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STUDY GUIDE
LILLIAN TOO’S
MANDALA
For Modern Living
MODULE 20
吉位与凶位
Lucky and Unlucky Directions
Lucky and Directions unlucky 吉位与凶位
LILLIAN TOO’S
MANDALA
T
he Eight Mansions method is a simple and efficient way to select good rooms in a home. It is called Eight Mansions because there are potentially eight types of luck which are distributed throughout your home depending on the facing-direction of your house. Each home can be divided into 8 equal compass sectors or 9 equal squares within a square grid. Each of these sectors can be classified as either good or bad locations.
The first step to identifying which chart applies to your home is to take good directions using a magnetic compass. If your house faces East, then it is the East chart that will reveal which sectors are favourable or unfavourable. Once you know which chart to use, superimpose the chart over your floor plan. There should be four good sectors and four bad sectors that apply to your home. If you use the more popular 9-grid chart, then the centre sector is ignored under this formula.
W
NW
N
NE
NW
N
NE
NW
N
NE
LS
FW
WK
NY
CM
SC
WK
TY
LS
HH
1
TY
TY
2
HH
CM
3
FW
CM
NY
SC
FW
LS
WK
HH
SC
NY
SW
S
SE
SW
S
SE
SW
S
SE
E
W
House Facing Southeast
W
W
House Facing Northeast
N
NE
NW
N
NE
NW
N
NE
HH
SC
CM
FW
LS
TY
SC
HH
NY
LS
4
NY
SC
6
WK
FW
7
CM
WK
TY
FW
NY
CM
HH
TY
WK
LS
SW
S
SE
SW
S
SE
SW
S
SE
E
W
N
NE
NW
N
NE
TY
WK
FW
CM
NY
HH
NY
8
LS
WK
9
SC
SC
HH
CM
LS
FW
TY
SW
S
SE
SW
S
SE
House Facing Southwest
W
W
E
House Facing Northwest
NW
©LILLIAN TOO MANDALA
E
House Facing West
E
E
House Facing South
NW
House Facing North
W
E
Auspicious Locations Inauspicious Locations Fu Wei = FW Tien Yi = TY Nien Yen = NY Sheng Chi = SC
E
Ho Hai = HH Wu Kwei = WK Chueh Ming = CM Lui Sha = LS
Once you are in possession of your Kua number, you will be able to use the circular patterns shown above to find your own auspicious and inauspicious locations.
House Facing East
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LILLIAN TOO’S
MANDALA The second step to using Eight Mansions is to calculate your personal Kua number. There are a total of nine possible kua numbers and every Kua number has four favourable directions and locations which bring good fortune, and four which bring misfortune. When the chi distribution of your home exactly matches that of your personal good luck and bad luck directions specified by your Kua number, then it is said that you and the house are compatible and the house is excellent for you. It is incredibly beneficial to live in a house whose Eight Mansions distribution is compatible with your personal Kua number.
For example: Your Kua number is 1; this means that your best NW N NE direction, known as your Sheng Chi direction is Southeast. A house which faces Southeast would LS FW WK thus be the best match for you, since the luck which enters the home originate from your best direction. You will find that all the favourable sectors for a W HH 1 TY E Southeast facing house corresponds exactly to all your good locations and directions for the Kua CM NY SC number 1. If our Kua is not 1, it does not mean that the house is automatically unfavourable for you. SW S SE In this example, a Southeast-facing house is also suitable for those whose Kua numbers fall under the East Group Kua numbers of 3, 7 and 9; as all the favorable directions and locations for all these individuals correspond well with a Southeast house or any house which faces East, South and North. Similarly, the same is true for West group houses. Houses which face West, Northwest, Southwest and Northeast are always compatible with those whose Kua numbers are 2, 5, 7 and 8.
USING THE
eight mansions
TO SELECT ROOMS
You may use Eight Mansions feng shui charts to investigate whether your bedroom, living room, working areas, dining room and kitchen either bring you good fortune or misfortune. Likewise, you can determine whether your main front door brings good or bad luck, and also figure out the ideal place for rooms which suppress luck such as the Kitchen and the Bathroom. Eight Mansions is also very useful for helping you work out your best sleeping and sitting directions. These directions should guide you in everyday living as your favourable directions generally bring good luck; while unfavourable directions always bring loss. ©LILLIAN TOO MANDALA
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For example: It is important that your main door should be located and face what is known as your Sheng chi direction within your home’s Eight Mansion chart. Other auspicious common areas like the living room, dining room and bedroom should also ideally be located in one of the four favourable locations (of your Kua number); these lucky sectors or directions are known (in auspicious order) as your Sheng Chi, Nien Yen, Tien Yi and Fu
LILLIAN TOO’S
MANDALA
Wei locations or directions. Locations which are considered unfavourable for you can be well utilized through the placement of toilets, storeroom and your kitchen. Placing these rooms here are said to suppress or lock up the unlucky sectors of the home, thus preventing its negative energy from affecting you. These unfavourable locations or directions are known as the Ho Hai, Wu Kuei, Lui Shar and Chueh Ming.
