Destiny
Can you change your Karma?
YiMing ErYun SanFengShui SiJiYinDe WuDuShu
一命 二運 三風水 四積陰德 五讀書
First Karma, Second Luck, Third FengShui, Fourth Build up Kindness, Fifth Education
- Chinese proverb regarding the five main life factors
1. The Destiny of Life
Several months ago, one of my Chinese astrology clients told me that his legal birthday was on March 1st, but recently discovered from his parents that his real birthday was on February 29th. The reason for the discrepancy was that his parents had said they would have felt sorry for him if he would only be able to celebrate his birthday every four years. They officially claimed his birthday one day later so that he could have a birthday celebration each year. Because of this confusion, he really did not know the truth about his birthday. He said that I should just pick the birthday that gives him a “better” astrology chart, as he would like to hear something nice about his life instead of living with a “bad” chart.
Yes, I could easily present the better chart to him, but would my curated chart help him navigate his real life? Of course not! A correct natal chart is a mirror of one’s destiny. A person’s whole life pattern can be clearly reflected on this mirror if you have learned how to identify the patterns. In order to offer a precise astrology consultation, I told him I would need his actual birthday information in order to see the true mirror of his destiny.
In order to clear up the confusion, I calculated both charts - one for each of his two birthday possibilities. After checking his health history and a few key life events, I was able to figure out which day was his real birthday.
At this point you might be wondering what Chinese astrology is and how it is related to a person’s destiny. Is a person’s life pre-programed by the universe? If so, what is the point of Qigong practice and/or other personal cultivation and healing work?
The five influences cited in the beginning of this article hint at the answers to these questions. The first two influences reflect a life that is pre-programed while the last three influences demonstrate how we can take action to re-program our lives.
In this article, I would like to discuss these five factors through introducing Chinese astrology and its relationship with one’s destiny and cultivation practice.
2. Ming 命 and Yun 運
Through decades of Chinese astrology studies and my personal experience with thousands of astrology consultation clients, I believe that a person’s life is pre-programed from the moment she/he is born. Chinese astrology is one of the coding systems that help us to learn about a life.
In modern days, it seems that most people think Chinese astrology refers only to their yearly animal sign. I think this misconception is intentional, born from an effort to offer an over-simplified view of Chinese astrology that is more accessible to the general public. People here in the western world most often use the Chinese animal signs as entertainment while waiting for their dinner at a Chinese restaurant!
Traditionally, people in China are more familiar with the common Chinese astrology terms, such as BaZi 八字 (eight characters) and MingLi 命理 (principle of your destiny or karma), but only a small number of Chinese people actually understand how to put together and interpret a chart. Most lay people seek to find an astrology expert to help them when guidance is needed. Even within China it can be challenging to find someone who is both well qualified and skillful in astrology, as the Chinese astrology system is extremely complicated and the layers of complexities are difficult for most people to decode.
In my book, The 12 Chinese Animals (Singing Dragon, 2010), I discuss the animal signs as they relate to the year, month, and hour of birth in order to help people gain a broader understanding of their chart. Although very important, please note that I do not go into detail about how to find the daily animal sign in this book, as explaining it would involve translating the entire Chinese GanZhi calendar. When I wrote this Chinese Animals book, I wanted people to get a small taste of the intricacies of the Chinese astrological system. Please bear in mind that the twelve animals are just one aspect of Chinese astrology -- creating and understanding a whole chart for the sake of prediction is a sophisticated process, which is founded in the knowledge of GanZhi干支, the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, how to use them to calculate the BaZi八字 (Chinese astrology chart), how they relate to and influence one another other, which then guides the analysis of each individual chart.
BaZi literally means, “eight characters” because the fundamental aspects of each person’s destiny are mapped out using a unique combination of eight GanZhi Chinese characters. This combination reveals a person’s Ming 命 (karma), or the patterns of life. During an astrology reading, we must also determine the influence of Yun 運 (luck) on the BaZi chart. Decoding a Chinese astrological chart provides the fastest track to learn about the first life factor – Ming 命 (karma), and the second – Yun 運 (luck).
Please check out Dr. Karin Taylor-Wu’s book Calculating the BaZi (Singing Dragon, 2017) if you would like to further understand the ways of Ming and Yun.
3. Fengshui 風水, JiYinDe 積陰德, and DuShu 讀書
If the life path is determined by the universe the moment a person is born, then it may at first seem pointless to have a cultivation practice. The fact is that we all have the opportunities to change both our Ming and our Yun through our actions, which could change for the better or worse depending on what kind of action we take. The third, fourth and fifth factors mentioned in the citation at the opening of this article pointed us toward methods we may apply to change our lives / re-program our destinies.
