The Elements Of Feng Shui: The Feng Shui Handbook - 1(A)

The Nature of Feng Shui

This opening chapter begins by inviting you to look at the scenic features of your neighbourhood, or the surrounding area of your place of work, by taking note of all the shapes and features that make up the skyline and panorama around you.

This may seem irrelevant to anyone who had imagined that Feng Shui was all about house or shop interiors. When all they want to know is which direction their bed should face, or whether the back room should be the kitchen or the conservatory, the emphasis on certain details at the outset might appear overtechnical.

There is a popular impression that Feng Shui is little more than a kind of mystic interior design, but the subject is actually far more profound. In order to give the answers to such apparently simple matters as those above, many varied factors have to be taken into account, among them being the surrounding features, the direction the house faces, and even-not least impotant - how the residents are considered to interact with the house itself. Indeed, the formidable technicalities of Feng Shui are the very reason why most Chinese people prefer to call in an expert, who ia aware of details that might otherwise be forgotten or overlooked, rather than try to tackle the job themselves.

When called upon to visit a site for professional advice, the Feng Shui practitioner first takes note of the surrounding area, examing certain aspects of the scenery and neighbouring bildings, then takes the next crucial step: making a careful note of the alignment of the site in relation to the directions of the compass. For this reason, this book begins, logically, by looking at the features of the surrounding skyline that affect, for good or bad, the Feng Shui at a particular spot.

The earliest writers on Feng Shui stated that the very best sites were those which were on the south-facing side of a hill, with a rivulet running at one side of the house, the stream then turning in front of the site to disappear underground. This specification, of course, can be attributed to plain common sense. The south-facing side of a hill not only receives the maximum benefit of the sun, but, with the hill behind, both crops and buildings are protected from the north winds. Being on a slope, neither at the foot of the hill nor the top, the site affords natural protection against marauders, who would first have to climb the hill before they could gain any downward advantage. Conversely, if the house was at the foot of the hill, there would be a danger of flooding. The provision of water (seldom found at the top of a hill) is all-important, not only to sustain life, but also for cleansing purposes. For this reason it is preferably for soiled water to disappear out of sight. Today, Feng Shui enshrines these principles in a canon of flexible theories, all devired from ancient maxims on what is essentially the subject of land serveying.

Definitions

When we talk about the Feng Shui of a paricular place, are we referring to the Feng Shui of the area itself, or one particular spot, or a building yet to be erected, or the rooms within a building which already exists, or to one of many other possible situations?

In this book, precise definitions have been given to a few words which, in everyday language, could be used in a wider sense. There is no need to menorize these definitions: they are only intended for clarity.

Site

The term SITE is used to mean the particular defined place which is being investigated. It may be a plot of ground on which it is proposed to build, or a building that is already in existence.

Location

The LOCATION surrounds the SITE. The LOCATION is usually limited by the extent of the surroundings that are visible from the SITE

Environment

ENVIRONMENT refers to the qualities, good or bad, of the ENVIRONMENT. The qualities are determined by the ENVIRONMENT FEATURES, which may be natural or man-made features of the ENVIRONMENT discernible at the SITE.

Orientation

ORIENTATION refers to the direction faced by the SITE. It is found by reference to a magnetic compass. Chinese Feng Shui experts use a special kind of compass, which will be described later in this book, but for the moment, any ordinary magnetic compass will serve the purpose.

We can now look at some of these definitions a little more closely, to see what they imply.

The Site

The following are all examples of SITE:

Building Plot No. 275

White Barn Field, Sheepfold Farm

Silbury Hill

26, Smith Road

Flat 27b, William and Mary Mansions

Woolley’s Dry Goods Store

The Adelphi Theatre

Buckinghem Palace

In addition, since the Chinese also pay great attention to the desirability of good Feng Shui in searching for a burial place for their deceased relatives, there would also be other examples of 'burial' sites, which the Chinese refer to as 'Yin' houses, meaning, elliptically, dwellings for the dead.

The Location

The LOCATION may be in a sparsely populated area, where limits of visibility are determined by the panorama and may be very extensive, or conversely, in a highly built-up area where the vista is limited by the walls of immediately adjacent buildings.

The Environment

The purpose of the study of Feng Shui is to assess the ENVIRONMENT QUALITIES of a location, and determine whether these are beneficial or adverse, and to suggest ways in which the adverse qualities may be avoided and the beneficial ones harnessed to make the maximum use of their effectiveness.

Environmental Features

ENVIRONMENTAL FEATURES may be natural, or man-made. It can be assumed that natural features are superior to man-made ones.

Examples of natural features are:

Mountains, hills, and prominences

Unusually formed rock shapes

Unsual silhouettes of hills on the skyline

Large isolated trees, particularly conifers

Groups of trees

Lakes, ponds, and seashore

Rivers and streams

Waterfalls

Veins in rocks

Valleys and gulleys

Notches in the skyline

Examples of man-made features that affect the Feng Shui are:

Fields

Hedges

Canals, sluices, conduits

Ponds, reservoirs

Fountains

Roads

Bridges

Railways

Telegraph wires

Quarries

Tunnels

Mines

Cuttings

The above list of features can be considered, broadly, as environmental features in the rural sense. Urban features, though smaller in scale, are more complex. They can be divided, roughly, into groups:

Unilities:

Telegraph poles

Telephone wires

Lamp posts

Drains, culverts

Gas pipesm conduits

Residential:

Houses

Blocks of flats

Terraces

Mansions

Cottages

and their adiuncts:

Roads

Driveways

Gardens

Ponds

Memorial and monumental:

Obelisks

Ceremonial gates

Triumphal arches

Commemorative pillars

Open squares

Market-places

Schools, churches, hospitals, public buildings

Monuments and follies

Public buildings

Places of entertainment

Military:

Castles

Fortifications

Battlements

Ancient walls

Man-made hills

Industrial:

Chimmneys

Pylons

Gas-holders

Storage tanks

Cooling towers

In a heavily built-up area even more than man-made features impinge on the Feng Shui of a location:

Proximity of other buildings

Proximity of walls and windows

Shapes of roofs againsts the skyline

Blank walls

Alley ways

Walls of buildings forming angles

Unusual ornamentations of roofs

Direction of roads and driveways

Stairsways

Utility pipes: drains; water; gas

Later we shall look at the importance and effect of such features. In the meantime, however, the reader is asked to carry out the following exercise.

Exercise

Go to the nearest window, and using the above list as a guide note as many environmental features as possible. Then, move to a window that faces another direction and repeat the exercise. If in both cases you have been unlucky, and chanced upon a window that faces a blank wall, find a suitable view that provides as many features as possible. Find at least twenty features.

The Basic Principles of Feng Shui

Once the reader is familiar with those features of the environment that are likely to affect the Feng Shui of a site, the question remains whether features which are beneficial from one site may be harmful to another. For this reason, the reader is asked to remember the following principles, which may not be immediately self-evident. The accompanying, diagrams will no doubt be clearer than the text, and should therefore be scrutinized carefully.

Axiom 1

Although the environmental features may be the same for neighbouring sites within any given location, the qualities of those features will vary according to the actual position of each site within that location.