Many feng shui practitioners and DIY feng shui enthusiasts see 8 mansions as one of the simplest and most effective concepts of Chinese metaphysics to implement at home.
In a way, we can say that it offers the most results for the least inputs.
So it’s no wonder why it is still one of the most widely practiced forms of feng shui in the modern world today.
However, one can often run into the dilemma of whether to use the house gua or his/her personal gua when configurating the home. Or maybe to use both while prioritizing one over the other.
It might mean little if the house and the homeowner belongs to the same East or West group since all the favorable and unfavorable sectors would be grouped together. But mayhem ensues when one belongs to East and the other to West.
How can this issue be resolved?
House gua versus personal gua
Most feng shui masters today would concur that the gua number of the house should take precedence over the homeowner’s personal gua number.
After all, feng shui is about living in harmony with the cosmic forces that make up the universe.
If the energy that engulfs a property is heavily influenced by the land it is sitting on, and the land is affected by the surrounding landscape, where the land is controlled by the mountains and rivers around, which in turn is just a part of the bigger city, etc… then it makes sense that people (or man) is smaller than his house, and therefore the house gua is the macro variable controlling the micro variable of man.
As a dwelling’s feng shui energy is heavily linked to it’s surroundings, then residents living in it would be affected by the feng shui of the house.
So when feng shui is conducted on a property, it’s understandable that we look at the birth chart of the house instead of that of man.
The common practice of 8 mansions today is to use the house gua to identify positive and negative sectors. Then enhance and control them accordingly. After which the man gua is used to identify personal directions for refinement.
For example, a living room might be planned for a sheng qi sector. Thus a sofa is placed in the space. However the orientation of the sofa is set according to the patriarch’s Tian Yi direction because he needs more helpful people in his endeavors.
The above example is often how the application of 8 mansions feng shui is done in the modern world today.
Even the conventional practice of having the kitchen in a negative sector but have it facing a favorable direction is reflective of the gist of the above-mentioned methods.
Having said that, there is a rising number of accomplished feng shui practitioners who prioritizes the personal gua over the house gua.
The logic behind this mainly rest on the fact that feng shui is conducted at a residence to benefit the residents. And because of this, human should be at the center of all planning.
After all, man is the variable that links heaven and earth.
A house is built by man to serve his own needs. He is at the center of his own universe, not the house.
For this reason, he should be the focal point of reference when conducting feng shui.
Disagreements between feng shui communities on topics like these are not uncommon.
In Xuan Kong flying stars feng shui for example, some people insist that the age (or period) a house belongs to depends on when the residents moved in. Others identify it by referencing the date in which the property was built. The former prioritizing man while the latter prioritizing house.
It must be said at this point that in Ba Zhai Ming Jing, some verses hint that the personal gua should be prioritized.
It’s also worth repeating that in modern practice of 8 mansions feng shui, house gua is used to identify good and bad sectors. While personal gua is mostly used to identify good and bad directions.
It’s up the practitioner to judge what is most appropriate at the moment of assessment.
If for example, the asker is a public figure with power and authority. Then it makes sense to use his or her personal gua as the reference point if it’s a regular property. And if it’s a loud property for a regular joe, then it might be more appropriate to use the house gua instead.