The southwest is the 坤 palace, 202.5° to 247.5°. It is one of the two directions — with the west — that is never a 天劫 position in any of the eight formations, and one of the two where the sources disagree about arriving water for one house.
The southwest, house by house
Sitting 巽 (southeast): the southwest is 先天 — arriving welcome, leaving harmful. Sitting 坎 (north): 後天 (and 地刑) — arriving welcome, leaving harmful. Sitting 兌 (west): 輔卦 — arriving helpful, leaving harmful. Sitting 離 (south): 客, and sitting 乾 (northwest): 賓 — arriving water favours outsiders; leaving harmless. Sitting 震 (east): 地刑 doubled as 輔卦 — water must not leave, and whether arriving water helps the sources disagree. Sitting 艮 (northeast): 案劫, the front — water leaves through it. Sitting 坤: the southwest is the house’s own back.
Where southwest water is welcome, and where it is not
Water arriving from the southwest suits the houses sitting in 巽, 坎 and 兌 — for the north-sitting 坎 house it is the 後天 position, the wealth water. The house sitting in 艮 faces southwest and should let water leave that way. For the house sitting in 震 the reading is contested: every source forbids water leaving through 地刑, but some welcome water arriving there and others say it should neither arrive nor leave.
Reading it on the ground
For a north-sitting house, the southwest is the one to protect from outflow: a drain or gutter discharging that way breaks the 後天. For a southeast-sitting house the same holds for its 先天. KAXANTA shows which position the southwest holds for your house, and says when the sources disagree, from the facing saved in Settings.
References
Canonical sources that inform this guide.
- 论龙门八局系水法 (华夏大易学社) · WEBSITE
- 三元水法龙门八大局 (简书) · WEBSITE
- Bagua (Eight Trigrams) · WIKIPEDIA
- Feng shui · WIKIPEDIA