The history of Flying Stars Feng Shui

There are boundless myths surrounding the feng shui method of flying stars. Many different schools fight each other about the one ultimate true method. Following the principle "thou shall not divulge the secrets of Heaven" the feng shui method of flying stars has been kept a secret until the early 20th century. It was then, that the first book was published.

What exactly do we know historically about the Feng Shui Method of Flying Stars?

The History

Xuan Kong Pai means "School of the mysterious Emptiness" or simply "Mysterious Void School" and even today suggests a form of Feng Shui legendized in many forms - many of which are only just being rediscovered or will be rediscovered in the future.  "Xuan Kong" actually means "space" (an enigma) and "time" (emptiness).

In a book written by Geng Wen-Shan during the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD)  "Qing Nang Xu" (Preface of the classic "Azure Bag") it is mentioned that Guo Pu (276-324) started learning the art of Xuan Kong during the Jin Dynasty.

By the time of the Tang Dynasty, Yang Jun-Song had mentioned in his book “Qing-Nang-Ao-Yu” (The Profound Sayings of the “Azure Bag”) that:

“the intercourse of Ci-Xiong or male (Yang) and female (Yin) come together in Xuan Kong”
Yang Jun-Song 

and that one should:

“look to Wuxing (the five agents) to understand Xuan Kong”
Yang Jun-Song 

That is, the principle of Xuan Kong lies with the interaction of Yin and Yang forces and the Five Agents of Nature (Wuxing) or simply, the Five Elements (or Five Phases).
 

He also mentioned that the secrets of Xuan Kong rested in the “Ai-Xing-Shu” (the method of knowing how the stars take off (in a chart)). However, Yang never divulged how this was done.
 

The art was passed onto Wu Jing-Luan (? – 1068) during the Song Dynasty (960 – 1279). Wu Jing-luan was also known as Wu Zhong-Xiang. He came from Dexing country (now Jiangxi province). His grandfather Wu Fa-Wang was also an expert in astrology and feng shui. He sent Jing-luan’s father to study with the famous Chen Tuan in Huashan. Subsequently, Jing-luan learned his art from his grandfather and father and became well known himself.
 

In 1041, the Imperial Court invited him to become its Yin-Yang expert giving advice to the Emperor himself. When he was asked to make comments about the imperial burial ground he was too frank, and said that the place has Kun Wind (Yin Qi) that will affect the Emperor and his mother’s future. Song Emperor Renzhong was not pleased and locked him up in jail. He was not released until Renzhong died and his son Huizhong pardoned him.
 

After his release, Jing-luan became a recluse and spent the rest of his life in a cave in Baiyunshan (White Cloud Mountain) not far from his hometown. He passed his art onto his daughter (Wu had no son) and wrote many books on Kanyu astrology, including “Liqi Xinyin” (Principles of Qi from the Heart) and “Master Wu’s explanation of the Yi”.
 

The art was later passed onto Jiang Da-Hong during the end of the Ming Dynasty  (1368 – 1644). Jiang Do Hong was from Jiangsu Province, he claimed to have obtained Wu Jing-luan’s genuine transmission, but he did not dare to break the “prohibitions of Heaven’s Laws”. His disciple of more than 20 years, Jiang Tu had to give his teacher a large amount of gold (some say 2000 ounces) for his burial expenses before the secret formula for the Replacement Star Chart was reluctantly passed down.

Thou shall not divulge the secrets of Heaven.
- Tradition of Xuan Kong 

 

In keeping with the tradition of “thou shall not divulge the secrets of Heaven” none of these masters from Jin to Qing Dynasties (almost 1500 years) explained how the ‘stars’ would ‘fly’ in their books written for the public. The secret of the orbit of the Nine Stars was passed down solely by discipleship or within the family through word of mouth. Because of the secrecy surrounding the transmission of the art, Flying Stars Feng Shui began to die out until the middle of the Qing Dynasty (1644- 1911), when there was a revival of interest in the Song culture, including Xuan-Kong Feng Shui.

