Water Dragons Feng Shui

What is Feng Shui? Its Schools, Systems & Approaches (continued)

By Janie Angus

Within Xuan Kong Da Gua, there are essentially only two major "schools" or "universities" of Feng Shui: San He and San Yuan. Everything else in the practice of Feng Shui falls underneath these two broad categories.

The first order of business is to dispel two common but meaningless terms touted in the array of Feng Shui books on the market: Form School and Compass School.

Form School

There is no such thing as ‘Form School’: this term was made popular by a famous Feng Shui author. This technique or method of Feng Shui generally falls under the San He System by virtue of concentration alone. Observing the environment is one of the oldest methods of Feng Shui practiced, dating back thousands of years to when Feng Shui was known as Kan Yu.

The ancients became masters at observing and interpreting the stars and landscape and the effect it had on human events, nature, and fortune. They studied all forms in, and shapes of, the environment: rivers, streams, mountains, skies, and so forth. Poetic ways of describing certain areas of the external environment brought about the Celestial animals— the White Tiger, the Green Dragon, the Black Tortoise, and the Red Phoenix. The early practice of Kan Yu also incorporated the use of the Five Elements (Wu Xing) and the principles of Yin and Yang. All Classical Feng Shui Schools naturally use ‘forms’ as part of the Feng Shui analysis. Environmental forms are to Feng Shui what batter is to cake.

Compass School

There is no such thing as "Compass School", another term that was made popular by a famous Feng Shui author. The use of a compass or Chinese Luopan is the quintessential tool of any genuine Feng Shui Master or professional practitioner. All authentic and traditional schools of Feng Shui use a compass or Luopan to perform assessments.

The Chinese invented the compass, and steel as a result. The Feng Shui compass developed into a complicated and intricate tool known as the Luopan, covered with formulas that stood the test of time. This beautiful instrument may contain as many as 36 rings, each ring dedicated to a formula used to assess and adjust the Feng Shui. As Feng Shui developed over hundreds of years, it gained considerable sophistication and complexity, and often Feng Shui Masters were among the scholars of their day.

San Yuan (Three Cycles) and the Flying Stars

San Yuan is the one of the great major "universities" or schools of Feng Shui and there are many sub-sectors that fall under its auspices.

Xuan Kong Fey Xing is one of the most recognized, most often referred to as Flying Star. Flying Stars are kindergarten in the training of any Feng Shui practitioner, and they are not used in macro Feng Shui like community developments. Xuan Kong Fey Xing is a subset of a larger grouping within San Yuan. Flying Stars is one of the techniques used to take into account the time dimension aspect of Feng Shui, and n that are appropriate for macro Feng Shui projects. This method relates to the changing forces during different periods of time. Flying Stars is the process of extracting information from the intangible influences of the numbers—representing a kind of elemental chi—and the combination of numbers of the Lo Shu square. Flying Stars explains why no structure enjoys good or bad Feng Shui forever: each structure, like the rest of the world and every human being, cycles through time. Each building or structure will have a Natal Flying Star Chart, and there are special Flying Star charts for buildings that can be exceptionally auspicious provided they are properly identified and activated.

The most commonly known San Yuan formations are the Pearl String Formation, the Combination of 10, and the Parent String Formation. Other techniques such as the Castle Gate are used to tap the energy of a natural body of water for greater prosperity.

Also under the San Yuan, are the Zi Bai (Purple-White Flying Stars), Xuan Kong Shui Fa (Time-Space Water Method) and the San Yuan Dragon Gate Eight Formation School. Common formulas such as Robbery Mountain Sha, the Three Killings, the Great Sun Position, the Tai Sui (Grand Duke) and the Sui Po (Year Breaker) are other techniques used to assess the Feng Shui, all part of the San Yuan School.

