Ten Factors Influencing Life Fortunes
There is an important concept in the "Book of Changes": fate, fortune, feng shui, accumulating hidden virtues, studying, name, appearance, respecting deities, making friends with noble people, and maintaining health. It means that the ten factors that determine a person's life, in order of importance, are: fate, fortune, feng shui, merits and virtues, studying, name, appearance, respecting deities, noble people, and health.
1）Fate: Predetermined by Nature
The "fate" mentioned by the Chinese refers to a person's "Eight Characters". Based on the year, month, day, and hour of your birth, it is converted into "Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches", totaling eight characters. According to these eight characters, one can calculate a person's honor and disgrace, good and bad fortune, wealth and poverty, as well as lifespan throughout their life. A person's fate is already determined from the day they are born. We can use the Eight Characters to predict this person's life trajectory in advance. "Fate" can let people know what they are suitable for and what they are not suitable for. For example, some people's fate is suitable for a career in politics, some are suitable for business, and some have a plain and stable fate and are suitable for being good citizens. This actually has a very important guiding role in life.
2）Fortune: Fortune Can Change
What is predetermined by nature is fate, and what is determined after birth is fortune. As the saying goes, "A good fortune is better than a good fate", which emphasizes the importance of "fortune". A person's destiny is already set, and the only thing that can be grasped well is one's own "fortune". What is fortune? If it is compared to a vehicle, fortune is the road; if fate is compared to a boat, fortune is the water. There is a saying that "There is a major fortune every ten years and a minor fortune every five years". Understanding the fortune in life helps us wait for opportunities. When a person is in good fortune, they will encounter great opportunities. If they seize such opportunities, they can change their fate. Many people have indeed done this, seizing such opportunities and changing their own fate, the fate of their families, and even the fate of their clans. However, when more people encounter such opportunities, they fail to seize them. They are timid and hesitant, and finally miss the opportunity to change their fate, regretting it for a lifetime. Whether one can recognize and seize such opportunities is a subject that people need to learn in life. When fortune is prosperous, one should be aggressive and forge ahead; when fortune is in decline, one should keep a low profile. It is important to "follow the trend".
3）Feng shui: The Wonders of Nature
What is feng shui? Feng shui refers to the influence of the environment where people live, the surrounding energy, and the qi field on people, including residences, offices, as well as other activity venues, clothing, and collocations. Feng shui affects people's fortune. Good feng shui will bring good fortune to people, making you prosperous in wealth, career, and studies, and everything you do will be relatively smooth. Bad feng shui will have a negative impact, making it easy to make mistakes and difficult to achieve your wishes. The influence of feng shui on life is second only to fate, and it is the most important factor that can be actively changed by people. When it comes to "feng shui", it is necessary to mention the "Five Elements". Everything in the world has its own energy, and all human behaviors are essentially energy exchanges. In Eastern metaphysics, the energy in nature is divided into five elements: gold, wood, water, fire, and earth, which are called the "Five Elements". People believe that when the Five Elements reach a dynamic balance, things will go smoothly. Then how to adjust feng shui? From adjusting the location, layout, and furnishings of a house to daily clothing collocations, such as what color clothes to wear and what accessories with certain attributes to choose, by adjusting the balance of the Five Elements, one can influence the feng shui energy around a person.
4）Accumulating Virtues
As the saying goes, "A family that accumulates good deeds will surely have extra blessings." This means that a family that often does good deeds will surely be more auspicious and lucky. A person's contribution to society and others is called merit and virtue; the act of making more contributions and doing more good deeds is called accumulating virtues, and doing good deeds secretly without seeking rewards is called accumulating hidden virtues. This factor is to regulate people's daily behaviors. One should have good intentions and do more good deeds, and then the trend of fate will be better and better.
5）Studying: Changing One's Own Fate
Reading and learning are things that accompany people throughout their lives. Reading can expand our horizons and allow us to enter another world and experience different cultures and ideas. By reading books in different fields, cultures, and with different ideas, we can understand a broader world and more diversified viewpoints, thus broadening our cognitive boundaries and enhancing our inclusiveness and understanding. In books, we can meet all kinds of characters and stories and experience all kinds of emotions and experiences. These can not only bring us spiritual pleasure and satisfaction but also have a profound impact on our ways of learning, understanding the world, thinking logic, and behaviors.
6）Name
A name is the code of life, containing many information codes. It is not just a written symbol but also the expectation and blessing of a family or clan for their descendants. A good name should be coordinated with the yin and yang and the Five Elements in the Eight Characters of the birth date, so that it can make up for the congenital deficiencies of the Eight Characters, generate wealth and boost fortune. A good name has a promoting effect on a person's marriage, career, and health, while an inappropriate name will hinder a person's fate.
7）Appearance
"Appearance" can also be understood as a person's image, including facial features, palmistry, body shape, body movements, and inner state, etc. It reflects a person's overall state through external manifestations. If a person is plump, has a ruddy complexion, bright eyes, clear speech, and a sonorous voice, this is a good image. On the other hand, if a person has a dark patch between the eyebrows, dull eyes, and speaks incoherently, this is a bad image. Since ancient times, there has been the saying that "Appearance is shaped by the heart". Although appearance is predetermined by nature and we have no right to choose, as ordinary people, we can improve our inner state through inner cultivation and strive for a kind heart, thereby improving our own fortune.
8）Respecting Deities: Human's Respect for Nature
The earth gives birth to all things in the world. The earth is the mother of human beings, and human beings and all things coexist in the same homeland. Human beings can never be the sole master of the earth. In the universe, there are dimensions higher than human beings that humans cannot fully understand. Perhaps the sun, the earth, and countless celestial bodies are all life forms higher than human beings. Facing the vast nature, human beings are just insignificant and tiny existences. Therefore, we need to always have respect for nature, deities, and the universe beyond human cognition.
9）Making Friends with Noble People
"Noble people" are what we usually call "beneficial friends", who can give you help, support, and inspiration in all aspects of your life. The level of interpersonal communication directly reflects and determines a person's career development and quality. However, in real life, not everyone can make their own "noble people". Why is this? "As the saying goes, 'Friends may meet even though they are thousands of miles apart; but they may not know each other even though they meet face to face.' Making friends with noble people depends on fate. Between people, due to the differences in their Eight Characters and fate charts, there are relationships of mutual generation and mutual restraint. If the right major and minor fortunes have not come, noble people will not appear. Of course, in more cases, they have already appeared but one fails to distinguish who is one's own noble person. So how to meet and recognize noble people is also a kind of knowledge.
10）The Way of Maintaining Health
Health is the foundation of life. There are three treasures in heaven: the sun, the moon, and the stars. There are three treasures in human beings: essence, qi, and spirit. Physical and mental health is the cornerstone of life and has a crucial significance for life. Physical health enables us to have the energy to experience the richness and variety of life, actively participate in various activities, enjoy the fun of nature, travel, and socializing, while preventing the pain brought by diseases and delaying aging. Mental health gives us confidence, relieves stress and anxiety, and enhances happiness. Only with physical and mental health can we have a balanced mind, a calm head, and generate correct plans and actions.