Feng Shui Dictionary

• Make use of the good fortune symbols of Feng Shui by hanging paintings of fruit and flowers that symbolize abundance and auspicious fortunes.

• Avoid paintings of wild animals such as lions, tigers, leopards, and eagles inside the home or office. They serve you excellently outside, to protect you and your family, but inside the home they can turn against you and bring illfortune, illness, and bad luck.

• Avoid so-called character or intellectual art that shows wizened old men or art that records the tragedies of our age. It is far more auspicious to hang paintings of new life and happy occasions. Remember that everything hung on the walls of your home or office affects the Feng Shui of your home or office.

The Harmony of Yin and Yang Energies (#ulink_cf7b1677-5ad2-5976-aab1-4915a03aa080)

At its most basic, Feng Shui is a question of balance, but this balance is related to the complementarity of opposites, expressed in terms of the Yin and the Yang. According to the Chinese, all things in the universe are either the female Yin or the male Yang, the dark Yin or the bright Yang.

Yin and Yang together make up the wholeness of the universe, which includes heaven and earth. Yin and Yang breathe meaning into each other, for without one, the other cannot exist. Thus, without the Yin of darkness, there cannot be the light of Yang; without the cold temperature of Yin, there cannot possibly be the warmth of Yang, and vice versa.

When there is balance between Yin and Yang, the wholeness of the universe is represented. There is good balance and prosperity, health, well-being, and happiness. Feng Shui practice always includes a Yin–Yang analysis of room space, land configurations, sunlight and shade, dampness and dryness, bright and pale colors, and solids and fluids. Rooms that are too Yin are not auspicious; there are insufficient life energies to bring prosperity. Rooms that are too Yang are said to be damaging because there is too much energy, causing accidents and huge losses. Only rooms – and homes – with balanced Yin and Yang can be auspicious, and will be made even more auspicious if there is a good balance of Yin and Yang outside.

See “Rooms That Are Too Yin” and “Rooms That Are Too Yang” (#litres_trial_promo).

Astrology

Chinese astrology, or fortune-telling, is often confused with the practice of Feng Shui. This is due to the overlap of basic concepts, such as those of Yin and Yang, and the theory of the five elements used in both sciences. Also, many practitioners of the art of divination, especially in Hong Kong, incorporate Feng Shui advice in their recommendations, notably those who use the Four Pillars method of divination.

This method is also known as the Paht Chee, or Eight Characters, and is based on the element that is discerned to be “missing” from one’s astrological chart. The fortune-teller will advise siting a main door or a sleeping direction that energizes the element that is missing. This method thus uses the Five-Element theory exclusively and is also based on the subjective judgment of the person undertaking the astrological reading.

A second method of Chinese astrology is the Purple Star, said to be especially accurate in predicting good and bad periods of one’s life. It is the nearest thing to Western astrology but the “stars” it uses in the chart are imaginary stars. Unlike Western astrology, Chinese astrology does not chart the movements of the planets.

Auspicious Feng Shui

This means enjoying various types of Feng Shui luck. Good fortune in Feng Shui usually refers to eight categories of luck and these include:

• enjoying wealth, success, and prosperity;

• having good family life and relationships;

• enjoying good health and having a long life;

• enjoying a good love life/marriage;

• having good descendants’ luck, i.e. children who bring honor to the family;

• enjoying power and the patronage of mentors;

• having a good education; and

• enjoying a good reputation and becoming famous.

Specific Feng Shui measures can be energized to encourage each of these eight different types of good fortune. All the different schools of Feng Shui stress these eight types of human aspirations, and if even one of these aspects of good luck is missing, life, and therefore the Feng Shui, is deemed to be incomplete.

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Bad Feng Shui

The antithesis of good luck. Misfortunes caused by Feng Shui often occur frequently and come so thick and fast that you will not fail to see a pattern developing. Thus, if everyone in the home takes turns getting sick, encountering loss, accidents, and problems at work, you should consider if some structure or alignment may be hurting your home. Almost every kind of negative Feng Shui feature can be diffused to some extent. Certain configurations and arrangements may be harder to deal with than others but all negative arrangements can be ameliorated.

Balance

Means applying the Yin and Yang concept to Feng Shui. Feng Shui is about balance. This balance is struck between two cosmic forces, Yin and Yang. These two opposing yet complementary energies shape the universe and everything in it. Together, they form a balanced whole known as the Tao – or “the Way” – the eternal principle of heaven and earth in complete harmony. Achieving good Feng Shui has much to do with balancing the concepts of Yin and Yang. One should never forget, when practicing the science of Feng Shui, that balance is everything. Without balance, your Feng Shui will not be auspicious. See “The Harmony of Yin and Yang Energies,” (#ulink_6ffbd621-e247-5631-aee6-e8a6b2ab2bc8) Yin Energy, Yang Energy.

Balconies

Must be oriented correctly vis-à-vis the entrance. It is not a good feature to have balconies that open in a straight line from the front entrance of the home. This creates an inauspicious flow of energy.

