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Witajcie!
W załączeniu wspomnienie z grudniowych zajęć :-)
Dziękujemy Wam za obecność i serdecznie pozdrawiamy!!!
Lidia i Krzysztof i Howard :-)
Superstitions in Feng Shui come about when technical application of a philosophical concept is misunderstood. The Toilet Sha is a good example in which the modern inventor misunderstood the meaning of Sha Qi.
Sha Qi 煞氣 is “above form (“xing-zhi-shang 形之上), it is a philosophical concept expressing the undesirable state when things are out of balance and harmony. It is complementary opposite to Sheng Qi.
Toilet Sha turned this metaphysical idea into a “below form” (xing-zhi-xia 形之下) physical agent (a “vessel” or a “qi” 器) that can cause sickness if it is in line with a toilet bowl. That becomes a superstition because it misinterpreted a metaphysical concept and turned it into an irrational belief that a toilet bowl can “kill” (sha 殺).
Some people tried to bring in good hygiene to explain the Toilet Sha but the health effect of air-borne bacteria is a scientific observation that does not need the Toilet Sha to explain its working nor the other way around.
This lack of understanding of the key concepts in Chinese philosophy often turned Chinese metaphysics into superstitions, and it not only happen in “New Age” Feng Shui but also in folk Feng Shui in China and SE Asia.
Toilet Sha travels in a straight line, penetrating through solid walls to give anyone sleeping in its path health problems, in this case a thumping headache or even a tumor in the brain!
We just set up this website for the teaching of the Five Animals Frolic in Krakow, it is in Polish at the moment but the English text and further information will be uploaded very soon, so please keep dropping by.
http://www.bailung.com
Some rejected publicity shots for the next year’s workshop on the Taiji Spear in Nantes, France for Thierry Doctinal’s group (http://www.tai-ji-centre.net/). I am looking forward to teach this form since I have not taught it for a long while and that will force me to do some practice!
Some photos taken in last weekend’s Taiji workshop in Poznan, with Piotr Ziemba’s group and showing us doing some low-down Peng-Lu-Ji-An push-hands. As usual, I had a great time and thanks Piotr, for the effort.
http://www.taichi.com.pl/index2.php
This is how urban myth is often created. When a tourist walking past a toilet sign like this, it can lead to thinking that the French femmes do “it” both standing up and sitting down!
I wrote this as a discussion topic in the Fivearts Forum because a lot of students are confused about the discrepancies in the working of different Liqi Pai (Comapss School) Feng Shui, others might find it interesting and would like to comment here as well:
Fivearts Forum, Liqi Pihttp://www.fivearts.net/index.php/topic,4070.0.html
This is a question asked by students of Feng Shui all the time, like what to do with the different ways of counting time (Two Eras and 8 Periods v Three Eras and Nine Periods), the different ways of allocating the Direct and Indirect Spirits, and the different Yin and Yang correlations and Wuxing correlations, etc. etc.
The answer can be found in an analogy to games we play in sport. Each game has its own set of rules and its own point scoring system, try to understand them clearly and then play the game according to the rules from the beginning to the end. If one wants to know which game is more enjoyable and more rewarding, one needs to finish playing one game before trying another.
Imagine the chaos one can create when half way through playing an English football game, then decided out of the blue, to change the game to American football and pick up the ball and run towards the goal posts!
Feng Shui methodologies are like intellectual games; each game has its own set of rules and its own way to evaluate the desirability of a situation, none of them are more right or more wrong than another, it is just an acceptance between one another of how each game should be handled, which philosophical interpretation and which correlation one should adopted and so forth.
Our task as Feng Shui students is learn these different rules from different schools of Feng Shui and then play the intellectual game according to thier set rules one at a time and don’t try to mix them up. After a while, an experienced player will know which game is more enjoyable and more rewarding and in what situation and then it can become an effective tool in helping others.
Some people, after a while for some reasons, might want to set up their own school with a new set of rules. All he or she has to do is to gather a group of followers, big enough so it can survive as a school, and then we will have a new game-play on the block. This is exactly what happened to 林雲 Lin Yun’s Three Door Bagua and 談養吾 Tan Yang-Wu’s Xuan Kong Liu Fa.
Another way to become a founder is to create a set of sub-rules with a main game, like 王亭之 中州玄空派 Wang Ting-Zhi’s Zhongzhou Xuankong Feixing Pai or 陳倍生妙派 Chen Bei-Sheng’s Mei Pai Da Gua. These can come under the guise or the banner of “secret transmissions”, “authentic teachings” and “direct lineage” etc.
