The Sun in the Life palace
太阳命宫Tài Yáng in Mìng Gōng — also called the Ming palace
Purple Star editorial · Reviewed
The Sun (太阳 Tài Yáng) in the Life palace (命宫, the Ming palace) — your core self — character, potential, life direction: The Sun grants standing more than riches — the old teaching pairs the Sun with honour and the Moon with wealth.
The Life palace is the master palace: whichever star sits here colours your whole temperament, the shape of your ambitions, and how the world first reads you.命宫 Ming Gong — the most important palace: your core character, talents and the overall shape of your life.
What it means
In the Life palace the Sun grants standing more than riches — the old teaching pairs the Sun with honour and the Moon with wealth. You are broad-hearted, warm and fair, with real public appeal, and you belong in politics, management or public service. Brightness is everything: in its exalted seats the Sun wins name and reward together; fallen, it toils for thin returns and should change tack. For a woman, this chart tends to revolve around the key men in her life — father, husband, sons — whose fortunes it lights.
The shadow side
The Sun gives until it is empty, and quietly needs to be needed. In its fallen positions the pattern is effort without harvest; the correction is to aim your generosity, not simply pour it out on everyone.
The Four Transformations四化 Si Hua — four stars in your chart receive a special charge from your birth-year stem: Flow 禄 (ease), Power 权 (control), Merit 科 (recognition), Obstacle 忌 (friction). (四化) — Flow, Power, Merit and Obstacle — can sharpen or soften any of this depending on your exact birth year. Your own chart shows which are active.
From the classics
「太阳落陷，劳而无获」
A fallen Sun labours without reward — in its weak seats the Sun's effort outruns what it earns back.
— 天纪 (lectures 03, 05)
The Sun in other palaces
Other stars in the Life palace
Does The Sun sit in your Life palace? Cast your own Zi Wei Dou Shu紫微斗数 'Purple Star Astrology' — a 1,000-year-old Chinese system that maps your destiny across 12 life palaces based on your exact birth moment. chart free to see where your stars actually fall — and read what your whole chart says.
Cast your chart →