The west is the 兌 palace, 247.5° to 292.5°. For the house that sits north and faces south it is the 先天 position — where water arriving is read as supporting the household’s people — and like the southwest it is never a 天劫 position.
The west, house by house
Sitting 坎 (north): the west is 先天 — arriving welcome, leaving harmful. Sitting 巽 (southeast): 後天 (and 地刑) — arriving welcome, leaving harmful. Sitting 坤 (southwest): 輔卦 — arriving helpful, leaving harmful. Sitting 離 (south): 賓, and sitting 乾 (northwest): 客 — arriving water favours outsiders; leaving harmless. Sitting 艮 (northeast): 地刑 doubled as 輔卦 — water must not leave, and the sources disagree about water arriving. Sitting 震 (east): 案劫, the front — water leaves through it. Sitting 兌: the west is the house’s own back.
Where west water is welcome, and where it is not
Water arriving from the west suits the houses sitting in 坎, 巽 and 坤. The east-sitting 震 house faces west and wants western water leaving, not arriving. For the northeast-sitting 艮 house the west is contested ground — no source lets water leave through it, and they split on water arriving. For the 離 and 乾 houses western water favours outsiders to the household’s line.
Reading it on the ground
For the north-sitting house, western water arriving and southwestern water arriving are the two the formula looks for, and neither should drain away in those directions. KAXANTA shows which position the west holds for your house from the facing saved in Settings, with the sitting palace and the water mouth.
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