Feng Shui

Types of Luo Pan (Feng Shui Compass)


There are basicly three types of Luo Pan (Feng Shui Compass) that's most widely used:

San He (三合罗盘)
The San He luopan was said to have been used in the Tang dynasty. It contains three basic 24-direction rings (3 distinctive rings of the 24 Mountains) Each ring relates to a different method and formula. The San Hup Luo Pan is also commonly known as the Yang Kung Pan.
The name “San He” refers to the harmonious coming together of the “San Cai” or the “Three Gifts” of Heaven, Earth and Human, symbolised by the Heaven Plate, the Earth Plate and the Human Plate of the Twenty-four Mountains rings in a San He Luopan.

San Yuan (三元罗盘)
The San Yuan luopan, also known as the jiang pan (after Jiang Da Hong) or the Yi Pan (because of the presence of I Ching trigrams) incorporates many formulas used in San Yuan (Three Cycles). It contains one 24-direction ring, known as the Earth Plate Correct Needle, the ring for the 64 trigrams, and others. (The techniques grouped under the name "Flying Stars" are an example of San Yuan methods.) Can be easily distinguished with the presence of the 64 Hexagrams of the I-Ching.

Zong He (综合罗盘)
This luopan combines rings from the San He and San Yuan. It contains three 24-direction rings and the 64 trigrams ring.

Ring Description:

0 Heaven pool
1 Registration mark
2 Trigrams (Early heaven Ba Gua)
3 Luo Shu (late heaven bagua)
4 24 mountains
5 Menace and persecution ring
6 Correct needle 24 mountain San Yuan earth plate
7 Auspicious direction in 9 periods
8 San Yuan water method / dragon gates 8 boundaries
9 Houng Fun wu xing, or big wu xing.
10 Pre heaven Luo Shu and qua of square chart
11 64 Gua name and positions
12 Pre heaven 64 Gua and Luo Shu of round chart
13 Hexagram names
14 The 64 hexagrams 9 fate star
15 The 64 hexagrams with 60 Jia Zi for choosing day
16 Pre heaven 64 Gua round charts` Luo Shu
17 The father mother and three Yuan hexagrams
18 The directional hexagrams
19 The running of 384 hexagram lines
20 The sun arrive to mountain and face
21 24 seasons
22 Qi Men Dun Jia
23 The degrees of the Lunar Mansions
24 The auspicious or inauspicious positions
25 The 28 Lunar Mansions
26 360 degrees


The first ring after the Heavenly Pool, namely the Eight Evil Spirits of the Underworld and the 3 Twenty-four Mountain rings which are unique to the layout of the San He Luopan.
The Eight Evil Spirits of the Underworld, or “Ba Sha Huang Quan”:
the purpose of Feng Shui is to locate the best environment for the construction of a residence or a gravesite. We seek the “Dragon” (the “Long”), the “Sand” (the “Sha”), the “Lair” (the “Xue”), the “Water” (the “Shui”) and the orientation (the “Xiang”) in the environment we wish to build.
The Ba Sha Huang Quan ring deals with the direction of the watercourse coming towards the site. It calculates the various inauspicious directions of water-course to be avoided.
Similar to the Bague, it is divided into eight sectors, with the character Wu in the Qian position on the Later Heaven Bagua configuration. Chen (Xu) in the Kan position, Yin in the Gen position, Shen in the Zhen position, You in the Xun position, Hai in the Li position, Mao in the Kun position and Si in the Dui position.
Example. Wu in the Qian position means that if your site is a Qian Dragon (that is, if the property is sitting on the Qian direction), then it is inauspicious to have the water coming from the Wu direction.

Go on reading the rest of the 8 “Houses”:

Qian Dragon should avoid water coming from Wu direction.
Kan Dragon should avoid water coming from Chen and Xu directions.
Gen Dragon should avoid water coming from Yin direction.
Zhen Dragon should avoid water coming from Shen direction.
Xun Dragon should avoid water coming from You direction.
Li Dragon should avoid water coming from Hai direction.
Kun Dragon should avoid water coming from Mao direction.
Dui Dragon should avoid water coming from Si direction.

The Twenty-four Mountains
The Luopan combines eight Heavenly Stems and twelve Earthly Branches to form the Twenty-four Directions.
San He Luopans have the three basic plates – the ”Human Plate”, “Earth Plate” and “Heaven Plate” of 24 directions to form the “Central Needle”, “Correct Needle”, and “Seam Needle”.

First basic ring uses the earth’s magnetic north as point of reference to calibrate the 24 directions. It is called the “Earth Plate”. The needle points towards the magnetic north, called the “Correct Needle”. Using this to measure the property's orientation, surrounding form and topography (or “Xing-shi”).

Second basic ring (also made up of 24 directions) called the “Human Plate”. It reflects the magnetic deviation from true north, which is calculated to be 7.50 West of magnetic North. Known as the “Central Needle”. Used to locate the direction and judge the quality of the small hills (called “Sand” or “Sha”) in front of the Feng Shui Spot (Xue) using the Five Elements.

Third basic ring (also made up of 24 directions) called the “Heaven Plate”. It reflects the magnetic deviation from true north, which is calculated to be 7.50 East of magnetic North. Known as the “Seam Needle”. Used to locate the direction of a water-course, where it is travelling from or flowing to.

