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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781573241571 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 07/01/1999 |
| Series: | A Simple Wisdom Series |
| Pages: | 112 |
| Product dimensions: | 7.25(w) x 7.50(h) x (d) |
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SIMPLE FENG SHUI
By DAMIAN SHARP
Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
Copyright © 2013 Damian SharpAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-57324-157-1
CHAPTER 1
THE FASCINATING ART AND SCIENCE OF FENG SHUI
Observe the mountains and rivers to know the yin and the yang, Observe the streams and springs to know the source of the waters.
—From the Shih-ching (Book of Poetry, c. 800–600 B.C.)
In recent years, Westerners have become very interested in} Feng Shui, the ancient Taoist art and science of living in harmony with the environment. Feng Shui is a way of understanding the flow of the Earth's energy and cooperating with it rather than opposing it, and of channeling it for beneficial results.
The ancient Chinese observed how the erratic influences of wind and water could be affected by alterations in the contours and shapes of the landscape. They saw, for instance, how the building of high towers could result in gusting winds, how the digging of wells could cause natural streams to dry up, and how diverting waters for irrigation could leach the soil, causing salts to rise up and make once-fertile land arid. If these human changes could affect such powerful natural forces, it was only logical that they would exert equally as profound an influence on the lives and affairs of human beings. These ancients also came to believe that each building has its own "life," determined by its location, orientation, design, surroundings, and even the time it was built, some being blessed by good fortune and others cursed by misfortune. From these perceptions came a whole system of observing, enhancing, and altering the flow of natural energies.
Feng Shui offers us a different way of seeing the world, and when practiced, its effect on the way we view things around us is profound indeed. That's because Feng Shui makes us aware that energy resides in all things, and that the way energy flows or doesn't flow has a significant effect on our happiness and wellbeing.
For centuries Feng Shui has been used by the Chinese to select building sites, design homes, cities, and towns, and bury the dead. There are two kinds of Feng Shui: Yang, which deals with the orientation and shape of buildings and objects, and Yin, which deals with graves and tombs. There are many Chinese stories and legends about ghosts, unhappy with their graves because of the bad Feng Shui of a burial site, who return to haunt the living.
This book is a simple and very basic introduction to Yang Feng Shui and is designed to help you make changes to your environment that will enhance the positive effects of your surroundings and counter those that are harmful.
Yin and yang are the two complementary polarities of Taoist philosophy. Taoism is one of the three major religions of ancient China (the other two are Confucianism and Buddhism); tradition holds that it was founded around the sixth century B.C. by Lao-tzu. The term Tao means "the Way," or the forces inherent in nature; it also refers to a code of behavior that is in harmony with the natural order, as set down in the Tao-te-Ching, Taoism's most sacred scripture, which was written by Lao-tzu. The goal of Taoism is, through self-discipline and understanding, to become one with the Tao itself, to be in complete harmony with the invisible and visible forces of nature.
According to Taoism, first there was spirit, or Heaven, which the Taoists represented as a circle. After Heaven, there was matter, or Earth, which they represented as a square within the circle. From Heaven and Earth, the Taoists developed the philosophy of yin and yang. Yin is female, negative, dark, soft, still, the receptive, the Earth. Yang is male, positive, light, hard, dynamic, the creative, Heaven. Light and dark are the two primal powers, also known as firm and yielding, and as day and night.
In Taoism, light (yang) and dark (yin) designate the two primal powers of nature. These terms are extended to include the two polar forces of the universe: the positive and the negative. It is the Tao (the Way) that sets these two opposites in motion and maintains the interplay of the two forces. These two designations, light and dark, which symbolize and emphasize the cycle of change, led to the representation of the familiar symbol of yin and yang, T'ai chi t'u—the Primal Beginning—which is the keystone of Taoist thought.
The two opposite principles of yin and yang complement rather than compete with each other. Neither one dominates or defeats the other. Both are needed to complete and balance the universe. To illustrate this, in the T'ai chi t'u, a small white spot is included within the yin (dark) and a small black spot in the yang (light).
