The Feng Shui Handbook

THE FENG SHUI 

HANDBOOK

A Practical Guide to Chinese

Geomancy

DEREK WALTERS

The Aquarian Press

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

77-85 Fulham Palace Road,

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

Published by The Aquarian Press 1991

5 7 9 10 8 6 

Contents

        Introduction

1.    The Nature of Feng Shui

2.    The Site

3.    The Five Elements 

4.    The Environmental Influences on Each Type of Site

5.    The Interior of the Site: The Trigrams and the Auspices

6.    Matching Home and Horoscope

7.    Advice and Adages

8.    More Advanced Feng Shui

9.    Commercial Premises

10.  A Feng Shui Survey of Your Home

Important Note

Throughout this book all maps and diagrams are shown according to the western convention, with North at the top, unless otherwise indicated. (Formely, the Chinese convention, still retained in the practice of Feng Shui, was to show South at the top of maps, while Chinese compasses were South-pointing.)

Introduction

There is no single meaning of the expression 'Feng Shui'. In sone contexts it can be translated as 'environment'. More usually, it refers to the 'feel' of a place, which some western people claim to be the result of its particular vibrations. The Chinese might even use the expression in a more limited sense, to mean simply a run of good or bad luck. Literally, the two characters for 'Feng' and 'Shui' signify 'wind and water'; this may convey little meaning in itself, but it does hint at the origins of the art of Feng Shui. Perhaps the best way to explain Feng Shui is to think of it as the terrestrial equivalent of astrology - as such, a subject that has no parallel in western experience. Thus while astrology, familiar to both Chinese and western cultures, seeks to find what Fate holds in store from signs in the skies above us, Feng Shui, its earth-bound counterpart, takes its omens from the earth below. More specifically, in astrology note it taken of the movement and appearance of celestial bodies; in Feng Shui observations are made of the hills and streams that surround a particular spot.

  There is, however, one significant difference. The planets cannot be stopped in their courses, but the face of a landscape can be changed-for good or ill. The Chinese have long been believes that any interference with the terrain - whether by cutting canals, excavating tunnels, laying railway lines, or erecting huge buildings that distort the original forms of the skyline - can bring about unforeseen calamities. To take just one catastrophic example: in the USSR, diverting the rivers that fed the Aral Sea, in order to irrigate the arid plains of southern Central Asia, resulted in the virtual disappearance of the Aral Sea itself, not only reducing thousands of square miles of once beautiful countryside to an arid waste, but also causing the formation of terrible dehydrating salt storms that travelled hundreds of miles beyond the parched beds of the dried-up sea, resulting in the destruction of life on a unimagined scale.

  The hazards of environmental change are rarely on such an awesome scale. Yet even the ancients knew that building high towers resulted in the creation of gusting winds of unforeseen force, or that the digging of wells could cause streams to dry up. Thus the Chinese observed how the wayward influences of 'winds and waters' could be affected by alterations to the shape of the earth's existing contours. And if such minor changes to the earth's constitution were able to influence such powerful agencies as the winds and waters, what effect might they therefore not have on such a fragile matter as the state of human affairs?

  The principles of Feng Shui are based on precepts laid down thousands of years ago in the Chinese classics, particularly the Li Shu, or  Book of Rites, a sacred book that enshrines the basic tenets of Chinese religious belief. It is concerned with order, the harmony of heaven and earth, and with the ways in which humanity can best keep the balance of nature intact.

  Today, Feng Shui is a complex blend of common-sense maxims, logical reasoning, and oral traditions, some of which are frankly no more substantial than peasant superstitions, superimposed on a highly sophisticated discipline based on the points of the compass, and with its own rich symbolism.

The spectacular scenery of southern China, where Yang Yun-sung 

formulated the principles of the Form School of Feng Shui

  In the ninth century AD, two great scholars, working from two entirely different viewpoints, decided to commit their opinions to paper. Thus it was that it the wonderful surroundings of Kueilinn, among its bizarrely sculpted hills and mountains, the sage Yang Yun-sung compiled the first manual of Feng Shui, systematically describing the characteristics of scenic formations. This book was to become the standart text on the Form School of Feng Shui. Then, about a century later, scholars living in the flat plains of the north composed their own answer to the problems of anylysng the Feng Shui of mountainless regions, compiling a guide to another system of Feng Shui founded on the symbolism of the points of the compass. This 'Compass School', or Fukien method, for practical reasons, proved to be immensely influential. Today, Feng Shui experts combine the two systems, looking first at the undulations of the surrounding countryside, and then consulting the compass to note the alignments of the surrounding mountains and rivers with the spot under consideration.

  In addition to these two major schools of thought is what might be called the 'Third' school of Feng Shui - a motley collection of odd maxims and folklore drawn partly from common-sense observation, and partly from a vivid imagination. This book is principally concerned with the two main schools of thought - the Form School and the Compass School - which have not only been sanctified by time, but have a scientific foundation for their principles. A few remarks on the 'Third' method of Feng Shui have been added, in view of their universal acceptance.

  This book begins by showing the reader how to examine the surrounding landscape, whether a country panorama or an urban skyline, and identify its potential Feng Shui qualities. The technical and complex details of the Compass School are introduced one by one, and readers are constantly encouraged to test their understanding of the text by completing simple exercises on each new facet of information.

  Perhaps the most intriguing part of this book is the section showing how everybody can match their personal characteristics to their surroundings, whether at home or at work, thus ensuring greater environmental harmony and leading to enhanced inner peace, which itseft leads to happiness, personal success, and fortune.

  This cannot be a complete guide to the enormous subject of Feng Shui, but it is rather more than just an introduction. There are many areas that have been deliberately left untouched - partic - ularly the subject of 'Yin Chai' Feng Shui, or the orientation of grave sites. Not has the reader been expected to acquire a knowledge of Chinese characters, essential to a full understanding of the Chinese Lo P'an (described in Chapter 8). Nevertheless, it is fair to say that those readers who complete and understand this book thoroughly will not just have been introduced to the basic principles of Feng Shui; they will have become as conversant with its mysteries as many practising geomancers in the Far East.