20 MINUTES TO MASTER ... FENG SHUI. Simon Brown

that has three generations of people living there, ending up in divorce, needs careful consideration before moving in.

      Similarly, I have clients who have bought a home that has been repossessed by the bank from owners who have run into financial difficulties, only to find that they themselves have run into financial difficulties.

      My own experience confirms that the home you live in carries its own particular movement of Chi, and that this influences your own flow of Chi, which in turn affects your emotional and physical well-being. By enhancing the flow of Chi in your own home, you can make positive changes to yourself, which in turn lead to a greater ability to realize your own dreams in life.

CHAPTER 2

       YIN AND YANG

      Chinese Medicine and philosophy, the origins of Feng Shui, are based on the principles of yin and yang. These two words are used to describe everything around us and how this affects us. I assume that when these principles were being developed, people were mainly interested in farming, their basic material needs and health. Yin and yang created a system whereby they could observe what happened in the past and then use this to predict the future.

      Let me give you an example. At the time of a full moon, the Chinese would say we become more yang. This means we are more active, want to go out and generally are more social. Now, centuries later, this can be confirmed by statistics; insurance companies will confirm that at the time of a full moon car accidents increase, the crime rate in New York goes up and admissions to casualty wards increase. Conversely, at the time of a new moon the ancient Chinese would say that we become more yin, that is more peaceful, more spiritual and more relaxed.

      So, armed with this simple piece of yin and yang information, if we wanted to organize a really wild party when would be the best time? The full moon of course. At this time people will be more likely to want to go out and have fun.

      The whole point of all this is to be able to do more with your lives with less effort. After all, each of us only has so many years left on this planet, so why not make the most of them? Imagine yourself at the age of ninety. One day you come to the point where you know you are dying and yet you feel very peaceful, relaxed and content. As you look back over the years, you know you lived your life to the full. You can’t help but think what a wonderful life you have had. Yin and yang are the tools to help you achieve that. Why be the sort of person who holds a party on a new moon, puts a lot of time and effort into it, only to find that half the people turn up and even then all they want to do is sit around and talk about themselves. The poor hosts get depressed because they think they can’t organize a decent party, yet all it was, was bad timing.

      The same approach can be applied to food, exercise and our homes. Every home will have areas that will actually help you achieve your aims. Whether you wish to relax, be more inspired, or have increased energy, the secret is to find the place that has the atmosphere and environment to support you.

      Yin and yang are the first of the essential points to be grasped in understanding the frameworks used in Feng Shui. To communicate and learn from experience, we need some kind of framework. For example, simple maths, like addition, provides us with the framework to do everyday activities such as shopping. We use it for counting the number of groceries we need, adding up the cost, or adding the weights of ingredients. In this context it works and we use it every day to our mutual benefit.

      However, adding numbers together only works some of the time in real life and is often only an approximation. For example, if we take two drops of water and add them to another two drops of water, we only have one drop of water instead of four. If we were to weigh the drops of water, we would find that each drop is in the process of changing its weight. It may be evaporating or absorbing dust. In any case, our weighing machine will also be in a process of change, expanding or contracting, depending on variations in temperature. In the end, we can only say that if we take four drops of water, each weighing one gram, and put them all together, we will end up with approximately four grams. Yin and yang is a similar framework. By studying yin and yang, you can learn more about your environment and how it affects you, in a much shorter time than if you were to try solely by your own random experiences. Once you and a friend have a basic understanding of yin and yang, you then have the language to discuss your experiences of your environment to a much deeper level.

      The point is, all the ideas in this book are here to help you understand what is going on around and within you, and to then be able to communicate with others. Once you try to think of any of these frameworks as rigid absolutes, they become difficult to understand. Just as trying to explain mathematical addition to someone who is putting drops of water together will seem ridiculous, the same is true of Feng Shui. Fortunately, the principles of Feng Shui have been around for thousands of years, plenty of time for people to try them out, question their validity and develop their practical application.

      My advice is to keep an open mind, try to first understand the principles as frameworks and then test them in real life.

      The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine tells us that by 2600 BC the Chinese people already had a great interest in the subjective effects of their environment. It describes how they had evolved the concept of a pair of interactive polarities present throughout nature, which they termed yin and yang. Nothing was seen to be absolutely yin or yang, but simply more yin or more yang when compared to something else. For example, resting is a more yin state than working, but more yang when compared to sleeping.

      In ancient China it was observed that in the morning, as the sun comes up, people are naturally more active and alert, a more yang characteristic than resting. In contrast, during the afternoon, people generally feel more mentally orientated, physically passive and sometimes even sleepy, which is a more yin characteristic. The classic definition of yin and yang is the shady and sunny side of the mountain, the sunny side being yang. Similarly, the sunny side of your home is considered to be more yang, whereas the northern, shady side is more yin (if you live in the northern hemisphere).

      I remember living in a flat near Primrose Hill, London, where the front of the house faced north and the back south. All the bedrooms were on the north side. These rooms had a dark, almost cave-like quality, that I and my family found ideal for sleeping. However, no daytime activity worked there. The children would never play in their bedroom, even though we had arranged it to be a fun playroom. During the day we all wanted to be in the southern, sunny side of the flat.

      As you can imagine, when the sun is up, the southern side of a home is constantly being irradiated by the Sun’s energy. People in this side of the home will benefit from this Chi. So if you want to have more energy, to be active and inspired, place yourself in a part of your home that benefits from the sunlight. This still works on a cloudy day. Apart from heat and light, the sun radiates solar energy and Chi. Just like my example with the moon, here you will feel you can do more with less effort. However, during the course of many of my Feng Shui consultations I have found people trying to work in the shady side of a building, and not having the energy to get things done. I remember one client who could hardly stay awake in the afternoons. She would keep drifting off in front of her computer. Once I found a more energetic place for her, she soon noticed the difference. I have also met clients who themselves are of a lively nature, working in a very high energy sunny part of their building, finding it very difficult to concentrate and focus. For them, a less active place is actually more productive. Each person is different and the art is to find what really works for that individual.

      Growing up in England I was fascinated by the different cultures in southern Europe. The people I met in countries like Italy, Yugoslavia, Spain and Greece were so lively and expressive. They talked quickly, gesticulated wildly and seemed very passionate. In the towns, people drove fast and there was often the sound of car horns. When it came to getting on a bus, everyone wanted to pile on at the same time, as soon as the bus arrived. All characteristics of more yang forms of expression than I was used to. When I began to study yin and yang this all began to make more sense. They were living on the sunny side of the mountain, or in this case the sunny side of Europe.

      The idea of balance is fundamental to yin and yang