The Twelve Life Stages in BaZi: Where the Day Master Stands at Each Branch
Chinese astrologers noticed that the same kind of qi waxes and wanes through the year. Wood sprouts in early winter, peaks in spring, withers in autumn and hides new buds again in winter. To name that cycle they borrowed the arc of a human life: birth, the first bath, coming of age, taking office, the prime of life, decline, sickness, death, the tomb, extinction, conception and nurture in the womb. Together these are the twelve life stages, shi er chang sheng (十二長生).
What each of the twelve stages means
| Stage | The image | What it suggests in a chart | Rough grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Birth (長生 chang sheng) | Being born; a sprout | Staying power and support; things get started | Well placed |
| Bath (沐浴 mu yu) | The first bath after birth; still delicate | Unsettled, image-conscious, quick to fall for someone; classically a "defeat" position and tied to Peach Blossom | Middle |
| Cap and Belt (冠帶 guan dai) | Coming of age, putting on cap and belt | Taking shape; cares about appearances and doing things properly | Well placed |
| Taking Office (臨官 lin guan) | Taking up office and standing on one's own (the Lu position) | Solid ability, self-reliant | Well placed |
| Peak (帝旺 di wang) | The prime of life (for yang stems, the Yang Blade position) | Strength at its height, forceful; at the top, the turn begins | Well placed |
| Decline (衰 shuai) | Past the peak | Settled, steady, experienced | Middle |
| Sickness (病 bing) | Strength fading | Needs support; attentive to detail | Poorly placed |
| Death (死 si) | Qi at its end (a metaphor, not literal) | Quiet, inward, not showy | Poorly placed |
| Tomb (墓 mu) | Put away in storage (Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei) | Keeping, saving, holding in | Middle |
| Extinction (絕 jue) | Qi cut off; the old cycle ends | A turning point; a break before the next thing | Poorly placed |
| Conception (胎 tai) | Conception; something new forming | New possibilities taking shape, not yet visible | Poorly placed |
| Nurture (養 yang) | Nurtured in the womb | Rest and preparation, before Birth comes round again | Middle |
The "rough grade" is the traditional shorthand: Birth, Cap and Belt, Taking Office and Peak are well placed; Sickness, Death, Extinction and Conception are poorly placed; the rest sit in between. It describes a phase of qi, not good or bad fortune.
The ten-stem life stage table (yang forward, yin backward)
| Stem | Birth | Bath | Cap and Belt | Taking Office | Peak | Decline | Sickness | Death | Tomb | Extinction | Conception | Nurture |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jia Wood (yang) | Hai | Zi | Chou | Yin | Mao | Chen | Si | Wu | Wei | Shen | You | Xu |
| Yi Wood (yin) | Wu | Si | Chen | Mao | Yin | Chou | Zi | Hai | Xu | You | Shen | Wei |
| Bing Fire (yang) | Yin | Mao | Chen | Si | Wu | Wei | Shen | You | Xu | Hai | Zi | Chou |
| Ding Fire (yin) | You | Shen | Wei | Wu | Si | Chen | Mao | Yin | Chou | Zi | Hai | Xu |
| Wu Earth (yang) | Yin | Mao | Chen | Si | Wu | Wei | Shen | You | Xu | Hai | Zi | Chou |
| Ji Earth (yin) | You | Shen | Wei | Wu | Si | Chen | Mao | Yin | Chou | Zi | Hai | Xu |
| Geng Metal (yang) | Si | Wu | Wei | Shen | You | Xu | Hai | Zi | Chou | Yin | Mao | Chen |
| Xin Metal (yin) | Zi | Hai | Xu | You | Shen | Wei | Wu | Si | Chen | Mao | Yin | Chou |
| Ren Water (yang) | Shen | You | Xu | Hai | Zi | Chou | Yin | Mao | Chen | Si | Wu | Wei |
| Gui Water (yin) | Mao | Yin | Chou | Zi | Hai | Xu | You | Shen | Wei | Wu | Si | Chen |
Each cell is the branch where that stem reaches that stage. Yang stems move forward from their Birth branch, yin stems move backward; Wu Earth follows Bing Fire and Ji Earth follows Ding Fire (Fire and Earth share a palace). We checked this table against the "di shi" output of the open-source calendar library lunar-javascript, and all 120 cells agree. Yin stems also have a second method, "yin and yang share Birth," covered in the two schools for yin stems.
