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What is Feng Shui?

Recently, Feng Shui has become a highly visible and popular subject all over America. Almost every local paper and national news media has covered the topic. At public libraries there are waiting lists for most Feng Shui books in print. Bookstores have an overwhelming selection of beautiful and enticing books. Workshops and classes for Feng Shui have been proliferating to fill the growing public interest and demand. In this recent popularization, many subjects irrelevant to the authentic tradition are being presented under the blanket of Feng Shui. More often than not, people are left with more misconceptions than true knowledge. What is authentic Feng Shui really all about?

“Feng Shui” literally means “Wind and Water.” It represents the two most dynamic forces in the Universe – forces that are continually changing and searching for balance. Hence “wind and water” is used to represent the nature of the Universe, which is also resilient, always changing and in search of dynamic balance. In a nut-shell, Feng Shui is the knowledge and practice of the human search for balance with the environment, in accord with the natural laws of the Universe. Feng Shui applies to all aspects of living in the environment - where and how to build a city, how to site and plan a house, how to arrange the interiors of that house, even how to run a successful business – all in ways that are in harmony with the Universe.

When we talk about harmony in Feng Shui, we mean the balance of Yin and Yang, the two polarized forces of every entity, being, item or situation. When yin and yang are in balance there is harmony, and that harmony nourishes everything in a healthy way. According to Chinese tradition, yin and yang contain the seeds of each other, nourish each other, curb or limit each other, and change into each other. The dynamic of these yin and yang interactions takes place through five different mechanisms commonly called the “Five Elements.” Representing the cosmic and natural forces, this Five Element principle is a model in which Wood represents a growing force; Fire represents radiation and dynamic expansion; Earth represents consolidation and coagulation; Water represents spreading and penetration; and Metal represents condensation and concentration of force.

The Yin-Yang and Five Element principles are not man-made hypotheses; they exist in and of themselves. Over many centuries of observation, they were recognized by ancient sages as the Nature of the Universe in its fundamental essence and they became the fundamental philosophy permeating all wisdom and knowledge throughout Chinese culture. So when we talk about being in harmony with nature, we mean following the natural laws of Yin-Yang and the Five Elements.

Feng Shui is the embodiment of these natural laws combined with knowledge of astronomy, geography and other natural sciences. It was developed, refined and recorded over centuries of Chinese history. Feng Shui knowledge guided people in selecting the best spot for building their homes as well as choosing the tomb sites for their ancestors. It guided government officials in selecting the location for the capital city and was considered in every aspect of city planning. Feng Shui was the fundamental building principle for all of China’s magnificent architecture – the Forbidden City is the perfect example of Feng Shui application.

Where there is balance and harmony, there is ch’i (life force energy). When we say, for instance, that there is good ch’i in the Seattle and Puget Sound area, we mean that there is a good balance between the mountains and the water as they exist in the landscape. Where there is good chi’i there is good nourishment. Abundant ch’i nourishes abundant life, with prosperity, harmony, peace and so on for both the land and the people. Then, in turn, we can say that a place with abundant ch’i is a place that is in harmony with the yin and yang forces.

According to Feng Shui principles, any building should be constructed in harmony with the site in terms of size, form and style. A structure with good Feng Shui should have a wholesome form, where yin and yang features are in balance. If we squeeze a large building into a relatively small site, it is out of balance. People should be in balance with their houses. For example, a big family living in a large house is appropriate but one or two people living in a mansion would not be balanced. When people are in harmony with the house and the house is in harmony with the land, then we have the most wholesome and abundant ch’i. In this situation, there will be health, prosperity and good relationships.

The concept of Feng Shui is neither a belief system nor some mysterious Oriental magic. It is a universal idea that is embodied in everyone’s consciousness. We all respond to it in similar ways. Good Feng shui does not contradict common sense. Think of how we often prefer one room over another at home, or always pick the same table in a restaurant. In doing so, we are unknowingly responding to our inner ability to read and choose the most balanced situation.

Feng Shui can be studied through written records in the Feng Shui tradition. Nearly one thousand volumes of classic Feng Shui treatises have been written by countless masters over the centuries. Unfortunately, up to now, very few of these books have been translated for the Western reader. In the United States, most news stories and books present Feng Shui as a mixture of astrology, Oriental culture, folklore and fortune-telling. The more superficial and recently improvised aspects of Feng Shui have become mainstream. The true core of authentic Feng Shui is still waiting to be acknowledged in the West.

As we begin the 21st century, environmental issues have become an urgent concern. It has become imperative for us to re-establish a harmonious relationship with Nature. Feng Shui – this ancient Oriental wisdom – can provide the insight and the inspiration as well as the practical means to achieve this harmony.

Form Energy: Ancient Wisdom in Modern Application

We live in a world of manifestation: we are surrounded by things, both living and non-living. And we, too, are one of these manifestations. We are also surrounded by forms, shapes, colors and substances; our senses respond to these surroundings and we are affected by them.

Everyone agrees that we are affected by our environment. On a very simple level, this is why we pick a certain table in restaurants or find certain rooms in our home more congenial than others. Most environmental factors can be quantified. One very influential factor, important but not quantifiable, is that of the physiological and psychological effect of the forms that surround us. By this I mean such things as the shape of the room, building or space, the configuration of the furniture, and so on. To demonstrate this point, consider the images of a circle and a square. Can you sense a difference in the feeling you get from these two images? We usually do have different responses to these different shapes. If a flat image can have an effect on you, what then of three-dimensional forms? And what of the more complex forms that surround us?

In Chinese metaphysics, a force know as “ch’i” is the very essence that composes the whole Universe. All forms, all manifestations come from ch’i. Every physical manifestation, then, is the product of ch’i, and the ch’i that manifests as form can be sensed from that form. For our purposes here, we will simply use the term “form energy” to refer to ch’i.

In ancient times, through observations of natural phenomena like the change of seasons, the cycle of day and night and the changes in society, scholars and sages concluded that everything in nature contains the polarized dual forces of Yin and Yang. These two forces or principles are mutually inter-dependent: they enhance, construct, constrain and transform into each other.

Everything is constantly in the process of transformation, from ch’i to form and form to ch’i. How can we understand the ways in which these changes take place? Again, through observation. The ancients noticed that there were five different energy mechanisms or modes of change, and they used the words Fire, Wood, Water, Earth and Metal to represent them. These are known as the Five Element principles and they encompass all varieties of change: growth (Wood); radiation and dynamic expansion (Fire); spreading and penetration (Water); consolidation and coagulation (Earth); and condensation and concentration of force (Metal). They too have mutually enhancing and constraining inter-relationships. Yin-Yang and Five Elements – these are the natural principles. Once they are really understood, everything becomes much clearer as one sees them manifesting through forms.

Form energy affects us at all scales. The largest scale we can observe is that of landscapes. Generally, landscapes include tall mountains, smaller hills, flat regions and bodies of water. To go from tall mountains to low water is to go from one extreme to another. One of these extremes is yang and the other extreme is yin. Everything in the universe contains this duality of yin and yang, and where yin and yang are balanced, abundant energy manifests. Where land meets ocean or river there is likely to be flat ground, which is why most cities begin in such places.

Mountains are very stable and strong (yin) so they become metaphors for stability, control and support. Water is dynamic and flowing (yang) and is often associated with trade and business so it becomes a metaphor for commerce and economics. In a simple formula, we might say that mountains are linked with power and bodies of water are linked with money.

Let’s take these metaphors and do some quick map studies to see how landscape and environment affect the energy of a country. Take the United States, which is between two big bodies of water – the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans – and has the five Great Lakes in the north. The abundance of water is linked to an abundance of money. The two powerful mountain ranges in the east and west signify political and military power. The vast open spaces of the great prairie provide for an openness of mind that leads Americans to be more imaginative, creative and generous. (This also means that they can be more naïve.)

Let’s also look at Japan. Again there is an abundance of water, reflected in fortune and wealth. There is also Mount Fuji, an internationally recognized symbol of Japan. This clear, strong symbol provides a strong national identity. However, because of the limited flat space, squeezed between the mountain and the water, there is only a limited amount of space to act as a buffer. The means that the people tend to be less secure and more protective. The US government has complained for decades that the Japanese are too protective of their markets. But how can they avoid it? The necessity is clear in the landscape.

Flat space is very limited in Japan as the landscape moves quickly between water and mountain, between one extreme and another. This fact expresses itself in the Japanese personality, which is highly polarized and tends to swing quickly from one extreme to another: most tranquil and most violent, most ugly and most beautiful. Japan’s economy may be manifesting some difficulties now, but this already manifested in the land some years back when the snow pack of Mount Fuji started to disappear.

These examples indicate how landscape does affect a country’s political, economic and military power, as well as the characteristics of the people who live there. This is also true on smaller scales: regions, cities, neighborhoods, houses and even individual rooms within a house.

In ancient times, when people studied form energy, they carefully studied the quality and quantity of these four features -–mountains, hills, flat regions and water – and how they coordinate, because different coordinations produce different forms, which in turn emanate different energies and different impacts. It is easier to understand the quality and quantity of the features individually, but what is the ideal coordination and arrangement of these four features?

Chinese always look to nature for guidance. For human dwellings, the best model is the human body. The spine supports the back, protection comes from the arms and legs, there is open space in front (in the face) and energy in the center (chest and abdomen). In this model, we see the analogies of the spine to the mountains, arms and legs to the smaller hills, open space in front (face) to the bodies of water, and energy center to the flat regions where mountains and water meet. Naturally, then, an ideal house becomes our energy center and it would follow the same pattern: support behind, compatible neighbors to left and right, the open ground in front.

Just as landscape affects the whole country, the surroundings of the house naturally affect the health and quality of life of the people who live there. But people seldom realize the actual impact that form energy has on us. When people move to a new house and get sick or experience a decrease in energy or an increase in quarrels, they always tend to connect this change with something visible rather than with the invisible energy force. (Of course, to a Feng Shui master’s trained eye, form energy is also visible.)

This is why it is important to see beyond the visible form to the presence of ch’i. If anything goes wrong, we need to trace the problem to its source in ch’i, instead of just through surface phenomena. In this way, we can find the solutions that will restore balance to problems with health, relationships and finances.

Nowadays, when people talk about nature, they are more likely to talk about it from an ecological point of view, focused on that which is visible. Much of the energy we have been discussing – natural patterns, natural orders and principles – is not visible, since it lies behind and within what is visible. This is why form energy is the basis of all Feng Shui studies: in order to understand and live in harmony with nature, to become healthy individuals and create a harmonious society, we must base our understanding and our actions on the level of ch’i.

Feng Shui and Common Sense

The recent surge of interest in Feng Shui has brought a publishing boom. More books on Feng Shui have been published in English in the last ten years than ever before. Those who buy and read these books are attracted by the underlying principle of being in harmony with nature, and by the suggestion of something ancient and mysterious.