Chi, the universal life energy, flows between spirit and matter. Chi is neither yin nor yang, but enhances both, always flowing between the two, seeking a natural balance. When the flow of ITLχITL is unencumbered, our lives are enriched; when it is disrupted or distorted, it turns into a negative form of energy known as sha, which can cause sickness, conflict, loss, destruction, and even death. Chi, like wind and water, moves in gentle, flowing curves (represented by the S-curve in the T'ai chi t'u) and retains a temporary impression of whatever it has flowed around. Sha, on the other hand, moves in hard straight lines.
The viewpoint of Feng Shui is not unique to the Chinese; elements of it can be found in the religious beliefs of nearly all indigenous peoples, from Australian Aborigines to the people of Bali and Indonesia to the native tribes of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the Americas, Siberia, and Africa. In Europe, the aweinspiring sense of the innate and hidden powers in nature was central to the beliefs of the ancient Greeks, the Celts, and the Romans. All share a common sense of awe and reverence for the natural world, and all have rules concerning human behavior in relation to the absolute respect for nature. The remarkable thing about Feng Shui is that it represents a sensibility shared with all of these cultures, and is the product of a highly advanced and complex civilization.
When we practice Feng Shui, we are acting as responsible stewards and guardians of the environment and ensuring a continued and pragmatic reverence for and preservation of the natural beauty and innate life-giving spirit-force of our planet—the Earth.
In the late twentieth century, Feng Shui is finding increasing acceptance in the West among architects, city planners, landscape and interior designers, real estate agents, business executives, and homeowners. In Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and other places where there are large Chinese populations, it is regularly employed as a matter-of-fact and vital part of everyday life.
The practice of Feng Shui requires the maximum use of your visual imagination along with an informed and heightened intuition, a way of seeing the land as alive and its forms vital and sentient, filled with a language that quietly informs you. This may be magic, instinct, and even science; it may be something else yet that incorporates these three elements and is called Feng Shui.
SHAMANIC ORIGINS
The principles of Feng Shui are derived from the Chinese classics that were written thousands of years ago and are Taoist in origin, primarily the I Ching, or Book of Changes, which has been used in China for divination for centuries and is considered a sacred text; and the Li Shu, or Book of Rites, a sacred text that outlined the tenets of Chinese religious beliefs, and even dictated which rooms of the palace the Emperor should occupy according to the season, month, and year.
The Chinese characters Feng and Shui literally mean "wind" and "water," which gives us a valuable hint about the origins of Feng Shui as a divinational art that was practiced by the tribal shaman-kings of ancient China. The Feng Shui masters of China's dynastic period were regarded as the successors of the fang-shih tradition of Taoism. The fang-shih, or masters, were magicians, diviners, doctors, and internal alchemists of the first and second centuries. Feng Shui is consequently closely related to the other Taoist arts.
According to legend, the shaman-kings knew the ways of wind and water, understood the underlying nature of landforms and their effects on weather, and possessed power over the elements, by which means they led and protected their people. One such legendary shaman-king was Fu Hsi, who is recognized as the patron of all the divinational arts of China. It is said that up until his birth humans lived like beasts, clad in animal skins and eating raw flesh. He taught the people to hew wood, hunt, fish, cook, and make musical instruments. He is, we might say, the legendary bringer of civilization to the Chinese people. Fu Hsi was knowledgeable in the ways of animals, and in paintings he is often depicted wearing a tiger skin and accompanied by a tortoise and a snake.
