The Five Elements and Favourable Elements

The five elements are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. Wood feeds Fire, Fire makes Earth, Earth bears Metal, Metal carries Water and Water nourishes Wood; Wood controls Earth, Earth dams Water, Water quenches Fire, Fire melts Metal and Metal cuts Wood.

A reading first weighs whether the forces that produce or match the Day Master are strong enough, judging it strong or weak. A weak Day Master favours Resource (what produces it) and Friends (what matches it); a strong one favours Output, Wealth and Officer. Traditionally each favourable element also points to directions, colours and suitable lines of work.

The outer curves are the generating cycle (Wood→Fire→Earth→Metal→Water→Wood); the straight lines inside are the controlling cycle (Wood→Earth→Water→Fire→Metal→Wood). Node size follows each element’s strength in the chart; the Fav/Avd tags come from the favoured elements worked out earlier. Generating and controlling are not inherently good or bad — it depends on whether the element being generated or controlled is favoured or unfavourable.

Element correspondences

More topics

• The Four Pillars
• The Ten Day Masters
• The Ten Gods in BaZi
• BaZi Symbolic Stars and the Twelve Stages
• Branch Interactions
• Void (Kong Wang)

This is fixed text compiled from general convention, not a reading of any individual chart and not a prediction. For important decisions, please consult qualified professionals.