The shallowness of some popular presentations of Feng Shui has lead many thoughtful people to simply reject it, out of hand, as a fad or just another kind of “New Age” nonsense. In fact, the core principles of Feng Shui, while very old, are not at all mysterious. Its central concept – to follow the laws of nature – is thoroughly rooted in common sense, that is, common to everyone: East or West, ancient or modern.

Common sense is the joining of human instinct with life experience. As members of the human race, we are all subject to common influences through living on the same planet: the sun and moon, wind and water, the alternation of day and night, and the change of seasons. We are nourished by the same kinds of things: the fish, rice, meat, vegetables, grains and so on, that provide us with the necessary fuel for living. Despite regional and cultural differences, all human beings share common influences and respond to them in very similar ways.

Feng Shui is the application of these common patterns of influence and response to the places in which we live and work. It brings knowledge of these patterns to bear on finding appropriate places and building livable structures where people will be nourished and protected. Much of the classic Feng Shui literature, which is concerned with the understanding and application of these basic patterns, is still fresh and relevant. Take the principle of building a house on a flat, dry site, not too far up on a hill and not too low in a valley, finding a balance by avoiding a place that is either too high or too low, too wet or too dry. This may seem like ordinary common sense, yet we often hear of people who have built houses in high places and on steep slopes where they are subject to landslides, or in low valleys where they are subject to floods.

The Feng Shui classics also state that the ideal house should be square or rectangular, with a good open space in front. These forms are not only more wholesome, but are also more ergonomic and more economical. This too is common sense, but modern buildings are increasingly quite irregular, with indentations, out-croppings and other variations. Such features not only make the buildings less ergonomic and functional to live in but also more expensive to build.

In the Feng Shui classics, rooms are classified into Yin and Yang categories depending on their function. Thus Yang rooms (like the kitchen or living room) should have more space, light and other yang factors, while the Yin rooms (like the bedroom or study) should be more private. Yet many modern houses, over-emphasizing certain fashionable features at the expense of practicality, have overly large bedrooms or bathrooms, or are over-exposed in quest of a better view. But in an overly large room, energy becomes scarce, often resulting in chronic illness or low energy for the occupants. Over-exposure, or an over-abundance of windows, can create more uncontrolled or conflicting energy.

The classics always emphasize balance: between the rounded and the square, between warm and cold, between exposure and privacy. They also stress the importance of achieving a balance between the size of a house and the number of its occupants. A house should be proportional to its lot, and not too different from other houses in its neighborhood in terms of size, style, form and color.

Feng Shui is an ancient art, but it is also timeless, because it can be applied to any current situation. Throughout history, in every country, people have applied these same principles; they are not unique to Chinese culture. You may encounter them in any graceful structure: mosques balance a square base against circular domes; cathedrals balance a square structure with circular stained glass windows, and so on.

But if Feng Shui is a matter of common sense, why does it seem so unusual, so exotic? Why has there been this recent surge of interest? In this fast-moving and ever-changing modern world, we are losing our balance. We struggle to grab knowledge and information from the outside instead of looking within, and we don’t pay attention to balancing our inner and outer activities. This leads to lopsided development, and fosters an unbalanced and over-extended life-style.

Nowadays, when people have emotional problems, they go to see counselors; when people have physical problems, they go to doctors; when people have trouble in school, they go to educational experts; when they have financial troubles, they go to money managers, and the list goes on. We no longer trust our own ability to solve things; we no longer look inward to seek the answers.

Unfortunately, the experts we consult are not always able to solve our problems either. From the Feng Shui point of view, when there is a problem, there is also a solution, and the answer is often nearby. We should not always depend on outside answers or experts, although sometimes we do need some external feedback.

Recently a Vietnamese herb doctor developed a treatment for drug addiction by applying the principle that where there is a problems, there is also a nearby solution. He sought, and found, the healing herbs for his formula in the opium fields. Similarly, as most people in the Pacific Northwest are aware, horsetail ferns are an effective treatment for nettle stings – and these two plants grow in close proximity to each other.

Although Feng Shui is rooted in common sense, it has grown over the centuries into a huge body of knowledge derived from long observation and repeated validation. This body of knowledge cannot be transmitted or even described in a single burst. To receive it, we must first become more aware of, and more attuned to, the patterns of energy movement in the natural world. As our awareness increases, we become more able to assimilate the available information. In order to do so, we must begin by reflecting on what our common sense tells us. Authentic Feng Shui gives us the language and structure to connect our innate knowledge with universal natural principles, allowing us to analyze, understand and improve our surroundings.

Feng Shui versus Superstition

Feng Shui is the name for the ancient, venerable Chinese field of study that is concerned with the effects of various aspects of an environment upon its occupants. Also known as “Chinese Geomancy,” it is a way of reading the land or one’s surroundings. The words “Feng Shui” literally mean “wind and water,” because the core principles of Feng Shui reflect the universal patterns of natural law, which, like the patterns of wind and water, flow spontaneously and repeatedly emerge in nature. Some older traditional names for Feng Shui are di li (laws of the Earth) and kan yi (the way of Heaven and Earth).

Through a long history of observing Nature’s patterns, the knowledge gained from these studies has been accumulated and refined into a very sophisticated system. It enables people to discern the energy in the land through the patterns of the landscape and through the composition of its features: mountains, hills, flat areas (energy spot) and bodies of water.

Form defines energy (ch’i), which affects the people who live with the forms. Throughout Chinese history, this knowledge has guided people in choosing the locations of cities, homes, grave sites, and the design and arrangement of structures, gardens and other landscape features.

Under the influence of ancient Chinese culture and philosophy, a central principle of Feng Shui was that human beings should live in harmony with nature rather than control it and force it into their own patterns. This attitude is even more important now, as we awaken to the destructive results of a domineering, forceful attitude toward nature. Great and swift changes are taking place in the modern world, making the need for this Feng Shui perspective and knowledge more urgent each day.

In recent years, however, as Feng Shui has swept through the United States and Europe, many misinterpretations have swept along with it. As one architect with a serious interest in Feng Shui said to me, “I find this Feng Shui ideal of living in harmony with nature very fascinating and convincing. But most of what’s written about it is all crystals, bamboo flutes, putting mirrors over the stove and so on. What does all that have to do with living in harmony with nature?”

In fact, these practices have nothing to do with Feng Shui or living in harmony with nature. Much of what is presented as Feng Shui in the US today has been influenced by essentially modern ideas. Now there are many mixtures of superstition, folklore and religion, wearing masks of Feng Shui, but whose teachings do not appear anywhere in the eight hundred or so existing volumes of Feng Shui classics.

Something that addresses the relationship between people and their environments should be universal, independent of culture, religion or local customs. Unfortunately, most of the popular Feng Shui currently practiced in the West derives from a mixture of exactly these things. It has found quite an audience, because it promises quick and simple results. It offers hundreds of gadgets for fixing problems with relationships, money, careers, health and so on.

Perhaps the most familiar of these gadgets is the mirror, sometimes called “the aspirin of Feng Shui.” In a doorway, a mirror is said to improve the flow of ch’i. Over a stove, it will allegedly build fortune. Hung above an entrance, the mirror will supposedly dispel evil and encourage auspicious energy. If a nearby building looms oppressively, a cracked mirror is believed to break up the structure’s image, softening its effect. But a mirror, in reality, has no magical computer chip that lets it distinguish between good and bad energy, or that enables it to decide what to let in and what to keep out. Mirrors do have real functions: to create a false image of larger space, to reflect more light into a dimly-lit room and, of course, to check our own images, but these uses have nothing to do with Feng Shui.

Bamboo flutes are another popular gadget meant to expel evil energy and bring good fortune. The Chinese word for a bamboo flute, xiao, sounds like the Chinese word meaning “to cut” or “slice,” prompting the idea that a bamboo flute will “cut out” negative energy. A bamboo flute has knots, jie in Chinese, which sounds like the word for “stage,” as in “ascending in stages,” suggesting a gradual improvement in status. But in English, this Chinese word-association game is a lost cause.

At least one currently popular practioner recommends that a main entrance should be painted red, because red is an auspicious color in China, where it has always played a significant role in special occasions. Chinese brides traditionally wear red, but in the United States, the bride’s color is white (which in China would be used for a funeral). These are no more than cultural symbols; there is nothing universal about them.

In classic Feng Shui theory, the flow of water (or of traffic) is used as a financial indicator. While it is true that most big business cities are near large bodies of water, a naive interpretation takes this to mean that water equals money. So indoor fountains have become a hot item. People think that putting a fountain in the “fortune corner” of a house will attract wealth. While an indoor fountain can be a nice touch, the pleasant quality it lends to a house has nothing to do with bringing wealth or fortune to the inhabitants.

Using the eight parts of the traditional Ba Gua diagram to label and assign attributes to the parts of a house may seem neatly logical and appealing, but it is not authentic Feng Shui. The Ba Gua is an important feature of classical Chinese tradition, but its teachings are not concerned with assignment of points and directions to the Ba Gua diagram. This recently devised practice has more in common with traditional Chinese palm-reading than with Feng Shui.

No matter how unrelated these methods are to authentic Feng Shui, some people swear by them. A new client once insisted to me that mirrors were very effective. Having been disturbed by people dropping in to her office, she had followed the suggestions of a popular Feng Shui “expert” to put mirrors all around her office. She was no longer bothered by unwelcome visitors, but she admitted that even welcome friends had also stopped coming by. This was not due to mysterious forces – nobody feels comfortable surrounded by mirrors.

Without ever studying it seriously, people often pick up on isolated bits of Feng Shui. They might share this “secret knowledge” that a house should face south, a tree in front of the house must be taken down, the entrance should not face a T-intersection or dead end, a stair-case should not face an entrance, it is bad to sit under a ceiling beam, and so on. There may be some Feng Shui principles behind these notions, but it is a big mistake to apply them blindly. For example, in the Pacific Northwest, it is rare to find a house without a tree somewhere in front of it. But there is a big difference between a large tree looming up right in front of the door and a dwarf tree or sapling that is fifty yards away. To master the art, one must have a real understanding of the meaning behind such “rules.”

With so many books on Feng Shui coming out, some people may be intrigued and even partially convinced by the first one they see. They might be puzzled by disagreement between it and the second one they read. By the time they look at a third book on the subject, they are totally confused and ready to dismiss the whole idea.

How does one resolve the disagreements and judge which books are useful and which are not? Understanding Feng Shui starts with understanding the fundamentals: the equilibrium of Yin and Yang in the four features of the landscape -- mountains, hills, energy spot and water. A true understanding also involves the ability to apply the principles to any level or scale of organization, from the planet to a single room. After learning the principles, people should be able to sharpen their sensitivity, develop their intuition, and transmute the information into knowledge and the knowledge into wisdom. The information thus obtained should make sense on its own, and not need to be taken on faith.

