Feng Shui Dictionary

Flowers and plants, especially growing plants, are potent symbols of Yang energy, and are not suitable for the bedroom. If you place plants in a girl’s bedroom, this will work against her in the romance stakes. If plants feature in the bedroom of a couple they will quarrel frequently. The only time flowers and plants are justified in the bedroom is when someone is recuperating from an illness and needs Yang energy to recover.

Your sleeping direction is a most important consideration if you are to benefit from good Feng Shui. It is therefore vital that your head is pointed in one of your four good directions while sleeping. Check your good and bad directions using the formula based on your Kua number (see “Compass Feng Shui,”. (#litres_trial_promo))

Beds

Sleep in a bed with Feng Shui dimensions. A Feng Shui bed has auspicious dimensions and is decorated with colors that harmonize either with the element of the corner in which the bed is placed, or the element of the year in which you were born. To be safe, it is better to use the element of the corner; this allows the bed to be auspicious for more than one person (i.e. for you and your partner or spouse). Beds with headboards are better as they provide support. Because a bedroom is a place of rest, too much Yang energy is bad and can cause sleepless nights. If you wish to use red, a dark red or maroon is better than a bright, chilly red. Bedspreads are also better in plain colors. Avoid any abstract designs with arrows and triangles: these represent the fire element, which is very bad for the bedroom. It also symbolizes many poison arrows attacking you while you sleep.

Bells

Use tinkling bells to improve turnover in your business. Chinese shopkeepers have long been aware of the efficacy of tinkling bells in attracting customers into their stores. When hung on the door or on a door handle, the ringing of these metal bells creates good Chi each time someone enters the store. This brings in the luck required to make people purchase your products, enhancing your store’s turnover. This method is particularly effective for stores selling personal items such as jewelry, clothes, and accessories.

The bells can be made of any type of metal. They should be tied with a red ribbon to increase their effectiveness, as this activates their intrinsic Yang energy. The ideal number of bells is six or seven, although most shopkeepers only keep one set of bells. Tiny bells can also be placed inside the store anywhere along the west or northwest wall or high up on the ceiling directly facing the door. This will entice the precious Sheng Chi to enter the store. The bells need not be seen, as long as they work. Their function is a symbolic one and as long as they tinkle a little each time the door is opened they will bring increased luck for the store. In the old days, bells were usually used to announce good news, being symbols of good fortune.

Birdbaths

Excellent water features suitable for the north, east, and southeast of your garden. Ensure that the water is clean at all times, replacing the water daily if necessary. The more birds you have visiting your birdbath, the better the energy that is created by this water feature.

Birds

Represent the auspicious phoenix, especially when they are placed in the south part of your home. Thus, keeping sculptures of any kinds of birds in your south-facing garden, or on the south side of your living room, brings luck in the form of opportunity. Live birds in captivity, however, spell bad Feng Shui, captivity being symbolic of retarded growth, and this may well curtail chances of progressing in one’s career.

Birth Dates

These are required in calculating Eight Mansions and Four Pillars Feng Shui. Birth dates are required in the calculation of personalized lucky and unlucky directions. There are two main schools of Feng Shui requiring the date of birth. The first is the Eight Mansions formula, which works out your Kua number. With this number you will be able to refer to a table that details your four auspicious and four inauspicious directions. The second is the Feng Shui method using your Four Pillars. This is the same as the Eight Characters (Paht Chee) method of fortune-telling. This method requires not just the date but also the hour of your birth. In using your birth dates, however, always remember that in using any of the Chinese divinitive sciences you must know your date of birth according to the lunar calendar.

Black Turtles

Celestial creatures that bring great good fortune. The black turtle is believed to be one of four celestial creatures that bring good fortune as well as good health and protection. The arrangement of the numbers on the Lo Shu magic square, one of the most important symbols of analysis in Formula Feng Shui, is said to have originated from the back of a black turtle which swam up from the shores of the Lo River. The arrangement of the numbers one to nine within the square is supposedly based on the markings found on this ancient turtle. Whichever way you add up the numbers, whether diagonally or in a straight line, the numbers always added up to nine. The black turtle is one of the four animals that make up the auspicious “armchair” formation in Landscape Feng Shui (or the Form School method of Feng Shui). The armchair is made up of the green dragon on the left, the white tiger on the right, the black turtle at the back (for support), and the crimson phoenix in front (as a footstool). When a home is built in the middle of these four animals, precious Chi is attracted and created there, leading to much good luck for the occupants of the home.

The black turtle is a popular symbol of good fortune for the home. Displayed either as paintings, or figurines, or kept as a pet tortoise or terrapin, the symbolic Feng Shui created is extremely auspicious. These smaller cousins of the turtle are believed to bring the same good fortune as the turtle. If you wish to keep a terrapin or tortoise, keep it in the north sector of the house, but keep only one, since this is the number of the north. Do not worry that your pet will feel lonely without a mate: terrapins are natural loners.

