FREE ESSAY ON THE ANCIENT ART OF FENG SHUI

THE ANCIENT ART OF FENG SHUI

The Ancient Art of Feng Shui 
The History of Feng Shui
Feng Shui has been practiced in China for thousands of years and is believed to have
started in 2953 B.C. when Hu of Hsia found a tortoise that had a perfect magic square on
its back. From this discovery evolved the I Ching, the oldest book in Chinese history,
and possibly the world (Webster 1). This book contains the first written instructions on
the theory of Feng Shui. Feng Shui was seen as a sacred power, so much so that in ancient
China, only the privileged class had access to the knowledge. There are even stories of
members of the Imperial family who went out of their way to obscure the texts in order to
prevent those who might be a threat to them from obtaining the sacred knowledge. The
first Ming emperor even ordered that the country be flooded with books containing
misleading theories and incorrect guidelines on Feng Shui (Too 2). When Chiang Kai Shek
fled the mainland he took thousands of books on Feng Shui with him to Taiwan and used its
principles in building a regime there. From there it traveled to Hong Kong and eventually
to the Western World through Marco Polo (Cassidy). Modern Feng Shui is based on the
commentaries from Wang Chi and other scholars from the Sung dynasty, 1126-960 B.C.
(Webster 3). 
What is Feng Shui?
Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of living in harmony with nature and your
surroundings, in order to maximize your health, prosperity and luck. It literally
translates as wind and water and it involves the placement of buildings in relation to
their surroundings, and the placement of furniture within the building in order to
maximize the ch'i, the original energy source on the earth, from which everything else
was created (Webster 4). As the dragon is seen as the most revered celestial creature of
Chinese philosophy, ch'i has been called the breath of the dragon. Ch'i is an invisible
energy that circulates throughout the world but also gathers in certain areas. The basic
idea of Feng Shui is to harness as much ch'i as possible by allowing it to gather where
you are, whether it is in your home or in your office. Ch'i is the life force that is all
living things, and can be found, in its perfection wherever things are done perfectly. An
artist who creates a masterpiece is creating ch'i. Through Feng Shui, we are looking for
places where ch'i is accumulated or where it is formed. For example, ch'i is scattered by
strong winds, so a windy location is not a good source of ch'i. However, ch'i is bound by
water, so a location near water is full of the accumulated life force. According to Feng
Shui mythology, the first time that ch'i moved it created yang, the male principle, and
when it rested, it created yin, the female principle. After these very important
creations ch'i then created the rest of the universe. The theory of the yin and the yang
are of vital importance to Feng Shui (Webster 6).
Yin and Yang
Yin and yang are the two opposing energies involved with Feng Shui and neither one can
survive without the other. In fact nothing is completely yin or completely yang,
everything is a combination of both energies. This is illustrated is the popular yin yang
symbol in which a small circle of black is located in the large white shape and a small
white circle is inside the black (Feng Shui Society). This symbol is called the Taichi
symbol of completeness due to its perfect balance of the yin and the yang. Together, yin
and yang make up Tao, the way. The entire universe is made up of yin and yang energies
constantly interacting with each other, and perfect harmony is established through a
perfect balance. Since ch'i is the life force and it created the yin and yang, neither
yin nor yang can be evil or good. They just are (Webster 7). It is only when you have an
unbalanced amount of the two that your ch'i become negatively affected. According to Feng
Shui, mountains, hills and other raised areas (even tall buildings) represent yang
energy, while valleys, rivers and streams represent yin energy. As a result, earth that
is completely flat is said to contain too much yin, and a hilly area with no water or
plants contains too much yang energy, both would produce bad ch'i. A gently rolling
countryside with a slow flowing stream would represent a good balance of yin and yang.
Lillian Too goes so far as to say that the most important rule of Feng Shui when choosing
land is mountain behind water in front (15). There are two schools of Feng Shui, the
Compass School and the Form School.
