Binding Combination (合絆)
Learn when a Heavenly Stem combination acts mainly as binding, how it changes availability without erasing the stems, and how timing can release or intensify it.
Overview
Binding Combination (合絆) describes a stem pair whose contact restrains, occupies, or redirects the participants without establishing full transformation. The original elements and Ten-God roles remain, but their immediate availability may be reduced. Position, relative strength, rival partners, roots, and other interactions determine whether the binding is mutual, uneven, temporary, or too weak to matter.
At a glance
- Relation
- An effective combination that restrains or occupies the paired stems
- Transformation
- Not established merely by binding
- Identity
- Original elements, roots, and Ten-God roles remain
- Strength
- Position, access, roots, and relative force determine asymmetry
- Timing
- A period may intensify, redirect, or release the binding
- Boundary
- Does not literally mean a person or relationship is trapped
Use binding only after contact is established
Identify an exact pair with enough access to affect both stems. A distant formal pair with no effective reach should not receive a strong binding label.
Binding is a functional description: the pair is engaged, yet the evidence for a new transformed phase remains absent or incomplete.
- Require effective contact.
- Keep binding distinct from transformation.
Measure what becomes less available
Compare each stem’s roots, season, position, and competing duties. One stem may be held more strongly while the other continues to act through robust roots or support.
Report the affected Five-Phase or Ten-God route rather than claiming both stems disappear. The rest of the chart may still reach either function through another source.
- Allow unequal binding.
- Trace alternate routes before declaring loss.
Track rivalry, clashes, and release conditions
A rival partner can divide attention, while a clash or another combination may break, redirect, or intensify the original bond. These are modifiers, not interchangeable labels.
A Luck Pillar or year may strengthen one participant, add the target phase, or remove access. State when the binding assessment begins and ends.
- Name the mechanism of change.
- Keep timing effects reversible.
Do not turn 合絆 into a relationship metaphor
The word “binding” does not prove emotional dependence, coercion, delay, blocked career, frozen money, illness, or legal restriction.
Those claims need direct evidence. On a Bazi page, 合絆 should remain a bounded description of how two stems interact within the chart.
- No literal trapped-person claim.
- No event or risk prediction.
Sources and editorial basis
- 《子平真詮》 (True Explanations of Ziping)《子平真詮評註》「論十干合而不合」：相合可使原有作用受牽而未必化氣，遠近與另有所合會改變實際效力A major reference for month-command, structure, and contextual Bazi interpretation.
- 《三命通會》 (Sanming Tonghui)《三命通會》十干配合及妒合諸論：多干競合、原根與其他制化會使關係停留在牽制層而非形成純粹化神A historical compilation covering stems and branches, Ten Gods, Nayin, Shen Sha, and multiple classical pattern systems.
- OpenFate Editorial Methodology合絆頁將占用、牽制和路徑改變限定為命盤技術作用，保留原干身分並禁止直譯為人物、關係或事件受困OpenFate separates deterministic chart calculation, traditional interpretation, and modern editorial explanation.