There are 9 spherical ‘heavens’ in Chinese science. Simply put, Feng Shui fundamentally sees Earth’s reference to the rest of the Universe predominately in a geocentric perspective.
The Early Heaven BaGua and Later Heaven BaGua refer to specific orders of the 9 spheres (or rings if you wish) and in vertical and horizontal perspective.
I took a welcome break to do some community work with 2 other veteran practitioners. They are both seniors from my Taiwan BaZi knowledge seeking days. They have kindly accepted a Group Practice for a tiny fraction of their normal fees, which comes from the commercial segment for the same land.
The community work segment is to build a town for workers from ground zero.
There are plenty to build: roads, mosques, churches, schools, polyclinics, low-cost housing, canals and reservoirs etc. We also need to consider climatic, economic, geological, and cultural limitations and conditions. So there was a considerable amount of debates on various issues affecting its Feng Shui: Soil treatment, Filtration system, Structures and designs of the housing and builds to match one another, Best possible methods to lock the river mouth, applicable standards of retaining Qi for the whole population.
This is Group Practice at its best – I do not have the burden of being a ‘master’ and neither did they demand the status or treatment of masters during the whole work trip. We come from different nationalities, training (academic background & lineage, if you must), and even habits of auditing a site. Despite the differences, the result is a pleasant, fair, and, open exchange of all possible angles in San He and San Yuan Feng Shui for a large-scale project and open discussion on best methods forward for the various features and buildings to be constructed. More trips and exchanges to be made.
To no surprises – these are the common consensus:
- Use Earth Gua （地卦）to connect the waterways and to locate tall buildings in Flatland Dragon. Both San He and San Yuan methods will conform to each other.
- (True) Landform Feng Shui is universal and comes BEFORE systems / schools / formula / mechanical techniques.
Macro / Micro or External外氣 / Internal 內氣 Form Feng Shui is always about Yin-Yang. San He sees solid forms. San Yuan sees voids. They are mirrors of each other.
The Waterway is always the main reference regardless of schools and systems.
形勢不外乎： 动静、平衡、对待、大小、高低、轻重。
Internal Forms or 內氣/陰陽 are always about vibrancy comparison of space, and, relativity (plus balance) of space in terms of height, width, depth, lightings and volume. A sense of volume and space is required of the practitioner.
- The true Liu Fa 六法 practitioners are good in 內氣 but lost in applications according to one of our trio. (When I looked at the manner Liu Fa looks at internal layout, I have to agree with him at Liu Fa’s superiority in internal layout considerations 布局以納內氣為重.)
- Use Heaven Gua (天卦) to allocate functions of rooms and space from 1st floor onwards. This is a San Yuan originated method. It has been applied in San He since Ming dynasty.
- Qi map comes first before any formula and ‘special’/’exclusive’ techniques. One needs to know how Qi enters and leaves a compound.
- Contemporary Flying Stars is not Feng Shui according to these seniors– regardless of applications.
- Moon oh Moon, don’t neglect the Moon.
- BaZi: Useful God is originally meant to be applied in Feng Shui to match specifics. It may be used in 60Jia Zi or 64 Hexagrams.
- 龍 Incoming-Dragon(Year Pillar),
- 砂 Embrace -Peaks for San He and Valleys for San Yuan (Month Pillar)
- 向 Facing for San Yuan and Seating for San He (Day Pillar), and,
- 水 Connection of Waterway for San Yuan and Watermouth for San He (Hour Pillar)
- Conception胎元, and (especially) Life命宮– these are important pillars to resolve specific crisis.
Below is a contribution of the Middle Heaven BaGua from one of the veterans. It is a connection of Moon-Earth with other spheres, and, what some claim to be lost in history or practiced by a handful of lineage-connected practitioners. It turns out Middle Heaven is already a working tool, especially in China and Taiwan. 天外有天, 還是天。
Of course, like any theory and techniques, one would need to revise it against the past case studies and on future cases. (There are other versions of Middle Heaven in the market just like any other Feng Shui theories and techniques.)