San He (Three Harmonies)

San He is the other major Feng Shui “university.” The famous Water Dragon Formulas normally fall under this school, although they should be considered separately under the aegis of Xuan Kong Da Gua. The San He School of Feng Shui has extensive systems and formulas—several to assess formations for disaster, others to bring wealth and good luck, and an esoteric branch for predictions. Common and well known formulas are the Peach Blossom Sha Formation (bad romance & illicit affairs), Eight Roads of Destruction (disasters), Eight Killing Forces (adverse affect on health, money and romance). Other formulas like the Five Ghost Carry Treasure and Three Door Harmony are used to attract wealth.

The Eight Mansions (Pa Chai, also known as East/West System)

Eight Mansions or Pa Chai falls under the San He School.

There are two popular methods of Eight Mansions—one from the classic text "Kam Kwong Dou Lam King" (Cantonese name) and one from "Eight House Bright Mirror," the latter being the most well-known; the former hardly known in the west. Both interpretations incorporate the use of Major Wandering Stars and Minor Wandering Stars techniques. The Eight Mansions method uses the Life Gua formula to determine favorable and unfavorable directions for every person. Other important Pa Chai considerations are given to door location, door direction, stove location, toilet placement, location of staircases, and the house/building orientation. There are also advanced Pa Chai methods that assist in fine-tuning the Feng Shui of a building.

There’s a lot of back and forth in the current Feng Shui world that argues whether San He is an elementary system, created at a time when men thought prehistorically and ran around with a water bowl and a strip of metal over it for a compass. Some of this is because the originators of these complaints or comments are relying upon the information in the Eight House Bright Mirror classic, and have no knowledge of the other classics that were tiptoed out of China when it went communist in 1949. The other is ignorance masquerading as disdain and a paucity of a thorough post-high school education, whether degreed or not, since history must be studied in depth. San He in its more complex and powerful form is also based upon a knowledge of astronomy, and unless you understand that you have no foundation or standing upon which to make judgment.

Water Dragons Feng Shui ®

Famous Feng Shui author, Lillian Too, first brought an awareness of the Water Dragon methods with her book Water Feng Shui for Wealth—An Advanced Manual on Water Feng Shui Based on the Water Dragon Classic, published in 1995. This book, unfortunately, omitted the most significant aspect of the water formulas. (It is strongly advised that readers refrain from creating a Water Dragon using the descriptions and directions contained therein; many who relied upon the instructions in Too’s 1995 book to create their own Water Dragon without expert help went bankrupt, including on of her British publishers.)

There are many ancient texts on water formulas and water castle formulas, although the Water Dragon Classic is one of the most respected and well-known. Water Dragons are created to bring extreme wealth to the recipient. Water Dragons must have the proper land forms to support it, correct directional flow, must pass by the front door or entrance, and have an exact exit degree in order to produce wealth. Otherwise, the improper placement of water of any kind can produce disaster. The best Water Dragons act slowly. The casinos in Las Vegas that have gone belly-up in recent years have suffered from this phenomenon.

In addition to Water Dragons, there are numerous water formulas under both the San Yuan and the San He Schools. For example, the Five Ghosts Carry Treasure is a powerful San He water formula that is easily implemented on a property through landscaping, and can also be applied internally.

Black Hat Sect (BHS or BSTB)

This method of Feng Shui was developed and brought over to America by Professor Thomas Lin Yun, a Black Hat Tibetan monk, about 25 years ago. Professor Lin Yun created this simplified version of Feng Shui along with a soupçon of Tibetan Buddhism to suit American new-age proclivities.

Yun took the Ho Tien or Wen Wang Ba Gua (Later Heaven) and created the "Eight Life Stations" or Aspirations. He proposed that these "life stations" are absolute; meaning that your front door is always North, irregardless of the actual direction. Further, each main direction represents an aspiration in life: North (Kan trigram) is the Career Area, South (Li trigram) is the Fame Area, Southwest (Kun trigram) is the Marriage Area, and so forth. There are eight in all.

