Wenshu Lin 文枢

Daoist Arts is a research-driven publication, not a fortune-telling service. We study the classical Chinese metaphysical canon, the same texts consulted by scholars and practitioners for centuries, and translate that knowledge into clear, practical guides and free tools for the modern reader.

About the Editor

Wenshu Lin serves as editor and lead researcher for Daoist Arts. The editorial work centers on one discipline: close reading of primary sources. Rather than repeating what other English-language websites claim about BaZi or Feng Shui, we go back to the classical texts, compare interpretations across schools, and test what we publish against our own free tools (the BaZi calculator, the Chinese almanac engine, and the name generator on this site).

Our research library includes, among others:

Our Research Method

Every article on this site follows a three-step method:

Why This Matters

Chinese metaphysics is frequently misrepresented online, reduced to superstition or inflated into unverifiable promises. We take a different position: these are sophisticated models of time, energy, and human nature, refined over centuries, and they deserve the same rigor as any other field of study. That is the standard we hold our content to.

How the Research Works

We start each article by reading the relevant classical passage in its original form. I work from digitized editions of the source texts and read the characters before I read any commentary. This keeps the article anchored to what the text actually says, not to what later writers assumed it meant.

Once I have the passage, I look at the English academic translations that exist for these works. Several university presses have published reliable editions of the I Ching and the major BaZi manuals. I compare those renderings against one another line by line. Where they agree, the point is solid. Where they disagree, I note the gap and explain it in plain terms.

Only after this comparison do I write. The writing stage is assembly, not invention. I take the verified reading and put it into language a reader with no background in classical Chinese can follow. The free tools on this site follow the same order of work. I built the BaZi calculator from the calendar rules in the almanac canon, then checked its output against charts published in the source manuals.

When a tool and a text disagree, I revisit the text first, because the text is the base layer. The research page at /methodology/ explains this workflow in full, and the working notes behind each post appear in /blog/ under the same label. Nothing is published until the source, the translation, and the tool all point the same way.

I keep a running index of the passages I have read. Each entry records the edition, the folio, and the translation I used. When I return to a subject months later, I start from that index instead of from memory. This slows the work, and it keeps the work honest. A reader who questions a claim can ask for the passage, and I can point to the exact line.

What Sources Are Used

I draw from two layers of material. The first layer is the primary canon. For BaZi I work with the Di Tian Sui, the Zi Ping Zhen Quan, and the San Ming Tong Hui. For Feng Shui the base texts are the Zang Shu and the Qing Nang Jing. For the calendar and date selection I use the Xie Ji Bian Fang Shu, the official Qing dynasty almanac.

The I Ching and its Ten Wings sit under everything, because every later system borrows its terms. I quote these texts in their original Chinese and give a working English reading beside each quote, so the reader can see both. The second layer is the scholarly record. I read peer reviewed papers and academic translations when they exist.

These help me see where modern sinology disagrees with older commentary, and where older commentary already disagreed with itself. I keep a strict rule on citation. Every claim in an article links back to a source I can name. If a popular belief about BaZi or Feng Shui has no root in the classical texts, I mark it as unverified rather than repeating it as fact. I do not treat a forum post or a vendor page as a source.

The glossary at /glossary/ lists the key terms and the text each one comes from. The comparison page at /comparison/ shows how two schools read the same chart from the same source, side by side. When a source is missing, the article says missing. I would rather publish a shorter piece with a clear gap than a longer piece that hides the gap.

Readers who want the deeper background can follow the links I provide to the academic editions. I cite those editions by name so the claim can be checked in a printed edition as well as on a screen. The point is to make the reasoning open, not to ask the reader to trust me.

Editorial Standards

The editing standard is simple. I separate tradition from proof. A statement can be traditional without being a fact, and I label it as such. When a text says a certain element brings a certain outcome, I present it as the text's teaching, not as a promise to the reader. I do not inflate results.

The old manuals describe tendencies and patterns. They do not describe guarantees, and I do not add them. I avoid the language of certainty where the source uses the language of pattern. I also flag internal conflict. Different classical authors contradict each other on the same point, and an honest article says so in the open.

Before any piece is published I run one check. Can a reader without Chinese or prior training follow the argument from start to finish? If the answer is no, I rewrite the piece. The disclaimer on every page states that this material is for study, not for medical, legal, or financial decisions. That line is not boilerplate.

It reflects how I think the material should be used, and it matches the care I apply to the claims themselves. Where the evidence is thin, the wording is careful. Where the evidence is strong, the wording is still careful, because these are old systems and the record is uneven.

Why This Site Exists

Most Western readers meet Chinese metaphysics through marketing. Paid services promise fixed answers. Social posts compress centuries of thought into a single sentence. A reader who wants to learn has a hard time finding plain material between the sales pitch and the dismissal.

This site holds a middle position. It treats the classical systems as real bodies of thought worth reading closely. It does not sell readings, and it does not mock the tradition. I write for the person who is curious but cautious. You can read a full article, check the source it cites, and test the claim with a free tool, all on one visit.

The BaZi calculator, the almanac engine, and the name generator exist so the reader can verify, not so the reader can be convinced. My goal is a quiet one. I want the English web to have honest reference material on these subjects, built from the texts and kept free of hype. If a claim cannot be sourced, I would rather say so than fill the space with a confident guess.

The work is slow by design. A short post can take a week of checking before it is ready. I accept that pace because speed is what produced the low quality this field is known for elsewhere. The standard here is the source text, and the source text does not hurry.

Read our full Methodology →