The Ancient Art Of Feng Shui Essay free essay sample

, Research Paper The Ancient Art of Feng Shui The History of Feng Shui Feng Shui has been practiced in China for 1000s of old ages and is believed to hold started in 2953 B.C. when Hu of Hsia found a tortoise that had a perfect # 8220 ; magic square # 8221 ; on its dorsum. From this find evolved the I Ching, the oldest book in Chinese history, and perchance the universe ( 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, merely the privileged category had entree to the cognition. There are even narratives of members of the Imperial household who went out of their manner to befog the texts in order to forestall those who might be a menace to them from obtaining the sacred cognition. The first Ming emperor even ordered that the state be flooded with books incorporating deceptive theories and wrong guidelines on Feng Shui ( Too 2 ) . When Chiang Kai Shek fled the mainland he took 1000s of books on Feng Shui with him to Taiwan and used its rules in constructing a government at that place. From there it traveled to Hong Kong and finally to the Western World through Marco Polo ( Cassidy ) . Modern Feng Shui is based on the commentaries from Wang Chi and other bookmans from the Sung dynasty, 1126-960 B.C. ( Webster 3 ) . What is Feng Shui? Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of life in harmoniousness with nature and your milieus, in order to maximise your wellness, prosperity and fortune. It literally translates as # 8220 ; air current and H2O # 8221 ; and it involves the arrangement of edifices in relation to their milieus, and the arrangement of furniture within the edifice in order to maximise the ch # 8217 ; I, the original energy beginning on the Earth, from which everything else was created ( Webster 4 ) . As the firedrake is seen as the most august heavenly animal of Chinese doctrine, ch # 8217 ; I has been called the breath of the firedrake. Ch # 8217 ; I is an unseeable energy that circulates throughout the universe but besides gathers in certain countries. The basic thought of Feng Shui is to tackle every bit much ch # 8217 ; i as possible by leting it to garner where you are, whether it is in your place or in your office. Ch # 8217 ; I is the life force that is all living things, and can be found, in its flawlessness wherever things are done absolutely. An creative person who creates a chef-doeuvre is making ch # 8217 ; I. Through Feng Shui, we are looking for topographic points where ch # 8217 ; I is accumulated or where it is formed. For illustration, ch # 8217 ; I is scattered by strong air currents, so a blowy location is non a good beginning of ch # 8217 ; I. However, ch # 8217 ; I is bound by H2O, so a location near H2O is full of the accrued life force. Harmonizing to Feng Shui mythology, the first clip that ch # 8217 ; i moved it created yang, the male rule, and when it rested, it created yin, the female rule. After these really of import creative activities ch # 8217 ; i so created the remainder of the existence. The theory of the yin and the yang are of critical 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 last without the other. In fact nil is wholly yin or wholly yang, everything is a combination of both energies. This is illustrated is the popular yin yang symbol in which a little circle of black is located in the big white form and a little 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 manner. The full existence is made up of yin and yang energies invariably interacting with each other, and perfect harmoniousness is established through a perfect balance. Since ch # 8217 ; I is the life force and it created the yin and yang, neither yin nor yang can be evil or good. They merely are ( Webster 7 ) . It is merely when you have an imbalanced sum of the two that your ch # 8217 ; i become negatively affected. Harmonizing to Feng Shui, mountains, hills and other raised countries ( even tall edifices ) represent yang energy, while vales, rivers and streams represent yin energy. As a consequence, Earth that is wholly level is said to incorporate excessively much yin, and a hilly country with no H2O or workss contains excessively much yang energy, both would bring forth bad ch # 8217 ; I. A gently turn overing countryside with a slow flowing watercourse would stand for a good balance of yin and yang. Lillian Too goes so far as to state that the most of import regulation of Feng Shui when taking land is # 8220 ; mountain behind H2O in forepart # 8221 ; ( 15 ) . There are two schools of Feng Shui, the Compass School and the Form School. Compass School Through the development of Feng Shui, some bookmans believed that the facets of