Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Back to Basics

When teachers spend a lot of time on the basics, they are good teachers. Students must get the basics right before moving on to the application. It may be boring to some impatient students when the basics are brought out from time to time. Some people write tons of books on the same subject but they have a weak foundation. That is why a lot of wrong ideas are sprouting and being spread out like bamboo shoots after the rain.

One of these ideas is what people call "hidden stems" in the study of Four Pillars of Destiny 四柱命理. 

"Hidden stems" may have come from the term Di Zhi Cang Gan 地支藏干. It must be noted that the word Cang 藏 used here means "storage" or "storing up". If you have in your mind only "hide and seek", then it is totally off the point and the interpretation like "hidden talent" will be invented because of the wrong picture. In the Feng Shui classic Zang Shu 葬書, it is written 葬者藏也 "to bury is to place in storage". Graveyard may lead to another false picture leading to misinterpretation if the purpose of burial is misunderstood. 

The different layers of understanding the Shi Tian Gan 十天干 and Shi Er Di Zhi 十二地支 should be taught at different stages and cannot be taken for granted in BaZi 八字 courses.


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