LO PAN

The Lo P’an is a very helpful for any Feng Shui surveys. The practitioner needs to always take physical forms into consideration and the Lo Pan lets you know unseen ch’i movements. For best results it is better to make use both - to combine the Form school principles with the techniques of the Compass school and feng shui astrology.

The facing direction is usually determined by the land form. If the house or building is facing lower ground this is usually the facing direction. If it is obvious this will over ride the location of the front entrance. If there is no obvious landforms to go on, the front door usually becomes the facing direction. The Lo Pan is used to assess favourable parts of a site, or building.

The square base is traditionally red, to symbolise its auspiciousness. The Lo Pan Compass was traditionally made from tiger bone called ‘Huku’ and were all hand painted. Two red threads must intersect exactly in the centre, running the length and breadth from the middle of the plate's four sides. The aptly named Lo Pan means 'reticulated' (like a net) "plate". The inner dial is covered with circles and divisions, and sits on a square base. The center contains a compass. Two threads held tight act as cursors. The final feature is a fine line under the compass which serves to align the dial with the compass needle.

The square shaped base allows the Lo Pan to be aligned against buildings or structures.The base is referred to as the Earth Plate. The circular dial is more complex and contains concentric rings which rotate independently of a central compass and is referred to as the Heaven Dial. This allows information to be read from any direction. The compass is considered the symbolic starting point of ch'i, the "Heaven Pool" where action and rest interact. The Heaven Pool is seen as the centre of the universe.

In Feng Shui, directions are represented by the five elements, the 8 trigrams, Heavenly stems and Earthly branches, and the locations of the Azure Dragon to the East, White Tiger to the West, Red Bird(Pheonix) to the South and Black Turtle to the North. The Lo P’an correlates heaven’s wider order on earth also through the correspondences of: yin and yang; the Ho-t’u and the Lo-shu diagrams; earlier and later heaven sequence arrangement of trigrams; 24 ‘mountains’ which is a combination of trigrams, stems and branches; the loshu portents; flying star horoscope ring; the I Ching readings; the 28 lunar constellations; the elements of the lunar mansions.

The seasons all have an associated element and strength of Yin or Yang. Similarly these fluctuate over the day. Each year is also part of this cycle, so a pattern of elements and yin and yang succeeding each other over shorter and longer time spans occurs.

Brief overview of a traditional lo P’an compass rings there are many variations of the lo p’an compass. But each Lo p’an shares some basic rings with each other, namely the trigrams and 24 mountains. The variations are due, not only to different geographical locations in China, but also different schools of thought in regards to what was considered auspicious or favourable directions.

The Centre is called ‘Tian Jio’ meaning heaven pond, or also called the Great ‘Tai Ji’ the original nature of the Universe.

The main compass function was to establish the direction and the North South axis, thereby acting as a reference for all the over directions

Ring 1: The early heaven sequence. The 8 directions and trigrams are linked with the original early trigram sequence. It represents Heavenly fluctuations of yin and yang as follows:

Heaven (complete yang) Earth (complete yin)

Thunder (strong yang) Wind / Wood (strong yin)

Water (middle yang) Fire (middle yin)

Mountain (lesser yang) Lake / Rain (lesser yin)

Ring 2: Later heaven sequence ‘the post heaven dragon’. The same procedure is taken, but the later heaven arrangement of the trigrams come into play. The first ring gave Heaven's unchanging sequence, while this represents Earth's sequence. This ring is often represented numerically by line drawings joining the number of ‘stars’ or number representing in each direction. Ring two reveals Earth’s unseen yin and yang and the first and second ring combined will ideally show a balance, with yang slightly more pronounced. Observation of the first two Rings allows for creating balance between the direction and immediate environment.

The 2nd ring is also called Jiu-Xin ‘the 9 stars’ as in the legend of yellow river turtle creating the lo shu diagram. The 9 stars are :

1st star - hungry wolf - trigram thunder

2nd star - tian yi - heavenly doctor - trigram mountain

3rd star - - longevity- trigram heaven

4th star 6 curses or 6 sha - trigram water

5th star - disaster- trigram earth

6th star- destroyers of armies, end of life - trigram lake

7th Star - 5 ghosts - trigram fire

8th star - fu wei - trigram wind

Left Tso Fu and Right Yu Pi both ruled by wood - they combine to become one star.

The 9 star is the basis for the ‘lo shu portens ‘ readings in the Bazhai 8 direction method of Compass school feng shui. Each dwelling is given a ‘Ming Kwa’ which means ‘fate of life’ number and is associated with a ‘East’ or ‘West’ direction the door or gateway faces. The ming kwa is calculated for the client and the technique involves trying to have at least one entrance in that favourable direction.

