What is Feng Shui?

Yu Xixian (now retired), a former professor in Peking University who studied geomantic omen, said: "People nowadays are fake geomantic gentlemen with little knowledge"; Li Shuyou, a professor of philosophy at Nanjing University, also said: "Feng Shui masters are mixed, which tarnishes the reputation of Feng Shui culture." A feng shui master came out to refute that your feng shui is fake.

When it comes to true and false feng shui, we must first figure out what feng shui is.

In fact, this is very clear, and that is the explanation of Ci Hai:

Feng Shui is also called "Kanyu". A superstition in old China. It is believed that the wind direction and water flow around the residential base or cemetery can lead to the fate of residents or buried families. It also refers to the method of xiangfu xiangmu. Burial book (written by Jin Guopu in the old title): Buried people take advantage of anger. As the saying goes, the air is scattered by the wind, and the boundary water stops. The ancients gathered to make it, but stopped it, so it was called Feng Shui.

Among them, the quotation from Funeral Book is the classic definition of Feng Shui, and the word Feng Shui was used as a special term only after the appearance of Funeral Book. This feng shui does not refer to the wind and water in nature, but "Qi" is its core. This qi is not scientific air and atmosphere, but a supernatural and mysterious qi that "walks underground and is born in all things". The human body is considered as "gathering qi" and "coagulating bone". So when a person dies, if he is buried in a place where he can gather qi, his body will be "anti-qi" and future generations will be "blessed by ghosts".

Therefore, Feng Shui cannot be understood as a natural environment, and it has its own concrete and complete connotation. So when translating the word "feng shui" into western languages. Does not contain the meaning of wind and water, can only be transliterated as Feng Shui. Seeing feng shui is for the sake of "ghost happiness", promotion and wealth, and children and grandchildren. If this point is removed, geomantic omen has already died out in China.

If we compare the definition of Feng Shui in Funeral Book, we can find that what the folk Feng Shui master said is more in line with the original intention of Funeral Book. They think that "Feng Shui is not a science from the perspective of modern science" but "a specious idealistic philosophy" (my view on Feng Shui, page 3 1, a publishing company was established in Hong Kong. ("Twenty geomantic strategies for buying a house", published by Hong Kong Juxiange Culture Co., Ltd.) Seeing geomantic omen is for promotion and wealth. They don't want to squeeze into the forest of science. In bookstores in Hong Kong and Taiwan, feng shui books are generally listed in the category of "numerology", alongside fortune-telling books and ghost books. In the Canadian Chinese community, geomantic omen prevails, and TV stations in China all have programs devoted to geomantic omen, but they don't claim to be science. Wang Chengya of the Chinese Taoist Association also made it very clear that he thinks that talking about Feng Shui from a scientific point of view is divorced from the original meaning of Feng Shui. Because in his view, Feng Shui has a supernatural side that science cannot explain.

However, some experts and scholars are secretive about the key point of Feng Shui, and regard Feng Shui as a synonym for the natural environment, and even simplify it to "there are mountains and water called Feng Shui", thus dressing Feng Shui as science. However, if your feng shui is completely different from that of a feng shui master, why do you still use the banner of feng shui?

Interestingly, all the students in this "Architectural Geomantic Culture Training Course" plan to visit the tomb of Guo Pu Guan Yi in Nanjing Xuanwu Lake Park. This kind of behavior can only be regarded as that they are expressing the inheritance of Feng Shui as defined in the Book of Burial, and they do not show the critical spirit of superstitious Feng Shui. Guo Pu is said to be the author of The Book of Burial, and he is considered to be the ancestor of Feng Shui masters.