There are many differing accounts of the legend of Fu Hsi, but from what we can discern, he was the first of the Chinese emperors in legendary times, and is credited with the invention of the Lo Shu, said to have been revealed to him on the back of a magical tortoise, and the Eight Trigrams of the I Ching. The Lo Shu—Book or Writing of the River Lo—is a mystic diagram that is in fact the mathematical "magic square" arrangement of the numbers one to nine so that they add up to fifteen in all directions. The Eight Trigrams, known as the pa-k'ua (which also represent the eight directions of the Taoist compass), are each made up of a series of combinations of three broken and unbroken lines, and are the earliest known example of binary notation. You will often see them placed on the sides of an octagon, a popular Chinese talisman for warding off evil.
Another great shaman-king was Huang-Ti, who became the Yellow Emperor. Having lost his way while fighting a bandit chieftain whose magical powers had caused fog to envelop the mountain valleys, Huang-Ti was given by the Lady of the Nine Heavens a compass that enabled him to outwit and capture his enemy. During his reign the stems and branches for reckoning time were instituted, astronomical instruments constructed, a calendar compiled, mathematical studies pursued, garments tailored, and objects of wood, metal, and pottery manufactured.
The Chinese character Huang means "Sovereign." The first emperor of a united China combined Huang and Ti ("Emperor") to call himself Huang-Ti, the First Sovereign Emperor (a title not used again until the reign of the Manchus beginning in the seventeenth century). Huang, written in a different character, also means "yellow," and before the Chinese empire had amalgamated several different states, the Chinese or Han nation occupied an area on a bend in the Yellow River, regarded as the center of China. China was and is called the Middle Kingdom; the color yellow (huang), which was associated with the Middle Kingdom, not only represents China and "imperial" power but the Earth as well. Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, wrote that as a boy he believed everything to be yellow because he saw so much of the color.
Yet another among these legendary greats was Y!ü, also known as Yü the Great, said to be a descendant of Huang Ti. According to legend, Yü was an ugly cripple. His father having failed to drain the floodwaters, Yü was appointed to the task (purportedly in 2286 B.C.), and after nine years accomplished his mission, as well as a survey of the country, which he divided into nine provinces. In 2224 B.C. the Emperor Shun raised him to the position of Regent. After Shun's death he ascended the throne. His most spectacular achievement was a canal known as Yü's Tunnel, one of the great wonders of the Chinese landscape, which featured three successive cuttings stretching for over two hundred miles through the Wu Shan Mountains in Szechuan. In legend, Yü is often associated with Fu Hsi, whom he is said to have met while excavating the channel to drain the floods. The sage, by this time an Immortal with a human face and a serpent's body, is said to have given Yü a jade instrument for measuring Heaven and Earth. It is sometimes said that the Lo Shu was given to Yü, a confusion possibly arising from his division of the country into nine provinces (the pa-k'ua is composed of the eight directions plus the center; the Lo Shu the numbers one to nine). Yü founded the Hsia Dynasty, long believed to have been a mythical era, but archaeological evidence now reveals that classical references to the Hsia are not invention, but indeed are based on fact. The Hsia Dynasty ruled for over four hundred years before being overthrown by the Shang. One version of the I Ching, the Book of Changes, known as the Lin-shan-i, is attributed to Yü.
After six hundred years, the Shang Dynasty was in its turn overthrown by the Duke of Chou, who became known as King Wen, founder of the Chou Dynasty. Wen, adept at divination and possessing a deep comprehension of the cyclical nature of the universe, used the Lo-shu to predict the course of historical events and expanded the Eight Trigrams of the pa-k'ua into the sixty-four hexagrams of the Chou-i, fragments of which were later compiled by Confucius into the I Ching that we know today. King Wen rightly predicted his own capture and imprisonment, his son's death, and his eventual defeat of his enemy.
THE FIRST BOOKS ON FENG SHUI
In the ninth century A.D., the scholar Yang Yun-sung, living amid the awesomely beautiful and strangely shaped hills and mountains surrounding Kuelin in southern China, wrote the first book on Feng Shui, describing and systematizing the various characteristics and attributes of land formations. This text was to become the standard manual of the "Form School" of Feng Shui. A century later, in the plains of northern China, a second book was written, this one outlining a means of analyzing the Feng Shui of mountainless regions and laying out the precepts for a second school of Feng Shui known as the "Compass School." Today, Feng Shui practitioners combine these two systems, looking first at the shapes of the surrounding land-scape and then consulting a geomantic compass (the lop'an) to note the alignments of mountains and rivers in proximity to the site under consideration and its position in relation to the eight cardinal points or directions (represented by the pa-k'ua, or Eight Trigrams of the I Ching).
