Liang Dacheng
1. An Overview of Da Liuren Prediction
Since ancient times China has spoken of the “Three Arts” of prediction: Taiyi Shenshu, Qimen Dunjia, and Da Liuren. They are the orthodox core of Chinese numerology and have long been revered as secret learning of the imperial house, the learning of heaven and humanity. The ancients said: “Liuren is the balance of human affairs and the tortoise-mirror of fortune and misfortune.” Taiyi Shenshu mainly divines the Way of Heaven and the fortunes of the state, the stars of each year's Annual Luck, and the great trends of heaven and earth; Qimen Dunjia mainly deals with geographical layout, choosing auspicious times and places, and strategic patterns. Da Liuren alone judges the hundred affairs of human life. It is the most people-centered of the traditional numerological arts, the one that corresponds most finely to the fortune of human affairs, and the most accurate of the peerless arts of prediction; that is why Da Liuren is also called the “Liuren Divine Lesson,” the “king of human affairs” in prediction.
Da Liuren is fairly accurate: it can analyze in fine detail the course of things and their final fortune, and it is praised as “the most efficacious divine lesson.” Those who use Da Liuren must be highly skilled predictors (practitioners of divination); a predictor needs experience, learning, and self-cultivation to grasp its essentials. That is why in ancient times its users were mostly emperors, generals, ministers, and scholar-officials. Because Da Liuren is somewhat difficult to learn, demands a high level of education from the student, and requires a dedicated master to teach it, few people study it today. To promote this peerless art, I have gathered materials and written this article for all to explore together.
The general public very easily confuses Da Liuren with the Xiao Liuren circulating among the people. Most think the difference is merely one of complexity versus simplicity, but in truth the two are worlds apart in the rank of their tradition, the scope of their application, the difficulty of their calculation, and the logic of their analysis. In ancient times Da Liuren was an art reserved for emperors and belonged to the orthodox Three Arts; its system is rigorous and its principles strict. It can work out deep matters of state, military decisions, predictions of war, and decisions on major matters, and it can also infer a person's fortune and misfortune, long-term luck, and the causes and effects of human affairs. Xiao Liuren is a simplified finger-counting method of later folk tradition, with a very low threshold, that can be used to divine at a moment's notice; it tests only trivial matters at hand and immediate good or ill fortune.
Within the profession there is a settled saying: “The national master saves the world; the local master saves the moment.” Learning the lesser art can make you a street-corner master who relieves a passing difficulty; mastering Da Liuren lets you understand the pattern of cause and effect, know where fortune and misfortune come from, and grasp the moment to advance or retreat. As the saying goes, “The great arts set the pattern; the lesser arts test good and ill fortune.” Da Liuren is precisely the core peerless art among the numerological arts that combines the level of the overall pattern with the confirmation of details.
Compared with the predictive systems commonly found today, Da Liuren has unique and irreplaceable strengths. BaZi (Four Pillars of Destiny) destiny analysis focuses on fixing the chart pattern and discussing destiny: from the stems and branches of the year, month, day, and hour of birth, it determines one's innate endowment, the broad course of life, and wealth or poverty, nobility or lowliness. It is a static system of destiny, good at fixing the pattern of a whole life, but it finds it hard to correspond precisely to the ups and downs of success and failure in a particular period or a specific small matter. Kanyu and feng shui focus on surveying the energy field and fixing the good or ill fortune of the environment: from the orientation of mountains and water and the gathering and dispersal of energy, they determine the advantages and disadvantages of a dwelling. It is a static system of space that can only judge the foundation of the environment and cannot capture the dynamic changes of human affairs or the specific timing of events. Qimen Dunjia focuses on the timing of heaven, the advantages of the terrain, and the arrangement of broad trends; it is good at planning strategy, creating momentum, seeking good fortune, and avoiding misfortune, and it governs macro-level choices, but it is often not concrete enough about the fine details of human affairs and the good or ill fortune of trivial matters.