The four lucky and unlucky locations within the house is called ‘The eight aspirations theory of Feng Shui’ whereby is allocated different aspirations to different parts of the house by using the trigrams that are around the compass, around the Feng Shui Pakua, or the Feng Shui diagram. The Pakua is an eight sided octagonal representation of the compass directions. First, check whether the facing direction and main door direction favours your Kua Number. If this is not the case, all is not lost, as you can still look for a location within the house that corresponds to your lucky direction.
For example:
If your Kua number is either 2, 5, 7 or 8, then are a West-group person; this means that you benefit from energy in the Northeast, Southwest, West and Northwest. If your bedroom is placed in any of these four locations, you are in the position to benefit from the good chi distribution of the house. Of course if your Kua number is 8, and your bedroom happens to be in the Southwest, then you are in luck as the Southwest is your Sheng Chi location, very auspicious indeed. This is true even if the house is facing East. ©LILLIAN TOO MANDALA
If you are the matriarch or the patriarch of the family, then every room has significance for you. Ideally, both husband and wife benefit if they are both in the same Kua Group, as this greatly simplifies the selection of rooms that are lucky for both of you; if both husband and wife share the same Kua Group, then all the rooms with good fortune are good for the both of you and vice versa. However, if one of you is East Group and the other is a West Group person, careful compromise is needed here. Normally it is the husband’s directions that take precedence, as it is usually common for the man to act as the breadwinner of the family. It is also beneficial to select rooms and the couple’s sleeping direction using the husband’s Kua number if you are intending to start a family and have children. In cases where the wife is the breadwinner of the family unit, then certainly it is more logical to choose the bedroom and bed’s facing-direction in favour of the woman’s Kua number. However this could likely result in fertility issues and is best avoided if indeed one is trying to conceive. STUDY GUIDE MODULE 20 - Page
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MANDALA
As you can see, knowing how to use the charts and matching it with your Kua number gives you a simple method to help you decide how to allocate rooms among each member of your family. Work out all the Kua numbers of every single family member and then check to see which room is best for each person. Take into account the way you may position each person’s bed too.
USING THE Direction
5 elements
TO ENHANCE AND SUPPRESS SECTORS Element to Suppress
Element to Enhance
East & Southeast
Water & Wood
Northeast & southwest
Fire & Earth
South
Wood & Fire
North
Metal & Water
West & Northwest
Earth & Metal
Water feature & Plant Bright Light & Crystal Plant & Bright Light Windchime & Water feature Crystal & Windchime
After you have determined the house direction and selected the appropriate chart, then identify the good luck sectors and the unlucky sectors as shown on the charts. Systematically go through each sector and see which sectors you wish to enhance and which sectors you feel should be suppressed. Generally, sectors which are good for you should be enhanced and sectors which bring you ill fortune should be suppressed. Consult the table below for the elements you can use to either enhance or suppress a sector. For example, all four East Group houses (those which face North, East, Southeast and South) show that both East and Southeast sectors are favourable; both these sectors are Wood sectors and they become enhanced in their power when activated with Water and Wood. But it is not enough to check whether the sector has good Chi. What is more important is whether the sector brings you personally, any good luck. For example, if you are a West Group person, then these two locations are not considered favourable for you. If you don’t already have a bathroom or kitchen in those locations then you can suppress the afflicted luck it brings you by ©LILLIAN TOO MANDALA
Fire & Metal Wood & Metal Earth & Water Earth & Wood Water & Fire
Bright Light & Windchime Plant & Windchime Crystal & Water Feature Crystal & Wood Water Feature & Bright Light
placing objects made of elements that suppress Wood, which are metal and fire elements. The same analysis is true for analyzing the good and bad sectors of apartments. Suppose the same example was applied
to a living space within an apartment. An aquarium in the East and Southeast represents Water, and hence would be excellent if East and Southeast are indeed good sectors for you. You may also opt for a gentle waterfall, a six-tier waterfall or a nine-tier waterfall; as long as there’s STUDY GUIDE MODULE 20 - Page
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MANDALA
the sound and presence of moving water, it enhances the East and Southeast. If East and Southeast are not good for you, because you are a West group person, then you suppress East and Southeast energy by hanging, a metal wind chime or you can put a bright light. Metal energy destroys wood energy
and fire energy exhausts wood energy. So we are using Five Element Theory to either enhance or suppress the energy. Basically we are balancing out the energy by taking into account whether that sector is lucky for you or not. So you have to first decide whether you want to enhance the sector or you want to suppress the sector. Learn the cardinal rules of the 5 elements
by heart if you would like to thrive in your practice of Feng Shui. For enhancement, you should always use the same element as the sector, or use productive cycle of the five elements. In the productive cycle, metal produces water, water produces wood, and wood produces fire, fire produces earth and earth produces metal. Hence, if you are wishing to enhance a sector governed by Wood then use water to produce more wood! To suppress a sector, you can use either the
destructive or the exhaustive cycle. Memorising this destructive cycle of elements makes it easy for you to suppress sectors that are not so favourable. In the destructive cycle, fire is destroyed by water, water is destroyed by earth, earth is destroyed by wood, wood is destroyed by metal, and metal is destroyed by fire. So for example, if you would like to suppress the South Sector which is a fire sector, you may use the element of water to do this. Although the destructive cycle is very effective in suppressing a sector, it is generally recommended that a softer, kinder approach is chosen to reduce the power of particular sector which is considered unfavourable. Many masters do not recommend destroying any of the eight sectors completely simply because each sector represents a life aspiration ©LILLIAN TOO MANDALA
which is beneficial to one’s life for success. For example, remember that the South sector represents the aspiration of fame and recognition. By destroying it with water, you also risk destroying luck that brings fame and recognition. Therefore, it is advisable that you choose the exhaustive cycle of elements as a method to suppress energy and not the destructive cycle. This way, any afflicted energy or unfavourable chi does not get destroyed completely but it is weakened and thus have less of an effect on you. The exhaustive cycle is simply the reverse of the productive cycle of elements. Water exhausts metal, which exhausts earth, which exhausts fire, which exhausts wood which exhausts water. So in our example of the South sector which is fire, you would choose to use the element of earth to weaken the chi there. This is a fine point of practice which takes more analysis but provides for a more balanced outcome.