Shen Shi Xuan Kong (Shens Study of the Mysterious Void)

 

Shen Zhu-Nai of the late Qing Dynasty, who made a great effort to study Jiang Da-Hong’s work without much success, decided to seek out the secrets of the Flying Stars. In 1873, he went with a disciple/friend Wu Bo-On to the town of Wu-Xi in Jiangsu to seek out the children of a Feng Shui master called Zhang Zhong-Shan who had learned the secrets of the “Ai-xing-shu” from Jiang Da-Hong. They stayed in Wu-Xi for several months without learning anything. In the end they had to pay a large sum of money just to have a look at the manuscript written by Zhang Zhong-Shan and kept in the family as a treasure by his offspring. The manuscript was called “Yin-Yang-Liang-Zhai-Lu-Yan” (Record of Experience of Yin and Yang Dwellings) which were file notes of Zhang’s consultations. They secretly copied the whole manuscript by hand in 24 hours and took it home with them to study in detail.
 

After many years, Shen still could not decipher the secret until one day he realised by chance when he was comparing the Luoshu and Yi Jing that the stars don’t stand still, but they ‘fly’ through in fixed orbits according to a time cycle and the orientation of the house. He compared his findings with Zhang’s manuscript and found his theory matched with Zhang’s practice notes. With this realisation in mind he restudied all the writings of Xuan Kong masters in the past and made sense of their coded messages once and for all.
 

When Shen Zhu-Nai was alive he had many disciples. He started to write up his lifetime’s work in a book called “Shen Shi Xuan Kong” (Shen’s Study of the Mysterious Void) but died before he could finish it. It was completed by his son Shen Zhao-Min and disciple/friend Jiang Yu-sheng and published under his name in 1927. The book included explanation of how to set out the Flying Stars patterns and the practice notes of Zhang Zhong-Shan.
 

A few years later, in 1933 his sons and disciples further re-edited and enlarged the book from four chapters to six chapters with additional writings by friends, disciples and experts of the past. It was re-issued as “The Expanded Shen Shi Xuan Kong Xue”.
 

A rigid way of looking at the Qi of the Trigram. No matter what the sitting or facing directions are. Period 1 belonged to Kan Qi, Period 2 to Kun Qi, Period 3 to Zhen Qi, Period 4 to Xun Qi, Period 5 to Gen and Kun Qi, Period 6 to Qian Qi, Period 7 to Dui Qi and Period 8 to Gen Qi and so forth.During the development of Xuan Kong Feixing because the “Ai-Xing-Shu” was not revealed clearly, there were many conjectures and guesses, which led to many different schools of interpretations and many different false fabrications. Some of the false methods included: 
 

1.    A fixed pattern for the distribution of Qi. No matter which star is in the Central palace. 
2.    The Fu-Mu-Gua (Father and Mother Trigram) always fly reverse, no matter what the facing direction is

There were endless interpretations, making Xuan Kong the most mysterious and the most confusing school at the time.

The Flying Stars Schools

In the beginning of Qing Dynasty, there were six major Xuan Kong Schools to be found in China. They were: -

1.      Dian Nan Pai, founded by Fan Yi-Bin.
2.      Wu Chang Pai, founded by Zhang Zhong-Shan.
3.      Su Zhou Pai, founded by Xu Di-Hui.
4.      Xiang Chu Pai, founded by Yin You-Ben.
5.      Guang Dong Pai, founded by Cai Min-Shan.

 

Although they all claimed Jiang Da-Hong to be their master, none of these 6 schools talked to each other. They wrote their books but kept their secrets. They fought bitterly with each other and all claimed that only they had the authentic and true teachings as passed down by the ancient masters.
 

This state of affairs was the horrific consequence of the misguided tradition of “Thou shalt not divulge the Secrets of Heaven”. Many of these schools and their false teachings still survive and are being taught today.
 

As we can see from this brief history, although Xuan Kong Feixing Feng Shui has been around since the Jin Dynasty, that is more than 1,500 years, its secrets were not revealed until recent times (in the 1920s) by Shen Zhu-Nai.
 

Shen’s book greatly influenced the practice of feng shui in modern day China, Hong Kong and South East Asia. A new generation of Masters like Bai He-Ming of Hong Kong and Wang Wen-Huo of Taiwan have published annotated editions of Shen’s books. Further making them accessible to the modern day feng shui practitioner. Together Bazhai Pai, Xuan Kong Fei-xing and Xing Shi Pai are the three most popular feng shui schools in practice today.