The Yin Yang of Perception

The fundamental concept of Feng Shui is based on natural law, as expressed by the Yin-Yang and Five-Element theories. These theories are derived from observations of nature, as well as of human society, over thousands of years.

Observation is the source of all human knowledge and the key to all understanding. Scientific discovery begins with observation. How we observe the natural and human order will directly affect our perceptions, which in turn shapes our conduct and behavior as well as the choice of what path we will follow.

People often stress the importance of seeing things from all possible angles, to get a full picture and to guard against partiality. But even when people try to do this, they will often derive different “facts” from the same events – and with that comes differences of opinion, which sometimes even leads to conflict.

How and why does this happen? What is the right way to observe? The key is to get back to the fundamental concepts of Yin-Yang theory. A wholesome approach must see things from both a Yang and a Yin perspective. When we see an object – a potted plant or a chair, for example – we usually attend to the object itself, its color, shape, and so on. In artists’ terms, we are using the left (Yang) side of the brain when we do this. If we also use the right (Yin) side of the brain, we will attend not only to the object but to the space around the object, so we will have a much more comprehensive picture. We will notice not only the flower but the fact that the flower exists in a particular spatial configuration. This is a much more complete picture.

Artists find that they can draw much more effectively when they do this. The same method can be applied to arranging furniture in a house: attend to the space around the furniture as well as to the furniture itself. In this way, we see things from the Yin as well as the Yang perspective.

But this is just the beginning. This kind of Yin-Yang perception can take place on many levels. When we ponder whether to put a flower in a particular place, or a chair in another, we are doing so from our own perspective: how we would feel if the things were placed there. In applying Yin-Yang principles, we should also try to see from the perspective of the flower or chair. In this case, the one who sees embodies the Yang aspect and the one who is seen embodies the Yin aspect. So in addition to how we see the flower, we might try to see how the flower sees us, and whether or not the flower appreciates being in a particular place. In the same way, when we build a house, we are very concerned about the view – the perspective from the inside looking out. Since a wholesome approach relies on Yin-Yang concepts, we should also pay attention to how the house appears from the outside, how it fits into the particular environment and into its neighborhood, and how the house feels about this placement.

People often wonder how we can do this. The answer to this question is another: have we even thought of doing so? Most people haven’t really considered the possibility, let alone actually tried. In this consideration, is there a difference between a flower, which is obviously alive, and furniture or a whole house, which are thought of as “dead”? It is important to remember that all objects in the universe, when seen from an atomic level, are spinning and vibrating; all have an abundance of qi; all are equally “alive.” By taking this viewpoint, we extend our awareness into an additional level of Yin-Yang perception.

Furthermore, natural change and human living are dynamic processes, never coming to a halt. We should not limit our focus to the present, even as we observe events unfolding around us. When we witness social and political events in the present, we need to see them as part of the continuum from past to present to future – not isolated in time. In the context of past and present, the past is Yin and the present is Yang; in the context of present and future, the present is Yang and the future is Yin. In this way, we see a much bigger picture: the natural and continuous transformation from Yin to Yang to Yin, and so on.

The goal of seeing things from a Yin-Yang perspective is to see the bigger picture, the complete picture, which gives us a more wholesome understanding so that we can adopt a more wholesome approach. We should apply this approach in our daily living – but we should also apply it on larger scales: as a way of viewing our educational system, our economic system, our foreign policy, and so on. There is often bickering and argument because people see things from a Yang perspective and do not also consider a Yin perspective. There is no balance of Yin and Yang in such an approach, and it is naturally not wholesome. This approach is crucial for leaders in all fields, especially political leaders, who have a larger impact.

When we can see events in the perspective of Yin and Yang, then we can begin to understand how the present (Yang) is rooted in the past (Yin) and gain some insight into how the future (Yin) will come to be out of the present (Yang). In this way, understanding the connections between the past, present, and future gives us a picture that is both bigger and more dynamic. It also gives us the understanding we need to live more wholesome and complete lives at every level.

Learning to perceive things from the Yin-Yang point of view, from the perspective of both Time and Space, provides us with a way to see into the true nature of the reality of things.

However, in addition to the way of perception that we have discussed, there are two other factors that can affect the quality or reliability of perception. One is how truthfully the thing we perceive is presented or shown to us. The other is the reliability of the vehicle we are employing for perception.

We often do not have much control over how things are presented to us. But we do have some control over the vehicle of perception.

The vehicle of perception is our five senses. Sensory input gives rise to certain thoughts or ideas. But our senses have imperfections, and they vary in sensitivity. In addition, we all have prior experiences that can interfere with the processing of the information that come in through our senses. To bypass these imperfections, we need to find a more direct method of perception. One way to do this is to perceive from the heart.

In our life experience, we find that is not always necessary to see with our eyes or to hear with our ears. Sometimes, from looking at speakers’ faces or expressions without hearing what they are saying, we can get a better sense of whether what they are saying is truthful or not. What we do in such moments is channel our outward perception directly to our inner perception — directly to the heart.

But, at the same time, perception through the heart is also not without problems, since the heart also contains the traces of prior experience in this and earlier lives, and tends to resonate with our existing feelings and biases. This is why the ancient Taoist sage Chuang-Tzu said that we need to learn to perceive with Qi.

Qi is the energy of what is present, in its actual form. It resonates through time and space; it cannot be hidden or distorted. All reality manifests through Qi. If our own Qi can resonate with the Qi around us, we will have a true perception of the reality behind manifestation.

How do we perceive with Qi? We first need to free our minds from any barrier, any sense of separation — as though a building had no door, window or wall separating the inside from the outside. You may object that a house without doors, windows or walls would not be a house. This is exactly the point: a “house of no-house” or a “mind of no-mind”. The only essence that remains is Qi — and what connects everything in the most truthful way is Qi.

In practice, we start by paying attention to what is closest to us. The thing that is closest to us, and also most vital, is our breathing. We need to learn to be constantly aware of our breathing. From there, we can learn to be constantly aware of our mental activity, and we will then begin to clear up the static of our habitual mental activity. From there, in turn, we will become free from obstacles and partitions, creating an open space in which Qi can flow. At that point, we can begin to connect with true information, the true reality of the universe. It is at that point that true perception takes place.

As we stated in the beginning, perception directly affects our conduct and behavior, and our responses to circumstances. When, through cultivation, we clarify our perception of the clutter of past experience, so that we perceive directly, this does not mean that our behavior is then completely produced by the energies around us. It means that we are at last free to base our actions on what is really there, rather than on our preconceptions and illusions.

Looking Beyond Visible Manifestation

When we talk about manifestation, we mean the visible shapes and forms that indicate the presence or existence of things in the physical world. But according to Chinese metaphysics, all manifestation derives from a higher level of essence, known as Qi in China and by other names in other cultures. We can observe the many forms that are the manifestation of Qi. But how can we learn to see beyond the visible manifestation to the Qi itself, the invisible energy patterns from which all shapes and forms derive? This is one aspect of the study of traditional Feng Shui principles.

According to traditional Chinese metaphysics and Feng Shui, human beings live between Heaven and Earth, nourished by Yang and Yin energies. The Yang energies of Heaven come downward from above, manifesting as sunshine, rain and so on. The Yin energies of Earth rise upward from below, manifesting as food, water and other nourishment. Heaven (Yang) energy implies expansion; Earth (Yin) energy implies connection, coagulation, cooperation and nourishment. When there is balance between Yin and Yang, there will be good Qi. In turn, good and abundant Qi nourishes abundant and wholesome life: prosperity, peace, harmony and so on, for the land and the people.

Can we apply this Feng Shui approach to understanding why some parts of the world tend to have more conflict than others, for example places like the Balkans, Israel or Colombia? From the point of view of manifestation, there are many explanations, including historical, economic, religious and/or racial factors. These factors are interwoven in such a complex manner that it is very hard to get a clear picture. But if we look beyond the point of view of manifestation and see from the point of view of Qi energy, we may get a more fundamental picture of what is happening.

Without enough Earth (Yin) energy to balance the expanding Heaven (Yang) energy, there will be poor Qi, leading to conflict and strife. What is the most powerful manifestation of Earth (Yin) energy? It is trees, and especially trees accumulated into forests. This is why many areas of continuing or particularly bitter strife are those which are desert, or unforested mountainous regions or areas in which forests have recently been depleted, often at an alarmingly rapid pace. On a larger scale, there is a positive correlation, in modern history, between the overall depletion of natural forests and the general level of strife and chaos in the world. This imbalance of the Yin and Yang energies is the fundamental source of the problem.

When we try to solve these problems on the level of physical manifestation, the solutions tend to be incomplete, or even to cause new problems, because our understanding of the problem is fragmented and incomplete. Efforts in the arenas of politics, economics or other specialized spheres will never be able to solve these problems at the root. The solution is to increase the nourishing Yin energy, so that there will be energy for cooperation and support. The best way to do this is to begin planting trees and establishing (or re-establishing) forests in all these troubled areas. In the meantime, where forests are abundant, water will be abundant. And water to the planet is like blood to the human body – our most essential nourishment.

We find another example of this need to look beyond manifestation in architecture and design, where people have long debated the question of whether form (yin) or function (yang) is more important. But both are clearly part of the world of manifestation. When we look beyond manifestation to the level of Qi, in terms of the balance of Yin and Yang energies, there is no conflict between form and function. Both are present simultaneously, and contribute to a balanced wholesome structure.

In the same way, people often talk about having to make a trade off between aesthetics and efficiency, as though an increase in one would require a decrease in the other. But from the point of view of Qi, in the Feng Shui model, good design means design according to the principles of Yin and Yang balance. Thus any building designed according to Feng Shui principles should be simultaneously economical, functional and beautiful. This is why it is vitally important to learn to see things from the level of Qi energy.

Our view of physical manifestation at any level – a country, a building, a room – is fragmented and limited, and this keeps us from achieving a unified understanding of the situation. When we learn to see something beyond its physical manifestation, we are able to see the correct way to balance the yin and yang energies at their source and create a sustainable solution. This is why, in every type of human endeavor or interaction, it is important to seek for a higher-order understanding of the problem. Only thus can we achieve a higher-order, integral solution.

Feng Shui for Business Success

The right place, the right people, the right time: these are the key ingredients for any successful human endeavor. This is especially true for any business venture.

One kind of business operation is what we usually think of as business, out to make money, like a retail store, restaurant or corporation. A different kind of business is also an organization that deals with money and requires the same kind of good management, but aims at achieving other kinds of goals. Examples of this are charitable foundations, universities and government agencies. Even though profit is not their goal, they need the same effective management and use of resources as the profit-oriented activities. So one kind of enterprise is measured by profit and money, the other by influence and power, but both can be regarded as kinds of businesses.

