Kua 6

Meaning

Kua 6 is the Kua of Qian ☰, heaven, the trigram of the north-west and of the start of winter, of creative strength and a clear purpose. Among the numbers of the Lo Shu it holds the north-west corner; among the eight Kua it belongs to the West group, with 2, 7 and 8, whose supportive directions are the west, the north-west, the south-west and the north-east.

The Eight Mansions give Kua 6 its four supportive directions in this order: the west, its Sheng Qi, Growth, the best for work and new beginnings; the north-east, Tian Yi, Restoration, for rest and recovering one’s calm; the south-west, Yan Nian, Harmony, for relationships and a shared table; and the north-west, its own trigram’s place, Fu Wei, Stability, for quiet study. The four others, the south-east, the east, the north and the south, ask for more care: they suit a storeroom, a hallway or a room used briefly better than a desk or a bed.

The tradition sees in Kua 6 something of Qian’s strength, leadership and the steadiness to hold a course, and of the 6 White that has its home in the same corner, the star of authority and of the support of those above. Its suggestions are ways to give that strength a place to rest as well as to act: a desk facing west for new work, the head of a bed towards the north-east to recover.

In practice

• At a desk: face the west, your Growth direction, for work and new projects; facing the north-west, your Stability, suits quiet study.
• For sleep: the tradition suggests the head of the bed towards the north-east, your Restoration direction, or towards the south-west, your Harmony.
• The door: a front door facing the west or the north-east suits you best, the tradition says; a door is seldom chosen, so take it as a reason to keep that entrance bright and clear.
• Less suited: where you can choose, not sitting long facing the south, your Depletion direction; the south-east, the mildest of your challenging ones, suits storage.
• The home: a house of the West group, sitting in the west, the north-west, the south-west or the north-east, is read as suited to Kua 6; in a house of the other group, the tradition suggests using your own supportive directions within it.

Across traditions

• In Nine Star Ki, Japan’s nine-star astrology, a solar year whose centre star is the 6 White, such as 2003, 2012 or 2021, gives everyone 6 as their principal number; the yang count’s Kua 6 falls in those same years.
• In the Flying Stars the 6 White has its home in the north-west, the Qian palace, the same place as Kua 6’s Stability: the star of authority, leadership and recognition, timely through Period 6, from 1964 to 1983.
• In numerology 6 is the number of care, responsibility and the home; the Kua’s 6 is the Lo Shu’s, the north-west and heaven, a different reading of the same digit.

Origin and history

The Eight Mansions school, whose classic is the Ba Zhai Ming Jing, a manual of the Qing dynasty, names a person’s Kua after the trigram and a house after the trigram it sits in. A house that sits in the north-west and faces south-east is a Qian house, of the West group; the school reads it, and the Kun, Gen and Dui houses, as suited to Kua 6.

In the classical table of the three Yuan, the yang count, going back one a year from 7 in 1984, comes to 6 in 1985, 1994 and 2003; the yin count, going forward one a year from 8 in 1984, comes to it in 1991, 2000 and 2009. The count itself is classically a matter of sex, yang for a man and yin for a woman; Ulune asks for the count, only as an option, and shows both Kua without it.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune gives Kua 6 for the yang count when the digits of the solar year reduce to 5, since 11 − 5 = 6: 1985 gives 23, then 5. For the yin count it needs a year whose digits reduce to 2, since 4 + 2 = 6: 1991 gives 20, then 2.

The year is the solar year, which turns at Lichun, around 4 February: a birth in January belongs to the solar year before. A birth on Lichun’s own day without a time gets a note saying the year, and so the Kua, could be the one before.

Correspondences