Q&A Sunday: Front Door and the Six Killings

What do you do when the front door faces your six killings direction?

Soy K., Pinole, CA

Hi Soy!

Thank you for asking this very interesting question. As you may (or may not) know, I’m a BTB Feng Shui practitioner. BTB is one of the many many schools of feng shui. This question is for a classical feng shui expert, so I consulted my good friend Beth Grace, who also does our yearly Chinese Zodiac readings. You can check the 2018 readings here. 

By the way, I also incorporate classical feng shui here and there in my own life, but my expertise is in BTB feng shui. And in regards to advising others, my teachers have said a beginner (like someone who’s read a book) may know just enough to be dangerous. Of course, it's beneficial to try techniques out and see how they work for yourself. For instance, in BTB and in Buddhism, you are encouraged to experience and work with all the dharma teachings. Keep what works, discard what doesn’t. But when teaching others, your karma mixes with theirs… and it’s a big responsibility! So with that, I am so pleased to share what Beth offers us.

Beth reminds us that in all the schools of feng shui (she’s been educated in quite a few!), the front door to your home is very important. We want the qi, or life energy, coming into our home to be positive, which is good feng shui. Liu sha is translated into English as the “six killings”. Beth says the meaning is “distorted in translation”. The English word “kill” or “killing” provokes fear in us. Instead, Beth and I wish to reconsider this fear-based way of looking at the world. The six killings is not about anyone being killed, but about six negative activities that can be brought on: lawsuits, bodily injury, need for surgery, robbery, scandals and adultery. Of course these are still undesirables, so what to do? I quote Beth: “All is not lost; we have tools!”

In classical feng shui, there are eight directions, four are positive and four are negative. The six killings is one of the negative directions. Beth tells us that each sector, for instance the North, is divided further into three sub-sectors, North 1, North 2, and North 3. An experienced feng shui practitioner can determine which sector the front door actually falls into. Your door may not be in a problematic area.

But if you do find out the door is still in the six killings direction, you can further fine tune your feng shui with Xuan Kong Da Gua, which divides your floor plan into the 64 hexagrams. There are smaller sectors and with this technique, if required, you can change, tilt and/or alter the front door to welcome better energy into your home (and life) based on your personal astrology. For example you can match your personal hexagram(s) to your front door. 

That said, with this fine tuning, I cannot emphasize enough that it’s very important to engage an experienced feng shui consultant for something as specific as this. Be careful!

And many, many, many thanks to the beautiful and wonderful Beth Grace for sharing her knowledge and expertise with us! Be sure to check out her website; she has a great monthly newsletter with Chinese Astrology predictions every month. I highly recommend you sign up! Don't forget to check out your Chinese Zodiac for the Year of the Earth Dog, also thanks to Beth!

by Anjie Cho 

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday".  We will be answering questions submitted by our readers. Click here to submit any Feng Shui or Green Design questions!

Q&A Sunday: What Color Should I Paint My Front Door?

How do you know which color to paint your front door? 

Teri G., New York, NY

Hi Teri,

This is a question that comes up a lot! And I'm going to throw that question right back at you, because it really depends...on you. There is no magic perfect color, but I’ll go through some guidelines and ways to approach this decision.

First thought, best thought

What is the color you want to paint the front door? What’s the first color that arises right now? Remember: first thought, best thought. Don’t overthink it. It may just be the color that works best for you. 

Mundane matters too

Now think about the color that popped into your consciousness for your door color. Let’s look at this practically. Does it fit with the rest of the house? Colors have countless variations that can probably work with your home, and that’s where a designer can help you to find the option that works best. 

Have fun with it!

But it’s also okay if the color is maybe a little out of place. First of all, it’s just paint - you can always repaint the front door. Second, I'd like to share a story my teachers have told about Professor Lin Yun (founder of BTB Feng Shui). He told one of his clients to paint their whole house exterior purple! Now this is pretty extreme, and this person ended up becoming the talk of the neighborhood, which in turn created a huge business boom. I’m not suggesting you should paint your whole house fluorescent yellow, but you can have fun with the door and remember that painting a front door is not a huge commitment. You can always repaint it!

Try red or black

Red and black painted doors are good basic go-to’s for front door colors in feng shui. Red is auspicious and can attract life energy. Black also absorbs and also brings in positive qi. But this is the “Barnes and Noble” answer!

The mouth of Qi

With all of the above considerations, remember that your front door represents the mouth of qi. This is where energy from the world can enter your home and life. Maybe you do want a door that blends into the rest of your home and looks dignified and subtle. Or maybe you want to attract some energy, in which case a bright red door could look great and do wonders for your opportunities. Now we've come full circle to the first thing I mentioned, which is that the color really depends on you and your life circumstances!

In some areas of the home, there are certainly colors you might want to avoid. All black in any room can make a space feel smaller, and red in a bathroom can make relaxation difficult. But when it comes to the front door, anything is fair game. It's such a small area it can easily be repainted. Put some thought on your decision, and be willing to take a chance on trying a new color!

by Anjie Cho 

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday".  We will be answering questions submitted by our readers. Click here to submit any Feng Shui or Green Design questions!

Q&A Sunday: Laying a Bagua with Unusual Door Placement

I'm an interior designer just starting to learn about Feng Shui - I just discovered your podcast and I love it! Thank you for sharing your knowledge about this. I popped the floor plan of my apartment into Autocad - It's attached here. I have no idea how you would impose the bagua on this layout, because the entrance is in a strangely shaped corridor in the middle of the space. I would love your opinion on the right way to look at the space. 

Laura K.H., Brooklyn, NY

Hi Laura,

Happy New Year! Thank you so much for your email, and I’m glad you like the podcast! 😃 Hopefully I’ll bring it back one day!

Laying a Bagua with Unusual Door Placement - Floor Plan.png

It's great that you have a nice floor plan drawn of your home. You’ve labeled that the front door of your apartment, the door by the kitchen, is the “main entrance”. I’ve graphically place a big red arrow there for reference. If that is indeed the main entrance, you would lay out your bagua as shown on my sketch here in solid red lines, with the Path in Life/Career area as shown. This arrangement leaves your entire dining room, living room and office outside of the bagua area, as extensions of the bagua areas adjacent. For instance, Career extends to part of the dining room and the sofa area of the living room, as shown with the dashed red lines. The dashed blue area could be considered part of the Career extension creating a boot like shape. 

I would strongly advise that you rethink the “main entrance” to your space and start using the door in the living room, which would place the bathroom, bedroom and office as extensions. In addition to switching up and using the living room door, you can also use the first step when you reach the landing of your hallway as the “yin” door and lay a second bagua. It looks like you may be on the top floor of this building, so you could claim that hall area as part of your bagua. This would give you the most balanced bagua. And it’s slightly better to walk into the living room first than the kitchen and bedroom area.

You can claim the hallway as part of your second bagua layout with energy, or with color or rugs or other visual ways. 

Let us know what you think! 

by Anjie Cho 

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday".  We will be answering questions submitted by our readers. Click here to submit any Feng Shui or Green Design questions!