- Chinese Feng Shui -

Chinese Feng Shui - Landscape and Surroundings

Explorations with Heluo
Explorations with Heluo is a series of articles by Heluo on the subject of Time, Space and Destiny

This article is a compilation of several chapters out of

Heluo's Xuan Kong Feng Shui workbook (650 pages)

- Please read disclaimer on last page -

Mountain and Water Qi

The primary focus of the ancient peoples was in dealing with the environment,
especially so when nomads chose to settle down around the times when agriculture
became a technique and animals domesticated.

The natural environment may bode all kinds of challenges and threats, from animal
attack to floods and storms. Mans relationship with the lands and the environment
became more important with urbanization and a lot of todays Feng Shui techniques
simply stem from common-sense needs.

It is only obvious for villages or any populated areas, to be situated around natural
water bodies, because water is essential to life. Water gives us the necessary fluids
to maintain life and health, we can wash our cloths and food with it, irrigate the
land and feed our animals from whom we receive milk, meat and clothing. Water
gives us salt and seafood. Water is the number one prerequisite to sustain human,
animal and vegetable life.

Water furthermore ensured wealth and prosperity for countries close to seas or for
villages and cities along river banks, for reason that water can be used for
transportation of people and goods over greater distances. Water as a vehicle to
travels can bring in people, goods and knowledge from afar and therefore water
gives access to wealth and power. Water can also carry our expeditions to far and
unknown continents, so that we can colonize and settle in new areas, exchange
knowledge, collect valuables and import food. Water therefore is a most powerful
tool, not just to auspiciousness, but it is also a tool used in suppression and
spreading diseases.

Water carries the essence of life, but it also imposes the threat of destruction by
floods, carrying the essence of death. Therefore, living in the vicinity of water was
one thing, not living too close to fast running waters (white water) or river banks
that would regularly flood was another.

The Chinese soon found that Water Carries The Wind Qi and should therefore
not run too fast. Soft meandering waters and slow waters can accumulate Qi,
bringing wealth and sustained abundance to a community, whereas fast moving
waters could just as well dissipate and carry away Qi, dissolving its essence and
thus leaving a community poor.

A house should not be too high up a mountain, because of lack of water and
exposure to strong winds, nor should it be too low on a mountain, because of an
obvious water threat.

Water and wind are essentially the same, as water and wind both do not travel in
straight lines, say from point A to point B. Water may run to a low point and
choosing the path of least resistance, but essentially water is just moving wind.

So, it was only natural that man should be focusing on regulating the path of wind
and water first, and intelligibly arrange Mountain and Water, hence the term Feng
Shui.

The single most important task for a Feng Shui master was to recognize where Qi in
a landscape is accumulated.

It was essential to have a house or city near the bend of a river and having
established this, we could then declare that with this feature the condition to have
an open and active area was met, so that we now needed support Mountains - at
the back and preferably at the two sides. The direction in which the water entered
was considered the Shu Ku - , or water mouth.
Around 600 AD the Book of Burial - ascribed to Guo Po - was formulated and it
dealt with location, direction, forms and formations of waters. It is debatable
whether the illustrations used in the book are at all to depict water and waterways,
or just presented as a Red Herring, but even so, illustrations would not appear to
be very practical, because most diagrams used would be just illussionary in case
they were to actually point to water or waterways and virtually non-existent in real
landscape. Once more, the water patterns shown, may not even be to depict water.

While wind is invisible to the eye, water can become invisible too, e.g. by running
underground, which is regarded highly unfavourable if it runs underneath a house.

It was essential also to locate the Mountain Dragon. A mountain can block Qi.
Without a mountain a site would be exposed to harsh winds. Apart from a blocking
function, a mountain also accumulates Qi and emits Qi to the environment. A
mountain prevents Qi from being dissipated.

Sometimes, in flat lands, there are no mountains. Then, instead, the Feng Shui
master would look for the Water Dragon. The Mountain Dragon would be then
located exactly opposite the Water Dragon.

Sometimes, from a geographical standpoint, there seems to be no water, only

mountain, or sometimes there seems to be no mountain, only flat lands. From a
Feng Shui perspective there is always Water and there is always Mountain as it is
said that between two mountains there must be water and between two bodies of
water there must be mountain.

Relative to a body of water, even flat lands can be regarded mountain. Relative to
an elevation, any flat land or valley can be regarded water. Mountain can be
discerned from water and water can be discerned from mountain, much the same
as in Xun Kng Fi Xng Pi - we can establish Facing by
determining Sitting.

Here we will be studying Xun Kng, which is sometimes translated as Mysterious

Void. More popularily Xun Kng may be referred to as Time-Space Feng Shui and
it is a branch of Sn Yun Ji Yn Pi - -, or Three Cycles, Nine Periods
School.

Xun - - Mysterious, black, dark, profound, abstruse

Kng - - Empty, void, hollow, sky, space
Fi - - Fly, hoover, flutter in the air
Xng - - Star, Heavenly body
Pi - - School, group, faction, style

Mountain ranges were studied, because a Mountain Dragon was not just a single
mountain on its own. Your house could be near a mountain, but the Mountain
Dragons origin could be thousands of miles away, bringing in different types of Qi.
Soon cosmology came into use in the form of Trigrams and Hexagrams.
Dragon lair
Within Xng Sh Pi - (more popularily Form School) considerations, Lng
Xu or Dragons Lair - - is regarded the ideal place for a house or city, or in
its most original understanding and application Xu is the ideal grave site location.
It is the spot were a mountain comes to rest to accumulate and emit its most
abundant Qi, along then also with acquiring a superb Water (H2O + open plot) area.

Xng Sh Pi can be translated as Form School.

Xng - - Form, shape, body, appear

Sh - - Form, model, pattern
Pi - - School, group, faction, style

Lng Xu or just Xu - can be translated as Dragon Lair.

Lng - - Dragon
Xu - - Cave, den, hole, grave, acupoint

A mountain range branches out into many directions. These branches again branch
out into many directions, sometimes over thousands of square miles. One of the
most persisting criteria for selecting an ideal site is for the site to have a Dragon
Mountain at the back, the Dragon spreading two sloping downward arms to
embrace and protect the site.

It is important to note that to the Chinese, a mountain is a living creature. The

mountain has a body, a spine, claws, a head. A mountain therefore moves, it
spreads, it emerges, it submerges and it comes to rest. A mountain can be healthy
and a mountain can be wounded. Whether below surface or for anyone to see, a
mountain carries Earth Qi

shows Dragon Lairs at different locations. The bottom may be the father mountain, the
middle one the grandfather mountain and the top one the ancestral mountain. This principles
was first established in Yin Zhai (graves, grave sites) Feng Shui to find best burial sites
according to hierarchy within families. In our times Yin Zhai principles can be just barely or
not applied any longer for simple reason that land became a sparce commodity, especially so
in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and local regulations may not permit it.

We recognize the Armchair Setting, where for Yang Zhai (buildings) the bottom
may present a house or village with water in the Ming Tang or Red Bird and a
distant mountain (Zho Shn ) also known as mirror mountain - to
complete ultimate Feng Shui.

We need the Ming Tang to receive and retain Sheng Qi and we need the mountain
in the distance to emit Sheng Qi back onto the site again, so Qi does not dissipate.

