The Eight Structures (Ba Ge)

Eight patterns, and their limits

The Eight Structures are the eight ways a month can hand the chart its ruling spirit: wealth, officer, resource, and output, each in a correct and a biased form. The chapter sets that framework and then immediately limits it — influence that arrives from far away and rests on nothing is empty, and a wealth-officer hidden in residual qi should not be forced into the same mould as one that is plainly present. The pattern names a tendency, not a verdict.