Da Liuren alone is grounded in the present moment of time and space: a lesson is raised for each matter and worked out flexibly, making it a dynamic system for predicting human affairs. An old formula says: “Qimen looks at the broad trend, Liuren looks at the result; once the Void appears, all affairs come to an end.” This precisely expresses the core value of Da Liuren: the pattern of any matter can be studied by various arts, but its final success or failure, the timing of its good or ill fortune, and its subtle variables must be determined and confirmed by Liuren. Based on the principles of orthodox Liuren learning, and combining the practical system of the palm with the method for reading lessons at speed, this article systematically breaks down the core of Da Liuren for beginners, balancing professionalism and accessibility, and builds a complete and practical framework for understanding Liuren for learners starting from zero.
2. The Core of Finger-Counting Da Liuren: The Heaven and Earth Plates and the Twelve Heavenly Generals
Da Liuren is revered as the orthodox core of the Three Arts because it is not a minor art of subjective guesswork but a complete model simulating time and space, built on heaven and earth, time and space, the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, yin and yang and the Five Phases, and the system of divine generals. Unlike Xiao Liuren, which takes simple images and judges matters from a single point, the core essence of laying out a Da Liuren chart on the fingers is “laying out the chart on the fingers, settling heaven and earth in the palm”: it condenses all the phenomena of heaven and earth into one palm, sets the foundation with the fixed Earth Plate, and determines good and ill fortune with the rotating Heavenly Generals, so that time and space correspond, the principles are rigorous, and every link is connected. The complete orthodox system of Da Liuren includes many dimensions—the Heaven and Earth Plates, the Four Lessons, the Three Transmissions, the Monthly General, the day and branch, the divine generals, generation and control, the Void, and more. The beginner's practical finger-counting method cuts away the complex and keeps the core, taking the fixed Earth Plate and the Twelve Heavenly Generals as its two foundations; this greatly lowers the threshold for beginners while preserving the precision of orthodox Liuren in judging matters.
1. The Heaven and Earth Plates of Da Liuren
The Earth Plate is the foundation on which Da Liuren rests. It is constant and unchanging for all ages and is the framework of time and space for the whole Liuren chart. The Earth Plate arranges the twelve Earthly Branches in the four directions, assigning them to the Four Symbols and the Five Phases; direction, phase, and imagery correspond one to one without the slightest confusion, providing a fixed standard of reference for all charting, generation and control, and judgment.
Its positions on the palm and its Five Phases pattern are clear and orderly. Si, Wu, Wei, and Shen lie in the south of the palm and belong to Fire; Fire governs propriety and change, corresponding in human affairs to heated ups and downs, quarrels, and shifting situations. Hai, Zi, Chou, and Yin lie in the north of the palm and belong to Water; Water governs wisdom and flow, corresponding in human affairs to secret thoughts, hidden undercurrents in relationships, and changing circumstances. Shen, You, Xu, and Hai lie in the west of the palm and belong to Metal; Metal governs righteousness and severity, corresponding in human affairs to decisions and losses, harsh disputes, loss of money, and injury. Yin, Mao, Chen, and Si lie in the east of the palm and belong to Wood; Wood governs benevolence and growth, corresponding in human affairs to new opportunities and beginnings, growing fortune, and expanding careers.
The twelve Earthly Branches, arranged in order, with the four directions distinct and the Five Phases precisely placed, form the absolute foundation of finger-counting Da Liuren, from which all dynamic calculation proceeds.
If the Earth Plate is the substance, the Heavenly Generals are the function. The Twelve Heavenly Generals are the core key to judging good and ill fortune and detailing human affairs in Da Liuren, and they are the most distinctive system in Liuren learning. A Liuren text says: “The divine generals determine good and ill fortune; generation and control determine success and failure.” The Five Phases of the Earthly Branches determine the strength of the pattern, and the Twelve Heavenly Generals determine the concrete fortune and misfortune of human affairs; only by pairing the two can one judge every detail of every matter.
