How to Change Your Astrological Fate,
Fortune and Destiny … and Live a
Wonderful Life along the Way
Bill Bodri
www.MeditationExpert.com
718-539-2811 USA
Outline of Topics
• Shao Kang Chieh (Shao Yung)
• Iron Abacus Numerology - Tieh Pan Shen Shu
• Zen Master Yungu and Liao Fan’s “Ledger of Merits and
Demerits” for “Governing My Mind”
• Benjamin Franklin’s “Art of Virtue” Daily Diary for Moral
Improvement
• Frank Bettger, Frank McKinney, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill
and Brian Tracey on Creating the Future You Want
• Goal Setting, Personal Productivity and Time Management
• Zhunti mantra
• Meditation Practice
• Charity, Virtue and Merit Making
• Summary for How to Keep Your Life on Track
5 minute I-Ching (Yi-Jing) Lesson
Yin-Yang
The 64 hexagrams
The 8 Trigrams
Sample Hexagram
Shao Yung (Shao Kang Chieh)
• Sung dynasty (1011-1077)
• One of the 5 great Neo-Confucian
philosophers: Chou Tun-Yi, Chang Tsai, Cheng
brothers, and Shao Yung united Confucianism,
Taoism and Buddhism
• Studied the I-Ching (Yi Jing) under Li Chih
Tsai in the School of Symbol and Number
• Study in the hut, seeing the rat, breaking the
ceramic pillow, finding the potter, visiting the
old man, reading the book, digging under the
bed, creating new ways of prediction
• Plum Blossom Numerology (Kuan Mei Shu)
• The Book of Great Philosophy (Huang Chi
Ching Shih Shu )
Plum Blossom Numerology
One evening at 4 pm on the 17th day of the 12th month in the Year of the Dragon, Shao Yang
was looking at the blossoms on a plum tree. He saw two sparrows fighting in the tree and they
fell to the ground. He predicted that a young neighbor girl would come to pick the plum
blossoms and when threatened by the gardener, would fall from the tree and hurt her thigh.
Day + Month + Year = 17 + 12 + 5 = 34
34 - 32 (4*8 trigrams) = 2 = Tui = Upper trigram
Hour + Day + Month + Year = 9 + 17 + 12 + 5 = 43
43 - 40 (5*8 trigrams) = 3 = Li = Lower trigram
Hour + Day + Month + Year = 9 + 17 + 12 + 5 = 43
43 - 42 (7*6 lines) = 1 = Moving Line
Moving Line
Hexagram 49,
Ko, Revolution
New Fate Hexagram
Hexagram 31,
Hsien, Influence
Hexagram # 49,
Ko, Revolution
Tui = young girl, metal,
injury
Explanation
Moving Line
Chien
Sun
Li = fire
Nuclear Hexagram
Inner
Trigrams
New Fate Hexagram
Chien = old man
(gardener), metal
Sun = thigh, flower,
wood
Tui
Hexagram # 31,
Hsien, Influence
Ken
New Fate Hexagram
Tui = young girl, metal
Ken = Earth, which produces metal,
so the girl will benefit in some way
and the injury will not be serious
The predictive hexagram, 49, is made up of the primary trigrams Tui and Li. Li, the lower
trigram, contains the moving line so it is the fate and therefore Tui is the subject. The
meaning of hexagram 49 is change and revolution, conflict and destruction.
In I-Ching symbology, Tui stands for a young girl, injury and metal. Li stands for fire. Since
fire destroys metal, this means a misfortune will occur. Therefore a young girl will be injured.
A young girl (Tui) will pick a flower (Sun) and is injured (Tui) in the thigh (Sun) by an old
man (Chien).
New Year’s Eve Prediction
On New Year’s Eve, Shao Yang and his son heard a knock on their front door. A neighbor
had come to borrow something. Shao Yang asked his son to predict what the neighbor
wanted to borrow.
Because there was 1 knock on the door, the son calculated Chien as the upper trigram,
which is the first trigram. Chien stands for metal and short things. From the time, day,
month and year he calculated the number 5, which is Sun, for the lower trigram. Sun
stands for wood and something long. The son therefore predicted the neighbor wanted
something with a short metal head (Chien) and long wooden handle (Sun), so he said a
“hoe.”
Chieh = metal, short
Sun = wood, long
Shao Yang said, “He wants to borrow an axe. … When you predict, you have to use your
knowledge and consider the time and situation. It’s winter time and it’s cold with snow
on the ground. How could anyone use a hoe? Who can use a hoe on New Year’s Eve? On
New Year’s Eve it’s a custom to build a fire in the house so he must need an axe.”