Feng Shui analysis relates power and money to factors called Mountain and Water. The power factor is dealt with in terms of Mountain configurations; the economic factor is dealt with in terms of Water configurations.

Businesses oriented toward profit require spaces with abundant energy flow -- places where Water can collect and Qi can coagulate. This is why most shopping malls and business centers are on the lower ground of cities -- not on high plateaus. At the same time, businesses oriented toward influence and power require strong Mountain features. Many universities, hospitals and churches are on higher ground.

Every successful business requires abundant, smooth energy flow. This is what Feng Shui looks for in terms of Water. At the same time, business requires support and stability; this is a matter of the Mountain features.

It is not always easy to find the kind of space most appropriate to your enterprise, or to figure out how to achieve the most effective use of that space. Applying the principles of Feng Shui can make these choices much simpler and significantly improve the effectiveness and success of the business.

The foremost consideration for an ideal space is that the form should be wholesome. In general, a square space, or a rectangular space proportioned according to the Golden Rectangle, is best. A wholesome space provides wholesome energy. In a building, the location of the main entrance is also crucial. The door defines the quantity and quality of energy (Water) that can flow in. The front door and facade of a building are like the face of a building, and help define its image.

The image of a business also manifests through such things as the design of letterhead and logo. The logo of a company is like a summary of the energy pattern of the company. All successful companies (Nike, McDonald’s, Mercedes-Benz) have good logos. The designs of the logo, business card and similar image-bearing items have a striking impact on a company’s business success.

Some structures never have successful businesses, no matter how many different kinds of organizations pass through the space. From a management point of view, this does not make much sense, since each business has its own management style. But from a Feng Shui point of view, it is very clear: the space is lacking some key Water or Mountain feature, and will never support a viable business.

Good design of interior space is crucial for the success of any organization, since it has direct effects on personnel and financial management, on communication, on productivity, and marketing. All of this can be managed, to a large extent, through careful design of layout and relative position of the workers in an office. The human factor is crucial; employee talents and motivation are vital. How to motivate employees, retain them, increase their effectiveness, fully use their talents - these are constant challenges for managers. It is important to provide people with working environments that support them.

A key element to support is limiting or managing stress. Stress is only partly related with the kind of work one does. It also has a lot to do with the configuration of the place one works in. A golden rule for work spaces is for people to sit in positions that give them support -- which means, basically, solid walls at their backs. Whenever people have a solid wall (Mountain) behind them, they naturally feel more relaxed and at ease -- which means that they feel less stress, and can be more productive. It is no surprise that people nowadays complain about increased stress. It is increasingly common for people to work in cubicles -- to sit all day with their backs not only unsupported, but actually exposed to traffic. This undermines any possible sense of stability or security, and significantly decreases the quantity and quality of their work.

The success of a business is directly related to marketing and sales. So much depends on how effectively one can market one’s products or services. Marketing is the link between the company and the consumer.

Communication (at all levels, and between all levels) will also have an impact on the soundness of the operation. Communication requires two things: good connections, and effective potential contact. In Feng Shui terms, good connections require clear and effective links between the work positions or offices; good contact requires at least potential face-to-face communications between those who need to work together. (These face-to-face connections do not need to be actual, but they should be potential. People who need to work together should face toward each other, or towards a central space, even if there are partitions between them.)

Feng Shui principles make use of spatial relationships, orientation, shapes, color and light to improve the energy flow and get better results in all kinds of businesses. Because these principles follow natural laws, they can be applied with equal success at any scale, from a large factory or corporation to a small restaurant or professional office.

There is one basic Feng Shui application that any organization can try. That is: to supply their workplace with abundant healthy, living plants. Healthy, living plants serve as energy connectors and energy enhancers. They help cleanse the space, and bring life to it. This is a change that does not require a huge investment, but that can produce very immediate positive effects

Business operations are successful to the extent that their location and design approach Feng Shui ideals. Unfortunately, Feng Shui is so popular nowadays that there are vast numbers of Feng Shui books, and many Feng Shui classes and workshops - but these are often full of confusing or conflicting information. Many of these books and classes deal with faddish objects and superficial associations, never presenting the core teachings.

These core teachings of Feng Shui derive from and follow natural laws. Feng Shui principles describe how people actually respond to their environment. They are not a matter of faith or convention based on foreign ideas or values. The first step to understanding Feng Shui is to begin to tune in to our own reactions when we consider the present layout of a workplace, and when we explore plans for changing it. By awakening our own intuitive awareness, we will have a way of telling whether the design suggestions of an expert are worth following or not.

A Chinese Perspective on Dialogue Among Civilizations

Throughout history, conflicts have been carried out in the name of competing civilizations, rulers, and religions, each apparently striving to remake the world in its own image. And now at the beginning of this new century, these kinds of conflicts are escalating; wars and rumors of war seem to be stirring throughout the world. People generally have little idea of what is going to happen, and governments and religions have little to offer them now, since they, too, are entangled in a web of unprecedented challenge and confusion.

Human history is often seen as a history of war and peace, but this is the surface manifestation of a deeper process: the expression of polarized energies that underlie visible events. From our ordinary point of view, we can only perceive the cyclic results of these underlying processes in terms of pain and joy, death and life, defeat and victory, collapse and rise. In our lives, and in the lives of our nations, we are like fish swimming through underground rivers, constrained by boundaries we cannot see as we move toward ends we cannot predict.

To understand civilization and the course of human history, we need to learn to see a more complete picture, one that includes these powerful, underlying forces. Only in this way will we be able to bring stability and balance to a world whose existence grows more fractured and precarious every day.

Human societies seem to have progressed from small groups into larger ones: extended families, villages, and clans developed into towns, city states, countries, and empires. Family members may fight with each other, but when the family is attacked from the outside, they tend to unify. The same is true on a larger scale. Internal conflicts usually transform into cooperation when faced with external forces. The principle that governs such unions is that the fighting parties unite along lines of a higher-order similarity, which can harmonize their differences -- or allow the expression of harmony that potentially exists between them.

What can provide this higher-level order and allow this potential for harmony to manifest? A single world religion? A political One-World-Order? Some re-discovered humanism? For any of these to prevail, would some sort of force be necessary? In China, the period of warring states ended when the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.) prevailed over all the others -- who could not successfully cooperate in defense -- not by making alliances, but by being the best at conquest. But the Qin Dynasty, ruthless and effective as it was, hardly outlasted the death of the first Qin Emperor. So we can see that unification by force alone provides little motive to maintain the unity when other options arise.

We need to look to a higher order to find a sustaining motivation. The human race lives under the same sun and moon as all other creatures on earth. All are subject to the same universal patterns of nature. These natural patterns are the basic, shared heritage of all creatures. Human societies are like colonies of insects living within a garden. If the garden is destroyed, none of the colonies has any place to live. In other words, the key to finding a common and harmonious life lies not in searching for something that can enforce unity or harmony from the outside, but in finding something that can bring into realization a unity and harmony that are already present within, beneath the surface of conflict.

The ideal of living in harmony with nature is an old one, but what does it mean and what can it contribute? Over several thousand years, through keen observation of the changes in nature and human society, sages in China developed a framework for describing the patterns common to all kinds of transformation. These are known as Yin-Yang Theory and Five-Element Theory. The former describes static configurations of polarities in nature; the latter describes the patterns of dynamic transformation and the interactions between modes of change. Over the long course of Chinese civilization, these two concepts have come to permeate every aspect of Chinese life and art, and to form the basis for its traditional natural, social, and political sciences. China, among the oldest living continuous civilizations in the world, still maintain strong presence. This fact owes much to the prevalence of this traditional approach, and to the understanding that human life is as much an expression of nature and natural patterns as any other kind of life.

Yin-Yang Theory states that every phenomenon is the manifestation of diametrically opposed forces called Yin and Yang. These terms can be applied to any polarized qualities: war and peace, discord and harmony, sorrow and joy, change and rest. At the highest or most abstract level, they can be seen in terms of Manifest and Unmanifest. In any polarized situation, the forces have the same dynamic relationship: they restrain each other, enhance each other, and transform into each other. This is expressed in the well-known Tai Ji diagram, which shows the relationship between Yin and Yang in a circular (rather than linear) form. The diagram applies at any level of existence or analysis: an atom, a strand of DNA, a cell, a person, a house, a country, a planet, a solar system, or a galaxy. This diagram also shows that the transformation is gradual and smooth, not sudden or abrupt. Rather than an instant reversal, there is always at first a subtle insertion of the complementary force or energy. There is always a process of seeking dynamic equilibrium. But when the disparity between the polarized energies goes to its extreme and the system becomes unbalanced, then the resulting adjustment tends to be forceful and can have a grave impact on all living things within the system.

In applying Yin-Yang Theory to human societies, we see that governments, regimes, and administrations are the Yang aspect. They are dynamic, outgoing, and continually changing. Societies also have a Yin aspect: this is the culture. For example, throughout history China has faced frequent invasion from the north, and has twice been ruled by northern conquerors -- the Mongols and the Manchus. But the conquerors were eventually absorbed into Chinese culture. Regimes and dynasties come and go; China remains. This is the effect of the Yin aspect of Chinese culture, which has always been oriented toward and responsive to the influences of natural patterns. The identity of the Chinese people is based on Chinese culture -- not on any regime or dynasty. Even massive efforts in the last century to suppress and eradicate traditional culture, and even specific features like the central place of Confucian thinking, have turned out to be quite unsuccessful at displacing the fundamental cultural traditions. This resilience demonstrates the power of the Yin aspect.

Similar patterns of persistence in the face of conquest can be seen in Europe: the reassertion of local cultures in the face of imperial conquests, and at the same time the integration of imperial patterns as a common cultural heritage that allowed for continuing communication and coordination. Like the Chinese dynasties, European imperial states have come and gone, lasting a few centuries and then being replaced by others. Local European cultures, however, have persisted for millennia, developing according to their own natures.

Human sufferings are often linked to the over domination of the Yang aspects. But such domination is transient. As it reaches its peak, the ground shifts beneath it and something new emerges. At the moment, the United States has reached preeminence. Who can say what its position will be after another century? During the first half of the last century, the sun never set on the British Empire, and until 1940 it was hard to imagine that it ever would. But it is important to note that the British Empire was not taken over by any of the countries that opposed it. Instead, its world position shifted with a corrective adjustment of its Yin and Yang energies.

In thinking about civilizations, it is vital to remember the importance of this balance. And it is especially important to recognize the Yin aspect, since human attention is so easily captured by the superficial energy of the Yang aspect. Under all the pomp of regimes and wars, we should not lose sight of the persistence and true strength of our cultures.

