Clarifying Doubts in Geomancy

By Ma Taiqing (Qing dynasty)

Preface

The art of kan yu has produced generation after generation of true masters from antiquity to the present. Research and deduction have been refined and detailed to the utmost. Yet true masters appear only rarely in the world, and one seldom has the chance to meet them. Even when there is oral and heart-to-heart transmission, the world still hears little of it; hence those who falsely assume famous names and invent secret formulas multiply without end.

The reason false arts dare to deceive the world is simple: the dry bones cannot speak. Once the coffin is placed in the earth, the master takes his fee and leaves. When misfortune strikes—quickly within half a year or a year, or slowly after ten or more years—the master boasts of the site's power lasting three, fifty, or more, thereby swindling filial sons and compassionate grandsons the world over. Death, mourning, ruin, and destruction: the cruelty of the harm is beyond the capacity of the pen. Occasionally a hit occurs, and they boast of true insight as if they could commune with spirits. In truth, those who truly have solid grounds are not one in a hundred.

When I was young, I heard geomancers speak and saw stories of dragons' horns and cattle lying down; I secretly admired them. I searched widely for every kind of geomantic chart and volume, pondering day and night without rest. Those with illustrious names I earnestly sought out for correction. Those who spoke of form and configuration were some refined, some crude, yet broadly similar. But when it came to principle and qi—five phases and three combinations, resolving sand and assisting stars—they were pure wind-chasing shadow-grasping talk, what the vulgar call the iron-mouth trade.

In the summer of dingwei (1847) during Daoguang, I first met Mr. Li Zhenyu of Laoting in the capital. Then I knew that the arts of Guan, Guo, Yang, and Zeng had true practitioners among them. I took on the rites of a disciple and followed him long enough to receive all his transmission. Thereafter, wherever I went, I verified old graves—even those of centuries past—and every judgment matched. Yet I dared not speak lightly of it, fearing to offend the Creator's jealousy.

In jiaping of tongzhi (1864), my old friend Master Zhang of Rongxi returned home to bury a relative; he too was skilled in form and configuration. By day we traveled together, by night we shared a couch. Hearing my accounts of illuminating the past and discerning the future, he said to me: Why not commit it to writing for later generations? I had once pledged with Master Li never to transmit carelessly, which was how I came to hear all his secrets; now I could not betray my master. He further said: At least preserve the true gist, so people may know what to follow. I could not refuse, so I recorded my usual dialogues with others and titled them Clarifying Doubts in Geomancy. The formulas are not wholly here, nor are they wholly absent. A perceptive mind will know at a glance.

Question 1: Recently there are many schools of geomancy. What should one take as the primary focus?

Answer: In observing how the dragon comes, there must be rises and falls, turns and bends, screens and curtains, branches and limbs. At the place where the acupoint forms, there must be sand enclosing and water winding; within there must be nests, pincers, breasts, and protuberances. Everyone can recite such phrases; but when actually seeking land, people drag mountains against water and often err. In examining land, first take form and configuration as substance and principle and qi as function. If form is wrong, the substance is not the right substance and the function is not the right function—everything errs. Take configuration as primary; deeply understand the methods of dragon, acupoint, sand, and water, and you will have grasped more than half the art of geomancy.

Question 2: Those who discuss form and configuration in the world often speak of lions, elephants, tigers, phoenixes, pigs, dogs, turtles, fish, arhats, generals, and beauties for the acupoint star; for banks and sand they use names like jade screen, toothed tablet, writing brush, three terraces, nobleman, celestial horse, and banner and drum. Are these right or wrong?

Answer: It is only when one encounters a site whose dragon is true and acupoint genuine that the form slightly resembles these things. Occasional sayings of true masters have become fashionable among vulgar masters: seeing any site, they invent a name to dazzle the world. Whether or not there is a dragon, whether or not there is an acupoint, they force a burial. The world is constantly deceived; calamities follow in succession. Is this rare?

Question 3: Examining land first values form and configuration (i.e., the mountain forms), but modern shallow eyes pretend to know when they do not. What truly constitutes skill of eye?

Answer: Those who practice this art are generally unlearned men living by wandering and provisioning themselves, with no real transmission. Filial sons and benevolent men—whether burying relatives or accumulating virtue—should shut their doors, study books, investigate principle, climb mountains to re-verify famous graves, and gain wide experience. After long years, something will naturally take shape in the mind, and one will know who is a true master and who is a vulgar practitioner. Those whose reasoning is correct and verified are true masters; those whose reasoning is perverse and unverified are vulgar. Seeking true masters' instruction is genuine skill of eye.

Question 4: What books are right to read?

Answer: There are books on form and configuration and books on principle and qi. Master Yang's two scriptures, Shaking the Dragon and Doubting the Dragon, Wu Jingluan's Scripture of Gazing at the Dragon, Liao Jinjing's Scripture of Resolving Sand, and Shen Liupu's Earth Studies—these speak of form and configuration most accurately. Other books that discuss form and configuration remain readable. As for principle and qi, they are perverse and mistaken. Only the Corrected Geomancy and the Five Songs of the Celestial Origin are true books of principle and qi.

Question 5: The world takes the three combinations of dragon, facing, and water as principle and qi. How is that method?

Answer: Principle and qi means the correct movement of Heaven's heart: its qi circles and returns, beginning and ending through the three periods. The three combinations are a fixed dead pattern—for a dragon coming from a certain direction, a certain water exiting, set a certain facing to ride the dragon and drain the water, matching birth, prosperity, and tomb-storehouse, thereby governing wealth and rank. Decades or centuries earlier, sites like this were used the same way; centuries later, likewise. Yet fortune and misfortune among them differ vastly: the same land prospered when used by earlier people and failed when used later; on one mountain earlier use brought good luck and later use bad. Cases like these are countless. I therefore call it a dead pattern, for the true principle and qi of the three periods alone holds authority.

Question 6: If that is true, does form and configuration truly hold no authority?

Answer: It does hold authority. Form and configuration govern the authority of who is born; principle and qi govern the authority of rise and fall. Where mountains and waters are level and even, the people produced must be mild, generous, and peaceful. In luck, they become upright and impartial worthies; out of luck, ordinary, weak, and lowly commoners. Where mountains and waters are coarse and forceful, the people must be strong and fierce. In luck, they become upright and courageous worthies; out of luck, fierce and violent commoners. Geomancy is indeed so, and one should also weigh the family's education and local customs.

Question 7: Wealth and rank, poverty and lowliness; or lowly yet rich, or noble yet poor; or wealthy and noble yet dying without issue, or poor and lowly yet with many descendants and long life—is this caused by form or by principle and qi?

Answer: Both. Mountains and waters in luck bring wealth and rank; out of luck, poverty and lowliness—this is beyond doubt. That the lowly become rich must be because the old graves were not on good ground while the new grave obtained it. That the noble become poor must be because the mountain dragon is in luck while facing and water are out of it. That the wealthy and noble die without issue must be because the prosperous period is spent and the killing period is in charge. That the poor and lowly have many descendants and long life must be because although the land was never truly good, the facing and water are in command, with good and no harm.

Question 8: Vulgar masters, once they find a site, always promise wealth and rank, yet in fact wealth and rank do not come. Why?

Answer: A fine site originally governs four things: descendants, longevity, wealth, and rank. Descendants are the root of longevity; longevity is the root of wealth and rank. Without descendants, how can there be longevity? Without longevity, to whom shall wealth and rank belong? The vulgar know only to prize wealth and rank, so masters bait them with wealth and rank. In fact, with descendants and longevity—even if one is not wealthy and rank in this life, yet dwells in benevolence and righteousness—how does that compare with the wealth and rank of corrupt officials?

Question 9: Among the world's wealthy, where do descendants, longevity, and examination success differ? Why are some complete in all four and some not? Why do some last long and some not?

Answer: For great wealth, descendants, and longevity, it is enough that the sitting mountain's main star is dignified, water methods gather in a rounded mass, and all fall within the prosperous period. As for examinations, one must look whether Wenchang and Kuixing meet at the sitting mountain, at the water mouth, at the literary peak, or above the three halls of water within the facing—all indicate examination success. Even if dragon, acupoint, sand, and water are as fine as possible, they only govern great wealth, descendants, and longevity; if Wenchang and Kuixing do not meet, examinations cannot be attained. Hence there are often sites that are not auspicious acupoints yet still produce examination graduates—because Wenchang and Kuixing meet on sand and water before, behind, beside the acupoint. But those who pass examinations this way cannot attain high rank, or quickly perish. Longevity of results depends only on whether one enters the killing period or not.

Question 10: A person's ancestral graves span many generations, each with its own acupoint. Some say the distant ancestors obtained good ground, others say the new grave obtained the acupoint—an age-old dispute. How to settle the doubt?

Answer: Distant graves govern the ground that produces worthies; new graves govern the ground that hastens rank. If a person has extraordinary bearing and learning yet never meets opportunity in life, it is because the distant graves had good ground able to produce him, but the new grave lacks good ground to accelerate him. If someone of ugly form and mediocre talent meets unexpected fortune, it is because the distant graves lacked good ground and merely produced him, while the new grave has good ground and vigorously accelerates him. If a person's character and learning match and his encounters are also remarkable, one may know without climbing the mountain that the family has several generations of good graves.

Question 11: Even if form and configuration are clear, one should still take principle and qi as primary; yet the three combinations are not true principle and qi. What, then, is true principle and qi?

Answer: Human life between Heaven and Earth is originally one qi with them; in death one returns to earth—how could one cease to be one qi with Heaven and Earth? Thus the Burial Classic says: qi rides the wind and scatters—what does it scatter? It scatters the qi of Heaven and Earth. Bounded by water it stops—what does it stop? It stops the qi of Heaven and Earth. And the cycling of qi and fortune is further timed by upper, middle, and lower periods, circulating through the nine palaces, spreading across the eight directions, divided into the twenty-four mountains, occupying the sixty stem-branch cycles, spanning the three hundred sixty degrees. Each period has its qi-fortune; each fortune has its method of use. To grasp the method and apply it—this is true principle and qi.

Question 12: Where are true principle and qi recorded? May one hear of them?

Answer: Mr. Jiang Dahong's annotated Corrected Geomancy and his Five Songs of the Celestial Origin may rightly be called the lost supreme learning of a thousand ages. During Daoguang, Zhang Zhongshan of Wuxi added annotations—Direct Explanation of Corrected Geomancy and Elucidating the Meaning of the Five Songs of the Celestial Origin—still clearer.

Question 13: How about Ye Jiusheng's Great Completion of Geomancy and Yin Yishao's Twelve Kinds of Geomancy?

