Compass School Deep-Dive

Compass School (Li Qi Pai) is the calculative half of Classical feng shui. Where Form School reads the shape of the land and structures surrounding a building, Compass School reads the numbers underneath it: the bearings of its walls, the dates that anchor it in time, and the birth data of the people who live in it. The two schools are not rivals. They are complementary lenses on the same site, and a serious Classical practitioner uses both.

This chapter covers what Compass School is and where it came from, the luopan compass at a high level, the 24 Mountains subdivision of the eight directions, the Kua number calculation with two worked examples, the Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai) personal-direction system, and how to apply all of this in daily life. It closes with a candid section on what the precision of Compass School does and does not buy you.

1. What Compass School is

The classical name is Li Qi Pai, often translated as "the school of patterns and qi" or "the school of principle and qi." Li (理) refers to underlying pattern, structure, or principle. Qi (气) is the energy quality the pattern describes. Compass School proposes that the directional structure of a site interacts predictably with the qi it carries, and that this interaction can be calculated.

The school as a coherent system consolidated during the Song (960-1279) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties. It drew on older directional traditions, the Yi Jing, the Luo Shu numerology covered in chapter 3, and the long history of the Chinese magnetic compass. Multiple sub-schools converged into what is now grouped under Li Qi Pai. The four most-cited today are:

• San He (Three Harmonies). Emphasises the relationship between mountain, water, and direction. Uses 24-mountain compass divisions heavily.
• San Yuan (Three Cycles). Time-aware. Treats feng shui as cyclical and includes period considerations.
• Xuan Kong (Mysterious Subtlety). The Flying Stars system covered in chapter 7. Combines San Yuan time with compass space to produce a unique chart for every home.
• Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai). The personal-direction system covered later in this chapter. Uses the inhabitant's birth year to identify four favourable and four unfavourable directions.

Compass School diverges from Form School in one important way: it cannot be done by walking around. It requires measurement. Without a compass reading, no Compass School technique applies. The Drinčić Institute's diagnostic manual states this in a single line: bez kompasa nista (without a compass, nothing). It is the cleanest summary of the difference between the schools.

That does not mean Compass School is opposed to Form School. The Classical tradition treats Form first, then Compass. A site that fails Form - no support behind, sha qi at the front door, exposed on all sides - cannot be saved by clever compass work. Form School answers "is this place liveable in the first place?" Compass School answers "now that we know it is, how do we tune it for this specific household in this specific period?"

2. The luopan (Luo Pan)

The luopan (literally "net plate") is the Chinese feng shui compass. It is the visible tool of the Compass School practitioner and one of the most recognisable instruments in Chinese metaphysics.

A few things to know without going into the rings in detail:

• It is a magnetic compass at heart. A small magnetised needle in a central well points to magnetic north. Surrounding the needle is a rotating square base with multiple concentric printed rings of information.
• It carries directional, elemental, and temporal information layered together. Different rings encode the eight directions, the 24 Mountains, the 64 hexagrams of the Yi Jing, the heavenly stems and earthly branches, the five elements at each direction, and sub-school-specific data. A San He luopan has different rings than a San Yuan luopan; a master luopan combines both.
• It is read by alignment. The practitioner places the luopan flat, turns the rotating face until magnetic north on the needle aligns with the printed compass-north line, and reads outward through the rings at the bearing of interest.
• It is more reference than measuring device. The luopan does not give any directional information a regular compass cannot. What it adds is a printed lookup table of everything Compass School needs to know about each bearing.

This guide does not reproduce the specific ring-by-ring breakdown of any one practitioner's luopan. The detailed ring structure varies by lineage and by the practitioner who designed the instrument, and the most-published modern luopans (Joey Yap's in particular) are explicitly copyright-protected works. What you need to know as a reader is what the luopan is for, not how to read every ring on a specific master's product.

For amateur work, a luopan is not required. A regular hiking compass or even a smartphone compass app is sufficient for the techniques in this guide. The luopan becomes useful when you need to look up which 24-Mountain sub-sector your bearing falls into without consulting a separate table, or when you are working in a sub-school whose rings are not standard. For learning purposes, a paper Bagua chart plus a basic compass replicates everything an amateur needs.

Below is a simplified three-ring representation of the most basic Compass School information. A real luopan can have more than thirty rings; we show three, corresponding to the three information layers a beginner needs.

3. The 24 Mountains

The eight directions on the Bagua (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) cover 45 degrees each. For most BTB and beginner Compass work, that resolution is enough. Serious Compass School practice subdivides each of the eight directions into three sub-sectors of 15 degrees each, giving 8 x 3 = 24 Mountains (24 Shan).