Blue Flowers

Good for the north, east, and southeast parts of the garden. Colors are powerful Feng Shui enhancers and playing with colors is a creative way of perfecting the Feng Shui of your garden. Blue flowers symbolize the element of water, thus planting them in the north, southeast, and/or east parts of the garden will activate the luck of these corners. The north sector is for career luck, the southeast is for wealth luck, and the east is for good health.

Blue Roofs

One of the danger signs in Feng Shui. Try to avoid having a blue roof since this signifies water on the top of your house. Change the tiles if you have to.

Boardrooms

These can be energized to bring excellent corporate Feng Shui. The best location for the boardroom of a corporation is the place that is diagonal to the entrance, deep inside the office. Boardrooms should not be on the top floor.

Bonsai

Though beautiful, bonsai trees are artificially stunted and do not give good Feng Shui. They are particularly harmful to businesses and commercial enterprises since they are the direct opposite of what needs to be energized for growth. If you have a passion for bonsai trees and simply must have them somewhere in your home, avoid placing them in the wood corners (east and southeast) of your house or garden. Placed in the north, they cause the least harm.

Book of Changes, or I Ching

The major source book of Feng Shui, and probably the main source book of most of China’s cultural practices. The seasoned wisdom of thousands of years has gone into the makings of the I Ching. Both branches of Chinese philosophy – Confucianism and Taoism – have their common roots in this ancient classic, known also as the Book of Changes. The I Ching alone, among all the Confucian Classics, escaped the great burning of the books under Emperor Chin Shih Huang Ti in 213 B.C.E. The origins of the I Ching go back to mythical antiquity, as a book of divination and as a book of wisdom. All that is great and significant in Chinese cultural history takes inspiration from the I Ching – aspects of the many related principles and symbols of the Chinese predictive sciences, its view of the trinity, heaven, earth, and man, the concepts of Yin and Yang, balance and harmony, positive and negative forces, good fortune and misfortune, are all derived from interpretations of the texts and judgments of the I Ching’s 64 hexagrams.

Bookshelves

These represent knives cutting into you and are bad Feng Shui. If you have exposed bookshelves in your office or study, change them into cupboards by covering them with doors. Unless you do this, the shelves will act as deadly poison arrows, causing you loss and illness.

Boulders

Signify earth energy and are an excellent Feng Shui remedy. Tied with red string, a boulder is an effective antidote if placed in a bathroom that is in the wrong place in your home.

Boundaries

For Feng Shui analysis, boundaries must be accurately measured and taken. Feng Shui is best approached as a method or technique. When using the compass methods it is vital to get measurements and compass readings correct. This enables you to establish the parameters of your space more accurately. Feng Shui works when the space has been accurately demarcated according to directions, locations, and elements.

Breath of the Dragon

The cosmic Chi.

Brick Walls

Feng Shui remedy for blocking out unwanted and inauspicious sights, especially structures that are sending killing breath to the home.

Bridges

Bridges near your home will be auspicious if they have three, five, or nine bends. They may be straight or curved, beamed, arched, suspended, or floating. They can be pavilion or corridor bridges and can be made of stone or wood, including cane. In China, bridges that are intended to enhance the Feng Shui of gardens are usually built of stone, and the arch formed is usually in the shape of a semicircle.

Bright Hall

An excellent Feng Shui situation. One of the most auspicious Feng Shui features a building can have is for the main door to open out onto a park, a football field, or any kind of empty land. This creates what Feng Shui masters describe as the bright hall effect, where auspicious Chi can first collect before entering the home. You should not try to achieve the bright hall effect at all costs. If, say, there is a statue or structure that forms a poison arrow directly facing the front door, it is better to give up trying to create the bright hall effect and the auspicious good fortune that it is supposed to bring than to suffer from the deadly Shar Chi from the poison arrow. Remember always to practice defensive Feng Shui first.

Brooms

Brooms, mops, and cleaning materials should never be left around the home. Keep them hidden away. As well as sweeping away bad luck, they can also sweep away good luck. Brooms are particularly bad fortune if left in the dining room, as they symbolize your rice bowl and livelihood being swept away. Brooms have another use in Feng Shui. They can be an effective tool to ward off burglars and intruders from the house when placed upside down against the wall and facing the front door, but outside the home rather than in. Leave a broom outside only at night; put it away during the day.

Buddha Statues

Holy objects must have good Feng Shui. Paintings and statues of Buddhas should be regarded as holy objects. Do not place them below, facing, or near bathrooms. The best place for displaying your antique Buddha statue is the northwest of your entrance hall or living room.

See also Altar.

Buildings

In modern Feng Shui, these simulate mountains. In old days, Form School Feng Shui examined surrounding hills and mountains to determine the quality of the Feng Shui terrain. Today, the practice of Feng Shui has shifted to big cities, where buildings form the landscape and surroundings for homes and offices. Because Feng Shui is symbolic, buildings are now analyzed in the way that surrounding hills used to be.

Bulbs

Usually considered to be good fortune flowers; they represent hidden gold. These are regarded as lucky flowers and indeed symbolize the blossoming of hidden talents and abilities when they bloom. The Chinese are fond of growing bulbs around the lunar New Year, especially the narcissus, because of their association with the advent of spring.

Business Feng Shui