According to Guo Po in the Book of Burial (Zang Shu) the Turtle should have the
head, the Bird should soar, the Dragon should move like a snake and the Tiger
should be tame.

The Dragon mountain is Yang and it embodies the male principle and teaching has
it that the Dragon should be taller, higher and just a little more protruded or
prepotent than the Tiger mountain that is Yin and which embodies the female
principle. It is wrong teaching that says that Dragon is a male and Tiger is a
female, as we will never find indications to gender in Yin and Yang attributes. It is
clearly meant to read male principle and female principle and it must therefore then
also be understood that Yin is not negative and Yang is not positive in a
psychological sense. Yin and Yang are two poles of the same magnet, so positive
merely implies the plus pole and negative implies the minus pole. Yang is the male
principle and we find the male principle in both men and women. Yin is the female
principle and we find the female principle in both men and women.

Contrary to some persistent teaching that would claim that the Four Celestial
Animals should be found fixed into certain directions, it is not pertinent at all to
have a Green Dragon to the East, a White Tiger to the West, a Red Bird to the
South or a Black Turtle to the North.

Instead, irrespective of actual directions the teaching says: Dragon to the left,
Tiger to the right.

However, it seems this needs to be applied differently for Yang Zhai than for Yin
Zhai and furthermore, even if we located a seemingly appropriate mountain to
either side, the Flying Star chart may still be against that, as nothing overrides the
Flying Star chart.

For Yang Zhai we must stand outside and facing the house (looking outside-in) in
order to find the Dragon on the left and as introduced recently by master Eva
Wong for Yin Zhai we must stand with the back of our head towards the head
stone of the grave (looking away from the grave) in order to still find the Dragon on
the left and the Tiger on the right.

It is pertinent to find the Dragon to your left hand side, it is not important to then
find the Dragon particularly into the East, West or into any other specified direction.
This holds true for both Northern and Southern Hemisphere, and we must
understand that the Armchair Setting is merely a first and general Xng Sh Pi
observation, still to be closely examined against the Flying Star chart that may yet
prescribe Mountain and Water into other directions, relative to factors of
Timeliness. Whether Mountain or Water are at all desirable with respect to their
directions depends on the Flying Star chart.

Again irrespective of actual directions, the Turtle should be then located at the back
of a site, whereas the Red Bird should be located into the Ming Tang, or to the front
of a site and this for both Yin Zhai and Yang Zhai.
The above shown representation of the Armchair Setting shows two water courses
joining together to become one river which would be regarded an auspicious
feature in itself, but again this is a basic Form School observation that still needs to
be checked against the Flying Star chart of the built structure or for open land,
countries and cities be checked against the Time Chart (Tian Pan) and the Earth
Chart (Di Pan).

Zho Shn can then be located beyond the Ming Tang and is meant to prevent
auspicious Qi from escaping a site. Zho Shn can be therefore somewhat smaller
for as long as its magnitude and distance are proportionate to the main site to
ensure Qi to be retained for the site.

Dragon Lair can be only given out once. All structures that move farther away from
the Dragon Lair can only receive weaker Qi emitted by the mountain. That is why
even in the old days it was hard to come by a good Feng Shui spot and today it
seems almost impossible.
Shanshui -
Mountain and Water (Landscape), also referred to as Shnshu - is a principle
of environmental Mountain and Water requirements pivotal in Feng Shui dynamics.
We use basic principles of Shn - -, Shu - - and Sh - - to select and
monitor a site for Yang Zhai en Yin Zhai. For houses - Zhi - we need to locate
the Dragon Den - Lngxu - to the front of which we then need to find a
Mngtng - - again beyond which we would appreciate to find a distant
mountain, referred to as Zho Shn (Mirror Mountain) which must prevent Qi from
dissipating.

The so-called Dragon and Tiger mountains or hills are not considered Shn, but
rather Sh, i.e. elevations or small hills that we find in the surrounding landforms
and that we need locate for support. Sh features in this sense are much less
important than Shn.

Water and
Water ways
Mountain

House

Zho Shn

Sand
Supportive Landforms, small
hills

http://www.oup.co.uk/images/oxed/children/yoes/earth/landforms.jpg

In assessing landscape, we need remove all barriers between our body and the land. Then,
through physical awareness of Qi, we may appreciate how for urban settings, buildings can
hardly function as mountains, and roads can hardly function as water. We would conclude
that real Mountains carry Qi from afar and had accummulated Qi over vast periods of time,
whereas real Water would be waterways as shown in above representation, rather than
roads. At best, buildings can give support perhaps function as Sh -, but they cannot be
viewed as surrogate Shn. Whatever blocking properties can be projected on buildings, inside
they are hollow and they accommodate human activity. Buildings have a much shorter life
span than mountains, and they cannot regain power as mountains can. However much
modern 'mountain and water' (buildings and roads) is basic to us, these should be taken with
a grain of salt.
The three properties of a Feng Shui site
It was the first task for a Feng Shui master to select a site that would protect from
harsh winds, because Qi can be scattered by wind. Then, also, water was needed in
order to retain Qi. A good site is needed to ensure the thriving of people. Still not
looking at a Flying Star chart:

- A good site should be open to one side, so as for it to receive Sheng Qi.
- A good site must have water to collect, retain and accumulate Sheng Qi.
- A good site is protected from harsh winds and Sha Qi.

Interaction between Mountain, Water and Stars

- Placing a Mountain Dragon on a mountain activates the Mountain Star.
- Placing a Mountain Dragon in Water nullifies the Mountain Star.
- Placing a Water Dragon in water enforces the Water Star.
- Placing a Water Dragon on a Mountain dissables the Water Star.

The ultimate adjustment

If we were to approach our choice of Feng Shui adjustments, we would best travel
along a spiral and move outside-in, or from the big bucket to the smaller buckets.

Most important in our understanding of an appropriate living environment is

assessing the quality of earth energy. Other beneficial features perhaps still
available, and for whatever reason, it can happen that the overall Qi of the site is
just simply unfit.

Whatever the source environment -, soil and vegetation can breath what we may
call contaminated Qi and such a site must be proclaimed unfit for people to settle.

Examples may be natural hostile features such as too low or too high temperatures,
but it is also true that people have shown an ability to adjust to harsh
environmental influences and learned to survive and thrive. It becomes different in
those cases where contaminations are man made, such as contaminated soil or
water, which we should not want to adjust to and stay clear from.

Before a land can be proclaimed fit for people to settle, we must establish health of
the environmental surroundings as well as health and fertility of the soil itself. We
must ensure healthy waters. For an existing settlement we may be able to assess
appropriateness by observation and interpretation of events. But we can also rely
on our physical ability to sense quality of Qi at a location.

What is the overall quality of the people, are they friendly or hostile. Are they
struggling to survive or is there a smooth flow of exchange between incoming and
outgoing necessities.

When good soil and otherwise favorable surroundings have been established, then
first and foremost, the Yin and Yang or the male and female Principle must be
checked, both where we need examine Yin and Yang in the tangible and intangible.

