Guides

Qi rides the wind and scatters. Qi meets water and stops. Those eight words are the supreme law of feng shui. This guide walks you through qi's core behavior, the four ideal landforms (backing mountain, bright hall, green dragon, white tiger), and shows you how to find qi-gathering homes in the urban jungle.

A feng shui luopan isn't about getting the most expensive one. This guide covers the three main types (San Yuan, San He, All-in-One), breaks down the core rings (24 Mountains, 72 Penetrating Dragons, 60 Penetrating Earth Dragons), gives you a six-step process for taking a reading, and lists the five biggest beginner mistakes.

Feng shui isn't one monolithic thing. Five major schools each have their specialty. Form School reads mountain shapes and water flows. Compass School calculates directions and timing. Eight Mansions matches people to houses. Flying Stars tracks energy through time. San He decodes dragon-water combinations. This guide breaks down each school's theory, tools, strengths, and limits.

Yin Yang and the Five Elements aren't mysticism — they're the rules everything in feng shui runs on. This guide walks you through the three pairs of yin-yang opposites (light/dark, movement/stillness, high/low), maps the Five Elements to directions, colors, and shapes, and gives you real layout plans for your living room, bedroom, kitchen, and study.

An in-depth analysis of the five most common form sha — identification methods, severity levels, and resolution strategies: Road Charge Sha (straight road like an arrow), Wall Blade Sha (neighboring wall slicing in), Sky Crack Sha (narrow gap between two buildings), Arching-Back Sha (road bending outward like a bow), and Piercing Heart Sha (straight corridor running through). Includes specific case examples and item-based remedy recommendations for each sha.

A complete breakdown of the East-West Four Life calculation — side-by-side comparison of the classic formula for 1900-1999 births and the revised formula for births from 2000 onward, the full remainder-to-trigram mapping table (including the special male-5 and female-5 rules), ready-to-use lists of the four lucky and four unlucky directions for all eight life trigrams, the five most common calculation mistakes with corrections, and deep daily-life applications of your life trigram (choosing a home, choosing a floor, choosing business partners). This is the ultimate reference manual for Eight Mansions life trigram calculation.

A complete introduction to Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai) feng shui — from the East-West Four Life calculation method, through the detailed breakdown of the Four Lucky Directions (Sheng Qi, Tian Yi, Yan Nian, Fu Wei) and Four Unlucky Directions (Jue Ming, Wu Gui, Liu Sha, Huo Hai) with their practical uses, the matching logic between life trigram and house trigram (East Four and West Four Houses) with adjustment strategies for mismatches, special techniques for applying Eight Mansions to modern apartment layouts, and the methodological limitations of the Eight Mansions system in relation to other feng shui schools.

A complete beginner's map of feng shui — starting from the core concept of Qi (life-force energy), through the practical use of yin-yang and the Five Elements in site selection and layout, the compass and 24 Mountains framework, the key differences and complementary relationship between the Form School (Luan Tou) and Compass School (Li Qi), plus the correct learning path for absolute beginners. One article to build your mental map of the entire feng shui system.

A detailed guide to six commonly used fengshui items: Bagua Mirror (sha reflection), Gourd (illness absorption), Pixiu (wealth attraction & retention), Crystal Ball (qi gathering & harmonization), Qilin (home protection & fertility), and Golden Toad (wealth attraction). Correct placement can attract good fortune and avert misfortune.

A systematic overview of Luantou Fengshui (Form School) core framework: the five key elements of Dragon (mountain range flow), Acupoint (qi concentration point), Sands (protective surrounding hills), Water (inflow and outflow patterns), and Orientation (facing direction). Also covers Nine-Star Mountain Forms and urban Luantou — treating buildings as mountains and roads as water.

A detailed breakdown of the Nine-Star Mountain Forms in Luantou Fengshui: Tanlang (Wood), Jumen (Earth), Lucun (Earth), Wenqu (Water), Lianzhen (Fire), Wuqu (Metal), Pojun (Metal), Zuofu (Metal/Earth), and Youbi (Water). Each star's visual characteristics, Five Element attribute, auspiciousness, and real-world examples.

