My Occasional Musings on Feng Shui and Architecture

If you have any questions and comments to make, please feel free to drop me an email: fengshuiarchitect@yahoo.com

The Subtlety of Yin and Yang

20 November 2007

Cai Da-Feng , a Chinese academic and a Feng Shui researcher, in his book “Kan Yu”gave us some valuable insights into the subtlety of Yin and Yang, that would help us untangle some of the the confusion surrounding Feng Shui such as the southern hemisphere debate and whether a mountain should be Yin or Yang.

In the chapter on divination using directions, he pointed out that there are in fact two different aspects of Yin and Yang.

The north/south Yin and Yang, as indicated by the compass, refer to the hot and cold, or the sunny and the shady side of the hill, it is determined by the direction of sunlight casting on a place.

In the northern hemisphere, the south of the hill is Yang and the north of the hill is Yin. This changes when we go to the southern hemisphere, now south of the hill is Yin and north of thehill is Yang. The movement of the sun and the topography of the land caused this change of Yin and Yang.

The Yin and Yang derived from the philosophical statement, “Taiji gave birth to Yin and Yang” refer to muriate of things in general and in a principial way; they are conceptual and quite abstract compared to the specific and physical Yin and Yang of a place refer to earlier.

The compass is used to establish a direction; the physical direction is then assigned a qualitative standard that is not necessarily related to the quantitative measurement. There is a subtle translation going on that changes the physical Yin and Yang to the conceptual Yin and Yang, so they can be used to assign a quality of Ji (auspicious) and Xiong (harmfulness) for Liqi calculations of a place.

From an instrument that measures physical directions, a magnetic compass became a Feng Shui Luopan - an instrument of divination that measures in a metaphysical sense, using pre-determined standards.

Conceptual Yin and Yang is universal and unchanging, it is a human construct, whereas physical Yin and Yang is case sensitive and is relative to the local conditions. We become confused when we cannot distinguish the two and the subtle translation that is taking place from the physical to the conceptual.

The direction of the Yin and Yang of a site can be measured physical by a compass.

Whereas the Yin and Yang of the 24 Mountain on a Luopan is assigned conceptually according to the Stems and Branches (Yang is shown with a solid circle while Yin with a hollow circle). They bear little relationship to the physical Yin and Yang of a site.

Take the argument whether a mountain should be considered Yin or Yang for example. Some people think that a mountain is harder and higher and water is softer and lower, therefore mountain should be Yang and water Yin. Others quoted Cai Yuan-Ding's classic “Fa Wei Pian” and say mountain should be Yin because it is not moving while water is Yang because it is moving, one is active while the other is passive. Who is right?

Both points of view are correct; it depends on what one is measuring - hard and soft, high and low, moving and stationary or active and passive. The next step of translating the physical into the conceptual becomes crucial for divination and affects the outcome of the auspicious and harmfulness of a place.

But very few people is aware, that this step is an arbitrary human construct, a Feng Shui master in the past, somehow decided that one of them is his choice and construct his Liqi system accordingly. That is one of the reasons why there are hundreds of Liqi (Compass) schools and only one Xing Shi Pai (Form School).

This confusion also applied to the southern hemisphere debate. The physical observation of Yin and Yang has changed, so some people want to change the conceptual standard to follow suit, without knowing that the two need not be automatically translated, nor is it desirable, because that would change all the Feng Shui fundamentals like the Luoshu and the Bagua. The other remaining question is, what to do with the countries near the tropic, like Singapore and Malaysia, where the sun is directly above?

In reality, the universal quality and relationship of Yin and Yang has not change, what have changed are the local and specific physical conditions. We can deal with the physical on its own, like orientating the buildings north facing the warm sun in the southern hemisphere, without changing any of the conceptual Liqi standards and calculations. The former deals with physical comfort on a local level, while the latter is more concerned with the harmony and balance on a universal level for all mankind, no matter where they reside.

Reference: “Kan Yu”, by Cai Da-Feng. Published by Zhong Hua Shu Ju. Printed in Hong Kong, 1997.

Door Sha and Toilet Sha

November 22, 2007.

Below is an answer to a recent question on door sha and toilet sha, in which I rambled on about Feng Shui cures and other things as well as well:

“Q. I need help, I wonder if anyone can tell me what to do. I wonder if it is a problem if my back is facing the main door but not directly. The door is on my left and I am sitting nearest to the door. (Is like when you open the door you look right you will see my back / desk. Also I have read that if I leave the toilet open the wealth will run down the drain and if the leave the toilet door open, it will cause arguments in the family, should I close the toilet and the toilet door?