Answer: They had some inkling of this Way, but their faith was not single; they lacked independent judgment, collected false books indiscriminately, could not tell fish from written errors, and贻害世人. Not only these: The Secrets of Qian and Kun, the book Feng Shui, and the Annotated Commentary on Corrected Geomancy all stem from never having received the true transmission. In private fancy they invented star-adjacency charts, straying ever farther from the Way. From there the Xuan Kong school gained countless heterodox teachings. In the first year of Xianfeng, an imposter in the capital printed a volume called Orthodox Geomancy—forced and unpardonable. Still more false books exist, ever more strange. This work of clarifying doubts was written precisely for such people.

Question 14: How did you, sir, come to know the truth of the three periods and true masters, and thus learn from them?

Answer: You know only that what I learned today is uniquely true, not how many falsehoods I met before. From renyin of Daoguang, traveling from Qin through Qi to the capital—sixteen years in all—I met masters of five-phase three combinations and studied with them; masters of resolving sand and assisting stars and studied with them. Sincerity toward teachers and bitterness of effort: books like Principles of Earth, Secrets of Heavenly Opportunity, the Four Projectiles of Gold, Jade, Iron, and Lead, Great Completion, Complete Compendium, Outline of Geomancy, Essential Knowledge for Descendants, Guide Through Mountains and Waters, Explanation of the Compass, and every kind of earth book I studied without rest day and night. Even when ascending mountains together, they merely said this site governs wealth and rank, that site governs ruin—quoting books not at all sparingly. Examining the families' actual deeds, things were utterly different. When I met Master Li: first my friend Zhang Zaixun told me that a guest surnamed Li at the residence of Chief Censor Yao Bo'ang could look at grave charts and know which period would prosper or fail, which branch would prosper or fail, what matters it governed, and in what year they would manifest. Discussing a family's fortune with someone, he could know whether the grave faced a certain mountain or belonged to a certain period—so miraculous. I longed to meet him, but Li had already left. Answering a friend's invitation beyond the frontier, I visited Lord Yao to express my eagerness; two years later in dingwei, Yao wrote that Li had returned to the capital. I resigned a lucrative tutorship and hurried back—only to be refused. Through Lord Yao's intercession, after three or four visits, he finally consented to take me as disciple. After more than a year of following him I penetrated his depths; returning, I re-verified for several more years before doubts cleared. Obtaining the true formula is thus difficult.

Question 15: If, as you say, the three-period principle and qi are true and efficacious, why do scholars of the world not one in a hundred follow it, all taking the three combinations as the standard?

Answer: From Tang through Song and Yuan, books on three combinations drew little discussion; only after mid-Ming did they flourish. Traditionally ascribed to the Tang monk Yixing, there are also the various books Hai Jiao, Qing Niao, Bronze Casket, Jade Marrow, Red Thunder, and Black Satchel. Their language holds little arcane meaning—one can memorize at dawn and practice by dusk—hence people learn them. Master Jiang's annotations, by contrast, cite classics and canons with profound and obscure meaning: the heart-transmission of a thousand ages. Pity that the two scriptures, Heavenly Jade and Precious Illumination, hide celestial secrets in the notes—one must meet the right person before the true formula is given; otherwise he holds his tongue. Therefore scholars of the world, hard to receive transmission by fortune, not only fail to learn but rise up in group denunciation. There is reason for this.

Question 16: How many men in recent times are like Master Li?

Answer: From wushen, when my former master toured Guangling, to Gusu and north through the passes until now—eighteen years—I have met some who knew the general outline, some who crudely grasped operations; none reached refinement. Zhu Xulun of Wuxi, in his printed Glimpses of Dwelling Methods, is somewhat refined in star-adjacency; but he speaks only of yang dwellings—I do not know his yin-site form. Beyond this I hear of none who know, and even if any exist they are hard to find.

Question 17: You speak of form first and principle after; yet on fortune and misfortune you seem to weight principle lightly on form.

Answer: Not so. Where does principle and qi come from observation? Whatever the land's configuration longs for is the dragon-acupoint; it should receive the earth of a certain period (earth meaning where the mountain star arrives). Whatever qi longs for is the facing-water; it should receive the heaven of a certain period. Using qi when it matches its period is prosperous qi; using it contrary to its period is dead qi. (Note: long earth means peaks better than water; long qi means water better than peaks. Receiving the earth of a period means mountains; receiving the heaven of a period means facing, i.e., water.)

Question 18: Even if form is fine, if periods mismatch, shall one abandon the site?

Answer: Yes. Forced use brings immediate harm. Today's three combinations often offend this; when harmed, some suspect the land was wrong though auspicious; others say the land was first bad then good, as it should be; still others blame fate, not the land. All this twisting is merely because principle and qi are not understood.

Question 19: Perfect forms are rare, yet abandoning for period mismatch leaves many wealthy households without perfect sites. How then should principle and qi be arranged?

Answer: Nowhere between Heaven and Earth is there no principle and qi; all is inferred from form. What you call imperfect—dragon without tiger, tiger without dragon, both absent; lazy incoming dragon, obscure acupoint feeling, flying sand feet, water city not enclosing—vulgar masters pile on three combinations, five phases, proper and borrowed storehouses, forty-eight patterns; they cannot add resolving sand or assisting stars, pure yin pure yang; their tricks exhausted, they call it a strange acupoint. Yet though the form is strange, the principle remains. When principle and qi match, a strange form is not strange. There may be prosperity without three combinations and five phases; there is never prosperity without period-matched principle and qi.

Question 20: The response of period fortune and principle is swift as drum to mallet. Few study Xuan Kong today; those who do often find no verification. Why?

Answer: There are reasons. Master Jiang's books are profoundly written; the timid enjoy reading them only as three-combination books one can skim. They will not bow to teachers, display their cleverness, and invent private interpretations—so the more they struggle the more they err. Others covet Xuan Kong's fair name, claim transmission, yet have nothing. Still others sincerely seek learning without discerning true from false, reading wrong books and serving wrong teachers, leading the blind. Hence use often fails verification, and Xuan Kong's ill repute comes from such people.

Question 21: Geomancers all cite the Change as their root. Examined closely, they only speak of najia and pure yin pure yang. Is Xuan Kong also from the Change?

Answer: Xuan Kong is entirely the Change. Broadly: celestial qi joins earth; earthly substance receives heaven. Primordial: Qian pairs Kun, Zhen pairs Xun, Kan pairs Li, Gen pairs Dui. Later-heaven: Kan one, Kun two, Zhen three are the three fortunes of the upper period; Xun four, center five, Qian six are the middle; Dui seven, Gen eight, Li nine are the lower. Its divinations rest wholly on the Appended Phrases and hexagram images—no forcing at all. Unlike three combinations, which fix patterns by birth, prosperity, tomb-storehouse, turn left or right, set facings by leaning left or right, middle and seam needles—what has that to do with the Change? It is as foolish as madmen's dreams.

Question 22: The eight trigrams of the primordial begin at Qian in the south and end at Kun in the north. Is pairing all there is, with no further treasure?

Answer: Far more. Within the primordial paired trigrams already lie the later-heaven circulating positions and the sequence of the three periods. Can pairing alone exhaust their use? Primordial Kun occupies later-heaven Kan one; primordial Xun occupies Kun two; primordial Li occupies Zhen three; primordial Dui occupies Xun four. Kun's three yin lines in palace one; Xun's one yin below in palace two; Li's one yin in the middle in palace three; Dui's one yin above in palace four—is this not earth-qi rising from below? Primordial Gen occupies later-heaven Qian six; primordial Kan occupies Dui seven; primordial Zhen occupies Gen eight; primordial Qian occupies Li nine. Gen's one yang above in palace six; Kan's one yang in the middle in palace seven; Zhen's one yang below in palace eight; Qian's three yang in palace nine—is this not positions six, seven, eight, nine, heaven-qi descending from above? One mountain one water, one yin one yang, one rising one falling—called pairing, yet truly circulating. Establishing the acupoint in the region of center five is where Heaven and Earth truly join; riding the timely fortune, how can it not be auspicious? (Note: center five is where Heaven's heart correctly moves; matching it, those who receive mountains prosper in descendants, those who receive water in wealth, those who receive both in both.) Three-combination families, who force the Change with fragmented words, are hardly fit to speak of this. The learning of Xuan Kong is beyond what mere men of the brush can hope for.

Question 23: Everyone says three combinations look at mountains and three periods look at waters?

Answer: No. People say this because Master Jiang's books speak of mountains one part in ten and waters nine in ten. But mountains concern form and configuration—Masters Yang, Zeng, Wu, and Liao had already spoken of them first; only principle and qi were kept secret. Those who spoke of mountains did not further speak of waters, so Master Jiang spoke only of waters and not again of mountains. Moreover, do not the Heavenly Jade and Precious Illumination scriptures contain mountain methods? Master Yang composed Shaking and Doubting the Dragon without speaking of principle for fear of confusing form; he composed Heavenly Jade and Precious Illumination without much speaking of form for fear of cluttering principle. Jiang annotated according to the texts, and people call him one-sided—how mistaken!

Question 24: Many practice three combinations and still more believe them; few master Xuan Kong and fewer believe it. Why fear and slander it?

Answer: Three combinations are recited in every household—long habit breeds unshakeable faith. Even if use brings no luck, they blame the land, not the method. Xuan Kong students lack true transmission; misuse harms without profit, so all startle and scatter, thinking the art ominous. They do not know error of use and blame the art. How can they not fear and slander it? Yet the true formula is here. Belief or not concerns one's fortune—there is affinity and there is Heaven's decree. Otherwise, were not Guan, Guo, Yang, and Zeng sought by all in their day? Only after death is one remembered; then it is too late.

Question 25: Some use Qimen burial methods. How are those arts?

Answer: Xuan Kong is the true Qimen. Dragons have their three periods; waters have theirs; they circulate through the nine palaces. Years have their nine palaces, months theirs, days and hours theirs. When the gain and loss of dragon and water periods meet the annual, monthly, daily, and hourly palaces' spirits and stars, fortune and misfortune respond immediately, without a hair's error. Vulgar masters only have three wonders and six instruments, flying and adjoining for divination of numbers, repairs, and date selection—fine for that, but disastrous for graves. These are all who abandon form and empty-mouth the spirits and stars.

Question 26: If form and principle are both governed by three-period fortune, why then the differences of year, month, day, and hour?

Answer: Form is substance; principle is function. A One-White site can govern one hundred sixty years; Two-Black, one hundred forty; Three-Jade, one hundred twenty; Four-Green and Six-White, fifty each; Seven-Red, Eight-White, Nine-Purple, sixty each. In the Five-Yellow fortune, the first ten years belong to Xun and the last ten to Qian—this differs slightly from the old saying that both palaces share it. This comes from re-verifying ancient graves after obtaining the formula. Year, month, day, and hour are function within function, applied layer by layer—not something the shallow and hasty can fathom.

