Sat Hon on Feng Shui

What is the essence of Feng Shui?
Feng Shui deals with harmonizing two major ingredients—wind and water. Feng is wind and Shui is water, in Chinese. So the very name tells you the ingredients you will be cooking with.
In Feng Shui you are basically dealing with Qi, which is breath.” A house is like a human being. The fang, or the wind, is the flow of current through the house. How do you deal with that? When the door is too big, it is like having a big mouth. If it’s too small, you’re also in trouble. How do you get the fresh current to flow throughout the house? That is fang Shui.
But you also look at the water. For example, in my country house, I have a little waterfall behind me, and that’s very important. It hit home when my electric pump was shut off. I still had water—I just went down to the stream. Nowadays we don’t think of those things. But the Native Americans did most of their settlements were by a river. Early human settlers were fang shui-ers, because they settled by the lakes and rivers.
Feng Shui has a scientific basis, and it is a very ancient practice that has been developed and passed down. At the core of it is an ancient wisdom resulting from millennia of human migration.

When you do Feng Shui, how much do you rely on rules and how much on intuition?
The principle of Feng Shui is intuitive. We all have a fundamental animalistic sense of harmony. The central concept of Feng Shui is harmony—whether it is the harmony of your house or the harmony of cooking your food. You might, by comparison, ask, “What is the principle of good cooking?” How much is rule and how much is intuition? In either case, the principle is intuition—the personal taste. Feng Shui must fit the particular personal taste. Just as people in a certain region have their own style
Of cooking, there are also regional schools of Feng Shui. In this sense, there is no good or bad fang Shui; it is a matter of taste.

How do you work with people asking for advice of their homes?
What I’ve found is that I usually just listen to what people want to do. They operate from their intuition, and usually their intuition is 95 percent correct. The other 5 percent you adjust so that the energy flow is better. If I were ever to work for an architect, would
Probably fight with them all the time, because few of them pay heed to the flow of energy in the building; they’re more interested simply in how it looks,
Basically work with the client’s animal instinct. We are so intellectually conditioned that we don’t feel or see anymore. In one case, I was working with a couple who were arguing a lot. They hired me to take a look at their place. I went and looked, and there was a fan right above the bed, a ceiling fan, I said, “Do you turn it on when you go to sleep?” They said, yes, lots of times.” But if you think of yourself as an animal trying to sleep, your body will not be in harmony in that Situation because you will always be afraid of those blades—they could drop down and cut you! So I asked them to move the fan to the bottom of the bed so that their animal consciousness could get some rest. And that helped.
Feng Shui requires a keen awareness of the energy and air flow. Unfortunately, people tend to rationalize in order to overcome their instinctive awareness of these things. A typical example is Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome. Rationally, from the standpoint of engineering, the dome makes a great deal of sense; but from a Feng Shui perspective, it is a disaster to live in. The energy is continually reflecting from one side to the other.

How do you experience Qi Do you feel it physically or sense intuitively?
It takes training. A symphony conductor is able to hear, out of a hundred instruments, if the double bass is slightly off, A Feng Shui practitioner has to be in deep meditation, so that he or she can train all the senses to feel the harmony of the house.
One of my students is going to fly me over to take a look at his place on Long 1sf and. As soon as I step in I will know. How does it feel? The feeling should be like eating a really well-cooked meal. Still, different people have different needs. Some people need Feng Shui to help their prosperity, so you work with that. Or people want Feng Shui to help their children, and you work with that.
There is also a way you can transform the energy by transforming yourself. That’s Buddhist Feng Shui. By transforming the spiritual energy, the Feng Shui changes its electromagnetic pathway.

What is the difference between Feng Shui  as taught and practiced in the East and in the West?
Many of my teachers are authorities, but they don’t write books. In Chinese tradition, the master takes pride in saying, “What I teach you snot written any where.” But in America, in Western culture, you become an authority when you publish something. Most of the books I’ve read are very good for beginners. But if you try to build a car based just on a “how-to” manual, it will break down. Even more with Feng Shui. It is like learning self-defense from a book. The introduction from the book is fine, but you need to learn from a living teacher.

Do the ancient principles of Feng Shui still work in modern homes and offices filled with technological gadgetry? Do machines figure into Feng Shui, and if so, how?
The number one 'no-no' for Feng Shui is a microwave oven. The high voltage creates a vortex—a tornado of energy—that destroys the harmonic flow of the whole house. The best thing people can do is to unplug their microwave and learn how to cook!
On the other hand, I am very interested in computers and artificial intelligence, and I’m a self-taught computer programmer. From the Feng Shui standpoint, the Internet is like energy running into your house. You have access to people and information everywhere.

Sat Chuen Hon is a native of Guangzhou, China, who has studied the I Ching, Feng Shui, qigong, and Taiji Quan with masters both in China and North America. I received a B.A. from
Princeton University and an M.FA. In dance from Connecticut College. Currently he teaches qigong and Taiji Quan in New York City conducts a qigong clinic, and teaches the I Ching at the New York Open Center. He shares his knowledge of Feng Shui with friends, family, and special students.
 
 
 

( Caution: The above statements are not meant as any form of medical advice. They merely serve as informative and educational purposes. If you have a medical problems please consult a qualified medical physician.)

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