Resolution

Another year is coming to an end. It is time to make our New Year resolutions. However, looking back, what happened to our last year resolutions? Whatever it is or whatever they are, you should be seeing some results when you have start working on it. Otherwise move on.

Students asked me how long it takes to study Bazi and Feng Shui. I replied that as long as it takes to learn. The fact is that there is no full stop to learning. The question should be how long it takes to read Bazi and Feng Shui. Reading is a technique and the answer is almost immediate. Theories are no ending and it is very vague. Once you know the technique of applications, the theories will fall in place.

I am in fact talking about fundamentals. If the fundamentals are sound, you will find the application techniques very easy. It is meant to be simple and easy to apply. However, most concentrate on theories which are formula based. That is why after years of studying, you are still stuck in your Bazi reading and Feng Shui auditing. The worst scenario is not knowing where to start.

If you are stuck after years of studying, it is time to move on. That should be one of your New Year resolutions.

The Art of Divination

When Francis put up my course schedule for 2009, I received not one but a few queries asking the same question: ‘Will I be teaching San Yuan Da Gua?’ Amazingly there ain’t such thing as San Yuan Da Gua but only Xuan Kong Da Gua or San Yuan 64 Guas. Perhaps that is a new term coined. The former is a date selection art while the latter is a water placement art. Xuan Kong was never a Feng Shui art but a fusion divination skill from San Yuan and Mei Hua Yi Shu. Both have their origin in Yi-Jing but not Chou Yi.

Yi-Jing and Chou Yi are two different sets of application. The former predicts the latter advised. Yi-Jing is a prediction of natural occurrences while Chou Yi is an holistic set of advices on what actions one is expected given a certain condition or event.

Another misconception is that Mei Hua Yi Shu is not about converting Early Heaven Gua into Later Heaven Gua to do a reading as commonly taught. It is about the relationship between the numerals and Gua interpretations. It is about converting numerals to Gua and vice versa to ascertain the Early Heaven and Later Heaven relationship.

Well, let us face it. This is the sad state of our once wonderful art of Chinese Metaphysic.

Happiness and Sufferings

Many pursue happiness but what they need to know is that happiness is already in them. They just need to exercise it. Greed, jealousy and desire are the main obstacles. Happiness is not a destination or a goal. It is about doing good and avoiding evil. Be ambitious but not at the expense of someone or harming someone in the process. Aggressively promoting yourself is fine. We call that marketing. But to promote oneself by plagiarising others’ intellectual rights is not something to be proud of even if no one is aware of that.

I find it a little disturbing when one talks about the preparation they did for the future lives. Don’t live for the future. Live in the present. That is why it is pre-sent. You reap what you sow; the sowing is now. The cause you are doing now. The ‘reaping’ will take care of itself.

One thing I know for sure is that God cannot be the creator of sufferings to test us, as claimed by many, nor a place for sinner called hell of eternal burning. That should not be god, but another sloth like us. Suffering is a manifestation of what we do wrong or not being happy with what we were given. This is commonly called karma or kamma, the manifestation of cause and effect in this present life.

Even in Buddhism, the cause is living this life well, the effectiveness of future lives depend on it. The art lies in contentment.

Gratefulness

I have been away from the blog for a while. Beside work, I am spending a lot of time on understanding the philosophy of Buddhism. Amazingly, Buddha never said ‘worship me’. It is unlikely also that He created a place like Hell or suffering. It is all about cause and effect.

A genuine Buddhist should never badmouth someone on the pretext of warning others in order to put him on a higher pedestal. The cause and effect will deal with it in due time. To badmouth is a cause for which effect will follow.

To exercise gratefulness to the hands that feed you is one of the greatest virtues. To bite the hand that feeds you and turn around to pretend not knowing that person is morally sinful and unbecoming as a person.

They call these political games but I think it is just an excuse for their weaknesses. It is much easier to push blame than to look truthfully the reflection on the mirror of their heart.

I am guilty of that along the way. I am glad true Buddhism opens my heart to the understanding.

Wisdom

Reflecting on the past 50 years, wisdom indeed comes with age. I am still discovering and realising the essence of life. Having chased after the wealth, status, good food and branded materialism, nothing beats the trust of a true friend, the occasional call from a beloved one or the silent approval from a wise one. Materialism is transient. However the materialistic ones will never get it.

