Twelve Life Stages

The Twelve Life Stages are a traditional vocabulary for saying where something stands within a cycle. Borrowing the arc of a life from conception through decline and back to conception, they divide one full turn into twelve positions: Changsheng (Birth), Muyu (Bathing), Guandai (Capping), Linguan (Establishment), Diwang (Peak), Shuai (Decline), Bing (Sickness), Si (Death), Mu (Storage), Jue (Severance), Tai (Conception) and Yang (Nurture).

The reading is always relative. Change the stem being referenced and the same branch returns a different stage; change the divinatory system and the placement rule changes too. So on meeting Si (Death) or Jue (Severance) in a chart, the first question to ask is what the stage is being read against.

You will meet this vocabulary in four of Guanyitang's tools: the Dishi and Zizuo rows of a BaZi chart, the twelve spirits of a Zi Wei chart, the Storage and Severance rules of Liu Yao, and the palace condition of a stem in Qi Men. All four share these names while each keeps its own placement rule, and all four are set out below.

Elsewhere you may see this material called the Changsheng Twelve Spirits (长生十二神) or the birth-peak-death-extinction table (生旺死绝表), and other English writers render the set as Growth Phases or Qi Stages. These all name the same twelve positions.

One note on presentation. Tables on this page give the stage names in English gloss, because the stage romanisations collide with the stem and branch romanisations that appear in the same tables: Bing is both a stem (丙) and a stage (病), Si is both a branch (巳) and a stage (死), and Yang is both a polarity and a stage (养). Prose gives pinyin and gloss together on first use.

The twelve stages, one by one

The twelve names are metaphors, not verdicts. This is not a modern softening; it is what the classical texts say about themselves. Ren Tiechao puts it most plainly in Ditian Sui Chanwei:

至于长生沐浴等名，乃假借形容之辞也。

As for names such as Changsheng and Muyu, they are borrowed figures of speech.

The branch chapter of San Ming Tong Hui, volume 2 closes on the same point:

大抵五行用法，总无真实，生死衰旺，亦假名耳。

Broadly speaking, the working use of the five phases holds nothing literal; birth, death, decline and flourishing are likewise borrowed names.

The glosses below draw mainly on San Ming Tong Hui's quotation of San Ming Ti Yao and on Ren Tiechao's commentary, which corroborate one another.

Changsheng · Birth

The image of first emergence. Ren Tiechao: Changsheng is like a person's first coming into the world. San Ming Ti Yao lists it fourth, after receiving breath, conception and taking form — that is, the thing has already taken shape underground and now appears. It opens the sequence and is one of the four positions most often cited on its own.

Muyu · Bathing

Washing after birth. Ren Tiechao: Muyu is like a newborn being bathed to remove the residue of birth. San Ming Ti Yao is more specific, and explains the alternative name "failing":

五曰沐浴，又曰败，以万物始生，形体柔脆，易为所损，如人生后三日以沐浴之，几至困绝也。

Fifth is Muyu, also called the failing position: as all things first emerge, their form is soft and fragile and easily harmed — as a person bathed three days after birth is nearly overwhelmed by it.

The original sense is therefore that something newly born is still fragile and easily damaged. It has nothing to do with romantic or sexual affairs. Its relationship to the Peach Blossom marker is treated separately under common misreadings.

Guandai · Capping

The classical coming-of-age rite of receiving cap and sash. Ren Tiechao: form and qi are gradually growing, as a person of age receives cap and sash.

Linguan · Establishment

Taking up office; also called Jianlu, the established stipend. Ren Tiechao: growth passing into flourishing, as a person becomes fit to serve. This position falls on the same branch as Lushen: Jia at Yin, Yi at Mao, Bing and Wu at Si, Ding and Ji at Wu, Geng at Shen, Xin at You, Ren at Hai, Gui at Zi — agreeing stem by stem with the Linguan column.

Diwang · Peak

The fullest point of the turn. Ren Tiechao: the extremity of vigour. For yang stems this position is the branch that Yangren identifies; the two entries describe different uses of the same branch.

