The Chinese Art of Date selection (Zé Rì | 择日) is like preparing a plate of Spaghettini Marinara. I kid you not. Let’s assume that you are competent enough to prepare an edible plate of pasta, meaning that at the end of the process, there’d be a plate of pasta that you will enjoy. Hear me out before you faint from laughing too hard. You’d have a variety of ingredients that makes the plate of pasta. For the sake of simplicity, our marinara pasta will use these ingredients; Spaghettini no.2, Tomato paste, Basil, Clams, Prawns, Garlic, Salt and Black pepper.
Remember that the assumption is that you’re competent enough to prepare a plate of marinara pasta that you’d enjoy. So, what if you have the best ingredients, home made spaghettini, tomato paste from the sunny hillsides of Italy, fresh organic basil, fresh seafood from Japan, garlic from Australia, bamboo salt and fragrant black pepper. You’d end up with a delicious plate of pasta.
Scenario 2: You have clams from Japan and no prawns.
Scenario 3: You have dried basil instead of fresh ones.
Scenario 4: You didn’t realise that the clams were rotten and you cooked them anyways.
The ingredients are like the different energies of the day. Scenario 1 gives you a super scrumptious plate of pasta. In scenarios 2 and 3, you’d still end up with a nice plate of pasta. Scenario 4 on the other hand, will send you to the toilet.
Date selection essentially is about avoiding the bad energies (rotten clams) and taking advantage of the good energies (where there are Japanese clams). The art is in understanding the energies, layering them and executing your plans. Also, the pursue for the perfect day for an activity is a myth. In the realm of Yin and Yang, there are no perfect days. We’d be wise to plan ahead and make use of what we are presented with.
Date selection is complex because of the hundreds of variations. The Bazi Calendar provides a representation on the day’s energy and how it interacts with your personal energy derived from your Bazi.