Compass School
Through the development of Feng Shui, some scholars believed that the aspects of Chinese
astrology should be incorporated with the basic principles. The Compass School was
developed after the Sung dynasty and took into account personal information regarding
your astrological sign in order to find the location that will optimize your ch'i (Too
28). These scholars used the tortoise shell that inspired Wu of Hsia to create the pa-kua
symbol. This symbol showed all 8 possible combinations of yin and yang. From this symbol
they devised a compass that showed where each symbol (i.e. the person who represents that
symbol) should be located in the home in order for them to be the most productive,
healthy and prosperous.
A person's individual symbol is determined by his or her year of birth. A person born in
1979 is a Chen and, according to the compass should be in the east side of the house, as
the Chinese compass has south at its top. From your pa-kua symbol you can then see what
element you represent. The five elements are Fire, Earth, Wood, Metal and Water. After
determining your element, you then are told which materials you should surround yourself
with (Webster 18). 
Form School
The form school of Feng Shui focuses mainly on the location of the building in the
environment. According to the Form school there are three different types of hills. The
first type are Black Turtle hills which are mountains. Ideally, these should be in the
back of the house on the north side. Green Dragon hills, named for the steep inclines
which resemble a curling dragon hump, should be on the left of the house in the east.
White Tiger hills are shorter and more rounded than Dragon hills and, according to the
Form School, should be located on the right or west of the house. These hills prevent the
ch'i from flowing away from the dwelling. Finally, a Red Phoenix foot stool should
ideally be located in front of the house on the south side. This is a very small rolling
hill or mound with a river hugging the Phoenix hill in order to maintain a constant flow
of ch'i into the house (Too 14). Your house should be nestled amongst large hills behind
and to the side and fairly open in the front, a site resembling an armchair, which
represents a life of comfort. This configuration is the perfect situation according to
the Form School. It is seen as so auspicious that rich Chinese tycoons will actually
redesign the contours of the land in order to place the family mansion in an ideal
location according to Feng Shui (Webster 32). 
The Practice of Feng Shui
A certain amount of mystery surrounds the practice of Feng Shui. Understanding its many
principles requires an acceptance of some fundamental Chinese theories about the
Universe. These theories often seem strange of out of date to many modern day thinkers as
to how the world works. This is why Feng Shui has taken so long to become popular in the
Western World. Feng Shui is practiced even today. Upon the Chinese retaking Hong Kong in
1997, the Chinese governor refused to move from his house into either the colonial
Governor's mansion or the Governor's office because he believed that they both had bad
ch'i, and he would not live or work anywhere that was not checked and approved by his
Feng Shui master in order to ensure that he would be prosperous in his new post
(Cassidy). The key to Feng Shui is balance; coordinating time, placement, space and
energy to the maximum effect, based on the interplay between people and their universe
(Feng Shui Innovations). 
Relevance Today
Although it is one of the oldest known disciplines, Feng Shui is relevant today,
combining a sense of design and environment that brings prosperity, health and success to
business environments and residential, family dwellings. It is the art of placement, a
science and a philosophy that was meant to bring harmony through the observance of our
environments and how the balance of the energies created can affect all the aspects of
our lives. All we do is connected to Mother Earth and Ch'i, the Natural Order or Energy
which permeates the universe (Feng Shui Innovations). Within the past ten years there has
been an amazing amount of interest in this science in the western world as people, for
various reasons, look for answers, and search for a way to be in harmony with the world.
An ancient Chinese saying lists the five basic principles of successful living: First
comes destiny, and then comes luck. Third comes Feng Shui, and with that comes
philanthropy and education (Webster 33). 
Bibliography
Bibliography
Cassidy, William L. www.qi-whiz.com.
Feng Shui Innovations. www.fengshui-innovations.com.
Feng Shui Society. www.fengshuisociety.org.uk/.
Too, Lillian. Basic Feng Shui. Oriental Publications, Australia:1997.
Webster, Daniel. Feng Shui for Beginners. Llewellyn Publication, St.
Paul:1997.
Xing, Wu. The Feng Shui Workbook. Tuttle Pub., Boston:1998.