Shuai · Decline

Past the peak, with the qi beginning to recede.

Bing · Sickness

Weakened but not yet spent, by analogy with a person falling ill.

Si · Death

The exhausted position. The name is taken from the metaphor of a life ending; it does not describe lifespan and does not describe misfortune. The two passages quoted at the head of this section are directed precisely at that misreading.

Mu · Storage

Gathering into a vault. San Ming Ti Yao:

十二曰墓，又曰库，以万物成功而藏之库，如人之终而归墓也。归墓则又受气，胞胎而生。

Twelfth is Mu, also called the storehouse: all things, having completed their work, are stored away, as a person at the end returns to the grave. Returning to the grave, the thing receives breath again, is conceived and is born.

Mu (grave) and Ku (storehouse) are two names for one position, as the text itself states. On the popular rule that a stem in Storage must be clashed before it can be used, Ren Tiechao objects directly: the current saying that a stem entering Storage must be clashed is an error of popular books. That is one Qing-dynasty commentator's view, but it is enough to show the rule is not uncontested.

Jue · Severance

The former qi has ended and the next is about to continue. In San Ming Ti Yao this position's primary name is receiving breath:

一曰受气，又曰绝，曰脆，以万物在地中未有其象，如母腹空，未有物也。

First is receiving breath, also called Jue, also called the brittle position: all things are within the earth without yet having form, as a womb is empty and holds nothing.

Ren Tiechao similarly glosses Jue as the point where the preceding qi has been cut off and the following qi is about to continue. Jue therefore names the gap at a handover, not annihilation.

Tai · Conception

Qi meets and forms an embryo. San Ming Ti Yao: second is receiving conception — heaven and earth's qi intermingle and shape things, and the thing sprouts within the earth.

Yang · Nurture

Nourished within the womb, awaiting birth. Ren Tiechao: Yang is like a person nourished in the mother's womb, and from here Changsheng comes round again, the cycle turning without end.

Whose position is being described?

This is the most important section on the page. The twelve stages are not a property a branch carries by itself. They describe the relationship between a particular stem and a particular branch. Swap the stem and the answer swaps with it.

Two rows of a Guanyitang BaZi chart use this vocabulary, and they differ only in what they reference:

One branch showing two different stage names is normal. Take a chart for 15 March 1990 at 10:00, male. The Day Master is Ji, and the year pillar is Geng Wu:

• Dishi: Ji on Wu → Linguan (Establishment)
• Zizuo: Geng on Wu → Muyu (Bathing)

The same branch Wu, once Establishment and once Bathing. There is one reason: Dishi asks how the Day Master Ji stands, while Zizuo asks how the year stem Geng stands.

In other systems the reference shifts again: Zi Wei references the chart's phase bureau, Liu Yao references a line's phase against the day and month branches, and Qi Men references the palace a stem occupies. See the four systems compared.

The ten stems across the twelve branches

The table below is computed by the charting engine from the same function that produces the Dishi and Zizuo rows of a chart. It is not a second, separately transcribed copy. Switching the convention shows the other school's results and marks the cells that change.

The Changsheng branch for each stem is given explicitly in the stem-polarity chapter of San Ming Tong Hui, volume 2, so it need not be reverse-engineered from a table: Jia begins at Hai, Yi at Wu, Bing at Yin, Ding at You, Wu at Yin, Ji at You, Geng at Si, Xin at Zi, Ren at Shen and Gui at Mao. The Guanyitang engine's Changsheng positions agree with that chapter stem by stem, as do its Si (Death) positions.

Yang forward, yin reverse

This is the largest disagreement surrounding the twelve stages. Both positions rest on locatable text, and neither is folk invention.

