Output (Eating God)
食神 · shí shén · one of the Ten Gods
Auspice ·
- Chinese
- 食神
- Our name
- Output
- Literal name
- Eating God
- Relation
- 我生 · you produce it
- Polarity
- same as yours
- Its pair
- Edge
Output — literally Eating God (食神, shí shén) — is the Ten God for the element your Day Master produces, in the same polarity. For a 甲 Day Master it is 丙 (Bǐng, Yang Fire).
What you produce, flowing easily: expression, craft — the talent you can actually hand to someone.
Every Ten God is defined relative to the Day Master, the stem of your day of birth — that page explains the reference point; this one goes deeper on a single relation. The tables and the example below are computed at build time by the engine behind our free BaZi calculator, not written by hand.
Why is it called Eating God?
Eating God is an accurate translation and a misleading one. 食 is food, and in older Chinese it also means livelihood, what a person lives on. Output is the element your Day Master produces, in the same polarity: for a 甲 day, 丙. It feeds Windfall, so what you make turns into something you can live on. It also checks Pressure, which is why the manuals pair the two in the phrase 食神制杀, output holding pressure in check. We call it Output because that is the relation itself: the part of you that leaves you and lands somewhere.
Among the Ten Gods, Output checks Pressure and feeds Windfall; it is checked by Insight and fed by Peer. These follow from the same element cycles, in the same polarity, and hold for every Day Master.
How is Output worked out?
Start from your Day Master’s element and find the element it produces in the generating cycle. That element has a yang stem and a yin stem. The one whose polarity matches your Day Master’s is Output; the other is Edge.
| Day Master element | Output element |
|---|---|
| Wood (木) | Fire (火) |
| Fire (火) | Earth (土) |
| Earth (土) | Metal (金) |
| Metal (金) | Water (水) |
| Water (水) | Wood (木) |
Count along the ten stems from the Day Master, counting it as the first, and Output is always the third stem, whichever Day Master you start from.
Which stem is Output for each Day Master?
| Day Master | Output stem | Count | Hidden in branches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 甲 (Jiǎ, Yang Wood) | 丙 (Bǐng, Yang Fire) | third | 巳 main qi, 寅 middle qi |
| 乙 (Yǐ, Yin Wood) | 丁 (Dīng, Yin Fire) | third | 午 main qi, 未 middle qi, 戌 residual qi |
| 丙 (Bǐng, Yang Fire) | 戊 (Wù, Yang Earth) | third | 辰 main qi, 戌 main qi, 寅 residual qi, 巳 residual qi, 申 residual qi |
| 丁 (Dīng, Yin Fire) | 己 (Jǐ, Yin Earth) | third | 丑 main qi, 未 main qi, 午 middle qi |
| 戊 (Wù, Yang Earth) | 庚 (Gēng, Yang Metal) | third | 申 main qi, 巳 middle qi |
| 己 (Jǐ, Yin Earth) | 辛 (Xīn, Yin Metal) | third | 酉 main qi, 戌 middle qi, 丑 residual qi |
| 庚 (Gēng, Yang Metal) | 壬 (Rén, Yang Water) | third | 亥 main qi, 申 middle qi |
| 辛 (Xīn, Yin Metal) | 癸 (Guǐ, Yin Water) | third | 子 main qi, 丑 middle qi, 辰 residual qi |
| 壬 (Rén, Yang Water) | 甲 (Jiǎ, Yang Wood) | third | 寅 main qi, 亥 middle qi |
| 癸 (Guǐ, Yin Water) | 乙 (Yǐ, Yin Wood) | third | 卯 main qi, 辰 middle qi, 未 residual qi |
A Ten God shows up in two places: as a visible stem on top of a pillar, and as a hidden stem stored inside a branch. The last column lists every branch that stores this stem and at which layer; the main qi counts for most. Hidden-stem tables follow our published conventions.
What does Output look like in a real chart?
Take the chart we publish for Steve Jobs (1955–2011), cast by the same engine from the recorded birth time. The Day Master is 丙 (Bǐng, Yang Fire). Output appears 3 times: the month stem, 戊 (Wù, Yang Earth); 戊 (Wù, Yang Earth) hidden in the month branch 寅, as its residual qi; 戊 (Wù, Yang Earth) hidden in the day branch 辰, as its main qi. Against a Yang Fire Day Master, 戊 (Yang Earth) reads as Output: Earth is produced by Fire, both yang.
| Year | Month | Day | Hour | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stem | 乙 · Support | 戊 · Output | 丙 · Day Master | 丁 · Rival |
| Branch · hidden | 未己 Edge丁 Rival乙 Support | 寅甲 Insight丙 Peer戊 Output | 辰戊 Output乙 Support癸 Structure | 酉辛 Steady Wealth |
Where the birth time comes from, and how strong that source is, is set out on the Steve Jobs case page. Finding Output in a well-known chart explains nothing about why the person became known; each case page has a section on where the chart does not fit the life.
How do you read Output?
People who are burning out often say they have been working too hard. Ask what they have made recently — something they could hand to another person — and many cannot remember. Output describes a channel, and what exhausts people is often a blocked channel rather than a heavy load. A chart where Output stands out records someone for whom expression is how pressure gets spent: cooking for people, or the sentence that has to be said. A chart without it records nothing about talent. It says only that this route is not the obvious one. Whether any of this is what is going on for you is a question the chart cannot answer. Try writing down what you swallowed this month instead of saying or making it, and see whether the list matches the tiredness.
Output and the other nine
Its pair is Edge: the same element relation, the other polarity. The full set, in order:
Peer · Rival · Output · Edge · Windfall · Steady Wealth · Pressure · Structure · Insight · Support
All ten on one page: the Ten Gods. The reference point they are all measured from: the Day Master. To see where Output sits in your own chart, use the free BaZi calculator — no account needed. Auspice is for reflection, not prediction.