Come discuss the feng shui of Seattle or any other subjects of interest and concern!

Our next gathering will be on Saturday, August 1st from 7-9pm!

Shan-tung Hsu Events

Call a consultant as early as you can.
A competent feng shui consultant can guide you in site selection and present a schematic design: the form of building and the layout of rooms, according to the client’s needs and desire.  Often people ask for feng shui consultation after the house is built, and some mistakes have been already made. Many years back, the Boeing company in Seattle, asked for my feng shui input in the design of the headquarters of their Commercial Airline Group.  During our first meeting with the project manager, she asked “When do we start?”  As I realized the building’s outer structure was already done, I told her, “We are already three months late”.  Ideally, they should have asked for my input even before the building was built.  Their understanding of feng shui was that it is just related to interior design, and they wanted to add a feng shui touch to their design. This is the prevailing misperception of feng shui.

Shan-tung Hsu Feng Shui

In general, when furniture is arranged according to feng shui principles, it will function better and provide a better feeling.  However, often many so-called feng shui concepts presented in feng shui books and teachings, are rigid rules and even superstition which do not reflect real feng shui principles.  So you might think you have arranged furniture according to feng shui principles but you actually have not. In this case, resistance to change occurred.  Sometimes though, people are not so sensitive to energy, and they do not feel any difference in the different furniture arrangement. In addition, feng shui is more than just a philosophy and science, it is also an art.  Therefore, under the same higher feng shui principles, people might have a different approach in furniture arrangement, and thus disagreement will occur. If you are sure you are on the right track, make gentle suggestions allowing people to slowly come around to see the benefits of the changes.  Do not force your way.

Shan-tung Hsu Feng Shui

We live in color, so color plays an important role in our daily living. If we define feng shui in very general terms, as the relationship of people and their living environment, you may say color does play some role in feng shui design. However, the main focus of feng shui deals with the higher order qi energy instead of the physical energy of color.  In this sense, color is a small component of the body of feng shui knowledge. Much study has been done in both the fashion industry and the general product industries regarding the psychological and physiological aspect of color. This is commonly shared knowledge in the field of science and art.

Shan-tung Hsu Feng Shui

In contrast to western astrologers’ fancy celestial zodiac model, the ancient Chinese used twelve simple animal signs to represent the zodiac. It may seem ordinary or mundane, but these simple signs contain rich and living wisdom.  The twelve signs comprise six pairs.  Each pair has one yin and one yang animal sign. It is the balance of this yin and yang that is the fundamental element of philosophy in Chinese culture.

First pair:  Rat (yang) and Ox (yin)

Rat represents intelligence; Ox represents diligence. There should be a balance between intelligence and diligence. Those who have intelligence but are not hard-working will not accomplish much in their lives. Those who are hard-working, but do not use their brain, are foolish.  One needs to work both hard and smart.  The ancient Chinese regarded intelligence and diligence to be the most important qualities for a successful life.

Second Pair: Tiger (yang) and Rabbit (yin)

Tiger represents power and daring; Rabbit represents caution and prudence. When a person is full of valor and vigor, but not cautious, he can became crude and brash. If he has too much caution without vigor, he becomes timid.  There needs to be a balance of daring and prudence to balance and complement each other; an individual needs to have both to draw on in order to meet what life presents to him at different times.

Third Pair: Dragon (yang) and Snake (yin)

Dragon represents strength and determination; Snake represents softness and flexibility. Too much hardness becomes brittle and easy to break. If one is too soft, he cannot hold onto his own ideas and thoughts.  Therefore, there should always be a balance between strength and flexibility.

Fourth Pair: Horse (yang) and Sheep (yin)

Horse represents marching forward courageously, advance bravely; Sheep represents gentleness and peacefulness.  If a person just plods straight forward without considering his surroundings, he may get some surprising bumps to the left or right, and not be able to reach his goal. If he is too gentle and yielding, he may lose his own direction and, thus, his goal. Therefore, be brave, moving forward courageously but with gentleness.

Fifth Pair: Monkey (yang) and Rooster

Monkey represents agility and quick-wittedness; Rooster represents dependability, as it can be depended on to wake people up on time.  Quick thinking without dependable behavior may not accomplish your intended goals.  However, overly stressing reliability could slow things down so much they cannot move forward.  Each person should have a harmonious combination of agility and dependability.

Sixth Pair: Dog (yang) and Pig (yin)

Dog represents loyalty; Pig represents sociability and amicability.  If a person is too loyal to an ideology or anything else, he can become very stubborn, excluding and rejecting of others. On the other hand, if he is too amiable and socially-dependent, he may lose the dedication to stand firm on his principles and beliefs.  One’s loyal, whether to country, to an organization, to oneself, or to an idea, needs to be tempered with amicability towards all. In that way, you have a smooth outside while remaining square inside; yin and yang is balanced.

Keeping the Balance

Whatever sign you were born under, always look for the opposite aspect in order to be a balanced person. If you were born under the sign of the horse, you are brave in charging forward, but pay attention to the qualities of gentleness and smoothness.  If you are of the sheep sign, gentleness and smoothness come naturally to you; you need to cultivate bravery and courage in order to charge forward with your life!

Intelligence and diligence, daring and caution, strength and flexibility, bravery and gentleness, agility and dependability, loyalty and sociability, these are all qualities one should have to create a happy and successful life.  Ancient China passes on to the generations this wisdom in its twelve zodiac signs.