There needs to be found equilibrium between topographical aspects of Yin and

Yang, geographical accordance between Heaven and Earth forces, where there is
not just Yin and Yang properties between Mountain (Yin) and Water (Yang), but
also between mountains themselves there would be further distinguishments made
between more Yang or more Yin Mountains. The same is true for water and
waterways, where moving water would be regarded as Yang water as compared to
still or deep waters that would be regarded more Yin waters. This is done by
examining the Shnshu and Sh Principle, that proclaims that the environment
must not only produce a dominant Shan (Mountain), healthy waters (Shui) and
supporting elevations, hills or mountains (Sha, also referred to as Sand), but also
we must establish the locations and incoming and outgoing directions of Mountains,
Waters and Sand. The Mountain, Water and Sand must be in accordance with a
prosperous life at the site, and so they must provide the projected fate for the
people dwelling there. Shan is the Host, Sand is the Guest, the visitor.
Up to this point, the assessments done are fairly mundane, as they come from
either visual observation or knowledge from directional and seasonal influence.

In order to assess cosmological or intangible influences upon a site, and both

revealing Time and Space occurrences, the Feng Shui master would project ancient
diagrams such as the Ht - - or Xintin Gu - - on a site,
eventually also incorporating the 9 Stars and include these in the survey.

Ht - River Map.
Xintin Gu - - Former Heaven arrangement of Trigrams.

Thus, if the landforms are found correct, we then investigate directional Qi and
assess under which basic directional cosmological energies a site comes. We
determine the Trigrams and Hexagrams governing a site.

A good example of Yin and Yang requirements in landforms, incorporating both

tangible and intangible influences, are the principles of Zhng Shn - - and
- better known as Holy I-Holy 0, added with requirements for Zho
Lng Shn -
Shn , or Mirror Image God. See separate chapter for description.

Zhng Upright, pure, fundamental

Lng Zero, nil
Zho Mirror, reflection
Shn Spirit, deity
Feng Shui logic
Most basic of all, Feng Shui requires adjustments pertaining to the following logic:

- Counter a Yin intangible force with a Yang tangible force.

- Counter a Yin tangible force with a Yang intangible force.
- Counter a Yang intangible force with a Yin tangible force.
- Counter a Yang tangible force with a Yin intangible force.

Holy I
This is illustrated best with the Holy I-Holy 0 technique that says that the Yang and
most Vibrant intangible Qi of the Commanding Star needs to find a Yin tangible
factor in the shape of a mountain into the Hutin - - Palace of its origin.
Hutin is known as the Later Heaven formation of Trigrams, or just Luoshu. The
Commanding Star is just the current Period Star, carrying the currrent most Noble
Qi. An example for Period 8 would be to then find an exterior physical mountain to
the Northeast of a site, the Northeast being the home of the Prominent Star 8 in
the Hutin Gu - , or Lush - .
Holy 0
If we set up the Time chart for Period 8, the Time Star 5 would be found in the
Southwest and it is an intangible Yin force, which we then counter with a body of
exterior water, which represents a tangible Yang force. The exterior body of water
is to prevent Star 5 from surfacing and 'biting' the house.

All considerations done in Classical Chinese Feng Shui come with establishing and
assessing the correct landforms, surroundings, geography, topography and timing.

Further, we must not read the above paradigma and conclude that we can counter
a Yin or Yang intangible force with a Yin or Yang tangible - or even intangible -
adjustment taken from the realm of mere (physical) Wu Xing technique as it is said
that:

Qi heals Qi, Objects heal Objects: things within the same group move each other.

Stars are codifications for vast Heaven and Earth forces, their frequency simply
beyond the capacity of things that resonate in too small a frequency to be able to
reach or even move Heaven and Earth Qi, which must be then countered first by
their equal, before we adjust with physical objects.
Modern Mountain and Water
Modern Feng Shui teaching has it that buildings are Mountains and roads are
Water.

Let us look at this more closely and see if this is true or to what extend it is true.

We need to understand that nothing can replace a real Mountain, seen from its
ability to block, accumulate and emit Qi. It is only natural because a good Mountain
seen from the perspective of Feng Shui is a living, moving creature. Not only are
some mountains a million years old, their origin can be traced back thousands of
miles from the site sometimes. All in all this will ensure a superb transportation,
accumulation and settling of Earth Qi, and a healthy Mountain Dragon can transmit
fertile Qi, or Sheng Qi, a capacity that we will hardly be able to project on any
building.

We need only reflect on the Life Cycle of a real Mountain and the Life Cycle of any
human built structure, to appreciate that a human built house deteriorates on a
much faster even astonishingly faster scale than we would see any real
Mountain deteriorate. Even the intrinsic function of Blocking Qi is not to be
understood in identical terms, because the blocking capacity for a building would be
much limited to the capacity of blocking wind, and wind is just part of Qi, wind is
not Qi. You can extend this and wonder if the capacity of a building to accumulate
and emit Qi is equal to a mountains ability to accumulate and emit Qi. A mountain
is solid, whereas the building will be mostly hollow inside, another consideration to
ponder on the difference between a real mountain and a built structure.

The same is true for roads. We need to seriously reflect on the difference between
actual H2O on the one hand and virtual Water of either an open landscape or a road
on the other hand. It goes without saying that in a Feng Shui sense, actual H2O will
be charged with an entirely different quality Qi than any road could handle. We can
accept that Qi rides on the wind and we can partly extend the capacity to
function as a vehicle to Qi to roads and pathways, but we must at the same time
agree that nothing can override actual H2O where it comes to its capacity to
transport Sheng Qi, to retain Qi or to bring fortune. There is a difference between a
dry road and a road wet from the rain.

Summarizing, we should be careful to expect the same influence and effect from
built structures and roads as we might expect to come from actual Mountain and
Water.

Also, master Jiang Da Hong pointed out how a house depends on Water Qi, Water
Qi here understood to not be just H2O, but Water Qi incorporating roads,
intersections of roads, exterior roads, interior roads and even the Water Dragon
arriving at the door.
Earth Qi
Surveying and judging the environment for both tangible and intangible Qi was one
of the tasks of the early Feng Shui masters. The quality of Qi could be readily
descerned from the shape and form of mountains, the mountains vegetation, the
quality of soil and the presence or abcense of water.

One of the basic tasks of Form School was to ensure good and abundant Earth Qi
by tracing the Lng Mi - - or Dragon Vein, as scholars soon found that Qi
travels underground as much as it does above ground.

So, it was not just a matter of finding the best Qi spot, but a matter of finding and
tracing the source of Qi and trace back its path, even where this would require long
travels and extensive periods away from home.

It goes without saying that tracing the Dragon Vein and locating the Dragon Lair
might in some cases have taken any Feng Shui master many years. Even then, with
a Dragon Lair having been finally selected, one would be reluctant to immediately
establish a village. Closer assessments would be yet needed and this would come
from planting trees, vegetables and inviting cattle to the location and examine their
behavior and health. It is known how the masters would not just only smell but also
actually taste the soil, categorize soil into different qualities and examine the Livers
of animals who had been eating from the grounds for an extended period of time, in
order to assess the suitability and before a location would be declared fit for
humans to live and thrive. Food, cloth, even human remains would be buried in the
soil to examine the speed and type of deterioration.

Mountains are Qi, and they are looked upon like Dragons having surfaced from
underground. Sometimes the Dragon disappears underground, only to surface
somewhere else again. This can be seen when we see an island appear in the sea
or in a lake. The island is just a Dragon emerging from the waters.