A life stage is not the same as a strong Day Master
How we counted: our engine cast one chart for every day from 1960 to 2005, with the birth hour drawn by a fixed-seed random sample, 16,802 charts in all. Life stages use the standard "yang forward, yin backward" method; strength uses this site's hidden-stem root scoring.
When the Day Master is at Birth, Taking Office or Peak in the month branch, people often say it "commands the season." But in our sample only 30.3% of those charts come out strong. Strength depends on the roots and the balance of support and pressure across the whole chart; one well-placed branch cannot carry it alone, and most weak charts have a well-placed branch somewhere. Our strength engine reads the roots in the hidden stems; the life stages are used only to describe which phase the qi is in.
Look up your twelve life stages
Enter your date of birth to see which stage the Day Master is in at each of the four branches, what each pillar's stem sits on, and which stages your first eight luck pillars pass through. For a yin-stem Day Master both schools are shown side by side. Everything is calculated in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Uses your Gregorian birth date, with the day changing at 11 p.m. Life stages follow "yang forward, yin backward," the method most chart software uses.
How the life stages connect to other ideas
| Idea | Life stage | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Lu (祿, "salary") | Taking Office | Jia's Lu is Yin, Yi's is Mao, and so on: the Day Master's Taking Office branch is its Lu |
| Yang Blade (羊刃) | Peak of a yang stem | Jia's blade is Mao, Bing's and Wu's are Wu; see shensha |
| Traveling Horse (驛馬) | The branch that clashes a frame's Birth | The Shen-Zi-Chen frame is born at Shen, and Yin, which clashes Shen, is its Traveling Horse |
| Peach Blossom (桃花) | A frame's Bath branch | Zi, Wu, Mao and You; see Peach Blossom and true love |
| Canopy and vaults | A frame's Tomb branch | Chen, Xu, Chou and Wei; see the Wealth Vault |
Three common misunderstandings
A Day Master sitting in "Death" or "Extinction" means a bad life.
Death and Extinction are metaphors for a phase of qi, not literal, and they say nothing about good or bad fortune. People whose Day Master sits in Death are often quiet and inward; those in Extinction often go through a turning point and start over.
If the month branch is Birth or Peak, the Day Master must be strong.
In our sample only 30.3% of charts well placed in the month branch are strong. Strength is about roots and the balance of the whole chart, not the stage at one branch.
Yin stems have only one way to count the stages.
Yin stems have two schools, "yang forward, yin backward" and "yin and yang share Birth," and they disagree at every single branch. Most chart software uses the first, but it has had critics for as long as it has existed.
Read on
A straight word: the life stages describe, they do not pass judgment
Words like "Death," "Tomb" and "Extinction" sound alarming, but they are only borrowed from the arc of a human life to describe how an element's qi rises and falls over the twelve months. They help you see whether the Day Master is just sprouting or in its prime at a given branch. How strong a person is, and how a period goes, depends on the whole chart and on luck pillars and years; one word cannot settle it. Everything on this site is for reference and entertainment.
Life stages show the phase of qi; strength needs the whole chart
The in-depth reading judges strength from hidden-stem roots, adds climate and illness-and-remedy to choose your favorable elements, then covers personality, career, relationships and luck pillars.
Twelve life stages FAQ
What is the order of the twelve life stages?
Birth (chang sheng), Bath (mu yu), Cap and Belt (guan dai), Taking Office (lin guan), Peak (di wang), Decline, Sickness, Death, Tomb, Extinction, Conception and Nurture, and then back to Birth.
Where is Jia Wood born in the twelve life stages?
Jia Wood is at Birth in Hai, Bath in Zi, Cap and Belt in Chou, Taking Office in Yin, Peak in Mao, Decline in Chen, Sickness in Si, Death in Wu, Tomb in Wei, Extinction in Shen, Conception in You and Nurture in Xu.
How are the life stages counted for yin stems?
The mainstream "yang forward, yin backward" method counts a yin stem backward from its own Birth branch: Yi is born in Wu, Ding and Ji in You, Xin in Zi, Gui in Mao. The "yin and yang share Birth" school gives each yin stem the same cycle as the yang stem of its element.
How are the life stages different from a strong or weak Day Master?
The life stages describe the phase of the Day Master's qi at one branch; strength depends on the roots and balance of the whole chart. In our sample only 30.3% of charts well placed in the month branch are strong.
Is it bad if my Day Master sits in Death or Extinction?
No. They are metaphors for a phase of qi, not omens. Sitting in Death often reads as quiet and inward; sitting in Extinction as someone who goes through a turning point and starts again.