Bazi is the pronunciation of 八字, which directly translates to “8 characters” in English. It is also commonly known as the “4 Pillars of Destiny”.

Bazi is a practice that has been used for centuries since ancient times in China for life readings.

Because the variables of Bazi can be found in flying star feng shui, they are often used together in their application.

Here’s how to map out Bazi with a person’s birth date and time.

There are 4 pillars in the Bazi. They consist of one pillar for year, one pillar for month, one pillar for day and one pillar for time. Each pillar consist of 2 characters, making a total of 8.

Let’s take for example a man born on 4 October 1982 at 4am.

Refer to the Hsia calendar for the year 1982, we can see that for this year, the heavenly stem (HS) is HS9 and the earthly branch (EB) is EB11.

For the month of October, it’s HS6 and EB10.

For the day of the 4th, it’s HS7 and EB9.

Now by referring to this table, the below is what we get.

Hour	Day	Month	Year
	HS7 + Metal	HS6 – Earth	HS9 + Water
	EB9 + Metal	EB10 – Metal	EB11 + Earth

We have now uncovered 3 of the 4 pillars. That was easy isn’t it?

But don’t relax just yet. Because the hour pillar is a little more complicated.

The first step in generating the HS and EB for the hour pillar, is to take note of what is the HS on the day pillar. In this case, it is HS7.

Using HS7, refer to the below Hour Pillar Chart. Take a look at the first row in bold and see which column it is at. In this example of HS7, it is at the second column.

Day HS	HS1 HS6	HS2 HS7	HS3 HS8	HS4 HS9	HS5 HS10
2300 – 0100	HS1 EB1	HS3 EB1	HS5 EB1	HS7 EB1	HS9 EB1
0100 – 0300	HS2 EB2	HS4 EB2	HS6 EB2	HS8 EB2	HS10 EB2
0300 – 0500	HS3 EB3	HS5 EB3	HS7 EB3	HS9 EB3	HS1 EB3
0500 – 0700	HS4 EB4	HS6 EB4	HS8 EB4	HS10 EB4	HS2 EB4
0700 – 0900	HS5 EB5	HS7 EB5	HS9 EB5	HS1 EB5	HS3 EB5
0900 – 1100	HS6 EB6	HS8 EB6	HS10 EB6	HS2 EB6	HS4 EB6
1100 – 1300	HS7 EB7	HS9 EB7	HS1 EB7	HS3 EB7	HS5 EB7
1300 – 1500	HS8 EB8	HS10 EB8	HS2 EB8	HS4 EB8	HS6 EB8
1500 – 1700	HS9 EB9	HS1 EB9	HS3 EB9	HS5 EB9	HS7 EB9
1700 – 1900	HS10 EB10	HS2 EB10	HS4 EB10	HS6 EB10	HS8 EB10
1900 – 2100	HS1 EB11	HS3 EB11	HS5 EB11	HS7 EB11	HS9 EB11
2100 – 2300	HS2 EB12	HS4 EB12	HS6 EB12	HS8 EB12	HS10 EB12

Now take a look at that column and go to the row where you find 4am as used in this example.

It is HS5 and EB3.

The Bazi of 4 pillars is now complete.

Hour	Day	Month	Year
HS5 + Earth	HS7 + Metal	HS6 – Earth	HS9 + Water
EB3 + Wood	EB9 + Metal	EB10 – Metal	EB11 + Earth

The self element is the HS in the day pillar.

We can basically tell that this individual used as example has a self element of very strong Metal. It is supported by Metal below it and Earth (which gives birth to Metal) on both sides. You can learn more about self elemental relationships here.