What is Huyền Không Phi Tinh?
Xuan Kong Flying Stars is a school of feng shui that uses the nine stars flying through time and directions to assess auspiciousness for dwellings and graves.
Also called: Huyền Không Phi Tinh (Flying Star feng shui)
What is Huyền Không Phi Tinh?
Huyền Không Phi Tinh (Chinese characters 玄空飛星) is a school of feng shui, often shortened to Huyền Không, which uses the Cửu Tinh (nine stars) as its main tool. Each star carries one of the Five Elements, a auspicious or inauspicious character, and is said to "fly" (phi, meaning to move) into the palaces on the compass according to each time period. From the combination of star, palace and time period, the interpreter makes judgments about wealth, health, career and household members for a house or a grave site.
Origin and use
By tradition, this method is associated with the names of Chinese feng shui masters, and was later passed into Vietnam through lineages of geomancy masters. In the common understanding, time is divided into periods, each lasting twenty years, and nine periods in total make up one great cycle. A basic star chart usually consists of three layers of stars: the period star (the ruling period), the mountain star (connected to household members and health) and the facing star (connected to wealth and career). These three layers are placed into the nine palaces of the compass, combined with the house's facing direction and its sitting mountain, to judge auspiciousness and inauspiciousness.
Which stars make up the Cửu Tinh?
The Cửu Tinh consist of Nhất Bạch, Nhị Hắc, Tam Bích, Tứ Lục, Ngũ Hoàng, Lục Bạch, Thất Xích, Bát Bạch and Cửu Tử. Each star has its own element and its own meaning: Nhất Bạch governs wealth and wisdom; Nhị Hắc governs illness; Tam Bích governs disputes; Tứ Lục governs learning; Ngũ Hoàng is a strong malefic star; Lục Bạch governs nobility; Thất Xích governs gossip and slander; Bát Bạch governs wealth and advancement; Cửu Tử governs prosperity. When the stars meet in certain combinations, auspiciousness and inauspiciousness can shift, so no star can be judged on its own.
Distinguishing it from easily confused terms
Huyền Không Phi Tinh differs from Bát Trạch, which uses only the life trigram and the eight directions to judge auspiciousness and inauspiciousness, with no element of time periods or flying stars. It should also be distinguished from Tam Hợp, a school that emphasises the forms of mountains and water and the relationships between palaces, and makes little use of a star system based on periods. In addition, the 24 mountain directions are a system for dividing directions on the compass, used commonly across many feng shui schools, and are not a subject specific to Huyền Không.
Points to keep in mind when consulting
Huyền Không Phi Tinh belongs to the field of traditional feng shui. This is knowledge of a reference nature, not verified by science, and should not be used in place of decisions about architecture, safety or health.
How do the different schools of interpretation differ?
- Huyền Không Phi Tinh by period: The common understanding, holding that the auspiciousness or inauspiciousness of a house depends mainly on the time period and the flight of the Cửu Tinh through the palaces, so the same house direction can be good or bad depending on the period.
- Huyền Không combined with forms: An understanding that stresses that flying stars are only meaningful when set in the context of the actual forms of mountains and water, so one should combine observation of the outside environment rather than relying on the star chart alone.
- Huyền Không combined with the life of the occupant: An understanding that holds that the star chart should be checked against the life trigram and age of the person living there to personalise the reading, since the same star chart may manifest differently for each person.
A summary table of the nine stars in the Cửu Tinh of Huyền Không Phi Tinh along with the main meaning of each star.
| Star | Main meaning |
|---|---|
| Nhất Bạch | wealth and wisdom |
| Nhị Hắc | illness |
| Tam Bích | disputes |
| Tứ Lục | learning |
| Ngũ Hoàng | strong malefic star |
| Lục Bạch | nobility |
| Thất Xích | gossip and slander |
| Bát Bạch | wealth and advancement |
| Cửu Tử | prosperity |
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