Where it may be sufficient for the average modern Feng Shui student to perhaps
learn from books or through live classes, the serious and more profound student -
and therefore the moreso any professional Feng Shui practitioner - must simply
follow in the footsteps of the ancient Fngshui Xinsheng - - and
actually move outside in the field with his Lupn - - to trace the Dragon,
even if this is just in the vacinity of your own home, but preferably, once the
opportunity arises, even in mainland China or other regions that you know would
give you a sensation of abundant earth Qi.

I actually appreciated much better why Feng Shui had evolved in mainland China
once I spent time walking through the Guilin mountains and became physically
aware of the abundant and warm Earth Qi. It was apparent how energy from the
soil actually entered my body in upward fashion and walking around there felt like
being carried by the earth. Comparable sensation of Earth Qi I had experienced in
Brazil.

There may be a difference with earth Qi in the Netherlands, since most of the
Netherlands territory has been reclaimed from the sea, producing flat lands, fast
and shallow energies, rendering people that are equally fast.

Earth Qi is understood to be produced by the centrifugal forces of our planet. Earth

Qi is Yin as compared to Heaven Qi and Earth Qi is spiralling clockwise, inside-out
and ascending.
Heaven Qi
The ancient Chinese soon found that anything going on on our planet is pretty
much mirroring cosmic realities, just like also the human body with its flow of Qi
through the meridians resembles what happens on earth.

Therefore, the Chinese view of Heaven, Man and Earth is much less rigid than the
general western view. In fact, Heaven, Man and Earth are reflections of the same
idea.

Appearance may be different, applications of laws quite similar, as if this trinity was
the embodiment of one Universal Life force.

Heaven Qi pertains to heliocentric realities, Man Qi pertains to Egocentric realities

and Earth Qi pertains to Geocentric realities.

In fact, we cannot collect all Wu Xing properties that we are aware of and squeeze
them into one endless list as instead we need to take all our Wu Xing knowledge
and yet categorize each property into a heliocentric or astronomic branch, a
Geocentric branch and an Egocentric branch.

Wood as expansion then becomes heliocentric as seen from the moving away of
our planet farther from the sun after the event of Perihelion and Wood becomes the
East in a Geocentrical perspective and finally Wood may pertain to Liver as seen
from an Egocentric perspective. You may agree therefore that we cannot claim that
Wood is green, Wood is East as it would depend on context.

Apart from the initial common sense observation that houses should be build
according to geographical features surrounded at three sides by mountains, open
at the front and with water in its vacinity Chinese astronomers and scholars soon
found that constellations had their own impact on the environment and on lifes
events.

The origin of Heaven Qi is unknown even to the greatest Feng Shui masters as it is
accepted that Heaven Qi or Universal Qi is just the accumulation of trillions of
stars, Heavenly Bodies, sun energy, electromagnetic influences. All come under the
umbrella of Heaven Qi and Heaven Qi is understood to be Yang as compared to
Earth Qi and Heaven Qi is spiralling anticlockwise, outside-in and descending.
Heaven Qi is strongly related to the Time aspect.

Heaven and Earth Qi are then understood to meet just above the ground, have
intercourse and produce an energy most suitable for humans to live and thrive. Any
space under the ground becomes more unsuitable for humans to live, as is true for
any space higher off the ground, such as high rise buildings and apartment
buildings that must be understood to carry inappropriate Qi for people to dwell.

As a consequence, we may seriously wonder whether or not or to what extend Feng

Shui adjustments will work for any setting beyond second floor. It has been my
hypothesis that, where we need already strongly caution against using H2O for an
interior even if so prescribed by the Flying Star chart and however much so
guaranteed by a master of Feng Shui we should either be observant when using
H2O for higher floors, or said differently most probably even best refrain from
using H2O for higher floors at all. We could argue that for higher floors, any
prescribed Feng Shui adjustments would not be effective, whereas any wrong
placements would have immediate and grave effect.

Therefore, whenever you did H2O placements - and for whatever floor I need ask
you to be extra observant about any weirdness, either obvious or not. Once you
start quarreling or even noting that some other entity than yourself may be now
governing house and its people, you immediately remove the H2O.
Architecture and Feng Shui

Chng Sh Fng Shu - pertains to Feng Shui for cities.

D Fng Shu - - or Big Feng Shui would be Feng Shui for continents,
countries, provinces and capitals, while Xio Fng Shu - - or Small or
Minor Feng Shui is Feng Shui for cities, villages, plots, buildings and graves.

The subject is much bigger than we will discuss here. In fact, although
encompassing, the Flying Star technique is just a fraction of a much greater
, as well as most of
machinery that would yet involve D Gu Fng Shu -
the Mountain Dragon methods, e.g. Shn Lng F - - and Water Dragon
methods - Shu Lng F - .

We need first accept that most of the city planning proposed for Feng Shui would
be actually regarded just common-sense by most architects or city planners.

Also, apart from functional architecture or aestethic architecture, it is not

uncommon for architects to design buildings or cities around esoteric typologies
also, in other words, one does not have to be involved in Qi studies in order to
follow certain patterns in design that will be considered universal. Architects and
city planners could project certain mathematical or even mystical ideas on the lay-
out of a city.

Architects incorporating esoterics, mathematics, physics, cosmology, astronomy

and so forth, does not make them esoterics, mathematicians or astronomers. A city
designed around esoteric or mathematical principles does not make it a Feng Shui
city, as it may just point to a well thought out design, pertaining to an almost in-
built inclination in humans to follow dynamics of order, logic, manifestation and
survival.

It is not particularly Feng Shui to say that a house should have a good flow of Qi,
where this is just common-sense and would be claimed by each and every
architect, only now he would talk about air flow or turbulence instead of Qi flow.

The difference between modern architecture and designs according to Feng Shui, is
that Feng Shui may more or less subscribe to the same principles of design, but
would add the Universe to the design in a way that Feng Shui design allows the
Universe to be central and manifest itself in the entire project, rather than the
human mind, the human ego or economics.

Feng Shui recognizes the importance and the central role it plays - of Qi in any
design, rather than focusing on circulation of money (where do we locate shopping
malls), or the convenience of transportation of people from point A to point B.

Feng Shui is concerned with money only in later instance, because any sensible and
intelligible Feng Shui feature installed will be just expected to generate money as a
result of good design. Money is the effect, the underlying principles the cause.

Where any architect would position a gate of a sports stadium in a certain direction,
following mere logistics for example, Feng Shui would add three things that may
perhaps point to another more appropriate - location for this gate.
- Time A gate into, say, the Northwest would be tapping
into a certain type of Qi, but for a limited period
of time. Feng Shui can calculate whether or not
and for what duration of time a certain gate will
be tapping into a certain type of Qi. Here, Feng
Shui avoids (future) Sha Qi.
- Opposition Feng Shui will reveal certain contradictions in
placements that would otherwise have seemed
logical. The Sitting Trigram and Facing Trigram
of a stadium could reveal a hostile relationship,
just as the location of a gate could render
beneficial or inauspicious portents. As for
dressing rooms, it also does not make sense to
have our own sports team sit in a negative Star,
while the visiting team is offered the best Feng
Shui spot.
- Path and direction of Qi Direction and flow of traffic will connect two
Trigrams and this may point to an advantageous
or unbeneficial situation, relative to the function
of a structure, be this a country, city, compound
or a building. Correct direction and good flow of
traffic are emperative, as the 9 Stars may be
transported from one to another location.
Ecological requirements for a Feng Shui treasure site

There are certain conditions to be met in constructing cities, according to master

Cheng Jian Jun also referred to as Fng Shu Bod de shngti tiojin -
, or ecological requirements for a Feng Shui treasure site.