2. The Twelve Heavenly Generals of Da Liuren
The Twelve Heavenly Generals of Da Liuren have a fixed order that may not be reversed (the direction of the arrangement depends on whether the Noble Person runs forward or backward): the Noble Person (Tianyi Guiren), the Soaring Serpent, the Vermilion Bird, the Six Harmonies, the Curved Array, the Azure Dragon, the Dark Warrior (Xuanwu), the Great Yin, the Heavenly Empress, the White Tiger, the Heavenly Void, and the Great Constancy. The twelve divine generals are clearly auspicious or inauspicious, each with its own charge, covering all the phenomena of the human world; all the good and ill fortune, blessing and calamity, truth and falsehood of human affairs can be matched precisely through the images of the divine generals.
The system of omens of the Twelve Heavenly Generals is complete, precise, and concrete, and it is core material that beginners must memorize.
The Noble Person is the foremost auspicious spirit of the Three Arts. It governs the support of benefactors, the blessing of good opportunities, and the turning of misfortune into good fortune. When it appears in a lesson, danger can be resolved and obstacles cleared.
The Soaring Serpent is a dark and inauspicious spirit. It governs false alarms and strange happenings, unease of mind, sudden changes, and unexpected troubles, often corresponding to inexplicable setbacks and a troubled mind.
The Vermilion Bird is an inauspicious spirit of quarrels. It specifically governs disputes over words, errors in documents, lawsuits and quarrels, and rumors and strife; readings about studies, documents, contracts, and agreements call for much caution.
The Six Harmonies is an auspicious spirit of harmony. It governs harmonious relationships, smooth marriage prospects, cooperation to mutual benefit, and all things coming to a happy conclusion; it favors making friends, partnerships, love and marriage, and negotiations.
The Curved Array is an inauspicious spirit of obstruction. It governs fights and lawsuits, stalemates and entanglements, pulling and hauling over conflicts, and indecisive delay; in readings it mostly means endless disputes and matters that cannot be resolved quickly.
The Azure Dragon is a supreme auspicious spirit. It governs gains in wealth, joyous occasions, a smooth career, and the arrival of opportunities; for seeking wealth, seeking a job, or planning affairs, it is greatly auspicious.
The Dark Warrior is an inauspicious spirit of obscurity. It governs schemes by petty people, theft of property, hidden fraud, and lies and falsehood; one must guard against hidden dangers and deceptive tricks.
The Great Yin is an auspicious spirit of hidden protection. It governs help behind the scenes, careful planning, success in private matters, and biding one's time; it favors laying plans quietly and waiting for the right moment.
The Heavenly Empress is an auspicious spirit of loving protection. It governs female benefactors, help from goodwill, a stable household, and warm support; it favors family matters, relationships, and hidden merit.
The White Tiger is the most inauspicious spirit. It governs death and mourning, disaster, loss of money and injury, lawsuits and sudden calamities, and major losses; when it approaches the self in a lesson, it mostly means dangerous upheaval.
The Heavenly Void is an inauspicious spirit of illusion. It governs idle dreams that come to nothing, plans without result, wasted effort, and flowers in a mirror or the moon in the water; in any reading it mostly means falseness and things that cannot be realized.
The Great Constancy is an auspicious spirit of fortune and emolument. It governs food and drink and stability, freedom from want, social exchanges, and modest blessings; it portends everyday stability and quiet good fortune.
3. Practical Methods for Learning Da Liuren
Many people mistakenly believe that Da Liuren is obscure and profound, something that can only be studied and not practiced. In fact, the finger-counting Liuren of orthodox folk transmission cuts away the complex and keeps the essentials, turning complexity into simplicity, and has a four-step rapid method that can quickly be put into practice—truly “the universe in the sleeve in an instant, wind and clouds changing at the touch of a finger.”
