The practice of feng shui is founded on basic principles that stress the importance of location. The eight compass directions – North, South, East, West, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast and Southwest – signify eight different kinds of luck. Eight Directions Feng Shui (also known as Eight Mansions Feng Shui) is a personalized formula that categorizes people as belonging to one of two groups, either East or West. Both groups have four good (lucky) directions and four bad (unlucky) directions. And everyone has one particular direction best for personal growth. The directions are based on your kua number. Kua numbers are a system of numerology based on two things: your year of birth and your gender. Here is how to calculate your kua number:
1 – Add the last two digits of your birth year. If the result is a double digit, add the two digits so that you end up with a single digit number.
2 – If you are female, add 5. (For those born after 2000, add 6.) Reduce to a single digit if necessary. This is your kua number.
3 – If you are male, deduct your digit from 10. (For those born after 2000, deduct from 9.) This is your kua number.
If you end up with 1, 3, 4 or 9 you are in the East group. Your lucky directions are E, SE, N, S.
If you end up with 2, 5, 6, 7, or 8 you are in the West group. (The number 5 occupies the middle of the pa kua.) Your lucky directions are W, SW, NW, NE.
The pa kua symbol is basically a feng shui compass. It is an eight-sided figure that contains a kua number and its associations. Also known as the bagua map, it is used as a tool to locate the areas of positive and negative energy in a home or office (as defined by lucky and unlucky directions). Once the different areas are defined, you can apply feng shui “cures” where needed to ensure the flow of positive energy (chi).
The pa kua is comprised of trigrams – three rows of broken and unbroken lines which symbolize the aspirations of humankind. There are also specific colors and elements that go hand-in-hand with each kua number. If you understand the attributes of the eight directions, you can use them to arrange the layout of your home or office and incorporate their associated elements to ensure that you are bringing in the right kind of luck to your environment. (Check out my earlier post about the Bagua here.) You can use the pa kua on a small scale (i.e. in each room) or on a large scale (i.e. applied to an entire house or office building).
In my next post, I will explain the trigrams (the line symbols on the pa qua). In the meantime, use a compass and the diagram to find out where the auspicious rooms (or corners of each room) are located in your own home and office!
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