Glossary of Chinese Metaphysics Terms

Chinese metaphysics carries its vocabulary between systems: Qi is read in a house and in a chart, the same eight trigrams organise the compass and the oracle, and the Five Elements appear everywhere as the language in which relations are stated. A reader who meets a term for the first time mid-article should not have to leave it to look the word up elsewhere.

This page is the single place where that vocabulary is defined. Each entry gives the term as it is written in this knowledge base, its characters and pinyin, one sentence of plain meaning, and a link to the article where the term is treated properly. Definitions are one sentence by design: what a term means in a sentence, not what a chapter could say about it.

1. How to read these entries

The one-sentence definition is deliberately flat, and it is not a substitute for the article. Where a school disagrees with another about a term's meaning, the entry says so rather than choosing a winner — several of the words below carry more than one sense in the tradition, and flattening them would mislead the reader who goes on to consult the sources. Prefer the article when the term matters to a decision.

Where the characters are given as a pair, the first is the classical form and the second is the simplified writing used in modern Chinese. The reference tables hold the numbers behind these terms — the degrees, the directions and the correspondences — and are the companion to this page.

2. Foundations: Qi, polarity and the Five Elements

Everything else in this glossary is built on these few ideas. They are the words a practitioner uses without explanation, assuming the reader already has them.

Term	Characters and pinyin	What it means	Explained in
Qi	氣 qì	The energy the tradition reads and adjusts — something that moves, gathers and disperses rather than a substance.	What feng shui is
Yin and Yang	陰陽 yīnyáng	The two poles into which any movement of Qi divides — still and active, dark and bright, receiving and giving — each containing the seed of the other.	What feng shui is
Wu Xing	五行 wǔxíng	The five phases — Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water — through which Qi is described and related.	The Five Elements
Wood	木 mù	The phase of growth and expansion, at which a cycle begins.	Wood
Fire	火 huǒ	The phase of heat and brightness, at full expansion.	Fire
Earth	土 tǔ	The phase of stability and transition, placed at the centre.	Earth
Metal	金 jīn	The phase of contraction, clarity and structure.	Metal
Water	水 shuǐ	The phase of depth, cold, storage and gathering.	Water
Generating cycle	相生 xiāngshēng	The sequence in which each phase feeds the next, read as support.	The Five Elements
Controlling cycle	相剋 xiāngkè	The sequence in which each phase restrains another, read as pressure and correction.	The Five Elements
Heavenly Stems	天干 tiāngān	The ten signs, five yang and five yin, that write the upper half of every pillar and much of the compass ring.	The Ten Heavenly Stems
Earthly Branches	地支 dìzhī	The twelve signs that write the lower half of every pillar, each carrying an animal, an element and a season.	The 12 Earthly Branches
Pillar	柱 zhù · 四柱 sìzhù	One position of a chart — year, month, day or hour — written as a stem above its branch.	BaZi
Taiji	太極 tàijí	The undivided whole from which Yin and Yang separate, drawn as the circle around the two halves.	What feng shui is
Living and dead Qi	生氣 shēngqì · 死氣 sǐqì	The classical contrast between Qi that gathers and supports a place and Qi that has gone stale or turned destructive; texts draw the line between them in different places.	What feng shui is

3. Chinese astrology: the BaZi vocabulary

These terms belong to the reading of a life rather than of a place. They are listed here because they appear in the knowledge base wherever a chart is discussed, and because several of them — the stems and the branches above all — are also the alphabet of the compass.

Term	Characters and pinyin	What it means	Explained in
BaZi	八字 bāzì	"Eight characters": a life read from the four pillars of the birth moment and their Five Element relations.	BaZi
Day Master	日主 rìzhǔ	The stem of the day pillar, taken as the point of view from which the whole chart is read.	BaZi
Ten Gods	十神 shíshén	The ten relations any stem bears to the Day Master — resource, companion, output, wealth and officer, each in two forms.	The Ten Gods
Shen Sha	神煞 shénshà	The "spirit and demon" markers added to a chart from stem and branch combinations, read as colour and emphasis rather than as verdict.	Symbolic Stars
Jiazi	六十甲子 liùshí jiǎzǐ	The cycle formed by pairing the ten stems with the twelve branches, used to count years, months, days and hours alike.	The Jiazi cycle
Year pillar	年柱 niánzhù	The pillar of the birth year, taken from the Chinese solar year rather than the calendar year.	BaZi
Month pillar	月柱 yuèzhù	The pillar of the birth month, whose boundary is a solar term rather than the first of the month.	BaZi
Day pillar	日柱 rìzhù	The pillar of the birth day, whose stem is the chart's Day Master.	BaZi
Hour pillar	時柱 shízhù	The pillar of the birth hour, drawn from the twelve periods into which the day is divided.	BaZi
Luck pillar	大運 dàyùn	A long span of years attached to a chart and read as the background against which the birth chart meets time.	BaZi
Clash	沖 chōng	Direct opposition between two branches or two pillars, read as movement, separation or change.	The 12 Earthly Branches
Combination	合 hé	A binding relation between branches, or between a stem and a branch, read as attraction and alliance.	The 12 Earthly Branches
Hidden stem	藏干 cánggān	The stems carried inside an Earthly Branch, from which much of a branch's behaviour is read.	The 12 Earthly Branches