Bo D - Treasure site.
Shng Ti - Ecology.
De - Grammatical particle.
Tio Jin - Requirement, condition, term.

The next diagram shows the basic build up for a city. It includes generally accepted
features, but most important for a Feng Shui designed city would be the two
mountains shown. The mountain to the back shows the idea that at least some
feature should be protecting a city. This could be a mountain, but it can also be
some other type of elevation, as long as its magnitude sufficiently does the job.
Protection could also come from a wall or a forest.

Apart from protection, a mountain to the back of a city will emit Qi of Stars back to
the city.

To the Facing direction of a city should be a mountain also, small and fairly
distanced. This mountain is called Zhao shan, or the Mirror Mountain, its function is
to mirror the Sitting mountain and emit Qi back into the site so that it will not be
lost.

Mountains are not just to protect, but they have the property of collecting Qi and
emitting Qi back to a dwelling. This is the difference between Feng Shui and mere
architecture, it is the understanding of how our Universe functions.

Ecological system including:

- Good sun light.
- Good wind Qi coming in from the Facing side.
- Water to the front of a site, slowly flowing and meandering.
- Mountain to the back of a site to ward off cold winds, emit Sheng Qi.
- Mountain beyond the water to hold Qi, prevent from being dissipated.
- good alignment for drainage of water pollution.

Try look at the structure of your own city.

Time chart and Earth chart
A city has no walls and roof and therefore it will not produce the Man Chart (Ren
Pan), said differently, a city will have no Flying Star chart as it were a building.

The Man Chart consists of Mountain-Time-Water Stars and is for built structures
that have walls and a roof to contain Qi. In case of cities, the Time Star chart and
the Earth Star chart apply.

Perform a websearch and find a topographical map of your city and try superimpose
the Time chart and the basic Luo Shu over the map. Look at the location and course
of waterways and see where mountains are located. Highways can be regarded as
waterways as they transport Qi. Select some of the historical events for your city
and try to determine the relationship to Feng Shui, referring to the applicable Time
and Earth chart.

Most important is to note that a city has no specific physical center. Anything at all
can be taken as the center, e.g. a governmental or financial building. Once you
selected a building, you can of course produce the Man chart for this building and
include this in your divination.

Feng Shui cities are designed aroung the properties of Qi, more specifically on the
knowledge of geomagnetism.

Without the mountain to the back, a city would not just be unprotected, but it
would leak Qi. A city requires this mountain to emit Qi back to the city so that it can
benefit from Sheng Qi. We need to ensure therefore that the city actually receives a
good Star from the direction of the mountain.

Basically, San Yuan school of Feng Shui works from the twenty year Periods of the
Nine Stars. It is understood, that in Feng Shui Period 8, the 8 Earth Star functions
as Heaven Qi descending upon any built structure and this Qi becomes the
prevalent Qi for the twenty year period, governing all other Stars and positioning
their Qi into the eight directions. We would want to tap into this Qi by collecting it,
but would like to benefit from it by retaining it for a dwelling. The mountain in the
back collects this Heaven Qi and emits Qi back, to the benefit of the city.

Once this Qi has been emitted back to the site, we do not want for it to be lost to
the Facing side, so we would prefer a smaller mountain to the Facing side, which
would again collect Qi and emit it back to the site.
Heaven Qi will descend to a reference
point, in this case a mountain. The
mountain attracts, collects and
accumulates Qi and emits Qi back to
the site.

In order for Heaven Qi not to leak out, another

mountain is required
to emit Qi back into the site.

The ancients understood that Heaven Qi is pure always. They decided that,
whenever Qi is to be considered unpure perhaps malicious even it must be
therefore Earth Qi.
Based on gravity, energy will be pulled towards a point of reference. Beneficial
Earth Qi will travel towards a geometric center also, but ancient masters identified
malicious earth Qi and began to refer to it as 2 and 5.

Here lies the basis for the Holy 0-Holy I technique in Feng Shui where it is
understood that the Time chart 5 Earth Star should be stopped by a body of water
before it surfaces and reaches the site.

An exterior body of water into the direction of Time Star 5 can block the 5 Earth
Star from reaching a site. This is then considered an invitation for wealth and
prosperity.

We need to look at the Time chart of a Feng Shui Period to locate the 5 Earth Star
and have an exterior body of water into its direction. For Feng Shui Period 8, we
find Star 5 in the Southwest, so we need to block Star 5 by installing a body of
water, like a lake, to the Southwest.

It is this understanding also, that had monks walk around a monastry, sounding
bells or singing bowls. It was understood that evil Qi should be warded off with its
counterpart Qi, rather than by physical objects. Qi resonates in a totally different
frequency than any physical object does.

Here, the combination of the sound of metal and moving metal could pacify the
negative vibrations of 5 Earth, hence: Qi heals Qi. It is also the reasoning behind
the continuous cleaning of floors in monastries, ashrams or dojos.

This is also why the mere placement of metal objects to ward off the evil 5 Star is
anything but practical, because its origin and force lie deep into the earth and the
force of geomagnetism simply overrules the frequency of any physical object,
however big.

We need water into the direction of Time Star 5, so as to prevent this earth energy
from surfacing. Installing any metal object, means the 5 Earth had already
surfaced.

Interior placements in order to ward off Time Star 5 are not only non-sensical, it
would once more mean, the 5 has already entered the house. Water to ward off 5
Star of the Period chart needs to be taken to the exterior.
Qualities of a Fng Shu Xin Shng
Feng Shui masters are sometimes referred to as Fng Shu Xin Shng . A
Fng Shu Xin Shng is able to find and recognize, select, diagnose and adjust Form
and Qi wherever Form and Qi are encountered, in whatever shape or form, and
however tangible or intangible.
A most basic definition for Feng Shui is that it promotes Shng Q - , while at
the same time it avoids Sh Q - . The shortest possible definition for Feng
Shui in my view will be then simply to say that it seeks to avoid Shq.

A Fng Shu Xin Shng can read past, present and future Qi from any Time and
Space aspect, be it a landscape, a plot of land, a built structure, a persons face.
Surely, their proficiency would have not been rooted in Feng Shui alone, as most of
them would have been proficient also in cosmology, astronomy, astrology, face
reading, medicine, politics, sciences, martial arts or whatever other systems needed
to reach desired destiny in their clients. They would be scholars, trained in
mathematics, physics, astronomy, cartography or geography and some masters
devoted their time to Feng Shui after they had failed imperial exams, spending
ample time training others to take exams.

Having said that, we need to touch on what must have become probably the silliest
and in my estimation one of the most outrageous - of presumptions attached to
the ancient Fngshu Xinshng in our times, one also that was timely that we
should strongly and firmly resist.

It is the image of the ancient Fngshu Xinshng being portrayed as having been
some type of alternative, new age if you will type of person, walking around long-
haired and bare feet basing his observations on emotional and subjective
perception and using rituals and affirmations - basing his techniques on an
otherwise highly developed skill to mold these subjectivities into whatever
applicable technique. In our times there has been however much we have
meanwhile left it behind - a hype surrounding Feng Shui, based entirely on this
type of assumptions, to the point even that the actual astronomical realities on
which these masters based their formulae, have been pushed back entirely by the
more modern outings, some of which have been pertinently wrongly presented as
Feng Shui.