The core formula of Da Liuren sums up its principles concisely: “Set the Monthly General on the hour to find the Four Lessons; the controlling clash gives the Initial Transmission and settles the storm. Arrange the Heavenly Generals in order to tell good from ill; weigh the generation and control of the Three Transmissions with care.”
The four steps build on one another and form a closed loop of principles, from raising the lesson in time and space and locating the course of events, to judging misfortune by the divine generals and reaching a conclusion by generation and control, covering the entire process of judging a matter; even complete beginners can pick it up quickly.
The practical beginner's method of Da Liuren consists of four steps.
Step One: Raise the Four Lessons to Fix the Foundation in Time and Space
The Four Lessons are a holographic mirror of one matter at one moment, corresponding to the surface appearance, the deeper hidden circumstances, the visible state, and the hidden roots of a human affair; they are the core means of restoring the full picture of an event. The core rule for raising a lesson is the age-old “place the Monthly General on the double hour.” The Monthly General is the combining spirit of the month's branch; it changes with the Twenty-Four Solar Terms and is the core point where the qi of heaven and earth settles for the month, so it is not fixed. For example, after the solar term Rain Water in the first month, the Monthly General is Hai, representing the watery qi of heaven and earth governing that month.
In practice, take the double hour at which the question is asked, place the branch of this month's Monthly General on the branch of that hour on the Earth Plate of the palm, and count the branches forward from there; you can then derive in turn the Four Lessons: Above the Stem, the Yin of the Stem, Above the Branch, and the Yin of the Branch. Each of the Four Lessons has its own role: Above the Stem shows the present appearance, the Yin of the Stem conceals the hidden circumstances behind it, Above the Branch is the environment of the matter, and the Yin of the Branch buries the deeper roots. Consulting all four lessons together, one can see through the inside and outside, the true and the false, and the advantages and disadvantages of an event.
Step Two: Find the Three Transmissions to Fix the Course of the Matter
The Three Transmissions are the timeline of a matter: the Initial Transmission governs the beginning and cause, the Middle Transmission the ups and downs of the process, and the Final Transmission the ultimate outcome. They are the key to foreseeing how a matter will develop and working out its whole course. Beginners uniformly use the ancient method of controlling clashes, taking as the core basis of judgment the branch in the Four Lessons where the Five Phases control each other and the energies do battle.
By the principles of the Five Phases, control brings movement and generation brings stillness, and all changes in human affairs arise from control. Whether the day stem controls the spirit of a lesson or the spirit of a lesson controls the day stem, the character in which such a clash of control appears is the Initial Transmission. Once the Initial Transmission is fixed, the beginning of the matter is settled, and the Middle and Final Transmissions can be derived in turn by the fixed logic of Liuren, laying out the whole course of the event from its occurrence and development to its conclusion, so that its ups and downs are clear at a glance.
Step Three: Arrange the Heavenly Generals to Fix the Energy of Good and Ill Fortune
The Earthly Branches fix the pattern and the divine generals fix the character; the concrete realization of good and ill fortune depends entirely on the arrangement of the Twelve Heavenly Generals. The arrangement of the Heavenly Generals has a fixed ancient basis, relying on the classic formula for placing the Noble Person: “Jia, Wu, and Geng: the Ox and the Goat; Yi and Ji: the home of the Rat and the Monkey; Bing and Ding: the place of the Pig and the Rooster; Ren and Gui: hidden in the Rabbit and the Snake; the six Xin meet the Horse and the Tiger—these are the positions of Tianyi.” First locate where the Noble Person falls—the Noble Person never falls on Chen or Xu (as the saying goes, “the Noble Person does not enter the net of heaven and the snare of earth”)—and, taking this as the starting point, arrange the generals according to whether the Noble Person runs forward or backward: if the Noble Person falls on Hai through Chen of the Earth Plate, it runs forward; if on Si through Xu, it runs backward. Arrange the Twelve Heavenly Generals in order on the twelve Earthly Branches of the Earth Plate of the palm, so that divine generals, branches, directions, and energies correspond precisely, fixing the keynote of good or ill fortune for the whole lesson. The worst error in arranging the divine generals is to confuse their order: once they are misplaced, good and ill fortune are completely reversed. This is a rule beginners must strictly observe in practice.