The human tendency to focus on Yang and forget Yin is due to our tendency toward linear thinking. The linear is the fragmentary; the complete form is circular. In linear thinking, there is a concrete, one-way sequence of cause and effect, a beginning and an end. In circular thinking, the relationship between cause and effect, or beginning and ending, is more flexible. Each cause creates an effect, and each effect, in turn, creates another cause. From a more linear perspective, if we take the garbage out of our house, we think it is gone forever. If we eradicate terrorism from a region, we think the terrorism will be gone forever. But what goes out comes back, one way or another. This is why linear thinking is ineffective, and produces incomplete results, which in turn may cause even more problems. The only kind of effective thinking is based on seeing complete forms, in which there is a simultaneous presence and consideration of both Yin and Yang aspects.

Human beings tend to compromise other living things for the sake of what they see as their own survival. However, all living things and systems in this planet are parts of a single great organism. This has caused enormous problems in the environment. Again, it is the human tendency to linear thinking that has caused this situation. Concern for the well-being of the whole planet has become an urgent matter. People often think the negative impact of environmental degradation is far away, in space or time, so they feel safe ignoring the problem. But on what scale are ‘far’ and ‘near’ measured? A negative consequence, like extinction, that is far away for a human may be very near for a habitat that has been reduced to a tiny fraction of its original population. This is why we have to see both the Yin and Yang aspects of every situation, every system, and every action.

On different scales, any countries in Latin America and in the Caribbean Region have tried to achieve greater political, economic, and military presence, only to find themselves further entangled in poverty and debt. But in a cultural sense, they still have great abundance and many strengths, all of which are rooted in their Yin aspect. In North America and Europe, much of the Yang aspect of domination through money, power, central planning, and grand development will have serious human, political, and economic consequences for years to come. To counterbalance this, we should focus on the preservation and support of our regional and local cultures. We should enhance the strength of the family rather than the force of the state; tribal and local cohesiveness rather than international ambitions; local farming and production rather than massive agribusiness; and ecological conservation rather than resource exploitation. In these ways, Yin and Yang will achieve better balance, and human societal interactions will reflect this restored equilibrium.

Throughout Chinese history, the rise and fall of dynasties has traced the dynamic interaction of Yin and Yang forces -- and the Yin has always prevailed, to restore balance and preserve strength. I hope that this perspective on the Chinese culture and experience may have some relevance to the lives of people in Latin America and in the world. At this pivotal point in human history, we have to see the importance of respecting natural patterns and principles. This is the key to the hope of creating and maintaining harmonious relationships among human communities. We need to find our strength in the enduring treasures of culture, rather than in the search for transient domination.

(This article is the written contribution to the Dialogue Among civilization conference held in Caracas, Venezuela in November 13-16, sponsored by UNESCO and latin America Economic System)

Design Principles: The Bedroom

People spend an average of eight hours a day in their bedrooms – it is one of the most important rooms in the house. The Feng Shui of the bedroom affects the health, emotional state, quality of relationships and fertility of the people who sleep there.

In contrast to other rooms, the bedroom is meant purely for rest and renewal. Therefore, it is essentially a yin room. For this reason, an ideal bedroom is quiet, with adequate light, good air circulation, a wholesome shape, a simple floor plan and a neutral color scheme.

The bed should be at standard height, neither too low to the floor nor raised up too high. Bedside tables should not be taller than the bed itself. A ceiling beam that cuts horizontally over the bed, especially over the upper part of the occupant’s body, may cause health problems. The bathroom and closet doors should be as far as possible from the head of the bed.

If the ceiling is too high or if the floor plan is too big then the energy of the room becomes scarce, possibly resulting in low energy or chronic disease for the occupants. Too low a ceiling can cause depression. If the room is too bright or too dark, the occupants may suffer from insomnia or stress. Placing the bed in front of a window or on the wall with the door may negatively affect the occupants’ health and/or the relationship of a couple. Skylights that are too numerous or too large can also have a negative impact. Mirrors are best placed where they can be used by choice and not in direct view from the bed or doorway.

The head of the bed should be against a solid wall, diagonally opposite the door to the room.

The bed should have good support from solid walls on either side.

An ideal window provides light from the side, and not directly next to the bed. For the average room, one window is adequate.

A dresser should not be directly beside the bed unless the room is very wide.

The entry should be visible from the bed and also on the diagonal from it. It should not be behind, to the side of or immediately in front of the bed.

The closet door is as far as possible from the bed.

Healthy plants can be placed in the corner diagonally opposite the entry, or in front of or to the sides of a window. Don’t use too many plants and avoid varieties with spike-shaped or jagged leaves.

How Much Does Feng Shui Matter: The Case of the Bellevue Art Museum

We define Feng Shui as the knowledge of the relationship between the energy of an environment and the people who live in it. Recognizing that we are affected by the energy of the environment we live in, we accept the validity of Feng Shui. But that still leaves open the question of how much effect Feng Shui factors have.

In general, the amount of effect is a matter of scale. It is directly related to just how good or how bad the Feng Shui of a place or building happens to be. In other words, it is a matter of intensity. In all human endeavors, there are three related elements: Heaven, Humanity, and Earth — the Time, Human, and Space factors. As in a three-legged stool, each leg is crucial Feng Shui deals especially with the space factor. Thus, when the Feng Shui has a serious flaw, even if the Human and Time factors are very good, the overall effect will not be good.

The recently closed Bellevue Art Museum is a case in point. The BAM was situated in downtown Bellevue, right across from the Bellevue Mall. From a Feng Shui point of view, this was a good energy spot. However, the extremely flawed building design (by New York architect Steven Holl) doomed the Museum before it even opened. People described the barn-red building as a “bold statement” in the midst of the sterility of downtown towers, shopping and traffic. It was certainly bold — shamelessly bold, and stupid. The color is a minor issue: the main problem was the extremely unwholesome form. The building was the equivalent of displaying a dismembered, eviscerated human body, with broken parts haphazardly piled up. It was not even possible to see a central form from which the parts had been broken: it was simply a disjointed heap.

I first saw it in January 2001, when I was taking students on a field trip for my Interior Space Design class. Our project was to analyze Bellevue Mall. We were all appalled — even students who had only taken a few classes could see right away that, from a Feng Shui point of view, the project could not possibly be successful. With such a bad exterior design, it didn’t matter what the interior structure might be like. The building could not be a success.

Furthermore, the door of the Museum was facing north, and it was on a slope that fell off from north to south, leaving it without good support (in other words, no Mountain). As soon as the Lincoln Tower was built at the northeast corner of the Museum this year, representing a “hostile White Tiger” for the Museum, the inevitable happened. The Museum found itself forced to close.

From a Feng Shui point of view, with such a badly designed building, no amount of managerial skill or vision could make the Museum work. Nor is it likely that any other organization would have any future there. The building is simply a waste of $23 million.

This is how much Feng Shui matters.

There is another museum basket case in the Seattle area — the Experience Music Project, generally known as the EMP. The building is a signature design of Frank Gehry, an architect with a world reputation, the recipient of the Pritzker Award. He threw this fabricated steel frame and sheet-steel panel building into Seattle’s favorite public locale, the Seattle Center area. There is no harmony between the building and the land, or between the building and any of the buildings in the vicinity. It is like a bully that has forced himself into a crowd, punching and kicking wildly in order to draw attention to himself. Even if such a person is somewhat restrained by the situation, he can easily hurt someone, if only by accident.

This kind of design might work well in a much more open space — like that of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (another Gehry design). But not in the Seattle Center area.

The self-centeredness of many modern architects allows them to see only their own design, without having any sense of the other buildings with which it will exist. Their designs thus have no energetic balance with their surroundings. Unfortunately, the style of modern architecture has become orthodoxy — and, as in the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, no one dares to challenge what everyone seems to accept.

At the grand opening of the EMP, most Seattleites found the building ugly and distasteful — but the news media could only bring themselves to call it “interesting”! It seemed that the media did not want to take the chance of offending the power and influence behind the EMP. The striking, dazzling color was intended to evoke a visceral response — and it does, in a thoroughly negative way. It creates a visual pollution, which on a daily basis affects everyone who lives nearby, or who drives past. And this effect will persist as long as the building exists.

From a Feng Shui point of view, this is naturally a bad design. First of all, it has a negative effect on the innocent public. Second, it has a negative effect on the owner and the institution, which will never be successful as long as they are anchored in that building. Luckily, the owner, Paul Allen, has pockets deep enough to continue to make up for the consequences of the poor design. But this need to pay will last as long as the building exists.

This again is how much Feng Shui matters.

Good Feng Shui is about the harmony between a building and the land it rests on, about its resonance with the immediately surrounding buildings and features, about the wholesomeness of the form that manifests wholesome energy, about the quality of the energy flow both outside and inside, about having good features and interior design that provokes good feelings. Most of all, Feng Shui is about seeing beyond physical form, and seeing the energetic form, since what ultimately affects people is the intrinsic energy that manifests from the physical form. This concept is very foreign to the culture of architecture, which is why knowledge of the Feng Shui principles that derived from the Form School approach could be very useful for architects — and their clients.

Feng Shui matters more than most people think.

Newsletter: Winter 2004-2005

2005 The Year of Awakening!
Water and Feng Shui
A Taste of China with Dr. Hsu

2005 The Year of Awakening

The year of the Monkey is nearly over, along with all its surprising twists and turns. Coming up very soon is the Year of the Rooster, and perhaps with it a new awakening, especially in the aftermath of the political and cultural turmoil.

Over the past year, with the help of graduate Kelly DeBruine, we have established and developed our web site, which can be visited at fengshuisource.com. We have also been fortunate in that Gwen Williams, another graduate, has volunteered to serve as our web master. We are building an archive of past articles from this newsletter and other sources, and hope to make it available soon. The web site will also make it easier to give everyone timely information about or activities.

Another exciting development this year was the first Blue Mountain Feng Shui tour in China. This September, thirty people went with us on a 12-day review of some key sites. Of course we had fun, and saw some standard tourist sights -- but we planned the tour around Feng Shui themes, so we approached each activity and location with Feng Shui in mind. Many of us were vividly struck by the intensity of ascending Yang energy at the Temple of Heaven. We also visited the White Cloud Temple (Bo Yun Guan), one of the premier Taoist Temples, and attended a lecture on energy cultivation by Lineage Master Xu. Most of us accepted the challenge to climb up almost to the top of the Great Wall, despite the fog and mist on that day. Going down the Li River from Guilin, the landscape seemed especially dreamlike; Dr. Xu led the group in Taiji on the deck, while water buffalo gazed on the banks of the river.