Why subdivide? A house facing 100 degrees and a house facing 130 degrees both fall under "east" on the eight-direction model, but they receive markedly different qi according to Compass tradition. Flying Stars in particular treats each 15-degree sub-sector as a separate facing direction with its own natal chart. The 24 Mountains is the bridge between the broad eight-direction model and the fine resolution that the technical Compass sub-schools require.

The names of the 24 Mountains are assembled from three older Chinese symbol sets:

• 12 of the 12 Earthly Branches (Di Zhi). These are the same twelve symbols used in the Chinese zodiac: Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, Hai (rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig). All twelve appear in the 24 Mountains.
• 8 of the 10 Heavenly Stems (Tian Gan). Ten in total, two of which (Wu and Ji) are positioned at the centre and so are not used as compass directions. The remaining eight (Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui) sit in pairs around the perimeter.
• 4 of the 8 Trigrams (Gua). Specifically the four "corner" trigrams: Qian, Kun, Gen, Xun, which name their respective intercardinal directions. The four "cardinal" trigrams (Kan, Li, Zhen, Dui) are not used as 24-Mountain names because their cardinal direction is fully named by an Earthly Branch.

Each 15-degree sub-sector therefore carries one of these 24 symbols. Within each 45-degree direction, the middle sub-sector is an Earthly Branch and the two flanking sub-sectors are either Heavenly Stems (in the cardinal directions) or a Stem plus a Trigram (in the intercardinal directions).

You do not need to memorise the 24 Mountains. The point to understand is that compass readings in Classical practice can be precise to 15 degrees, and that the names of the sub-sectors are drawn from the older symbol systems that organise time and space in Chinese metaphysics - not assigned arbitrarily. When you see a feng shui report referring to a building as "facing Wu" or "sitting Zi," it is naming a specific 24-Mountain sub-sector, not making a generic south or north claim.

4. The direction-element-trigram mapping (recap)

Compass School builds every later calculation on the Later Heaven Bagua mapping of directions to trigrams and elements. Chapter 3 covers this in full. The short version is repeated here for convenience:

Direction	Trigram	Element	Life area
North	Kan	water	career, life path
Northeast	Gen	earth	knowledge, study
East	Zhen	wood	family, health
Southeast	Xun	wood	wealth, abundance
South	Li	fire	reputation, fame
Southwest	Kun	earth	relationships, marriage
West	Dui	metal	children, creativity
Northwest	Qian	metal	helpful people, mentors

The eight-direction diagram below summarises this in circular form, since most Compass work is done on a circular compass rather than on a 3x3 grid.

5. The Kua number

Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai), the most accessible of the Compass School sub-schools, uses a single number derived from your birth year to classify you into one of eight personal direction profiles. This number is your Kua number (also spelled Gua).

Once you know your Kua number, four of the eight directions are considered favourable and four unfavourable. The same eight directions are exactly reversed for someone with the complementary Kua. Two people in a household will not always share their good directions; Eight Mansions practitioners work out a compromise based on whose function in the home is being addressed.

The formula (born before 2000)

The traditional formula uses the last two digits of your birth year by the Chinese solar calendar. For most people, this matches the Gregorian year. Anyone born in January or early February should check whether their birth date falls before or after Chinese Lunar New Year and, if before, use the previous year as their birth year.

For males born before 2000:

1. Take the last two digits of your birth year.
2. Add the two digits together. If the result has two digits, add those two digits together. Continue until you have a single digit.
3. Subtract that single digit from 10.
4. If the result is 5, treat it as 2.

For females born before 2000:

1. Take the last two digits of your birth year.
2. Add the two digits together until you have a single digit.
3. Add 5 to that single digit. If the result has two digits, add those two digits together.
4. If the result is 5, treat it as 8.

Several alternative formulas exist that give the same answer. The most common variant uses (100 minus year) divided by 9 for males and (year plus 4) divided by 9 for females, taking the remainder. Both produce the same Kua numbers.

Worked example 1 - male born 1978

• Last two digits: 78.
• 7 + 8 = 15. 1 + 5 = 6.
• 10 - 6 = 4.
• Kua number is 4.

He is in the East group (see below). His best direction is southeast.

Worked example 2 - female born 1985

• Last two digits: 85.
• 8 + 5 = 13. 1 + 3 = 4.
• 4 + 5 = 9.
• Kua number is 9.

She is in the East group. Her best direction is south.

