Feng Shui

Traditional or classical Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese belief system that addresses the layout of cities, villages, dwellings, and buildings. Fengshui has been identified as a kind of geomancy by 19th-century Christian missionaries but they differ widely in their scope, aims and means.

Traditional or classical Feng Shui involves the use of a Luopan compass and a systematic method involving iterated steps. The New Age versions — Black Sect, Pyramid, Fusion, Intuitive, etc. — typically do not. The Black Hat Sect school of Feng Shui, which began in the 1960s, heavily influenced by the New Age movement, explains Feng Shui as the arrangement of objects within a home to obtain an optimum flow of qi; however this qi has never been observed and many believe that certain, corrupt interior designers have abused this concept to profit from naïve consumers. During the same time, Pyramid Feng Shui began a western adaptation of classical Feng Shui to assess how an individual experiences his or her environment.

In its original expression:

Wind that which cannot be seen — invisible.
Water that which cannot be grasped — elusive.
F��ng Shu�� = (A life-force/entity that is) Invisible & Elusive.

Feng Shui has its roots in the Chinese reverence for nature and belief in the oneness of all things. The assumption is that the key to living a harmonious life is to reflect the balance of nature in their daily lives. This is most easily understood by the following concepts: Yin and Yang, qi, and the Five Elements — Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. In rural China, however, according to recent fieldwork by Ole Bruun, qi flow is rarely mentioned. Nevertheless, Feng Shui is used to increase wealth, health, and harmonious relationships.

Classical Feng Shui began as an interplay of construction and astronomy. Early Yangshao houses at Banpo were oriented to catch the mid-afternoon winter sun at its warmest, just after the solstice. (Some tribes in southern China still refer to this month as "House-building Month.") Professor David Pankenier and his associates performed retrospective computation on the Chinese sky at the time of the Banpo dwellings (4000 BC) to show that the asterism Yingshi (Lay out the Hall, in the Warring States period and early Han era) corresponded to the sun's location at this time. Several hundred years earlier the asterism Yingshi was known as Ding. It was used to indicate the appropriate time to build a capital city, according to the Shijing.

The grave at Puyang (4,000 BC) that contains mosaics of the Dragon and Tiger constellations and Beidou (Big Dipper) is similarly oriented with cosmological accuracy along a north-south axis.

The tombs of Shang kings and their consorts at Xiaotun lie on a north-south axis, ten degrees east of due north. The Shang palaces at Erlitou are also on a north-south axis, slightly west of true north. These orientations were obtained by astronomy, not by magnetic compass.

All capital cities of China followed rules of Feng Shui for their design and layout. These rules were codified during the Zhou era in the Kaogong ji (Manual of Crafts). Rules for builders were codified in the Lu ban jing (Carpenter's Manual). Graves and tombs also followed rules of Feng Shui. From the earliest records, it seems that the rules for these structures were developed from rules for dwellings.

The oldest known Feng Shui device consists of a two-sided board with astronomical sightlines. Liuren astrolabes have been unearthed from Qin-era tombs at Wangjiatai and Zhoujiatai. These devices date between 278 BC and 209 BC. Today Feng Shui practitioners can select from three types of Luopan or Feng Shui compasses: San He (the so-called "form school", although the compass name means "Triple Combination"), San Yuan (the so-called "compass school", although the compass name actually refers to time), and the Zong He that combines the other two.

Feng Shui (also known as "geomancy") is an ancient Chinese art used to promote such things as health, happiness and prosperity. The words literally mean 'wind' and 'water'.

Feng Shui, also called the Chinese Art of Placement, is a technique that is thousands of years old for bringing balance to one's home, business and the land that surrounds them. It looks at many areas of one's life (health, wealth, family, relationships, career, friends, fame, children, and knowledge) to determine blockages within the home or business, that might cause some type of problem, and then at the different types of "cures" that can be used to alleviate the problem. The methods for analyzing a space and the "cures" to correct the problems can vary from esoteric modalities used for centuries to technological solutions of our current timeline. Both must blend in harmony to created balance in one's life.

The purpose of life is to create balance in all things allowing your consciousness to evlove beyond time and emotion - the duality of the illusion. Healing and working on yourself - is part of the equation - as all things are created by mathematica' design / the blueprint or architetcure of our consciousness program in third dimension - Sacred Geometry. When you are in a space where feng shui has been used to create balance - you will experience it in all levels of your soul's awareness ... then you will understand.

Feng Shui is an old Chinese art and science which is now becoming recognised by Western Cultures. It's an art similar to Interior Design in that it requires skill and knowledge but also a science in that Feng Shui requires calculations and positioning of objects.

Feng Shui is all about the way that we live in harmonize with the nature, benefiting from the 'positive' energies in our living environment. By enhancing the relationship between people and their environment we find that the correct combination will create an ability to absorb the 'Ch'i' or cosmic energy.

Good Feng Shui can be achieved by positioning furniture, fixtures etc at the appropriate places based on careful calculations done by the Feng Shui practitioner. Never the less, it still boils down to the skills of the practitioner, and his ability to read the different aspect and elements in the environment and the people, achieving the prefect overall balance of 'Yin' and 'Yang'.

Pronunciation and Meaning

There are different ways of pronouncing the words, depending upon where you are in the world. Cantonese people pronounce it "Fung Soy" or on the China mainland they call it "Foong schway", we recommend sticking to which one you feel comfortable with pronouncing!

The words translate from 'Feng' meaning wind and 'Shui' meaning water. However, the real explanation of what it really means is based around the invisible Ch'is energy which is carried along by the wind and water.

Ch'i Energy

If you want to understand how Feng Shui works, you need to learn about Ch'i energy - invisible energy. This energy flows through the air, similar to the way radio waves or satellite transmissions work.

Ch'i is a source of prosperity, harmony, health and honour. To allow for it's full effect it should be accumulated gently, but it must never be trapped otherwise it will stagnate and turn into "bad ch'i" which brings bad luck. Since Ch'I is energy, places where it gathers become rich, full of opportunities and luckier. Places where this energy is absent, life is barren and unproductive. Much of the practice of Feng Shui is to allow the Ch'i to flow throughout your living space.

Yin and Yang

Yin and Yang symbolise energy also, where Yin is symbolised by a broken line represented as a female passive energy whilst Yang is symbolised by an unbroken line, the opposite of Yin and is represented as a male active energy. This will be explained in detail at a later stage.

The Pa Kua (bagua)
One important Feng Shui formula concerns the eight main life Aspirations, corresponding to the four cardinal Directions and the four inter-cardinal Directions of the compass (Lo Pan).

Each of these Aspirations is symbolized in the octagonal shaped Pa Kua, one of the most basic Feng Shui tools, which identifies where the particular Aspirational locations lie in your home or workplace, allowing you to energize them as required.

This will stimulate positive chi (life force) flow and create good Feng Shui for you.

A Bagua Map is a tool used in Feng Shui to map a room or location and see how the different sections correspond to different aspects in one's life. The Bagua Map is based on the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes. 'Bagua' is translated directly as 'eight trigram', which describes the eight basic blocks surrounding the center of a room or location. The map is intended to be used to map one's home or office and find areas lacking good chi, and to demonstrate how those physical areas are reflected in one's life