Feng shui

For other uses, see Feng shui (disambiguation).

Feng shui
Pinyin	fēngshuǐ
Traditional Chinese	風水
Simplified Chinese	风水
Japanese	風水
Korean	pung-su
IPA2	fɤŋ ʂueɪ
Alternative IPA2	fɛŋ ʃuːi

Feng shui (pronounced "fung shway") is the ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony with the environment. The literal translation is "wind and water".

Feng shui is not a decorating style. Rather, it is a discipline whose guidelines are compatible with many different decorating styles.

The source of the term is purported to come from the poem "The winds are wild/The sun is warm/The water is clear/The trees are lush".

Feng shui is a discrete Chinese belief system involving a mix of geographical, religious, philosophical, mathematical, aesthetic, and astrological ideas.

For a place to have "good feng shui" is for it to be in harmony with Nature, to have "bad feng shui" is to be incongruous with Nature. People aren't usually described as having good or bad feng shui.

History

Before the 20th century, very little written, authoritative Chinese texts exist describing feng shui. Knowledge primarily passed down through the oral tradition, but it was also believed to be intuitive and derivable from common sense and our feeling of what is natural. Eitel traces the origins of feng shui as a distinct belief system to Chu Hsi's writings and commentaries from the Song dynasty (1126-1278). Chu Hsi's thought greatly influenced Confucianism and became the foundation of feng shui. But, more broadly speaking, feng shui's roots go back to the origins of Chinese philosophy.

In the 19th century, the Chinese government regularly published almanacs containing all the charts, diagrams, and numerical data used in feng shui practice. At the same time, disputes over the proper application of feng shui were resolved in official courts of law. When rebellious groups arose, an initial governmental response was often to desecrate the graves of the rebels' ancestors (see Use in burials, below).

Early English-speaking settlers in China in the mid-19th century reportedly ran into difficulties sparked by feng shui. Much like modern landowners having problems with building codes, these settlers had trouble in construction and renovation because their proposals did not conform to feng shui principles (many people believed feng shui having problem with building code, that is not right. Indeed, feng shui is Chinese ancestor's building code, the very basic theory methodized the living house and environment into a system for harmonizing with nature. Government building code is still wrapped by feng shui). Further, when unwanted foreigners tried to purchase land, they would be directed to spots with topographies causing very bad feng shui. This happened, for instance, to the English consul who, when demanding land, was ceded the island of Sha-meen on a mud flat on the Canton river. The houses were overrun by white ants.

Early Western commentators on feng shui were skeptical and derogatory. A typical one in 1885 wrote "if any one wishes to see to what a howling wilderness of erratic dogmatism the human mind can arrive, when speculation usurps the place of science, and theories are reverenced equally with facts, let him endeavour to fathom even the elementary principles of that abyss of insane vagaries, the science of Feng-Shui." Others noted that, while naive as a science, it is more accurate than some Western mythologies.

Some scholars have noted that the general guidelines of feng shui have been followed across times and cultures using different language and with different justifications.

Doctrine

Qi (or Chi)

Main article: Qi

Underlying the practical guidelines of feng shui is a general theory of Nature. Nature is generally held to be a discrete organism that breathes qi (a kind of life force or spiritual energy). The details about the metaphysics of what Nature is, what qi is and does, and what breath consists in vary and conflict. It is not generally understood as physical, but it is neither meant to be metaphorical nor fictionalistic (the latter being the view that even though an entity is fictional, it is useful to talk as if it really exists).

The goal of feng shui guidelines is to orient dwellings, possesions, land and landscaping, etc., so as to be attuned with the flow of qi.

Guidelines

Very generally, some common rules are:

• When sitting at a desk or lying in bed, the entrance door should be in a clear line of sight, and you should have a view of as much of the room as possible.

• Straight lines and sharp corners are to be avoided, and especially should not point where people tend to sit, stand, or sleep.

• Avoid clutter.

• Roads to and from ancient towns were often curved and windy, an attempt to disorient and keep away evil spirits, who were believed to travel in straight lines.

