“Kong Wang” Lines 空亡線 － Lines of “Lost Space”

There seems to be a lot of fearful talk lately on the feng shui forums and chat rooms about the “Kong Wang” line. It gets our attention when it is translated as a “Death and Void” or a “Death and Emptiness” line, when in fact it should be more aptly translated as a line of “Lost Space”. Since “Kong Wang” refers to a situation when the actual sitting and facing of a house or a tomb site is impossible to obtain. But because different schools have different ways to calibrate space, it is impossible to define what constitute a “Kong Wang” line universally. A “Kong Wang” line for one school may not be the same for another.

For example, the “Da Kong Wang” (Big Kong Wang) lines showed in the picture below may applied to Flying Star Feng Shui, but they are readable for the San He Water Methods and the “Xiao Kong Wang” (Small Kong Wang) lines are also readable for the Xuan Kong Da Gua School of Feng Shui, hence we have this popular saying about the uncertainty of the “Kong Wang” lines:

无中中藏有，空者实不空。
识得此中秘，天下任横行。
该正用兼线，房份必不均。
该兼用正线，家中难安平。

“There is “have” hidden in “not-have”,
What is empty is in fact not empty.
Knowing the secret of the in-between,
Then you can travel anywhere on earth.
Use “zhong” when the “jian” is needed,
The spatial arrangement is lopsided.
Use “jian” when the “zhong” is needed,
There is no peace within the household.”

Note: “Zhong” refers to a reading in the exact middle of a “mountain”, whereas “Jian” refers to a reading close to the boundary between 2 “mountains”.

As I said earlier the character “Wang” 亡 need not be translated as “death”, it can be translated as “destroyed” or “perished” as in something that is not clear or “lost”, and “kong” 空 need not be translated as “void” or “emptiness”, but referring “space” as in “kongjian” 空間, so “Kong Wang” need not be translated as “death and void” or “death and emptiness” but “lost space”, which means when the compass needle is sitting right on a line separating two Mountains, then we cannot read the Yin/yang of the Gua Qi of the space, but there are always the physical observations, with our five-senses and with our heart-mind, which we can use to make the adjustment, so the reading is not lost or perished or destroyed (“wnag”), and the law of Feng Shui has not broken down as some would claim.

There are in fact temples and sacred buildings in traditional China that deliberately sat on the “kongwang” lines, to show that these buildings can transcend the Yin and Yang dialectics of this mundane world we live in.