Last week we had an overview of the constitution of the full Flying Star Map, which comprises of the Mountain Star, Facing (Water) Star and the Period (Yun) Star. In particular I taught you how to find out the Period Stars. This week, I’ll equip you with the necessary knowledge to find out the Mountain Stars and Facing Stars.
To do this, we need to have the 24 Mountains concept in mind. It is the way we Feng Shui masters use the measure the orientation of a house. Most of you learnt the four directions, i.e. North, East, South and West when you were very young. When you grew older, you would learn the other four directions in between, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast and Southwest. These eight directions are pretty enough in daily life to differentiate different directions.
Now I’m telling you that there are 24 directions according to Chinese Feng Shui theories, that we called the 24 Mountains. If you divide 360 degrees into 24 portions, each will be merely 15 degrees. The narrow width of each portion means that there is not much toleration for error. (And in fact if you study Feng Shui in advanced level, you will know that each 15-degree portion is further divided into 3 sub-portions, in a 3-9-3 degrees manner. Isn’t it crazy? In a way yes, but such complicated calculation could also be seen as a signal of how advanced Feng Shui is.
For now, we’ll just focus on the 24 Mountains.
24 Mountains: Using Compass to Find Out
There are eight directions and in each direction there are three smaller portions. Each portion is called a Mountain, three portions in each of the eight directions, i.e. 3 x 8 = 24 Mountains. Here I list out the degrees of all 24 Mountains.
North
- Ren (壬) – 337.6 to 352.5
- Zi (子) – 352.6 to 7.5
- Gui (癸) – 7.6 to 22.5
Northeast
- Chou (丑) – 22.6 to 37.5
- Gen (艮) – 37.6 to 52.5
- Yin (寅) – 52.6 to 67.5
East
- Jia (甲) – 67.6 to 82.5
- Mao (卯) – 82.6 to 97.5
- Yi (乙) – 97.6 to 112.5
Southeast
- Chen (辰) – 112.6 to 127.5
- Xun (巽) – 127.6 to 142.5
- Si (巳) – 142.6 to 157.5
South
- Bing (丙) – 157.6 to 172.5
- Wu (午) – 172.6 to 187.5
- Ding (丁) – 187.6 to 202.5
Southwest
- Wei (未) – 202.6 to 217.5
- Kun (坤) – 217. to 232.5
- Shen (申) – 232.6 to 247.5
West
- Geng (庚) – 247.6 to 262.5
- You (酉) – 262.6 to 277.5
- Xin (辛) – 277.6 to 292.5
Northwest
- Xu (戌) – 292.6 to 307.5
- Qian (乾) – 307.6 to 322.5
- Hai (亥) – 322.6 to 337.5
If we write down the 24 mountains around the circumvent of a compass, you would get something like this:
Image Courtesy: Ray Langley (via this site)
The best tool to measure a house’s orientation is certainly a Chinese Feng Shui compass, which usually looks like the following photo. The advantage of using Feng Shui compass is that the 24 Mountains are already printed around the compass, so you don’t need to refer to the above list. There is another advantage that I’ll cover later when we talk about assigning the Stars in ascending or descending order.
If you want to buy a Feng Shui compass, you can easily get one at an affordable price from Amazon. Just click this link to search for one you like.
But if you do not have a Feng Shui compass, you still could an ordinary compass to do Feng Shui. Simply refer to the above list after you measured the directions.
Sitting and Facing Directions
We have learnt a bit about finding out the sitting (backing) direction and facing direction of a house. Let’s re-cap and see how we could do it for finding out which of the 24 Mountains the house belongs to.
Firstly, you need to find the center point of the house. It is usually the point where the diagonal lines intersect if the house is a simple square or rectangle. The image below shows the center points of common shapes of houses.
But usually modern houses would not be such regular, the shapes of modern houses usually look like the combination of a few rectangles, sometimes with triangles and circles as well. In these cases, we find out the center points by cutting out small projections and filling up small recessions, so that the overall shapes become more regular.
Then, we measure the directions when standing in the center point of the house. The direction where the entrance door locates is the facing direction. For example, if the entrance door is in the Zi (子) direction, we call this house facing Zi. We call this the Facing Direction.
In Chinese Feng Shui we do not only use the facing direction to name a house, we also use the direction where the house “backs”. How to find out the backing direction? Easy. Just find out the direction opposite to the facing direction on the compass. So if the facing direction is Zi, the backing direction must be Wu (午). We call the backing direction as the Mountain direction.
