The Shikongren Method: Cases, Volume Nine

Translator's note. A student's notebook, in four cases and then a page of practical advice that is more useful than any of the cases: pick the largest, most obvious movement; if you cannot read one, wait for another; you are not obliged to interpret everything. The two best moments are a chair that nearly tips and a teacup carried off by a waitress.

Teacher Xu Hongtao was demonstrating in the new classroom that one more person could still sit in the front row. Taking him as the origin, he sat down on a windowsill in the X direction of the room. The sill was a little lower than a chair; he lurched, and then settled.

The master read from this: in a ding year or a gui year there would be an important matter — a lurch, and then it settled. The feedback: in 2023, the guimao year, he moved a grave, taking his father from a small mine pit to the platform there, and later that same year moved it again to Jingbian and there it stabilised.

The buttocks stand for platform matters; sitting down is a matter of support, and an important one. When he lurched he grabbed the table, and the table stands for matters connected with the seal — houses, cars, ancestral graves, documents, certificates. The feedback: in 2023 he bought a flat from Evergrande, Evergrande collapsed, and the flat lurched; the handover had not happened, and in the end it was handed over. Because he was smiling as he did it, it was a happy ending. When he sat down he also leaned back against the curtain, and everything to do with the curtain is connected with the seal. The classroom faces the gui-ding line, and he was facing north as he sat, which is why the judgement was for gui and ding years.

Analysis: a lurch means that the matter was lurched — like putting your back out — but in the end it landed. Had he fallen flat, that would prove a platform matter thoroughly ruined. Sitting on a chair or on the ground is the same: a platform, and sitting is something that supports you, an important matter. As he went down onto the empty space he grabbed the table — human instinct — and that shows the matter has to do with the seal, with the meanings the seal carries: house, ancestral grave, car, study. One cannot say it was the grave, but at the least it is closely tied to seal matters.

Only one movement was observed before he sat, and then the table grab read it as seal-related. When he had finally sat down, come back to himself and was still smiling, that meant the matter would end well, not badly. Evergrande had not handed over but in the end would; a nearly abandoned project, and in the end handed over — because after the lurch he sat down, meaning that though there was an obstacle, the ending was happy. The grave had been moved to a place that was not suitable, there was inauspicious sand, it was moved again — but the ending was a smile. One reading of a process can lock onto many matters. A grim face would mean a bad outcome; a bared-teeth grimace, a bad outcome; he was smiling, so the seal and all the important things connected with it were locked, and the final result was happy and good. The process had a slip. And when he sat he also leaned back against the curtain, and the curtain too is a seal matter: everything he did was closely tied to the seal.

A woman was pouring tea for us. She thought the water too hot, and poured it back and forth between two cups — from this one into that, then from that one back into this. I have forgotten the year; the master read that a major transfer of money had occurred — not a loss, a transfer. Her feedback: she had sold a house and bought a house; the money from the sale came back and then went out again. Money came and went, poured back and forth.

Chen Peng — I read that he had lost money because of a woman. In a very auspicious direction of his, a teacup; a waitress came and took the cup from in front of him. He was just saying, “Read me, then, how am I?” — 2019 or some such year, I forget the direction — and the master read that he had lost money because of a woman. He said it was not one woman but two. His wife had invested all the money with another woman; that woman ran off. He had given all his assets to his wife, his wife invested them with someone else, and that person took them and ran. He had only fixed assets left; not one yuan of savings, all of it cheated away. The waitress cleared the table completely clean, and on her way out put in one more word.

To handle a client, catch the most obvious actions and gestures; there is no need to strain your eyes. Will you refuse to read because he licked his tongue? Watch the large movements, or the large movements in the outside environment, and read from those. One man will produce countless gestures and the environment countless changes. Choose the most obvious, the easiest to read. If some action is hard to interpret, do not interpret it; interpret whichever one you can. Wait for the action you can read, and read that. If a girl appears in the northwest and you do not know how to explain it, wait until a girl appears in the southeast and explain that. You have forgotten what the northwest means — fine, remember that the southeast is wealth and getting rich, and a girl is also wealth. A little girl appearing in the southeast is information of money coming in. Then read that in a chen or si year, or a xu or hai year, money will certainly come in.

If you do remember that the northwest is cultivation, study and culture, you can read that in that year he gained something through study — or that money came, because it is connected with study: he joined a class, met someone, and that person asked him to look at a feng shui site and he earned a little. That is profiting through study.

Watch who spills food on his clothes, and in which direction he spills it, and you can date it. If there is no time at all, say “recently” — in the next few days, the last two days, or within two days.

When you go out to inspect feng shui, the client who follows you is always producing gestures, and a few readings with the Shikongren method will impress him. If he is climbing a slope and does not get up it and falls, look at the direction: if he was climbing south and fell on the southern slope, then in a bingwu or renzi year there will be a setback in his career.

On 24 May, a wuxu day, the agent said the house could be sold and asked us to come and do the paperwork. It came to nothing; we made the trip for nothing and had to wait again. On 19 June we went back from Beijing and formally completed the transfer.

Recorded by Xu Hongtao and Wang Lixiao, noon, 17 June 2026