Ming is Chinese for life or destiny. Therefore Ming Gua means Life or Destiny Gua.
It is a diagram (also denoted by a number) that is assigned based on our Chinese Solar Calendar year of birth. The number (or Gua number) can be between 1 to 4 and 6 to 9. The number 5 is not used. (The Chinese Solar year usually starts on or around the 4th February every year. Therefore if you are born before the 4th February you should take the previous year as your year of birth.)
There is a simple technique to calculate the Ming Gua number. For someone born between 1900 and 1999, you take the last two digits and reduce it to a single digit. Then take 10 and subtract it from this digit. The resulting number is the Ming Gua number. For someone born on or after 2000, you do the same but instead of subtracting from 10 you subtract from 9.
Let’s take the example of someone born in 1948. The last two digits are 4 and 8. When we add them together we get 12 (i.e. 4 + 8). We can further reduce the number 12 to a single digit, 3 by adding the numbers together (i.e. 1 + 2 = 3). Finally we subtract 3 from 10 giving 7 which is the Ming Gua for someone born in the Chinese Solar year of 1948.
Similarly for someone born in 2003, we take the last two digits 0 and 3 and reduce it to a single digit, 3 by adding them together (i.e. 0 + 3 = 3). Finally we subtract it from 9 (i.e. 9 – 3) to give a gua number of 6.
The Ming Gua is use in many systems of Feng Shui such as the
You should note that in some systems the gua number is calculated the same way for both the male and female born in the same year. In others the gua number for the female born in the same year is calculated differently resulting in a different gua number of the female born in the same year as another male.
For example in Xuan Kong Da Gua, a Feng Shui system, the gua number is calculated in the same for both the male and female. It is used primarily to determine the optimal orientation of the front door and water location.
In the Eight Mansions (a.k.a Eight Houses) system the gua number is calculated differently for the male and female members of a household. The application is different. It is used mainly to determine the optimal location of the main door, kitchen and bedroom plus the orientation of the main door, stove and bed for the occupants of the house.
Although in both cases the same Ming Gua is used, there is no conflict as the way that it is applied is different. Both systems have their own unique way to apply the Ming Gua.