So What Da Heck is a Shen Chi Number and Why Should I Care?

"Feng Shui" as I may have mentioned once or twice in other ARTicles, in Chinese literally means Wind and Water and is the Chinese art of creating positive energy or Qi(Chi) flow. The ancient Chinese believe that some environments are better than others and they call the study of determining this Feng Shui. Feng Shui can be considered a kind of astrological environmentalism with a lot of common sense thrown in for good measure. The primary goal of Feng Shui is increasing harmony with nature. Feng Shui is important in the building of both the exteriors and interiors houses and buildings and also theplacement of certain objects with them. It is also important in the placement of doors and windows androoms within the house or building. The why of this has a lot to do with Qi or Chi flow but a lot of itcan also be figured out using common sense.

Qi or Chi is the name of the energy that flows between air and water. According to the Taoist belief of Yin and Yang there is both good and bad Qi(Chi) flow as represented in the Yin and the Yang. Basically bad Qi(Chi) flows in a straight line, while good will circulate. That is why when building a house it is not good to have the front and rear entrance to be in a straight line. If the front and rear entrance happen to be in a straight line then a partition should be erected to block a direct path between the to in order to increase air circulation instead of direct air flow between the two. The Chinese believe that where there is good air circulation there is also good Qi(Chi) circulation.

Similar to western cultures where it is believed there are four elements: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water, in Feng Shui there are believed to be five interrelated stages of matter elements: Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, and Metal. The progression between these stages of matter always starts with water. Water will sustain the trees (wood), which will burn to make Fire, whose ashes become part of the Earth which is where Metal can be found. There is also a destructive progression to these stages of matter, which is anything which interferes with the natural progression. ie: Water extinguishes fire, rusts metal and turns earth to mud. Fire melts metal and turns water to steam. Buildings can be identified with the Elements depending on their type and shape of construction.

One of the main ancient Chinese Feng Shui legends holds that long ago (maybe 3000 to 5000 years ago, opinions can differ) there was a great flood along the banks of the Lo River in south central China. So the local people tried to appease the angry river god by offering a sacrifice. A giant turtle emerged from the waters of the Lo River and upon its shell was a most peculiar design. It contained patterns of circular dots that were arranged in a tic-tac-toe pattern. The numbers, represented by dot patterns, were arranged in such a way as to add up to 15 whether the addition was performed left to right in any row, from top to bottom in any column, or in any diagonal direction. 15 is the number of days in each of the 24 solar cycles in the Chinese Year. The numbers of the pattern are:

If you take a moment and sum each column and row and the cross diagonals in this pattern you will see that they all add up to fifteen. This pattern was said to hold astrological powers and properties and was used by the ancient people of the area to control the waters of the Lo River and was hence named the Lo Shu or Square from the Lo River. Conforming to Taoist principles of Yin and Yang (a subject of a possible future article) The even numbers in the Lo Shu were said to hold female or yin and dark properties. While the odd numbers of the Lo Shu square were said to hold male or yang and light properties. This pattern also held magical (Kabballah) significance to the ancient Hebrews in Israel There is much more that can be said about the Lo Shu but for our purposes, we will leave it by mentioning that its grid can be used in the Flying Star Theory of Feng Shu to help analyze a site, a house or building.

From around 1150 years ago the San Yuan(Three Periods) School of Feng Shui featured the Flying Stars System to chart the flow of energy in buildings. It is a futher subdivision of the older Eight House Theory of Feng Shu where the eight basic directions are further subdivided into twenty-four directions each representing fifteen degrees of the compass. These twenty-four directionsare known as the Twenty-four Mountains.

But back to the older Eight House Theory, from which the Flying Stars System come, itself has it roots in Chinese Astrology. It is a method of relating energy patterns to the influences of the Earth and other planets. In this system the Planet Jupiter brings wealth, good fortune and good luck. The method uses a "luopan" or geomantic compass to determine directional alignment of buildings. There are two primary groups of Feng Shui that utilize the "luopan". The first is the East and West Group and the second is called Xuan Kong.

The group we will concern ourselves here with is the East and West Group which is also known as the Eight House (sometimes Eight Mansion)theory. This practice examines the influence of directions on people, places and buildings in an effort to find out the best way to align one's self and one's possessions within the building. Under Eight House theory, all houses and buildings are divided into eight types based on the eight trigrams of the Later Heaven trigam. Each trigram represents forty-five degrees of the compass thereby enpassing three hundred and sixty degrees. These eight houses are further subdivided into two groups: the East Group and the West Group.To identify what type of house a person has you simply use a compass to determine the direction the front of your house is facing and the backis sitting. Then find your house on the table below:

If these numbers and directions look familiar you might want to check back to earlier in the ARTicle where I mentioned the ancient Chinese legend of the Giant Turtle emerged from the Lo river. See I didn't just bring that up because I thought it was an amusing fairytale. You see, all life goes back to turtles. Especially the giant turtle on whose back rides the world. :)

East Group structures are in harmony with East Group structures and in disharmony with West Group Houses. Conversely West Group houses and buildings are in harmony with West Group houses and buildings and of course in disharmony with West Group houses and buildings. Like the houses and buildings according to the Eight House Theory, people are also divided into East Groups and West Groups. Depending on the group you belong to this enables you to find out if a particular house or building is good for you by determining your four favorable directions which are named:

1) Prosperity(Sheng Chi) wealth acquisition and success in all aspects of life.

2) Health(Tian Yi) strengthens body and mind so that one is always to accomplish one's goals.

3) Longevity(Nien Yan) is needed for good relationships be they nurturing, sexual, or marital in nature.

4) Prime(Fu Wei) is necessary for personal growth, development and mental alertness.