Question 27: If principle is already function, why function within function in year, month, day, and hour?

Answer: The governing fortune shifts small every twenty years, large every sixty, cycling fully every one hundred eighty. Each year has its fortune, each month its fortune. To judge in what year a grave will produce examination success, examine the twenty-year great fortune and each year's and month's fortune: can Wenchang and Kuixing meet the mountain, facing, sand, and water—and which branch will pass examinations? Can life and prosperous qi meet—and which branch will gain descendants? One may know beforehand and prepare. Again, placing the bed and opening doors where the annual and monthly three whites arrive can hasten children; combining the fortune's and year-month's prosperous qi in moving house and changing the stove can cure illness and draw wealth—verified wonders.

Question 28: If principle has long and short spans, will failure come when the term is full?

Answer: Lands of north and south differ in extinction or not. Southern mountain dragons take only one acupoint per mountain; if dragon and water fortunes fail, failure is final—unless another site in fortune is buried, restoring rise from fall. Northern plain dragons have broad acupoint feeling and many burials; if the main acupoint's dragon and water both fail, those buried left and right receive qi that shifts with form and differs from the main—rise and fail among them; one must infer and not be rigid.

Question 29: Northern wealthy families often last long; southerners rarely prosper five generations. Where to judge the difference?

Answer: Not hard. Northern land is level and open—one good site according to ancestral order can bury many coffins, so several generations prosper together. Southern mountain dragons form acupoints in nests, pincers, breasts, and protuberances; the small ones barely fit one coffin—any lean invades boundary water, forcing a new acupoint each generation; success if good ground is found, else failure. Hence south is not north; terrain makes it so—principle is not different.

Question 30: Ancients said only those born after a good site is obtained are made worthy; those already born when good ground is gained have nothing to do with it. Right or wrong?

Answer: Good ground produces worthies—quite right. But ground obtained after birth cannot have nothing to do with one. What I said earlier—that land can accelerate wealth, rank, descendants, and longevity—exactly accelerates those already born. How can it have nothing to do with them? See how when a person is in full vigor, if buried in a bad site, ruin comes at once—is that not clear proof?

Question 31: Your form requires principle of pairing—then Zi dragon must use Wu water, Qian dragon Xun water?

Answer: Do not be so rigid. Pairing is a secret of method hard to state openly. But Zi mountain facing Wu: with Zi as mountain there must be a transforming-life brain; with Wu as facing there must be a small bright hall—this is pairing within the acupoint. Behind the acupoint are parent and main mountains; before are middle and outer bright halls. Hence Precious Illumination says: in settling the grave, most important is the middle brightness—embracing bright hall, water gathers in the bag; the pass forms the black character pattern; cranes and phoenixes dance in auspicious approach. Outer brightness all can see—an azure curve, jade belt long; still inner brightness sits the acupoint method—divine机 where immortals seek the formula. This speaks of form while also qi; of water while also mountain. The vulgar, not knowing, say Xuan Kong is only water method.

Question 32: Upright main mountain, even dragon and tiger, water out in front—true pairing. If dragon or tiger comes as table, water must differ left and right—how to pair?

Answer: Excellent question. Let water go left or right; at the acupoint there must be vein and brain behind, faint water and small bright hall before. First fix the true pairing here. Left or right is this palace's water mouth—examine principle for which period it matches; fortune good then good, bad then bad. Left belongs to the eldest branch, right to the youngest.

Vulgar people always say dragon benefits eldest and tiger youngest. They do not know: auspicious water left benefits eldest even without dragon; right benefits youngest even without tiger. Inauspicious likewise. Once in Essential Knowledge for Descendants was a chart saying dragonless, tigerless, great river right, youngest branch thrives greatly; the author could not explain until he realized water-coiling is mountain-coiling—thinking it marvelous. Yet mountain is yin, water yang; treating water as mountain, yang as yin, calling male to stand for female—is that not laughable?

Question 33: Southern mountain dragons mostly use dragon-tiger as banks, or near and far mountains as facing banks. Northern plains are empty and open; one water crosses, slightly bends, and the acupoint is set at the bend; or a straight water with a branch joining, set at the junction; or water crossing with branches left and right and a square flat block in the middle, set there—no transforming-life brain, no small bright hall. At such places, how to arrange pairing principle?

Answer: Water crossing is stillness; a slight bend is movement. Straight water is stillness; a joining branch is movement. Still yin is dead and useless; moving yang lives and works. When form moves, qi follows. See which trigram and period it belongs to; bury when prosperous. There is still pairing within. People see it is not as easy as mountain dragons, only watching water to fix acupoints, and say Master Jiang's Xuan Kong is only for plain water dragons—yet the principle is the same. Xuan Kong is ancient, not Jiang's invention; he only brought it to light. Those who slander Xuan Kong point at Jiang—truly laughable.

Question 34: How to examine inner and outer water mouths on plains?

Answer: Where nearby three branches meet is the inner water mouth. From the acupoint, where incoming water is first seen and outgoing water last seen is the outer mouth. The Five Songs say: coming and going, one mouth—gate of life and death. Water passing with stopping, turning, or bank collapse is movement, all governing fortune; unseen from the acupoint need not be judged.

Question 35: Water crosses and has two mouths—how can all match the period?

Answer: When all match, every branch benefits; when partly matching, partly not, benefit and harm divide among branches. Qi fortune comes and goes, so some rise as others fall.

Question 36: Branch allotment differs among schools. Zhang Jiuyi says eldest left, middle facing, youngest right; fourth between eldest and middle, fifth on sitting mountain, sixth between middle and youngest—where place seven or eight sons? Lingdi says left sand eldest, right sand from right shoulder second downward to sand tip however many. Three combinations take long-life as eldest in sequence, or eldest left youngest right. Which is right?

Answer: I first tested this many times without matching; only eldest left, middle facing, youngest right held. Four, five, or ten sons lack fixed rule. Forced to examine by place, after long study it became clear. Arrange left to right however many branches, each taking one place. One branch: all sides go to it. Two: one left one right. Three: eldest left, middle facing, youngest right, as Jiuyi. Seven: eldest left, second third to the right, fourth facing, fifth sixth to the right, seventh at right end. Nine: eldest first, ninth last, fifth facing. Ten: fifth left of facing, sixth right—tested without fail.

Also from re-verification: if before burial the eldest was already dead, after burial the second stands as eldest; good or ill at the eldest's place falls to him. If several sons died, by burial date count the living and allot by rank. These are not in old books. One should still judge by true qi; guessing by three combinations and assisting stars remains unverified.

Question 37: Scholar-official families prize study and fame, entrusting burial to technicians. Hearing you, geomancy is not a minor art.

Answer: The Change embraces all things; great matters are only Heaven, Earth, and humanity. Those who know heaven observe seasons and calamities to nurture life; those who know earth read the coming and going of nine fortunes, approach good and avoid harm to establish life. One should be a steadfast auspicious gentleman, not a regretful petty man, standing with Heaven and Earth. Mencius said: only in burying the dead can one handle the great matter. Who says geomancy is minor? Because technicians lack real learning, they cannot help flattering buyers from door to door—no wonder the rich treat them like servants. The Way is debased by such men, so the art is seen as a minor craft.

Question 38: Does this geomancy alone correspond to the three powers of heaven, earth, and human affairs?

Answer: How could it not? Where great dragons and trunks end, form ceases and qi stores, gathering numinous beauty to birth emperors and sages. Where great rivers loop, capitals and cities are set to control all directions and house rulers and ministers. With their qi fortune, the state is peaceful; without, times decline and order fails. All things are fixed by Heaven—but geomancy also holds the helm. The relocations to Bin and the divination of Luo, the rise and fall of Jin, Jiang, Chu, and Ying all depended on it. Mountains and passes for war, soil fertility for farming—those are what Mencius called terrestrial advantage, not geomancy.

Question 39: Geomancy concerns fortune; people seek good ground for blessing. Some Confucian teachers force against this error and bury wherever they stand—can that be a model?

Answer: Graves are like tree roots, people like branches and leaves. Where earth veins run, roots are fat and leaves lush; where they do not, the tree is thin and branches wither. If the intention is to settle ancestors' bones, fine; if to邀 one's own fortune, not. Shelter from wind and water in a dry warm place—fine; deliberately defying custom and burying casually—no. The great sages Cheng, Shao, Zhu, and Cai—were they not great? Yet they took burial with difficulty and care, only to settle ancestors' spirits and exhaust their hearts.

Question 40: South has high mountains, great ridges, level hills; north has plains and plains-fields; water country has level waters. High mountains and ridges look down and often dry streams; level hills have winding water; broad plains-fields use ditches and roads; low level waters set patterns by water. How do principles differ?

Answer: High mountains, ridges, hills, plains differ only in height and levelness; opening curtains, crossing passes, forming patterns, settling acupoints, facing banks and protecting sand—all the same to examine; with or without water, the same method. Vulgar eyes dislike high acupoint and low water—wrong. On level water land, where dragons travel one may not see a dragon, but two waters夹, and the middle is the dragon's acupoint; one may not see sand, but where water bends there is sand-bend—where sand coils, water coils. Between two mountains must be water; between two waters must be mountain. That is what this means. As for ridges, hills, plains—what need of saying? Plains-fields that use roads: roads must be several feet deep, at least a foot; use according to form and qi and fortune comes; less than a foot, even if used, no effect. Why? Dragon travel and acupoint formation condense yin qi; streams and roads carry yang qi. Yin stops where it meets yang boundary. Mountains enclosing and waters winding are yin and yang joining—the region where Heaven and Earth condense numinous beauty. Ridged, hilly, plain, level-water—all the same. No land under Heaven escapes this frame.

Question 41: Principle rests solely on nine fortunes and uses year, month, day, and hour for response. Are the eight stems, four corners, and twelve branches useless?

Answer: Fuxi drew only eight trigrams. The twelve branches also correspond to heavenly lodges. Ancients made the compass, dividing eight directions into twenty-four characters. The places of Zi, Wu, Mao, You are the palaces of Kan, Li, Zhen, Dui. Zi and Kan both water; Mao and Zhen both wood; You and Dui both metal—so using Zi, Wu, Mao, You need not again name Kan, Li, Zhen, Dui. Qian, Kun, Gen, Xun sit exactly in the gaps of the twelve branches and are the trigrams' own seats—no need to borrow names. At the left and right gaps of Zi, Wu, Mao, You: Ren and Gui are water, attached to Kan palace; Jia and Yi wood, to Zhen; Bing and Ding fire, to Li; Geng and Xin metal, to Dui. Originally one body, one qi—quite clear.

