While the Form School reads the landscape — mountains, rivers, and the flow of qi through natural features — the Compass School (Liqi Pai) takes a more mathematical approach. Its essential tool is the Luopan, a complex compass whose concentric rings encode the trigrams, the five elements, the heavenly stems and earthly branches, and the 24 directions of the traditional Chinese compass.
The Luopan #
A Luopan typically has between 9 and 36 concentric rings, each carrying a different layer of information. The center holds a magnetic compass (the Heaven Pool, tianchi), while the surrounding rings encode everything from the eight trigrams to the 64 hexagrams to the positions of the 28 lunar mansions.
Reading a Luopan is an art that takes years to master. The practitioner aligns the compass with a building’s facing direction, then reads across the rings to determine the energetic quality of that orientation — which elements are dominant, which trigrams are activated, and how these interact with the birth dates of the occupants.
The Eight Mansions (Bazhai) #
One of the most practical systems derived from the Compass School is the Eight Mansions method. It divides a house into eight sectors, each governed by a trigram and associated with one of four auspicious or four inauspicious energy types:
- Sheng Qi (Generating Breath): The most auspicious direction. Ideal for the main door, the master bedroom, and the desk.
- Tian Yi (Heavenly Doctor): Supports health and healing. Good for the bedroom of someone who is ill or recovering.
- Yan Nian (Longevity): Strengthens relationships. Ideal for the marital bedroom.
- Fu Wei (Stability): A mildly auspicious direction, good for study or meditation.
- Huo Hai (Misfortune): Minor difficulties and setbacks.
- Wu Gui (Five Ghosts): Conflict, legal troubles, and fire hazards.
- Liu Sha (Six Killings): Obstacles, stagnation, and loss.
- Jue Ming (Total Loss): The most inauspicious direction. Best used for storage or a toilet.
The personal trigram of each occupant, calculated from their year of birth, determines which directions are auspicious and which are not. A direction that is Jue Ming for one person may be Sheng Qi for another — the system is entirely personalized.
Practical Application #
The Compass School is widely used in modern interior Feng Shui. A consultant may determine that a client’s front door faces an inauspicious direction and recommend adjustments — a mirror, a water feature, or a color change — to mitigate the effect. The goal is always the same: align human spaces with cosmic patterns so that the flow of qi supports rather than obstructs the lives lived within them.