The first position: yang forward, yin reverse

The stem-polarity chapter of San Ming Tong Hui, volume 2 opens:

十干五阳五阴，阳者为刚，阴者为柔，其生死之分如母生子，子成而母老死，理之自然。赋曰：阳生阴死，阳死阴生，循环逆顺，变化见矣。

Of the ten stems, five are yang and five yin; the yang are firm and the yin yielding. Their division of birth and death is like a mother bearing a child: as the child matures the mother ages and dies, which is the nature of things. The rhapsody says: where yang is born yin dies, where yang dies yin is born; the cycle runs in both directions, and change becomes visible.

On this reading Jia begins at Hai while Yi dies at Hai; Bing begins at Yin while Ding dies at Yin, and so on. Guanyitang's BaZi follows this position.

The second position: yin and yang share one cycle

Ditian Sui Chanwei records the opposite view, in strong terms. The Ditian Sui text itself:

阴阳顺逆之说，《洛书》流行之用，其理信有之也，其法不可执一。

The doctrine of yin and yang running in opposite directions is a use of the circulation described in the Luo Shu. Its principle may well hold, but its method must not be applied rigidly.

The older annotation raises the decisive example:

甲木死午，午为泄气之地，理固然也，而乙木死亥，亥中有壬水，乃其嫡母，何为死哉？

That Jia Wood dies at Wu is reasonable, Wu being a place where its qi drains away. But Yi Wood dying at Hai — Hai holds Ren Water, its own mother. Why should it die there?

Ren Tiechao's commentary goes further:

古法只有四长生，从无子、午、卯、酉为阴长生之说。……古人取格，丁遇酉以财论，乙遇午、己遇酉、辛遇子、癸遇卯，以食神泄气论，俱不以生论；乙遇亥、癸遇申以印论，俱不以死论。……由此观之，阴阳同生同死可知也，若执定阴阳顺逆，而以阳生阴死、阴生阳死论命，则大谬矣。

Older methods recognised only four Changsheng positions; there was never a doctrine making Zi, Wu, Mao and You the Changsheng of yin stems. When the ancients formed structures, Ding meeting You was read as wealth, and Yi meeting Wu, Ji meeting You, Xin meeting Zi and Gui meeting Mao were read as output draining qi — none of them read as birth; Yi meeting Hai and Gui meeting Shen were read as resource, neither read as death. Seen this way, yin and yang plainly share one birth and one death. To insist on opposite directions, judging a chart by yang being born where yin dies and yin born where yang dies, is a grave error.

What switching conventions actually changes

This is not a matter of emphasis; the difference can be counted exactly. All 60 cells belonging to the five yin stems (Yi, Ding, Ji, Xin, Gui) change, and not one cell belonging to the five yang stems does. The most telling single cell is Yi Wood on Hai: this site reads Si (Death), while the shared-cycle school reads Changsheng (Birth) — exact opposites.

Guanyitang follows the first position because it agrees stem by stem with the starting branches recorded in San Ming Tong Hui and remains internally consistent with the identity of Linguan and the Lu position. That is a choice of convention, not a refutation of the second position; the second position's text is quoted here in full precisely so that readers know which one their chart is using.

One common citation error is worth correcting. The sentence about the method not being applied rigidly does not appear in the widely circulated abridged Ditian Sui; a check against that edition finds no such passage. It belongs to Ren Tiechao's Ditian Sui Chanwei, a work containing three layers: the Ditian Sui text, an older annotation and Ren's own commentary. Citations should name the book accordingly.

Where does Earth begin? One book, two answers

For Earth, classical texts record at least four arrangements, all with locatable text:

Note the last two rows: they come from the same volume of the same book. This is not a transcription error but two arrangements serving different purposes. Wu Xing Da Yi, volume 2 preserves the reasoning behind the Water-and-Earth pairing in unusually explicit form:

葬于戌。戌是火墓。火是其母。母子不同葬。进行于丑。丑是金墓。金是其子。义又不合。欲还于未。未是木墓。木为土鬼。畏不敢入。进休就辰。辰是水墓。水为其妻。于义为合。遂葬于辰。……水土共墓，正取此也。

Buried at Xu — but Xu is Fire's grave, and Fire is Earth's mother; mother and child are not buried together. Moving on to Chou — Chou is Metal's grave, and Metal is Earth's child; the sense again does not fit. Turning back to Wei — Wei is Wood's grave, and Wood governs Earth as its adversary; fearing this, it dares not enter. Advancing to rest at Chen — Chen is Water's grave, and Water is Earth's spouse; here the sense agrees. And so it is buried at Chen. … That Water and Earth share a grave is taken precisely from this.

