Feng Shui Zone

FIRST CHAPTER OF
IN THE FENG SHUI ZONE

Section One

 

Introduction

 

I N T R O D U C T I O N

In this section I will introduce you to Feng Shui by telling you what it is and what it isn’t, by describing briefly its very long history and mentioning the schools of Feng Shui — especially BTB Feng Shui. I conclude the chapter by listing the benefits of using Feng Shui, sharing Mary’s story and suggesting an exercise for you.

 

W H AT   I S   F E N G   S H U I ?

Feng Shui (pronounced Feng Shway) is a technique for changing and improving your personal energy and the energy of your surroundings.

 

Feng Shui was the mother of the natural sciences in China, the original “environmental impact statement.” By knowing the influence of . . . all the conditions of our total environment, we can help shape our destiny.

                   Steven Post, The Modern Book 
                        of  Feng Shui, p. 7

Feng Shui, as literally translated from ancient Chinese, means “wind and water” and it is all about creating an environment where you live in harmony and balance with your surroundings. It is now understood in the West to mean:

Feng Shui = Balanced Energy

 

A description of how the energy of your surroundings and the energy within you interact to create positive or negative circumstances in your life.

 

Tools and techniques for balancing, enhancing and changing the energy around you and therefore improving your personal energy.

 

What does Feng Shui do?

Using the principles, tools and techniques of Feng Shui allows you to create an environment where you live in harmony and balance with your surroundings, so that the energy around you works for you rather than against you. By balancing and harmonizing the flow of natural energies in your surroundings, you create beneficial effects in your life. Feng Shui improves the energy in your home and beneficially affects everyone’s well-being.

 

What Feng Shui is not

A question I am asked frequently is whether Feng Shui is a religion. Not at all! I understand religion to be the formal institutional structure built around core sacred teachings. And I understand spirituality to be the personal experience of something greater than myself. Feng Shui is not the result of any religious belief system, nor does it come into conflict with any religion. It is simply a way of knowing how your environment affects you and how you affect your environment.

Thus, in order to practice and benefit from Feng Shui, it is not necessary to be religious or spiritual.

 

However, for some people, Feng Shui is a way to express their spirituality through their surroundings. Some trust that their strong spiritual beliefs enhance Feng Shui’s ability to achieve harmony in their surroundings. Others believe, given Feng Shui’s long and venerable history, that the thousands of years of ritual have accumulated power and energy. As users, they tap into this power and receive its benefits.

 

H I S T O R Y   O F   F E N G   S H U I

The origins of Feng Shui date back to ancient Chinese nature-based practices. Three to four thousand years ago, philosophers in China started to realize that there was a connection between personal energy and the energy of one’s surroundings. These philosophers dedicated themselves to the study of energy, as they felt that if they could understand the energy of their environment and how it affected them, they could change personal energy for the better. They felt that if everyone improved the balance of energy in their surroundings, they could improve their personal energy and therefore their life success.

 

In the late 20th century there was an invasion of Oriental practices into the West. First came Zen Buddhism, then karate and kung fu, then acupuncture, acupressure, yoga and Tai Chi. Finally came Feng Shui. The basic principles underlying these practices are the same — energy flows everywhere in the environment. And the environment includes human bodies as well as the entire Universe.

 

There are many schools of Feng Shui. These different schools came at different time periods, from different regions and different languages in China. Traditional schools of Feng Shui use a combination of Landform and Compass. Landform reads the lay of the land — contours, climate and shape — to find the best location for a building. Compass studies the direction of the front door — north, south, east, west — and compares this to your personal best direction, which is calculated based on your date and time of birth.

 

B T B   F E N G   S H U I

Professor Lin Yun, of the Lin Yun Institute in California, is one of several teachers who adapted traditional Feng Shui for the West. He calls his style “Black Hat Sect” or “BTB” Feng Shui.