A deep dive into the compass's 24 Mountains — their full composition (the Eight Stems, Twelve Branches, and Four Corner Trigrams with complete directional distribution), the Five Element nature and corresponding solar term for each mountain (sun-arrives-at-mountain timing table), the precise method for reading sitting and facing directions from the compass, the Three Harmonies and Six Clashes relationships between mountains (how to read lucky and unlucky directional combinations), and how to match your personal Life Trigram to the 24 Mountains. Mastering the 24 Mountains is the gateway from beginner to intermediate feng shui.

A practical sweep of the core essentials of yang zhai (residential) feng shui — how to judge whether a floor plan is square, which missing corner corresponds to what impact, how to spot through-draft afflictions and door-clash afflictions at a glance and fix them affordably, the feng shui rules for each of the four core spaces (front door, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom) and their common mistakes, the logic of matching floor numbers to the Five Elements, and immediate feng shui remedies you can execute without touching a single wall — color, material, furniture repositioning, screens, and plants.

A room-by-room breakdown of Yangzhai Fengshui's six functional areas: the main door as the qi intake, the bedroom for nourishing qi, the kitchen governing food and wealth, the bathroom containing impurities, the study fostering academic success, and the living room gathering vitality. Each area includes core rules, common taboos, and adjustment methods.

A complete guide to the must-read classical texts of bazi study — introducing the 16 core classics (Yuan Hai Zi Ping, San Ming Tong Hui, Di Tian Sui, Zi Ping Zhen Quan, Qiong Tong Bao Jian, Shen Feng Tong Kao, Xing Ping Hui Hai, Ming Li Yue Yan, Lan Jiang Wang, Zao Hua Yuan Yao, and more), with detailed explanations of each book's core content, historical status, suitable learning stage, and reading strategy, plus a four-stage reading roadmap from beginner to advanced.

A collection of cold knowledge in bazi that isn't in 'mainstream curriculums' but holds immense practical value — the imagery application of Sixty Jiazi Na Yin, the chart-casting impact of True Solar Time vs Beijing Time, the day-change controversy between Night Zi Hour and Early Zi Hour, the depth distribution of hidden stems through Human Element Command Distribution, whether Tongzi Ming (Divine Child Fate) actually exists, the correct usage of Shen Sha (Goat Blade / Horse Star / Kong Wang), Day Lu Returns to Hour as a classic good-fate pattern, and the judging rules for noble fate vs wealthy fate. These topics aren't often taught but are extremely useful at critical moments.

A complete collection of the core must-memorize knowledge for bazi beginners — the Yin-Yang and Five Element attribute tables for the ten Heavenly Stems and twelve Earthly Branches, the complete rules of stem-branch generation, control, combination, transformation, and clash, the Sixty Jiazi sequence table, Five Element Flourishing-Prosperous-Resting-Imprisoned-Dead and the Twelve Life Stages, plus the must-memorize formulas for casting a chart and setting up Luck Cycles. One article builds the deepest knowledge foundation of bazi study.

The Five Elements (Wu Xing) are the foundational physics of Bazi — covers the complete generation (生) and control (克) cycles with detailed element-by-element dynamics, the five states of each element (prosperous 旺, strong 相, resting 休, imprisoned 囚, dead 死) across the four seasons, the critical wet earth (Chen/Chou) vs dry earth (Wei/Xu) distinction that changes element interactions, and the practical body-organ and career-industry mapping for all five elements.

Image extraction (取象) is the art of translating Bazi's abstract symbols into concrete life scenarios — covers the complete four-layer extraction system (Five Element → Ten God → Spirit Star → Pillar Position), the rich imagery lexicon for all ten Heavenly Stems and twelve Earthly Branches (from Jia Wood's 'towering tree' to Hai Water's 'deep ocean'), the combination and clash imagery transformations, and multiple real-world example walkthroughs showing how image extraction converts a chart's eight characters into specific career, relationship, and life-event narratives.

The Month Star and Day Star are the two most granular time layers in Bazi practical analysis — covers when the Month Star can act independently of the Year Star (independence conditions), why the Day Star sometimes matters more than the Month Star for specific events (day importance), the complete month-day-year three-layer interplay model, the Day Star's relationship to the Day Pillar of the natal chart, and how to use Month and Day Stars for micro-timing in career, relationships, and health.