The Wellbeing palace: toil, ease, five "first looks"

Eleventh place, with Wealth across from it

The Wellbeing palace is the eleventh of the twelve. Its opposite needs no working out, because the book writes it down:

Fourth, look at the Wellbeing palace for Authority, Emolument, Plunder and Void, bright or fallen; Wellbeing faces Wealth.

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Across from Wellbeing (green) sits Wealth (brown), the very pairing juan 3 spells out; Partner and Travel (purple) stand on its trine.

On the ring Wellbeing is no. 11, and six places across stands the Wealth palace at no. 5, as that line says; the Partner palace (no. 3) and the Travel palace (no. 7) sit on its two trine positions. Those four palaces are read as one set; how that set is counted is explained in three sides and four directions. The place and reading of Wealth is in Wealth, and Travel is in Travel.

Toil and ease: two ends in the book

The Wellbeing section of juan 2 runs to 27 paragraphs covering 22 stars or star pairs and closing on the Dou Jun (斗君) and the year ruler; each star entry says whether the palace gives "enjoyment" or "toil." Counts of several word groups:

What is interesting is that one star is often written at both ends: Wu Qu (武曲) "toils in mind and strength, yet if bright is calmly at ease"; Tian Ji (天机) "toil first, ease later"; the Sun "blessings amid the bustle." Toil and ease are not exclusive; they are a sequence or a condition inside a single entry. When malefics such as Qing Yang (擎羊), Tuo Luo (陀罗), Huo Xing (火星) and Ling Xing (铃星) join, entries mostly turn to "worry," "unease" and "no quiet," three words that occur 16 times together.

One palace, five different "look first" lists

Search the book for lists of what to look at first and Wellbeing turns up in very different places:

Five lines side by side show that the book has no single fixed "Wellbeing first." The Marrow verse is in rhyme and simply puts Wellbeing at the front. The Supplementary Tai Wei verse, speaking of male charts, pairs Wellbeing with Wealth as the starting point. In the two lists of juan 3, the male chart looks first at Life and Body, then at Wealth, Career and Travel, so Wellbeing comes third; the female chart looks at Life and Body and goes straight to Wellbeing, with the husband and the children after it. The general rule of the essentials counts down and Wellbeing comes fourth. The order moves with the purpose of the list, so the title of the source must be named when one line is cited.

Tian Tong: the star the book calls "master of Wellbeing"

The star table in juan 2 marks the palace each star rules:

Tian Tong, Water and Metal; of the Southern Dipper, it turns into blessing and is master of Wellbeing.

The entry for Tian Tong (天同) in juan 1 goes further: "the ruling lord of the Wellbeing palace ... in the twelve palaces all called blessing; with no breaking, surely auspicious." By the book's account, Tian Tong sits closest to the Wellbeing topic. The Miao-Wang table of juan 2 also records Tian Tong's grade on each of the twelve branches, which can be drawn as one circle:

Four positions are bright or strong: Snake and Pig are bright, Rat and Monkey strong; Horse is a fall, Ox and Goat are ill-placed; Tiger is marked "benefit," and Rabbit, Dragon, Rooster and Dog "neutral." These are the star's grades on the branches and do not move with the chart: on any chart, Tian Tong on Horse is graded "fallen." To read the Wellbeing palace you still have to confirm, on this chart, which branch Tian Tong falls on and whether it is in the Wellbeing palace.

One star, a different palace, a different line

Juan 2 writes each star into all twelve palaces, one line per palace. Take three stars and four palaces and the wording can be seen shifting with the palace:

The same Wu Qu is "mental toil" in Wellbeing, "not for staying put" in Travel, "a rising military rank" in Career and "a great estate from forebears" in Property: each palace asks a different question, and a star's "keyword" is not fixed. So reading Wellbeing must not carry over that star's remarks from other palaces; return to this section's own entries.

1. 1

   Find Wellbeing, then count its four directions

   Wellbeing is no. 11, its opposite is Wealth, its trine palaces are Partner and Travel, and its neighbors are Property and Parents.

2. 2

   Say which "look first" list you are using

   The Marrow verse, the Supplementary Tai Wei verse and the two juan 3 lists order things differently; name the source when quoting.

3. 3

   Note the words as two ends, toil and ease

   One entry often writes both; record the sequence and condition together, not just one end.

After Wellbeing, read on to the neighbors Property and Parents.