 

In his adaptation of Feng Shui, Professor Yun included influences from Western knowledge, natural science and architecture. He also merged Tibetan Buddhism and Indian Buddhism with traditional Chinese culture and philosophy, and included knowledge from Taoism, Confucianism, holistic healing, Yin Yang theory of balance and the I Ching. BTB Feng Shui combines contemporary and traditional knowledge to make modern living spaces harmonious.

 

BTB Feng Shui studies the individual characteristics of the site of the property. In our Western neighbourhoods, it is no longer important to have our homes part way up the mountain so that we can have a view of the valley to protect ourselves from hordes of marauding invaders.  Nor is it of significant importance to most of us to be facing south (or north, west or east) so that crops will yield more. Instead, BTB Feng Shui takes into account the characteristics of the individual property, the location of the site within the neighbourhood, the position of the home on its lot and the factors within the close vicinity that are having an impact on the homeowners’ energy or Chi. BTB Feng Shui also teaches the connection between the Chi (energy) of the surroundings and the Chi of the individual.

 

I have found BTB Feng Shui, adapted to our Western lifestyle, easy to understand, very practical and highly effective. I have also found that it is important to pick only one school of Feng Shui and follow its practices. Thus, the teachings in this book are based on BTB Feng Shui.

 

BTB Feng Shui teaches the connection between the Chi (energy) of the surroundings and the Chi of the individual. Each of us has a personal Chi with its own characteristics that maintains our physical and emotional balance. Using Feng Shui techniques will enhance the Chi in your surroundings to improve the flow of Chi through your body and therefore improve your life success. BTB Feng Shui combines modern and traditional knowledge to improve the places where we live and work.

 

B E N E F I T S   O F   F E N G  S H U I

Feng Shi is a simple, common-sense, practical approach that can be applied easily to your life — your inner life and your outer circumstances. There are many benefits to using Feng Shui. These include:

 

Controlling the impact of the environment on your life.

 

Transforming problems into successes.

 

Manifesting new energy in your life.

 

Enhancing your environment to benefit every part of your life including your career, wealth, health and relationships.

 

Balancing and increasing the flow of energy in your life, thus improving your health, wealth and happiness.

 

Responding positively to the flow of change in your life. Feng Shui can be used throughout your life, helping you to respond to the surprises that life brings you.

 

Mary’s Story

When I first met Mary, she told me her life was a mess. Her relationship with her husband was in crisis, her communication with her children was non-existent, there were money worries, she hated her job, and she just couldn’t get anything done. She just couldn’t seem to raise herself out of her lethargy to make any improvements in her life.

 

A friend told Mary about my Feng Shui workshops. “What the heck,” she told me, “I have nothing to lose. Feng Shui seems to be about energy and I definitely need some energy. My life seems to be going from bad to worse.”

 

At the workshop and with a few private sessions, Mary learned what she needed to do to change her environment to increase the energy around her and to release her own energy. Six months later, she was feeling like a different person. Her relationships with her husband and children had improved wonderfully. The money pressures seemed to have eased — her spending was under control, there didn’t seem to be as many unforeseen expenses as before, and her husband had

recently been promoted. She felt better, had a lot more energy and was better able to cope. She was sleeping well (what a joy that was!) and consequently her health had improved and she felt happier than she had in years. Mary felt once again that she was in control of her life. She was in the Feng Shui Zone.

 

Mary experienced Feng Shui’s simple, common-sense approach to improving all areas of her life. She learned that it was based on sound, fundamental, practical principles that are very easy to apply. By implementing the easy-to-follow steps in this book, you, too, can get your life into the Feng Shui Zone.

 

E X E R C I S E

I’ll bet that you have applied Feng Shui techniques without even realizing it. For this exercise, remember the times you put furniture in a room and it just didn’t feel right. You kept moving it around until it felt good — that’s balance, that’s being in the Feng Shui Zone. Instinctively you were applying the principles of Feng Shui!