A. You have what feng shui called a “chong sha” or “rushing at sha” of the door. “A sha” is not desirable because it is out of balance and in this case, it means the people coming in and going out of the door are constantly disturbing you.

If it bothers you, then you have two options physically, one is to re-position the desk so your back is not to the door and you can see people coming and going; the other is to re-swing the door so you are sitting behind the door when the door is being open and close.

If you cannot do so physically, then you can do it psychologically, by using a bagua mirror as suggested earlier. The bagua works as a symbol, like a talisman, to ward off the uneasy feeling in your mind, because there is no physical solution possible for the time being, but you have to believe in the power of the bagua before it is effective.

Since we perceive the qi of our environment through our five senses and our mind, there is a third option you can try, and that is to put a screen between the door and your desk, so it is “out of sight and out of mind”, but it will only work if it is acceptable to the other senses (even though the sight is the most acute of the five senses), including your mind, and you don't find it still disturbing.

The theory behind Feng Shui is that if you find something disturbing, either consciously or unconsciously or both, then your body and your mind will try to find a way to deal with it somehow, and that will take up more of your vital qi and we say it has bad Feng Shu because it will weaken you over time, whether you are aware of it or not. Therefore we ask you to make the adjustments, either physically or psychologically, and sometimes both.

Generally speaking, a physically solution is more effective because you have remove the underlying cause of the problem, especially if it is a physical one like in your case. Using a Feng Shui cure, or the more correct term of “jiehua”, is like taking a dose of aspirin, it will give you a short term solution but you have not remove the cause, and the “sha” will continue to weaken your vital qi for living, and could lead to other issues.

However, in some cases the underlying cause is purely a psychological one, (for example, the fear of losing wealth, health and relationship, the fear of losing control and the need to find a reason why someone you love die young, etc.) so we have to deal it mentally, because now the fear is projected onto the our environment and the built form, and that is where the “jiehua”, if done properly, will come into effect. In this situation, the object we use and the action we take, become the “conduit” to connect our fears and our needs, and by moving one we will affect the other and vice versa, to make it work for us.

Quite often, it is both a physical as well as a psychology problem, so we will need both types of solutions working together for the person, to achieve good feng shui, and because of the complexity of it, being a body/mind problem, people cannot figure out whether feng shui is a science or a superstition, since one has to believe in a symbol before it has an effect on us and that makes us uneasy.

However, apart from belief, we also have knowledge and understanding at our disposal. So instead of believing in power of the bagua as a talisman blindly, we can come to an understanding of its symbolic meaning and connect it to our psych and our needs via the intellect to make it work for us. By doing so, the power of the bagua is not in the object itself but it lies in the understanding and the knowledge we have of this symbol of transformation. The power is now within and is ours to keep, and it is no longer superstitious.”

IMO, FS practitioners worry about features in our environment on two levels, whether it is micro or macro in size, one is a physical one and the other psychological one expressed in symbolic terms. We must not only mix them up, but at the same time we must also realize that the physical has a connection and an impact on the psychological and vice versa. Therefore the best Feng Shui advice is the one that works on both levels.

To the question whether we should close the toilet lid or the toilet door because we read that they might cause a loss of wealth and a loss of family peace, the short answer is yes, it is easy to cover up things that bother us and it is advisable to do so, but we need to know the reason is a physical one first, unless we want to tie them up with our psychological fears and longings; then we need to explain the symbolism of our advice, so the power is not taken away from the person and the blame is not transferred to an inert object in our environment.

I made this comment in the FS documentary “What in the World is Feng Shui?” about the meaning and the power of a wedding ring and I would like to repeat it here: The power to hold a marriage together is not in the ring; it is in the commitment we made with the ring as a symbol. So when we lost the ring and don't replace it, it means we don't care enough and if we don't care enough, then the chance of a marriage fallen apart is high. We need to be very clear: the marriage did not fall apart because we don't have the ring any more.

So by all means, do close the toilet lids and close the toilet doors if they are a concern, but don't blame them for lost of wealth or whatsoever, and if we have to use the action of closing the lid or the doors as a “cure” to help us overcome our fears and satisfy our longings, then be aware the power of a cure is in your awarenes and in your action, not in the objects themself.

Feng Shui cures work on the idea that everything is interconnected, so by closing the lid or the door we connect our actions to our needs and fears and that is not that much different to saying a prayer. But a prayer without planning and action to back it up, then it would only be a hollow prayer. “God help those who help themselves”, as they say.