Because of the enthusiastic response of the people on the tour, and because many people were not able to attend, we are organizing another Feng Shui tour in China for April, 2005. The tour will be limited to 28 people: if you are interested please contact us as soon as possible, so that you can reserve a place. You can contact us by telephone, or by e-mail through our web site.

This year we also offered three new courses. Two specialized courses, Feng Shui for Lovers, Yin and Yang of Food and Cooking, were very well received. We also offered a Feng Shui Remedies course for graduates who were already certified as Feng Shui consultants. People had been asking for such a course, and we finally felt that it there were enough students who were ready for it. The course presented with both conventional and esoteric approaches to dealing with situations when changes on the physical level are not possible.

Many people are probably not aware of the long tradition of Qin music in China, although some of our local students have had a chance to hear this music at some of our events. In Seattle, we are fortunate to have a Qin master teaching at the University of Washington. He has agreed to develop a CD of meditation music exclusively for Blue Mountain Feng Shui Institute. This tape should be available in the first part of the coming year. As soon as it is available, ordering details will be announced on the Blue Mountain web site.

Over the past year, the popularity of Feng Shui has continued to increase around the world. In addition, more people are developing a clearer sense of what traditional Feng Shui really is. There has also been an increase in trained Feng Shui practitioners, and we hope that this in turn will have an increasing positive effect on the societies in which they live and work.

Water and Feng Shui

In traditional Feng Shui, the intrinsic energy pattern (qi) of our living environment, whether a large-scale landscape or a small house, is detected from physical patterns.

In a large-scale landscape, there are Mountains, Hills, Flat Lands, and Bodies of Water. We call these the Four Features. The intrinsic energy of the landscape is closely related to the quantity, quality and composition of these four features. These are thus the basis for understanding the energy pattern of the environment, and its likely impact on the people who live in it. Mountains, being static and stable, provide the force for stability, the force of support. The Hills, also called the Guardian Hills, provide protection for the Flag Ground, where energy collects. The Flat Ground is the Energy Spot, the nurturing space within activities take place. Water, flowing through the lowest places, confines and shifts the energy flow. It also provides an open field of vision that allows for expansion. When these features are good, and are well balanced, we say that the Feng Shui of the landscape is good.

The Mountain feature, as a source of energy, support and stability, is also the source of control. It becomes a metaphor for power, political or military. A country with great political or military influence usually has a strong Mountain configuration.

The Water feature represents flow and traffic, and is thus a metaphor for trade, commerce and money. Economically successful countries have access to large bodies of good Water. Most large business centers are on rivers, oceans or lakes.

Because of this, people often say that Mountains are Power, and Water is Money. Taking this in a simplistic way, people sometimes think that Water is Money, and that flowing water will bring fortune into the house. This is why in recent years miniature fountains have become a popular household Feng Shui gadget in the United States.

But the real impact of Feng Shui is on the energy level -- the level of energy patterns carried in and by physical features like water. It is not the water itself, but the energy pattern typical of water, that is associated with wealth. If water were literally wealth, a house with a leaking roof would be better than a house with a good roof.

The Water feature represents flow, merging, spreading, connection, liquidity, and flexibility. It is these traits that are associated with economic success, just as they are also characteristic of material water.

The political unrest that has accompanied the recent elections in the Ukraine has reminded me of a question asked by a student in a workshop I gave in Kiev a few years ago. The student pointed out that Ukraine has nice mountains in the northwest, vast flat lands with very rich soil, and the Dnieper river flowing from the north to the Black Sea in the south. In terms of Feng Shui, these four features are almost perfect. Why, then, is the Ukraine so poor?

This is a legitimate question. In physical terms, the Ukraine does have good Feng Shui. Its capital, Kiev, was once the center of Europe -- in the tenth century. The Ukraine was also the breadbasket of the old Soviet Union. But the answer, as I told the student, is that the Ukraine now does not have good Water. Not that I discount the existence of the Dnieper River, or the Black Sea. But in Feng Shui, Water is more than just physical water. Human beings live between Heaven and Earth. We are affected by three factors: Heaven (Time), Earth (Space) and the Human. The Four Feature model does not apply only to the Earth factor: it also applies to the Human factor. The rigid political system and awkward economic system of the current Ukraine indicate that there is a lack of the Water quality -- flow, liquidity and flexibility. With this lack of these Water qualities, one cannot expected money, or financial success.

This is why well-controlled, dictatorial countries are so often poorer than freer societies. Hungary broke free of the old Soviet bloc in 1991, and turned (or returned) to a market economy. It now enjoys the highest per capita income among all the countries in the old Soviet bloc. China is another good example: the recent rapid economic growth began with the pragmatic 1 of the popular leader Deng Xiaopin.

It is important to realize that physical manifestations -- including the structures of the material world -- are created by energy patterns. To change physical manifestations, it is most efficient to work with the energy and information levels.

An example, on the human level, is the formal debates held during the recent US presidential elections. Formal arguments in themselves may express the point of view of the debaters, but they do not often convince anyone -- and certainly not the other party to the debate. Once people have acquired a point of view, it is not easy to change that point of view, especially through arguments. A political position or commitment manifests from the higher level of energy and information: from the mind and heart of the person who holds it. To change or affect that position, it is not so effective to manipulate the terms in which it is expressed. It is more effective to work at the level of the mind and heart from which the position has taken form -- and to do that, one has to work with one’s own mind and heart. This may seem to be a slow process, but in fact it is actually the fastest process, because it is the most effective.

After the election, many Kerry supporters were disappointed and distressed, even to the point of despair, and wondered if it was worthwhile even hoping to influence the situation. The answer is that there is little hope of influencing the situation by manifesting antagonism to it on the outer level. To do so is to work at the material level. There is, however, the real possibility of affecting the situation by working at the energy level. To do so, however, requires working with one’s own mind and heart, and having an openness to the minds and hearts of those whom one wants to influence. One cannot influence people with whom one has no relationship. But before one can have a relationship, one has to be open to the idea that a relationship is possible.

Form defines energy. In the true Feng Shui approach, one needs to see things beyond the physical level. For example, from the conventional point of view, a physical building is just a physical body. But from a Feng Shui point of view, a physical building is also an energy body and an information body. This understanding has been missing from the architectural world throughout its history: this is why people have been able to spend centuries debating the issue of form versus function. From the Feng Shui point of view , this debate does not arise, because form and function exist simultaneously, and are developed and perfected simultaneously. In a pyramid, there are four points at the lowest level, but there is only one unifying point on the top.

A Taste of China with Dr. Hsu

One photo with trained cormorants perched on your shoulder, three Yuan; twenty postcards from a street vendor outside the Forbidden City, one USD; floating down the Li River practicing Tai Chi with Dr. Hsu; priceless.

To my mother and me, China is no longer a distant country to the East that we bear no connection to, but a place made real to us because we’ve seen, tasted, and experienced it. Our trip was nothing less than fabulous, overflowing with countless memories and new experiences. One of the most memorable moments for me on this trip was my ambitious dream finally becoming a reality the day we literally climbed the Great Wall. I can still see the gray bricks which formed the battlements on the walls I climbed between, and through the openings the fog covered mountainous horizon, layer upon layer, looked just how I had pictured it would. My mother, however, who has been drawn to China for years, and even as a teenager dreamed of leaving her life to meditate in the mountains of Tibet to be amongst monasteries, monks, and their ways of life, found the mysterious pagodas in the far off distance drew her attention. An especially notable experience for her was when we were invited to Master Xu’s temple where he spoke to us about deep secrets of Taoist energy and meditation, and I think we both felt the power in the Monk’s chanting at Lingyin Temple where we also saw life size statues of the five hundred disciples.

I am embarrassed to admit that neither my mother nor I have taken Master Hsu’s Feng Shui classes, but we were fortunate enough to hear about the trip through friends of ours, (Jim and Charlotte Fairfield), who had. Although we joined this journey knowing little about Feng Shui, we were eager to learn, and what better place to study this art then with Master Hsu at the heart of where it all began. Over the duration of the trip Master Hsu pointed out countless Feng Shui examples, such as the man-made layout of the Forbidden City, the natural landscape surrounding the section of the Great Wall we climbed, not to mention the Feng Shui specific gardens we visited and the various discussions on Yin and Yang to mention a few.

I cannot fathom going to China in any other way. If it had been up to me to plan the trip, I would have overlooked some of the greatest sites (and seriously have gotten lost), and I honestly think the trip would have been made hollow by what it would have lacked. All our stops, tour guides, buses, meals and accommodations were great, and had we not have traveled with Master Hsu, we would have missed his insights and added knowledge of tea, Tai-Chi and Yin and Yang, to name only a few, which I felt really added to the depth of the experience.

On the lighter side, however, we thought it important to mention our experience with the unbalanced Yin and Yang in most public bathrooms, as there is a toilet but rarely any toilet paper (bring your own)!

Neither of us would have traded this trip for anything. We sincerely hope that our brief description helps nudge you in the direction of deciding to go on the next Feng Shui Tour, and that you enjoy and gain as much as we have. Happy travels!    Jen and Marguerite Redmond

Newsletter: Spring 2006

2006 The Year of Realization!
Talent and Heart

2006 The Year of Realization!

As you are reading this, we have already entered the Year of the Dog. There are many kinds of dogs – watch dogs, fi ghting dogs, barking dogs, running dogs, and so on. Dogs are one of the best friends of human beings, and also tend to share in, and refl ect, many of the human energies around them. Last year, we described as a Year of Awakening – and indeed, many events, from natural disasters to intensifi ed human confl icts, have made us sit up and take notice. But have we really awakened?

In the coming year, for everyone who has not fully awakened, the stream of revelations will continue – and lead to realizations. In the United States, there are many pressing issues in addition to war and terrorism: health care, education, and civil liberties. But how these issues manifest and develop hinges on the conduct of our leaders, and one of the characteristic traits of our leaders at the moment is a kind of weakness that expresses itself in their decisions and policies. This weakness involves a very specifi c cluster of traits: a feeling of vulnerability that leads to isolation, and listening only to those who agree; a tendency toward rigidity; a harshness of expression, and a lack of courage to admit when a mistake has been made.

Although it can be tempting simply to criticize policies and attitudes with which we don’t agree, it is important to remember that, for those of us who live in the United States, these are our leaders. They are manifestations of our energy, of the energies in which we all participate because we live in the same region of the planet. The more we adopt an attitude of mere criticism and hostility, the more we participate in the same energy pattern, and the more we reinforce it. While this may give us some immediate satisfaction, it does not resolve the situation. In fact, it helps perpetuate it.

