Feng Shui: An Ancient Chinese Science

What you have to do is just keep the place tidy. Tidy up everything. Move all the trailers to the other side, to a lower place. Just move them there. Do you know why? Because our meditation hall is lower than all this garbage, and it makes you feel pressure. Just today I told someone that if you move all this away, you'll have more luck. Because then you'll feel more like, "Ah! It's spacious." And when you go out, you won't feel like there's pressure; this isn't good Feng Shui because if you put the garbage on top of your roof, it blocks all the views and makes you feel narrow, or as though you're being pressed between two blocks and that's not necessary. But when you walk out of the meditation hall and the first thing you see is a toilet above your head, you just don't feel good about it.

If you have this psychological feeling, you don't feel good; you feel heavy, and then you attract heavy kinds of atmospheres that come to you and become bad luck. If you feel good, if you feel happy and relaxed, you'll attract that; like attracts like. You'll attract or create that kind of lively atmosphere and luck, or a feeling of being very happy. Then you'll attract more happiness, more light, more liveliness, a more bright-hearted feeling; and then luck will come. That's what we call "good luck." So good luck or bad luck we make ourselves.

There's nothing superstitious about saying that when you move those things, you'll have more good luck. It's the same principle as in your house with Feng Shui. This isn't superstition: Feng Shui is something like an old science. For example, if you built a house, especially in the old times, it was even more important then. In the old times, sometimes you could build a house on top of an undercurrent of water and you wouldn't even know it. Then, after a while, the outside of your house would collapse, and that would be no good.

So some people would have to go and measure with whatever they possibly could, to see if there was something dangerous under the ground. Sometimes underneath there could be an iron mine or something like that, which would affect your magnetic field. For example, if some magnetic iron was underneath and if you first slept on the left side then five minutes later, you'd become just like a needle attracted by magnetic iron and sleep on the other side. (Laughter) Then later on, you'd sleep like this (Master assumes an upside-down position), and that's not good Feng Shui.

Feng Shui is a science; it's not superstition, if you know about it. It's not like saying that if you put the house that way, God will protect you, but if you put the house this way, God won't protect you. God isn't that way or this way; God is everywhere. For example, if the door of your house faces south, this is good. Everyone knows that. Why is it good? Because the south represents more light so most people, when they sleep, if they face the south, it's good for their health. That's one example of Feng Shui. It probably just coincides with the movements of the universe. When they move together in harmony, it brings more health, and when you're healthier, you're happier. When you're happier, you attract more luck.

So in the old times, people emphasized Feng Shui more because they didn't have equipment to solidify their basements or other things that we have in modern times. They had no equipment so they had to rely on people who either had their third eye or psychic power open and could see water underneath, or who had some kind of psychic ability within them where they could sense that something under a house wouldn't be good for the owner if it was built on top without a protective layer before the basement. So they just did something. This was nothing like voodoo; there was no need for that. Sometimes they did something just to neutralize a force of nature, and then they blessed the house.

It's OK; if you believe in that, it's good for you. But you'd better find a good Feng Shui master! Otherwise, I could also become one and just say, "Hula, hula, hoop," "Holy Names," or "Meditate." (Laughter) If the north wind, which is cold and bad, always blows this way, and you face your house this way, then of course you're bound to catch a bad cold a lot of the time. Whenever you open your door, or the wind comes through the door crack, it sometimes gives you a piercing, pulling kind of headache. If you face that way to sleep or face that way to drink tea all the time, and then if you close the door, you'll feel a piercing draft, like a sharp wind, coming to you. And if you open the door, the bad wind will come in and bring with it all kinds of disasters. It's bad for you, bad for your health, and that's bad Feng Shui.

"Feng" means wind and "Shui" means water. In the old times, wind and water were very important to people. Before we had tap water or anything like that, if you had a house, you'd have to have water nearby. So you'd have to ask a person who knew Feng Shui. He could sense where the water was because he had a crude instrument. Or, his psychic ability would say, "OK, here you can build the house this way, and then dig a well that way and you'll have water." And so you'd face the house that way because the "Feng" that would come this way wouldn't be good for you and so on.

So Feng Shui is like that. It's just the positioning of a house in accord with the harmony of nature. This became Feng Shui. Similarly, it's bad Feng Shui that you've practiced all these years. I suppose that among all of you here there are a lot of voodoo masters, and you know Feng Shui. Many of the Chinese here studied the I Ching and so on for years before I was even born. And you study Feng Shui and all the wigwag kinds of signs, but you still don't do anything about it. Even though I haven't studied any Feng Shui, I know this is no good. You just don't feel good, that's all; a good feeling isn't there. Don't you feel a little pressure when you come in and go out with that crack over there? No, you don't. You always close your eyes and meditate, and leave everything else to Master.

That's why I have to do it all the time. I have to clean the kitchen for you and get mad, and now I have to clear these things off. You should plant some crawling kind of plant, maybe beans or something that you can harvest. And also cover the fence or cut the fence into levels, or change it into a kind of see-through fence. If you don't want people to see, that's fine also, but paint it green or something that goes together, not a different or very contrasting color that's disturbing to the eyes. We're not talking about artistic taste. Whatever is disturbing to your harmonious sense of beauty isn't good Feng Shui.