The same work records one further sentence that matters a great deal here. After setting out separate twelve-position sequences for each of the four seasonal Earth branches Chen, Wei, Xu and Chou, the author notes:

此盖卜筮所用。

This, it appears, is what divination practice uses.

In other words, treating Earth separately belongs to the divinatory tradition, distinct from the fate-calculation tradition. That gives a classical basis for BaZi and Liu Yao differing, so this site does not need to argue the point on its own authority.

The result is that Earth's Storage branch has three different answers inside Guanyitang, and all three are correct:

Meeting three answers, the right response is not to ask who copied wrongly, but to return to the question this page opens with: read against what, and under which convention?

From five phases to ten stems: three layers

The twelve stages did not arrive fully formed. The surviving literature shows at least three layers, differing in both unit and terminology.

First layer · three stages, by phase. Huainanzi, Tianwen chapter:

木生于亥，壮于卯，死于未，三辰皆木也。火生于寅，壮于午，死于戌……金生于巳，壮于酉，死于丑。水生于申，壮于子，死于辰。

Wood begins at Hai, matures at Mao and dies at Wei; these three are all Wood. Fire begins at Yin, matures at Wu and dies at Xu … Metal begins at Si, matures at You and dies at Chou. Water begins at Shen, matures at Zi and dies at Chen.

Only birth, maturity and death — not yet twelve stages. The Siku Quanshu edition of Huainan Honglie Jie carries the same passage word for word and serves as an independent witness to it.

Second layer · twelve stages, still by phase. Wu Xing Da Yi, volume 2:

木。受气于申。胎于酉。养于戌。生于亥。沐浴于子。冠带于丑。临官于寅。王于卯。衰于辰。病于巳。死于午。葬于未。

Wood: receives breath at Shen, is conceived at You, nurtured at Xu, born at Hai, bathed at Zi, capped at Chou, takes office at Yin, flourishes at Mao, declines at Chen, sickens at Si, dies at Wu and is buried at Wei.

At this layer all twelve positions are present, but the terms are receiving breath, flourishing and burial rather than Jue, Diwang and Mu.

Third layer · twelve stages, by stem and split by polarity. San Ming Tong Hui, volume 2 sets out the five phases lodged across twelve palaces — Changsheng, Muyu, Guandai, Linguan, Diwang, Shuai, Bing, Si, Mu, Jue, Tai and Yang, circling without end — and gives each stem its own starting branch and direction. This is the form BaZi uses today.

The joints between the layers are documented in the text itself. San Ming Tong Hui's quotation of San Ming Ti Yao reads 一曰受气，又曰绝 — first is receiving breath, also called Jue — showing that the early "receiving breath" and the Ziping "Jue" name one position. Flourishing and Diwang, and burial and Mu, correspond in the same way.

One caveat: claims circulating online that the twelve stages originate in the Fangmatan Qin bamboo slips could not be traced this round to a locatable original study. This page therefore begins its account with Huainanzi and does not present the earlier conjecture as established.

Three vocabularies for strength

Beginners most often conflate three vocabularies. Their reference points are entirely different:

The chapter on seasonal strength together with the twelve palaces in San Ming Tong Hui, volume 2 discusses the first two side by side without merging them:

盛德乘时曰旺。如春木旺，旺则生火，火乃木之子，子乘父业，故火相；木用水生，生我者父母……故水休。

Full virtue riding its season is called flourishing. In spring Wood flourishes; flourishing, it produces Fire, and Fire being Wood's child inherits the parent's work, so Fire is in support. Wood draws on Water to be produced, and what produces me is a parent … so Water is at rest.