Yet people force it: Jia not wood but joined to Qian metal; Yi not wood but joined to Kun earth—making each phase lose its nature. Some attach Jia to Yin for Yin-Wu-Xu or to Mao for Hai-Mao-Wei patterns; Yi and Bing meet and rush to Xu, Xin and Ren meet and gather at Chen, Earth Ox receives Geng-Ding qi, Metal Sheep gathers Gui-Jia spirit—birth, prosperity, tomb-storehouse, turning left and right—keeping students bewildered unto death. What truly matters is the period fortune and the palace governed by the Grand Year. When One-White Kan governs, Zi of the earthly branches responds in the years Shen, Zi, Chen, Wu. Zi year fills solid; Wu year urges; Shen and Chen hasten meeting. Good answers good, bad answers bad. One branch offended: response in four years; two: eight; three: twelve without cease. In Qian, Kun, Gen, Xun palaces alone, there are always two branches—urging, meeting, filling solid for eight years. Meeting auspicious sand and water when Grand Year arrives, people see swift and lasting prosperity without knowing why, chanting: Qian Kun Gen Xun called imperial streets, four great尊神 arranged within—never asking gain or loss of fortune, so they use them wrongly; when harm comes, they call Qian Kun Gen Xun the killing yellow springs.

Question 42: Great fortune is sixty years, small twenty. Why One-White one hundred sixty, Two-Black one hundred forty, Three-Jade one hundred twenty?

Answer: One-White pairs with Nine-Purple; only when Nine-Purple governs does the One-White site fail. In the upper period Jiazi-Jiaxu twenty years, One-White is in power and prospers greatly; within Two-Black and Three-Jade fortunes, One-White still has residual qi and continues; in four through eight fortunes, though the period has passed, no harm—hence one hundred sixty. For Jiashen-Jiawu twenty years, Two-Black governs and prospers; within One-White (same upper period) it can already be used; Two pairs Eight—when Eight-White governs it fails—hence one hundred forty. For Jiachen-Jiayin, Three-Jade governs; entering One-White it can be used; in its own period it prospers greatly; Three pairs Seven—when Seven-Red governs, Three-Jade fails—hence one hundred twenty. Middle and lower periods follow similarly. In short, within the upper period's sixty years, sites of all three fortunes can be used, prospering fully only in their own periods; middle and lower work the same.

Question 43: Why do Xun and Qian each get fifty years within the middle period?

Answer: Each trigram's own period is only twenty. The middle Five-Yellow period's first ten years of Jiashen belong to Xun; within Three-Jade, Four-Green sites can already be used—hence fifty. The last ten years of Jiawu belong to Qian; within Seven-Red, Six-White still has residual qi—also fifty. Yet within One-White and Nine-Purple fortunes, Four-Green and Six-White each also get twenty prosperous years; correct use prospers greatly, wrong use fails greatly. Only Master Li knew this; my verification confirms it.

Question 44: "One formula of five phases is not the true art; the city-gate formula is best"—what does this mean?

Answer: It means where the incoming head enters and gathers qi behind the acupoint, and where water is released at the mouth before—form and configuration together with principle and qi. Pairing and fortune all rest here; the handle of fortune and misfortune is nowhere else.

Question 45: "Heaven's secrets differ; of eight trigrams only one trigram communicates"—what is one trigram communicating?

Answer: The original words were clear; later interpreters made them more wrong, even saying one trigram communicates with the other eight—ever more perverse, all about principle and qi. One trigram communicating means the trigram of the governing period, when used, is supremely auspicious—called communicating. Not that all eight trigrams communicate—only as I said earlier: a trigram's twenty years in fortune.

Question 46: What is matching Heaven's heart and the Creator's work?

Answer: The vulgar measure the acupoint crosswise and lengthwise, take the crossing as Heaven's heart, or water gathering in the bright hall as Heaven's heart—that is form's Heaven's heart, not principle's. Principle's Heaven's heart is whichever period governs: that period is the true Heaven's heart. Knowing it, one observes human fortune, approaches good and avoids harm, snatches Heaven's mandate, and transforms creation—all through this. Taking that fortune into the center and flying by yin yang forward and reverse—called upside-down, called stars revolving to meet—is function within function; without oral transmission, how could one know?

Question 47: Where sites form, sometimes one acupoint in tens of li, sometimes several in three or five. Everywhere people bury, not all obtain true acupoints—some modest comfort, some self-sufficiency; none wholly cut off, descendants continuing. Is it the land's power or fortune's?

Answer: Though not true acupoints, if terrain is high, dry, and level without evil sand or water piercing, one can self-suffice; with fortune and low modest sand and water watching, one reaches comfort and many descendants. Yet human affairs must also be weighed: the mediocre, even with auspicious sand and prospering water shading the grave, remain ordinary; the diligent, even without evil sand or water, can stand on their own. Combining Heaven's timing, earth's geomancy, and human affairs works in a thousand cases without a hair's error.

Question 48: Can a stepfather's grave prosper the heir who carries on the lineage?

Answer: Why not? See how families ill to women suffer difficult births or scandalous flight—not only daughters but daughters-in-law. Even convents and monasteries can shade their adopted disciples; how could a stepfather fail to shade the successor? But a daughter-in-law's fortune is read from both natal and husband's families; the successor's from both birth and adoptive lines—both involve two households.

Question 49: People all chase great sites, even shockingly bad ones. Would it not be better not to chase great sites but take a dry warm place without evil sand or water?

Answer: Compared with chasing great sites into disaster, that is still a middle course. The poor remain poor, the rich remain rich; a little good adds a little to the rich and subtracts a little from the poor; a little bad likewise. No empty hopes—only settle parents in peace. Rousing fools is immeasurable merit.

Question 50: Northerners bury at once; southerners leave coffins unburied for generations, accumulating ten or more waiting for feng shui; bad storage means growing poorer until they cannot bury, or die out. When someone with means buries several generations at once, how to judge?

Answer: Look only at the living person's nearby parents' graves and distant ancestors': both good, judge good; both bad, judge bad. Distant good, near bad—still bad; distant bad, near good—still good. The near matters most.

Question 51: The wealthier people are, the more they leave coffins unburied, trusting distant graves. Whether stored in the wild or at home—is that fine?

Answer: Near or far, judge the nearest coffin, grave or stored—most critical. If parents live, see where grandparents' coffins rest; if grandparents live, great-grandparents'. Read by fortune. Even coffins at home read as stored graves. Fortune is as clear as lines on the palm. People blame all good and ill of unburied near coffins on distant graves—greatly mistaken.

Question 52: North of the Huai, some build walls around graves. How is that method?

Answer: I have seen it, but they use only three combinations and assisting stars. If Xuan Kong principle were used, the power would not fall short of a true formation—an expedient for plains; also usable in water country. On open plains without sand protection, choose high dry open ground, set the acupoint in the center, build walls shoulder-high four sides a few zhang away, cut off evil sand and water from sight, open the gate in the governing fortune's direction following water-mouth and city-gate rules—fortune will last.

Question 53: If walls can be built, can pavilions act as protecting sand and ponds as boundary water with the same effect?

Answer: I have seen neighbors rebuild houses and dig ditches: the failing suddenly rise, the thriving suddenly fall—is it not for this reason? If it affects fortune, building by fortune truly snatches Heaven's mandate. Harmless to neighbors is fine; harmful to neighbors risks Heaven's principle—never do it.

Question 54: Glimpses of Dwelling Methods details Heaven's Heart one trigram forty-eight patterns, doors and houses, inner and outer six matters. You still call it knowing only yang dwellings. Do yin and yang methods differ?

Answer: Yang dwellings weight pattern not dragon, door not mountain. In trigram and star-adjacency, facing is paramount; moving doors and roads is carpentry—qi enters by door and road and fortune follows. Yin-site mountain method first seeks dragon and acupoint, then facing and draining water—wholly natural; a slip destroys the whole family. Zhu Xulun of Wuxi was same native as Zhang Zhongshan, both of Daoguang; yet formula is given only by transmission—even Master Jiang named his teacher Wu Ji Zi, while these two wrote without naming theirs, already forgetting their roots. A man from Guangling once told me Zhang toured Yangzhou, great families competed to invite him, he gained ten thousand in fees with empty hands, yet never buried a good grave—skilled in principle, blind to form. Because of Zhang I doubt Zhu, fearing he knows only star-adjacency and not form.

Question 55: Heavenly Jade says: Qian mountain Qian facing water flows Qian, Qian peak produces the top scholar; Kun mountain Kun facing water flows Kun, wealth and rank forever free of poverty; Wu mountain Wu facing courted by Wu, great generals guard the borders; Mao mountain Mao facing source water Mao, wealth rivaling Shi Chong. Interpretations differ; even Master Jiang did not fully clarify.

Answer: These speak of form and direction while secretly speaking of principle—secrets within form and direction. Top scholar and general need not be rigid; but Qian is chief of eight trigrams and the gate of heaven. When dragon, acupoint, sand, and water are extremely true and fine, matching fortune, with literary and champion stars meeting, naturally a top scholar appears; if slightly imperfect, still examination success, not first place. But on "Qian mountain Qian facing water flows Qian, Qian peak produces the top scholar," insert an "or": Qian mountain, or Qian facing, or Qian water, or Qian peak—must meet literary and champion stars in meeting years and months; otherwise only wealth and rank. The other seven mountains are the same—not only Qian, Wu, Mao, Kun. Elegant peaks and curved water bring rank; fat peaks and great water bring wealth; outstanding or thick persons also differ by this. I once saw a Li family burial in Weizhou, Zhili, fit to produce a civil top graduate; the family trained in martial arts and produced a military top graduate—habits determine, the land cannot help.

People also treasure forged Xuan Kong as secret, interpreting Qian mountain as dragon from later-heaven Qian, Qian facing as facing primordial Qian, sitting on later-heaven Kan with primordial Kan water as Qian water, or flying and adjoining from sitting, facing, incoming water, and water mouth—all such errors muddy the true transmission. A pity.

Question 56: Why are there barren prefectures and counties in north and south that for ages produce no great man and no examination degree?

Answer: Great cities and towns all occupy feng shui regions. First the walls must obtain land; second offices fit; third temples correct; fourth academies nurture talent; fifth natives set their minds on study with pure scholars to teach—then culture rises. Without study and teaching, how can degrees fall from heaven? At the places I speak of—dragon, acupoint, sand, water, literary and champion meeting—could a hundred-li county truly have none? Is there such principle, such fact? In recent times Hejian men are mostly eunuchs; Shidai, garment workers; Fuzhou, booksellers; Lishui, medicine merchants; Caozhou, bandits; Nanyang, Yingzhou, Shouchun, knife-wielding and Nien bandits—because neighbors see and hear so, and so they act. Could Heaven's mountains and waters specially produce eunuchs, workers, sellers, merchants, and bandits? Zhu Bo in short clothes changed Qi to Chu ways—cultivation rests in people.

