What is the best direction to sleep, by feng shui?
Place the bed by the room first: headboard against a solid wall, the door in view but not in line. Then turn to the compass. The Eight Mansions school reads a Kua number from your birth year and points the head of the bed toward your Tian Yi direction, the one it keeps for rest.
First the room, then the compass
Two schools answer this question, and they answer in order. The Form School reads the room: a solid wall at the head, the door in sight but off the bed’s line, nothing overhead, no window behind the pillows. The Eight Mansions school reads the compass and the person, through a number drawn from the year of birth.
The room decides where a bed can go; the compass only chooses among the places the room allows. A bed turned toward the right direction from the middle of the room, under a beam or beneath a window has gained less than it has lost. Where the bed goes →
Your Kua number
The Kua number comes from the year of birth, counted from Li Chun, the start of spring in early February: born in January or before Li Chun in February, use the year before. Take the last two digits of that year. For births from 1900 to 1999, men take 100 minus the two digits and women the two digits minus 4; from 2000 on, men take 99 minus the two digits and women the two digits plus 6.
| Born | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| 1900–1999 | 100 minus the two digits | the two digits minus 4 |
| 2000–2099 | 99 minus the two digits | the two digits plus 6 |
Divide the result by nine and keep the remainder. Five has no trigram of its own: it counts as 2 for men and 8 for women. Two worked examples: a man born in 1990 gets 100 − 90 = 10, remainder 1, Kua 1; a woman born in 2004 gets 4 + 6 = 10, remainder 1, Kua 1.
Which way does your bed point?LuckMove reads it from one photograph.Read my roomThe head of the bed, by Kua number
Of the four directions the Eight Mansions school counts good for each person, it keeps one for rest: Tian Yi. The head of the bed points that way, so that you lie with the crown of your head toward it.
| Kua | Trigram | Head of the bed toward |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kan | east |
| 2 | Kun | west |
| 3 | Zhen | north |
| 4 | Xun | south |
| 5, men | counts as Kun | west |
| 5, women | counts as Gen | northwest |
| 6 | Qian | northeast |
| 7 | Dui | southwest |
| 8 | Gen | northwest |
| 9 | Li | southeast |
When the room and the compass disagree
Often the wall that can hold the headboard faces the wrong way. Keep the wall. A bed with a solid wall behind it and the door in view, pointing somewhere less favored, is read as sounder than a bed pointing toward Tian Yi from an exposed place. Where two walls would both serve, let the compass choose between them.
For a couple with two Kua numbers, the tradition looks for a direction good for both. When both belong to the same group, East or West, their four good directions are the same four, and one of them will serve the bed; when they do not, let the room decide.
Your lucky directionsWorks out your Kua number from your birth date, Li Chun and all, and names the direction for the head of your bed.→Questions people ask
Only if north is your direction. In the Eight Mansions school the head of the bed points toward Tian Yi, which lies north for Kua 3 and elsewhere for every other number. And the room still comes first: a solid wall at the head matters more than the compass.
Take the last two digits of the birth year. Men subtract them from 99, women add 6; divide by nine and keep the remainder, with zero counting as nine and five becoming 2 for men and 8 for women. Born in January or before Li Chun in February, use the year before.
Toward your Tian Yi direction, with the headboard against a solid wall on that side of the room. Your lucky directions work it out from your birth date. Your lucky directions →
If you are both in the East group or both in the West group, your four good directions are the same four, and one of them can serve the bed. If you are in different groups, place the bed by the room: a solid wall, the door in view, and a way in on each side.