On how the three combine, Ren Tiechao offers a direct statement:

人之日主不必生逢禄旺，即月令休囚，而年日时中，得长生禄旺，便不为弱，就使逢库，亦为有根。

A person's Day Master need not be born into Lu or flourishing. Even where the month command is at rest or confined, if the year, day or hour pillars supply Changsheng, Lu or flourishing, it is not weak; and even meeting a storehouse, it still has a root.

That is: an unfavourable month command does not by itself make a Day Master weak, and Changsheng, Lu or Peak elsewhere in the chart still counts as rooting. This is what the twelve stages actually contribute to a strength assessment — one input among several, not a switch that settles the question alone.

Using it in BaZi

The four most-cited positions

Of the twelve, Changsheng, Linguan, Diwang and Mu are cited far more than the rest. The first three are the positions where qi gathers most; Mu draws attention through its sense of storage. San Ming Tong Hui records a traditional grouping, and immediately qualifies it:

古以胎、生、旺、库为四贵，死、绝、病、败为四忌，余为四平，亦大概言之。

The ancients took Conception, Birth, Peak and Storehouse as four honoured positions, Death, Severance, Sickness and Failing as four avoided ones, and the remainder as four neutral — though this too is only said in broad terms.

The closing qualifier matters: the book itself calls this a rough division. The same chapter's conclusion is more explicit still:

凡推造化，见生旺者未必便作吉论，见休囚死绝未必便作凶言。如生旺太过，宜乎制伏，死绝不及，宜乎生扶，妙在识其通变。

In reckoning any configuration, meeting Birth or Peak is not necessarily to be judged favourable, and meeting rest, confinement, Death or Severance is not necessarily to be called unfavourable. Where Birth and Peak are excessive, restraint is appropriate; where Death and Severance fall short, support is appropriate. The skill lies in recognising how things turn.

Three reproducible worked examples

All three were computed by the Guanyitang engine. You can enter the same details in the BaZi chart tool and check them.

Example one · one branch, two answers. 15 March 1990 at 10:00, male. Day Master Ji; pillars Geng Wu, Ji Mao, Ji Mao, Ji Si.

On the year pillar Geng Wu, Dishi reads Linguan (Establishment) — Ji on Wu — while Zizuo reads Muyu (Bathing) — Geng on Wu. Both are correct, because the reference stem differs. This example is the clearest demonstration of asking first what a stage is being read against.

Example two · landing on the disputed cell. 20 November 1995 at 08:00, male. Day Master Yi; pillars Yi Hai, Ding Hai, Yi Mao, Geng Chen.

Both the year and the month branch are Hai. Under the yang-forward, yin-reverse convention this site uses, Yi on Hai is Si (Death); under the shared-cycle school, Yi on Hai is Changsheng (Birth). One chart, two schools, opposite readings — and the divergence hits two pillars at once. The practical lesson is to establish which convention a tool applies before discussing interpretation.

Example three · a luck pillar reaching Severance. The same chart as example two. Its third luck pillar is Yi You, beginning in 2009, and the Day Master Yi on You is Jue (Severance). As set out above, San Ming Ti Yao's sense of Jue is the handover where the former qi has ended and the next is about to continue, not annihilation. How to read it still requires the whole chart and the year in question; a single label settles nothing on its own.

The twelve spirits in Zi Wei Dou Shu

Zi Wei Dou Shu uses the same twelve names, but places them by an entirely different rule: it works from the chart's phase bureau, not from any individual stem. Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu, volume 2:

安长生、沐浴、冠带、临官、帝旺、衰、病、死、墓、绝、胎、养　男命顺数、女命逆数。 火局命寅起长生。木局命亥起长生。水局命申起长生。金局命巳起长生。土局命申起长生。

Place Changsheng, Muyu, Guandai, Linguan, Diwang, Shuai, Bing, Si, Mu, Jue, Tai and Yang: male charts count forward, female charts count backward. A Fire-bureau chart begins Changsheng at Yin. A Wood-bureau chart begins at Hai. A Water-bureau chart begins at Shen. A Metal-bureau chart begins at Si. An Earth-bureau chart begins at Shen.

