Your Auspicious Directions by Kua Number

In the Eight Mansions (八宅 bāzhái, "eight houses") school of feng shui, your kua number assigns each of the eight compass directions a quality: four supportive, four to avoid. The full chart for all eight kuas is below, followed by the classical rules for the three places it matters most: your bed, your desk, and your front door.

Don't know your kua number yet? It takes ten seconds with your birth year and gender: find your kua number here.

The four auspicious directions

Each of your four good directions carries a name and a traditional purpose. In classical order, from strongest to gentlest:

1. 生氣 (shēngqì, "growth qi"), the vitality direction. The tradition ranks it first and associates it with energy, activity, and getting things moving. The classical advice is to face it for demanding work.
2. 天醫 (tiānyī, "heavenly doctor"), the health direction. Associated with recovery, wellbeing, and steadiness. A traditional favorite for the bed when someone is run down.
3. 延年 (yánnián, "extended years"), the relationships direction. Associated with harmony, longevity, and the people closest to you.
4. 伏位 (fúwèi, "settled position"), the stability direction. The quietest of the four: associated with calm, clarity, and holding steady. It is the direction of your own trigram.

The four inauspicious directions

The tradition also names the four to avoid, from mildest to most serious:

1. 禍害 (huòhài, "mishap"), the mildest: petty friction and small setbacks.
2. 六煞 (liùshà, "six killings"), associated with disputes and entanglements.
3. 五鬼 (wǔguǐ, "five ghosts"), associated with conflict, mischief, and things going missing.
4. 絕命 (juémìng, "severed fate"), the one the tradition takes most seriously and says to avoid for the bed and desk above all.

A plain word on all eight: these are the classical labels, not predictions. The system's own logic is modest, sit and sleep toward what supports you, don't camp on what doesn't, and no chart overrides common sense about light, noise, and a good mattress.

The full chart: all 8 kuas

Find your row, then read across. East group kuas are 1, 3, 4, 9; West group kuas are 2, 6, 7, 8. (Calculated a 5? Men use the kua 2 row, women the kua 8 row: the kua 5 rule explained.)

A note on conflicting charts. If you compare charts across the web you will find one common disagreement: a few popular sources swap 六煞 and 絕命 for kua 7 and kua 8. The chart above follows the classical 大遊年 (dàyóunián) derivation, in which each direction's quality comes from how its trigram transforms from yours, and that derivation is unambiguous: for kua 7 the severed-fate direction is East, for kua 8 it is Southeast. When in doubt, we go with the classical arithmetic and tell you we did.

How to use your directions

The classical rule is the same in every application: orient yourself toward a supportive direction, and give the most important activities the best directions. Three placements do most of the work.

Bed: where your head points

The classical rule is that the crown of your head points toward one of your good directions while you sleep, so the headboard sits against the wall on that side. 天醫 (tiānyī, the health direction) is the traditional first choice for sleep; 延年 (yánnián) is the traditional pick for couples. Note the wording: it is the direction your head points, not the direction your feet face. Two people with different kuas can each take their own side's best available compromise, and the practical convention is to favor the direction of whoever needs the support more. Bed position within the room (the commanding position, mirrors, the door line) is its own topic: feng shui for the bedroom.

Desk: where you face

The classical rule is that you face one of your good directions while seated, meaning the direction your eyes point when you look past your screen. 生氣 (shēngqì) is the traditional choice for active, ambitious work; 伏位 (fúwèi) for focused, steady work. If the room only allows a facing that is one of your four to avoid, the tradition's own workaround is to angle the chair rather than abandon the desk. Desk placement, back-to-wall, and work-from-home setups are covered in feng shui for your desk and office.

Front door: which way it faces

The classical rule is that a door serves you when it faces one of your good directions, meaning the direction you look when standing inside the doorway facing out. In practice most people cannot choose their door's facing, and the tradition's answer is proportionate: use a secondary entrance that faces better if you genuinely have one, and otherwise put your effort into the bed and desk, which you can actually move. House-level facing belongs to the fuller system of house trigrams, covered in the Eight Mansions guide.

Myths, corrected

"An auspicious direction brings good luck." The tradition itself is more modest than the marketing. The classical texts frame directions as supportive or unsupportive conditions, not as guarantees, and nothing on this page promises an outcome.

"Your feet should face your lucky direction in bed." The classical sleeping rule is about where the crown of your head points. The feet-facing version is a common online garble of two separate ideas (the head-direction rule and the unrelated "coffin position" door rule).

"North is a bad direction." No direction is good or bad in itself. North is 伏位 for kua 1 and 絕命 for kua 2. Everything depends on your kua.

"If my door faces my worst direction I need to move or renovate." The tradition never asks for that. Adjust what is adjustable, the bed and the desk first, and let the rest be.

"East group people should not live with West group people." The system contains no such rule. It assigns different supportive directions to each person and leaves households to arrange rooms accordingly, side by side.

"One bad night's sleep means my direction is wrong." The system is a set of orientation conventions from a centuries-old tradition, not a diagnostic tool. If your sleep is bad, check the room, the light, the noise, and your evenings before you check the compass.

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Start with your number, then come back to your row: the kua number calculator takes your birth year and gender and gives you your kua, your group, and a link straight back to this chart.

Sources and standard: table derived 11 Jul 2026 from the classical 大遊年歌 trigram derivation and cross-checked against independent published charts (FengShuiNexus, ProKerala, Master Sean Chan, YourChineseAstrology). Where published charts disagree (the kua 7/8 六煞-絕命 swap), we state the classical convention and flag the variant. This page describes a traditional system; it makes no promises about outcomes.