Indirect Resource偏印

Indirect Resource belongs to the element that gives rise to the Day Master and has the same polarity. Everything that produces and nurtures you is grouped as Resource, and the original word for it means a seal or stamp: backing that vouches for you. Indirect Resource is support that leans one way, so it is tied to knowledge you dig up for yourself rather than from a set textbook, fields few people enter, and flashes of intuition. Older texts also know it by the nickname hyosin. The value placed on time spent absorbed alone is read here too.

• 偏leaning one way (Korean reading: pyeon)
• 印seal, stamp (Korean reading: in)

A seal that leans one way: support that props you up from one direction only.

Step one place backward in the producing cycle and you reach the element that produces the Day Master. Water feeds a Wood Day Master, and Wood feeds a Fire Day Master. Pick from that element the character whose polarity equals the Day Master's; that one is Indirect Resource. Branches are compared by the polarity of the main hidden stem rather than their outward class, so a branch shown as yin can be Indirect Resource for a yang Day Master.

With many Indirect Resource characters, the first thing picked out is the focus to follow a chosen subject all the way down. An unusual angle is the strength, and putting thoughts into words or finished work makes them easier to share with those around you. If there is none, it can be read as the steadiness of working through familiar methods calmly. A year that brings Indirect Resource is treated as a current for starting a new course of study or a new interest.

For a 甲 (Jia) Day Master, Indirect Resource means 壬 (Ren) as a stem and 亥 (Hai) as a branch. Water produces Wood, and 甲 and 壬 are both yang. 亥 follows its main hidden stem 壬 into the same group.

• A common idea

  Indirect Resource keeps you away from study.

  How we read it

  Indirect Resource is still Resource and is closely bound up with learning. This service sees the difference in how it learns: by burrowing into topics it picks, rather than following a fixed course.

Some readings give a separate name to the pattern where Indirect Resource holds Eating God in check and treat it on its own. This service does not judge named combinations like that; it covers the nature of each character one at a time.