Two points deserve attention:

1. The Earth bureau and the Water bureau both begin at Shen. This differs from BaZi's pairing of Earth with Fire and agrees instead with Liu Yao's pairing of Earth with Water. Among the four systems, BaZi's treatment of Earth stands alone.
2. The wording on direction differs from today's formula. This edition says only that male charts count forward and female charts count backward, whereas the formula in common use — and the iztro implementation this site relies on — adds a further condition on the year stem's polarity, counting forward for yang-year men and yin-year women. Which transmitted edition introduced that refinement could not be established this round, and it is recorded here as an open question.

The twelve stages in Liu Yao and Qi Men

Liu Yao works by phase rather than by stem, taking the Changsheng, Diwang and Mu positions of the three-harmony groups, with Earth sharing Water's palace: Changsheng at Shen, Diwang at Zi and Mu at Chen. Guanyitang's Liu Yao Storage and Severance rules follow this. It should be said plainly that the specific line of transmission behind this site's Liu Yao implementation has not been documented back to a locatable text; the classical background can be traced to Wu Xing Da Yi's remark that such an arrangement is what divination practice uses, but no single book should be named as its sole authority.

Qi Men Dun Jia uses the same ten-stem table as BaZi, but reads it against the palace a stem occupies rather than against a natal pillar. So for the same stem, BaZi asks how it stands on the year, month, day and hour branches, while Qi Men asks how it stands on the branch of the palace it currently occupies.

Common misreadings

Bathing is not the Peach Blossom marker. The Xianchi chapter of San Ming Tong Hui does say that the Bathing position of a phase is named Xianchi, also called the failing spirit and the Peach Blossom marker — but its lookup starts from a three-harmony group, not from the day stem. Whether the two land on the same branch can simply be computed:

So "Bathing is Peach Blossom" holds only for the four yang stems. Earth does not enter the comparison at all, because it has no trine of its own — San Ming Tong Hui's chapter on triple harmonies states that the five phases do not name Earth here, since the other four all rely on Earth to complete their groups. See the Taohua (Xianchi) entry for the marker itself.

Si is not dying and Jue is not annihilation. Both name positions within a cycle. Jue's primary name is receiving breath: the handover at which the former qi is spent and the next is about to continue.

Changsheng is not longevity, and Tai or Yang is not mediocrity. The passages quoted above already establish that these are borrowed figures of speech. Using them to infer lifespan, illness or specific events goes beyond what the vocabulary itself does.

The twelve stages are not a strength switch. They are one input, to be read with the month command, the other pillars and the stem-branch relations. Ren Tiechao's remark that a chart is not weak merely because the month command is at rest is precisely about that interplay.

Do not alternate between two tables. The by-phase table and the by-stem polarity table are two different layers. Taking values from each in turn and then claiming the results agree is the most common source of error.

Perspective and sources

This page organises material within the framework of traditional Chinese fate-calculation, for cultural and educational reference. It is not medical, legal, financial or other professional advice, and it makes no predictions about specific events.

All classical works cited are locatable public electronic transcriptions at fixed Wikisource revisions; no collated facsimile edition was consulted for this revision. The English renderings beneath each quotation are explanatory translations offered to make the Chinese accessible, not scholarly editions. Where traditions disagree, this page sets out each position's own text and states which convention Guanyitang currently applies, rather than declaring one orthodox; claims that could not be traced to a locatable source, such as conjectures about earlier origins, are left out of the body text.

To see the twelve stages on your own chart, start from the BaZi chart tool; every cell in the Dishi and Zizuo rows can be opened to show how it was derived.

FAQ

What are the twelve life stages?

In order: Changsheng (Birth), Muyu (Bathing), Guandai (Capping), Linguan (Establishment), Diwang (Peak), Shuai (Decline), Bing (Sickness), Si (Death), Mu (Storage), Jue (Severance), Tai (Conception) and Yang (Nurture), then repeating. San Ming Tong Hui, volume 2, calls the set the five phases lodged across twelve palaces and gives this order.