This interpretation of Feng Shui rapidly gained the attention and appeal of the Western mind. The concepts were easy to grasp. It had a quasi-spiritual new-age slant, and no real study was needed to put it into practice. If you objected to its simplicity, it was easy to say you weren’t spiritual enough to grasp it: difficult to prove but a great silencer. A compass or Luopan is not used, and all structures are oriented to the North in the foundational thinking. This system does not belong to either the San He or the San Yuan School and is not recognized as valid or authentic Feng Shui, but rather, “a New Age practice.” To date, it has a huge, loyal following all over the world. For more on Professor Lin Yun and the Black Hat Tibetan school of Feng Shui, read In The Money by Laurel Wellman in the Articles.

Western Feng Shui in general

There are many other schools derived from the roots of The Black Hat Sect—with some minor changes. These schools also use the Eight Life Stations or Eight Life Aspirations, and include common housekeeping chores, such as space or clutter clearing, as part of their matrix, which elevates keeping your house ‘neat and tidy’ to a new-age quasi-religious act.

Many of Professor Yun’s students are writing books and becoming famous repeating this over-simplified version of Feng Shui. Frankly, Masters of authentic Feng Shui do not consider these ‘Western Schools’ authentic. They are deemed to be Western new-age spiritual practice, if anything, but not Classical Feng Shui.

Black Hat Sect and the various schools of Western Feng Shui were, until the last four years or so, the most practiced and recognized Feng Shui in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe.

Now some of these same famous authors and teachers can be seen in classes around the world learning genuine Classical Feng Shui from the ground up. Public awareness about the ‘real McCoy’ has risen to such a level now that if they want to retain their status as Feng Shui "experts" they must learn to use the Luopan and study the complex formulas of the San He and San Yuan Schools from the rafter of Asian Feng Shui ‘masters’ and ‘grand-masters’ that are springing up like weeds to meet the need.

Some Western Feng Shui practitioners who are reluctant to make the change have found comfort in re-characterizing BHT as being “more inclined to the spiritual life of the home and individual,” dismissing Classical Feng Shui as just ‘something you do’ with a compass and forms. The fact remains that Classical Feng Shui under any definition is a not a spiritual or religious practice. It is not a practitioner's amorphous interpretation of your lifestyle. It is more akin to architecture than playing God, saving souls, or restructuring your luck by rearranging the furniture and slapping color on the walls. Classical Feng Shui works from the outside in using formaluas based on the electromagnetic energies of the earth and astronomical cycles. Period.

Intuitive Feng Shui

William Spear was the first to make Intuitive Feng Shui popular and coined the phrase. Again, this is not Classical Feng Shui. As humans we all use our intuition to assist us in whatever we have studied and learned—this adds dimension to our knowledge.

Authentic Feng Shui, however, requires years of study and practice. To simply "intuit" someone's home or office without a real understanding of authentic Feng Shui principles can be irresponsible, reeks of snake-oil, and usually requires the homeowner or business person to abdicate his or her natural intuitive judgment to someone else. Not necessary.

Practices Used in Conjunction with Feng Shui

Dowsing, Bau-biologie, Space Clearing, Clearing Clutter, The Four Pillars of Destiny (Chinese Astrology), Nine Star Ki, (Japanese Astrology), Creating a Sacred Space, Zi Wei Dou Shu (Chinese Astrology) are often mistaken for Feng Shui. These are all acceptable things to use in conjunction with Feng Shui if you wish, but do not confuse them with Feng Shui. They are separate practices altogether. And they are not necessary to Classical Feng Shui.

Feng Shui for the Modern World

Feng Shui has enjoyed some serious media attention for the last few years. It is featured on prime time TV programs and in the mainstream media. For the first time ever, genuine Feng Shui Masters around the world are now offering classes.

This once secret knowledge is now being revealed, according to the ancient tradition, from Master to student. For hundreds of years, very advanced and sophisticated forms of Feng Shui were practiced in China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Currently, classical Chinese Feng Shui is practiced in Europe, United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Greece, South America, Canada, and Mexico.

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