A. The third factor, Fengshui, means wind-water, which includes your the Fengshui of your house and Fengshui of your body. The Fengshui of your house includes the living environment, building orientation, room and furniture arrangement, sleeping orientation, surrounding colors, and more. The Fengshui of your body includes your body shape, the functioning of your organ and meridian systems, your mental attitude and emotional habit patterns, as well as your personal cultivation practices.
You can gain great benefits to your karma from a positive Fengshui influence and vice versa. I will not write more here about how Fengshui relates with your destiny and instead refer you to the 2 articles on Fengshui I wrote in 2021. Here are links to the appropriate Substack archives if you would like to check them out:
B. The fourth factor, JiYinDe, literally means accumulate your hidden virtue, or building up your kindness through helping others secretly (in other words, helping others for others sake and not for your own glory), which could dramatically improve your destiny and even prolong your life. JiYinDe is an important part of any traditional inner cultivation practice. For instance, when I was learning Qigong, martial arts, and other spiritual practices, each of my masters not only emphasized the specific physical movements, but also guided me to be a nice person. Helping others without expecting any reward is actually a way to help oneself. JinYinDe is a powerful way to purify our heart and body, which is one of the necessary steps towards enlightenment.
There are many ways to JiYinDe, or cultivate your kindness: helping those less fortunate people even if you yourself are in a difficult financial situation, rescuing an animal’s life, fixing a trail or road for others’ use, collecting trash in nature, reusing and recycling, etc., etc. In our daily cultivation practices, it is good to accumulate kindness even if it is on a very small scale. Your destiny could be greatly improved if every day you commit to offering one small kindness to other beings and/or to nature.
As the Yijiing states:
JiShanZhiJiaBiYouYuQing
積善之家必有餘慶
One would have excess good fortune if one accumulates kindness
C. The fifth factor, DuShu, literally means reading a book from word to word, and it is the phrase we Chinese typically use for getting an education. There is an ancient Chinese phrase: DuShuMingLi 讀書明理, which means the purpose of reading a book or going to school is to help the person expand their mind, improve their prospects, and learn the overarching principles of life. Life long learning of the self can help you understand the truth of your personal destiny and your own life philosophy and can help you find methods to improve your life. Educating yourself by looking within for your inner knowing and awakening your inner wisdom is powerful way to influence your destiny.
4. Better Choices?
Can knowledge of the BaZi really help me make better choices? Is it possible that regular Qigong practice could improve my destiny? I am not surprised if either of these common questions popped into your head as you read my writing above. It is also very common that BaZi or Qigong practitioners themselves doubt the BaZi astrology system and the effects of their cultivation practices when they encounter one or more tough obstacles in their life. I would like to share an email that I received recently from another student, one who also had just learned that after 40+ years, what she thought was her birthdate was suddenly in question, and who was also grappling with deep existential questions following the death of her beloved dog companion, Ella, before I answer these familiar questions:
For 18 years, I have been looking at my Chinese astrology chart and making it make sense. I am just a beginner, but you [Master Wu] have also interpreted this chart and made it make sense for 18 years. I based a lot of decisions on this chart and looked at my life through the glasses of this chart.
If I was a basketball player, then perhaps Ella’s death and my new birthdate information would not have such an effect on me. But I am a Chinese medicine practitioner and Chinese astrologer in training. My question and dilemma is how much of an effect do our choices make? Before Ella passed away, I was doing Qigong and Qi healing on her everyday. I felt so let down that she didn't get better and questioned everything that I was doing. If the shuttle has already woven the thread (like you talked about the other week), then what is the point of doing anything if the events in our life can't be changed? Was there any moment in her life that I could have helped change the way and timing of her death or was it destined to end like this? If it is the latter, then what is the point of being a "healer?" I understand that other humans have their own karma, but with both of my dogs it felt different, like our karmas were very intertwined, and with their deaths I felt like I lost part of my own body and spirit.
I have spent these months after her death mad at Qigong and questioning what I am even doing with my life as a Chinese medicine doctor, and now with the change in my birth information, it feels compounded. I mean, if I can make an incorrect chart, based on the wrong birth information, make sense in my life for 18 years, how accurate can a reading really be?