What is the difference between the Dishi and Zizuo rows of a chart?

The calculation is identical; only the reference stem differs. Dishi reads the Day Master against each pillar's branch. Zizuo reads each pillar's own stem against its own branch. The same branch can therefore carry two different stage names, which is not a contradiction.

Why do some charting tools not reverse the yin stems?

Because two conventions exist. San Ming Tong Hui states that yang stems run forward and yin stems reverse. Ren Tiechao's commentary in Ditian Sui Chanwei argues instead that yin and yang share one cycle, saying that older methods recognised only four Changsheng positions. This site follows the former. Adopting the latter changes all 60 cells belonging to the five yin stems and none of the cells belonging to the five yang stems.

Do Si (Death) and Jue (Severance) mean something bad?

They are not verdicts. San Ming Tong Hui states directly that growth and peak positions are not automatically favourable and that decline, death and severance are not automatically unfavourable, adding that birth, death, decline and flourishing are borrowed names. Ren Tiechao likewise calls the whole set borrowed figures of speech.

Where does Earth's Changsheng position fall?

Classical texts record at least four arrangements. San Ming Tong Hui uses two of them within a single volume: the stem discussion has Wu follow Bing, placing Earth with Fire, while the branch discussion calls Shen the palace where Water and Earth both begin. This site's BaZi follows the first and its Liu Yao the second, each consistent with its own tradition.

Is Muyu (Bathing) the same as the Peach Blossom marker?

Not without qualification. San Ming Tong Hui says the Bathing position of a phase is named Xianchi and also called the Peach Blossom marker, but that lookup starts from a three-harmony group rather than from the day stem. Comparing the two, only the four yang stems Jia, Bing, Geng and Ren land on the same branch; Yi, Ding, Xin and Gui all differ, and Wu and Ji do not apply because Earth has no trine of its own.

Are the Zi Wei twelve spirits the same as the BaZi stages?

The names match; the placement rule does not. Zi Wei Dou Shu fixes the Changsheng palace from the chart's phase bureau — Fire at Yin, Wood at Hai, Water at Shen, Metal at Si and Earth at Shen — rather than from an individual stem. Its Earth shares Water's palace, which agrees with Liu Yao rather than with BaZi.

Are the twelve stages the same as the wang-xiang-xiu-qiu-si vocabulary?

No. Wang xiang xiu qiu si measures a phase against a season. The twelve stages measure one stem against one branch. San Ming Tong Hui, volume 2, discusses both in a single chapter without merging them.

Is it true that a stem in Storage must be clashed to open?

It is disputed. Ren Tiechao writes in Ditian Sui Chanwei that the current saying about a stem entering Storage requiring a clash is an error of popular books. That is one Qing-dynasty commentator's position, but it shows the rule is not an uncontested general principle.

Do Life Stages, Growth Phases and Qi Stages mean the same thing?

Yes. English sources have no settled translation for these twelve names. This site uses Twelve Life Stages throughout and keeps the Chinese names and pinyin alongside so that tables can be compared.

References

• San Ming Tong Hui by Wan Minying, volume 2: stem polarity and life-death, branches, seasonal strength with the twelve palaces, triple harmonies, Xianchi — electronic text
• Wu Xing Da Yi by Xiao Ji, volume 2: on mutual production, the places of life and death — electronic text
• Huainanzi, Tianwen chapter: Wood begins at Hai, matures at Mao, dies at Wei — electronic text
• Huainan Honglie Jie, Siku Quanshu version, volume 3: independent witness to the same passage
• Ditian Sui Chanwei by Ren Tiechao: general discussion of stems and branches — electronic text
• Ditian Sui, abridged edition: negative check, this edition lacks the yin-yang direction passage
• Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu, volume 2: placing the twelve spirits from Changsheng — electronic text
• Guanyitang charting engine · lib/bazi/ganzhi.ts, the source of this page's tables