Question 57: There are sites with dragon, acupoint, sand, and water without flaw that not only fail to prosper but ruin and die out. Why?

Answer: This is not knowing three-period principle and qi, relying wholly on fine form without waiting for period match to rebury. Auspicious qi has not arrived; evil stars come first—hence ruin in succession. Those who abandon principle and speak only of form—should they not fear?

Question 58: Periods clearly decide grave rise and fall, and before burial one can avoid. If already buried in fortune and then fortune fails, shall all graves be moved? Why do ancients not do this—and some prosper from upper period to lower without failing?

Answer: The principle is there; people only do not know. Even now I show plainly gain and loss; the world does not relocate, and those failing from fortune to loss merely receive it dully, never escaping. Some last three periods not because one upper grave governs to the lower, but over a hundred years the family is not one generation—new graves accumulate: old upper-period graves, middle-period auspicious graves joined, then lower-period new graves—so long-lasting. Only families of great merit and fortune can do this.

Question 59: There is talk of ancient immortals' clamp-records predicting great sites and how they prosper, without saying which period.

Answer: Clamp-records occasionally exist; based on dragon, acupoint, sand, and water beauty, they need not name periods—nor say periods are unnecessary. Ancient masters hid the name of periods; only when Dahong came, fearing false arts harming the world, did he bring them out—wholly a kind heart. Vulgar men cannot enter the hall and call it shocking. Another kind covets the name without transmission, invents interpretations, misleads the world, raising slander of Xuan Kong—making true and false hard to tell. Is it Heaven not wishing all to hear the wondrous Way, breeding such demons?

Question 60: Are clamp-records believable?

Answer: Some yes, some no. Believable: ancient immortals who found fine ground without a worthy recipient left clamp-records for later virtuous men. Not believable: vulgar masters bribed and false, forging clamp-records to cheat fools. The most famous—Guo Jingchun and Liu Bowen—both bore king-making talents; Yang Junsong and Lai Buyi were lofty recluses who dabbled in arts occasionally. Not like modern technicians who carry south-pointing needles to wealthy doors, knowing only to swindle food and clothing, forging clamp-records and decorating charts—without that they cannot move people. Why clamp-records?

Question 61: Gui Danmeng of Qingyang, courtesy name Chaowan, mastered three periods. Before passing, lodging in the capital, he always altered doors and roads; later via dual lists he served, moving residences monthly, and as inspector in Fujian ended as judicial and provincial commissioner?

Answer: When I first entered the capital I knew his name but never met him. From his acts I infer his graves already obtained ground, and he applied star-adjacency to yang dwellings. Altering doors to pass examinations is what I said earlier—taking where literary and champion stars meet. Moving residences monthly takes prosperous qi to approach good and avoid harm. After building the ancestral hall, a nephew passed military examination and a son was appointed Hanlin—he must have deeply understood substance and function to do so.

Question 62: Seeking dragons a thousand li, one acupoint at the end. Books say high pass means high acupoint, low pass low; high bank high, low bank low; dragon and tiger decide height; bagua, nine stars, and five phases decide depth. What is the real method?

Answer: Fixing acupoint from the pass is a technician's habit of boastful talk, deciding height while still tracking the dragon, then forcing fit at the end—I have seen such often. Bank height for fear of crushing pressure: high bank, high point; if bank is far, what of height? Dragon and tiger: what if none? Bagua, nine stars, five phases for acupoint—still more confused.

Earth veins move; calling them dragons is only for their rises and turns. See how ancestral mountains are coarse and forceful; each pass the mountains grow finer and more delicate, better the more they tumble. At the acupoint, form and soil color wholly differ and numinous qi gathers. Without breaks, left-right turns; at turns branches open curtains to vent憋qi—large reed branches, small water-wood whip-like. At the acupoint, sand coils, water gathers, life-qi condenses—thus nests, pincers, breasts, and protuberances form and depth is fixed.

Small nests, pincers, breasts, and protuberances are lesser yin and yang—point the acupoint on them without doubt. Wide nests and pincers are old yang—old yang unusable; seek lesser yin within old yang: breasts and protuberances within nests and pincers. Fat protuberances are old yin—unusable; seek lesser yang within old yin: nests and pincers on protuberances. If large nests lack protuberances and large protuberances lack nests, seek the halo. Nest-halo like the heart's leap—slight high shadow, lesser yin first stirring, seeming and not seeming—the acupoint halo. Protuberance-halo like an infant's soft spot—slight low hollow, lesser yang first stirring, hidden and appearing—the halo. Set the acupoint there: water faces, sand responds, dragon coils, tiger tames—subtle mechanics matching Heaven's secrets. Vulgar masters casually say seeking dragon and fixing acupoint—how easy to say, how easy to say!

Question 63: Mountain hill methods of seeking dragon and fixing acupoint are common; plain and level-water methods are only in Water Dragon charts with pictures, never clearly explained.

Answer: North of the great river, east to Qi, west to Qin, north to You-Yan—plains-fields are six or seven parts in ten, plains two or three, high mountains only one or two; few bury mountains and mostly work plains. Northerners are honest and simple, few practice Qing Niao, not good at deceiving—unlike southerners with their south-pointing needles claiming fine skill. Their dragon seeking also lacks true insight, mostly fixing acupoints by pattern; whether they hit or miss, prosper or not, is fortune.

Traveling with Master Li, on vast level lands he examined the faint rising and falling of earth qi like sinews under flesh and veins under skin—high an inch is mountain, low an inch is water. There are curtains and covers, greetings and send-offs, passes, incoming heads to acupoints—by water, road, or low ground coiling and protecting. Dragon, acupoint, sand, and water all complete; acupoints still nests, pincers, breasts, protuberances—large or small, seeking protuberance or halo, as with mountains. Ride prosperous fortune and use—rise awaits one's step.

On plateaus, looking up they seem high mountains; on them, low as a palm, endless as plains. Acupoints at edges, corners, ends, or centers. Edges overlook cliffs like great rivers and lakes—must have ditches joining left and right; set acupoint where they join and qi gathers. Corners like great and small turns—form round and pure, set where round and pure. Ends slope down with branch limbs as dragon and tiger, like mountain dry-stream acupoints. Centers show no banks in any direction—use ditches or roads; vein and acupoint as on plains. All this has never been carefully distinguished.

Question 64: Jiangzhe is all level water. Since Six Dynasties, worthies appear every generation. May one hear the method of level water?

Answer: Level water is everywhere flooded fields, all made by human impoundment. Before fields, same as plains. Though now fields: where dragon and sand, fields higher; boundary water, lower; passes, lower and narrow; open curtains, broad and level. At acupoints, high fields as sand embracing outside, low fields as water coiling inside. The acupoint field neither higher than sand nor lower than water. Measure form: bury deep or shallow, or mound a plate to receive prosperous qi. The subtlety of use is in the person—only families of merit and virtue will effort it.

Question 65: All say Xuan Kong weights principle not form. Hearing you weight form, Xuan Kong must be finest. Why do three-combination men spare no effort denouncing it?

Answer: There is reason. Xuan Kong can reverse creation—must select people to transmit and apply. Technicians excluded, forced to carry three combinations for a living, make denouncing Xuan Kong their trade; the vulgar help slander. Xuan Kong holders of rare secrets hide their light to avoid worldly entanglement—no heart or taste to argue. They bring it on themselves—Heaven and fate.

Question 66: On high mountains, ridges, plains, and fields, dragon and acupoint are so important—should not famous masters always set main trunks, branches, and special formations? Yet many borrow neighboring cities and patterns and force use.

Answer: There is reason. When main dragon and acupoint cannot yet be used, using them may bring harm; better to use a usable side position to seek fortune. Or the family's virtue is thin—not daring to act against Heaven—use the next best. Ask carefully of times and people and you will see.

Question 67: Does not Xuan Kong practice good and accumulate virtue? Yet you say you seldom apply it for people—is that not contradictory?

Answer: Practicing good means: for families few in descendants and short of life, nearly ending the line, set a site of descendants and longevity; for those of fine character and learning stuck in poverty, set a site of wealth and rank; for generations of kindness meeting a great site, point it out; for those without great evil suffering strange calamity, transform否to泰. If they sincerely revere and believe, take no fee—this is good and virtue. But if they lean on wealth and rank, with no shadow of virtue, hoping extraordinary fortune for profit, rushing from near and far—such people I never lightly apply.

I once saw Master Li assess a prince's living burial; the site was slightly narrow. The prince asked his servant whose land adjoined; "commoner's." "Move my boundary over." Master Li angry: "Why not buy and rob the commoner's property?" He left in his carriage furious. The prince came to apologize; Li refused the聘and hurried home by night. In Xuan Kong, the mind is solely to save and aid the world—princes and beggars are both people; how should wealth and poverty turn one's face?

Question 68: Can old graves and old houses change facing and doors to turn misfortune into fortune?

Answer: Yang dwellings can; yin sites cannot. Yang dwellings use doors and roads for yang qi to enter and exit—doors and roads in declining directions are inauspicious and can be moved to prosperous, turning离to吉. Yin sites take the water mouth as gate and yuan-chen water as road; a stele set as facing is neither gate nor road through which qi passes—merely re-erecting the stele cannot transfer fortune. These are crude vulgar masters seeking fees: climb a mountain and order the stele changed; enter a house and order stove and repairs—thousands alike, all for themselves, not for people. What can be changed in yin sites: on plains where roads are water or small ditches form patterns, move to prosperous as with yang doors.

For the yang door is the water mouth; the road is water qi. Changing plain water mouths and ditches is as with yang dwellings; walls and gates receiving life and seeking prosperity likewise. On ridged and hilly land with sand and water, high and low clear, Heaven and Earth have fixed it—how could turning one stele avert harm and bring fortune? Those who love such talk are the three-combination, Hongfan, resolving-sand, assisting-star schools, making the twenty-four facings primary: change one facing and the whole board's birth, prosperity, death, and extinction turn. Reason it: can one stone stele make dragon, acupoint, sand, water, and Heaven-Earth qi follow it in fortune and misfortune? Without deep study, one knows it is fraud.

Question 69: Yesterday we toured three places with same sitting, facing, sand, and water. One was said to prosper slowly and fail slowly; one to make wealthy sons unfilial; one to wealth and rank but impure women. I asked afterward—true. From what do you distinguish?