As we trace back the origins of the traditional schools of Feng Shui, we cannot but
conclude that many masters went separate paths and based their own
interpretation on each others doctrines. But there is a problem with the modern
Feng Shui hype.

However two masters would perhaps differ in view and interpretation, their mutual
reasoning would at least still be rooted in solid thinking, meaning that the grey area
that would then emerge between two systems would still be verifiable. The grey
area would still consist of solid Yin and Yang or Five Transformations
considerations, and allow their respective schools to be compared or discussed
against the Y - -, or Law of Change.

Today, even two interpretations of the same school seem to produce a grey area
just as big as the many people involved in discussing this grey area. Meaning, it is
not funny anymore how many interpretations of the same doctrine we have seen
evolve in the last three decades, having said nothing still of the many alternative
ideas produced in its grey area, and in itself this should at least raise some
eyebrows.
No-one will deny that at a certain point in history some of the Fngshu Xinshng
would disconnect from the emperor to take their services to the benefit of some
warlord. But, it does not mean that suddenly a windchime is to warn against
intruders.

Likewise, where his colleague chose to instead take his proficiency to a Daoist
temple, it does not mean that a windchime is now suddenly used to appease the
Gods, or that a windchime should not be touched in order not to aggrevate the
Gods.

The Feng Shui society has more or less grown into a crazy one, where it is often
demonstrated that the one person in a group showing the greatest ability for
affirmation or rendering the best demonstration for suggestive associations,
becomes the teacher. I will give an example.

Once during a Feng Shui pracitioner program in 1995, the last module included a
practical tour at one of the students private homes. Having arrived at the top floor
there was a room with slanted walls and a lot of overhanging beams. The roof
construction was fully visible. The host then asked if she could at all use the space
as a bedroom for her son.

All agreed that this was a firm no-go and gave arguments and considerations, when
suddenly somewhere from the back a voice said: But dont you all see? It is
actually quite good. As the house is like a body, the beams are like a chest, a rib
case, rendering support for the boy, so it is actually quite good as a bedroom.

Instead of disgust, the group responded in awe and within three months after this
exclaimation the person was in front of a class teaching.

Fngshu Xinshng had been scholars, the Five Transformations having been
based on sound observation of astronomical realities and geomagnetism. Some of
the ancient Feng Shui masters had based their schools on astronomy, some of
them had studied physics or had been mathematicians or were otherwise involved
in sciences prevalent at the time. Some had based their formulae on the Yjng -
- (Book of Changes), but least of all they would have been the hippies that
they are sometimes portraited even today.
The doctrine of the Five Transformations (Wxng - ) bears no direct relation
to the apparent sun path, or the seasons even, as the apparent sun path and
thinking in seasons and seasonal change had come into play only much later after
the masters found that farmers and commoners had a hard time understanding the
vast astronomical implications of their systems and after they produced chewable
analogies to educate the public.

Today, however, it is hard if not impossible, to find a teacher or master that will not
explain Wxng along the lines of seasons, this link being circumstantial at best.

Ancient cosmologies, astronomical insights and other exact sciences where at the
base of these masters so much so, that I am convinced that would some of those
ancient masters have lived today, they would have been Nobel Price winners.

Besides technical skills, which would incorporate assessing Qi potential of a site in

all its occurrences, also personal conduct and rules for etiquette would play a
pivotal role in the life and work of the Fngshu Xinshng. A good Feng Shui
practitioner masters Time and Space as well as issues pertaining to the domain of
Human Qi and destiny, offering his services to people of upright conduct and good
intent only.
A good Fngshu Xinshng not only makes the intangible tangible, he would
demonstate profound cosmological awareness and select the right clients and
students.

To give you a non conclusive idea, a good Fngshu Xinshng was supposed to be:

- able to recognize Shengqi and Shaqi in any (in)visible phenomenon or

circumstance.
- able to reveal past, present and future events by examining a situation.
- able to locate the Four Celestial Animals (Ming Tang) in any given situation.
- able to work with a magnetic compass.
- able to find correct twenty years Feng Shui Period or work from other time
doctrines.
- able to find the Qi collecting spot for Yin Zhai en Yang Zhai situations.
- able to fly the Stars appropriately along the Luo Shu for any time period.
- able to interpret a Flying Star chart projected on any of the nine Periods.
- able to ascertain good Feng Shui for at least three consecutive Periods.
- able to apply the Holy 0 and Holy I principles.
- able to apply special charts having originated from one's own school.
- able to recognize special charts having originated from other schools.
- able to manipulate present or absent - mountain and water, change the course
of Mountain and Water using different Water and Mountain Dragon formulae.
- able to recognize portents of Qi and its probabilities for events as mirrored
against timeliness and surrounding landforms as well as assess quantity, quality,
frequency, intensity, potency, volume, location, direction, temperature, moisture
of Qi, context and probability (proportion).
- able to mould Qi and change perceived future undesirable portents into favorable
events.
- able to simultaneously apply San Cai techniques (Heaven, Man and Earth).
- able to draw an astrological chart for client and compare it against Feng Shui.
- able to read into a Hexagram obtained from a question or situation.
- able to recognize problems outside astrology and Feng Shui in order to help.
- able to recognize other Fngshu Xinshng.
- able to recognize future Fngshu Xinshng (able to select the right student).
- able to work efficiently and effectively, but from compassion and ethics.
How to become a diviner

As you can see there is much more to Feng Shui than just assessing environmental
features, diagnosing and adjusting a built structure, or juggling with Mountain and
Water Dragons. Once you have established the Feng Shui situation of a structure,
try to detect the Qi flow by means of your own physical and spiritual awareness.

Develop your skills for transparant observation of the material world and look upon
your living or working space and your body as being one organism, resonating with
the Qi currents of earth and nature.

Consider the eight 45 degrees sectors with their auspiciousness and

inauspiciousness and 'massage' your way through your house, just as you would
touch a loved one.

Try to assess the quality of both tangible and intangible Qi, through physical
awareness of Qi becoming aware of the external and internal environment - and
realize that the barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world is non-
existent and illussionary.

It is only natural that at the start of your dealings with Luo Shu, the Luo Shu may
appear to you as a two dimensional pattern of yet empty Stars and it is therefore
only natural that your understanding of the Luo Shu and its intrisic values
remains technical and intellectual during the cause of this stage.

Even in case where most students will eventually accept that Stars are codifications
for yet deeper archetypical properties, there is a stage where one can be easily
captured by mere conceptual understanding and square applications. It is the stage
of copying and parroting.

It is easy and only tempting - to move away from the basic Yin and Yang
doctrine, the Five Transformations, the Yi Jing in an assumption that these are no
more than the necessary tools to shoot ourselves into much more interesting
studies and applications as in Feng Shui, Nine Star Ki, Four Pillars of Destiny. Many
are tempted into their own professional Feng Shui practices fairly quickly. They may
soon find themselves trapped.

Our highly specialized society promotes that we focus ourselves on just one single
profession which must provide for our economical needs and if this occupation
happens to be Feng Shui it is easy to overlook the dietary principles, the exercise
component, the breathing component, the health component, the cosmological
pearls and the implications for our destiny or our incarnation. Teachers tend to not
teach these aspects anymore and our clients will certainly not know how to ask
about them.

