As one of Feng Shui's most prominent methods applied into household practice in striving towards optimum health, wealth and children, Eight Mansions (BaZhai) is mainly an interior system primarily used by Feng Shui masters in acknowledging the basic energy map of a property and enable proper use of the internal sectors of the house.

With notes adapted from the method's most famous classic, Bazhai Mingjing, Eight Mansions Bright Mirror is a translation containing:

• Upper Scroll in which the nitty-gritty of Ming (Destiny), Gua (Triagram), Hetu (River Map), Loushu (Lou writing), Bazhai stars; House matters of door, path, stove, water well, toilet, grinder, bed, marriage, building, and time selection; trigram and star relationships; House shapes, other ways of assigning the Bazhai stars; and Cures is detailed;
  
  
• Lower Scroll which examines more advanced teachings and Incoming path; Palace counter star; Stove direction, room location; Marriage, children, illnesses and disaster; Prohibitions; Stars in palaces (Shining Water Classic); Water flow (Jade Carriage Classic); Pulling in Purple White; year tables; and Foot-rulers (auspicious measurements).

Eight Mansions Bright Mirror includes the:

• Original script of over 30,000 Chinese characters;
  
  
• Word-for-word translation for both scrolls;
  
  
• Notes by the translator;
  
  
• Reference numbering and footnotes, and
  
  
• Supporting appendices and index.

This fully transcribed and annotated Bazhai Mingjing is now available as a convenient reference for serious students and keen practitioners.

Author Terence Chan, a student of Joey Yap, previously published the Earth Study Discern Truth, a translation of the Feng Shui classic, Di Li Bian Zheng. Eight Mansions Bright Mirror is his second book under the Chinese Metaphysics Reference Series.

Foreword by Joey Yap

In recent times, people from all over the world have found themselves drawn to the study of Feng Shui. They are learning to shun the recent trend in commercialised "New Age" Feng Shui in favour of studying classical Feng Shui which draws upon the ancient Chinese classics. Feng Shui is once again becoming respected. In the past fifteen years, I have taught classes and held seminars in five different continents and a great proportion of my Feng Shui students speak English; many of them exclusively. The Feng Shui classics, of course, are written in ancient Chinese and a deep understanding of the language is necessary to fully comprehend their meaning in its full complexity. This illustrates the need for accurate translations of all of these texts so that Feng Shui is fully accessible to everyone. In my many years as an educator, I have always taught my students that translation is a worthwhile and beneficial endeavour as it not only advances the translators own understanding but that it also advances the field of Chinese Metaphysics as a whole. One of my own Mastery Academy students, Terrence Chan, has made a key contribution to the field with the completion of this book.

Translating ancient texts is no small feat. Many words and terms have no obvious English synonyms and it requires patience and lateral thinking to come up with the best solutions to this problem whilst making sure nothing gets "lost in translation". Terence Chan has risen to this challenge time and time again and at this point; he is no stranger to translating the classics: his first efforts resulted in the publication of Earth Study Discern Truth: A Translation of the Feng Shui Classic Di Li Bian Zheng (地理辨正) in 2008. It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Terence's latest book, Eight Mansions Bright Mirror, a translation of Bazhái Mingjing, which is one of the keystone classics of Eight Mansions. For the first time, you can learn about the important concepts contained within without the need for your own translation which can be erroneous. It is my belief that the publication of this book fills a gap in any existing English Feng Shui library and you can be sure that the information is authentic as it is based on the original source material. This book is indispensable for homebuyers or those who wish to utilise the interior of their home to best effect.

In my book Feng Shui for Homebuyers - Interior, I wrote that:

Eight Mansions is mainly an interior Feng Shui system and is primarily used by Feng Shui masters to understand the basic energy map of the property and enable proper use of the internal sectors of the house. It is a long-term system, designed for long-term results, rather than short-term results. It is a system that works more steadily, therefore it is an extremely suitable system to be used by homebuyers because people often buy a house for life, or at least, to occupy for a good number of years.

Eight Mansions is one of the few classical Feng Shui systems widely practiced by Feng Shui Masters today. In Eight Mansions Feng Shui, a house has a governing trigram known as the House Gua (宅卦). An individual, by virtue of his or her birth date, also has a personal governing trigram known as the Life Gua (命卦). The basic idea of Eight Mansions Feng Shui is quite simple - match the house to the individual.

The Eight Mansions system harks back to Yellow Emperor House Mansions Classics. However, back then the system only utilised the House Gua method. Subsequent classics from the Qing Dynasty such as Eight Mansions Guiding Mirror (八宅明鏡) and Golden Star Classic (金光斗臨經) outline the importance of using House Gua along with the Life Gua, along with special techniques called Inter-Relationship between the Stars and Palaces Method (星宮生剋), which deals with understanding each of the elements of the eight stars in Eight Mansions Feng Shui.

Bazhái Mingjing has been meticulously translated by Terence from the original script, published over two hundred years ago, of over 30,000 Chinese characters. This script dealt with both the Upper and Lower Scrolls. The resulting translation is an excellent supplement to my book Feng Shui for Homebuyers - Interior, especially for those enthusiasts who wish to take their basic studies of Eight Mansions to the next level. As the translation is verbatim, you are best advised to study this book under the guidance and instruction of a trained Feng Shui master or teacher who can help you interpret the meanings, place it within the relevant context and help make the text's subtle nuances fully known to you. If you prefer such formal guidance on how to correctly interpret and apply the wisdom of the text, I strongly recommend that you consider our Academy's Feng Shui courses.

I am immensely proud of Terence for his relentless dedication, effort and invaluable contributions to the field of Feng Shui. He has made another important ancient text available to a wider audience and for this he deserves my gratitude! I wish him all the best with this book and hope that you, as a reader, will derive many hours of pleasure and some invaluable knowledge from his efforts.

Warm regards,
Joey Yap
Founder of Mastery Academy of Chinese Metaphysics
May 2011