Daoist Priest · Longhu Mountain · Australia
Sean Lau 九宸道人
Kan is to read the heavens; Yu is to survey the earth. Reading the Yi Jing since 2008, working across Sydney and Melbourne since 2018, and lately building temples out of code so an old Way can land on a modern screen.
The person
A man who carries a luopan and a keyboard
My name is Lau Shanxi, 刘山溪. Sean Lau in English, Jiuchen as a Daoist name. Zhengyi school, Longhu Mountain, Shan generation, and the Shan in my name is the generation character. Master Falei brought me into the Dao in 2016, after two years of looking me over.
Sydney and Melbourne, over a thousand people through the door by now. Houses mostly, then charts, single questions put to the hexagrams, and dates. People often open by asking whether I believe in any of it. What I usually say is that the Chinese rule about sitting north and facing south has to be turned over down here, because north is the sunny side below the equator. You do not have to take my word for that one. Go outside and look at the sun. With charts I do not hand people verdicts. Not out of withholding: there is more to give than a sentence. A sentence answers when, while what you usually want to work out is why you want the thing at all and how it is to be had. What a chart can show you is which way the road runs: which years you can move quickly through, which years call for care, and what frame of mind to carry through a given stretch. The real nuisance on a site visit is not the house anyway. It is parking. Half the older streets here are too narrow to get the compass level before somebody wants the car moved.
The boxing came first. At fifteen I did basic conditioning under old Master Zhang Yuren at home, and he sent me on to Taigu, into old Master Che Xiangqian's school. Shanxi Che lineage, Shang generation. Somewhere in those Taigu years an inner breath started moving and I had no words for it. Both teachers said the same thing: for that, go into the Daoist tradition. So I read my way in, and the boxing never stopped. I still teach a few students.
Weekdays I write software. A computing degree from UTS, a master's in accounting from UNSW. Casting a chart is fussy in the same way software is fussy: give it a moment and a place, the pillars fall out, the luck periods run down from there, and one wrong step early puts everything after it out. The solar terms are where people come unstuck, and below the equator you have to flip them.
Practice
Seven things I can do for you
From the facing of a single room to the architecture of a whole system. All of it is work I take on.
- 01 Feng Shui
Feng Shui Survey and Remedies
Read the season, the land and the doorway. Houses, offices, shops, factories and farms. I check a place before you buy it and adjust it once you live there: advice on site, help with the setting out, and a follow-up visit afterwards.
- 02 Bazi & Naming
Bazi Reading and Naming
Four pillars for temperament, timing and what suits you. Marriage, money, career, children, health, a business partner chart. A full reading runs two to four hours: I work the chart and write it up first, then walk you through it. Names start from the favourable element in the chart.
- 03 Divination
Divination and Date Selection
Liuyao, one question one cast. The lines are not moved lightly, so I do not cast without a real question, and once cast the answer stands. Unless there is a reason, I would rather you threw the coins yourself than have someone do it for you. Date selection covers filings, exams, weddings, caesareans, openings and breaking ground.
- 04 Rites & Talismans
Daoist Rites and Talismans
Zhengyi liturgy performed by its own rubrics. House cleansing and settling, consecrating and seating an image, blessing ritual objects, repaying karmic debt, blessings for peace, replenishing the wealth store, and the Dipper rite. Talismans go to those they suit, and the offering follows the matter actually dealt with. Write to me with the situation first.
- 05 Yi Jing Study
Yi Jing Classes and Scripture Teaching
Yi Jing foundations, Bazi foundations, the sixty-four hexagrams. Three to a class, two hours a session. I also teach scripture: the Dao De Jing read through, or a single text in depth. Teaching is not fortune telling; the point is to get the reasoning across. For overseas Chinese and English-speaking students.
- 06 Xingyiquan
Xingyiquan Instruction
Inheritor of Shanxi Xingyiquan, Che lineage, Shang generation. Santi standing post, the five element fists, the twelve animals, taught from the breath and the root joints up. Boxing and inner alchemy share a source; what you train is the same breath.
- 07 Engineering
AI and Daoist Studies Engineering
A computer science degree and twenty years of building things. I take on AI applications, 3D web work and data systems, and I am particularly good at putting traditional material into digital form.
Building
What I am working on
The Way is not far from people. These are the footholds I have built for an old discipline, using an engineer’s hands.
- 3D / WebGL
Dao Metaverse · Online Temple
An immersive 3D temple: the earthly courtyard, the ascent through the Doumu gate, and the Doumu star altar in the heavens. Wander, study, and ask.
dao.today/temple ↗ - Product
Guanming · guan.life
An AI-assisted Bazi reference platform. Free chart casting with five phases, ten gods and luck pillars, plus deeper reports and annual trends. A reference, not a substitute for sitting down with someone.
guan.life ↗
Recent
How I see the Dao
No mystification — only the parts that touch the ground. Classical meaning, technique, case notes, and modern life as one Daoist sees it.
The Ten Gods: The First Layer of a Bazi Chart
Ten labels for how everything else in a chart stands in relation to the day master. What they give you, what they don't, and why Seven Killings is a name rather than a verdict.
Luck Pillars and Annual Luck: Why Some Years Are Simply Harder
The ten-year pillar is the environment, the annual pillar is what this year adds. A hard year is one where both lean the same way as the chart already does.
The Useful God and the Taboo God: The Key to a Chart
The useful god is the phase a chart most needs, the taboo god the one it can least afford. Both are about need, not absence. Also why this is the step practitioners disagree about most.
Contact
Say what you need
Site audits, a question to be read, a class, or a collaboration — write to me. Tell me the matter, the place and the timing, and my reply will be quicker.
iching@dao.todayI do not trade in pronouncements about life and death from a distance. For decisions involving illness, law or investment, please consult the relevant professional.