Feng Shui Guides
What Feng Shui Covers
A traditional system for siting and spatial harmony
Feng shui is a traditional Chinese practice focused on orienting sites, buildings, and interior spaces to harmonize with qi. It is rooted in ideas of yin-yang balance and the five elements, and the term "wind-water" traces back to the Book of Burial, which links qi to wind and water.
The System in Four Layers
Core Focus: Form school emphasizes landforms such as rivers, trees, and mountains to assess qi flow, while Compass school relies on luopan-based directional calculations, including the 24 directions and bagua trigrams.
Common Questions: Best for site selection, building orientation, and how spatial flow interacts with directional constraints.
Reading Style: Read the environment first (Form), then quantify directions and sectors (Compass) to refine the layout.
Timing & Context: Compass lineages include san yuan (often called compass school), where Flying Stars (Xuan Kong Fei Xing) is a characteristic calculation.
Practice Principles
Where Feng Shui Is Applied
Form school assessment: Evaluate landform, surroundings, and how features such as rivers, trees, and mountains shape the site before any interior changes.
Compass school alignment: Use luopan-based direction readings, 24-direction sectoring, and bagua trigrams to confirm orientation and spatial placement.
Flying-star refinement: Apply Flying Stars (Xuan Kong Fei Xing) analysis after form assessment to refine the directional layout.
San he tools: When planning outdoor space, consider san he calculations such as Ba Zhai (eight houses) and Water Dragon.
Method layering: Combine form observations with compass calculations to move from site viability to directional optimization.
Feng Shui Common Questions
It literally means "wind-water" and traces to the Book of Burial, which links qi to how wind disperses and water retains it.
The two commonly described classical approaches are the Form school and the Compass school.
Form school evaluates the visible environment and landforms, while Compass school uses luopan-based directional calculations with 24-direction sectoring and bagua trigrams.
The luopan (feng shui compass) is used to measure directions and apply compass-based calculations.
San yuan (often called compass school) uses Flying Stars (Xuan Kong Fei Xing), while san he includes Ba Zhai (eight houses) and Water Dragon calculations.