Ring 3: Referred to as the 24 ‘stars in the sky’, ‘mountains’, ‘directions’ or ‘shens’ and also known as the 24 directions of ‘Di Ji’. This ring is made up of:

Twelve Earthly Branches - influenced by the Former Heaven sequence, they represent the twelve spirits of the Branches.

Eight (of the ten) Heaven Stems, from the Lo-shu system and Four Trigrams showing ‘corner’ positions from the Later Heaven sequence.

Feng Shui practitioners regard 24 as complete number for heaven and earth. The 24 mountains establish the orientation of the residence, how it sits and faces and where the mountain and the water stars are in terms of the flying star dwelling horoscope. There is controversy about which of the 24 segments are auspicious. Use of this ring is to find favourable locations for your client. You will need to take into account their year of birth.

This ring also reveals places where the earth ch’i is very strong. The four Trigrams represent spirit doorways, all inauspicious. Because the magnetic and ‘true’ directions are different, the inauspicious locations fall to the left of their magnetic directions. They are:- Ghost Doorway (Kuei-men); Earth Doorway (Ti-hu);Man Doorway(Jen-men) ; Heaven Doorway (Tien-men).Their importance lies in knowing where their inauspicious directions for water courses are, and in gate placement. Traditionally, auspicious readings are marked with red; inauspicious locations are marked with black. These colours are used on the Lo P’an to easily show their locations.

Ring 4: ‘Tian Xing’. This is used to find a favourable direction if it couldn't be found from Ring Three, and to find the direction of the sites Dragon. Each number is representing a heavenly stem, full of ch’i. The eight Heaven Stems (numbers 5 and 6, belonging to Earth are regarded as lying in the centre) have four auspicious directions; 3, 4, 7, and 8, but some practitioner consider all 8 stem directions auspicious.

There are many complex water dragon formulates associated with ring 3 and 4.

The Heaven Stems are ; 1.Wood Chia; 2.Wood Yi; 3. Fire Ping; 4.Fire Ting; 5. Earth Wu Mou 6. Earth Chi; 7.Metal Keng; 8. Metal Hsin; 9. Water Jen; 10. Water Kuei

The Inner plate usually has approximately 5 rings - and is called the earth plate or ‘centre needle’ . The Middle plate approximately rings 6-10 - is called the human plate or ‘ren needle’ The Outer plate approximately rings 10-15 - is called the heaven plate. Each usually has a repeat of the first 5 to 6 rings, but with a 7.5 degree declination. These 3 plates are associated with Heaven, Earth and Man and also the three major stages called the San Yuan - upper , middle, lower and each yuan is further divided into 3 ‘when’ of 20 years. The Lo Pan synthesises the relationship between heaven, earth and human beings, and depending on the situation, the relevant plate was chosen, eg for siteing a tomb, the heaven plate was used.

Ring 5: 24 seasons of the agriculture calendar. The seasons were divided up into two stages 12x2=24 characters or every 1/2 month is a seasonal division.

Ring 6: Divided into 3 each 24 aspects to get 72 divisions called the 72 DRAGONS that penetrate from heaven. This ring was often used to plan the alter accurately and gives more detail for the basic 8 directions.

Ring 7: Called ‘calibrate the metal’ - the 24 mountains are divided into 5 to get 120 divisions. Rings 5,6,7 are there to interpret and give more detail to the 3rd and 4th ring.

Ring 8: The 8th ring is the beginning of the human plate also known as the middle needle ‘where there is ‘earth’ there is ‘man’.

Ring 9: The human plate - this ring has the 24 mountains - but the centre line of this ring is deviated by a shift of 15 degrees called ‘ren jiang’. Ren is the chinese name for Human.

Ring 10: ‘60 dragons penetrate the ground’.

Ring 11: Gives the first line of a poem to remember the sub divisions.

Ring 12: Relates to the observation of heaven - 12 parts to heaven stars called ‘wood star’.

Ring 13: Called feng ye ‘calibrate the wilderness’- one of the first books to mention the dragon veins is Yu Guong 3000 years ago, it talked about subdividing the earth in to 12 sections.

Ring 14: Outer plate called ‘feng zhen’ also called the stitch needle and has a 15 degree range. This works out the suns north - south axis or the sun’s angle deviations.

Ring 15 and 16: Relates to 14th heavenly plate and gives more graduations

Ring 17: 5 elements in relationship to the lunar mansions also called the 61 elements of the lunar year

Ring 18: The sky has 28 groupings or constellations of stars which ‘hold up the sky’. Also used in Indian astrology, they all add up to 360 degrees however each occupies different degrees of the zodiac. The 28 constellations on the Lo Pan are also matched with fate of person and with favourable or unfavourable days of the year.

Ring 19: The I Ching readings of the 64 hexagrams.