Answer: Distinguish from form and principle. Slow prosperity and slow failure: lazy gentle incoming, and dry stream in facing. (Note: even if facing matches prosperous water, if no water gleam—dry stream or low void—prosperity is slow and wealth small; slow dragon with delayed join, even with descendant star at sitting, children also late.) Wealthy sons unfilial: coarse forceful incoming, and reverse water in facing. (Xuan Kong facing star adjacent to facing: any water, coming or going, brings wealth—large water large, small small; but water reverse without affection brings unfiliality and widowhood.) Wealth and rank but women impure: dragon with pass and curtain, water curling in theblack character, yet within dragon-tiger only farmland; a pond left at Chen-Xun, a pond right at You-Xin—outer pattern fine and in fortune, inner water mixed and out of fortune—hence this. (Note: these three acupoints must be Ren mountain Bing facing buried in Two-Black fortune, matching the seven-star robbery; water at facing brings wealth; at You-Xin adjacent wind-fire family is pure yin star, with a pond of out-of-period water—women's licentiousness.) Three combinations know only birth, prosperity, tomb-storehouse, watching water come and go—not the harmful out-of-period water within. Were it in-period water, they would judge auspicious. The world is dull—hard to speak with them.

Question 70: Yin-site men say turning fortune rests wholly in yin sites, ignoring yang; yang men say recovering Heaven's heart rests wholly in yang, ignoring yin. Which weighs more?

Answer: Yin site is a tree's soil; yang dwelling its rain and dew. Planted in fat soil, even with late rain leaves wither awhile yet in the end flourish—yin good, yang no. Planted in poor soil, even with even rain leaves flourish awhile then wither—yang good, yin no. This metaphor is most apt. Weighing force: yin seven or eight parts, yang two or three.

Question 71: Yang books say if descendants are few, move parents' beds and descendants prosper. Verified?

Answer: That is the old eight-dwelling method—moving parents' beds to life-qi, extended years, and heavenly medicine—not fully effective. In my Xuan Kong there is also such use: the bed is the living's eight-chi acupoint; of twenty-four hours, six are spent sitting and lying there. Dry bones in graves can shade descendants; how much more the bed of living kin? I once hastened two men into the school pool very accurately.

Question 72: Star-adjacency lacks true transmission. Three combinations have three-fold greedy-wolf and assisting-star flying hexagrams; Xuan Kong has various. Only Fan Yibin's chart is followed in Feng Shui, collected in Essentials, praised in Three-Character Classic—is it near true?

Answer: True is true, false is false—how can something seem true yet false, near true? It only muddies the true. What they allot: Zi, Wu, Mao, You, Qian, Kun, Gen, Xun into heavenly origin; Yin, Shen, Si, Hai, Yi, Xin, Ding, Gui into human; Chen, Xu, Chou, Wei, Jia, Geng, Ren, Bing into earth. One pattern from mountain, one from facing—forty-eight total. Greedy, great, green, literary, military, broken, assisting, junior adjacently added to the eight directions of heavenly, human, and earth origins; pure honesty enters the center; only eight stars turn left and right, taking greedy, great, military as three auspicious, added to sand and water. Where such land is, so adjacency—how does this differ from fixed birth-prosperity-tomb-storehouse and flying-hexagram patterns?

True adjacency formulas: even in the Imperial Almanac's Correcting the Calendar only the text of three periods nine stars survives, without the use formula—kept as reference. Even the state's wide seeking gave only text, not formula—showing how deep the ancients' secrecy.

Question 73: Master Jiang's compass: four cardinal trigrams each two yin one yang; four corner trigrams two yang one yang. Fan's Yang-forward yin-reverse adjacency following this—where is the error?

Answer: Master Jiang's yang-forward yin-reverse means each palace's yin-yang should be so—this as law, not fixed at the original place. In Two-Black fortune, Two-Black enters center, One-White at Xun: the three facings Chen-Xun-Si must use One-White's Ren-Zi-Gui yin-yang, not Chen-Xun-Si's. Three-Jade at Qian: Xu-Qian-Hai facings use Three-Jade's Jia-Mao-Yi yin-yang, not their own. All eight palaces nine fortunes so. Marvel without end. Here only the outline of Heaven's heart correct fortune, lower trigram raising star. If one wrongly believes false arts—one error here and the whole board errs.

Question 74: The compass has middle, seam, and correct needles; Master Jiang uses only correct—are middle and seam useless?

Answer: I once studied three combinations, read Compass Explanation, researched three needles—all less verified than three periods. Though three combinations say correct needle three fen east, seam needle west not at three fen; Western gnomons also have correct needle east; seam neither fits correct nor verifies. Master Jiang used correct needle—verified and spiritual; follow correct alone. Middle needle leans still more east, more unpardonable—no need to discuss. Correct needle began with Yellow Emperor and Duke of Zhou; middle and seam falsely named Yang and Lai—fine to astonish fools, but in practice they mislead many.

Question 75: Lord Lai's twenty-eight lodges sand-resolving, Lead Projectile's penetrating true transmission, Zhang Jiuyi's exclusive system praised as miraculous and denouncing Xuan Kong as useless—does sand-resolving verify?

Answer: I once studied it; after understanding Xuan Kong, testing showed it only works when matching Xuan Kong's prosperous sand—not otherwise. Most unpardonable are sun and moon's eight lodges. Twenty-eight lodges spread on the compass, seven each direction, paired with wood, metal, earth, sun, moon, fire, water—seven governors. Astronomy gives sun and moon their own natures; Zhang taking Fang, Xu, Ang, Xing four sun lodges as fire is forced; moon like water, Xin, Wei, Bi, Zhang four moon lodges also called fire, giving fire twelve lodges most useful—he does not know his error yet fiercely denounces Xuan Kong: too much self-ignorance.

Question 76: Popular yellow-spring water method says eight yellow springs can save and eight can kill—is that Xuan Kong?

Answer: Xuan Kong truly saves and kills, but it is not yellow springs. The yellow-spring song: Geng-Ding Kun is yellow spring; Yi-Bing fear Xun water first; Jia-Gui facing fear Gen; Xin-Ren water path fear Qian. Only: Geng-Ding facings should not see Kun water; Yi-Bing not Xun; Jia-Gui not Gen; Xin-Ren not Qian. If seeing is auspicious call saving yellow spring; if harmful, killing—wholly reversible and groundless. Some read incoming water as killing and outgoing as saving—pure guessing. By Xuan Kong: take Heaven-Earth-born form and cycling qi fortune, set facing and drain water—ask not whether yellow spring.

Question 77: If Qian, Kun, Gen, Xun four yellow springs are unreliable, and four imperial streets likewise, what can Xuan Kong rest on?

Answer: Take "Geng-Ding Kun is yellow spring": Geng is palace seven, Ding palace nine, Kun palace two. Facing Geng with facing water also seeing Kun flow is seven joining two; facing Ding, nine joining two. By Xuan Kong, not one origin—called mixed and impure; when Li fortune arrives, how not fail, how not kill? If Geng-Ding facing water is solely in Kun palace, not mixing Ding or Geng—pure and unmixed—when auspicious fortune arrives, how not rise, how not save? Same for Kun facing Geng-Ding water. Called imperial street because water method pure and riding auspicious fortune. Riding Li fortune still brings harm. The mixed: when seven-nine in fortune and two out; when two in and seven-nine out—never a fully auspicious day. Not knowing why, they call it killing yellow spring.

Question 78: Countless emperors through ages—how enough Son-of-Heaven land to bury them?

Answer: What buries an emperor is not Son-of-Heaven land. As with great founding houses: first a great wealthy noble site raising one from white clothes to minister; later a stable site securing one generation's fortune. Imperial land likewise: the first emperor's father or grandfather buried on main trunk true acupoint, true imperial land, births the emperor; after founding, any true dragon true acupoint matching fortune naturally pacifies all under heaven.

Through ages only middle-trunk dragons produce emperors who unify the realm. Middle trunk once joined Mount Tai, now crossed the Yellow River; southern trunk only regional bandits—even founding cannot last; history proves it.

Question 79: Commoner land's fortune concerns one family; imperial land's the whole world. In disorder, does commoner land lose power?

Answer: Not so. When rebels run rampant, those on good land, though repeatedly plundered, ultimately survive; those on bad land, though fleeing far unslain, enter death prison. I have seen this with my own eyes—not empty words. Have those who talk geomancy ever taken care to verify so?

Question 80: Yin and yang arts being so, at real affairs all carefully select dates—slight error can turn good dwellings and graves bad and reduce blessing. Masters of selection boast that mere earth-moving and repairs can instantly bring fortune to bad sites. If three arts run together, what to follow?

Answer: Yang dwelling force is less than half yin site—as detailed in Q70—and selection is the last of all. Broadly: avoid Grand Year, three killings, month-day-hour voids and breaks, and clash, overcome, and harm to the transformation life and mourner—enough.

As for seven-governors and four-residuals selection, distinguishing favor, use, enemy, and hardship for aid and avoidance—Master Yang's Song of Creating Destiny fully states the gist. In remote provinces and counties, celestial tables are hard to get, experts rare; even if used, it only raises strange talk. Country fools revere books like Ao Tou and Xiang Ji, stuck on improper spirits. Though the Imperial Almanac refutes their errors, the vulgar still believe.

I test old and new famous graves and village burials only by form and principle for fortune—all clear—never asking which month-day-hour spirits. Selection force is less than the two dwellings' form and principle. Great clans with tall stelae and big tombs do not neglect careful selection: why, when buried on wrong ground, remedies fail—the doubt explains itself.

Seeing popular burial almanacs ignore true form and principle, only speaking of day stems supporting mountain and mending dragon: a grave is forever—only form and principle can be relied on. Can one day's stems and branches support and mend mountain and dragon forever? When I bury, use good ground, reject bad; only follow the Almanac to avoid clash, overcome, and harm, bury in matching fortune—all auspicious. I urge all who love this Way earnestly to seek form and refine principle—never invert root and branch.

Question 81: Those who study mountain forms today call Master Yang's nine stars old and prize Master Liao's instead. You alone stress Yang—must you have reason?

Answer: Stars are not always nine, nor only nine. Water curved, fire pointed, wood straight, metal round, earth square—true forms of five stars. Master Yang, finding forms hard to limit to five, took Big Dipper's seven stars' names and added junior to make nine; fearing endless change, he fully described mixed forms in Shaking the Dragon. Before Yang there were only five stars, no nine.

Master Liao after Yang also named nine stars for variants and exhausted eighty-one cave forms—all lest later people be rigid. In truth none leave the five phases' true forms. Did Jingchun's Burial Classic ever say so? People force divisions: Yang's stars for seeing dragons, Liao's for fixing acupoints. Yet does not Yang's scripture say: Greedy wolf as cave is breast; great gate seeks nest; military bends seeks pincers; fortune-honest comb-tooth plow-head; literary dragon makes cave on level land, high also palm-center fall; assisting star hangs-lamp form, even round head is hollow form?