Bamboo

An excellent Feng Shui plant signifying longevity. It is also an extremely useful Feng Shui tool. Bamboo stems can be used in the same way as windchimes, with hollow rods or wooden flutes, to counter the heavy killing breath of an overhead beam. They should be hung in pairs, slanted toward each other at the top, in such a way as to allow the auspicious Chi to rise up to counter the killing breath being emitted from the overhead beam. Because bamboo stems emit no tinkling sound to provide the necessary Yang energy, to transform the Chi into friendly and auspicious energy the bamboo stems should be tied together with a piece of red string. The color red will bring out the Yang energy needed.

Bamboo stems are also an excellent tool for slowing down Chi. If you have long corridors in your house, the rooms at the end of such corridors suffer from Shar Chi, the killing breath, rushing headlong toward them. This fast-moving Chi can be slowed down using bamboo stems hung in the same way as described above, with a red piece of thread tied between them. These hollow stems encourage the poisonous Chi to rise up through them and in the process turn the Chi into friendly Sheng Chi. The best way to counter a long corridor is to block the room it hits by using a screen or divider of some sort; bamboo stems, flutes, and windchimes can only do so much to help. If these Feng Shui antidotes are, however, much smaller than the corridor itself the best solution is to use both stationary and hanging dividers.

Banking

The business of banking belongs to the water element, and thus the most effective Feng Shui enhancer for a bank is water. Building auspicious water features in the north or the southeast is especially recommended.

Barbecues

Because barbecues represent fire (as do all cooking appliances, stoves, ovens, and so forth), they are best held in the south of the garden, which is ruled by the fire element. This activates the corner that brings recognition and fame luck to the family. It is also the sector of the middle daughter, so holding barbecues here will assist her in her grades and her personal development. If you are not able to locate the barbecue in the south corner of your garden, you should at least ensure it is not placed in the east or southeast, as these sectors are wood sectors. The fire from the barbecue will (symbolically) burn the wood, thus burning away your wealth luck (southeast) and health luck (east).

Basement Apartments

These are usually not auspicious. Feng Shui does not recommend living below road level. Basement apartments are therefore not the best units to live in. If you have no choice you can enhance the Chi by installing bright lights at the entrance. This should “raise” the energy, encouraging Chi to flow into the apartment. If the basement apartment opens into a garden at the back, the Feng Shui will be considerably improved.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are similar to toilets in the way that Feng Shui views them. They are not good to have in the house from a Feng Shui viewpoint. Try to minimize the size and décor of your bathrooms and keep the doors to your bathrooms closed at all times. Bathrooms should never be too large.

Beaded Curtains

A Feng Shui cure for afflicted doorways. The placement of doors within the home has great Feng Shui significance. You should never have two doors directly facing each other across a corridor. This confrontational positioning will bring about quarrels and misunderstandings between the members of the household, and particularly between the two people whose doors face each other. To soften the negative effect of such a layout, short of changing the placement of the doors completely, hang a beaded curtain across the doorway. This way, the door always appears to be closed. However, if one door faces part of another this has a worse effect. In such a situation, it is advisable to try to place something between the doors, such as a plant, which can act as a divider. Beaded curtains in this instance will not be a suitable solution.

Beams

Protruding overhead beams cause Feng Shui problems inside the home and office. You can either hang a five-rod windchime or hang two hollow bamboo stems tied with red thread to overcome the negative Chi. Do not sit directly underneath exposed overhead beams, especially structural beams.

Bedrooms

Important rooms that should always enjoy good Feng Shui. The main thing to remember is that the bedroom is a place of relaxation and rest. The energies that prevail in the bedroom should thus be more Yin than Yang, since a bedroom that is too Yang will cause the occupant to be too active, which may cause difficulties in sleeping. Because of this, many Feng Shui masters warn against activating the bedroom with too many good fortune symbols. Such symbols, which may work well in the other parts of the house, may work against you in the bedroom.

Water features are generally auspicious but they do more harm than good in the bedroom. Sleeping with water behind you will cause you to be robbed or to suffer a financial loss. Note that water does not only mean aquariums, fountains, and fish bowls. Paintings of water should also be kept out of the bedroom. It is, however, acceptable to decorate your bedroom in blue, a color of relaxation and calm. Black represents water and this color should not be a prominent feature of your bedroom.

The inclusion of mirrors is one of the most common mistakes in modern bedroom interior design. Mirrors are frequently used to create a sense of space. Whether the mirrors are attached to cupboards in the bedroom, or on the ceiling, the reflective edges of mirrors send out Shar Chi onto the sleeping couple. This will cause quarrels and misunderstandings, as well as ill-health. Mirrors also bring a third party into the marriage when they reflect the sleeping couple, causing husbands and/or wives to be unfaithful. Note that anything with a reflective surface, even television sets, which resemble a mirror, should be kept out of the bedroom. If you have mirrors that you cannot take down, cover them with a curtain. Similarly, television sets should be covered with a cloth each night before you go to sleep.

Open shelves should be covered up anywhere in the house, not just in the bedroom, where they do most harm. If you have such shelves facing your bed while you sleep each of the shelves will be sending little poison arrows toward you throughout the night. It will only be a matter of time before you fall ill. If you cannot close the open shelves with doors, another solution is to ensure the shelves are lined with books whose spines are set flush with the edge of the shelf, thus getting rid of the shelves.