Other Shao Yang Stories
Once Master Shao bought a lantern and calculated from his purchase that it would be
broken at 12:00 noon on a certain day, month and year. Just before it was to be
broken, he put it on his desk in his study to watch it, curious to discover how it would
be broken. It was lunch time and his wife called him many times but he wouldn’t
respond or leave the room because he wanted to see the fate of the lantern. Finally,
his wife came into the room, saw him absorbed in the lantern, and broke it in her
anger. Shao Yang jumped up and said, “So that’s how it was to be broken.”
Once 3 scholars were on the way to take the civil service examinations to become
high officials, and asked Shao to predict whether they would pass or fail. He
predicted they would all pass and took them for a tour around his property. When
having lunch, Shao Yang constantly talked about his property, its history, whom he
purchased it from and many other details. He mentioned them over and over again.
After Shao died, one of his descendants was involved in a property dispute and the
magistrate happened to be one of the scholars who had passed the exam. He
remembered Shao’s conversation and how he talked about his property over and over
again and now he knew why. He ruled in favor of Shao’s descendants.
Other famous stories: The flowers trampled by a horse, historian Oh Yang Fei, the
graverobber’s mother, the safety of Szechuan province, and loss of the Sung dynasty.
File Away for Your Reference
Shao Yung’s Hexagrams
1995 - 4
1996 - 7
1997 - 33
1998 - 31
1999 - 56
2000 - 62
2001 - 53
2002 - 39
2003 - 52
2004 - 15
2005 - 12
2006 - 45
2007 - 35
2008 - 16
2009 - 20
2010 - 8
2011 - 23
2012 - 24
2013 - 27
2014 - 3
2015 - 42
2016 - 51
Planets Changing Signs (Vedic)
Uranus
Neptune
4/8/01 AQ
1/31/95 CP
7/22/01
8/3/95
1/26/02
12/3/95
4/5/09 PI
4/20/08 AQ
10/6/09
7/3/08
1/25/10
2/11/09
6/24/16 AR
10/7/09
9/3/16
12/2/09
Note: China - Big political changes coming 2011-2013
The Chinese Nostradamus
Shao Yang’s Principles
• “When there is no motion, no divination is possible.
When nothing happens, one should not divine.”
–
–
–
–
–
Zen master Nan-Ch’uan’s predictable travel plans
Master Tung-shan and student Yun-chu fed by devas
The Great god Indra scatters rice in order to see a Master
Story of Chinese Zen Master Nan Huai Chin
Story of Japanese Zen Master Bankei
• “The path before you should be made broad, for if it is
made too narrow there will no room even for yourself.
How much the less can you then help others along it?”
[Life springs from the dirtiest soil, water too pure harbors no fish.]
FAMILY
Your Father was born in the Year of the Dog, your Mother was
born
in the Year of the Tiger [1/144 chance since 12*12 =144]
Your mother is 34 years older than you [???]
You are born as the 4th son in the family [???]
• The 1st brother was born in the Year of the Horse [1/12]
• The 2nd brother was born in the Year of the Monkey
[1/12]
• The 3rd brother was born in the Year of the Pig [1/12]
There are 2 sisters in your family; You have younger sisters
but no
older sisters [???]
The brothers in the family get along with each other without
disagreement
You most resemble your mother in appearance [1/2]
Your parents [at the time of this reading] are both still living
Liao Fan’s Four Lessons
•
•
•
Ming dynasty, Father passes away and Liao Fan starts to study medicine
Liao Fan meets Mr. Kong, from Yunnan, at Compassionate Cloud Temple: “You are destined
to be a government official. Next year you will attain the rank of First Level Scholar. Why
aren’t you studying for the imperial examination?” Kong states that he is supposed to transmit
his prediction technique, from the line of Shao Yung, to Liao Fan
Liao Fan takes him home, and he and his mother test Kong on all sorts of predictions, large
and small, always finding them accurate. So he decides to start studying again for the imperial
examination. Kong says he will pass:
– 14th in the county exam; 71st in the regional exam; 9th in the provincial exam
•
Next year he passes as predicted. Kong calculates his life predictions:
–
–
–
–
•
All the years he passes exams and in what place
The year he becomes a “Civil scholar” and the year he becomes an “Imperial scholar”
His final appointment as magistrate in Sichuan province for 3.5 years, retiring and returning home
Death at age 53 on August 14 between 1:00--3:00 am, without any male heir
Everything transpires as predicted, even the prediction of a promotion after 91 dan and 5 dou
of rice (He was recommended for promotion after 70 dan but a new boss turned it down.
