Simply Feng Shui Essay

In Chinese culture, health and illness concentrates on the balance between body, mind, and spirit, expressed as Yin Yang. It symbolizes the idea that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. There is a belief in part of the Chinese culture, that a physical illness is caused by an imbalance of Yin Yang.

    Earlier this week we focused on ancient eastern China during the Han Dynasty and the east asian philosophies that arose during this time period. We reviewed three great asian philosophers, Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Buddha. In class we also picked from a list of quotes from these three philosophers a quote they said that really resonated with us and wrote a descriptive essay on it and shared it in class for extra credit.

As stated by the Shen-nong website, “Ancient people were greatly interested in the relationships and patterns that occurred in nature. Instead of studying isolated things, the viewed the world as a harmonious and holistic entity” ("Yin yang," 2005, p. 1). Yin and yang

All eight paths, help one know what the right thing to do is. (DD3) In China, Yin-Yang exhibits that life has equal good and bad and it will all end satisfactory. Together Yin and Yang is the, “concept of two powers that together represented the natural rhythms of life” (Document F). In life, there are ups and downs, so Yin-Yang depicts this.

life sciences and medicine drawn from the Taoist traditions of the Yin-Yang and Five Elements

The Daodejing expresses a great interest in balance in life. The Daodejing introduces the Yin (陰) and Yang (陽) and its ways. Yin and Yang balance the good and bad to create a virtuous situation. Daoism is presented as a much more spiritual way of life. Laozi urges people to follow ‘the Way’ (道) as it leads to a more rewarding, humbling, and virtuous life.

At the core of any nation’s culture are its religious beliefs. In China there are the “Three Jewels” Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, as described in Lopez (1996). There are small numbers of people practicing other religions such as Christianity and Islam, but these are the three dominant beliefs of the region. While they are separate in content, they have coexisted for several thousand years. Lopez (1996) goes on to say, “Historical precedent and popular parlance attest to the importance of this threefold division for understanding Chinese culture…Buddhism is the sun, Daoism the moon, and Confucianism the five planets…suggesting that although they remain separate, they also coexist as equally indispensable phenomena of the natural world.” Each belief system stands alone, and at the same time needs the other(s).

Taoist master Mantak Chia teaches his students to meditate with trees, in Doing so releases our stored negative energies . In a Cosmic Tree Healing Qigong method, he teaches his students to align their bodes with the energetic field of a tree. This method according to Mantak Chia, helps to transform the body's negative and sick energy into positive and healthy energy. Coonecting your energy to a tree makes life with an emotional and physical positivity that much more manageable.

Inherent in the sacred religious myths of China, the story that unfolds is that of the Dao . This harmonious and mythical story of the Dao is something shared by all yet, concealed in natural forces. It is only in the relationship between the Dao and the individual that one’s authentic self is comprehensible. The totality of creation works via the congruent combinations of the harmonizing opposite’s, yin and yang (Esposito 19). Yin is defined as the passive female

The Yin Yang is one of the primary principles of Taoist teachings. The concept of two forces present everywhere, completely opposite to each other yet balancing and enhancing each other. They cannot be separated because they exist together in comparison, and splitting one apart will only create the other anew. Although one force can take prevalence over the other for a short time, anything that is in a state of imbalance for long will cease to exist. The universe is composed of and held together by the tension of these two forces, and this concept is in Taoist writings on Abstraction. (A2)

As of 2013 the Yangshao and Hongshan cultures provide the earliest known evidence for the use of feng shui. Until the invention of the magnetic compass, feng shui apparently relied on astronomy to find correlations between humans and the universe.[3] In 4000 BC, the doors of Banpo dwellings aligned with the asterism Yingshi just after the winter solstice—this sited the homes for solar gain.[4] During the Zhou era, Yingshi was known as Ding and used to indicate the appropriate time to build a capital city, according to the Shijing. The late Yangshao site at Dadiwan (c. 3500-3000 BC) includes a palace-like building (F901) at the center. The building faces south and borders a large plaza. It stands on a north-south axis with another building that

Adler, Joseph A. "Confucianism in China Today." 14 Apr. 2011. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. .

When Western people think of Confucianism, they often think of it in a past sense- as something only relevant to ancient China that cannot be applied to modern day society. However, what these people fail to realize is that Confucianism’s roots have been so integrated into China’s society that the values have become a part of every day life. Without having to explicitly state that they are following specifics aspects of Confucianism, most Chinese people submit to them, often times unknowingly. However, Confucian values not only exist in the Chinese society, but also permeate into other areas of Chinese culture such as architecture and aspects of Feng-Shui.

Traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, is one of the oldest systems of medicine to exist among humans, and it is extremely prominent to this day. According to legend, the system has been in use since the third millennium BCE. The views of such an old system differ greatly from those found in modern western medicine. Perhaps most prominent is the fact that TCM focuses more on the patient than the illness. The system considers the human to be a microcosm of the universe, implying that the body is affected by the traditional Taoist forces of yin and yang, the five elements, and Qi in the same way the cosmos are. Each of these forces act upon the “zang fu,” or organ system, directly influencing a patient’s health. Healers use qigong to assist in the restoration of stability in the body. Achieving balance, both internally and externally, is the most important aspect of healing in TCM.

Yin – yang is a Chinese philosophical way of embracing human thought which considers two dimensions including humanity, character, and situations in life. This philosophy emphasizes that two complementary forces exists in the universe that are mutually opposed to one another but still remain in unity. According to “Hegelian, Yi-Jing, and Buddhist Transformational Models for Comparative Philosophy”, it is believed that the two forces are dependent on another and are well balanced (Robert 6). This paper intends to explore the major aspects of yin-yang way of thinking, how it affects the Confucius and Lao Zi ways of viewing happenings in the universe and the application of this kind of thought to the contemporary society