How Eight Mansions works
Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai, 八宅) is one of the oldest compass schools of feng shui. It has two halves that use exactly the same eight "stars":
- The house. The direction the building sits in — the side opposite its facing — gives it a trigram. A house sitting North is a Kan (坎) house, sitting Southwest a Kun (坤) house, and so on. That trigram fixes which sectors of the house carry the four good and four bad stars.
- The person. Your Kua number corresponds to a trigram too, and gives you your own four good and four bad directions.
The two halves answer different questions. The house stars describe where in the house different activities are traditionally best placed. Your Kua stars describe which way you should face or point — the direction of your desk, the head of your bed. This tool draws either set, or both, on your plan.
The eight stars
| Star | Quality | In the house, traditionally good for |
|---|---|---|
| Sheng Qi 生气 | Best | Main entrance, living room, home office |
| Tian Yi 天医 | Good | Bedroom, dining room |
| Yan Nian 延年 | Good | Bedroom, family room |
| Fu Wei 伏位 | Good | Bedroom, study, quiet room |
| Huo Hai 祸害 | Minor bad | Bathroom, storage, utility |
| Wu Gui 五鬼 | Bad | Bathroom, storage, garage |
| Liu Sha 六煞 | Bad | Bathroom, laundry |
| Jue Ming 绝命 | Worst | Bathroom, storage — the place for what you'd rather contain |
The classical rule of thumb is the reverse of what people expect: bathrooms and storage belong in the bad sectors, because they are said to "press down" on the difficult energy there.
East houses and West houses
Houses sitting North, South, East or Southeast are East-group houses; houses sitting West, Northwest, Southwest or Northeast are West-group houses. People with Kua numbers 1, 3, 4 and 9 belong to the East group; 2, 6, 7 and 8 to the West group. A person living in a house of their own group finds that the house's good sectors and their own good directions overlap. When they don't match, the usual advice is to use your personal directions for the things you can turn — desk, bed, stove opening — rather than to move house.
Reading the plan
- Find your facing with the facing finder and type it in. The house trigram follows from it.
- Upload your plan and fit the frame to the outer walls, front edge at the bottom.
- Use the 8-sector view for accuracy; the 9-square grid is a simpler approximation.
- Switch to "Both" to see the house star (top line) and your personal star (second line) together.
Questions
Is the house trigram from the front door or the facing?
From the sitting direction, which is the opposite of the facing. Some lineages use the main door's direction instead when the door is on a side wall; most use the building's facing.
Which matters more, the house or my Kua?
Practitioners differ. A common approach is to place rooms by the house stars and orient furniture by the person's Kua.
How is this different from Flying Stars?
Eight Mansions is fixed: the stars never change for a given house. Flying Star feng shui adds time — the natal chart depends on when the house was built, and the annual stars move every year.