Instead of participating in the pattern of weakness, it is more productive to try to replace it with a pattern of strength, because from a position of strength many things – fl exibility, creativity, gentleness, and moderation – are possible that are much less likely from a position of weakness. But how is it possible to replace weakness with strength? By providing support, rather than by engaging in attempts to undermine. This does not mean that we have to agree with policies, or with the way those policies are carried out. It does, however, mean that we should try to act from the point of view of supportive concern that encourages people to do better, rather than taking an approach that encourages them to be defensive and suspicious. The way to make this change is not on the external level, but on the level of information and energy. Once the energetic and information pattern changes, it becomes easier for the outward manifestations to change. In our hearts, we should wish them well. We should realize that within them, no matter how deeply it may seem to be buried, there is a seed of divine energy, and we should seek to nourish it so that it will grow into manifestation. As we do this, we are also nourishing within ourselves the seed that will grow to produce clarity, strength, and higher wisdom.

We are happy to report that we have produced a CD of Blue Mountain meditation music. Also, at the request of many of our graduates, we have introduced a new course, Signs and Symbols, that addresses the way in which signs and symbols reflect the energies of larger manifestations. The course studies the way in which, for example, corporate logos reflect the energies of the corporation, and how changes in logos can promote changes in the organization.

We would also like to report on the pending publication of Medicine Box: A Journey into Ancient Chinese Wisdom, a novel by Dr. Shan-Tung Hsu. We are expecting that it will be available in April – so keep your fingers crossed.

We are planning a feng-shui gathering (with book signing) in July. In addition, we are exploring the possibility of another feng-shui tour of China in September of 2006. Anyone interested in the tour, please contact Shan-Tung Hsu for more details. There will be an early cut-off date, so, if you are interested, get in touch as soon as you can.

Talent and Heart

Feng Shui is a form of ancient wisdom that provides guidance for all aspects of human activity. Its modern version, though, has been scaled down to a much narrower scope; as a guide to understanding and organizing the environment in which we live. Although this is a fairly broad field, in for the most part people tend to think of Feng Shui in terms of the houses or buildings in which we live and work..

For most of human history, if people didn't make their own dwellings, they had them made by skilled local craftsmen. This meant that houses were built by people who had a more intimate sense of the feel and energy of the land where the house was to sit. This, in turn, established a more harmonious relationship between the house and its natural environment. In addition, the internal spaces were arranged in accord with common sense – a shared understanding about what the spaces were for, and how people would live in them.

In modern time, land has become more and more scarce and expensive. The desire to maximize profit leads builders and developers to squeeze as many unit as possible onto a given piece of land. Designs tend to be replicated mechanically, without much regard to the difference between one setting and another, with little sense of what whether a specific design is in harmony with that particular environment.

There has also been a loss of contact with common sense. A wide-spread example is the “island kitchen,” in which the stovetop is on an island in the middle of the kitchen space. This classic example of bad design was introduced in the United States about half a century ago, and has haunted home design ever since. This design, in which the stove is unsupported and is in an unavoidable confrontation with the water, correlates with a loss of control of the household budget, and a more challenged relationship between husband and wife. Although this design flaw can not be blamed on architects – most houses in the United States are not designed by architects, who work only for corporations and more affluent individuals. Even so, there is a similarity with some characteristic features of modern architecture.

Modern architects often seem to act more as tools reflecting the energies around them, rather than playing the role of making a connection with more transcendent forces. Many designs by well-known architects are certainly eye-catching, but merely reflect the fast pace, emotionally charged, and unthinking reactivity of modern life.

What is the source of success or failure in an architectural design? Is it the architect? Or the owner? Actually, it is both. Talented architects have the ability to channel and manifest the energy and information (heart, mind, and spirit) of what intends to be manifest. Thus, any particular design develops from the way the architect is able to bring to manifestation the particular energy form manifested by and through the owner (either as an individual or as a group of people).

Seattle, for example, is blessed by the presence of the beautiful and powerful Mt Rainier, and by beautiful and abundant bodies of water, in addition to its rather mild climate. Yet, in the city, there are few buildings to be proud off – and almost none of them were built after the 1960s. The ruinous Rainier Tower, the dark menace of the Columbia tower, and the warty growth of the Experience Music Project, and finally the leaning, bullying presence of the office building on fourth avenue, at the edge of the International District, unavoidably assault our gaze. The latest Seattle landmark, the new downtown library, which was hailed with enthusiasm last year, has the general presence of a looming robot head. Naturally we are delighted about the improved library. However, the architecture has no coherence with the buildings around it– which may have been the point: “Look at me! I am great because I am different.” The small. wedge-shaped entrance to its huge mass gives the feeling of being a the secret entrance to a tomb. The “landscaping” on the front corner is just a pile of dirt nd weeds. It adds nothing to the facade. Even a few benches placed near the front would make it feel more welcoming.

The peculiar problems with architectural design in Seattle have a lot to do with the “owners” – the Seattleites. When people ask me about the Feng Shui of Seattle, I say that it’s good –but too good. In Yin-Yang theory, when yang reaches a maximum it begins to turn into yin. In an most ideal living environment, there is little challenge. There are no hurricanes, tornadoes, or other serious problems. There is not enough adversity to forge strong characters. Because they lack a strong character, Seattle people tend of be passive, and indecisive. This is what allows architects from out of town to show up and ruin the beautiful landscape and skyline.

When the Experience Music Project was built, no news media dare to criticize the design. The most critical remark anyone dared to make was that its was “interesting”. For decades, Seattleites have been talking and arguing about mass transit system. And we are still talking, still arguing, still vacillating. The problem is not whether one system is better than another: the problem is whether Seattleites have the guts to make a decision and stick to it.

We have just said that design hinges on the talent of an architect, and that talent is the ability to channel the energy and information (the heart, mind and soul) of both the owner and the architect. However, this means that, while a talented architect could create a master piece – or could equally create a master disaster. (After all, an average talent could only create an average disaster). Everything has three aspects – matter (physical manifestation), energy (chi) and information (heart, mind or soul). Although this is as true of buildings as anything else, architects tend to focus on the physical, because they do not have a theory that would allow them to grasp the energy or information aspects. Even without a theory, however, talented architects connect with the energy and information levels, ands manifest them in their work.

The same architect can turn out work at either end of the scale. Steven Holl did beautiful work with Seattle University’s Chapel of St. lgnatius, but he also designed the chaotic and unworkable building of the Bellevue Modern Art Museum. Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in Northern Spain is a successful piece; people in Seattle hoped his design for a museum in Seattle will draw visitors from around the world. But the EMP is more than a mere disaster: is has gained a reputation as one of the ten ugliest buildings in the world.

What makes the difference, from project to project, is a matter of the balance of the heart. In general, there are not many ugly religious buildings. When architects feel respect for the project, when they feel it is beyond being a merely personal project, ego is more suppressed – one might say that a divine intervention safeguards the design. But when architects become very successful, and perhaps even complacent about their abilities, that arrogance and shifts the balance of the heart, and that imbalance expresses itself in the work.

This is not true just for architects: it is true for all of us. Matter, energy and information are the three aspects of existence, but our focus is largely on the material level, the level visible manifestation. Nevertheless, it is the higher-order aspects of energy and information that ultimately make the difference, and how they manifest depends on the balance of our own hearts.

Newsletter: 2007

2007 The Year of Directness!
Seeing the Big Picture of Feng Shui
Feng Shui Forecasts Presidential Elections

2007 The Year of Directness!

The Year of the Pig
This year's newsletter is coming out late. If we wanted to look for an excuse, we might say that it was in tune with the nature of the pig -- slow and lazy. That, at least, is the impression people often have about pigs; the pigs may prefer to see themselves as having a steady, easy-going nature.

Many people are anxious to know what the Year of the Pig will bring, on every level from the personal to the global.

Personal Level
According to the traditional concepts, this will be a year of change for people born in a year of the Pig. We may feel that change could be for the better as well as for the worse, but from nature's point of view change is a constant; it is the nature of things to change. Thus, to change is to follow the way of Nature, and any change must therefore have a positive aspect.

People born in Snake years have a unique situation. The Snake is directly opposite the Pig in the Chinese Zodiac, and Pig years are not favorable for people born in a year of the Snake. They should remain calm and cautious, and not get caught up in ambitious endeavors or new projects.

This will be an especially good year for people born in a year of the Rat or the Sheep; for them, things will go smoothly and well!

Global Level
On the global level, not much will change. Conflict and chaos will continue, but a clear picture will gradually emerge. For the past year, many things have been buried in denials and cover-ups; these mists will gradually clear away. This transition reflects the nature of the Pig.

Of the twelve Chinese zodiac animals, the Snake fears the Pig, and the Pig controls the Snake. This means that in Pig years, whatever the negative aspect of Snake represents can no longer prevail. The hissing threats, conspiracies, secrets, denials, and waiting for wishes to be fulfilled will fade away. World leaders will have to adopt more pragmatic and open policies. This will be especially bitter medicine for our President to follow. However, good medicine is often bitter; in Chinese medicine, bitterness is considered to be good for the heart. We cannot expect much progress on any particular issue, but we can expect a gradual alignment with reality, as preparation for the beginning of the next Zodiacal cycle in 2008, the Year of the Rat.

At Blue Mountain Feng Shui Institute
In the past year, Blue Mountain Feng Shui Institute offered a new course for its graduates called Signs and Symbols. This course looks at the "information level" of every existence and learn how to pick up hidden information from material manifestations. The workshop was well attended and well received. In the future, it will be offered as a regular course for new students as well.

Another notable event was the August book-signing party at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Shan-Tung Hsu released his first novel, The Medicine Box, which comes with Tao, a CD of Blue Mountain meditation music, included. This page-turning tale based on real people and experiences, was written to help enlighten western readers about the philosophy underlying herbal medicine, Feng Shui, Qigong, and energy healing. The story reveals the way natural principles work within us, and the secrets of how energy works. The book is especially suitable for those interested in Eastern philosophies, spiritual growth, and all lines of healing work. For more information, see www.TheMedicineBox.com and hear samples of the music or read sample chapters.

At the end of April, by invitation from the People's University in Beijing, Dr. Hsu will be giving several talks in Beijing. We hope this signals a gradual relaxation of the official attitude toward Feng Shui.

The overwhelming success of past Feng Shui tours to China has led us to offer another Feng Shui tour to China this September. People interested in the tour should contact the Institute as soon as possible to reserve a place.

Relax, take it easy, and smile like a happy pig!

Seeing the Big Picture of Feng Shui

In any study, it is important to see the big picture. Naturally, this is also true for the study of Feng Shui.

People interested in Feng Shui often begin by picking up a book or attending a class. If it happens to be one involved with interior design, it is easy for them to conclude that Feng Shui is essentially the art of placement: how to arrange furniture, decorations, and so on. If they encounter someone using the Ba Gua as the basic design concept, they may regard the Ba Gua design as the central feature of Feng Shui. Those who first encounter the Flying Star or Eight House School might assume that Feng Shui is all about those complex and mathematical calculations. When that person then begins to read other books or attend other classes, they can become puzzled, finding little relationship between one approach and the other. Puzzlement leads to being confusion, which leads to frustration or even giving up in despair.

