When Yi Jing met Ba Zi, something magical happened:
a 64-bit cosmic operating system tried to install itself on a 60-cycle timeline.
The result? Thousands of years of philosophical debugging — and, eventually, BaZi Advisor.
Let’s unpack that.
I. Cycles within cycles — how the universe keeps time
If there’s one truth that both modern physics and ancient philosophy agree on, it’s this:
the universe moves in cycles.
From planetary orbits to sleep rhythms, from economic booms to emotional tides — every living and non-living system breathes through repetition and renewal. Chinese metaphysics, perhaps more than any other tradition, turned that observation into a science of time.
In Ba Zi (八字), the 60-pillar cycle (六十甲子) expresses that rhythm with mathematical precision. Each of the sixty pillars — combinations of 10 Heavenly Stems (the elemental polarities) and 12 Earthly Branches (the animal archetypes) — describes a unique moment in the great turning of Qi. After sixty, the cosmic wheel resets — a full breath of Heaven and Earth completed.
This cycle is not just temporal; it’s qualitative. Every pillar carries a pattern of change, a tone of Heaven meeting Earth in a specific configuration. Understanding that pattern is how Ba Zi can describe character, timing, and destiny with such eerie accuracy.
II. The birth of the hexagrams — the language of change
Long before spreadsheets and software, Chinese sages observed that the world didn’t just move — it transformed. They drew lines in the sand, solid for yang, broken for yin, and combined them into trigrams (three-line symbols). Pair two trigrams, and you get a hexagram: six layers of reality stacked vertically, describing both a situation and its direction of change.
Thus emerged the 64 hexagrams of the Yi Jing (易經) — one of humanity’s oldest symbolic systems, over 3,000 years old and still stunningly modern.
Each hexagram is a snapshot of transformation — a moment when yin and yang interact in a particular way. Over centuries, it became the backbone of divination, philosophy, strategy, and psychology.
When the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung encountered the I Ching, he was fascinated. He saw it not as superstition, but as a “symbolic model of the psyche,” a mirror of synchronicity. Jung even wrote the introduction to the Wilhelm translation, saying:
“The I Ching does not offer itself with proofs and results; it does not coerce, it invites.”
That invitation — to see change as meaningful — is exactly what makes the meeting of Ba Zi and Yi Jing so potent. Ba Zi measures when change happens. Yi Jing explains how it unfolds.
III. When Yi Jing met Ba Zi — the mapping problem
So far, so poetic. But then the mathematicians walked in.
Yi Jing operates on 64 hexagrams.
Ba Zi runs on 60 pillars.
Same cosmos, slightly different spreadsheet.
The natural question arose:
If each Ba Zi pillar describes a stage of time, and each Yi Jing hexagram describes a stage of transformation —
can we align them?
That’s where centuries of scholars, mystics, and philosophers began their cosmic sudoku.
How do you map 64 onto 60 without losing meaning?
Simple question. Not-so-simple answer. Because 64 ≠ 60.
The solutions, predictably, came in families — each reflecting a different school of thought, geography, or philosophical temperament.
IV. The classic approaches (and their small cosmic disagreements)
1 . King Wen’s poetic sequence (文王卦序)
The order found in every standard I Ching translation — Heaven (乾) and Earth (坤) begin the book, followed by symbolic pairs. It’s a narrative order, not mathematical. Many traditional scholars used the first 60 hexagrams for the Jia-Zi cycle and kept the last four as “seasonal thresholds.”
“Let’s use the first 60 in this sacred order, and keep the last four (61–64) as the transitions between cycles.”
Elegant, human, slightly bureaucratic.
2. The Fu Xi / Binary sequence (伏羲卦序)
The first true binary code. Yin = 0, Yang = 1, forming 64 combinations (000000 (Earth) → 111111(Heaven)).
Perfect for programmers and philosophers alike.
Some modern traditions use modular arithmetic (year + month + day + hour mod 64) to derive a “hexagram of the moment.” It’s beautiful, it’s logical, and it makes you feel like you’re reading the Matrix in classical Chinese. Symmetrical — but detached from the calendar rhythm used in Ba Zi.
3. Calendar mappers (pragmatic schools)
From Ming dynasty scholars to modern researchers like Benebell Wen, various lineages paired 60 hexagrams with the 60 Jia-Zi.
Some skip the pivotal ones (Water, Fire, Thunder, Lake — hexagrams 29, 30, 51, 58).
Others repeat specific hexagrams to preserve elemental harmony.
It’s cosmology as art: each version internally consistent, but not universal.
In short: the masters agreed to disagree.
Each map works — as long as you understand why it was built that way.
4. Numerological / Heluo systems (河洛理數)
A numerological dance connecting the Hetu and Luoshu diagrams with the Yi Jing.
It uses mathematical transformations to produce a hexagram from any time signature.
A favorite among serious practitioners who like their spirituality with some algebra.