centre
OF THE HOME
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LILLIAN TOO’S
MANDALA
The Eight Mansions formula stays silent on what is to be done with the center of the home. Some masters of Eight Mansions have suggested that the center of the house be used for placement of the staircase, which channels the chi upwards to the upper floors of your house. While this is a good practical suggestion, it is absolutely vital that you ensure that the staircase is not a spiral design, as this has the opposite effect of destroying the luck of the entire family. It is much better to keep the centre of the home open, used as a dining area or a TV Room. When the family eats together in the centre of the home, with each member of the family seated facing their respective good directions according to their Kua Numbers, then it brings very good and harmonious Feng Shui to the family. Another method of maximizing the use of centre space from a feng shui perspective lies in the understanding of the Tien Ti Ren Principle. Tien represents Heaven and luck from a divine source. Ti is Earth and luck from the Earth uses feng shui! The third kind of luck is Ren or Man luck. This is luck created by you and life occupying an abode. Basic feng shui principles tell us that when you are able to combine all three types of luck, you are then in the position to flourish and enjoy very good fortune indeed. This principle can easily be simulated in your home.
home. Then, harness Earth Chi by placing crystals in your home. Your floor can be made of stone, marble or ceramic that come in the shape of square tiles, to bring up the stabilizing energy of Earth. This method enhances what is known as the East House West House Theory of Feng Shui. Just by enhancing and suppressing sectors through the use of all three element cycles, you create a balanced environment, optimal for good health, happiness and prosperity to thrive. Add in the dose of luck from heaven and earth, you create an excellent and harmonious living space to attract good Feng Shui! Finally, focus your efforts in creating yang chi as this is the basis for all good energy
The shape of Heaven is a perfect circle. The shape of Earth is a perfect square. This is where some feng shui creativity comes in. If you open up the centre of your home in the shape of a circle to the skies, this allows great good chi from Heaven to enter your home everyday! As long as you can see the stars in the sky at night, Heaven chi is able to enter your
©LILLIAN TOO MANDALA
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MANDALA
CREATING
yang energy
IS MOST VITAL
to manifest. There are three easy ways to do this. First, yang chi is created when there is movement. Movement can be achieved simply by turning on a swivel fan, opening windows to allow fresh breeze to enter, and having people living in a home. Having little pets roaming inside your home is an effortless and easy way to create moving chi! Secondly, create the yang energy of sound. A home needs sound to attract good energy. An overly quiet home creates an overly yin environment which attracts negative chi. Sound can easily be created just by turning on your television or radio, having children laughing often, and dogs yapping. Leaving a small transistor radio on during the empty
©LILLIAN TOO MANDALA
hours of the day is very helpful in creating the yang chi of sound. Thirdly, design your home to have bright lights. A home with good energy must never be too dark or too dim. A home that is naturally dark during the daytime creates what is known as the yin spirit formation, which attracts spirits and all sorts of undesirable yin outcomes such as illness and burglary. Keep your house brightly lit by leaving curtains un-drawn, letting fresh sunlight in. At night, turn on your lights for at least 5 hours. If possible, invest in energysaving lights and keep at least one turned on throughout the night.
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LILLIAN TOO’S
MANDALA
Multiple Choice Questions: 1) Which element is used to enhance southeast? a. fire b. metal c. water 2) How to suppress the element in the northwest? a. Crystal b. Water feature c. Windchime 3) a. b. c.
Which is the productive cycle of the 5 element? Water, wood, fire, earth, metal Metal, earth, fire, wood, water Metal, wood, earth, water, fire
4) a. b. c.
Which is the shape of the heaven and earth symbol? Square & triangle Round & rectangle Square & round
5) a. b. c.
What are the three important things to generate yang chi? Movement, sound, light Sound, light, still movement Quiet, dim, movement
©LILLIAN TOO MANDALA
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ANSWERS: Question 1: c Question 2: b Question 3: a Question 4: c Question 5: a
©LILLIAN TOO MANDALA
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