Determining Facing and Sitting directions

This article takes you through the most difficult steps in assessing the correct Facing side of a built structure. It is a must read for beginners and advanced as it covers the spectrum of Sitting, Facing and Ming Tang and proposes a new way of tackling the subject.

Prior to any Xuan Kong Feng Shui audit, both the Facing and the Sitting sides of a built structure must be determined. It is critical that absolute accuracy be employed in this determination.

That is much more easily said than done and this article is to help you with this process.

In ancient times, in a Feng Shui sense, life was quite straightforward. Why? Well, houses were built in a straightforward way. It means the exterior and interior Feng Shui was simple. It was believed that, when Mountain and Water were sufficiently present, this would forebode a simple - protected and supported - life, with family life and social structures on order.

With architectural shapes and structures having become more complicated, urbanization having reached its peaks, it not just became a little more difficult to determine the Facing side of a building, family life and society have become more complicated as well.

A square, one floor, house - with the exterior and interior on order in a Feng Shui sense -, portented a good (read obedient) spouse, many (laborious) children and an agreeable destiny as to wealth and health.

What we call bad Feng Shui in society is readily diagnosable neglect for the exterior environment. What we call disturbed family relationships is readily discernable from the environment and how the interior is dealt with.

Because in a good dwelling the masculine and feminine principle are well looked after, human relation and social proportions are good.

We should learn to distinguish between the masculine forces of yang, collected at the Facing side of a built structure, and the feminine forces of yin, collected at the Sitting Side of the built structure.

We will show you how to diagnose the Sitting and Facing sides of a house, giving you the ingredients needed to distinguish one from the other. We will also give you some examples of seemingly contradictory situations, so as to enable you to determine the Facing side of a structure, even in difficult situations.

Before we can arrive to the correct Flying Star chart for a built structure, a compass reading needs to be taken at the Facing side.

But things can become a little tricky sometimes. What to do if you found the correct Facing, but it is either in a different location than the architectural front, or the lay-out of the interior does not match the situation, i.e. that active rooms are away from the Facing side.

We will take you on a journey on Facing, Sitting, Ming Tang and lay-out of active rooms. By the time you read this discourse a couple of times, we hope things became a little more transparent.

The compass reading must always be taken outside. Compass readings taken from inside a building will be inaccurate due to the influences of metallic objects, electrical wiring, metal water pipes, and various other factors.
Even compass readings taken outside may sometimes be inaccurate due to presence underneath the soil of rocks, water, metal.

Even some of the Chinese masters today still perform a compass reading inside the building, which is pertinently wrong, where it is our object to read a house’s orientation as to magnetic North.

Some stand in the center of the house, draw an imaginary line from the center of the house to the center of the main door to take a compass reading and call the result ‘Facing’.

Likewise, taking a compass reading of the location or orientation of the main entrance, even when done outside, is not proper Xuan Kong Feng Shui, because Facing side and main entrance may not be synonymous.

The Facing direction may or may not be at the architectural front of your house. Even if you correctly located the Facing of your house, you may perhaps not find the door in the same 45 degrees Palace.
A detailed and logical analysis is required to determine the Facing and Sitting of your building.

Facing is determined by several different factors that must be considered simultaneously. Correct determination of Facing is absolutely critical because all diagnosis and remedies pertain to this.

Determining Facing can be the most easy part of your survey, it can also be the most demanding part.

In some modern houses it is difficult to determine Facing and Sitting.
Always keep in mind that most structures have one Facing side and one Sitting side only. This rule may become more flexible when auditing apartment and business complexes, which will be discussed further down.

Some modern houses are rented out in separate floors. It is possible that each floor has its own Facing.

One method to determine Facing and Sitting is to first determine which sides are not the Facing. Here, with four walls, we try to first rule out at least two of them, most of the time these being the side walls.

It is said in one of the ancient Feng Shui Classics, that if we cannot find the Mountain Dragon, we look for the Water Dragon. Once the Water Dragon is found, we know where the Mountain Dragon is.

This is to explain that Facing and Sitting will be always 180 degrees away to one another. All examples shown here have their Facing into the indicated direction, their Sitting 180 degrees away from this direction.

Now let us examine some of the terminologies applicable to Feng Shui.

More often than not, it is a combination of many different considerations – not any one single feature - that will eventually lead you to decide on the correct Facing side and where to locate the Ming Tang.
Taking all these together, may help you to build up a firm understanding of Facing and Sitting.

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