How to read a citation
Each entry carries three layers, and they are not the same kind of claim.
- C1 — primary source. The Chinese text as it stands in the revised corpus, with the collation apparatus removed and the original linked.
- C4 — Eastern Lens interpretation. The English translation and the modern reading. These are ours. Where a passage states a rule of divination, it is presented as a rule, not as a modern claim.
The corpus behind these pages is the revised daizhige Chinese classics collection, whose works are checked against the Chinese Text Project, Wikisource, and Wikidata.
BaZi / fate calculation
Dripping Heavenly Marrow
滴天髓
A terse classical text on the structural forces in a chart, read in the tradition as compressed rather than illustrative.
The Abyss and Sea of the Zi Ping Method
渊海子平
The foundational Song-dynasty text of the Zi Ping school of Four Pillars analysis, the tradition Eastern Lens draws on for chart calculation.
The Comprehensive Treatise on the Three Destinies
三命通会
A Ming-dynasty compendium on fate calculation, one of the two great systematisations of the tradition.
The Precious Mirror of Exhaustion and Flourishing
穷通宝鉴
A Qing-dynasty handbook on how a Day Master fares across the twelve months, describing seasonal adjustment as a question of usable conditions rather than fortune.
Confucianism
Analects
论语
The sayings of Confucius gathered by his disciples, centred on learning, ritual, and the daily work of becoming a person others can rely on.
Mencius
孟子
The Mencius argues that human beings have an unteachable moral capacity, and that a ruler who loses sight of it forfeits the mandate to rule.
The Doctrine of the Mean
中庸
On the mean as a process rather than a midpoint: the way things are allowed to unfold without being forced or abandoned.
The Great Learning
大学
One of the Four Books, on how personal clarity, family order, and public order are the same work at different scales.
Daoism
The Original Meaning of the Laozi
老子本义
A Qing-dynasty commentary that reads the Daodejing chapter by chapter, arguing that its central idea is not mystery but the reduction of forced effort.
Zhuangzi
庄子
The inner chapters of the Zhuangzi, whose paradoxes loosen the grip of fixed categories: the same perspective that judges a dream also judges waking.
Legalism
Military strategy
Six Secret Teachings
六韬
A dialogue on leadership before battle, including the argument that the general's own character sets the ceiling on what the army can achieve.
The Art of War
孙子兵法
On preparation, position, and the deliberate avoidance of unnecessary force: winning cheaply rather than winning loudly.
Thirty-Six Stratagems
三十六计
A catalogue of indirect tactics, each given a paired name, such as borrowing another to do the work of your own.
Mohism
Numerology and divination
Plum Blossom Numerology
梅花易数
A method of reading hexagrams from the spontaneous numbers in a moment, and of treating any question as already carrying its answer.
The Expanded and Revised Book of Changes for Divination
增删卜易
A Qing-dynasty manual on six-line divination, organised as a large reference of hexagram-by-hexagram interpretation.
The Orthodox Method of Divination
卜筮正宗
An orthodox manual on six-line divination, written to correct the improvised and improvised-cleverness of its time.
School of Diplomacy
Yijing studies
Annotated Commentary on the Book of Changes
周易注疏
The received commentary on the Yijing, pairing Wang Bi's philosophical reading with Han Kangbo's and Kong Yingda's subcommentary.
Correct Principles of the Book of Changes
周易正义
The Tang court commentary on the Yijing, the standard imperial reading that shaped two thousand years of Chinese textual interpretation.
Correct Principles of the Book of Changes
周易正义
The Tang court commentary on the Yijing, preserved here in a parallel edition.
What this library does not claim
These texts are presented as cultural and philosophical sources for structured self-reflection. A passage on timing or on the balance of elements is not a prediction, and the modern reading is not medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.