V. BaZi Advisor’s mapping philosophy — faithful to tradition, built for practice
BaZi Advisor operates on the traditional lunisolar calendar (節氣) — the same that classical Ba Zi and Feng Shui use.
When designing our hexagram mapping, we didn’t want a theoretical museum piece.
We wanted a living bridge — one that resonates energetically, works with time diagnostics, and makes sense for practitioners.
Our principles:
- 60 for 60: One hexagram per Jia-Zi.
Not simply the first 60, but those that express compatible trigrams and symbolic tones. - 4 transitional hexagrams: The “missing” ones act as energetic thresholds — the pauses between cosmic breaths, marking the end and rebirth of cycles.
- Resonance over symmetry: We privilege elemental and trigram resonance over numeric neatness.
- Lunisolar alignment: Our mapping breathes with the seasons, respecting the same Qi nodes used in Ba Zi and Feng Shui.
In short: our map is both faithful to tradition and designed for professional use — an interpretive layer, not a random lookup table.
VI. The Platinum layer — for those who work with time
🌟 Professional Features — Platinum Premium
Hexagram interpretation and the ability to view hexagrams for each pillar in the Destiny Chart and the Hexagram of the Day in the Horoscope are professional-level tools.
They’re designed for consultants and advanced students who integrate Ba Zi diagnostics with Feng Shui prescriptions and Yi Jing timing analysis.
Available exclusively with the Platinum Premium Subscription, this layer turns BaZi Advisor from a learning tool into a working instrument.
Why so? Because interpreting hexagrams requires more than curiosity — it requires contextual mastery. A hexagram can’t be reduced to fortune-cookie wisdom; it’s a multi-dimensional diagnostic lens. The Platinum tools reveal these layers with precision — but assume you know what to do with them.
VII. How it works — and how to use it
🔹 Example Use Case — Strong Yang Water (壬 Ren)
You’re reading a client’s chart and notice a dominant Yang Water influence (Ren) — vast, dynamic, and restless. This is not a gentle stream; it’s an ocean current — capable of carrying ships or sinking them.
The pillar’s hexagram reveals how that power expresses itself:
does it manifest as strategic momentum — the ability to flow around obstacles and reshape the environment?
Or as turbulent overextension — energy dispersing faster than it can be contained?
For a practitioner, that distinction is everything.
A Ren day with a stabilizing hexagram (like Holding Together or Keeping Still) calls for focus and structure;
a Ren pillar paired with a transforming hexagram (like Revolution or Dispersing) suggests movement and redefinition are the correct expression of its power.
Subtle, but crucial: the difference between mastery of flow and being swept by it.
🔹 Horoscope → Hexagram of the Day
Every day carries its own hexagram — a short script written by the cosmos.
When selecting auspicious dates for Feng Shui applications, rituals, or even business launches, this layer shows you how the day’s Qi behaves.
If Ba Zi tells you what kind of day it is (Fire over Earth), the hexagram tells you how that Fire wants to move — expansive, constrained, scattered, or focused.
🔹 Example workflow for practitioners
Diagnose a client using Ba Zi: find the timing imbalance.
Read each pillar’s hexagram for insight into the nature of transformation in that life area.
Consult the Daily Horoscope → Hexagram of the Day to select the most supportive date for an activity.
Apply Feng Shui on a day whose hexagram completes rather than contradicts the client’s pattern.
That’s not superstition. That’s strategic alignment.
VIII. Why this matters — beyond systems and symbols
Ba Zi diagnoses the state of time.
Feng Shui applies the treatment in space.
Yi Jing reveals the process of transformation that connects the two.
When we read these systems together, we don’t predict the future — we participate in it consciously. The 60 hexagrams of BaZi Advisor don’t just decorate the interface; they complete the philosophical loop between Heaven, Earth, and Human.
And that is the true purpose of metaphysical tools: not to escape reality, but to read its rhythm better.
Before the Curtain Falls
Many masters before us struggled with the math of Heaven.
They debated, compared, and occasionally disagreed.
But they all sought the same thing — to understand the pattern behind change.
Today, BaZi Advisor gives you that same access, distilled into a living, digital tool.
The masters had scrolls.
You have BaZi Advisor.
And the hexagrams of time are right at your fingertips.
📘 Annex — The 64-Hexagram Matrix
For those who enjoy seeing how Heaven and Earth actually stack, here’s a reference matrix showing the 64 hexagrams generated by combining the eight trigrams as upper (Heaven) and lower (Earth) components.
Each cell in the grid represents one hexagram — the intersection of two trigrams — traditionally read top (upper) to bottom (lower).
This table isn’t just theoretical; it’s the structural DNA of the Yi Jing and the origin of every mapping system that connects trigrams, hexagrams, and time.
You can consult the full interactive version of this matrix anytime in the app:
BaZi Advisor → Keynotes → 64 Hexagrams. Click on any number to get the hexagram's name.
Master Wey
Ba Zi guide