4. The compass and the calendar

The compass schools take direction and time as their evidence, and their terms name the instruments, the grids and the boundaries they work with.

Term	Characters and pinyin	What it means	Explained in
Lo Shu	洛書 luòshū	The square arrangement of the numbers one to nine from which every compass chart is built.	Reference tables
He Tu	河圖 hétú	The older diagram that pairs numbers with elements instead of arranging them in a square.	The He Tu
Bagua	八卦 bāguà	"Eight trigrams": the eight figures that map directions, seasons, families and phases.	What is the Bagua
Trigram	卦 guà	One of the eight three-line figures, built from yang and yin lines, from which palaces and hexagrams are made.	The Eight Trigrams
Earlier Heaven Bagua	先天八卦 xiāntiān bāguà	The symmetrical arrangement of the trigrams, read as the order of things before the world begins to move.	Early Heaven Bagua
Later Heaven Bagua	後天八卦 hòutiān bāguà	The dynamic arrangement that places the trigrams by direction and season, and the one the compass schools use.	Later Heaven Bagua
Palace	宮 gōng	One of the nine cells of the grid, to which a direction, a trigram and a star belong.	Reference tables
Kua number	命卦 mìngguà	The number a person is assigned from year of birth and sex in the Eight Mansions system, which fixes their favourable directions.	The Kua number
Facing and sitting	向 · 坐 xiàng · zuò	The two directions of a building — the side it looks towards and the side it rests on — from which every compass chart is drawn.	Chart parameters
24 Mountains	二十四山 èrshísì shān	The ring of directions on the compass, each of the eight directions divided into its three sectors.	The 24 Mountains
Luopan	羅盤 luópán	The traditional feng shui compass, whose concentric rings carry the mountains, the stars and the hexagrams.	The 24 Mountains
Li Chun	立春 lìchūn	The solar term that opens the Chinese solar year, and the boundary that decides which year a birth belongs to.	The Chinese calendar
Solar terms	節氣 jiéqì	The markers that divide the solar year into seasons and set the boundaries of the months used in astrology.	The Chinese calendar
Bagua map	八卦圖 bāguà tú	The overlay of the eight directions onto a floor plan, used to place rooms and sectors in a reading.	The Bagua map

5. The schools and their practice

The largest group, and the one where terms are most often met without explanation: the names of directions, stars, afflictions and the classical vocabulary of landform.

Term	Characters and pinyin	What it means	Explained in
Ba Zhai	八宅 bāzhái	"Eight Mansions": the system that reads a home's directions against the Kua of the people living in it.	Ba Zhai
Sheng Qi	生氣 shēngqì	The strongest favourable direction of the Eight Mansions set, associated with growth and opportunity; the words also carry the general sense of living Qi.	Sheng Qi
Tian Yi	天醫 tiānyī	The favourable direction associated with health and recovery.	Tian Yi
Yan Nian	延年 yánnián	The favourable direction associated with relationships and long life.	Yan Nian
Fu Wei	伏位 fúwèi	The quiet favourable direction, read as continuity, stability and rest.	Fu Wei
Huo Hai	禍害 huòhài	The mildest of the unfavourable directions, associated with friction and small losses.	Huo Hai
Wu Gui	五鬼 wǔguǐ	The unfavourable direction associated with conflict, rumour and sudden trouble.	Wu Gui
Liu Sha	六煞 liùshà	The unfavourable direction associated with emotional disturbance and entanglement.	Liu Sha
Jue Ming	絕命 juémìng	The heaviest of the unfavourable directions in the Eight Mansions set.	Jue Ming
Flying Stars	飛星 fēixīng	The system in which nine stars move through the nine palaces of a chart according to period, year and month.	Flying Stars
Xuan Kong	玄空 xuánkōng	"Mysterious void": the tradition of time-based compass charts to which Flying Stars belongs.	The complete guide
Xuan Kong Da Gua	玄空大卦 xuánkōng dàguà	The branch of Xuan Kong that reads hexagrams built from the door, the facing and the time.	Which school
San He	三合 sānhé	The tradition built on the three-fold harmonies of the branches, strongest on landform and water placement.	Which school
San Yuan	三元 sānyuán	The tradition organised by the cycles of time, from which the Xuan Kong methods descend.	Which school
Period	運 yùn	The long cycle that decides which star rules a chart; it changes at the turn of a cycle, not every year.	The complete guide
Five Yellow	五黃 wǔhuáng	The central star of the grid, read as dense Earth — quiet in the centre and troublesome when disturbed in a busy sector.	The Five Yellow star
Tai Sui	太歲 tàisuì	The Grand Duke: the branch of the current solar year, a position respected rather than disturbed.	Tai Sui
San Sha	三煞 sānshà	The "three killings": three branches that move with the year and are avoided for digging, building and heavy work.	San Sha
Sui Po	歲破 suìpò	The branch opposite Tai Sui, the year's break, treated as the least suitable sector for major works.	Sui Po
Ming Tang	明堂 míngtáng	The "bright hall": the open, level space in front of a site or building where arriving Qi gathers.	The Form School
Sha Qi	煞氣 shàqì	Threatening energy carried by a form or a direction — a straight road, a sharp corner, an overhang.	The Form School
Luan Tou	巒頭 luántóu	The Form School: the reading of a place from landform, water and visible structure.	The Form School
Mouth of Qi	氣口 qìkǒu	The entrance, where the energy of the surroundings enters a home and from which it is distributed.	The entrance

