2 and 3 · The fighting bull
In Chinese: 鬥牛煞斗牛煞
The 2 Black and the 3 Jade: the fighting bull, wood against earth, the eldest son against the mother, eased by patience and a calm room.
Meaning
Why a bull: the 2’s trigram, Kun, is the earth, whose animal in the Shuo Gua is the cow, and the 3’s thunder drives against it; the classical name is 鬥牛煞. In Period 9 the 2 is timely and the 3 dormant, so the classics read it as a stubbornness to soften with patience, a calm room rather than a busy one.
The classics call it the fighting bull: the 3’s wood against the 2’s earth, the eldest son against the mother. They read quarrels and stubbornness on both sides. In season, competition that sharpens; out of season, arguments that start from little, eased by patience, and by a calm room rather than a busy one.
In practice
- In a home’s chart: a palace whose mountain star and water star are the 2 and the 3, in either order, holds this pairing; the palace’s reading names it and gives the text above, then how the two phases meet and which face applies.
- The 2 as mountain star, the 3 as water star: the water star checks the mountain star, as wood checks earth: what comes in presses on the people of the home.
- The 3 as mountain star, the 2 as water star: the mountain star checks the water star, as wood checks earth: the people hold back what flows in, a restraint that can steady or slow.
- In Period 9 (2024–2043), the 2 is in season and the 3 is not: read “in season” for what the 2 speaks for and “out of season” for what the 3 speaks for, the people of the home when a star is the mountain’s, what comes in when it is the water’s.
Correspondences
- The stars: the 2 Black (Ju Men) and the 3 Jade (Lu Cun)
- Their phases: Earth and Wood
- Their trigrams and homes in the Lo Shu: Kun ☷, in the south-west; Zhen ☳, in the east
- The 2 with the other stars: 1 and 2, 2 and 2, 2 and 4, 2 and 5, 2 and 6, 2 and 7, 2 and 8, 2 and 9
- The 3 with the other stars: 1 and 3, 3 and 3, 3 and 4, 3 and 5, 3 and 6, 3 and 7, 3 and 8, 3 and 9
Related
- 2 Black starThe second of the nine stars, Earth and the trigram Kun, the mother, at home in the south-west: land, care and patience, timely in Period 9.
- 3 Jade starThe third of the nine stars, Wood and the trigram Zhen, thunder, at home in the east: drive and initiative, read with patience out of season.
- Pairs of starsThe 45 meetings of a mountain star and a water star in one palace of a Flying Star chart, each with the reading the classics give it, in season and out.
- EarthThe phase of the centre and of every turning point: the ground that steadies, nourishes and gathers the other four together.
- WoodThe phase of growth and beginnings, of spring and the east: what pushes upwards and outwards towards the light.
- Flying Star chartA home’s chart in the Flying Stars: nine palaces, each with a mountain star, a water star and a period star, cast from the home’s period and facing.
Sources
- Zi Bai Jue (Verse of the Purple and White), Xuan Kong school
- Xuan Kong Mi Zhi (Secret Meaning of the Profound Void), Xuan Kong school
- Fei Xing Fu (Rhapsody of the Flying Stars), Xuan Kong school
- Shen Zhureng, Shen shi Xuankong xue, published after 1906