Shan-tung Hsu Chinese zodiac

It is important to be vegetarian only if it is your path.  To force oneself to be in one way is not proper on any path. To adopt a value or another person’s belief because it seems beneficial to that person does not mean that it will be beneficial to you. It is true that some are vegetarians out of respect for life.  And this is a very beautiful understanding of nature and a very beautiful balance.  There are others for whom the service they need to offer to this planet and the work that they need to do require that they be nourished in a strong and healthy way and it is for this reason they are able to eat meat.  Both paths are spiritual depending on the person who would walk them. There are many vegetarians who live with hatred in their heart by being apart from their own brother.  This is not killing but in its own way is responding to the lower self and is akin to meat eating.  It is for this reason neither one is considered spiritual in itself. But for the individual to be true to the practice of his/her own heart and to follow his/her own nature should be the one to determine what the right path is.  Both can be spiritual and yet neither is in itself spiritual and so there are no rules.
You must follow what you need.

Shan-tung Hsu Spiritual

Rose-Li

Actually I have an interesting story to tell. For so many years in the past, from time to time I told this story and answered peoples question about the Chinese zodiac.  Although there are many versions of its origin, my favorite is a story from a long time ago.  It is about the one where the animals in China decide to go to India to celebrate Buddha’s birthday.

The rat, cat, dog tiger… all thirteen animals took the journey from China in a race to see who could be the first to arrive in India.  When they reach the Ganges river of India, they all slow down as many animals could not swim well. The water buffalo was the first one to happily jump into the river.  Upon seeing that, both the cat and rat jump on the back of water buffalo for a free ride.  In the middle of the river crossing, the rat manages to push the cat off from water buffalo’s back, which causes the cat to fall in the river and drown.  And since then, as revenge, the cat forever chases the rat.

I told this story for decades on different occasions to many different people and students. No questions were ever asked. Last year I told the same story to a charming little ten year old girl, Rose Li.  Since arriving in the United States twelve years ago, both her parents, who are professional dance teachers, have been good friends of mine.  After having heard the story, Rose Li asked, “If the cat already drowned in river, how could the rest of cats know the story and take revenge?” A good question! How come nobody has asked this question before?  I wonder.  Well, let me think… how do I answer this question…

Shan-tung Hsu Chinese zodiac

“My cousin lives in a moderate size house but it is very stuffy and cluttered.  She often complains she is too busy and does not have enough energy.  How can I convince her to clean her clutter so she can increase her energy?”

Clutter means too much useless stuff and disorganization. The more clutter one has the less energy one has, and the less energy one has, the less organized one will be.  It is a vicious cycle. To reverse this bad cycle we need creative thinking.

Organized mantle

In the first place, it is human nature for people to prefer gains over loses.  In general, people prefer to have more than less.  Therefore when you tell people to get rid of this and that, it does not work well psychologically, thus they lack motivation to declutter. Try and explain this to them in terms of modern physics and not in feng shui terms. Space is a form of energy.  If the space is opened up, energy is gained.  Believe it or not, nobody refuses additional energy.

Additionally you should begin with a very small project, not even a room in a house. Many parents can relate that when you ask your children to clean his or her messy room, often it is too overwhelming for them. They might not know where to begin and resist doing anything.

First, start with something small like asking your children to pick up all the dirty socks from floor, and then ask them to remove some empty boxes.  This step by step process will work.  Use this same way to convince your cousin.  Start by telling her you will begin the project with her from a small corner of a room.  If you have already convinced her that she will get more energy by opening up the space, she could not refuse your working with her to clean a small corner.  The thing is, when a corner opens up, she will actually feel more energized. This new found energy will enable her to do a little bit more then planned, as more space creates even more energy. Hopefully, this energy will enable her to continue decluttering.  Before she knows it, the clear corner turns into a clean room.  The newfound energy combined with her accomplishment will give her the incentive to clean up the rest of house.  Once she feels good about the space and has an embedded consciousness that clutter and garbage deplete her energy, she will be more careful to keep the house clean and orderly, thereby reversing the cycle.

This is the secret of the Yin approach.

Shan-tung Hsu Feng Shui

Year of the Ox

The year of the Ox is slow, patient, hardworking, and enduring.  Each of these descriptions has a yang and yin aspect.

Shan-tung Hsu Chinese zodiac, Feng Shui

It represents that Mr. “Mission Accomplished” can no longer continue trash America.  However, the negative impact that has been created will take a long time to resolve and recover. Obama does not have the magic power to reverse the current situation right away; he will first have to slow down the rapid muddy current, then redirect it with a curve and reverse the direction into a smooth flow.  It is almost an insurmountable task.  But if Obama cannot do it, nobody can do it.  He needs all the support he can get from Americans.

In the world, not much will change by the changing of the American presidency.  Even though Obama stresses about dialogue with countries of the world, the issue is less of dialogue and more of understanding.  As long as we are steadfast on our past foreign views and positions, we cannot expect others to change themselves.  The question is how much is the US willing to adjust or compromise? It’s important for US leaders to pay attention to not just the interest of the US, but the “higher” interests of the US.   Higher interest resonates with the world interest.

Let us also hope Obama is a Peace president and not a president who just changes the battle field. Even without war, humans have already suffered too much from hunger and disease.

Shan-tung Hsu Feng Shui