Traditions / NINEHOUND JOURNAL
An introduction to Qimen Dunjia: what are we reading in the nine palaces?
Why does Qimen place time, direction, and people into nine boxes when asking about a single matter?
The nine palaces form a map of relationships
The nine palace boxes are the most conspicuous feature of a first Qimen chart. What matters, however, is the relationship among its layers: earth plate, heaven plate, Eight Gates, Nine Stars, spirits, and other symbols each serve different analytical roles. Learn each layer before its palace placement, so a collection of favorable and unfavorable names does not become a jumble.
Think of it initially as a layout with time conditions. Whom you ask about, what they are doing, and when determines which symbols become the objects of attention. The contents of the nine palaces do not automatically supply the missing real-world background.
The Three Wonders, Six Instruments, and Eight Gates
Yi, Bing, and Ding are called the Three Wonders; Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, and Gui the Six Instruments. The Eight Gates are commonly Rest, Life, Injury, Obstruction, View, Death, Fright, and Open. Their vivid symbolic meanings must be read in relation to the question. The View Gate, for example, means something different in a discussion of display and communication than in one of concealed storage.
The Life Gate therefore cannot mechanically mean success in every undertaking. Generating and controlling relations between gate and palace, together with other chart conditions, change the role of the same symbol in a particular question.
Enter the chart through a question
A teaching example: “Next month I will negotiate a partnership. We have agreed on price, but delivery responsibilities remain unclear.” Before analysis, identify whether the issue is advancing the contract, assigning delivery tasks, or the other party’s attitude. The three questions have different emphases.
A useful interpretation explains which symbol is selected to represent the matter, how relationships are read, and where the suggested next action lies. If all that remains is the word auspicious, the actual delivery responsibilities are still unresolved.
Where to begin learning
Learn the directions of the nine palaces, stems and branches, and Five Phases first, then one consistent set of chart-construction and symbol-selection rules. Rotating-plate and flying-plate practices and different configuration methods vary. Mixing systems at the beginning often causes more errors than forgetting a few stars.
This site currently offers introductory Qimen reading. For an immediate question, you can use NineHound’s Changes consultation. Full automatic Qimen chart construction is not yet available, and this article does not relabel a numerical Zhouyi result as a Qimen chart.
Sources and further reading
The method descriptions and hypothetical situations were written by NineHound. Divination accounts in historical literature should be read as records in the original works.