Line Masters of Xuan Kong Fei-xing Feng Shui

 

Line of masters of Xuan Kong Fei-xing feng shui:
 

Guo Pu (276-324)

Yang Jun-Song (Song Dynasty)

Wu Jing-Luan (? – 1068)

Jiang Da-Hong (Ming Dynasty)

Zheng Zhong-Shan (End of Ming Dynasty)

Shen Zhu-Nai (Beginning of Republic)

The Feng Shui Compass School uses compass readings to divide a home, office a property into the eight compass sections. It is based on the concept that each of the eight cardinal directions holds a different type of energy. 

Each compass section has one of the five elements associated with it. And each section is associated with a quality like wealth, fame, relationships, children, helpful people, career, knowledge, and family.

The 5 phases or five physical elements in nature are fire, earth, metal water and wood. They characterize different types of qi. Initially the five phases were correlated to the four cardinal directions, and then to the eight directions. 

• South – fire 
• North – water 
• West – metal 
• East – wood
• SW – earth 
• NE – earth 
• SE – wood 
• NW – Metal

The Eight Mansions Formula uses a person’s year of birth and gender to determine their kua number and best compass directions. Kua numbers 1, 3, 4, and 9 belong to the East group and 2, 5, 6 ,7 and 8 are West group.

Building sitting directions determine whether a structure is an East group or West group structure. Utilizing the potiential of a given direction e.g. for your sleeping or working space can enhance your life goals.

The Compass School also uses ancient mathematical formulas that analyze orientation and the time factor. Compass directions are taken with a luo pan and the formulas are applied to the exterior environment and the interior floor plan. There are numerous readings and formulae within the compass school each analyzing different aspects of the feng shui.

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An Introduction to Landscape and Garden Feng Shui

In China garden design means that the space, even though artificially created, is as close to nature as it can possibly be. This stands in great contrast to Western garden designs, like the renaissance garden, where artistic shapes and linear designs are preferred.

You'll find that daoist philosophy finds many expressions within Garden Feng Shui, one of the main themes is to create a holistic image of nature in a small confined space.This is reflected by presenting and combining various elements like mountains, water, buildings, trees, flowers but also air currents, moon reflections and seasons to one element, representing one unit where human beings and nature can co-exist harmoniously. 

Many different types of gardens exist in China. You'll find Gardens of the Emperor, private gardens, gardens belonging to temples as well as  landscape gardens and holy mountains (e.g. Wudang Shan) where gardens have been incorporated into the natural surroundings already existing.

Even though garden and landscape feng shui can look back on a long history the actual feng shui garden theory was only developed during the Ming Dynasty. One corpus, which qualifies as the fundamental work, has  been created by the scholar Ji Cheng (born 1582).

Thus the theory claims:

The garden follows an inherent logic, but has no specific expression, it seems to be constantly changing.

Its design is so natural that is feels like nature. (...)

Although it was created by man, it seems like it has grown naturally.

In contrast to the West, a property in the Asian area is planned with the garden first. The garden is the heart of the premises and a building would only follow after the main garden has been designed.

Thus follows:

A garden is always a room of the house.
A house is always an element of the garden.

Here are some of the main concepts of Garden Feng Shui:

• Tian Jing "Well of the Sky"
• Master and servant
• Interior and exterior orientation
• Routing and direction changes
• Narrow and wide as spatial contrasts
• Emptiness and fullness / regularly and randomly
• Up and down views

An example:

The Japanese Garden at Marzahner Erholungspark in Berlin.

This garden was created by a Japanese Zen Monk applying Feng Shui.

Concept: Master and Servant.

The Master.

An Introduction to Wu Xing: the Five Phases, also called the Five Elements

The Wu Xing, (五行 wŭ xíng) also known as the Five Phases are chiefly an ancient mnemonic device, in many traditional Chinese fields.
 

It has customarily been translated as Five Elements probably because of the similarity of this doctrine to the Western system of four elements.