Some years later a new Educational Commissioner promotes him and the original calculation,
which had caused him to doubt the validity of Kong’s predictions, proved 100% correct.)
Aside ...
• Hinduism - even the number of breaths you take is numbered
• Your income, your bank account, stock market turning days, etc.
can all be calculated … even lottery numbers
• This means you have a fixed amount of merit unless you are
always working to replenish it. Many things can be computed
because of karma, but when you act to do good deeds without a
mind of clinging, you can create vast amounts of incalculable
merit ... Because there’s no limit to your mind at the time of
giving, so the rewards you will receive in response to the need
will be just as great. A “penny gift” given with a sincere mind
can indeed create a king, and a mud pie given to a Buddha can
create an Emperor!
• The key is don’t use up your merit foolishly like many rich
people do! Don’t squander your time or resources foolishly
but always be giving, especially to those IN NEED.
Liao Fan Starts Believing in a Sealed
Fate and Unchangeable Predestination
• Liao Fan then believes that life and death, promotion and demotion, wealth and
poverty all come about in due time and are fated. So believing in fate, he begins to
view everything in a detached manner and ceases to seek gain or profit.
• After being selected as an Imperial student, he is sent to a university in Beijing for
one year’s time. He starts meditating and makes some spiritual progress … he
attains a degree of emptiness (where no thoughts arise).
• Goes to Nanjing for one year, undergoes a Zen retreat with Master Yungu
meditating for 3-days and nights without sleep: Master Yungu said: “The reason
ordinary people do not become enlightened is because they have all sorts of
wandering thoughts running around in their minds. In 3 days, I have not observed a
single wandering thought arise in you. Why is that?”
• Liao Fan replies: “Mr. Kong has predicted the entire outcome of my life. The time of
everything is predestined -- life, death, wealth, promotion, failure. There is no need
for me to think about or desire anything. There’s no room for other results.”
• Master Yungu slaps him with words: “I thought you were someone of special
capability. Now I see you are just an average ordinary individual.”
Master Yungu’s Teaching
Ordinary people are forever involved with wandering thoughts, so
naturally their lives are bound to chi, the forces of yin and yang, and
fate. You cannot deny that fate exists, but only ordinary people are
bound to it. Destiny cannot bind those who practice great kindness or
great wickedness. For those who cultivate great kindness, the virtues
they accumulate from kind acts is so great they can alter their original
destiny for the better. The merits accrued can actually change their
destiny from suffering to happiness, poverty to prosperity, and short
lives to longevity. However, when a persons’ evil deeds are great and
powerful, they will cancel out the fortune and prosperity predetermined
in their original fate, and their life will be transformed from good to
bad. … Now for 20 years you haven’t tried to change your fortune as
predicted even one little bit, so how can you be anything other than just
a regular commonplace individual?
If you seek within yourself, you will not only attain virtue, goodness and
righteousness but also a good reputation, wealth and high status -- both
internal and external benefits. If you do not turn within and examine
yourself but merely chase after these things from the outside, then
although you use intelligence to attain them, you can only attain at most
what fate had entitled you to. You will lose both internal and external
benefits; no benefits are derived from blind seeking.
Mencius said, “In seeking one should follow the right path. In attaining,
one attains what one’s destiny entitles one to.” … One who attains one
million dollars in this life must have cultivated the good fortune worthy of
that amount in the past. Those who have thousands of dollars must have
cultivated the good fortune worthy of that amount. Those who die of
starvation were in fact meant to die in that manner. If you have
accumulated enough merits for 100 generations, you’ll have 100
generations of descendants, and the same goes for those with only 2-3
descendants. The fate of people is created by their own past thoughts and
actions. Retribution is simply the fruit of their deeds. [Karma]
Sources of Authority
• Book of Songs: “We create our own destiny.”I-Ching: “The family
that accumulates goodness is sure to have superabundant blessings.
The family that accumulates evil is sure to suffer superabundant
misfortune.” Mencius: “Whatever is sought can be attained.”
• Vedas: If we sow goodness we will reap goodness. If we sow evil
we will reap evil.