How much power do we have to change our karma? Can we actually help others change their path? If someone gets sick, how long ago was that written on their life thread? Is there a point that can change someone or some being's life but once you pass that point then it is not possible? For example, when Ella got sick in 2019, you did Qi healing on her and said that she was going to get better. Did she get better because you did Qi healing on her, or was she going to get better anyway?
Like I said before...what if all if this just "fake?"
Life is hard in many ways, for each of us, and it is not easy to answer these questions with a simple Yes or No. This is one of the reasons that my long standing policy is not to answer/discuss any technical or philosophical questions through email and as such, I did not answer the questions posed to me in this email. I cited the email here for you because they are thought provoking and are ones I received often. The universality of our grief, our suffering, and our times of existential questioning suggests to me that the questions are important ones that each of us spend some time thinking about.
I have been posed these questions (or ones similar) many, many times over my years of teaching, and have sat with them deeply during my cultivation practice when my life has presented me with heartbreak and challenge. I will share some of my thoughts about them in the next section.
5. Percentages
Modern people like to apply the concept of percentages to standardize things. It would be much easier for me to describe the five factors of destiny in this way, with set percentages, though this would be over simplifying the truth of life. In reality, the Change Law is an axiom of the Universe and of each individual life, and the influence percentage of each factor for each individual person can vary dramatically, from zero to one hundred percent.
An individual being has its own karma, a company has its own karma, a community has its own karma, a nation/country has its own karma, and the universe has its own karma. As I have discussed in many of my writings, the universe is a vast invisible web and nothing exists outside of, nor is independent from, this web. This explains why a personal density is always interrelated with other destinies. This is especially true with our beloved ones, our living environment, the communities to which we belong, and of course the greater karma of the entire world. Imagine for a moment a person with perfect karma, who happens to be suddenly living in a war zone or where a natural disaster has occurred - their once perfect life is now clearly not perfect anymore. In recent years, we have seen that a microscopic Corona virus has had a gigantic karma, which that has influenced everyone’s life all over the entire whole world; in recent months, we have see the karma of Russia and Ukraine has not only affected countless people’s immediate lives and also the global karma. Perhaps you can easily see how the life influence percentages of your daily cultivation practice, your living environment Fengshui, your kindness practices, and your personal karma and luck factor can change suddenly and drastically in response to large karmic shifts around the world.
As a lifelong Daoist practitioner, I have learned that my body is not actually mine, rather, my destiny just like a small drop of water of the little stream that I belong to. I do not have ultimate control of my health, I am not immune to illness nor death. The knowledge of Chinese astrology, Yijing, Fengshui, and how I apply them in my committed cultivation practice and daily lifestyle choices have been my guiding principles to help me understand my karma and how my destiny is connected with others and with nature. With this karmic understanding, I cultivate the way of detachment, which is the pathway of the Dao which leads to enlightenment.
6. Detachment
The true emptiness is not empty! Detachment does not mean cut off or disconnected. Rather, detachment is about detaching from a result, an outcome, whether it be “bad” or “good,” while still embracing the reason, by which I mean the original motivating factors that connected me to the result. Allow me to explain:
The phrase YanYuDaoDuan 言語道斷, means that any language, spoken or written language, will disconnect from the Dao. In other words, we can not really explain the Dao or enlightenment. It is to be expected that you, the reader, may find it difficult to understand what I mean about detachment. I will try to explain it further using Ella, from the email I cited above, as an example.
For the moment, please assume that you are the owner of Ella, your precious dog companion, who has shared daily life and many exciting adventures with you, for many, many years. When she became ill, you put all your efforts to help her recover, and in trying to keep her alive. Nevertheless, regardless of the beautiful life you have shared together, one day death comes to Ella.
Yes, the truth is that no living being can physically escape from death no matter what kind of cultivation practice or healing intervention chosen. There is no ever-lasting life. What would it look like if you attached to the outcome - the death of Ella - in your daily life? A deep depression? A blanket of sadness covering everything you do and see and feel? A heavy burden of grief that you struggle to lug around? A more miserable life? No feeling person can avoid the grief we naturally feel after the death of our beloved ones, so how can we detach from the grief of a death?
Next, please think about all the reasons that this death occurred, this death that has had the current outcome of your deep and miserable grief. Did the treatments you gave her have a problem? Did you not take good care of Ella at this moment or that one? Was Master Wu’s Qi-healing not powerful enough? The Chinese astrology chart - maybe you interpreted it incorrectly, or maybe it just doesn’t work? Oh yes, I can totally understand feeling like you can no longer believe in anything because everything seems fake or meaningless. We humans are all experts in finding many reasons to blame ourselves and/or others when we are living with heartbreak.
