak self,
The extremely strong self,
The transformation of the supporting HS or EB. However, now every combination will transform and changes into the transformed elements just liked the saying, not all marriages will produce offspring.
Let’s look at this example: -
Ren self born in the month of Yin where wood is prosperous and water is weakened. This person is not born in season. One look at the formation, none of the EB supports the self whereas in the location, only Geng, resource is supporting the self. We have 3 conditions that fulfilled the criteria that this Ren person is a weak chart.
Hold on a second, because there is only one element that is supporting can we considered it an extremely weak chart some called a fake follower chart? Theoretically when a resource is found or revealed in the HS it does not qualify as a fake follower chart because this resource will feed the self and not allowing the self to follow other strong elements in the chart.
A closer examination of the Geng HS as the resource is being clashed away by Bing. Will the clash weakened the resource? First, the resource is not rooted and second, metal is trapped during spring season. In this condition, will the self lose its much needed resource to break away from a mare weak chart to an extremely weak follower chart? Here, the operative clash mechanism will need to be understood.
This chart belongs to a male. If we read it as a weak chart, it means difficult paths lay ahead of him otherwise if it is read as a follower chart, it means he will make it big in the future. How would you see if this was the case?
For more details refer to YI Bazi Inner Discourse.
