Clarifying Traditional Chinese Feng-shui

Below is a posting I found from the Shambhala Publications Community Discussions Forum (now defunct) in which Eva Wong was one of the moderators back then.

Clarifying Traditional Chinese Feng-shui
There are a number of requests for guidelines on how to distinguish traditional Chinese feng-shui from popular feng-shui and a mixture of the two.

The following is a set of guidelines. It is by no means exhasutive. It is designed to answer many common queries coming from many readers.

Now, here are some pointers.
1. Four Pillars is NOT a part of classical traditional Chinese feng-shui. NOWHERE in the traditional Chinese feng-shui classics are Flying Stars, or Three Periods, or Three Combinations, or 8 Mansions discussed together with Four Pillars. Four Pillars is astrology and is a stand-alone divinational system. It is only used by several contemporary practitioners in Hong Kong as part of a feng-shui evaluation.

2. EAST-WEST LIFE (K'UA) is part of 8 Mansions system. The technique of determining a person's life trigram is particular to the 8 Mansions school. It is inconsistent to use it in conjunction with Xuan Kong (Hsuan-k'ung). In the Flying Stars system there are 9 guardian stars.

3. Traditional Chinese feng-shui does NOT use crystals at all. Other cultures may use crystals, but use of crystals has never been a part of Chinese culture.

4. The Flying Stars of Hsuan-k'ung (Xuan Kong) uses 24 directions. There is only ONE technique of flying the stars. There are no "alternative" techniques.

5. If there are "alternative simplified" approaches to Xuan Kong, Three Periods, or Three Combinations, we would have seen them emerging in the last several hundred years. The fact that simplified versions of these schools did not appear until feng-shui has "reached" the west says something about the "simplified" versions.

6. Feng-shui is very complex. Eva Wong's two books and the YCH xuan kong homestudy course cover at most 10% of knowledge of the entire field. This gives you an idea of the scope of the knowledge of feng-shui.

7. All traditional Chinese feng-shui schools are concerned with hsing-ch'i (landform energy) as well as li-ch'i (directional eneregy). The dichotomy of Form school vs Compass school does not exist in traditional Chinese feng-shui. ALL traditional Chinese feng-shui schools (with the exception of 8 Mansions) use the Chinese geomantic compass or lo-p'an of the 24 directions.

8. Black Hat School of feng-shui is not a traditional Chinese school of feng-shui. For more information about this school, please check the website: www.qi-whiz.com.

9. So many feng-shui schools are cropping up these days that it would be impossible to keep a list of them. Best way is to know what's traditional and make the comparison yourself.Other than the James Wu post of Feng-shui Schools, the following posts may be of interest:-Eva Wong on "Clarifying Xuan Kong (Hsuan K'ung)-all the discussions centered around "xuan kong da gua"-Eva Wong on "schools, lineages, and transmissions"(You can use the Search function to locate these posts quickly.)- the discussions centered around shang shan hsia shui will give you an idea of the most up-to-date issues that concern the traditional pracititioners in Hong Kong and Taiwan today.

10. It is a problem that traditional Chinese feng-shui is still not understood well in the West. Introducing the non-Chinese-reading public to traditional Chinese feng-shui is a great challenge. We are just seeing the beginning appearance of authentic traditional Chinese feng-shui in the West during the last five years or so.

11. Responses from the moderators - Eva Wong, Yang Hsi, James Wu, Stephen Lin, and Gina Stick - will give you a feel for the kind of feng-shui typically practiced in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Information about the moderators can be found in the post: "Introducing forum moderators".

The above points do not address the issue of which system of feng-shui is correct or incorrect. It merely gives you a feel for distinguishing what is accepted as traditional Chinese feng-shui among the Chinese and what is not.

The forum moderators