Some objects are believed to have the power of redirecting, reflecting, or shifting energy in a space. These include mirrors, crystals, windchimes, and flowing water.

The bagua

The bagua (or pa kua) of the I Ching (Book of Changes) is an octagonal diagram that is used in feng shui analysis. Each direction on the octagon (north, northeast, etc.) is thought to have certain significant aspects, perhaps in part depending on the birthdate of the person using it. By mapping the bagua onto a home, village, cemetary, etc., information about correct orientation and placement can be gleaned.

Schools of feng shui

The Black Sect school

Black Sect is a recent development of feng shui in the West, led by Grandmaster Thomas Lin Yun Rinpoche. It is sometimes called Black Hat Sect Tantric Buddhist. Black Sect feng shui relies less on directional energies, horoscopes, and astrology, and instead focuses on the internal orientation and organization of the space. For instance, the Black Sect always orients the bagua in line with the space's entrance, rather than northwards.

Some in the West prefer Black Sect feng shui because in dispensing with the more suspect astrological aspects of feng shui, it emphasizes its psychological benefits at the expense of the metaphysics.

Use in burials

The effect of proper feng shui on the living is thought to carry over to the afterlife. In traditional feng shui belief, the feng shui of cemetaries affects the state of the dead spirits and, indirectly, their living descendants. Spirits of the buried were believed to remain at their gravesites or by the homes of their kin, and just as bad feng shui harms relaxation and ease of mind among the living, the spirits of people buried with bad feng shui will be anxious and restless, and therefore more likely to bring chaos to their kin. This reasoning led to careful feng shui planning of cemeteries. Conversely, desecrating the feng shui of the grave of an enemy's ancestor was thought to be a powerful weapon.

The straight lines and sharp corners should not point at a gravesite or at the cemetery generally, a smooth or gradual landscape is preferable to rocky or otherwise sharp terrain. Waterways should be visible from the gravesite, but not loose rocks or boulders, which can be hidden by trees or bamboo.

The use of early forms of feng shui or geomancy in picking burial sites can be traced back at least to The Book of Burial (c. 300 CE), written by Guo Pu of the Jin Dynasty.

Skepticism

Since first learning about feng shui, many Westerners have been quick to dismiss it as superstition. Eitel calls it "a conglomeration of rough guesses at nature, sublimated by fanciful play with puerile diagrams."

More recently, the high consultancy fees charged by feng shui masters have raised eyebrows. This has led to accusations of fraud, and practitioners being called cult members or snake oil salesmen.

Magicians-turned-social-critics Penn and Teller tackled Feng Shui in their Showtime series, Penn and Teller: Bullshit! (Season 1, Episode 7. "Feng Shui/ Bottled Water".) While recording with hidden cameras, the duo ask several Feng Shui "experts" to arrange the same room for maximum harmony; No two arrange the furniture in the same manner.

Use in the West

In recent decades many feng shui books have been published in English, often focusing on interior design, architecture, interior decorating, and landscape design. Audiences have reacted skeptically towards the purported benefits of crystals, wind chimes, mirrored balls, etc., on one's life, finances, and relationships. Often, these claims are dismissed as New Age, pseudoscience, relying on the placebo effect, or even outright fraud. The high prices charges by some feng shui analysts is sometimes cited as evidence of the fraud claim.

Other audiences reject feng shui's justification for its rules (movement of various energies, etc.), but believe that some of its more practical rules (such as not working with one's back to a door) are very useful.

It is unclear what relationship these Western interpretations of feng shui have to the Eastern tradition. Many traditional feng shui practioners in Asia regard Western adaptations as inauthentic.

See also

• Vaastu Shastra
• Geomancy

External links

• e-Text of Feng Shui, or the Rudiments of Natural Science in China by Ernest Eitel (1873). A classic but condescending early English-language treatment.

• Feng Shui and the Waterbed, a German spezial-Magazin.

• David Mason's page on Pungsu-jiri, the Korean version of Feng Shui.