In Chinese culture, whenever someone mention about Tai Sui, it is hard not to remind us of this saying “never/moving soil above Tai Sui's head”.  What does this mean?

The saying simply means that whenever Tai Sui appears it is the locality of 'Tai Sui'. The soil cannot be removed for earthwork or construction purposes. Failing which, mishaps and disastrous consequences will follow.
This was mistaken by the country folks that Tai Sui is a deity who punishes and when Tai Sui is encountered, it will spell trouble.

This is a wrong concept of Tai Sui. Tai Sui refers to the Annual Deity who is not visible by the human eyes. According to the astrological view in china, the annual deity is refer to the planet Jupiter. However Jupiter is visible to the human eyes. The Annual Deity moves from west to east along the zodiac belt, and completes one orbit in every 12 years.

The zodiac belt is divided into 12 points and each name after a earth branch (di gan).

There is a basis upon which this is derived and is not a superstitious matter as some may think.

We all know that there are 9 (or maybe 10) planets within solar system, and Jupiter is the biggest. It moves every year and this distance is  measured by the 12 lunar time. As the area of Jupiter is very large, whenever it moves from 1 place to another every year, it creates interfering waves at the locality with similar magnetic field on earth. The 'Earth Branch' at the diagonal locality will receive the interference, which is traditionally known as Fan Tai Sui (affliction with Tai Sui).

WHAT IS TAI SUI DEITY

Tai Sui refers to the Deity in heaven taking charge of the world's general affairs of the current year. The heaven being compassionate, so a Tai Sui Deity will be sent by heaven each year to look after the mishaps and disastrous happenings in the world and provide protection. The Tai Sui will be sent on a rotation basis with 1 being sent each year. Praying to Tai Sui is a way to demonstrate respect to Tai Sui by the devotees of the world.

Everyone born to the world will be facing 2 Tai Sui Deities. One is the Tai Sui of the natal birth date which means Tai Sui that is taking charge of  that year. This Tai Sui will be taking charge of his life span, fortune and accompany him throughout his/her life. The other Tai Sui is the Annual Tai Sui that he would encounter every year, which would influences his luck and affairs of the current year.

WHY SEEKS BLESSING FROM TAI SUI

According to the Taoist Scripture, Tai Sui Deity will look after a person's mishaps in life and disasters of the current year. In another words, a person's blessing and misfortune are all under the care of Tai Sui. Therefore, seeking blessing from Tai Sui is to seek Health, Good Fortune from Tai Sui throughout the current year.

For those born under the Tai Sui of the natal year, it serves as a reminder to avoid misdeeds, take care of the health, to get involve in more benevolent activities and avoid offending Tai Sui as not to invite misfortunes. Most people may not know that beside their zodiac animals of their year is offending Tai Sui, one can still offend Tai Sui with the day, month and time. To find out about this information, we can look into our Bazi for details. Example this is the WU ZI year, wu is yang earth, zi is rat so those with any of the 4 pillars containing WU as the heaven stem and zi on the earth branch is also offending Tai Sui and needs to seek for his blessing. (Both the heaven stem and the earth branch must be on the same pillar to be considered.)

Generally, seeking blessing from Tai Sui is carried out on the Lunar New Year period. This is because it would be best to seek his blessing for the whole year before any mishaps happens to us. In fact, some people would think that with time of  1 seeking of blessing at the start of the year and 1 thanksgiving at the end of the year would gain the protection from Tai Sui throughout the current year. I do not agree with this concept because i believe that since there are so many people seeking blessing from Tai Sui each year, it would be best that we can seek his blessing his or i call it offer prayers to Tai Sui whenever we are free throughout the whole year. We can't expect Tai Sui to protect us throughout the whole year will only 1 praying only, maybe i may be wrong but it will never hurt offering more prayers (li duo ren bu guai).

Affliction or clash (offend) Tai Sui can be divided into 5 category, they are conflicting, causing hurt, clashing, incompatible and damaging with Tai Sui. The impact of hurt is listed below:

Conflicting : a mixture of good and bad, a fair share of bliss and disaster.

Causing Hurt : causing injury.

Clashing : Clashes with great impact and countering.

Incompatible : Disharmony with different viewpoints.

Damaging : Breakage with Damage.

Beside a person zodiac sign or bazi can have afflictions with Tai Sui, a person who shares the same name with the current Tai Sui will also needs to seek blessing from Tai Sui.

As Tai Sui is a forceful deity, it is gerenally said that : “when Tai Sui sits over, if there is no bliss, there will be disasters”. But one must not presume that a person's bliss or misfortunes is because of he has offended Tai Sui. In fact it is a matter of our fate plus goodwill or misdeeds.

STORIES OF TAI SUI

From the pantheon of heavenly deities according to Taoist scriptures, Tai Sui Deities are depicted at the same level of the 3 Supreme Deities (San Guan Da Di), the Jade Emperor of Heaven (Yu Huang Da Di), the Tai Yi Deity (Tai Yi Zhen Ren) and so on. The various Tai Sui Deities who have at various periods in history, brought about the improvement of the society and provided assistance to the people in their living, had taken incarnation on earth and hence we have Tai Sui Deities such as Guan Shen, Yang Xin and so on.

WU ZI TAI SUI – THE GENERAL ZHOU DANG (2008)

Conflict with Tai Sui: Rat

Clashes with Tai Sui: Horse

Causing Hurt with Tai Sui: Rabbit

Incompatible with Tai Sui: Sheep

Damaging with Tai Sui: Rooster

Wu Zi Tai Sui was born during the Ming Dynasty at Wu Hu, now the Wu Hu city at the Province of Ann Hui). His name is Zhou Dang.

In the early years of Yongle (1403-1424), Zhou Dang was promoted as deputy inspector at He Nan before he moved into politics. While on duty, Zhou Dang was very meticulous in his work and placed a lot of emphasize on moral attitude. He did not believe in ill-treating the subordinates and was not afraid of the influential and powerful.

As Zhou Dang had been able to handle corruption cases wherever he went and eliminate them, he met the expectation of the people at large.

Zhou Dang had a slim figure and is an honest and clean character. Though Zhou Dang had been an official for many years , he was never a rich man. Zhou Dang died at home at the age of over 80 years old.