Reference · Concepts
Core concepts
Every entry below is a self-contained reference page: a direct answer up top, the Chinese terminology with pinyin and characters, the classical sources, and honest notes on where tradition ends and evidence begins.
What is feng shui?
The meaning of 風水, where the practice actually comes from, the major schools, and what the evidence does and does not say.
Qi
The word every feng shui page leans on, and why 'energy' is a poor translation for it. Character, classical texts, and the kinds practitioners distinguish.
Yin and yang
The sunny and shaded sides of a hill, and the point most English writing drops: they are relative, so nothing is yin by itself.
The schools
Form, Compass, and the American BTB lineage: what each one reads, which comes first, and why knowing the difference dissolves contradictory advice.
The Lo Shu square
The 3 by 3 magic square under the whole system, and why the flying star flight path is just counting through it.
Sha qi and poison arrows
Harmful qi, its named forms, the remedies, and the honest split between the ones with a physical correlate and the ones without.
The luopan
The feng shui compass: what the rings do, why it predates the navigator's compass by a thousand years, and why a phone will do.
The bagua map
The eight trigrams and nine life areas, their I Ching origins, and how the compass and BTB schools place the grid differently.
The five elements (wu xing)
Wood, fire, earth, metal, water: the generating and controlling cycles, with full correspondence tables.
Kua numbers & lucky directions
How Eight Mansions feng shui assigns you a personal trigram, East and West groups, and eight directional energies.
The commanding position
The best-known placement rule for beds and desks: see the door, don't line up with it, keep solid backing.
Prefer to start with something interactive? The free Kua Number Calculator finds your personal directions in one click, with the entire method documented on the same page.