Trees and Distance

Please be very very careful with trees which have grown old and planted right at your foor step. They may keep you cool but there are instances where so much light is blocked off.

If your house face the direction of your setting sun, the impact is even greater. If you have an irregular shaped compound it adds on. Especially so if you have a walled compound emphasising its shape. The shape is one thing but it is more about the movement of the qi that bothers us. Add on to that, you have created a fish pond at one corner overgrown with lichens and moss and algae.

All adds up to too much yin. Then you have your interior all dark and you place your shrine packed towards one corner where no yang reaches. You leave it unattended and no qi moves there. You leave your worldly possessions in such a way that the rats build homes becoming rent free housemates. You turn your porch into a workshop which only serves to stimulate the negatives.

Rambutan trees are tropical trees. In time they grow old and become a life of its own. Symbiotic and parasitic flora and fauna grows there becoming a universe on its own - a silent energy sapping universe. Invisible energies manifest from its knarls and knots. They are all yin and feeds on all that they find most convenient.

Scary hor?

Path of Learning

The learning process of fengshui is quite a long one. Over the course of their acquisition of knowledge, most would have explored the metaphysical, the spiritistism and the spiritual.

For the true inquisitive mind, plain physics and facts does not provide the only answer. The answer to most of man’s many perplexing problems lies beyond the boundaries of science.

Sensitivity comes with time on the road. I heard of one practitioner who played an involuntary part in mediumship before he came to grips with it and moved on to truer fengshui.

Another fine master who gave me tips started as a medium. In fact he gave annual distant fengshui check ups for believers while in a trance. The divination and the solutions he provided were quite out of this world like he would instruct the removal of a photo or picture. Quite eerie sometimes. I heard he has stopped doing that now. Probably retired.

The role of a fengshui is to investigate and recommend. It is not his role to be a continuing advisor for daily affairs or every change the client wants to make. He just cannot for the true master knows that life is a result of many things, the law of karma and self will being foremost amongst them.

Water fengshui - a case study

The emphasis when fengshui is mentioned is the use of objects and interior decoration to harmonise the internal fengshui. There are certainly benefits from the arrangement of the internal space to get the results we want. Simple common sense rules almost always does the job. And there are much published material out there.

I would say stay away from the superstitious and those which do not fit into common sense and practicality. Very often, tips are given. Use them but use your head. Very often too, the tips are base on superficial application of known fengshui theory and their use are questionable. An example is not to have water (like building a swimming pool) near at he south end of your house as south is associated with fire and water theefore becomes a no-no. This is of course simplistic and silly as well.

Back to the subject of water, old texts do mention them. And there being no swimming pools back then, the water they mention are natural bodies of water like lakes, rivers, streams, marshes and sea.

The sketch shows one example. It is also a good study on the application of Greater Gua.

The house shown on the bottom left was the home in question in this case study. It was built during the 3rd yuan (or cycle of 3) with an orientation of roughly northeast-southwest of GenWei.

During the 8th and 2nd yuan, the bodies of water being favorable saw progress and wealth as well as much other good things. This despite the fact that the orientation of the property was not so auspicious. Decay then started on the approach of the 3rd cycle and this decadence is attributed to the positioning of the lake in relation to the homes.

This example presented here is an example of the application of the Zhen, Cui and Zhao theory of water fengshui.

This knowledge can be used when we are selecting properties to buy, rent or live in. Instead of just only zooming in to the peculiar orientation of the property we are interested in, it is wise to take a look at the whole picture. As often mentioned, if there is no sunshine even the most fertile seed will not grow. Even if you have the best “to mountain to water” or DaoSan DaoShui orientation it means little if the overall fengshui is no good. The picture has to be complete.