These nine stars on the dragon's body determine cave form when abundant; otherwise seen on ancestral and parent mountains—protuberances in nests and pincers, halos in nests and pincers.

Why cannot Yang's nine stars fix acupoints? Having taken Yang, not to speak Liao is only to avoid muddled talk confusing hearers. Hence I often say: mountain-form books, only slightly different, still grounded—readable; but principle is forced this way and that, turning five phases and eight trigrams from their order—mountains and waters silent, calamities gather on people unaworn. I do not tire of repeating this only to rouse the deaf and blind.

Question 82: You say examine land first by form, then principle within form. Three combinations step the dragon, name vein and pass, see which storehouse from water mouth matching mountain vein, then set facing—also form yielding principle, principle in form. Why alone insist three combinations wrong?

Answer: Seeing dragons is only on the dragon body: which five-phase star form; incoming vein soft fine lively, not coarse stupid dead-hard; pass broken, not stiff straight; curtains embracing forward, not flying back; stars upright, not leaning. From ancestral mountain step by step, branch after branch: trunk, limb, great trunk side-trunk, great limb side-limb.

Generally ancestral mountains must be high, steep, coarse, forceful; open a curtain and form changes; drop a pass and soil color changes—from high steep to level gentle, coarse to clear fine. At pattern and acupoint: sand encircles, water gathers, acupoint star appears—within, soil neither stone nor earth, firm fine, or five colors or one pure, utterly different from outside soil; or round halo like taiji. Master Yang's Planning the Dragon fully describes this—never rigid about which character dragon must three-combine with which facing water. I have examined widely: all forced, none matching.

What they call matching—facing facing birth, prosperity, imperial street, tomb storehouse; or small dragon-tiger as water storehouse, or large; or unseen mouth beyond dragon-tiger as water mouth, or net-city total mouth—all substitute peach for plum, no real grasp. Entering mountains to find water mouth: see interlocking tightness—two mountains meeting like gates, feet interlocking teeth not letting straight drain, or narrow as stone fence binding众 waters one mouth, or outside mouth mountains lion, elephant, turtle, snake shapes anchoring the mouth—then know fine ground within, without asking which character water exits or from which side of the acupoint, calling it some storehouse.

Mountain qi is yin, undulating down from ancestral; water qi is yang, coiling up from total mouth; both meet at the acupoint region—water's three forks embrace behind, dragon-tiger embrace before. Mountains and waters embracing is yin and yang meeting—this is intercourse with affection.

Looking ahead from acupoint at water exit once seen never again is the departure direction; behind, the incoming head is the vein direction. Combine Xuan Kong principle: match good then good, match bad then bad. Since obtaining the formula, testing has not failed once in ten thousand. Were three combinations truly more verified than Xuan Kong, would I abandon all schools for Xuan Kong alone? Who has no kin—how dare I mislead with nonsense and first ruin myself?

Question 83: Green Satchel says: mountain dragon spirit does not go down to water; water dragon spirit does not go up the mountain. Explainers take one for mountain dragon method and one for plain water dragon—mountain dragons often have dragon without water, plains water without dragon. Right?

Answer: Mountain dragon acupoints often have dry streams—dry streams are still water; plain acupoints often low level without peaks—veins creep and wind to the acupoint—where they come is still dragon. But these two lines speak of mountains' and waters' principle and qi. Mountains have mountain fortune, water water fortune. Mountain fortune cannot serve as water's—hence not going down to water. Water fortune cannot serve as mountain's—hence not going up the mountain.

Question 84: Geomantic books from Hai Jiao and Qing Niao through Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming are many. You alone fix on Jingchun, Junsong, and Dahong—still not deceived?

Answer: Hai Jiao and Qing Niao claim greatest antiquity and are the most false—need not discuss details. Just their diction: how archaic Zhou-Qin writing, yet Hai Jiao is said to be Nine-Heavens Mysterious Maiden's words of Yellow Emperor—how much it resembles speech after Tang! Qing Niao by Chulizi, brother of King of Qin—Zhou kings and lords were rulers; after Han they became ministers.

Before Qin there was no burial planning seeking kingship; Chancellor became highest office only under First Emperor. Before Qin, 宰 and 相 were separate, not highest. Sand堤 was Tang's chancellor ceremony—how could Zhou have it? Are these not all Tang-and-later false books? Only the true need not borrow names; those who borrow names—how can they have true formulas?

Though Master Yang's books spread long, three-combination families altered them to fit their arts. Fortunately Master Jiang obtained ancient editions and annotated freely, letting the world later see Yang's true transmission. Jingchun's Burial Classic speaks wholly of form—three combinations could not alter it, yet still annotated form's life and death as birth-prosperity-tomb-storehouse—stubborn, unawake unto death.

The hardest in examining land is form: from ancestral vein, leaping, flashing, hiding, showing, flying across, countering, side-landing, looking back—endlessly transforming, stranger more true. Exhausting leg and eye, one finally grasps by heart—not gained in a day. Hence ancient burial books: three combinations took Compass Explanation as true principle treasure, treating form as trifling—climbing mountains, before standing still, first use compass for three combinations and four storehouses—is that not the stubborn one?

Question 85: Geomantic books always speak of mountain form or various principles, never three periods as principle. Only Dahong made three periods principle—rare, mixed belief. Why so fierce denouncing?

Answer: I do not blame them for the art, but for willingly suffering the schools' deception, echoing and advertising them, ignorant of Xuan Kong's marvel, freely slandering and obstructing, throwing learners into fire and water. As for no books: Jade Mirror Scripture is the Green Casket's intent—is it not true? Three periods nine palaces—are they not its places? Only it does not specify what is used for mountains, what for waters. The world neither knows use nor effect; books remain unused. Master Jiang obtained secret transmission and clarified its effects—easy formula, hardest to obtain—only to the right person, else a thousand gold refused. In treasuring secrets he also silently warned people: let all encourage themselves with filiality, loyalty, and trust—and the formula could be told to all. Wanderers living by this must stubbornly denounce Xuan Kong; the ignorant love to criticize. When I first studied geomancy, reading all schools drew no comment; studying Xuan Kong, all mocked. I learned everything; over time Xuan Kong proved most verified. Why schools mislead is over-advertising.

Question 86: You obtain the formula secretly, set theory high, hold sparks unstruck. Though you clarify doubts, you still fail to remove them. Will later readers not suspect you only know how to argue, never having obtained the formula—and who will argue for you?

Answer: Am I deliberately secret? Only keeping Master Jiang's and Master Li's sincerity. I once told a few: some tasted lightly without deep belief; some got fish and forgot the trap. I then sealed my mouth, waiting only for sincere gentlemen. Two examples: an old friend—simple heart—I told fully period fortune's coming and going, mountains and waters' pairing; he tested not, told others: no secret formula, only common talk. A relative, when Xianfeng guichai rebels took the city, asked shared hardship and the true formula; fearing loss, I told Heaven's heart correct fortune, lower trigram, raising star. Soon enemies brought rebels to hunt me, unreleasable without bribe; I begged his help—he ignored me. Such people are many. Is it wrong that I keep my mouth like a jar? I have pitied the sick and poor, chosen ground to bury kin—ill recovered, poor revived; they rejoiced their bad luck past and good beginning, forgetting whom they had begged. Modern hearts are not ancient—at home no filiality, abroad no character—hoping yin-site luck for endless poverty. I swore not to spread carelessly; what can idle tongues do to me?

Question 87: People hire masters to find sites; one finds a good acupoint, another denies it, a third refutes again—even three combinations differ from three combinations, Xuan Kong from Xuan Kong. Different eyes or different methods?

Answer: Form's beauty is plain—thousands alike, no difference. Only in operation: Xuan Kong weights riding fortune and time; three combinations are merely blind to timing—form is one.

Modern vulgar masters' refutations are not about form's quality but about belittling one's eye to boast their skill, making the master abandon this for that, then claiming credit and fees—all sect interest. Hence three combinations destroy three combinations, Xuan Kong Xuan Kong—masters and slaves of each view, lawsuits in crowds—all shopkeeper hearts, technicians' worst habit. No-independent-judgment people are never not deceived; it also concerns the family's hidden fortune—invisibly so arranged.

Question 88: In burial clusters graves touch within inches; yet most fail while one prospers. As the scripture says: look at old graves of the world, ten buried nine poor; only one can prosper—coming water and going mountain all match affection. What is matching affection?

Answer: Not only mountains and waters' form matching affection, but waters and mountains matching period affection—else within inches how tell flaw from jade? Mountain dragon small acupoints still hit or miss; plain broad acupoints one mountain many—how distinguish? Those failing were not buried in period fortune; those prospering were buried exactly in it. Matching affection is matching Heaven's heart and the Creator's work. Knowing Heaven's heart, what difficulty in burial?

Question 89: Climbing with you to re-verify old graves, you know fortune at once—distance of years, branch allotment, what is governed—as if seen. What art, what book?

Answer: Is there other art, other book? All from period fortune's gain and loss on dragon, acupoint, sitting, facing, and branch allotment sand and water—one knows distant or recent, which allotment which branch: good then good, bad then bad. As for how good or bad: each of eight trigrams governs what—Appended Phrases of the Change speak most fully. Vulgar Hongfan, three combinations, najia, flying hexagrams called the Change—deepest ugliness. Xuan Kong truly nowhere leaves the Change; calling it mere art demeans Xuan Kong.

Question 90: Northern masters coming south misjudge height; southern masters north find plains groundless—even famous hands lose their strength. Where is the flaw?

Answer: I said before: six ways to examine land, but principle's operation is one method—six ways only for different forms. Northern and southern masters of real skill who fall ill do so from long habit—unfamiliar with local conditions. On first arriving, verify earth qi thickness and vein depth against old graves without error of principle—then how could operations err?

Born in Shaanxi, home in Anhui, roaming You and Dai, Qi and Yu, then Weiyang to Gusu—I have seen all six forms personally. Hence I urge people: first weight form—these six forms; then principle—none of the six can leave it.

Question 91: All who speak Xuan Kong take flying hexagrams as primary; your book never mentions them. Does not the scripture say: upside-down heaven and earth, pairing differs—secrets in Xuan Kong; upside-down, twenty-four mountains have jewels; forward reverse, twenty-four mountains have fire pits—is the formula hidden?

Answer: Upside-down, forward reverse, jewels and fire pits—all speak of comparing mountain and water principle. Mountains have mountain fortune, water water fortune—compared they seem inverted, yet are not. When each obtains its fortune, beautiful as jewels. Mountain fortune runs forward, water reverse—forward naturally forward, reverse naturally reverse, not forged as star-chart left-right. Without understanding forward and reverse, use becomes fire pits.

