The East-West System is a Compass School Feng Shui – Part I

Although I am not a student of the East-West System, my master always says it is important to understand other feng shui schools.  This way we can each make our own judgment on what we wish to practice.

So what is the East-West System feng shui? Unlike  Form School feng shui which I practice,  the East-West system uses astrology and direction using a Chinese compass called the lo-pan.  They incorporate not only “space” into feng shui but add “time” to their analysis.  The divide a space into eight directions, whereby everyone has four favorable and four unfavorable directions. These eight directions are separated into two “houses”, the East house and West house.  This means that everyone belongs either to the East house or the West house.

The first step is to find out which house an individual belongs to:  East or West group.  To determined this you first need to find out your Kua or Gua number.  Gua means trigram, so you are finding your trigram number.  There are two formulas.  One for male and the other for female.  These both can be calculated with a simple formula using your birth year.  However, you must use the Chinese lunar calendar.  This means if you were born in January or February before the lunar new year, you must subtract one year.

Let’s say you were born in April, 1965.  Because it is in April it does not affect the year.

The Formula for males:

• Add all four digits of the year.  a+b+c+d=e, so you get 1+9+6+5=21
• Next, divide the total e, by 9:  21/9=2 remainder 3
• Then you use 11- the remainder=Gua number, ;  11-3=8.
• Your Gua number is 8 if you are male.

The Formula for females:

• Add all four digits of the year.  a+b+c+d=e, 1+9+6+5=21
• Next, divide the total e by 9; 21/9=2 remainder 3
• Then add 4 to the remainder:  3+4=7
• Your Gua number is 7 if you are female

NOTE:  If the remainder number is 0, replace the number with 9, if the gua number is 5, since there is no 5 for a gua, if you are male you will belong to the Kun trigram and if female you will belong to the Ken trigram.

Once you have your Gua number, you can determine which trigram you belong to by following the chart.

• 1 is KAN
• 2 is KUN
• 3 is CHEN/ZHEN
• 4 is SUN/XUN
• 5 is KUN or KEN
• 6 is CHIEN/QIAN
• 7 is TUI/DUI
• 8 is KEN/GEN
• 9 is LI

Now these 8 trigrams are divided into two groups the East Group and the West Group.  The numbers correspond to the Group.

• East Group:  1,3,4,9
• West Group:  2,6,7,8

So, we can conclude if you are a female born in 1965, your Gua number is 7, you are a TUI/DUI and belong in the West Group.  If you are male born in 1965, your Gua number is 8, you are a KEN/GEN and belong in the West House.

As you can see, it gets pretty complicated and there is a lot of background to this, so please understand that this is a very simplified version of what is practiced.  To be continued…

Photo: Pixabay