The Life Palace is your starting pattern; the Body Palace is where life gathers weight over time.
Zi Wei Dou Shu has two centers: the Life Palace (命宮) and the Body Palace (身宮).
The Life Palace is your inborn foundation. Like the Day Master in BaZi, it represents you yourself. The stars here draw the broadest lines of your character, so this is always the first palace to read.
The Body Palace is where your life gradually gathers weight. It does not occupy a separate cell; it overlaps one of the twelve palaces. In the Wealth Palace, life gathers weight around money. In the Spouse Palace, it gathers around relationships.
Older readers put it this way: “Life is inherited; the Body is made.” Some say the Body Palace becomes clearer around the thirties, but it is better read as a gradual lean over the course of life than a switch at one exact age.
The similarly named Life Master (命主) and Body Master (身主) are different values. The Life and Body Palaces are cells on the board; the Life and Body Masters are the Star those cells point to. They appear in the center of the chart, and the next chapter looks at them separately.
Enter your birth time to see your Life and Body Palaces, along with your Life and Body Masters.
This content is for reference and entertainment, based on traditional Chinese metaphysics and astrology.