Chinese star divination should be incorporated with the basic rules. The Compass School was developed after the Sung dynasty and took into account personal information sing your astrological mark in order to happen the location that will optimise your ch’i ( Too 28 ) . These bookmans used the tortoise shell that inspired Wu of Hsia to make 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 individual who represents that symbol ) should be located in the place in order for them to be the most productive, healthy and comfortable. A individual # 8217 ; s single symbol is determined by his or her twelvemonth of birth. A individual born in 1979 is a Chen and, harmonizing 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 so see what element you represent. The five elements are Fire, Earth, Wood, Metal and Water. After finding your component, you so are told which stuffs you should environ yourself with ( Webster 18 ) . Form School The form school of Feng Shui focuses chiefly on the location of the edifice in the environment. Harmonizing 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 dorsum of the house on the north side. Green Dragon hills, named for the steep slopes which resemble a curling firedrake bulge, should be on the left of the house in the E. White Tiger hills are shorter and more rounded than Dragon hills and, harmonizing to the Form School, should be located on the right or west of the house. These hills prevent the ch # 8217 ; i from fluxing off from the home. Finally, a Red Phoenix pes stool should ideally be located in forepart of the house on the south side. This is a really little turn overing hill or hill with a river embracing the Phoenix hill in order to keep a changeless flow of ch # 8217 ; i into the house ( Too 14 ) . Your house should be nestled amongst big hills behind and to the side and reasonably unfastened in the forepart, a site resembling an armchair, which represents a life of comfort. This constellation is the perfect state of affairs harmonizing to the Form School. It is seen as so auspicious that rich Chinese barons will really redesign the contours of the land in order to put the household sign of the zodiac in an ideal location harmonizing to Feng Shui ( Webster 32 ) . The Practice of Feng Shui A certain sum of enigma surrounds the pattern of Feng Shui. Understanding its many rules requires an credence of some cardinal Chinese theories about the Universe. These theories frequently seem strange of out of day of the month to many modern twenty-four hours minds as to how the universe works. This is why Feng Shui has taken so long to go popular in the Western World. Feng Shui is practiced even today. Upon the Chinese recapture Hong Kong in 1997, the Chinese governor refused to travel from his house into either the colonial Governor # 8217 ; s sign of the zodiac or the Governor # 8217 ; s office because he believed that they both had bad ch # 8217 ; I, and he would non populate or work anyplace that was non checked and approved by his Feng Shui maestro in order to guarantee that he would be comfortable in his new station ( Cassidy ) . # 8220 ; The key to Feng Shui is balance ; coordinative clip, arrangement, infinite and energy to the maximal consequence, based on the interp lay between people and their universe # 8221 ; ( Feng Shui Innovations ) . Relevance Today Although it is one of the oldest known subjects, Feng Shui is relevant today, uniting a sense of design and environment that brings prosperity, wellness and success to concern environments and residential, household homes. It is the art of arrangement, a scientific discipline and a doctrine that was meant to convey harmoniousness through the observation of our environments and how the balance of the energies created can impact all the facets of our lives. # 8220 ; All we do is connected to Mother Earth and Ch # 8217 ; I, the Natural Order or Energy which permeates the existence # 8221 ; ( Feng Shui Innovations ) . Within the past 10 old ages at that place has been an astonishing sum of involvement in this scientific discipline in the western universe as people, for assorted grounds, expression for replies, and hunt for a manner to be in harmoniousness with the universe. An ancient Chinese stating lists the five basic rules of successful life: # 8220 ; First comes destiny, and so comes luck. Third comes Feng Shui, and with that comes philanthropy and instruction # 8221 ; ( Webster 33 ) . Cassidy, William L. # 8220 ; www.qi-whiz.com # 8221 ; . Feng Shui Innovations. # 8220 ; www.fengshui-innovations.com # 8221 ; . Feng Shui Society. # 8220 ; www.fengshuisociety.org.uk/ # 8221 ; . 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.