This is a hard rule, we always use the opposite of the Facing Direction as the Mountain Direction, and vice versa. When Feng Shui masters talk to each other, they 100% use this system of nomenclature, there is no exception. We always combine the Facing and Mountain Directions and say a house is Wu Mountain Zi Facing (午山子向). The direct translation is grammatically wrong, but let’s just live with it for now.
Knowing the Mountain and Facing directions are important, because we need these two directions to find out the Mountain and Facing Flying Stars in the nine boxes of the Flying Star Map.
[contentbox width=”550″ borderwidth=”0″ borderstyle=”none” bordercolor=”000000″ dropshadow=”0″ backgroundcolor=”F5C9C9″ radius=”0″]In the following paragraphs, I’ll reveal the secrets of determining multi-storey apartment’s orientation, which is a rarely known technique. Besides, you can learn exactly how to use Trigram, Yin and Yang theories to assign all Flying Stars in Mountain and Facing directions. These are all member-exclusive contents.
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Apartments
The above is the method to determine the Mountain and Facing Directions of a house. How about a unit in a multi-storey building? In most modern buildings, the building will have multiple floors, on each floor there are more than one residential units owned and occupied by different families. In this case, should we use the entrance door of the whole building or the unit to find out the Facing Direction?
This is a question not answered by the ancient Feng Shui books, because in the past Chinese people usually have low rise buildings occupied by a single family. Multi-storey apartment with diverse ownership is a new product unprecedented in Chinese society. The people who invented (or discovered) the magic of Feng Shui had never thought of applying Feng Shui principles to such buildings.
So modern Feng Shui masters need to use their logical sense to think of ways to adopt the ancient Feng Shui theories in modern buildings. This leads to the result of a number of different theories advocated by different masters.
My theory, which has been tested in numerous cases, is to use the main entrance door of the whole building. So, we stand at the center point of the whole building footprint, not just a single apartment, and measure the direction of the entrance door of the whole building. We then draw the Flying Star Map out and apply it to individual units. As a result, the Facing Direction of a building’s Flying Star Map does not necessarily be the direction where a single apartment locates.
This theory is supported by many renowned Feng Shui masters, because it conforms with the Feng Shui principles. In the case of a multi-storey apartment building, each unit is like a room of a big multi-storey house.
In the past when a family occupies a 3-storey house, usually on each floor there are one to two rooms, each occupied by a family member. For example, the father and mother would live on the ground floor, with the sons live on the second floor and daughters live on the third floor. Each person occupy a room. In the past Feng Shui masters use the same Flying Star Map to Judge the Feng Shui of all rooms, because they consider the house as a whole. Although different people occupy different rooms on different floors, they are all affected by the Chi flowing in from the same entrance – the house’s main entrance. If we enlarge the scale of such a house to over 10 floors each with at least two units, it is exactly the multi-storey apartment scenario nowadays.
We shall see how to apply a Flying Star Map to different units in the same building in the coming lessons.
Yin and Yang of 24 Mountains
Another critical knowledge of doing Flying Star Feng Shui is to know the Yin (陰) and Yang (陽) of the 24 Mountains. The Yin and Yang characteristic of a Mountain determines whether we assign the Flying Stars to the nine boxes of a Flying Star Map in ascending or descending order. You would find it difficult to memorize all of them, but unfortunately this is an essential knowledge of Feng Shui.
Let me show you the Yin and Yang of all 24 Mountains.
North
- Ren (壬) – 337.6 to 352.5 – Yang
- *Zi (子) – 352.6 to 7.5 – Yin
- Gui (癸) – 7.6 to 22.5 – Yin
Northeast
- Chou (丑) – 22.6 to 37.5 – Yin
- *Gen (艮) – 37.6 to 52.5 – Yang
- Yin (寅) – 52.6 to 67.5 – Yang
East
- Jia (甲) – 67.6 to 82.5 – Yang
- *Mao (卯) – 82.6 to 97.5 – Yin
- Yi (乙) – 97.6 to 112.5 – Yin
Southeast
- Chen (辰) – 112.6 to 127.5 – Yin
- *Xun (巽) – 127.6 to 142.5 – Yang
- Si (巳) – 142.6 to 157.5 – Yang
South
- Bing (丙) – 157.6 to 172.5 – Yang
- *Wu (午) – 172.6 to 187.5 – Yin
- Ding (丁) – 187.6 to 202.5 – Yin
Southwest
- Wei (未) – 202.6 to 217.5 – Yin
- *Kun (坤) – 217. to 232.5 – Yang
- Shen (申) – 232.6 to 247.5 – Yang
West
- Geng (庚) – 247.6 to 262.5 – Yang
- *You (酉) – 262.6 to 277.5 – Yin
- Xin (辛) – 277.6 to 292.5 – Yin
Northwest
- Xu (戌) – 292.6 to 307.5 – Yin
- *Qian (乾) – 307.6 to 322.5 – Yang
- Hai (亥) – 322.6 to 337.5 – Yang
How can you memorize the Yin and Yang of all 24 Mountains? Well, there is a shortcut, in fact you don’t necessarily need to memorize them. Remember I said there is another advantage of using a Chinese Feng Shui compass? On the compass, the Yin and Yang are clearly marked on some Feng Shui compasses (not all brands do).
