① Heaven Chart 天盘 「Tiān Pán 」
- the original chart determined at birth, also called 命盘 「Mìng Pán 」;
used to determine one's overall fate and luck.
② Earth Chart 地盘 「Dì Pán 」
- also called Decade Chart 大限流盘 「Dà Xiàn Liú Pán 」;
used to determine one's decade's luck.
③ Man Chart 人盘 「Rén Pán 」
- also called Current Year Chart 小限流盘 「Xiao Xiàn Liú Pán 」;
used to determined one's yearly luck.
Right now, we'll proceed to setting up of 命盘 「Mìng Pán 」.
Step 1 - Get Birth Date
First, get hold of your Year, Month, Date, Time and Place of birth.
Convert it to China-Beijing Time Zone.
In ZWDS, the place of birth is relevant as calculations is based on China-Beijing
Time Zone (GMT +8). You can convert to Beijing Time Zone here.
If you are from Singapore, the Time Zone is GMT+7, not GMT+8.
The clock was adjusted earlier by 1 hour due to commercial reasons.
Then, convert the Birth Date to Lunar Calendar. You can do it here or here.
As for the Time of Birth, please refer to this chart.
One thing to note for people born in the Rat Hour or
子 「 Zi 」 Shi Chen which is 2300 hrs - 0100 hrs.
If you are born between 0000 hrs to 0100 hrs, your Lunar Date of Birth
would be counted as the next day.
For example, if your date of birth is 16th day of 5th Lunar Month,
and you are born at 0021 hrs, then, the actual date of birth would
be counted as 17th day of 5th Lunar Month instead. So please take note.
To check if you are born in a year with intercalary months, or 闰月 Run Yue, here is a very good tool.
For people born in a intercalary month, there are two different ways of setting up your charts.
1. As long as you are born in a intercalary month, your birth month is taken to be the following month.
2. If you are born after the 15th day in the intercalary month, your birth month is
taken to be the following month. But if you are born in the first half of the month,
then your birth month would be the previous month.
For example, if you are born on June 18 1974, the second half of the intercalary
month, take your birth month 生月 to be the 5th month, which is the following month.
But if you are born on May 28 1974, the first half of the intercalary month, take
your birth month 生月 to be the 4th month.
The different methods came about due to the different schools of thoughts. But
whichever method you chose, be sure to stick it throughout the setting up of your chart.
You can set up another chart with the other method if you find your chart grossly inaccurate.
The easiest way to get a blank chart would be to fold a piece of paper into
half 4 times before opening it up. This way you will have a paper with the
necessary squares without needing to draw lines.
Once you get the empty chart, write down the Birth Date (especially the now-converted
date) in the middle square as you will be needing it throughout the plotting of the chart.
Then, fill up the Earthly Branches into the 12 empty squares. Starting
from the left-bottom corner, in the Clockwise Direction in the following sequence:
The Sequence of the Earthly Branches 地支 is as follow:
Once done, you will get a chart that looks like this -