CHAPTER 2
THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE INFLUENCE OF NATURE ON OUR BUILDINGS
We begin from the outside, looking at the elements in nature, because Feng Shui is properly done from the perspective of the external environment first. It's important to understand the effects of the energy flow from the external environment of your home or office, so you can use this knowledge when choosing a place to live or work, and to understand what remedies you might need to adopt if you are in an unfavorable location.
Feng Shui, first and foremost, assesses a location's environment to determine whether the external conditions are beneficial or adverse, how adverse conditions can be countered, and how beneficial influences can be maximized. Environmental features can be both natural and constructed, with natural features taking precedence over artificial.
In Feng Shui, all land can be described as mountain and water, or yin and yang. Generally speaking, mountains are yin and still, while water is yang and dynamic. In places where there are only mountains and no water, the flow of energy is diminished. If there is water but no mountains, the energy will be difficult to harness. Remember that terrestrial harmony occurs in the balance of yin and yang. For a place to have power, its energy must not be static, nor must it be scattered. Hence the best Feng Shui sites, and the best places to live, are those that have both mountains and water.
According to certain theorists, the Great Wall of China was built not only to keep out northern nomadic invaders like the Manchurians, Huns, other tribes such as the Khitans, Uighurs, Tatars, and Merkits, and steppe tribes who would become known as the Mongols, but also as a Feng Shui conduit of the Earth's energy. Mist wafting over a verdant mountainside (a common theme in classical Chinese painting) is said to indicate the copulation of sky and earth energies (yang and yin). Such locations are filled with power, as ITLχITL, creative energy, is born from this interaction. Canyons surrounded by steep cliffs, on the other hand, are considered unfavorable sites for building houses, as such locations tend to be wind tunnels that carry negative or destructive energy (sha). Also, houses should not be built facing or overlooking a road cutting that exposes harsh layers of rocks—harsh-looking rocks are another conveyor of sha, as are fast-flowing water and water that crashes violently onto land. Therefore it is considered harmful to live in a house atop a sea cliff or on the banks of a fast-flowing stream. Water that laps gently as it meets the land is beneficial, and a house looking out onto a beach and trees is highly desirable, as is a house that has a view of the sea in which differences in coloration and surface patterns (known as Dragon formations, which bring nourishing energy) can be discerned.
Artificially created landforms and buildings are called Later Heaven Formations and do not have inherent energy when compared with natural landforms. Natural landforms are called Earlier Heaven Formations; because they have been created over the millennia and have absorbed the energy of the universe, they are considered superior to artificial forms. Artificial formations can, however, direct the flow of energy or act as protectors from harmful or destructive energy. Large-scale artificial formations include dams, canals, and reservoirs. Small-scale artificial formations include walls, hedges, ponds, fountains, and gardens. Ancient structures like the Pyramids, the Great Wall, Stonehenge, and other megalithic constructions, however, may contain energy, as they have been in existence long enough to have absorbed it from the environment. Time or age, then, can be a crucial factor in assessing energy. This applies to recently made natural formations as well, such as volcanoes, which owing to their geological youth have not been around long enough to gather energy. Such formations, though, may conduct or block the flow of energy.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from SIMPLE FENG SHUI by DAMIAN SHARP. Copyright © 2013 Damian Sharp. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
one The Fascinating Art and Science of Feng Shui
two The Positive and Negative Influence of Nature on Our Buildings
three Creating Good Feng Shui Inside Your Home or Office
four Determining the Best Use for Each Room
To Learn More
Index