By Master Wei Lin · Updated 2026-08-23
Chinese Metaphysics Scholar
What is feng shui?
Feng shui (風水 fēng shuǐ, wind and water) is the Chinese practice of siting and arranging buildings within their landforms and directions. The classical sources are 葬書 (Zang Shu, roughly the 4th century) and 地理五訣 (Di Li Wu Jue). It reads place as pattern, not as prophecy.
What this section covers
- The Bagua map divides a home into eight sectors plus a centre, each tied to a trigram, a direction and a Wu Xing phase.
- Eight Mansions works from the person instead of the building: a Kua number sorts the eight directions into four favourable and four not.
- Room pages start from what a room is used for, which is where the two systems above meet an actual floor plan.
- Compass School and BTB place the same sectors differently. Both are named on every sector page rather than one being passed off as the tradition.
Feng shui is older than the decorating advice attached to its name. 葬書 (Zang Shu), attributed to Guo Pu and conventionally dated to around the 4th century, is where the phrase itself is set down: qi rides the wind and scatters, meets water and halts. That is a claim about terrain before it is a claim about furniture. 地理五訣 (Di Li Wu Jue, the Five Essentials of Geomancy) organises the same body of work into the five things a practitioner is meant to read in a site: dragon, sand, water, cave and direction. Everything on the pages below descends from that inheritance, filtered through the Wu Xing (五行 wǔ xíng) five-phase framework.
In Wu Xing terms the practice is a balancing exercise rather than a shopping list. A sector is not improved by filling it; it is improved by supplying whichever phase the sector governs and the room lacks. That is why the same object helps in one corner and does nothing in another, and it is why the five-elements quiz is a more useful starting point than a catalogue of cures.
Compass School and BTB Disagree, and It Matters
Compass School (理氣 lǐ qì) orients the Bagua by magnetic direction. The wealth sector sits in the southeast of the building, and you need a compass to find it. BTB feng shui, a 20th-century adaptation that reached Western readers through Thomas Lin Yun, orients the Bagua by the front door instead: wealth is the far-left corner as you walk in, whatever the compass says. For most homes these two methods point at different rooms.
The Bagua Sectors
The Bagua (八卦 bā guà) divides a floor plan into eight sectors around a centre, each carrying a trigram, a compass direction and one of the five phases. Each page gives the classical direction, the BTB position, and the stones traditionally used to supply that sector's phase.
- The Bagua map, start hereHow the nine-square grid lays over a floor plan
- Wealth and Prosperity財富 Cái Fù · southeast
- Fame and Reputation聲名 Shēng Míng · south
- Love and Relationships愛情 Ài Qíng · southwest
- Family and Health家庭 Jiā Tíng · east
- Children and Creativity子女 Zǐ Nǚ · west
- Knowledge and Self-Cultivation智慧 Zhì Huì · northeast
- Career and Life Path事業 Shì Yè · north
- Helpful People and Travel貴人 Guì Rén · northwest
The Eight Mansions Stars
Eight Mansions (八宅 bā zhái) starts from the person rather than the building. A Kua number sorts the eight directions into four favourable stars and four unfavourable ones, which is why two people in one house are sometimes told to face opposite ways.
Room by Room
Where the two systems above meet a real home. Each room page starts from what the room is used for, then works back to the sector it usually occupies and the phase that supports the activity happening in it.
A Pattern, Not a Verdict
The classical sources describe a way of reading place. They do not name events, dates, or outcomes, and no arrangement of a room commits the future to anything. Contemporary practitioners in the classical lineages, Joey Yap and Master Raymond Lo among them, are explicit that the work is diagnostic: it describes tendencies in how a space is used and how people move through it. Read this section the way you would read a floor plan, and pair it with the Kua number calculator if you want the personal half of the picture rather than the architectural one.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is feng shui?
Feng shui (風水 fēng shuǐ, literally wind and water) is the Chinese practice of siting and arranging buildings so they sit well within the landforms and directions around them. The classical sources are 葬書 (Zang Shu, the Burial Book attributed to Guo Pu, roughly the 4th century) and 地理五訣 (Di Li Wu Jue, the Five Essentials of Geomancy).
What is the difference between Compass School and BTB feng shui?
Compass School (理氣 lǐ qì) orients the Bagua map by actual magnetic direction, so the wealth sector sits in the southeast of the building whatever the floor plan. BTB (Black Sect, a 20th-century Western adaptation) orients it by the front door instead, so the wealth sector is the far-left corner as you walk in. The two disagree for most homes, and the practitioner lineages behind them differ.
Which feng shui school does CrystalStones.com use?
Both are disclosed wherever they differ. The sector pages give the Compass School direction and the BTB position side by side rather than picking one silently, because a reader following a book from the other lineage would otherwise place everything in the wrong corner.
What is a Kua number?
A Kua number (卦命 guà mìng) is a figure derived from birth year and gender that sorts the eight directions into four favourable and four unfavourable for a given person. It is the input to the Eight Mansions (八宅 bā zhái) system, and it is why two people sharing a house can be told to face opposite ways at the same desk.
Is feng shui fortune telling?
No. The classical sources describe feng shui as pattern recognition applied to place: how a building meets its landforms, light, entry and orientation. It does not name events or dates. Reading it as a promise about the future misreads what the tradition claims for itself.
Do I need crystals for feng shui?
No. Classical feng shui works with siting, orientation, and the Wu Xing (五行 wǔ xíng) cycle of five phases, using ordinary objects, plants and materials. Crystals appear here because they are one convenient way to place a phase into a sector, not because the classical texts require them.
The classical feng shui primer
Master Wei Lin's walk through the Bagua, the Eight Mansions and where the schools disagree, with the classical sources cited so you can check the work.
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