It is so sad to see some people, in their pursuits for wealth and status, make use their friends, students, masters and comrades to attain their objectives and forsake them as soon as they no longer serves their purposes. They do not appreciate the intrinsic values of relationship. Feng Shui is not like that. It is an art of wisdom. Feng Shui is not just about the planetary positions and their influences on our life, but it is the philosophy of life. It is about respect; respecting the source you drink from and the hands that feed you. It is about nurturing the young who are in your care. She should not try to oust her spiritual master when he refused to feed her hunger for power; he should not embarrass his instructor maliciously when trying to protect his humble beginnings; he should not encourage his marketer to maledict other masters while hiding behind the veil.

Likewise with food, the bird-nest soup, the shark fin meal and the abalone dish may be the finest; but nothing beats the familiar Mom’s cooking or the traditional Wan Ton Noodle. Those who have been there and done that would understand my sentiments.

Simple Bazi thoughts

It was taught that Output star equates wealth because Output star creates wealth. That is the philosophical explanation by Bazi scholars. However, can output star create wealth when it is negative? That is the problem with most interpretation in most classical text. It is often a one sided interpretation. In fact when Output star is negative it can only cause a loss of wealth. It can never create wealth when it is negative. It is talking about a bad investment, a failed start up, a quick temper person and an outspoken characteristic.

In the course of your Bazi studies, you need to question the followings:
1. How do we know if the Officer star is good or bad in a chart?
2. When is the Officer star good and when is it bad?
3. Can a good Officer star turn bad and vice versa?

It is often said that you do not mix the Officer and 7 killing stars [官杀混杂], what if the Officer and 7 killing stars are good? Then what is the problem with that?

The Singapore Flyer

The Flyer is a rotating wheel equips with observation capsules in the Marina Bay area similar to the London Eye. It gives you a panoramic view of the island from west coast to the east coast. The Wheel sits on a beautifully designed shopping mall with a rainforest landscape under the Wheel.

There were complaints of bad businesses and was said to be due to the west to east rotation of the Wheel away from the business district centre. Upon the advice of some Feng Shui Masters, the Company spent a 6-figure sum to have the Wheel rotates from east to west so as to bring Qi into the business centre. This is to help create business for the shopping arcade in the Flyer Building. We shall await the result. I doubt you will see much changes.

Meanwhile let us examine the scenarios. Firstly, capsules do not carry Qi. If they do, then vehicles would do the same. The vehicles that leave the business district centre would be carrying Qi away on a daily basis. Secondly the centre of the building is not stable and Qi cannot settles down. Thirdly the Yin-Yang of the building is completely off balanced. Fourthly, the heart of the structure is not contained. Fifthly, the overhead bridge link with the car park is not beneficial to the complex.

The saving grace is that the entrance to the Wheel is located on a good sector of the Building. It helps maintain a balanced account for the Company. More needs to be done for profit.

Riding Sheng Qi

HeTu and Luo Shu are the Map and Book of Feng Shui practice. These are the fundamentals that are derived from the interaction of Yin-Yang. They are the horizontal and vertical expressions of Qi movement. These are the basis of Yang Gong Feng Shui.

Yang Gong Feng Shui simply equates authentic Feng Shui in the Chinese Metaphysic World. However, everyone now claims to be practising Yang Gong Feng Shui. True Yang Gong Feng Shui is about riding on Sheng Qi which is prosperous Qi. If Feng Shui is about Sheng Qi, it really has nothing to do with dead Qi. In order to ride, you have to sit on it, don’t you? That is why sitting is always more important than facing. So Feng Shui is about riding, not activating. When you ride on Sheng Qi, the effective results are immediate.

Xuan Kong Feng Shui talks about activation. It is based on the 3 cycles 9 periods and the 2 cycles 8 periods calculations. The art is to activate the active and current prosperity stars. It has nothing to do with riding Sheng Qi. Hence, it should be used as a date selection technique.

Unfortunately, both Yang Gong Feng Shui and Xuan Kong Feng Shui are so thoroughly abused that the original gists are kept so secret and can no longer found in books.

Crap Feng Shui?

Xuan Kong studies developed in the late Ming Dynasty and became prominent in the Qing Dynasty. It was the [Manchu] Qing period that Emperor Kang Xi compiled all the information on Feng Shui on the pretext of unifying the ancient knowledge. Could you believe that the Hans [Chinese] would gladly deliver the secret Feng Shui manuals to him on a silver platter? I doubt so. The Emperor later disseminated the manuals to the fellow countryman for prosperity. I would not be surprised that he had altered the manuals and released fake copies. Could you imagine the Manchu release the genuine Feng Shui books for the prosperity of the Chinese? It is highly impossible. The manuals were so badly watered down, so don’t be too happy if you have one.