Instead, let us try to shift the focus and frame your experience from a different angle. Would you have this result (grief and heartache) if you had never gotten this dog? Of course not! But Ella herself is not the cause to blame. She did not come to your life for the purpose of making you miserable. What were the driving factors that lead you to share your life with Ella? What was the original reason? To give love? To share joy and companionship? Some other kind of nice feeling? Please now take a break from reading and spend a couple of minutes to meditate with, experience and feel the actual bodily sensations connected to these original reasons and your initial feelings of bringing Ella into your life.
Can you feel any single drop of love or joy or peace or connectedness from this meditation? Yes, I know you can. Detachment is about attachment! Learning to embrace this initial feeling, to attach to the original driving force for your seeking for x, y or z, with the reality of your daily life at this moment, is the way to discover the wellspring of harmonious energy within and to detach from uncomfortable cycles of anger, grief, blame and misery.
This detachment principle is the same we apply to our cultivation practice. If we can approach each practice by detaching from our expectation of result/outcome and instead embrace our initial reason for learning Qigong, Chinese astrology, or Fengshui, we create pathways that allow us to more easily tap into our original motivation as we move through our daily lives. Strengthening this connection helps to keep us connected to our stabilizing center whenever we find ourselves facing the possibility of being blown off course by yet another difficult condition.
7. Immortality
There is no easy way to improve our karma. We can apply the knowledge of the five life factors to influence our life towards the direction we would like our lives to go. For instance, your astrological chart itself is not your Ming (karma) and Yun (luck). Knowing or not knowing your astrological chart does not affect your true destiny. You could instead see the chart as your destiny-navigating-system. While a correct chart reading can offer key guidance to shape the journey of your life, even great astrological guidance can not take away the fact that you are in charge of taking the actions needed to improve your destiny. You must make concerted efforts to find the correct Qigong or other internal alchemy practices that are best for you, to make a habit of cultivating your kindness, and to make the best choices to create a harmonious house and body Fengshui. These are efforts we put forth each day.
I often remind my students and clients that I do not have any magic powers to save their lives or to make their karma flawless. My Qi-healing sessions are an offering of directed energy support that helps shift energy blockages that you may find difficult to shift on your own. These sessions usually help you feel better … temporarily. We are the only ones that have our own magic power within, who can improve our own destiny, who can work to have a smooth flow of Qi in our own energy systems. This magic power is discovered through your daily cultivation practice. It is for this reason that I also often tell people that dedicating themselves to a daily Qigong practice would bring a longer lasting benefit than simply knowing their astrology chart.
I would like to cite my writing about the Daoist concept of immortality from chapter 4 of my book, Fire Dragon Meridian Qigong, (Singing Dragon, 2012) to end this article:
From the view point of Daoist practitioners, Daoism is the tradition of immortality, meaning the journey of Daoist cultivation practices is one towards immortality. This often begs the question of what exactly is meant by immortality. The idea of immortality or everlasting life has nothing to do with yearning to live forever. The ancient Daoist master ZhuangZi 莊子 (also translated as Chuang Tzu) stated in QiWuLun 齊物論 :
MoShouYuShangZi, ErPengZuWeiYao.
莫寿于殇子，而彭祖为夭
There is no life longer than that a child who died in infancy, while PengZu 彭祖 [a sage, who according to legend, lived eight hundred years] died young.
On a superficial level, of course no living being can escape death. Death is simply a part of the Five Elements’ cycle of the Universe. At the same time, a process of rebirth always follows death, and thus, there is no such thing as absolute, isolated death.
In the Immortal's tradition, we have an expression - XinSi ShenHuo 心死神活, which translates as “allow your heart to die so that your spirit will live.” We have interpreted this to mean that by embracing death and bringing it gracefully into our hearts, we will truly understand the knowledge of immortality. In Chinese, the word for immortal is Xian 仙, which is a pictograph of a person who lives on a mountain. Throughout history, many Daoist masters have referred to themselves as ShanRen 山人 – Mountain People – because they spend long hermitages in the mountains, cultivating their heart-mind. Another word for immortal is ZhenRen 真人 – real or true human being. From the Chinese ideogram, we see that the concept of an immortal is of one who has cultivated good health, happiness, and humanity and embodies these qualities in everyday life.
…I hope this helps!
Grateful for this masterful writing……helpful in countless ways……all good.