On the Useful God (Lun Yong Shen)

In a chart, the useful god is sought from the month branch above all. Pair the day stem with the month branch and the resulting support or control differs from chart to chart, and so the structures divide. Wealth, officer, resource and output are the useful gods that are benign, and they are used in their own direction. Seven-killings, output, rivalry and the blade are the useful gods that are not benign, and they are used against their direction. To follow when following is right, and to oppose when opposing is right: where the parts fit well together, every such chart is noble. The methods of choosing a useful god are not one. Roughly summarised, they fall into five kinds. The first is support and restraint.

If the day master is strong, restrain it; if it is weak, support it. This is choosing the useful god by support and restraint. If the month's own god is too strong, restrain it; if too weak, support it. This is support and restraint applied to the month itself. The second method is illness and medicine. When support is what you want, whatever damages that support is the illness. When restraint is what you want, whatever removes that restraint is the illness. Take away the illness god, and that is the medicine.

So the useful god is chosen by illness and medicine. The third method is climate. Metal and water born in winter, wood and fire born in summer: where the season is too cold or too dry, adjusting the climate comes first. This is choosing the useful god by climate. The fourth method is single-direction dominance. When the momentum of the four pillars leans entirely to one side and cannot be pushed back, the only course is to go along with it. Following, transforming, and the wholly dominant structures all belong here.

The fifth method is mediation. When two gods face off with equal strength and neither gives way, harmony between them is what you want. This is choosing the useful god as mediator. So when a benign god is used in its own direction: wealth wants output to feed it, and produces officer to protect it. Officer wants wealth showing in the stems to feed it, and produces resource to protect it. Resource wants officer or seven-killings to feed it, and rivalry to protect it. Output wants a strong day master to feed it, and produces wealth to protect it.

And when a god that is not benign is used against its direction: seven-killings wants output to control it, and dislikes wealth or resource feeding it. Output wants resource at its side to control it, and produces wealth to dissolve it. The yang blade wants officer or seven-killings to control it, and dislikes having neither. The month robbery wants officer showing in the stems to control it, and does well to use wealth while letting output show to dissolve it. This is the broad road of following and opposing.

People today do not know to take the month as the governing factor, and then bring every stem and branch of the four pillars back to the month to read what is wanted and what is not. They go so far as to see a direct officer carrying resource and call it officer and resource both complete, judging it the same as a resource structure that uses officer. They see wealth with output showing and, instead of reading it as wealth met by output's support, read it as output producing wealth, judging it the same as an output-produces-wealth chart.

They see indirect resource with output showing and, instead of reading it as the day master's fine expression, call it the owl snatching the output and prescribe wealth to control it, judging it the same as output meeting the owl. They see seven-killings controlled by output with resource showing and, instead of reading it as removing output to protect the killings, call it killings and resource feeding each other, judging it the same as a resource structure meeting killings. Worse, they see a killings structure meeting the blade and, instead of reading it as the blade helping the day master control the killings, call it seven-killings controlling the blade, judging it the same as the blade with killings showing.

All of this comes from arguing without understanding the month. Yet sometimes the month yields no useful god at all. What then? Take wood born in yin or mao, where the day and the month are the same element: the month itself cannot serve as the useful god. You must then look at whether wealth, officer, killings or output appear in the stems or gather in the branches, and choose a useful god elsewhere. Even so, the month still governs, and only then do you look for the god to use. These are the established-seat and month-robbery structures, where the god is not taken from the month, yet the month is still the useful god.