• Buddhism: “If one wishes for and seeks wealth, fame, children and
long life than you can attain them.” (Master Yungu: “Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas don’t lie and certainly have no reason to deceive us.”)
• Bible: “Ask and it shall be given to you, Seek and you shall find;”
“You do not have because you do not ask.”
• Master Yungu teaches: “When trying to change one’s fate, not a
single thought should arise. Then one will most easily receive a
response. Where there is no sign of duality (between wealth and
poverty, failure and success, life and death, that’s where we will be
able to create and form our destiny. … When our cultivation reaches a
certain level then our destiny will change. This change will depend
upon the accumulation of merits, on seeking a response from the
heavens.” [free will]
• Master Yungu introduces a Merit-Fault chart, or daily ledger for
recording one’s merits and demerits where one bad deed neutralizes
one good deed. This is Liao Fan’s Ledger of Merits and Demerits
which he calls “The Book of Governing my Mind.”
• Master Yungu teaches Liao Fan to recite the Zhunti mantra
Liao Fan Decides to Change
• Liao Fan regrets his past misdeeds and vows to reform. He writes down before the
Buddha that he wishes to pass a higher imperial exam and pledges 3000 good deeds.
• Kong’s predictions now start to lose their accuracy. Liao Fan takes the preliminary
examination in which he is supposed to place 3rd, and takes 1st place. In the Fall he
passes the real imperial exam, which Kong had not predicted he would pass.
• 10 years later the 3,000 good deeds are accumulated and Kong dedicates them at a
temple. Kong wishes for a son and vows another 3,000 good deeds. In 4 years,
together with his wife, they are accumulated.
• Kong vows 10,000 good deeds and asks to pass the jinshi imperial examination
degree. After 3 years he passes the exam and becomes the mayor of Baodi but has
few opportunities to do good deeds as before. He dreams that lowering the taxes for
the county was equivalent to 10,000 good deeds, and asks visiting Zen master
Huanyu for confirmation. Zen master Huanyu says, “One kind deed with a pure
heart can be worth that much. In this case, since more than 10,000 people were
benefited from heavy taxes being lifted, so of course the merit is that great.”
• Kong predicted he’d die at age 53 without an heir, but he lives far past this allotted
time, begets a son and achieves a high position far past what was fated.
Liao Fan’s Conclusions
• Liao Fan concludes: “Destiny exists but is very difficult to be believed by people
because it is changeable.” “Destiny is not set but is created and determined by
ourselves.” The power to recreate destiny is in yourself. As long as you are willing
to reform your ill ways, practice kind deeds and work to accumulate merit and
virtues, there is nothing you ask that you will not receive. These are your own
transactions to create good fortune, and no one can take them away. How is it
possible you won’t get to enjoy what you create?
• The I-Ching was written to help people bring about good fortune and avoid pain,
suffering and misery. If everything is predestined, what’s the point of the I-Ching?
[The same goes for astrology.] They were invented to help us change our fortunes,
otherwise what’s the point? Therefore know that your fortune can be changed.
• You can form your fate rather than be bound by it. Accumulating merit and
meditation, reforming your faults and cultivating humility, are the keys. One should
always reflect upon his own thoughts and actions to see if they accord with the way
of heaven. If one practices such, then good fortune will come without being sought.
The choice of whether to seek good fortune or bring about adversity is all up to you.
The Formula for Change
• Recognize your faults and shortcomings (for not having a son, living long, or
being promoted) and vow to reform them. Become aware of your errant thoughts
and habit energies, and resolve to correct them as you would work to cure an
illness. Use meditation to cultivate the awareness that lets you cut off errors and
make amends. Be fearless not to cling to the past but be willing to change … Live
as though the past does not exist and the future starts today. Now!
• Develop your virtue and perform many good deeds and acts of charity.
Diligently practice hidden kind deeds and work to accumulate many merits and
virtues. These acts will accumulate the personal merit that will create your own
good fortune. Start today.
• While waiting, let go of the thought of desiring something you are not supposed to
have and the thought of wishing to receive a reward. Because you cannot reach
the state of no-thought emptiness, practice reciting the Zhunti mantra to reach
the stage where you “do not recite while reciting and recite when not reciting.”
When you no longer have wandering thoughts, the mantra will be successful and
effective. Merit, meditation and supplication can evoke a response from
heaven. Start on this path this very moment.
