Ding · Yin Fire

Meaning

Ding is the fourth Heavenly Stem and the yin side of Fire: fire held and tended, the flame of a lamp, a candle, a hearth, the star that guides a traveller. Where Bing shines on everything, Ding lights one room, one page, one face, and it does so for a long time. The Di Tian Sui says of it: “Ding fire is gentle at its centre; its inner nature is bright and warm.”

It is read as attention, warmth at close range, insight and devotion: the light of the scholar’s lamp, the care that keeps a fire going through the night, a mind that sees into things rather than over them. Ding gives its warmth to people one by one and is often the one who notices what others miss. Its difficulty is the flicker of a small flame: it can be sensitive to every draught, burn itself out for others, or keep its light to itself when it doubts it is wanted.

Its verse ends with a promise of endurance. Strong, the Di Tian Sui says, it is not fierce; weak, it does not go out; and with its true mother, Jia, the tree that feeds it, it lasts through autumn and winter. The tradition sees in Ding the fire that civilisation keeps, cooking, smelting, lamplight, a fire that serves.

In practice

• As the Day Master, Ding finds its resources in Wood, Yi its Indirect Resource and Jia its Direct Resource, and its peers in Fire, Bing being its Rob Wealth. Earth is its output, Ji its Eating God and Wu its Hurting Officer; Metal is its wealth, Xin indirect and Geng direct; Water shapes it, Gui its Seven Killings and Ren its Direct Officer.
• Its roots: Ding is the main qi of Wu, the Horse, and is hidden in Wei, the Goat, and Xu, the Dog. As a yin stem it runs through the twelve life stages backward: it is born in You, prospers in Wu and stands at its peak in Si.
• Its partners: Ding combines with Ren, yang Water, its Direct Officer, a pair that leans towards Wood, the fuel of every fire; it clashes with Gui, yin Water, the rain on the candle.
• In time: the years ending in 7 are Ding years, counted from Lichun: 2027 will be the Fire Goat’s, and 2037 the Fire Snake’s. A Ding or Ren year opens with a Ren-Yin month, and a Ding or Ren day with a Geng-Zi hour.
• In Feng Shui, Ding is a mountain of the luopan, the third of the south, from 187.5° to 202.5°, and a yin one for the Flying Stars.

Across traditions

• In Japan 丁 is read hinoto, “younger brother of fire”; in Korea jeong, in Vietnam Đinh. As the fourth letter of Chinese lists it is the D, and in chemistry four carbon atoms, 丁烷 dīngwán, butane.
• In everyday Chinese the same character means a grown man and a household (人丁, the people of a house), and the cube of tofu, 豆腐丁, cut small: the small, solid, countable unit, as the stem is the fire one can hold.
• The lamp and the star are guides in many traditions: the lamp of the wise in the Gospel parable, the pole star of the navigator; Ding keeps that sense of a modest light that is enough to find the way.

Origin and history

On the oracle bones 丁 is a small square or a dot, which many read as the head of a nail seen from above, the later 釘; it names the fourth day of the Shang week, and Wu Ding, the king under whom most of the bones were written, carries it in his name. Sima Qian explained the stem by things at their sturdiest, in the fullness of summer, and Ban Gu wrote that they are at their greatest in Ding; Xu Shen’s Shuowen Jiezi (c. 100) speaks of summer, when everything is solid and full.

The picture of a gentle fire is BaZi’s own. The Yuanhai Ziping of the Song dynasty sets out its relations, and the Di Tian Sui’s verse, read with Ren Tieqiao’s commentary of the Qing dynasty, makes Ding the soft yet lasting flame: it embraces Yi as a child holds its mother and joins Ren in loyalty, it neither blazes in strength nor dies in weakness. Shen Xiaozhan’s Ziping Zhenquan, in the 18th century, reads its structures through the month, as for every Day Master.

How Ulune calculates it

Ding is the stem of six of the sixty pillars, Ding-Mao, Ding-Chou, Ding-Hai, Ding-You, Ding-Wei and Ding-Si, each joining it to a yin branch. In BaZi’s balance a visible Ding counts one point of Fire, a hidden one its weight (0.7 in Wu, 0.3 in Wei, 0.1 in Xu, twice in the month branch). For a Ding Day Master Ulune counts the life stages backward from You, as for every yin stem, and finds its symbolic stars by the classical verses: the Nobleman in Hai and You, the Academic star in You, the Prosperity star in Wu; the yin stems’ Sword Edge is disputed and left out. The pages draw Ding in Fire’s red.

Correspondences