Feng
Shui, literally, means wind and water. It is an art of living in harmony with environment.
Its practice involves locating auspicious landscapes and rivers,
as well as placement and arrangement of furniture in a house.
The objective in feng shui practice is to locate a house where
there are auspicious chi (or dragon’s breath) in its surrounding and
enable the auspicious chi to enter the house, primarily through its
main door.
There
are two forms of feng shui being practised today.
They are the Form and Compass school.
The Form School focuses on the importance of landscape of chi while
the Compass School examines the influence of the planets on the chi on earth. In this section, we will first introduce the
Compass School aspect of feng shui.
Elementary
Concepts in Feng Shui
Yin and Yang
The
origin of Feng Shui is contained in an ancient philosophy classic called the
I Ching or the Book of Changes.
In chinese philosophy, all matter in universe can be classified as
Yin or Yang. Some of the things that are considered Yang include man, sun, sound, movement, light, etc. Yin
things include, woman, moon, peace, stillness, darkness, etc. There are three concepts to note. First, Yang
things has more energy than Yin
energy. For example, sun (Yang) has more light energy than moon (Yin).
Second, Yin and Yang are
relative concepts. For example, moon
may be Yin as compared to sun but
when compared to darkness of the sky, it can be considered as Yang.
To use a feng shui example, our homes should have appropriate lighting
so that there are sufficient Yang
chi, to contrast with the Yin chi
in a graveyard. However, the feng
shui of a bedroom should be more Yin
than that of a living room because a bedroom is meant for rest and peace. Third, Yin
and Yang are not mutually exclusive. In every Yang, there is
a Yin and in every Yin, there is a Yang. Yin and Yang cannot exist
independently of each other. For example,
in this world, there must be both man and woman for mankind to survive!
The Five Elements
Besides
grouping all things into Yin and
Yang, all things are also considered to be either of five elements
: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. For
example, in chinese medicine, liver is wood, heart is fire, stomach is earth,
lung is metal and kidney is water. There
is a productive and destructive cycle among the five elements.
In the productive cycle, wood produces fire, which in turn produces
earth, which in turn produces metal, which turn produces water, which in turn
produces wood and the cycle repeats. In
the destructive cycle, wood destroys earth, which turn destroys water,
which in turn destroys fire, which in turn destroys metal, which turn destroys
wood, which in turn earth, and the cycle repeats.
The
two cycles do not always hold true in all circumstances.
For example, while water and fire usually clash, small fire can boil
water and produces steam. Similarly, while water nourishes wood, too much
water (flood) can destroy wood (trees)! Moreover,
water can only nourishes wood if there is sufficient sunlight (fire). Therefore, when using the relationship between
the five elements in feng shui, one must bear this in mind.
It
is important to understand these elementary concepts of feng shui before proceeding
on. This is because these concepts are used in all schools of
feng shui.
(To be continued…)
Different
Compass Schools of Feng Shui
As
there are many different school of thought in Feng Shui, it will not be possible
to list out all of them. Listed below
are the more popular schools. It should be noted that there are also different
variations within in each school’s practices.
Pakua School
The
pakua is a eight sided symbol used in Taoism. Each side of a pakua is called a trigram and
the eight trigrams represents different things.
This school divides a house into eight sectors and superimposes the
pakua into the eight sectors.
Free Feng Shui Tips
Flying Star School
Sixty-four Trigram School
San He School
Eight Character School