The first steps on the Feng Shui journey would be to adopt what we learned and
perhaps copy techniques and follow a fairly analytical approach to Time and Space.
This is only natural and a phase that all of us need to go through. If you are just
slightly interested in Feng Shui or you are content with already a working
knowledge of the basic applications, it is fine to remain in this domain and enjoy.

However, in order to become a good diviner, you must dissapear. It means you can
hold no position when you are gazing at the Luo Shu or the Stars, you can have no
preference or pre-conceived ideas. You need to give up position and all preference.
If you conduct a compass reading, you must be not present, i.e. you must have the
magnetic needle tell you instead. It will tell you the story, once you let it. Gazing at
a Flying Star chart, you must dissapear also and have the Stars tell you their story,
rather than projecting all that you seem to have learned on the subject of Qi and
impose your expectations on the chart.

As a diviner you will have therefore established this:

Take two steps back, to take in no position and have no preference.

In so doing, you may allow a more intuitive understanding of Qi patterns, still

based on sound observation, so using your mind and its discriminative abilities, but
your mind not forming a barrier any longer between you and what the Stars reveal.

Also, it is very easy not to notice that I have just used the term intuition, or even
if you did notice, it is quite difficult to understand that intuition is not sentimental. A
lot of the claimed intuition in people may be coming under wishful thinking.

Rather, true natural intuition is purely physical and to be obtained after you never
told a lie so-called white lies not excluded never become angry, apart from
spiritual anger, never give in to temptation, gained capacity to foretell not just
danger but be able to tell from out of which direction this danger will arrive, into
what direction to then flee as well as the time frame left to evacuate. True intuition
means you have the ability to sonar right through people, establishing the ability
to select the right partner, the right Life Dream, while women must be able to feel
ovulation or when pregnant, they must be able to tell gender of the baby. This
description is not conclusive, its function merely being to at least focus your
attention away from what seems to have become the generally accepted view on
what intuition pertains to.

It is only paradoxal how you will build a dynamic and profound relationship between
yourself and the Stars, not so much as through knowledge, but by retreating.

L Principle
Li points to the Pattern School. Seeing the patterns, the everchanging portents of
interrelating landforms, is your first technical encounter with divination. It is merely
the underlying principles of events surfacing and occuring before you.

Diving deep
To become more versed and to build your divinatory skills, you must drop your
mere intellectual or conceptual understanding of Qi and its patterns, just as you
cant look at your partner just from a physical or conceptual point of view. In order
to understand your partner, and love your partner even more, you must use your
ability to surrender. Surrender and amazement will lead you deeper into your
partners destiny. It is the same with your divinatory skills, where you need to drop
the idea that there is a barrier between the visible and invisible world.

Physical awareness
In this stage you are already able to see the Qi movements as they occur around
you. You are able to translate Qi into events and to translate events back into Qi.
In this phase you will have built on a much more physical, rather than conceptual,
relationship with the 9 Stars and emerging from this will come a new understanding
of Qi, Yin and Yang, the Five Transformations, the Trigrams, as you can well
descern these in the environmental energy. However, this stage is the most
dangerous, in that it may very well still keep you locked in the horizontal plane. It
means, your physical awareness (radar) may still be circumstancial and
momentary. You may be still tapping into dualism and engaging yourself in 'Qi-
hijacking'.
Channeling
Point of no return. Gazing at the Luo Shu from an ability to observe environmental
occurences, events, may already lead you towards proficiency in divination. There
is a phase of channeling where the ancient masters would simply receive cosmic
knowledge. It can be debated whether Lao Zi (the Dao De Jing is accredited to Lao
Zi) wrote or received the Dao De Jing.

Forget about the Luo Shu for now, because it will only shoot you in your intellectual
powers and lock you up in the world of concept. Dont take in position and loose
your preference. In doing so you will only gradually loose your fragmentaric
thinking and you will no longer rely on mechanical or conceptual technique. In other
words, take two steps back to take in no position and have no preference and
simply become an integral part of what is the actual dynamic behind enlightment,
divinatory skills or being able to channel information.

Enlightment comes from your personal attunement to sun and earth magnetism,
the forces that prevail in our cosmos at any given time. It is a matter of actively
bringing your personal magnetism, your own Qi resonance, in accordance with the
prevalent environmental Qi. As shown before, the tool is your blood, as it functions
as an antenna and a mediator between the forces of Heaven (Yang) and Earth
(Yin).

Look at todays diet and reflect on the diet of the ancients. They did not eat sugar,
had no access to food other than from their immediate geographic region, did not
apart from certain natural techniques like salting the food (pickle) - have the ability
to eat food that was out of season and they had no laboratories to take a perfectly
natural food source and criple it into a highly dangerous chemical, synthetic,
substance. There was no food technology, no microwave.

The things we do to food in modern civilization are catastrophic. The vast majority
of people today scratch the back of their heads while they read the news and see
how people murder their partners, how parents murder their children, how
airplanes fly into buildings, how soldiers go far beyond what they were set out to do
and murder and rape, how children are becoming murderers at an ever earlier age
and take rifles into class rooms to shoot whatever they encounter. Ask yourself the
question what these people eat, how their food was being manipulated in
laboratories and factories, and then ask yourself the question in what way your own
food intake has at all been different from theirs.

Take two steps back to take in no position and notice how this type of behavior
started and prevails in the most industrialized countries. Also note how people
perhaps once still thought how this type of behavior would be restricted to certain
specific regions for example - the US of America and how they believed it was
just symptomatous for that region.

Years ago I told my students that, no, this dynamic would not limit itself to certain
geographic regions, but as food becomes more technological and with the global
spreading of this food, this type of behavior will become the trend as it will spread
over all continents. Human kind can do a lot, but changing the structure of food will
not be without grave consequences that may still be beyond our imagination today.

As shown in the chapter on Precession Cycle and extended to the belief that the
next Earth Changes will be caused by fire, this catastrophy may not happen
overnight. This Fire will be slow fire, the slowness it takes to use fire to alter food
work on it genetically, include DNA of one species in the food of another species,
the use of microwaves and other techniques to kill food Qi, the aggressive use of
preservatives.
To take your involvement in studies like Feng Shui, Nine Star Ki and Four Pillars of
Destiny far beyond your intellectual powers, you should understand the much
forgotten link between food intake and destiny. Destiny here reaching far beyond
your personal destiny, but touching upon our planetary destination, the
regeneration or degeneration of human kind. Diet, exercise, breathing and
selfreflection should therefore be at the base of studies for anyone who wishes to
understand our Qi studies to their utmost.

The trend is to seek enlighhtment. We go to Japan and see practitioners of Zen

meditation. We then copy what we think lead to their salvation and so we start
sitting on a cushion for hours a day, adopting physical postures and breathing
techniques. A person who sat for a couple of years, will then soon lead a group of
new seekers, forcing them into the same postures, the same breathing. The person
who can maintain these postures the longest, perciflages the apparent lives of
monks the best, has the best recollection of scriptures, that person will become the
next teacher. Students will of course deeply concentrate on the copying of this new
teachers' behavior, so they are sure they themselves will become good teachers
and eventually these people will sit themselves in front of their own group of new
seekers that will be then once more invited to go the same process.

Enlightment will however never come, because we focused on what appeared to

have happened in the dojo of the Zen temple, completely overlooking what
happens in the kitchen of these temples. We should have copied the diet.