Two of these entries are read in more than one sense, and the knowledge base keeps them apart deliberately. Sheng Qi is a direction in the Eight Mansions system and also the general word for living Qi; Period names a long cycle in Xuan Kong and has no yearly meaning at all. When a term is used in an article, the surrounding system is the one that fixes its sense.

6. The oracles

The vocabulary of asking a question, as distinct from reading a space or a life. These terms belong to the I Ching and to the working method built on it.

Term	Characters and pinyin	What it means	Explained in
I Ching	易經 Yìjīng	The Book of Changes: the classical divination text built from hexagrams and their judgements.	The I Ching
Hexagram	卦 guà · 六十四卦	The figure of six lines, read from the bottom up, that a cast produces.	The I Ching
Changing line	動爻 dòngyáo	A line cast as old yin or old yang, read as a point where the situation is in motion.	The I Ching
Wen Wang Gua	文王卦 Wénwáng guà	The working method that reads a hexagram through stems, branches, elements and household relations.	Wen Wang Gua
Liu Yao	六爻 liùyáo	"Six lines": the usual name of the Wen Wang Gua method, taken from the six lines it reads.	Wen Wang Gua
Six Relatives	六親 liùqīn	The household roles — parent, sibling, child, wealth, and official or ghost — that a line is read as, from its element's relation to its palace.	Wen Wang Gua
Six Spirits	六獸 liùshòu	The six markers assigned to the lines by the day of the cast — dragon, bird, earth, snake, tiger and warrior — which colour the reading.	Wen Wang Gua
Useful Spirit	用神 yòngshén	The single relative in a Wen Wang Gua chart that stands for the subject of the question, chosen before anything else is judged.	Wen Wang Gua

7. Frequently Asked Questions

Which of these terms should I learn first?

Qi, Yin and Yang, and the Five Elements, in that order: every other entry is built on them, and a reader who has those can follow most of an article even with the rest of the vocabulary unfamiliar. The trigrams come next, because they carry both the compass and the oracles.

Why does the same word appear in more than one system?

Because the systems share an alphabet. Stems, branches, trigrams and the Five Elements were in use before the methods that read them, and each method borrowed the vocabulary and gave it a local sense. The article that uses a term fixes its meaning; the entry here names the senses rather than choosing between them.

The pinyin looks different in different books. Which spelling is right?

The knowledge base uses Hanyu Pinyin without tone marks in running text, and adds tones only where a term is first introduced. Older books often use Wade-Giles, where the same sound is written differently — "chi" for Qi, "pa kua" for Bagua. Both spellings are correct for their system; the confusion is only in mixing them.

Does a term here mean the same as in the classical texts?

Not always, and the entries say so where the schools diverge. Terms such as Sheng Qi, Period or the afflictions have been read differently by different lineages, and the sources themselves do not agree. Where this page gives one sentence, it gives the sense used in this knowledge base and points to the article that sets out the fuller picture.

Where are the numbers — the degrees and the directions?

In the reference tables, which is the other half of this page: the Lo Shu grid, the He Tu pairs, the full ring of the 24 Mountains with their degrees, and the favourable and unfavourable directions of each Kua number. The Feng Shui tools compute the same values for your own home, and the BaZi calculator does the equivalent for a birth chart.