To do a Feng Shui reading, you need to obtain the “Xue-wei” spot first. The Xue-wei is the Tian-xin or the “Heavenly Heart”; that is, the centre. From the centre, we lay out the line of a cross pointing at the four cardinal directions. Since the cross shape is the same as the character for ten in Chinese, the setting out of the reference line is called “Shi-dao” or the “way of ten”. The centre and the cross must be accurately measured and obtained, otherwise your reading will not be accurate.

The direction from where the water is coming towards the front of the “Xue” is called “Tian Men” (Heavenly Door) or ”Tian Quan” (Heavenly Pass).

The direction from where the water flows away from the front of the “Xue” is called "Xia-quan" or Lower Pass. Water flowing away should be meandering and overlapping.

Within the Azure Dragon and the White Tiger, the water in front of the “Xue” is called “Yuan-chen-shui” or “Source Water”. It should be locked in to assemble the Qi. With all the Luopan rings, the most important is the Twenty-four Mountains and the Bagua.

Using the Twenty-four Mountains, When the correct orientation is obtained, one can deduce the Yin and Yang Dragons, clarify the directions of “Sheng” (birth), “Wang” (prosperity) and “Mu” (tomb or death) to explain the enhancing and controlling cycle of the Wuxing (Five Elements).


Types of Luo Pan

Share on Facebook

How to read Feng Shui Luo Pan compass


The Luo Pan compass （罗盘） is one of Feng Shui's most complex tools. The Luo Pan is circular (symbolsing heaven), made of wood and set into a square board (symbolising earth), which houses a compass and many rings, each containing a unique orientation system, that helps you decide where to place furniture for increased energy flows. Learn how to use a Luo Pan compass in this article.

In the same way that there are many different schools of Feng Shui, so there are many different varieties of Luo Pan Compasses.

What Luo Pan Compasses have in common is that each has a center which contains a magnetic compass, around which are a number of rings. Each ring contains a particular orientation system.
Ring 1: usually contains the pre-heaven Ba Gua
Ring 2: the post-heaven Ba Gua
Ring 3: typically contains the "24 Mountains" (aka the 24 Stars in the Sky or Directions or Shen) - which are a combination of trigrams, heavenly stems (from the Luo Shu system) and earthly branches
Ring 4: The outermost ring (Ring 20 in many systems) is likely to contain the I Ching portent readings of the 64 hexagrams.

The accuracy of reading made by Feng Shui mostly depends on the accuracy of the Feng Shui compass (Luo Pan)
Points to note when using a compass to find the north point of a site or house:
1. Obtain an layout plan of the home or building. Make a copy of this layout and bring this along with you to a site survey.
2. Keep at least one metre from columns, beams or walls.
3. Remove all jewelleries and metallic items as this may also affect the compass readings. Stay away from metallic substances, before holding the compass.
Preferably use a `larger' compass which has a higher `mass' and less prone to `magnetic interference' from it's surrounding.
4. Take a second reading outside the house, preferably on a empty piece of land to establish the north point. If there is a 15 to 20 degrees difference between readings inside and outsid the house, do double check your reading. If the reading deviates too much, the Feng Shui of the house if bad.
5. Hold the compass level with the floor and face the direction being accessed.
6. Turning the Luo pan wheel until the magnetic compass needle aligns with the red line beneath the needle.
7. Read the compass when the needle has settled and when there is no movement of the needle.

When buying a Luo Pan Compass:
Check the accuracy － Check the exact North and South position of the Lopan which is marked as(子) for 0° North and(午) for exact South 180°. Move the circle plate of the Lopan to check if all of the followings are on one straight line and neatly coincide:
－ The magnetic needle, with sharp head pointing South, round head pointing North.
－ The red line under the needle, with 2 small red dots under the round head of the needle.
－ The red nylon line on top of the circular plate.
－ The red nylon line covers exactly the downward stroke in the centre of the Chinese character(午) meaning South and the Chinese character(子) meaning North.
－ The straight line under the(子) and the(午) which exactly divides the Lopan into 2 halves.
If all items are in alignment, then the Lopan is reasonably accurate.

Checking for smooth operation － the circular metal plate on the Lopan must be freely movable. You should turn it a few times to see if it is too tight or too sticky which may hinder measurements.

As I mentioned earlier, there's different schools of Feng Shui so there's different types of reading method according to that particular school of Feng Shui.
I will only touch on the more general methods.
Reading the Luo Pan directions:
Cardinal Directions: North, East, South, West.
Inter-Cardinal Directions: North-east, South-east, South-west, north-west.
From reading the direction the house if facing and sitting at allows you to plot a table call A FLYING STAR CHART.

The red arrow on the Luo Pan always point to the magnetic North, so before you start, it is important to twist the dial so that the red arrow needle is over the north. Once this is aligned you will see a marker arrow this will tell you the direction you are facing.
Stand with your back square to the property, Hold your compass at waist level, Stand at least 10 meters away from property, Rotate the compass dial until the red compass needle aligns with north, Read the compass degree on the indicator line, write down the measurements and repeat it two more times so that you have three readings, average it out (e.g. Reading A + Reading B + Reading C then divide the sum by 3)
The sitting direction is the opposite reading, You will now have an accurate facing and sitting direction for your property.

Now match the facing degrees you have in the following table to get house trigram.

---

For the sitting direction, add 180 degrees to the facing degree. If the facing degree is more than 360, substract 180 from your facing bearing instead. This will give you the sitting direction.

Stay tuned for next few posts on "How to apply Flying Star Feng Shui-Xuan Kong" in simpler words, how to read all this Luo Pan Bearings.

Or maybe you want to read more on this topic:

Feng Shui Luo Pan Compass

Share on Facebook