Born in or after 2000

The formulas shift slightly for births in or after 2000. For males, subtract the reduced digit from 9 instead of 10. For females, add 6 instead of 5. The simpler approach for most readers is to use an online Kua calculator or a printed table; the technical details are not the point of this chapter, only the resulting number is.

East group and West group

The eight Kua numbers split into two groups:

• East group: Kua 1, 3, 4, 9. Best directions are N, S, E, SE. These are the four directions linked to water and wood (the "growth" directions) plus south.
• West group: Kua 2, 6, 7, 8. Best directions are SW, W, NW, NE. These are the four earth and metal directions.
• Kua 5 is treated as Kua 2 for males and Kua 8 for females. There is no native Kua 5 because the central palace of the Luo Shu (where the number 5 sits) is not a compass direction.

A common rule of thumb: East-group people are oriented toward growth-direction (wood and water) sectors of their home; West-group people toward stabilising-direction (earth and metal) sectors. The two groups do not mix well when applying Eight Mansions. An East-group Kua's "best" direction is a West-group Kua's "worst," and vice versa.

6. The Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai)

Once you know your Kua number, you know your personal mapping of the eight directions: four traditionally favourable, four unfavourable. Each carries a classical name and a specific quality.

The four favourable directions

• Sheng Qi (生氣, "generating qi"). Your best direction. Traditionally associated with vitality, career opportunity, and ambition. Use it for active functions - facing this direction when working, negotiating, or leading. The bed headboard pointing here is a common Eight Mansions recommendation.
• Tian Yi (天醫, "heavenly doctor"). Your health direction. Traditionally associated with recovery, stable wellbeing, and support from older mentors. Use it for restorative functions: sleeping, recovering from illness, dining. Many practitioners prioritise Tian Yi over Sheng Qi for the bedroom.
• Yan Nian (延年, "longevity"). Your relationship direction. Traditionally associated with stable partnerships, marriage harmony, and family cohesion. Use it for the bed orientation in a couple's bedroom, for the dining table, or for any seating where relationships are being negotiated.
• Fu Wei (伏位, "stability"). Your personal-anchor direction. The mildest of the four. Traditionally associated with peace, study, and slow steady accumulation. Use it for the study desk, meditation seating, or places where focus matters more than energy.

The four unfavourable directions

• Jue Ming (絕命, "total loss"). The most inauspicious direction for your Kua. Traditionally associated with serious setbacks, accidents, and health crises. Avoid sleeping with your head pointing here or facing this direction at your main work seat. Many Eight Mansions practitioners locate a bathroom or storage room here as a "containment" use.
• Wu Gui (五鬼, "five ghosts"). Traditionally associated with arguments, betrayal, and hidden conflict. Avoid for any seating where disputes are likely. Storage and infrequently-used rooms are appropriate here.
• Liu Sha (六煞, "six killings"). Traditionally associated with legal trouble, scandal, and emotional volatility. Treat as a low-priority area of the home; avoid anchoring important functions here.
• Huo Hai (禍害, "mishap"). The mildest of the four unfavourable directions. Traditionally associated with low-level setbacks and minor accidents. The least problematic of the bad directions; use for ancillary functions if necessary.

Each Kua number has a specific mapping of these eight qualities to the eight compass directions. The mapping is fully specified by the East-group / West-group system and by the symmetry that Kua 1 and Kua 6 have opposite mappings, Kua 2 and Kua 9 have opposite mappings, and so on. Detailed Kua-direction tables are widely published in cultural-commons feng shui references.

Example Eight Mansions reading for the Kua 4 male above

A male with Kua 4 (East group) has approximately this mapping:

• Sheng Qi: southeast.
• Tian Yi: east.
• Yan Nian: south.
• Fu Wei: north.
• Huo Hai: southwest.
• Wu Gui: northeast.
• Liu Sha: northwest.
• Jue Ming: west.

In practice, this means:

• His best bed orientation has the head pointing southeast (Sheng Qi) or east (Tian Yi).
• His best work-desk facing is south (Yan Nian) for negotiation work or southeast (Sheng Qi) for ambitious solo work.
• He should avoid sleeping with his head pointing west (Jue Ming) and avoid sitting with his back to the west at his desk.

Example Eight Mansions reading for the Kua 9 female above

A female with Kua 9 (East group) has approximately this mapping:

• Sheng Qi: east.
• Tian Yi: southeast.
• Yan Nian: north.
• Fu Wei: south.
• Huo Hai: west.
• Wu Gui: northwest.
• Liu Sha: southwest.
• Jue Ming: northeast.