The “Formula” … Success, Goals,
Achievement, Accomplishment, A New Life,
Change Your Fortune and Destiny
(1) Correct One’s Faults [cultivate awareness and virtue] and (2) Accumulate Merit
MERIT (practicing charity, good deeds, virtuous ways) +
MEDITATION (awareness, cultivating emptiness) +
MANTRA (asking for higher help, silencing the mind) +
METHOD (a plan toward the goal, continuous discipline,
massive intelligent action toward progress) +
MEASUREMENT (track your progress toward success) =
One of My Old Practice Schedules
Seeing the Fortune in Your
Face or Palm or whatever ...
• The Taoist Monk Ch’iu Ch’ang-Ch’un
The lines of destiny written on your face are not true indicators of your
destiny. For the true face is not your physical face but the face of your
mind. And it is on the face of your mind that true destiny is written.
Therefore, when the fortune-tellers say that a person has a kind
disposition or a cruel disposition written on his or her face, they are
really referring to a minor determinant of destiny. The major determinant
of destiny is in the heart. If a cruel heart is tamed, or a kind heart
becomes cruel, the external features will change. Therefore, the facial
appearance is merely an indicator of the destiny written on the internal
face, which is your heart. Our destiny is determined by our actions.
People who were initially destined to die a violent death may die
peacefully if they perform good deeds. Our destiny is in our own hands.
• Story of the boy who saved the ants
• Moses and Abraham Lincoln
The Two Brothers and the God of Wealth
“Only if you practice generosity and giving can you become wealthy. Your
previous karmic causality has made you poor because you did not practice
generosity, offering and all forms of charity. That is why you are poor. So
even though you ardently beg me day and night for wealth and riches, how
can you obtain them without this karmic past?
“Take for example a fruit tree. If it is winter time, you cannot obtain any fruit,
no matter whether you served a thousand or a million gods to get it. The
same principle applies to money. Because you previously did not develop
any karmic causality, but yet you still beg me for wealth and riches, you
cannot get it either. But when the fruit is ripe in season, you will naturally
obtain it without even asking. Everything is obtained because of prior
formations; to obtain something you must perform the appropriate actions
and set the right formations into motion. What can imploring the gods do
about it?”
If you want to receive but you have not given, a billion prayers cannot make
your dreams come true! If a request could be answered by prayer, it doesn't
mean that a heavenly response comes free because acts of grace are still
subject to causation; they are ultimately due to prior acts of sufficient merit.
Vasistha’s Yoga
… What is called fate or divine will is nothing other than the action or selfeffort of the past. The present is infinitely more potent than the past. They indeed
are fools who are satisfied with the fruits of their past effort (which they regard as
divine will) and do not engage themselves in self-effort now.
If you see that the present self-effort is sometimes thwarted by fate (or
divine will), you should understand that the present self-effort is weak. A weak and
dull-witted man sees the hand of providence when he is confronted by a strong and
powerful adversary and succumbs to him.
Sometimes it happens that without effort someone makes a great gain: for
example, the state elephant chooses (in accordance with an ancient practice) a
mendicant as the ruler of a country whose king suddenly died without leaving an
heir; this is certainly neither an accident nor some kind of divine act, but the fruit
of the mendicant’s self-effort in the past birth.
… The wise man should of course know what is capable of attainment by
self-effort and what is not. It is, however, ignorance to attribute all this to an
outside agency and to say that “God sends me to heaven or to hell” or that “an
outside agency makes me do this or that”-- such an ignorant person should be
shunned. -- Vasistha’s Yoga, SUNY, pp. 26-27
Alan Leo, an eminent astrologer of the West views karma and free will
thusly: “The idea seems to be prevalent that astrology teaches fatalism.
Those, however, who have studied the subject know that it does not teach
absolute fatalism. We are not utterly bound; neither, on the other hand, are we
entirely free. We are limited and restrained by ignorance. The impressions
and samskaras are the primitive emotions and tendencies that motivate our
lives. They are the impressions carried over from our past lives in our
subconscious minds, which motivate desires, and in turn produce our
thoughts and actions.” Put another way, man’s actions move on the lines that
his own karma is tracing for him. But his will is free to fashion his karma. It
is determinism to the extent that it is shadowed by the unchangeable laws of
karma, but life which is guided by free will does not follow any preordained
pattern. Determinism thus appears to function as the law which operates
through changes according to the conditions of each person’s circumstances
and environment. Vedic philosophy has always denied the existence of a
merciless fate which would play with man as it pleases. On the contrary, the
sages have undeniably declare that man has control over his actions, but his
actions have no control over their results. -- Chakrapani Ullal