Auspicious Date Selection
Frequent Ask Question:
New comer usually ask this question: How do I choose an auspicious day, based on the recommendation of an almanac or based on my favorable element?
Even though an almanac contained a lot of information and category on day selection, but modern Chinese hardly relies on all of the categories except those that are important like grand opening, renovating a house, moving into a house, ground breaking etc.
We need to bear in mind that the almanac is for general use, so in actual usage, not surprise to see that masters also teach that one needs to consider the favorable element.
But can we just use favorable element without considering the almanac?
First thing first, there are some questions that we need to tackle in term of using ¡¥Stem-Branch¡¦ to find good date
1. A day is made up of Stem and Branch, if one likes wood, it is easy to tell a day is good based on a wood-wood day, but, what if one dislike metal, for a wood-metal or metal-wood day, shall we say it is a mix-bag?
2. Do we need to consider interaction on combination and clashes of a day with the natal chart? Say, even if a person like wood, but the Jia wood may combine with Ji earth to transform to (if the conditions are suitable) earth. So, when a Jia wood day comes, it is no longer wood but earth instead.
There are what different schools teach:
1. Just use the almanac and forget about the favorable element, but bear in mind that the date chosen should not in clashed with the sitting of the house.
2. Just pick a day based on favorable element and ignore the almanac, as the almanac is for common use. A good day based on one¡¦s 4 Pillars is the key.
3. Pick several useable days from almanac, then filter it, to choose those the also suitable to one¡¦s favorable element.
4. Pick a day based on Qi Men Dun Jia ¡V with this method, one needs not worry about the almanac and favorable element.
Of course, when we say locate an auspicious day based on almanac, different almanac contained different methods of choosing a date, some use the traditional San He method, some use Xuan Kong Da Gua and others use heavenly star Qi Zheng Si Yu ¤C¬F¥|¾l.