Trigrams and Bagua

One of the most important that fengshui people miss is the importance of the trigrams or Gua. In fact its understanding is so important that without it there is no fengshui to talk about.

Never mind what you know about the flying stars or the 60 dragons or the various classical sets or formations that you have spent so much time on. If you have not internalise the Gua then the inner understanding is missing.

The chinese word for trigram is Gua. It is a combination of two ideograms. One provides the sound and the other provides its meaning. From the ideogram that provides the meaning, we see its connection to the art of divining. In essence, any diviner worth his salt possesses deep insight into the meanings and manifestations of the Gua.

In fengshui divining, the Gua and its attributes becomes critical to the divining of the fengshui. A lush pergola garden can be beautiful to look at besides providing shade. It may give the quality of the Gentle or it can exhibit and fill the space with the energy of Abysmal. How so?

A garden is naturally wood because of the living plants but it can take on qualities of Kan the Gua of the north. I was led to write this as I was passing a precast concrete column show room one morning along the old road near the KL zoo. They had this lovely pergola green house and it had such strong Kan qualities.

How does this help us in our fengshui? It becomes useful to know this when we design our gardens. There are many examples of houses especially terrace houses where the owners choose to build pergolas over that space next to the car porch. If doing so, it is best to ensure that it is neat and there is sufficient through sunlight. That reamins the first rule as the quality of the gentle is yin or feminine and sunlight helps to keep it in good shape bringing out its fine qualities of intelligence and connivality. If left too moist and dark then the moroseness of Kan is born and with it carries more dangerous qualities of loss and despair. And of course be mindful of the need for neatness and harmony.

This is the everchanging and interchanging nature of the trigrams which basically are interchangeable qualities of all the myriad things that exist. Wise to know this.