Trigram (Gua)
Before you actually assign the Flying Stars, you need to know one more thing, i.e. the relationship between Trigram and the Flying Star:
1: Kan (坎) – North
2: Kun (坤) – Southwest
3: Zhen (震) – East
4: Xun (巽) – Southeast
6: Qian (乾) – Northwest
7: Dui (兌) – West
8: Gen (艮) – Northeast
9: Li (離) – South
You may ask where 5 has gone? Good question. Flying Star 5 is supposed to occupy the center, so it is not among the eight directions.
As you can see, each of the eight Trigrams represents a direction. In fact, you can match them to the 24 Mountains list above:
North – Kan (坎) – 1
- Ren (壬) – 337.6 to 352.5 – Yang
- *Zi (子) – 352.6 to 7.5 – Yin
- Gui (癸) – 7.6 to 22.5 – Yin
Northeast – Gen (艮) – 8
- Chou (丑) – 22.6 to 37.5 – Yin
- *Gen (艮) – 37.6 to 52.5 – Yang
- Yin (寅) – 52.6 to 67.5 – Yang
East – Zhen (震) – 3
- Jia (甲) – 67.6 to 82.5 – Yang
- *Mao (卯) – 82.6 to 97.5 – Yin
- Yi (乙) – 97.6 to 112.5 – Yin
Southeast – Xun (巽) – 4
- Chen (辰) – 112.6 to 127.5 – Yin
- *Xun (巽) – 127.6 to 142.5 – Yang
- Si (巳) – 142.6 to 157.5 – Yang
South – Li (離) – 9
- Bing (丙) – 157.6 to 172.5 – Yang
- *Wu (午) – 172.6 to 187.5 – Yin
- Ding (丁) – 187.6 to 202.5 – Yin
Southwest – Kun (坤) – 2
- Wei (未) – 202.6 to 217.5 – Yin
- *Kun (坤) – 217. to 232.5 – Yang
- Shen (申) – 232.6 to 247.5 – Yang
West – Dui (兌) – 7
- Geng (庚) – 247.6 to 262.5 – Yang
- *You (酉) – 262.6 to 277.5 – Yin
- Xin (辛) – 277.6 to 292.5 – Yin
Northwest – Qian (乾) – 6
- Xu (戌) – 292.6 to 307.5 – Yin
- *Qian (乾) – 307.6 to 322.5 – Yang
- Hai (亥) – 322.6 to 337.5 – Yang
Assigning Mountain and Facing Stars
Now we finally come to the most valuable part of this lesson. The rule I am going to tell you is a critical one in Flying Star Feng Shui. You will learn how to assign the Mountain and Facing Stars.
Firstly, you put the Period Stars into the boxes as described in the last lesson. For example, for a house built in the seventh Period, the Flying Star 7 will occupy the central box. The other Stars shall be assigned in ascending order.
Next, you find out the Period Star in the Mountain Direction. For a house which is “Mountain Zi Facing Wu” built in the seventh Period, the Period Star in the Mountain Direction’s box is 3. Since the Trigram of 3 is Zhen (East), we follow the Yin and Yang characteristic of the middle portion of this Direction’s three Mountains. The middle portion of Zhen (East) is Mao, which is Yin. For Yin we assign the Stars in descending order. So, we assign the Mountain Direction’s Period Star, 3, to the Central box as Mountain Star and the rest in descending order.
Then, since the Facing Direction has a Period Star 2, and 2’s Trigram is Kun (Southwest). The middle Mountain of Kun is Kun which is Yang. So we assign 2 to the central box as the Facing Star and the rest in ascending order.
Difficult, isn’t it? I know you would feel this way, because Feng Shui is never meant to be easy. Don’t worry, I’ll save you. As a premium member of the Master Class, you will be led to a shortcut to overcome all these difficult theories. In the next lesson I’ll give you a much simpler way to find out the Mountain and Facing Stars in all nine boxes. Until next lesson, please read this lesson again and again to try to understand everything taught here. This is a long but very informative lesson. Try to get the most out of it!
See you next week!