Some random thoughts in Qi Men Dun Jia

Qi Men Dun Jia, as its ambigous name suggests, has numerous interpretations.

Some blokes conclude the Qi refers to the 3 important trinity stems 'San Qi' (Yi, Bing, Ding) that are as important as the Doors aka 'Men'. There is the usual group that simply conclude the Qi Men refers to the 'Mysterious Doors' and hence attention should only be centered on the doors' plate.

The second part of 'Dun Jia' refers to the 'Hidden Jia' that is assigned as the Leader of the Heaven Stems in this context.  Since Jia is the leader and the other 9 stems represent the human-human aspects, the central theory is to investigate how Jia will be affected by the various interactions in the Qi Men plate.  By superimposing the fortunes of Jia based on how the various stems, doors, 9 stars and 8 deities influence it, most Qi Men exponent will be able to peek into the insights provided by a Qi Men chart.

Despite the numerous debates, many modern practitioners have cleverly extended the application of Qi Men Dun Jia into new fields with mixed results and often with matching steep fees.

The basic principle is simple, applying Qi Men Dun Jia theories improve one's chances realizing a outcome from a fluid and delicate situation. 

The Hour School appears to be the most popular as 1080 charts seems to be a good representation of daily events as compared to the highly generic nature of the year, month and day charts. 

While the Hour School is united in promoting their 1080 charts over the day, month and year school, they recently has fought among themselves over the different methods in the following matters.....

1. Imperial vs Non Imperial 
The old debate between Zhi Run vs Chai Bu Ju determination. Each faction has credible defence and counter points but sadly there are very few studies in any books other than the lengthy theoretical debates.

2. Rotating vs Flying School
Less bad blood between these two groups because the Flying School is less visible and the Rotating School always almost enjoys disproportionately media and books exposure. 

Example of a Rotating School Hour Qi Men Dun Jia chart.

However do not be fooled by the 1080 charts, if one considers the interactions among the entities within a palace, interaction among the palaces, the level complexity will greatly increase. Therefore Qi Men, while is rather versatile, is primarily used as a date selection system. This system hence complement the missing 'remedy' aspects from other life destiny techniques. 

For example, in Bazi and Zi Wei, the secret sauce are usually missing to resolve a particular problem and the standard practice is to use other geomancy methods to address the problem at hand. With the application of Qi Men Dun Jia theories for delicate situations, the window of opportunity has been widen as nearest best hour can be used and the location can be selected to break a delicate deadlock.

There are numerous ingenious methods promoted by many schools recently but the standard practice is to use the following points;

1. Good doors 
2. Good stems
3. Good auxiliary entities, 9 Stars, 8 Deities.
4. Context palace that has good doors and stems do not clash with each other (each palace has a elemental aspects that is similar to the stems and doors).
5. Day master stem or Tai Sui (birth year stem) is aided by earlier entities discussed .