This is a continuation of my previous article on the differences between Bazi and Zi Wei Dou Shu (ZWDS).
It is naturally more difficult to do a Bazi reading at the level of intricate detail that a ZWDS reading can offer because Bazi collapses many aspects of human relationships, eg spouse and wealth into 1 item. If we can conceptualize the difference between a folding and non-folding bike, we’ll understand that Bazi works best for convenient and fast reading, while ZWDS makes the cut for cumbersome but powerful reading.
Another difference between the 2 is that Bazi can give us a reasonably accurate (about 70%) indicator of a person’s character and luck if we have the date of birth without the time of birth. For ZWDS, it will not be possible to come close to getting a good idea of a person’s character and luck without information about the day and time of birth.
Due to the above differences, we can also conclude that Bazi is more appropriate for a general review of a person’s luck because it is easier and faster to read a Bazi chart. ZWDS is best suited for reading intricate details including sexual attitudes, how one behaves at home, workplace, during leisure activities, etc. and informative even to the point of identifying one’s profession as a prostitute. This is such a complex level of detail that Bazi practitioners have trouble reading it. The reason ZWDS can read intricate details of one’s life is because it requires many layers and perspectives of analysis, and as a result, it takes much longer. As such, Bazi is more useful for detecting a trend, while ZWDS is more appropriate for analysis of the individual events that make up the trend. We can use the analogy that Bazi is like radar, more apt to detect presence, while ZWDS is like X-rays, which are more useful for analyzing the content of a present object.
Throughout my practice with both tools, I’ve noticed that Bazi is much more likely to hit a blind spot when analyzing the fate of the average Joe. Many Bazi teachers and authors use Bazi charts from celebrities such as Donald Trump as examples to illustrate the accuracy of their Bazi reading. Well, high-profile people like Donald Trump will naturally lead a life of extremes, and because Bazi is good at general review, he will naturally be able to identify such extremes in luck. But using a big-picture tool that looks at the lives of average Joes (who don’t go to such extremes) is sure to run into some patches of ambiguity.
Bazi shares many of the same fundamentals (Yin and Yang theory, 5 element theory, trigram images, etc.) as other Chinese metaphysical topics such as Fengshui, Chinese date selection. ZWDS, on the other hand, only uses these foundations sporadically, but more of their unique foundations. As a result, knowledge of Bazi is critical as a stepping stone to mastering other subjects of Chinese metaphysics, while knowledge of ZWDS is not so critical. By the same reasoning, Bazi can be used for other aspects including event prediction or divination, while ZWDS is strictly a personal destiny reading tool.
The million dollar question one can ask would be “Is Bazi or ZWDS a better Chinese astrology tool?” I won’t say one is better than the other, but why limit your read scope when we can have both? Any self-respecting practitioner of Chinese astrology or fengshui should use both methods rather than one. Fate analysis becomes very clear if we switch between a general analysis and a multi-level micro-analysis.