What happened then to all the Feng Shui manuals? Of course, as commonly depicted in Chinese history, they have their way to perpetual their knowledge. The Knowledge is currently safe with the pact of the 13 families who escaped before the fall the Ming Dynasty. One thing for sure, the Qing Emperors received crap manuals, practising crap feng shui which is so common nowadays. Much ado about their grave for nothing.

Wise up.

Understanding Bazi Clashes

One of my clients was troubled because she has Chou earth clashing Wei earth in her Bazi chart. In traditional Bazi terms, it was always said to be a sign of cancerous cell and more likely the cancer of the stomach. She has this worry for some time now and she has also gone through checks to ensure that she can do something about it when it is discovered early. Till now, nothing was detected.

Looking at her chart, I could not find any indication that she would have cancer. I believe it is too generic to pin point an illness based strictly on a clash in the chart. Likewise for all the other five types of clashes. A Yin-Shen clash does not necessary mean a car accident as commonly taught. A Zi-Wu clash does not indicate heart attack. A Chen-Xu clash cannot always be an earthquake or stomach ache. A Mao-You clash is not necessarily related to cervical issues. A Si-Hai clash can be dangerous only if one of the two branches is your Useful Star. A Chou-Wei clash may not be cancerous after all.

My research cases on cancer patients do not reveal anything concrete about cancer associated to clashes. Most earth clashes look innocently normal. A combination can be the cause of all your troubles. What you must identify is whether the branches and stems involved are the Protective or Useful Stars. Clashes among the positive and negative stars are interpreted differently. Clashes can be for the better.

Bazi is a very practical art. It is not about creativity. It is the skill of understanding each of the stars and their characters, and the platform they operate on. There is no generic. The next time someone mentions ‘beware’, tell him to mind his own business first.

Four Seasons

The four seasons in Chinese Metaphysics is nothing more than a metaphor. Otherwise, you cannot really use it in equatorial places. There is no other season except summer. Whichever month you are born in, it is on assumption that there is a change of season. For example, if you are born in December, we cannot possibly say you are born in winter when it is really 'summer' here in Malaysia, Singapore and India.

The other question being the Northern and Southern Hemispheres as the seasons are reversed. It is also assumed that the current applications are based on the Northern Hemisphere because of the location of China. Should not a Bing Day Master born in July in the Southern Hemisphere be regarded as born in winter? How confusing. However the Chinese has always indicated that the south is above and should not the seasons follow the Southern Hemisphere? When we do not change the season of birth based on the Hemisphere, what qualify us to change time of birth based on the country of birth, let alone daylight saving and international dateline?

These scholarly arguments are basically intellectual in nature. They may not be the natural inclination of metaphysics. Just a thought.

Surviving the Forum

The purpose of a forum is for exchanging information and experiences and hopefully, in that process, everyone benefits. Unfortunately that is not the case in the open/public forum of most Chinese Metaphysical websites. Instead it is used to ‘bicker and insult with all due respect’. I understand the zealousness of these young protégés.

The greatest sin perhaps is to impose our ‘right theories’ unto others in the forum. No theory is correct until proven so through experiments and documentations. It is tedious but necessary. Whichever method or theory is fine as long as they yield results in a reasonable time frame of say, 3 months. When activating a wealth star 8 through water feature, wind chime or a symbolic ornament, we should rightfully demand to see at least some wealth creating opportunities and it should be the same effect each time the wealth star 8 is activated.

To be able to quote from the Chinese classical text is great but to interpret it is another matter altogether. We need to remember that the quote may be correct but the interpretation is just an assumption based on the interpreter’s understanding, not the original writer. Therefore the interpretation can be wrong unless otherwise, supported by empirical evidences.

There are those who used others’ thoughts and writings in forum to further their own agenda without due credit to those they copied and imitated. There are also those who insinuate and character-assassinate their way to popularity.

Respect and forum ethics are important. Otherwise, it becomes just other political game of power and money, status and fame, greed and self preservation. It is indeed the greatest irony of mankind to see a man of god killing another fellow human being in the Name of God and they all claim to be serving the same God, whatever or whoever that is in their heart. These have become a common observation in this modern world.

About Bazi

There are many schools of thought in Chinese Astrology. Bazi or Four Pillars, being one of them, shares the same sources but they are so divided because of different interpretations. More often than not, the interpretation is not even tested. The Earth was once thought to be flat. When each theory is tried and tested, the results will speak for it. The same interpretation should tally in real life, perhaps with a little variation.

It is time to pick up ten Bazi charts of unfamiliar people and simply read the characteristics of those people. When your method is able to correctly pinpoint the characteristics of seven out of the ten people, then yours is a viable method. You can go back to read the charts after a month. You should be able to identify the same characteristics without the need to remember what transpired during the last reading. You will know that your foundation is sound when you can correctly analyse the characteristics with the same method, not relying on memory of any previous conversations.

