Zi Wei Dou Shu
What is my Life master star
The Life master is the star tied to the branch of your Life palace. Enter your birth date and time and this page looks it up with the same engine as the full chart.
Three questions that get asked as one
When you ask for your Life master, you may mean one of three things. The Life master is the star this page returns, from the branch of the Life palace. The Life palace itself is the place, counted on How the Life palace is found. The major star in the Life palace is whichever of the fourteen stars actually sits there, and that room can be empty.
The Life master does not replace the major star. A Life palace in Wu always has Po Jun as Life master, while the star in the room might be Tian Tong, or none. Read both before you decide what the chart is saying.
The branch table
Zi is Tan Lang. Chou and Hai are Ju Men. Yin and Xu are Lu Cun. Mao and You are Wen Qu. Chen and Shen are Lian Zhen. Si and Wei are Wu Qu. Wu is Po Jun. Opposite branches share a star, except Zi and Wu, which each have their own.
Tan Lang, Ju Men, Lian Zhen, Wu Qu, and Po Jun are major stars, and each has a long page. Lu Cun and Wen Qu are support stars and do not. If you land on one of those two, still open the chart and see which major star sits in the Life palace.
The branch has to be right first. How the Life palace is found is the count, including leap months and the late Zi hour. This page starts after that count.
Why the same Life master is not the same person
The Life master ignores brightness and the four transformations. Two people with a Life palace in Chou both have Ju Men as Life master, and still have different stars in the Life palace, the opposite, and the trines. Using only the Life master flattens those charts into one line.
The body palace is a different question: which of the twelve rooms the body lands in. That page is Where the body palace is. The body master is yet another star, from the year branch, and the full chart prints it in the center. It is not calculated here.
To see the major star in the Life palace, open the free chart with the same birth. The long notes are the 14 main stars.
Branch to Life master
A worked example
Same birth as the Life palace example: 20 May 1990, 08:40, Taipei. The Life master is read off the branch, then checked against the engine.
Clock 08:40, true solar time about 08:49. Lunar month 4, Chen hour.
Month walk from Yin: Yin, Mao, Chen, Si. The birth month lands on Si.
Backward to the Life palace
- Zi hour → Si
- Chou hour → Chen
- Yin hour → Mao
- Mao hour → Yin
- Chen hour → Chou
The Life palace is Chou. The Life master is Ju Men.
Questions
How is the Life master different from the star in the Life palace?
The Life master comes from the branch table, and there is one. The star in the Life palace is whichever major star sits there. The room can be empty, or it can hold two. Both are real, and they answer different questions.
Why is my Life master Lu Cun or Wen Qu?
Yin or Xu gives Lu Cun. Mao or You gives Wen Qu. Those two are support stars, so they have no long page of their own. The major star in the Life palace is still worth reading.
Can a small time change swap the Life master?
Yes. A different double-hour can move the Life palace branch, and the Life master moves with it. About three hours of uncertainty often crosses one double-hour. Near an edge, trust the true-solar time.
Can I change my Life master?
No. It is fixed by the branch. What you can do is get the birth time right so the branch is not the wrong one.