She and the Kua 4 male share the East group, so their good and bad halves of the compass overlap - but their specific best directions are not identical. In a shared home, an Eight Mansions practitioner balances the two profiles, typically by prioritising the head-of-household or by giving each occupant the favourable direction in their personal spaces (bed orientation, desk facing).

7. Applying Compass School in daily life

The most common practical applications of Compass School for an amateur reader, in rough order of usefulness:

Sleeping direction. Orient your bed so your head points to one of your four favourable Kua directions. Tian Yi (your health direction) is the most common choice for the bedroom. Sheng Qi is appropriate for someone trying to build a career or recover energy after a hard period. Yan Nian is the traditional choice for a couple's bed.

Working direction. Position your desk so you face one of your favourable directions when working. Most people spend the majority of their work day at a fixed seat - orient the chair, not just the desk, since it is the direction your body faces that the system reads. Sheng Qi is the stronger choice for active or ambitious work; Fu Wei is better for sustained-focus study.

Eating direction. At the dining table, take the seat that lets you face Yan Nian or Tian Yi. This is especially useful for family meals where relationship harmony matters, and it is one of the lowest-cost Eight Mansions adjustments to make.

Functional zoning of the home. Place active, energy-generating functions - main bedroom for an ambitious person, home office, exercise area - in your favourable sectors. Place inactive or containment functions (storage, guest bathroom, utility rooms) in your unfavourable sectors. This is harder to apply in a rented space or with a fixed floor plan, but even partial application is actionable.

Door facing. Classical Compass School pays close attention to the facing direction of the front door. For Eight Mansions purposes, a front door that opens onto one of the head-of-household's favourable directions is considered auspicious; one that opens onto Jue Ming or Wu Gui is the most commonly-cited inauspicious arrangement. Remedies include using a different door as the main entrance or screening the door so it is not directly aligned with the unfavourable sector.

Two practical notes. First, in a shared home you cannot optimise for everyone at once; pick the principal user for each room and orient for that. Second, what the system reads is the direction your body faces, not the orientation of the furniture. A bed whose headboard points to Tian Yi but whose occupant sleeps facing the foot has lost the intended benefit.

8. Limitations and honesty

Compass School is the most technically rigorous part of feng shui. Two practitioners working from the same compass reading and the same birth date will produce nearly identical Kua numbers and very similar Eight Mansions recommendations. That internal consistency is real and worth respecting.

It also invites a kind of false confidence. The phrase "Kua 4 east-group" sounds like a measurable fact about a person. It is not. It is a culturally-developed classification scheme whose internal logic is well-documented, but whose predictive validity - does sleeping with your head pointing Sheng Qi actually correlate with better outcomes than sleeping with your head pointing Jue Ming? - has not been established by external evidence. The same caution applies to Flying Stars in chapter 7.

The honest framing is this: Eight Mansions and the broader Compass School are useful as structured decision tools for arranging space. They give you a non-arbitrary way to choose between four equivalent-seeming bed orientations. They make tradeoffs explicit in a household where two people want different things. They link your space to a larger symbolic system that has organised Chinese architecture for centuries. None of that requires belief in the system's deterministic claims to be useful. A reader who treats the Kua number as a coordinator for design decisions - rather than as a fortune-teller's reading - gets the most out of the school without overcommitting to claims it cannot back up.

The Drinčić Institute material is candid about this in its diagnostic methodology: a compass reading is a starting point, not a verdict. Sandra Drinčić's curriculum sequences Form first, Compass second, and overlays both with a practitioner's interview about how the inhabitants actually live in the space. That sequencing is wise. A Compass reading that conflicts with how a household functions in practice should usually defer to the household.

9. What to take away

Compass School addresses the question "how does this specific direction interact with this specific person at this specific time?" It does so through four instruments:

• The luopan compass - a printed reference disc that layers directional, elemental, and temporal information.
• The 24 Mountains - the 15-degree subdivision of the eight directions.
• The Kua number - derived from birth year and gender.
• The Eight Mansions (Ba Zhai) personal mapping of four favourable and four unfavourable directions.

For most readers, the immediate practical takeaways are three orientations: where the head of the bed points, where the chair at your main work desk faces, and where the front door opens. Adjust those three to your favourable Kua directions and you have applied Eight Mansions in a way that needs no special equipment and produces visible decisions you can either keep or revert.

The next chapter covers Flying Stars, the time-aware Compass sub-school that adds the period of construction and the current period of the world to the compass-and-Kua machinery. Flying Stars is the most technically advanced school in Classical feng shui and is treated as a beginner orientation in this guide; we name what it is, why Period 9 matters from 2024 to 2043, and how a natal chart is read at a high level.