Honesty, shrewdness and obedience are three good characteristics to start with. The method should enable you to differentiate honesty from loyalty; and shrewdness from cunningness. You cannot say that a suicide bomber is not obedient and loyal. Neither can you say a person is ill discipline simply because he has no Authority Star in his chart.

When you understand these, you will realise that Bazi is no longer about good and bad charts.

God’s Work or Man’s Choice?

It was an irony to me when someone complained that God as merciful as he/she is, permitted the Si Chuan earthquake, the Tsunami and Hurricanes. God is love and believes in free will. Is it the work of man?

I believe Planet Earth would be a more pleasant place to live when the countries stop their nuclear testing deep into the ground in the name of science. It may be the cause for the tectonic plates to shift resulting in earthquake and landslides.

When will the industrial revolution contains their emissions of poisonous gases in the name of progress? The truth is that it only makes those few wealthy fellows richer. They trapped the workers in polluted environment in the name of job creation.

When the existence of the tsunami warning system was revealed in the aftermath of the Aceh Tsunami, why wasn’t that shared with the less developed countries before it happened? It could have saved some unnecessary loss of lives. Ultimately, the developed countries have their own agenda to look after first.

We know they will not stop their relentless drillings into the Earth for rock and oil money in the name of exploration. After exploration, they leave behind giant holes in the ground without any regards to environmental erosions. It is a matter of time they make these giant holes into tourist attractions. These are business opportunities in the name of tourism.

I doubt the business crooks would stop the illegal dumping into the rivers and streams to maximize their profits. They forget that their families and relations may feed on the seafood or swim in the beaches they so willingly polluted.

The amazing forests that take away the carbon dioxide we breathe out are commercially felled or burnt for agriculture. Unfortunately many of these forests are not replaced. Even if there is replacement, the rate of felling and burning far exceeds the growth. The area of forest is getting smaller. We chose to mercilessly eradicate those that produce the oxygen for us.

Perhaps when we all do our part;
The tectonic plates would not shift;
The tsunami is nothing more than a textbook lesson;
The dormant volcanoes will not be awoken;
The glaciers may never retreat;
The weather is more predictable;
The mountains will remain green;
The river will not be poisoned;
The plains would not flood;
And the land would not slide.

My 15 minutes walk across town is now a 30 minutes drive. Should I thank progress and development?

Little Thoughts

We witnessed the passing of Grand Master Zheng Zi Nan of the San Yuan School at a ripe age of 100 years as he has so predicted. A certain amount of his famous ‘Xie Zi Fa’ would probably be lost with him. We also mourned the loss of well known Miao Pai Grand Master Chen Pei Sheng recently. We would also expect his most respected experiences in Xuan Kong Da Gua to be lost in transition. While GM Zheng has the procedures of his burial clearly stated in writings to his followers, not much can be said of GM Chen. We hope for their returns to guide the Feng Shui world in mind and spirit. We salute their greatness.

I will be writing more articles and hope this will help enrich your knowledge. Should you have any specific questions and topics that you would like me to shed some light, please forward them to me. I will research them further to see if I can paint a clearer picture for all to understand. Feng Shui is so commercialised now that every practitioner carries the title of Master. Only if these Masters understand a little more of the Luo Pan other than the 24 mountains ring.

I have done away with the forum as it is being invaded by non students. Students can still forward their homework and questions to me for verifications. Bazi is a never ending learning process and please keep on working on it.

I want to do away with many of the Feng Shui theories that sound good only in books. All theories must be practical. I will express them in my website. When you embark on a Feng Shui journey, make sure what you learn can be applied immediately especially when they are stand alone theories. There is no point in doing an audit without any results. Results are part of the applications. I will be also in search of a lineage to share with all, minus the politics. Lineage has such closely guarded traditions and vows. It is one uphill task.

Geshe Zopa, the anointed spiritual leader of LDC in KL has gone into retreat after tendering his resignation. It was said in the chat box of Geshe Zopa blog that the demand of his resignation came from the current Executive Committee. Did the ExCo first seek the permission of the office of the Dalai Lama for the demand? If not, this is the insult and non respect for the Holy Authority who anointed him. The finger pointing, banging of tables and shouting are so unlike the nature of worshippers. Mixing feng shui with politics and worship reveals the hidden intention of the pretentious.

Like the recent sagas of NKF, Youth Challenge and Ren Ci, it is sad that places of worship and charitable organisations with the best of intentions can never be freed from the clutches of politics, power and money.

I register my support for his return and vision.