North-east 東北
The Gen 艮 direction, mountain and stillness, and the seat Kua 8 is born into. North-east favours the west four.
What north-east is
North-east is the 艮 Gen palace, the mountain trigram, eighth of the nine. Mountain is the image of stillness in the classical scheme: something that holds rather than moves.
That image describes the trigram, not the people it favours. In Eight Mansions the compass is read from the person outward, so north-east is not a fixed quality of a corner of a building. It is what that corner is for a particular Kua number, and it is eight different things for eight different numbers.
Kua 8 is born into this seat, so 伏位 Stability lands here for Kua 8 and for no one else.
Who north-east favours
North-east is one of the four favourable directions for the west group, Kua 2, 6, 7 and 8, and one of the four rough ones for the east group, Kua 1, 3, 4 and 9. The two sets are exact complements.
Among the four it favours it is strongest for Kua 2, where it carries 生氣 Success, the star classical practice associates with growth and being seen. For Kua 6 it is 天醫 Health, the recovery ground. For Kua 7 it is 延年 Relationships, which reads as the long game and steady relations. For Kua 8 it is the own seat.
When north-east is one of your rough four
For the east group the same corner reads the other way, graded rather than lumped together.
It is 禍害 Mishaps for Kua 9, mildest of the rough four and a matter of small friction. It is 六煞 Setbacks for Kua 3, and 五鬼 Conflict for Kua 1, which classical practice reads as disputes and work at cross purposes. For Kua 4 it is 絕命 Instability, most heightened of the eight, where things started here tend to scatter rather than accumulate.
None of that is a claim about what will happen to a person. It describes ground, and the severity order exists so that a home offering no clean answer can still be worked out on a ladder from mildest to hardest.
Assignment, not avoidance
There is no house without a north-east, and no reading that asks you to seal it off.
The tradition assigns instead. A rough sector is where the storage goes, or the room nobody sits still in; a favourable one is where the desk faces or the headboard sits. Practitioners commonly treat the bedroom as outranking the study when only one favourable room is available, because sleep is the longer exposure.
Which of the eight north-east is for you comes down to a single number derived from your birth year, and that is what a reading works out first.
Common questions
NotesIs north-east the unlucky direction?
It has that reputation in some popular writing, and Eight Mansions does not support it. North-east is one of the four favourable directions for Kua 2, 6, 7 and 8, and one of the four rough ones for Kua 1, 3, 4 and 9. A direction that half the population is favoured by cannot be an unlucky direction.
What trigram is north-east?
艮 Gen, the mountain trigram, sitting in the eighth of the nine palaces. Kua 8 is born into it, which is why 伏位 Stability lands here for Kua 8 and for nobody else.
Does the north-east of my house matter if I never use it?
A direction you do not spend time facing or sleeping against is doing very little either way, which is the practical answer to most rough sectors. The tradition works in where you sit, sleep and face, so a corridor or a store cupboard in a rough sector is usually the cheapest place for it to be.
What north-east is for each Kua
Computed · 8 Kua numbersOne number decides the whole column. Find yours on the left and read across: the four favourable readings run strongest first, and the four rough ones run mildest first, which is the order the tradition ranks them in.
Not sure of your Kua number? It comes from your birth year and the calculation basis your chart is read on. How Eight Mansions works.
What north-east is in your own home
Find your day master free →This page describes the direction. A reading works out your Kua number, names all eight directions in severity order, and says which room each one should be doing rather than leaving you a table to apply.
Still working out which system answers your question? All eight directions
Method and sources
The trigram, the Kua whose seat this is, and what this direction is for each of the eight Kua numbers are computed from the same function the readings use, never typed. What each designation tends to mean follows the classical verse listed below.
Read against the classical direction verse and the dwelling essentials:
- 大遊年歌 Da Youniange Song of the Great Wandering Year, the anchor verse, attributed to 八宅明鏡 Bazhai Mingjing
- 陽宅三要 Yangzhai Sanyao The Three Essentials of Dwellings