Water fortune is heaven; mountain fortune is earth. Paired, utterly different—hence upside-down heaven and earth, pairing differs. Not only one mountain one water; this origin with that origin also differs. Knowing the secret, one knows principle—why flying hexagrams? Those who covet Xuan Kong most love to ponder star-adjacency and flying hexagrams, wasting effort—hence blind interpretations multiply.

Question 92: North has thick earth deep water—burial without ramming, without lime and charcoal. South low earth shallow water—hard ramming lime against water and ants, charcoal against roots; Zhu Ziyang even built brick outer coffins—against the saying that the dead wish quick decay?

Answer: "Let not earth touch the skin" is also the sage's word. I have moved old graves north and south. Northern burial: thick earth, acupoints over a zhang deep, at least six or seven feet; little rain—when mounding only a few tread it and finish before the morning. Dry or damp soil both lack dragon and acupoint: dry-soil coffins without water soak rot dry as ash; damp-soil coffins rot as mud—only no white ants.

Southern burial: thin earth, only five or six feet deep, or mounded into a plate. Wind and water robbery bring damp, and white ants chew first. At true dragon true acupoints soil is oiled, dries in wind; coffin and bones as at first burial, still warm, even steaming so one cannot see across. Fine caves north and south are all so.

South has much rain and mist; hard lime keeps water out; soil is loose with many roots; charcoal stops roots at once—things I have seen. Rich families love trees shading graves; only pine and cypress roots do not reach far—but after a hundred years roots also reach; keep beyond two zhang. Worst: Chinese tallow, Albizia, maple, chestnut—roots string across whole mountains, even tens of zhang away must not stay.

South of the county, old graves by the great river, two or three hundred years—plain burial method. In Daoguang a great flood gnawed graves and lime appeared; the kind collected money to move them. Digging lime hard as stone, no damp outside coffin—bottom also hard-limed, joined above below and around, a true stone outer coffin; coffin still new.

Mountain burials: coffin head deep, feet shallow—lice, ants, roots often enter at feet. Today first ram a layer of hard lime at bottom, set coffin on it, ram firm with sides and top—one, lice, ants, roots have no gap to enter.

Question 93: "Dragon divides two pieces taking yin and yang; water faces three forks carefully recognizing the black"—how to divide and take, how to face and recognize?

Answer: Two pieces are one yin one yang—female and male, husband and wife, host and guest. Three forks are where currents join, true and false, still and moving, forward and reverse. One speaks mountains—divide mountain fortune; one waters—recognize water fortune. "Who can understand the eight trigrams drawn on earth? Mountains and waters facing each other." The Green Satchel Preface's eighty-odd lines have no idle word—summing Xuan Kong's subtlety of seeking qi by form, illuminating past and discerning future. Observing human success and failure becomes clear as lines on the palm; spiritual and enlightened, it is no less than holding the black pearl.

Question 94: North level land far water—graves anywhere; simple customs bury at once, few stored. South narrow crowded, half land half water—seekers must turn to hills; sellers hold high, buyers hesitate, technicians stir. The faithful first store then bury; some stored are good, some bad. Is storage fortune the same as grave fortune?

Answer: Graves weight dragon, acupoint, sand, water; storage weights pattern, facing, water—need no dragon and acupoint. Only facing and water method must match fortune—both prosper alike. But burial settles bones and calms kin, lasting with Heaven and Earth; storage leaves souls unrested, with risk of fire, water, and thieves. Those bad should bury at once; even if good, how can one's own luck leave kin's bones long stored? Sin of unfiliality is never greater. Commoners ignorant are laughable; scholars who follow are worse—geomancy does not deceive, people deceive themselves.

Question 95: Mountain dragon gaps in protecting sand are called wind-notches; plains behind without support, sides without sand, wind all around—yet the acupoint does not fear four winds, only one notch wind. What principle?

Answer: I have also seen when opening graves: notch wind left blows coffin bones right; right, left; behind, to chest or feet; sometimes bones destroyed to powder, or incomplete—often seen, truly real. I infer: notch wind blowing the acupoint is like pursed lips blowing an object—its qi most concentrated.

Plain wind comes over a whole wide area, not specializing on the acupoint—nothing feared, no fortune governed. But within tens of steps if villages, houses, temples—winds from their sides pierce the acupoint as notch winds, governing fortune. Plains without sand or peaks take villages, houses, temples as star peaks: in prosperous fortune, high where should be high—good without harm; reverse, harm without good—yin-yang, still-moving meaning as before.

Question 96: Ridged, hilly, plain, level-water—six dragon-acupoint forms. Is acupoint soil color the same?

Answer: Ridged and level hills from ancestral veins, or dragons or mountains carrying stone: acupoint soil is neither stone nor earth—crumble like powder in hand, hard as stone in wind and sun; finest forms taiji halo. Plains and level fields: mostly pale yellow fine soil, or red, yellow, green, purple; finest also taiji halo. Level water amid myriad flooded fields, by ponds and waters: if true dragon true acupoint, soil dry not parched, moist not wet, knead like flour, no sand, stone, or mud—good soil. Taiji halo also. Mixed with sand, stone, and damp—qi-less acupoint; if pattern fits and facing water pure, only for storage not grave. Mounding a plate to set coffin is still storage by name of burial.

Question 97: Scripture says only star-adjacency is most noble, leaking Heaven's secret; yet vulgar masters know not adjacency, only groping Heaven's heart. Why so weighty?

Answer: Readers need not be so rigid—this only praises Xuan Kong adjacency. Geomancy always takes form as substance, principle as function within substance, adjacency as function within function—again secondary. Not knowing adjacency and only groping Heaven's heart means: Heaven's heart is Heaven's heart, adjacency is adjacency—adjacency never leaves Heaven's heart, yet is not only Heaven's heart.

What I said earlier—literary and champion stars meeting bring examination success, also useful for auspicious repairs to hasten wealth and rank—must have fine form, matching principle, plus adjacency for full perfection. Without form and principle, even adjacency works only a time, not lasting. Zhang Zhongshan, though obtained Master Jiang's transmission, loved adjacency—exactly this flaw.

Question 98: Burying by law should bring wealth and rank—but degrees of size and length of time differ. How to decide?

Answer: Traveling dragons with descending stars, curtains, escorts, and net-city, matching fortune when buried, govern great rank. Single weak dragons, incomplete curtains, few escorts, narrow city—rank if any is small. Great wealth sites: receiving great river or lake facing water—near or far, all seeming one mouth to swallow; or great rivers rushing face into embrace; or great ponds gathering in the bright hall never drought-dried—all govern swift great wealth. Small waterways or dry streams govern small wealth, slow in coming; also look at the person's foundation and talent: thick foundation and sharp talent, small land still great rise; thin foundation and ordinary talent, large land still slight rise. Length of time is known from fortune's rise and fall. Modern masters, finding one acupoint, promise top graduate and grand secretary without asking mountains and waters—all flattering words of the tomb.

Question 99: If three-combination yellow-spring eight killings are not called killings, what of Xuan Kong's killings?

Answer: Xuan Kong's killings are not fixed. Where mountain is in fortune, should have mountain not water; where water in fortune, water not mountain. Having what should not be is the killing. When Grand Year urging and meeting arrives in that direction, harm appears at once.

I have a nephew who, from war and fire, stored his father in a brick outer coffin in the mountains for nearly ten years—I saw it, still stable. Later a master surnamed Xu, claiming ancestral Xuan Kong, said killing qi was sealed in the coffin and forced opening and removal. Within a hundred days a son died of pox; months later an infant died at seven days. Coffin in outer coffin ten years without harm—out half a year and such—who is to blame?

Principle's killing is seen on mountains and waters; form's killing—evil rock, straight ditch, reverse water—is plain to the eye. Date-selection spirits are forgotten after the affair—never heard of sealing killing in an outer coffin. Such people invent wild words, ruin lives—though they escape the net, Heaven's real punishment will not spare them. Called ancestral only if the ancestor was truly a famous master; if descendants wander the江湖, how can ancestral transmission be trusted? As with village school tutors' sons—can one call them generation-long Confucian scholars?

Question 100: Xuan Kong people always say they fear leaking Heaven's secrets and offending the Creator—yet never seen offenders punished. How?

Answer: There are; people do not notice. I cite a few as proof. Late Ming, in my home county, Mr. Shi Zhonghong—a national master of鉴—his transmission in the county gazette. Most famous graves and houses half from his hand. He kept one acupoint behind his house, planted a pine as mark; at death told his son to bury him under the pine. After death the son carried the coffin up—where he had planted pine, new pines had grown, whole mountain a forest; acupoint lost. That night a dream to the family: I wrongly buried forty coffins for others and received underworld punishment—do not bury here. They buried elsewhere. I climbed that mountain: acupoint remains but trees dug, soil removed, two waters washed it—unusable.

Also early Daoguang, in my county a family of father and sons successive treasury clerks, no good deeds. Hearing a Master Qu from Hubei come, they welcomed him with gifts and excellent treatment. Qu, not knowing their character, moved by their courtesy, promised a great site. Qu, a Xuan Kong expert, after years found one at Zongyang, chose a day; digging, soil was excellent—then turned to clear water. Qu was eating dried beef; hearing this was shocked and got choking sickness, worsening for months. Someone urged him home; Qu, grateful, must repay a site first. Still ill he entered mountains and found one at Wuling River, predicting a provincial graduate. Delighted, the man; Qu said: only to make up—this land far worse than the former; fate cannot be forced. On burial day Qu laughed by the acupoint, suddenly vomited a blood clot—breaking it, the dried beef. Sickness also cured. The man's nephew indeed passed the northern provincial examination; now ruined, one or two descendants left, homeless. Were Shi and Qu not punished? In these dialogues, cross-text hints reveal Master Jiang's mind fully—out of pity for filial sons and compassionate grandsons crying to Heaven with no teller, heart unable to cease. May the High One and former masters perhaps look on.

These hundred clarifications of doubts, once copied, I cannot help smiling: makers of false arts are deluded; believers deluded; I, worrying people's delusion, diligently lecture and specially clarify doubts—also deluded.

Through ages only loyalty, filiality, worthiness, goodness, virtue, benevolence, and righteousness—benefiting their times, names lasting后世—are everyone's most urgent task. Seeking land to settle kin and calm spirits as aid to loyalty, filiality, and righteousness—fine; seeking wealth and rank, flattering power, poisoning living beings—then geomancy's Way truly becomes the world's criminal. I urge gentlemen: always stroke the square inch of the heart until open and plain it can face Heaven, Earth, and spirits—first seeking true dragon and genuine acupoint therein. Free and easy, the commoner's closing brush.