The five elements are:

 

Element	Chinese	pinyin
Wood	木	mù
Fire	火	huǒ
Earth	土	tǔ
Metal	金	jīn
Water	水	shuǐ

The system of five phases is used to describe interactions and relationships between phenomena. It is employed as a device in many fields of early Chinese thought and can still be found in seemingly disparate fields such as geomancy or Feng shui, astrology, traditional Chinese medicine, music, military strategy and martial arts.

The cycles:
 

The doctrine of five phases describes two cycles, a generating or creation (生, shēng) cycle, also known as "mother-son", and an overcoming or destruction (剋/克, kè) cycle, also known as "grandfather-nephew", of interactions between the phases.

 

The common memory jogs, which help to remind in what order the phases are:

• Wood feeds Fire;
• Fire creates Earth (ash);
• Earth bears Metal;
• Metal carries Water (as in a bucket or tap, or water condenses on metal);
• Water nourishes Wood.

Other common words for this cycle include "begets", "engenders" and "mothers."

• Wood parts Earth (such as roots; or, Trees can prevent soil erosion);
• Metal chops Wood;
• Fire melts Metal;
• Water quenches Fire;
• Earth dams (or muddies or absorbs) Water;

Cosmology and Feng Shui
 

According to Wu Xing theory, the structure of the cosmos mirrors the five phases. Each phase has a complex series of associations with different aspects of nature, as can be seen in the following table. In the ancient Chinese form of geomancy known as Feng Shui practitioners all based their art and system on the five phases (Wu Xing). All of these phases are represented within the Bagua. Associated with these phases are colors, seasons and shapes; all of which are interacting with each other.
 

Based on a particular directional energy flow from one phase to the next, the interaction can be expansive, destructive, or exhaustive. With proper knowledge of such aspect of energy flow will enable the Feng Shui practitioner to apply certain cures or rearrangement of energy in a way that can create potentials and be beneficial for the receiver of the Feng Shui.

 

 

This article is based on the article Wu Xing from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it licensed under the double licence of GNU Free Documentation License und Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported. On Wikipedia a list of authors for this article is available. This article has been adjusted and extended for the use on this website.

There are three forms of electronic smog made up of electrical fields. These fields are also often talked about with their abbrevation EMF.  

Household wiring that, even when no electricity is consumed in the house, still emits a radiation into the building and beyond creates the first.
 

The second is created by electrical appliances like televisions, toasters, kettles and others that all emit a magnetic field up to five feet from them when switched on. Be aware that these appliances continue to emit when they are in stand-by modus. Also things like the new light bulbs continuously emit radiation which actually means that even though they are saving electricity they are actually causing a much higher concern in regards to health. The closer and longer a person is next to something electrical raises the dose taken into the body. A radio clock and electric blanket are two such items found in many households are causing bad sleep, headaches and loss of physical energy.

The third part of the smog is the radio frequency fields emitted by microwave ovens, television and radio transmitters, mobile telephone masts and even a mobile telephone held close to the head. A new addition to this is all wireless communication devices, like your wireless internet at home.
 

Scientists studying the rise in cancers have concluded to date that the smog that most of the population throughout the world are exposed to causes 30 per cent of all cancers and are possibly responsible for one in ten of all miscarriages.
 

Doctors are becoming aware that new causes of depression and even allergies to electricity are increasing rapidly causing people to make complete life changes in order to escape the electrical fields.

Things are so bad that the World Health Organisation (WHO) have estimated that three in every 100 people in the world now suffer from an allergy to electricity.
 

On a positive note there are some remedies you can take: Eliminate all electronical equipment in your bedroom, this includes an alarm clock that requires to be plugged-in, use a battery one instead. Also take out your TV. Don’t use energy saving light bulbs. They came with a special technology that when switched on emits a big spark of electronic smog.
 

Also avoid technical equipments with starters like the energy-saving bulbs mentioned above, fluorescent lighting or with separate power adapters. These emit electronical charges not only when switched on but continuously. A good idea is to use sockets with separate switch-on buttons.
 

Not only will you save energy as most technical equipment now-a-days don’t switch off completely but instead remain in standby-modus, it also reduces the electronic smog in your house and flat.
 