Naturally the other four directions would be your unfavorable directions and are named:

1) Disaster(Jueh Ming) the most harmful energy causes harm to one's career, loss of money and illness.

2) Five Ghosts(Wu Gui) causes one to be disagreeable and possibly disturbed. Ones hope will not come to fruition.

3) Six Sha(Liu Shar) This energy causes hardship in your relationships be they at work or romantic in nature.

4) Death(Huo Hai) This energy is the way to failure and hardship to people.

All that remains now is to learn how to calculate which directions are our favorable directions and which directions are not. But also in accordance with the Yin and Yang of Taoist lore, there is both good news and bad news in this process. This process is known as finding your Kua number. East Group people have Kua numbers of one, three, four and nine while West Group people have Kua numbers of two, six, seven and eight. In accordance to the Taoist theory of opposites (Yin and Yang) Kua numbers are not always the same for men and women. By now it should be obvious why there is no Kua number of five. But for the readers who can't figure it out all you have to do is let just about anyone else read this ARTicle and ask them once they're through. As to the good news I was referring to earlier it is this: Naturally it is only necessary to remember our favorable directions because the ones that are not our favorable directions are our unfavorable directions. This little fact only makes our task half as hard because it eliminates half the directions. That said on to the bad news. The bad news is this: Like much of the theory and lore having to do with Feng Shui there are to ways to go about finding your Kua number and they don't always yield the same result. What??? I said much of the teachings of Feng Shui are contradictory and the two ways of arriving at your Kua number don't always yield the same result. If for your particular date of birth you arrive at the same number using both systems then that would definitely be your Kua number and you have no problem. For those of you who don't arrive at the same number then the only answer that I have for your dilemma is: I don't know. If you talk to one hundred Feng Shui consultants you will have fifty who will go with the number from the birth date calculation method I will show you in Method One. The other fifty will swear by the method that I will show you in Method Two but some of these will not agree with all of my values for the chart. The only advice that I can offer is that the process of Feng Shui is as much art as science so try each number and go with the one that is yielding the better results for you personally. So now with no more ado here is Method One:

Kua Number Calculation Method One

To calculate your Kua number you take the year of your birth. (One exception here is if you were born between January 1st and February 7th you must subtract one from your year of birth) Add the last two digits of your year of birth together. If you are a male then you subtract this number from ten and the absolute value (remove any minus sign) of this result is your Kua number. If you are a female then you take the result of adding the last two numbers of your birth year and add five. If your new result is a double digit number then add those two digits together to arrive at your Kua number. Since there is no Kua number of zero or five if your result is zero then use two, if your result is five then use eight as your Kua number.

Here is an example:

Let's say you are female and born on January 21st, 1964:

1st since you are born before Feburary 7th you would subtract one from your birth year making your
adjusted birth year 1963.
Next add the last two digits: 6 + 3 = 9.
Next add five to the results: 9 + 5 = 14.
Since we have a two digit answer you would add these two number together: 1 + 4 = 5.
Since there is no Kua number of five (as explained above) our Kua number is 8.

For a male using the same birthday of January 21st, 1964:

1st since you are born before February 7th you would subtract one from your birth year making your adjusted birth year 1963.
Next add the last two digits: 6 + 3 = 9.
Next subtract this result from 10: 10 - 9 = 1.
Your Kua number is 1.

Method two is the method that I personally would support because it is based on the Chinese Lunar calendar and also on Chinese astrology. But don't worry since the calculations here are very involved we will just skip them and go straight to the result. So all you have to do is find your date of birth on the table below and move your finger to the left to arrive at your Kua number. Since the Chinese New Year is based on both solar and lunar events: "The Chinese New year is the day of the second new moon after the winter solstice unless there is an intercalary eleventh or twelfth month. In these events the Chinese New Year starts on the day of the third new moon the winter solstice." This means that the Chinese New Year can start anywhere from around January 21st to about February 20th. But for our Feng Shui Kua number prediction this calculation is not enough because there is another adjustment made to this number based on Chinese Astrology. This adjustment has its basis in another Chinese legend. This legend states the thousands of years ago that Buddha called a meeting of all the world's animals. But only twelve animals showed for this meeting. (They are the rat, the buffalo, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the goat, the monkey, the rooster, the dog and the boar.) Buddha honored these animals by giving them each a year of their own based upon the order of their arrival at the meeting. Ever since then each successive year of the Chinese calendar has borne that animals name and those born in that year are marked with the characteristics of that particular animal.

As you can easily see this calculation has become very convoluted so I am going to skip them and just give the answers from a simplified table that I found. Just find the entry that includes the year of your birth and move your finger to the left to find your appropriate Kua number. As some of you will see it may or may not agree with your number from the calculation method:

We will now close this article with a few examples of how to apply your Feng Shui Kua Numbers once you've found them:

1) The front entrance of your house should be facing in the Sheng Chi direction of the highest paid worker within the household because it is their financial good fortune that is in the best interest of the household to maintain.

2) Everyone within a household, as far as is possible, should select a bedroom that is in their Nien Yen
direction to best support and improve their relationship situation.

3) Within their bedroom their bed should be placed so that the occupant sleeps facing their Nien Yen
direction.

4) At one's home and place of business ones desk and/or one's cash register should always face his Sheng Chi direction.

5) At meals one should always face his Tien Yi direction.

Finally since one cannot always comply with these tips it is a good idea to place a Turtle Dragon in the vicinity to ward off the bad luck, (Qi or Chi). I hope this ARTicle has been in some way helpful in your understanding of Feng Chi and Kua Numbers and the significance of Kua number, especially your Sheng Chi number to living a life using a Feng Chi philosophy. :)