Step Four: Distinguish Generation and Control to Judge the Final Fortune
The overall conclusion rests on three dimensions, checked layer by layer and judged together, to avoid the errors of one-sided judgment. First, look at the Initial Transmission to fix the opening: if it is auspicious, the matter begins smoothly, opportunities are favorable, and things are easily accomplished; if it is inauspicious, the beginning is obstructed, hidden dangers lurk, and there are many setbacks. Second, look at the Heavenly General to fix the character: if an auspicious general is on the Initial Transmission, the beginning is auspicious, there is help throughout, and hidden dangers can be dispelled; if an inauspicious general is on the Initial Transmission, one's original aims are hard to achieve, setbacks abound, and calamity is hard to avoid. Third, look at the generation and control among the Three Transmissions to fix the outcome: if the Three Transmissions generate one another in order and the energy flows, the matter progresses step by step and goes more smoothly day by day; if they control one another in reverse and the energy is blocked, conflicts pile up and nothing succeeds. By uniting these four dimensions—beginning, process, divine generals, and generation and control—one can accurately judge a matter's success or failure, good or ill fortune, ups and downs, and timing, with a precision far beyond ordinary simple methods.
4. The Core Essentials for Beginning Da Liuren
Surveying the various numerological arts of prediction, BaZi prediction knows the person, kanyu and feng shui know the land, Qimen Dunjia knows the trend, and Da Liuren knows the matter; each has its strengths and its specialty. BaZi prediction fixes the pattern of a whole life and is suited to seeing one's lifelong endowment and the rise and fall of the Major Luck Cycles, but it finds it hard to deal with the dynamic changes of a single specific event. Kanyu and feng shui fix the energy of the environment and are suited to adjusting a home, surveying graves, and stabilizing foundations, but they cannot foresee sudden fortune or misfortune in human affairs. Qimen Dunjia fixes the broad trends of time and space and is suited to strategic planning and choosing auspicious times, but it is not detailed enough for the trivial matters of daily life. Only Da Liuren specializes in the dynamic fortune of human affairs: one lesson for each matter, divined whenever a question is asked. It does not cling to a fixed pattern but corresponds only to the flow of qi in the present moment of time and space, making it the most suitable for ordinary people's daily decisions and for seeking good fortune and avoiding misfortune.
The most essential point for beginners in Da Liuren lies not in memorizing complicated formulas by rote, but in understanding the underlying logic of “correspondence of time and space, and the unity of image and principle.” The palm is the Heaven and Earth Plates, the Earthly Branches are the pattern, the divine generals are all phenomena, and generation and control are change; all the good and ill fortune of human affairs is the result of the interaction of the energies of time and space. The reason Da Liuren became the orthodox core of the Three Arts and an art of emperors lies not in its obscurity, but in its rigorous principles and the correspondence of heaven and humanity: with the simplest chart on the palm it holds all the phenomena of heaven and earth, and with fixed principles it judges the ever-changing affairs of humanity.
To learn Da Liuren, first become familiar with the positions of the Earth Plate, memorize the images of the divine generals, and thoroughly grasp the four-step method of the Four Lessons and Three Transmissions; then refine your feel for it with the teachings of the ancient texts and practical cases, progressing step by step from the shallow to the deep. In this way you can escape the beginner's predicament of “only memorizing, never applying,” and truly achieve “the universe held in the palm, fortune judged by Liuren,” using orthodox Liuren learning to resolve everyday perplexities and understand fortune, misfortune, and when to advance or retreat.