Another more traditional remedy are salt lamps and quartz stones which are believed to take out part of the emission in the room.

This article has been written with the kind guidance of a blog post published by The Green Ghost.

In traditional Chinese culture, qì (also chi or ch'i) is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Qi is frequently translated as life energy, lifeforce, or energy flow. Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts. The literal translation of "qi" is breath, air or gas.
 

Concepts similar to qi can be found in many cultures, for example, Prana in Vedantic philosophy, mana in Hawaiian culture, Lüng in Tibetan Buddhism, and Vital energy or pneuma in Western philosophy. Some elements of qi can be understood in the term energy when used by writers and practitioners of various esoteric forms of spirituality and alternative medicine. Elements of the qi concept can also be found in popular culture, for example The Force in Star Wars. Notions in the west of energeia, élan vital, or vitalism are purported to be similar.

So, what exactly is Qi?
 

Etymology

The etymological explanation for the form of the qi logogram in the traditional form 氣 is “steam (气) rising from rice (米) as it cooks”. The earliest way of writing qi consisted of three wavy lines, used to represent one's breath seen on a cold day. A later version, 气, identical to the present-day simplified character, is a stylized version of those same three lines. For some reason, early writers of Chinese found it desirable to substitute for 气 a cognate character that originally meant to feed other people in a social context such as providing food for guests. 

Appropriately, that character combined the three-line qi character with the character for rice. So 气 plus 米 formed 氣, and that is the traditional character still used today.

Definition

References to concepts analogous to the qi taken to be the life-process or flow of energy that sustains living beings are found in many belief systems, especially in Asia. Philosophical conceptions of qi from the earliest records of Chinese philosophy (5th century BC) correspond to Western notions of humours and the ancient Hindu yogic concept of prana, meaning "life force" in Sanskrit. The earliest description of "force" in the current sense of vital energy is found in the Vedas of ancient India (circa 1500-1000BC), and from the writings of the Chinese philosopher Mencius (4th century BC). Historically, it is the Huangdi Neijing translated as, The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine (circa 2nd century BC) that is credited with first establishing the pathways through which qi circulates in the human body (see also details on Traditional Chinese Medcine (TCM) on this website).

 

Within the framework of Chinese thought, no notion may attain such a degree of abstraction from empirical data as to correspond perfectly to one of our modern universal concepts. Nevertheless, the term qi comes as close as possible to constituting a generic designation equivalent to our word "energy". When Chinese thinkers are unwilling or unable to fix the quality of an energetic phenomenon, the character qi (氣) inevitably flows from their brushes. 
—Manfred Porkert

 

The ancient Chinese described it as "life-force". They believed qi permeated everything and linked their surroundings together. They likened it to the flow of energy around and through the body, forming a cohesive and functioning unit. By understanding its rhythm and flow they believed they could guide exercises and treatments to provide stability and longevity.

Although the concept of qi has been important within many Chinese philosophies, over the centuries the descriptions of qi have varied and have sometimes been in conflict. Until China came into contact with Western scientific and philosophical ideas, they had not categorized all things in terms of matter and energy. Qi and li (理, li, pattern) were 'fundamental' categories similar to matter and energy.

Fairly early on, some Chinese thinkers began to believe that there were different fractions of qi and that the coarsest and heaviest fractions of qi formed solids, lighter fractions formed liquids, and the most ethereal fractions were the "lifebreath" that animates living beings.
 

Yuán qì is a notion of innate or pre-natal qi to distinguish it from acquired qi that a person may develop over the course of their lifetime.

 

 

Philosophical roots

The [morally] noble man guards himself against three things. When he is young, his xue-qi has not yet stabilized, so he guards himself against sexual passion. When he reaches his prime, his xue-qi is not easily subdued, so he guards himself against combativeness. When he reaches old age, his xue-qi is already depleted, so he guards himself against acquisitiveness.
—Confucius, Analects, 16:7
 

Not only human beings and animals were believed to have qi. Zhuangzi indicated that wind is the qi of the Earth. Moreover, cosmic yin and yang "are the greatest of qi." He described qi as "issuing forth" and creating profound effects. He said "Human beings are born [because of] the accumulation of qi. When it accumulates there is life. When it dissipates there is death... There is one qi that connects and pervades everything in the world."

