More of Water in FengShui

In the SanYuan scheme of things, the direction where water should be is the southwest, east and west. This is in accordance with the principles of direct, stimulating and nourishing water.

It follows from this principles that such directions where water is found is deemed auspicious. However it must be clear that there are many provisos in that the real conditions and arrangement will have their implications.

For example it is applicable if there is “heaviness” to the northeast. Without this heaviness then the having water at the directions just described would be of no impact. Then again the water must be near and visible. If it is distant it would not be of little use. By distance it would be about 50 meters if we are talking about a normal sized house. If we are referring to a big area like a 2 acre estate, then how the water is positioned along with the enclosing features becomes important.

It looks simple enough to say water in those directions is good but it is not really as simple as that. In gauging how the presence of water relates to portent, we do need to know how to apply the rule of the three principals of heaven, earth and man. The way this rule is applied is to ensure that the orientation of the house, that is, which principal it lies on has to be compared to the direction of the water.

To determine directions of orientation and water can be tricky. Water very often may encompass varied principals of heaven earth and man. Its effect then would be to corrupt the qi that impacts on the house. That is the reason why what on surface seems to be good water may end up not being so. There are records of some experiences by practitioners of this effect.

There are other more refined ways to determine the quality of the water and one of these methods is the nine star method. This method involves groupings of the 24 directions and then applying the principle of five elements. This however is not a SanYuan method.

Coming back to the SanYuan method, the actual portent of the water has to be analysed with the arrangement of the stars.

Most failures stem from the confusion between water applied in fengshui and artificial features. In the proper sense, water is a manifestation of the physical and energetic properties of the land. It is after all a manifestation of the yin and yang. How it joins other water sources and it interplays with the geography are all manifestation of the nature of things. One cannot take the presence of a water fountain or artificially created water fall in our garden to be the same thing.

A water feature in a garden is a manifestation of gua. Gua means the inherent quality of anything that exists. Understanding gua helps us to understand the quality of the feature that we have built. Simply building a swimming pool does not mean that is water.

A blue pool and a red pool invokes different emotions, doesn’t it?