This sequence of events is not limited to Feng Shui; it happens in many other studies as well. Qigong, Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, Tuina - all employ different healing techniques, but how they are related to each other? Whether there is a big picture into which they all fit, is often unclear.

To address the big picture of Feng Shui, we must first define and understand the term. If we use the ancient name, Kan Yi (The Tao of Heaven and the Tao of Earth), we get an overview idea of a field focusing on how human beings live between heaven and earth, a field that addresses how people should live and work following natural principles. In more modern terms, we might say that Feng Shui addresses the relationship between human beings and their environment, such as:

• how to detect and understand the inner energy of the land


• the proper way to use the land


• how to find and use a good energy site to build a house that will nourish human life


• how to create a structural plan that will work the best for particular people with a particular life-style


• how to utilize the ideal forms, shapes and sizes of structures for any specific purpose or activity.

Feng Shui deals with how our environment affects us. The key to understanding its applications is to see it as the search for balance and harmony with Nature. If we accept this, the next question is: what does Feng Shui knowledge entail? Is it just a set of rules and Do’s-and-Don'ts? Is there a fundamental principle and philosophy behind it? What exactly is the object that is being studied? And what exactly should we see in a house, building, or larger environment?

Attention to the big picture has been absent from most popular Feng Shui books and training courses. People read one popular manual and clutch what they have read like someone clutching a log on the ocean at night; where they are, where they are going, and where they might end up, may not be clear.

In recent years, some have awakened from the gadget approach that uses the Ba Gua as its basic model, and have gone on to the Flying Star School, without knowing the place of the Flying Star School in the historical context of the Feng Shui tradition. After the Qing Dynasty, many serious Feng Shui scholars have avoided this approach. Other people jump to various teachings that claim to be based in the Form school, without knowing exactly what the Form school is or how it fits into the long tradition of Feng Shui. Many so-called Form school teachers still use the Ba Gua pattern, but simply avoid using gadgets, like mirrors and crystals, that are popularly associated with it. But traditional Form school approaches never used the Ba Gua pattern at all!

What is the big picture that provides the context of traditional Feng Shui? There are two great pillars to this tradition. One is to use natural law as the guiding principle of design; the other is to see the subject of interest in the context of its relationship between matter, energy and information.

Relying on natural law means using the Yin-Yang and Five Element theories. Natural law transcends cultural, regional, and religious traditions; it is universally applicable. Even though design does consider such lower-order factors as climate, culture, and social factors, these more limited considerations should not be allowed to violate or over-ride the higher-level principles of natural law.

Regarding the second pillar, most designers view the objects of their design as only physical bodies or structures. However, true Feng Shui recognizes the physical structure as well the energy body and the information body, taking all three levels into consideration. Considering the three levels has never been a part of traditional architecture, and architects do not recognize the energetic consequences their structures have on the lives of the people who live in them. However, over thousands of years of observation, the Feng Shui tradition has developed a clear sense of the impacts that buildings have on the lives of people who live or work in them, in terms of energy and information.

The first pillar guides us to live in harmony with Nature. The second pillar helps us to see beyond physical manifestations. Once the big picture is clear, we can make good use of more specific aspects of the Feng Shui tradition: design principles, specific techniques, and so on.

It is critical not to be satisfied with the general overview of Feng Shui. The value lies in coordinating the big picture with its practical design techniques. The techniques alone are only a tool kit, filled with whatever one has picked up, having no way of telling the useful from the useless. Seeing only the big picture leaves us with no way to implement something of value. The essence of Feng Shui is connecting Heaven and Earth, connecting the big picture with specific techniques. Feng Shui study should begin with learning how to make this connection.

Feng Shui Forecasts Presidential Elections

“Who do you think will be our next president?”

In 1988, a friend, a retired Venezuelan diplomat, asked me this question the day before I left Caracas to return to Seattle. It was my second visit to Caracas to teach a Feng Shui workshop; I knew nothing about Venezuelan politics at the time. I am neither a psychic nor a fortune-teller - but since I often tell my Feng Shui students that there is no secret under the sun, this friend assumed I might be able to know future events.

“Why not show me something?” I said. “The campaign sign for example.” I need something that has already manifested to be able to tap into the information level. My friend dug into the newspaper, found some campaign ads, and showed them to me. (shown below)

         

After one look, I told him that the sign with the letters MVR and a "black sun" in the background, would win. I also told him that that the candidate was facing tremendous pressures from both inside and outside of the country; (the V was squeezed by the M and the R); but the check-mark-shaped ‘V’ in the center, a positive form, indicated he would prevail and win over the other candidate, who had a jagged empty circle at the center of his campaign sign. I had no idea who those candidates were at the time. Later, I learned that the MVR sign represented Hugo Chavez’s Fifth Republic Movement (Movimiento Quinta Republica, with the V representing the Roman numeral five). He defeated Henrique Salas Romer of Proyecto Venezuela Alliance with the largest percentage of the popular vote (56.2%) in four decades.

In the year 2000, before the Mexican election, I examined the logos (shown below) of the presidential candidates in a newspaper. The two parties involved were PAN and PRI. Again, I knew nothing about the politics of Mexico, but it was very clear to me that whoever had the PAN sign, which had a very wholesome form, should win over the party with the other sign (PRI), which was divided into three parts. The PAN candidate was Vicente Fox. He was elected the 62nd president of Mexico in July 2, 2000. He defeated Francisco Labastida of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), which had controlled Mexico Government for seven decades.

              

How can one tell who will win the election long before the campaign is over and the votes are cast, just by examining the campaign signs? In the past, even “top” psychics in the US have failed badly to predict the outcome of presidential elections.

We live in a physical/material world, and we often think that only material aspects of the world are real. Actually, there are always three components to any existence or entity: matter, energy (chi), and information. This is easily understood with regard to a living human being; we have a physical body (matter), living activity (energy), and an information level of our existence (soul, mind, thought…). In the view of classical metaphysics, however, everything in the universe - a house, a chair, or a rock - is a living entity; thus, everything in the material world has these three attributes too. Furthermore, all events and actions, such as social movements or wars, also have these three components. Everything in the universe begins with a thought form. All material manifestation comes from this informational level, and comes into material manifestation via chi (energy).

Therefore, everything existed before it was made manifest in a way we could see with our eyes. A doctor might detect a cancer cell in a physical exam today, but at the informational level, that cancer may have already existed for months or years. If we were able to see things on the information level, we might know what was going to be manifested. Thus, to perceive the result of an election from the manifested logo or signs associated with it is reasonable and possible.

How does one obtain this “invisible” information? Ask yourself a question: how can you tell if someone is angry or happy? Most likely, you detect it from facial expressions or a physical demeanor. The facial expressions reveal the emotional energy and information associated with the person. In Feng Shui, we call this expression “form.” Different forms manifest different energy and information. Wholesome form manifests wholesome energy; wholesome energy comes from wholesome information. This is the fundamental concept of traditional Feng Shui.

A landscape (mountains, hills, flat lands, lakes, or rivers), a city block, a building, or a house all have form. Through observing and studying the form, a Feng Shui master can understand the energy of the place and how it will affect the people who live there, and may also be able to predict future events that might take place there. In Seattle, the form of the Experience Music Project (EMP) building designed by Frank Gehry, (reputed to be one of the ten ugliest buildings in the world), foretold that Paul Allen would have to continually reach into his pockets to sustain the business operation. Since it was not a wholesome form, it could not sustain a viable business. Likewise, the chaotic form of the building of Modern Art Museum in the city of Bellevue, designed by Steven Holl, could not have housed a successful business no matter what it was. When the form is not good, the energy is not good; it cannot nourish a successful business or a healthy living.

It is the same for election campaign signs and symbols; they are summaries of the information associated with the candidates, their campaigns, political party and etc. By examining the form of the logo, one can obtain the information about what the ultimate manifestation will be.

I have been showing the above examples of Presidential campaign logos to my Feng Shui classes for years. Without telling them whom the logos represent, almost 100% of students have pointed out the winning logos - and they were all very surprised to find out that they had done so.

Nature has no secrets; our world has no secrets. We only have to know where to look for information and how to see it. We have to know that it is possible to tap into the informational level via the physical level - that it is possible to know the “unknown” from the known. We were never taught this concept in schools; we were taught to use our five senses, and that only things perceived through those senses were real. We were not encouraged to use or respect our sixth sense, let alone any of our more diverse or subtle perceptive abilities. Furthermore, if we add to all of our subtle awareness the knowledge of Yin-Yang theory (a fundamental natural principle), we have substantial power to tap into the information level of our living world.

Prior to the US presidential election of 2000, many people asked me to make predictions. Since I was familiar with the background of the candidates and had opinions about the candidates, I was afraid that logic, reasoning, and wishful thinking might get in the way, so I avoided looking into the issue. However, the night before Election Day, I dropped by a bookstore. In the entrance on a standing rack, Al Gore and George Bush were prominently displayed on the cover of Time magazine. I noticed that Al Gore was on the left side of Bush; I thought to myself, "Hmmm… Gore has the upper hand." (In Yin-Yang theory, the left side is Yang and the right side is Yin; Yang is more in control, more dominant. This is often seen on TV, where most talk show hosts sit on the left of their guest.) But I also noticed that Gore had a serious look and was staring forward, while Bush’s head tilted somewhat to look at Gore and was smiling (as if displaying a “winning smile”). I was puzzled over this seemingly contradictory information from the image. If Gore would win the votes, why Bush was smiling? Of course, we all know what transpired.

The campaign signs of the 2004 election (Bush vs. Kerry) are shown below. Bush’s campaign sign is more open and relaxed, with wholesome form. He is also clearly in control (Cheney’s name is much smaller and below), and his name is closely connected visually with the flag. On the other hand, Kerry’s sign shows his name squeezed and somewhat overshadowed by Edwards’ name. Comparing the information of the two signs, one could easily predict that Bush would prevail.

Our next presidential election is still 20 months away. However, if we tap into the information manifested in the campaign signs and symbols, we should be able to predict who will win the next presidency.

Can it be that simple? Most people would laugh at the notion that the outcome can be known just from the physical campaign materials. But signs are not just a graphic image; they represent comprehensive information about the candidates and their campaign activities. They display information already in the process of being manifested in our world.

Why not give this idea the benefit of the doubt, and pay some attention to the campaign signs and symbols of the coming election? You may be surprised at how well you can make correct predictions.

Shan-Tung Hsu, Ph.D.
March 31, 2007

Copyright 2007 Shan-Tung Hsu. All rights reserved. The material may be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.