By Kathryn Weber
Questions about feng shui? Below are some of the most frequent and commonly asked questions we receive here at the Red Lotus Letter. You might find the answer to a question you have!
1. What is the difference between traditional Chinese feng shui and western, or Black Hat Sect, feng shui?
Black Hat Sect or western feng shui uses the front door to align the bagua, the eight sided octagon that corresponds to the 8 Aspirations, or guas, in life (wealth, health, fame, marriage/love, children, career, wisdom, and benefactors). Black Hat sect aligns the career sector, or gua, with North, the career sector. Traditional Chinese feng shui says that if your front door faces east, you align the east gua with your front door. In other words, you follow the compass directions.
2. Can I use both Black Hat and traditional Chinese feng shui?
You can, but you need to know what you are doing. It’s usually best to use one method or the other. If you’ve had good results with the Black Hat, stick with that. If you’ve done well with traditional feng shui, then use this as your preferred method.
3. Do I use the bagua over the house or over a room?
You can use both. Apply the bagua over the entire house by the facing direction. Apply the bagua in a room according to the compass directions. You can apply the bagua to areas as large as a city or as small as your desk. There’s no limit to how it can be used with regard to size.
4. I have an L-shaped house. Should I apply the bagua to both sides of the L or to the entire home?
I typically recommend that you apply it to the whole footprint of the home, and this usually means that there will be large sectors that are missing. Some recommend applying two separate baguas to each “rectangle” of the L. However, that doesn’t treat the house as a whole, and that is what concerns me about doing it that way. If you prefer to apply it this way, though, you certainly can.
5. Can I use personal feng shui and compass feng shui together?
Yes! They go easily together. But always put good form and compass ahead of your personal feng shui.
6. What if I am an east person and my spouse is a west person in personal feng shui. How do we decide whose feng shui to focus on?
The Chinese are very old fashioned about this. Basically, you select to enhance the breadwinner’s directions, regardless of who is male or female. The person who brings home the most income should be protected. Therefore, if you’re the breadwinner and you are an east person, then you will want to select a house with an east-facing entrance and position your bed according to your best directions.
7. If I move my bed to suit my personal feng shui, my bed lines up on the same wall as the door. Is that OK?
No, it’s not good. Never forsake good feng shui basics (easily be able to see who enters the room from a chair or bed) in favor of your best directions. Always follow good feng shui first before following personal feng shui.
8. The south is my total loss direction according to personal feng shui. What can I do to enhance my fame sector?
The south is still the fame sector and you should enhance every direction regardless of whether or not that sector is good for you personally. That’s because when you enhance a particular sector, you aren’t magnifying your bad luck…you’re just enhancing that area and that’s still good for you. Personal feng shui just means that you try to avoid sitting and sleeping in those sectors that are not personally beneficial for you, not that you avoid them altogether or that you don’t enhance them.
It’s ideal if you can select houses with beneficial directions, such as entrances in your best directions, and you want to face, sit, and sleep using your personal directions as much as possible. So, even if your dining room is in your loss sector, you can still eat seated facing your health direction, for example.
9. Do I have to change things around every year for feng shui? Can’t I just “feng shui and forget it”?
Of course you can. Even simple, easy feng shui is still very effective. But, there are some who want more and more detail. Feng shui is a complex art that has been developed over the past few thousand years. Anyone who studies anything in detail delves deeper and deeper with each passing year. Feng shui can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. Don’t feel obligated to follow flying star or annual feng shui if you don’t want to.
10. I live in Australia. How does that change my feng shui?
It doesn’t. I have no idea why that notion that everyone “Down Under” doesn’t have the same directions ever got started. South is still south in Australia and New Zealand and Argentina, for that matter. You use the directions exactly the same way below the equator that you do above because the compass needle moves to the north in Australia the same way it does in Morocco. Only the toilets go in a different direction when they flush!
11. If I put a fountain on the right side of my door (looking out from the house toward the street), does that mean my husband will have an affair?
This is a common question many people have about water to the right of the front door. What it means is that the water could draw predatory females who are interested in your husband. If you trust your husband, it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve had a fountain to the right of my front door before and mentioned it to my husband just in case. If your husband has a wandering eye, though, you might not want to chance it!
12. Does feng shui really change from year to year?
In traditional chinese feng shui it does. You know how one year it’s the year of the dragon, and the next it’s the snake and so on? Well, that is an indicator that energies shift and change, and the animal year that it is indicates the quality and type of energies you can expect in the coming year. Do pay close attention to this energy because it can directly affect the type and quality of year you have! In fact, the most important feng shui is annual feng shui. Learn more about annual feng shui.
© Kathryn Weber, All rights reserved