As students, we need to see the scenery clearly and seek a path we can walk down to reach our goal, aim for the main path and not the side passages and get lost on our way.
Scientific Feng Shui: Application of Feng Shui Knowledge to Preliminary Building Design Evaluation Using Knowledge-Based Expert Systems Approach Author: Michael Y Mak Publisher: VDM Verlag Dr Muller, Saarbrucken, Germany (2009) ISBN: 978-3-639-20940-2 Weblink to order:
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I had the good fortune of meeting Prof Wang Qi-Heng 王其亨 in his home three days ago before we flew out of Beijing to Berlin. Prof. Wang is a famous teacher from Tianjin University specialized in researching and teaching the history and philosophy of traditional Chinese architecture. He part wrote and edited one of the best source book on Feng Shui in Chinese called “Research into the Theories of Feng Shui” 風水理論研究, published by the Tianjin University Press (see book cover below). His university department is also responsible for many of the conservation planning around the major historical sites like the Forbidden City and the Ming and Qing Tombs.
During our three-hours meeting I asked him many questions on Feng Shui and architecture, especially about the Qing and the Ming dynasties of which he is an expert. The most memorable one for me was about Yinzhai Feng Shui and my question was, “Do you really think intelligent and capable rulers like the Qing Emperor Qianlong 乾隆皇帝 (1711-1799), would believe that if they bury their ancestors in the best Feng Shui spot, their family would rule forever?” He laughed and replied, “Of course not!”
Then he went on to say that if we research into the historical court documents like he did, then the imperial burial sites were chosen not for selfish gains or un-realistic expectations, but they are in fact imperial site selections and architecture with a strong sense of commemoration in memory of their ancestors, as required by the Confucian Rites.
He followed up by showing me an example in the commemorative tablet erected in the Qing Yu Ling 清裕陵 (Emperor Qianlong’s burial site), where these words were carved in stone:
聖水深巖
Sacred-waters and deep ravines,
靈山翠微
Spirit-mountains and shady retreats,
億年安宅
(We) set down a dwelling for a hundred million years,
築我丕基
(and continue to) build our great foundations.
There was nothing said about tapping into the right kind of earth energy to make the descendants more powerful, richer and happier. It is done to remain them of their heritage and responsibility as a ruler.
Some people actually blamed the Feng Shui of Qianlong’s tomb for the decline of the Qing Dynasty because although he was buried in a Meridian Spot, he choose to face a “Death and Empty Line”, so while his descendants continued to rule another 112 years, they were very mediocre and downright incompetent or died young. It is grossly unfair and downright superstitious to blame Feng Shui and Qianlong on the natural rise and decline of a dynasty and misunderstood the real purpose of Yinzhai Feng Shui.
When I pressed the point, Prof. Wang also pointed out in the official documents, no Feixing calculations were mentioned, the imperial Feng Shui experts selected the sites for burial mainly based on Xingshi 形勢 considerations.
Prof. Wang said the real purpose of a grave or a Mu 墓 is to have a place to admire (pay homage) the ancestors and the character to admire (mu 慕) has the same sound as for a grave although it is written in a different way and this was pointed out by Liu Xi 劉熙 of Eastern Han (25-220AD) in his book “Explaining the Terms and the Burial Rites” 釋名。釋喪制:
墓， 慕也；孝子思慕之處也。
“A grave (has) the same (sound) as to admire, it is a place where a filial son can admire and remember (the dead).”
Prof. Wang said at the same time to bury is to hide from the wind (葬，藏也), to avoid attack by the ants and the worms and flooding by water, rotting the corpse.
Finally he said there is an educated understanding of Feng Shui and an un-educated one (Prof. Wang Yude 王玉德 used the terms “academic” and “folk” Feng Shui to say the same thing), to think that burial in a good Feng Shui spot will bring selfish gains to the descendants is to misunderstand the cultivated way of behaviour in a traditional Chinese society.
Confucian filial piety required a gentleman 君子 to find a good Feng Shui spot to bury, to remember and to pay homage to the dead and not to expect anything in return. Prof. Wang Qi-Heng said this is the real purpose of Yinzhai Feng Shui.
These are my Polish students (with Lidia Sarek, my organizer, first on the left) who are willing to sit for the final examination and submit two case study assignments for marking to get their Certificate of Completion to become a qualified consultant recognized by our school.
I have been teaching for nearly 20 years now, both in Australian and Europe and less than 20 students met the standards required so far, so good luck to these brave ones, who worked very hard in the last couple of years to fully complete the Professional Practitioners course.
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