《滴天髓》in plain language

In MING’s source hierarchy this text owns one domain: 气势 (momentum), 流通 (circulation), 清浊 (clarity or muddiness) and 生克制化 — the live interactions between characters. Structure belongs to 《子平真诠》; climate belongs to 《穷通宝鉴》. This one is about how qi moves, not what shape it is in.

MING’s framework gives two sentences for why it is in the hierarchy at all: 滴天髓 trains the practitioner to observe the vitality and movement of the chart. It guards against rigid formulaic reading. That is a guard, not a method — which is why it sits second and not first.

It also holds one standing job: it breaks ties. Where two routes to a chart’s 用神 both look defensible, the written rule is to prefer the one that makes the structure function and preserves the chart’s flow. That is the whole of its casting vote, and it is published rather than exercised quietly.

It caps the month. The common formula is 「得时俱为旺论，失时便作衰看」 — in season, call the Day Master strong; out of season, call it weak. It is the formula most beginner readings run on, and 任铁樵 quotes it in his commentary in order to refuse it: 得时不一定旺、失时不一定弱 — having the season does not make you strong, and lacking it does not make you weak. So in MING the month branch weighs 40 where every other position weighs 10: four times any single character, and still outvotable by the other six scored positions together. How strength is judged works through what that buys you.

天覆地载 — a stem with a root beneath it, and a root with its stem showing above, are stronger than either alone. MING captures this with no special rule: stems and the hidden stems inside branches are both counted, so a character standing above its own root simply scores twice. A rule you do not have to write is good evidence a frame is shaped right.

This is where the text bites hardest, and it is worth following closely, because it is where a classic decides how loud MING is permitted to be.

After the named configurations are detected, the engine rolls them up into a single clarity verdict. A chart reads 浊 — muddied — if 正官 and 七杀 are mixed, or if it carries a break at all. It reads 清 only if something formed, rescued or mediating stands and no break does. Otherwise 中, neither. And then: 浊 costs a confidence tier, on its own.

Note what that second clause does not say. A rescue saves the structure; it does not restore the clarity. A chart can hold a formed structure, a rescue standing over it and a break underneath, and it still reads 浊 — the damage stays on the record even when the repair held.

These two charts are from MING’s own test set, and they are the whole lesson:

ZPZQ-YR-10   辛卯 丁酉 庚午 丙子   羊刃格 · 用火
  成          羊刃驾杀 — the Blade harnesses Seven Killings
  救应        官杀制比劫（护财）
  混杂        官杀混杂 — 正官 and 七杀 both exposed
  清浊        浊
  confidence  medium

ZPZQ-FP-16   甲子 壬申 己亥 辛未   伤官生财格 · 用水
  成          伤官生财 — Hurting Officer feeds Wealth
  救应        官杀制比劫（护财）
  通关        财通关 — Wealth bridges Output and the Officer stars
  清浊        清
  confidence  high

Read the first chart again. It has a formed structure. It has a rescue. A reading that counted its parts would call it clean and say so in a firm voice. The 清浊 rollup says muddied anyway — because two Authority stars standing exposed together is not a part you can add up, it is a condition of the whole chart — and MING drops a tier rather than talking past it.

That tier is not decoration either. It is what the recognition layer reads to decide which statements may be made plainly and which are held back for want of evidence. So a judgement this text owns decides how firmly every sentence downstream of it is allowed to land. One honest caveat, because the rule is narrow: 浊 is enough to cost a tier, not the only thing that can. A clear chart can also sit at medium for its own reasons.

MING re-checks its engine against sixteen charts from the classics as a standing gate. Fifteen carry 《子平真诠评注》 as their recorded source. One carries this text:

辛巳 · 辛丑 · 乙酉 · 乙酉        source: 滴天髓阐微 · 从象

day master    乙 wood
T1 无根        ✓   no 乙 or 甲 rooted anywhere in 巳 丑 酉 酉, not even a faint share
T2 生扶无力    ✓   the hour-stem 乙 and the 癸 inside 丑 are present but rootless — 虽生犹死, they do not count
T3 党势成势    ✓   the Authority party commands at 51 — three metal branches, 辛 twice above
T5 无救应      ✓   no rooted mediator and no rooted counter-force
raw force     24.7 → 弱
read          从杀格 — it goes with the Authority
用神           金 (官杀), selected by 格局得用(从势)
confidence    low

The bar is high on purpose. 「从得真者只论从」 — only a true follow is read as a follow — and 任铁樵 sets it at 「日主孤立无气，天地人元绝无一毫生扶之意」: not one trace of support anywhere. MING enforces the strict reading only, and the governing doctrine is named: 疑从不从, when in doubt it does not follow. A chart with one faint root is refused rather than smoothed. The classics also describe a 假从, a false follow — MING does not emit one at all, a decision signed off rather than defaulted into.

One of those four tests exists because of the commentator. T2 carries an exception written straight out of 任铁樵’s 「戊土虽生犹死」 — Earth, though in its birth phase, as good as dead: support that has no root does not count as support. The chart above passes T2 only through it — the 乙 on the hour stem is a Peer, present and rootless. The rule was first recorded as required by a second chart from this same text, a 从财 case with Metal standing over four 寅 (kept in the validation record rather than the standing sixteen), which does not read correctly without it. That is what it means for a commentary to govern something: a rule in the code that would not be there otherwise.

虚浮无力, the text’s teaching on rootless stems: a stem left rootless should lose force. MING’s own procedure specifies it — a factor of 0.7, applied after the interaction adjustments — and ships with it switched off, flagged as the first knob to test when the engine is next calibrated. It was not forgotten; it is a signed decision, taken to keep the core faithful to the book before tuning it. No part of the chart engine applies it today.

The scope of that claim is worth being exact about. A related rule does operate in the luck-pillar layer — 盖头, where a decade pillar fighting itself mutes the attacked side. That is a different rule with its own name; what is switched off is the rootless-stem factor on the birth chart.

This is on the page because a hierarchy that only ever reports agreement is not a hierarchy. A source that genuinely governs has to be able to say specified, and not in force.

The 40, and the seven strength bands it feeds, worked on a real chart: is your Day Master strong or weak? The 清 / 浊 verdict in its own setting: your chart’s structure. And for what MING computes but refuses to reason from, what 明命｜MING does not compute. The hierarchy this page sits inside, and which classic governs what: what 子平 is.