---
type: Concept
title: "The Three Layers (本命、大限、流年)"
description: "What each of the three time layers asks, and how each system answers it."
resource: https://localpapa.com/tools/triad.html
category: "Triad Reading"
tags: [triad, layers, time]
timestamp: 2026-08-26T00:00:00Z
---

# The Three Layers · 三個層級

## 本命 Natal

What each system emphasises most. Zi Wei takes only the Life palace and the palaces holding the birth-year transformations; BaZi only the most frequently occurring ten god; the Palm Sutra only the pillars caught in a relation (clash, harmony, punishment, harm, destruction). **Each takes what its chart actually stresses, not every cell that has something in it.** A first version took every palace holding a major star; measured over 240 charts, 71% then "agreed" on four or five domains. A signal that is always on is not a signal.

三套各自最強調的地方。紫微只取命宮與生年四化落宮、八字只取出現次數最多的十神、一掌經只取有交互關係（沖合刑害破）的柱位——**都只取「這張盤特別在講的」而非「有東西的每一格」**。第一版把有主星的宮全取，實測 240 張盤有 71% 因此在四到五個領域上一致；一個永遠亮著的訊號不是訊號。

## 大限／大運 Decade

Where each system points for this decade. Zi Wei by which palace the decade has reached, BaZi by the ten god of the luck pillar, the Palm Sutra by which natal pillars the decade palace forms a relation with. **The three reach their answers by entirely different machinery**, so when they land on the same domain it is not one inference counted three times.

這十年三套各自指向哪。紫微看大限走到哪一宮，八字看大運柱的十神，一掌經看大限宮與本命四柱成立哪些關係。**三套用完全不同的機制推出各自的答案**，所以它們指到同一塊時，那不是同一個推論被數了三次。

## 流年 Annual

Where each points for this year. Zi Wei by which palace the year enters, BaZi by the ten gods of the year’s stem and its main hidden stem, the Palm Sutra by which natal pillars the year palace strikes. Measured across charts, **in roughly a quarter of years the three overlap nowhere at all** — that is not a malfunction; it is the three systems saying different things about that year, which is itself the answer.

今年三套各自指向哪。紫微看太歲入哪一宮，八字看流年天干與藏干本氣的十神，一掌經看流年宮打在本命哪幾柱。實測三套在流年層**約有四分之一的年份完全沒有重疊**——那不是工具壞了，那是三套系統對那一年各說各話，本身就是答案。

## How the result is worded

- All three systems, reasoning independently, point here. Their machinery is entirely different — palaces, ten gods, pillar relations — so landing together is not the same inference counted three times. This is the line on the page worth most attention.

- Two systems point here while the third points elsewhere. That carries more weight than any single system’s reading, but it is not the three of them together; worth noting, not worth treating as settled.

- Only one system points here. That is that system’s own observation, not a consensus — read it as a prompt, not a conclusion.

- Nothing overlaps at this layer — the three disagree entirely. **That is itself information**: no single area of life is picked out by all of them, which usually corresponds to a stretch with no single dominant theme rather than to a failure to compute. Measured across charts, roughly a quarter of years look like this.

- Some system has no vocabulary for this domain (the Palm Sutra, for instance, has no mechanism that points at wealth on its own at the natal level). **Having no vocabulary is not disagreement** — agreement and divergence are only counted among the systems that can speak to it.

---
*[The seven domains](./domains.md) · [Mapping table](./mapping.md) · [Triad index](./index.md)*