In direct accordance with your true understanding of how your personal Qi

magnetism simply had to be the missing link, your attempts to sustain your
personal Qi resonance through diet, exercise, breathing (i.e. chewing each bite
thoroughly) and selfreflection, will be most rewarding and will certainly come with a
much deeper skill for divination.

If you want to understand Shao Yong, then eat what Shao Yong had for a diet. If
you want to write your own Dao De Jing, so to speak, study the diet of Laozi.
The Five Sacred Mountains - Wyu
The Five Sacred Mountains since antiquity host the Daoist Mountain Gods
Shnshn. Each mountain hosts a different God that will be honored and
worshipped, even by the Chinese emperors who on their imperial pilgrimages used
to visit the mountains to pay their respect to the Gods, just like anyone.

The Five Sacred Mountains are:

Dng Yu Ti Shn - East Peak Mount Ti Shn

Shndng province (1532 m).
X Yu Hu Shn - West Peak Mount Hu Shn
Shnx province (1997 m).
Nn Yu Hng Shn - South Peak Mount Hng Shn
Hnn province (1512 m).
Bi Yu Hng Shn - North Peak Mount Hng Shn
Hbi and Shnx province (2017 m).
Zhng Yu Sng Shn - Central Peak Mount Sng Shn
Hnn province (1440 m).

The mountains are attributed to be sacred, largely because of their magnitude and
size, as they hold commanding elevations above surrounding lands.

From a perspective of Five Transformations it is interesting to note that the Five

Sacred Mountains are geographically located in the East, South, West, North and in
the center in case of the Sngshn mountain in Hnn province.

Of the five, Mount Ti earned its position as the most esteemed because it is said
that for over 3000 years, 72 Chinese emperors of various dynasties had undertaken
pilgrimages to perform grand sacrificial ceremonies in their own worship of Heaven.

Most feudal emperors were either Buddhists or Daoists and went through great
lengths to visit the Sacred Mountains to offer sacrifice to their ancestors. For this
reason and for reason that most prominent religious sites in China are hosted here,
these mountains are important.

Some emperors, such as emperor Wu Di of the Han Dynasty and emperor Qin Shi
Huang of the Qin dynasty planted trees on the mountain which is known for its
many water streams hosting an abundance of fish, rich vegetation and medicinal
plants.

Even Confucius, who lived nearby mount Tai Shan in the village of Qufu, has left
inscriptions in the form of prose and calligraphy on the mountain. Emperors, kings,
scholars, celebrities and governmental officials left cultural relics like memorial
objects, stone sculptures and mount Tai Shan hosts many archaeolgical sites, 22
temples, many ruins and artistic masterpieces, all planned in harmony with the
natural surroundings and in line with Feng Shui principles.

Mount Tai Shan is a good example how these mountains became huge and
complicated complexes, rather than just mountains. They hold geological relevance
and great cultural, historical and botanical significance.

However, because they are also regarded for their scenic beauty and have
been declared historic interest zones, through time the Five Sacred Mountains also
became tourist attractions where people visit them just for leisure, sometimes
between 300,000 and 500,000 annually. The mountains will therefore host facilities
like shops, restaurants and even offer overnight stay.

Like the other Sacred Mountains, Mount Tai is regarded a protected national park
and known for its many relics (Heavenly Queen Pond - Wngm Ch, Red Gate
Palace - Hngmn Gng, South Gate to Heaven - Nntin mn and the Azure Cloud
Ancestral Temple - Bxi C).
Hungshn -
Not one of the Five Holy Mountains, but still regarded as one of the most important
mountains in China is Hungshn - - mountain in Anhui near the East China
sea - Dng Hi. It is known as The Loveliest Mountain of China and is subject of
many poems and calligraphies. It is made of granite peaks and rocks and often
covered in Dragons Breath. Its forests with trees more than a thousand years old
and tea plantations in its buffer - host Buddhist monastries with a thousand years
of history and a number of other temples and places for worship.
Its main peak Lotus Flower at 1864 m, this drawing shows the lay-out of Mount
Huang Shan, with its paved roads and stairways one of Chinas natural monuments
and consisting of a hundred peaks dating back more than a 100 million years back.
Oddly shaped rocks are often individually named, like Pig headed monk eating
water melon and the mountain is covered with waterfalls, lakes, hot springs.
Elderly people will go on a pelgrimage and walk the mountain by foot. They will
take a few steps, then halt to kneel and bow and continue another few steps and
kneel and bow once more and repeat this until they finally reached the mountain
top where it is believed the God lives. They will do so to honor the God, for penance
or just in search for some fortune. The God, honored and worshipped, will then
grant forgiveness or happiness and richess onto the worshipper.
Holy
Pond
The title of this map reads (top
Holy right) Tin M Shn Jng Din Fn
Pond B Sh Y T, which loosely
translates to Heavens Eye
Scetch Map for Distribution of
Scenic Spots and Mountain
Scenery.
It shows complexity of access
routes:
Toll-booth
Bus routes
Minor paths
Steps, stairs
Administration
Scenic resources being graded
on a scale of 1-3, each grade
having its own set of
Toll-booth
conservation regulations, the
well protected property is
divided into 6 tourist zones and
5 protection zones. Hunting,
grazing, constructions or
mining are prohibited.

Huang Shan means Yellow

www.cntms.org/lm/tmsjs4.ht
Mountain, although the hilly
m Toll- South yellow remains below 800
booth Main Gate meters, above which the color
www.cntms.org/lm/tmsjs4. changes to hilly brown.

Its steps carefully cut into the mountains and totalling 50 kilometers in length
connecting the public to the main scenic spots and the mountains 64 temples, two
lakes, three waterfalls and 24 streams while on holidays and festivals visited by
ordinary people from within mainland China and from overseas to perform Buddhist
or Daoist rites, for example in honor of Gunyn - Goddess of Mercy.

Most of the Sacred Mountains have Feng Shui significance. The main gate will be
called Southern Big Gate, Nn Dmn, by definition South Facing and sometimes
referred to as the Gate of Heaven, as will the entrances of significant buildings of
worship.

As in all Form School, gates and buildings will Face South, although I have seen
temples and monastries in Taiwan and mainland China who were North Facing,
probably in order for them to tap into more quiet and pacifying religious energies,
or perhaps for no specific Feng Shui reason at all.

Inside the buildings you will find sanctuaries, thrones, seats all Facing South,.

Mountains this huge and complex are not altogether fit for Yangzhai, dwellings for
people to live and thrive, as their function should be viewed from a much wider
topographical perspective and from their contribution to the entire country. Most of
these mountains belong to a family of mountain ranges.

They are further unfit to live on as they oftentimes contain too much minerals, their
soil too acid and their flora and fauna unfit to develop villages. These mountains
still host wild animals and many protected botanical species, amongst which are
many rare and medicinal species.

However, if you look at the shape of these mountains, refer to the diagram of
Mount Huangshan, the Dragons body is easily descernable as are the Dragon
Veins. These mountains are so huge that they would render support to large
geographical regions, bringing in Dragon Qi, Lng Q - from afar.
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Explorations with Heluo is an ongoing series of articles on the subject of time,

space and destiny and our attempt to make genuine teachings available to those on
a quest to understand Yi. The articles have been published since 1999 and by
far most have been derived from actual chapters from the extensive workbooks
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