Mencius described a kind of qi that might be characterized as an individual's vital energies. This qi was necessary to activity, and it could be controlled by a well-integrated willpower. When properly nurtured, this qi was said to be capable of extending beyond the human body to reach throughout the universe. It could also be augmented by means of careful exercise of one's moral capacities. On the other hand, the qi of an individual could be degraded by averse external forces that succeed in operating on that individual.
 

Another passage traces life to intercourse between Heaven and Earth: "The highest Yin is the most restrained. The highest Yang is the most exuberant. The restrained comes forth from Heaven. The exuberant issues forth from Earth. The two intertwine and penetrate forming a harmony, and [as a result] things are born."
 

"The Guanzi essay 'Neiye' 內業 (Inward training) is the oldest received writing on the subject of the cultivation of vapor [qi] and meditation techniques. The essay was probably composed at the Jixia Academy in Qi in the late fourth century B.C.
 

Xun Zi, another Confucian scholar of the Jixia Academy, followed in later years. At 9:69/127, Xun Zi says, "Fire and water have qi but do not have life. Grasses and trees have life but do not have perceptivity. Fowl and beasts have perceptivity but do not have yi (sense of right and wrong, duty, justice). Men have qi, life, perceptivity, and yi." Chinese people at such an early time had no concept of radiant energy, but they were aware that one can be heated by a campfire from a distance away from the fire. They accounted for this phenomenon by claiming "qi" radiated from fire. At 18:62/122, he too uses "qi" to refer to the vital forces of the body that decline with advanced age.
 

Among the animals, the gibbon and the crane were considered experts in inhaling the qi. The Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu (ca. 150 BC) wrote in Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals: "The gibbon resembles a macaque, but he is larger, and his color is black. His forearms being long, he lives eight hundred years, because he is expert in controlling his breathing." ("猿似猴。大而黑。長前臂。所以壽八百。好引氣也。")
 

Later, the syncretic text assembled under the direction of Liu An, the Huai Nan Zi, or "Masters of Huainan", has a passage that presages most of what is given greater detail by the Neo-Confucians:

Heaven (seen here as the ultimate source of all being) falls (duo 墮, i.e., descends into proto-immanence) as the formless. Fleeting, fluttering, penetrating, amorphous it is, and so it is called the Supreme Luminary. The dao begins in the Void Brightening. The Void Brightening produces the universe (yu-zhou ). The universe produces qi. Qi has bounds. The clear, yang [qi] was ethereal and so formed heaven. The heavy, turbid [qi] was congealed and impeded and so formed earth. The conjunction of the clear, yang [qi] was fluid and easy. The conjunction of the heavy, turbid [qi] was strained and difficult. So heaven was formed first and earth was made fast later. The pervading essence (xi-jing) of heaven and earth becomes yin and yang. The concentrated (zhuan) essences of yin and yang become the four seasons. The dispersed (san) essences of the four seasons become the myriad creatures. The hot qi of yang in accumulating produces fire. The essence (jing) of the fire-qi becomes the sun. The cold qi of yin in accumulating produces water. The essence of the water-qi becomes the moon. The essences produced by coitus (yin) of the sun and moon become the stars and celestial markpoints (chen, planets).

—Huai-nan-zi, 3:1a/19

Qi and Feng shui

The traditional Chinese art of geomancy, the placement and arrangement of space called feng shui, is based on calculating the balance of qi, interactions between the five elements, yin and yang and other factors. The retention or dissipation of qi is believed to affect the health, wealth, energy level, luck and many other aspects of the occupants of the space. Attributes of each item in a space affect the flow of qi by slowing it down, redirecting it or accelerating it, which is said to influence the energy level of the occupants.
 

One use for a Luopan is to detect the flow of qi. The quality of qi may rise and fall over time, feng shui with a compass might be considered a form of divination that assesses the quality of the local environment.

 

This article is based on the article Qi from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it licensed under the double licence of GNU Free Documentation License und Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported. On Wikipedia a list of authors for this article is available. This article has been adjusted and extended for the use on this website.