Classical schools

Different approaches, different schools

You might have heard names such as san he, san yuan, flying stars, pa chaï (8 mansions), form school, compass school not to mention all others. What does this all mean?
To make a long story short, feng shui being many thousand years old, teachings have blossomed. Some have remained and some have disappeared.

Are today considered as traditional and legitimate schools those that have stood the tests of time and were used daily by generations of practitioners, and hence proved their accuracy and exactitude: san he, san yuan and ba zhaÏ. The last two are considered somewhat young because they are only a few hundred years old. Flying stars is a subpart of san yuan corpus that also comprehends xuan kong da gua.

Teachings related to these schools, although they sometimes don't seem to be compatible, do in effect complement each other:

  • san he (3 harmonies) is more dedicated to form study (xing qi)
  • san yuan (3 eras) is dedicated to non form analysis (li qi), this is a more abstract and mathematical view. Time is considered of extreme importance here,
  • ba zhai (8 mansions) makes it possible to understand how a given person will respond to different types of qi.

Complementary solutions

Like many masters before them our masters use all these approaches and teach a complete system that takes them all into consideration. Actually, san he, san yuan and ba zhai deliver information that complement each other.

The lopan is the compass traditional feng shui consultants use to audit a site.

 
Lo Pan San He
  
Lo Pan San Yuan

Each lopan, or luopan, is made of rings that give different information. The san yuan lopan is more abstract and takes time into account. It is also called I Ching lopan because it allows to read the environment in reference to the 64 hexagrams.

Form school is a term that describes a very ancient practice that consists in reading the forms of the environment in order to appreciate their impacts. The shape of the mountains, the strength of the water flow, the quality of the soil, the way nature manifests, all this is meaningfull. It is often included in san he teachings.

Compass school which is often opposed to Form School (like in the question "do you practice Form Feng Shui or Compass Feng Shui ?") introduces a baseless discrimination. Actually, one very often has to use a compass to assess some environment factors as a mountain may not play the same role depending on its location.

Feng shui in the west

When reading books printed in the West you might come across the eight life aspirations like north symbolizes career, south is reputation, etc. These concepts are not relevant in classical Fsng shui. They were partly derived from Chinese astrology, but cannot be used when proceeding to ascertain the qi that surrounds us which is what feng shui aims at. They are not considered of any help here.