My Grandson's Graduation

Cute, isn't it? This reminds me of graduation ceremonies of a Feng Shui Academy.

JY

Life (4)

Character analysis is the most important part in a life reading. We often hear people say something like this:

"You have shang guan, therefore you are rebellious."
"You have qi sha, therefore you are an outlaw."

This is very unprofessional. To be able to do a good life reading, understanding the 10 deities/gods is the first step. The second step is to see how the deities are located in the chart to see how they interact with each other. Then, examine the luck pillars to see the change in the strength of the deities and what are being brought to the surface. This will account for the major contribution to the character of a person.

The other contribution comes from Feng Shui. This consists of 3 parts. The first is the Ming Gua of the person. It is the guiding spirit and life long mentor of the person. A person has the tendency of imitating his own Ming Gua. Therefore understanding of the eight trigrams and nine stars is most important. The next thing that will affect the behaviour of a person is the environment. That is why the study of "forms" in Feng Shui is so important. The third is the stars in the house. This includes both the basic yin and yang qi of the house, the star that takes care of the person while he is asleep and the star that the person embraces while at work.

If an actor wants to perform well in a movie, he must first study the scripts to understand the character development of the hero of the story. It is in this way that he will be able to give the right reaction as the story goes on. In a life reading, it is the same. Once you can grasp the character of the person, you will know what happens when he encounters a situation. Life reading will not be a guessing game and reading the four pillars will be like watching a movie.

A good life reading is not telling the story. The astrologer should be like the director of a movie to tell the actor what to do and how to do well.

JY

Life (3)

If everything is "by choice", then what is the place of astrology? What is the place of Feng Shui?

What I can say is that we are influenced by Heaven and Earth to make a choice. Heaven also confines your choice with limitation. It is just like playing a computer game. You have to choose the weapons first. You are, however, unable to choose anything other than from the list of weapons available. If you play a different game, you will have a different list and the software will also provide you with different paths to walk on.

Among the three potentials (San Cai 三才), Heaven comes first. It affects the other two tremendously. In Chinese Astrology, the four pillars provide the fundamental ingredients to develop the character of a person. It is during the growth of a person that he builds up his character with these fundamental ingredients under the influence of Earth and Man (environment/education/friends). It is then the character of the person that guides him to make a choice when he walks the path of life.

The whole thing is an ongoing process. Nothing is written on the rocks. The picture, however, is to be painted with given instruments on given materials (paper/canvas). This is to say, not everyone is born with the same potential. One can only have the kind of achievement limited by the potential he is given at birth. Assessment of the potential is one part of astrology. It has a very important place. That is why Confucius said, "If you do not understand your destiny, you cannot be an honourable man 不知命無以為君子".

The term "honourable man" may not be a good translation of "Jun Zi 君子". The term actually refers to one who lives his life according to Heaven's will with the assumption that Heaven always means well. This is one of the more important core ideas of Confucianism.

JY

Life (2)

The term "Heaven, Earth, Man" is used in may different situations.

We can say that it simply means "When, Where, What (action)". To get the best result, we have to do the right thing at the right timing and the right place. This is the microscopic assessment of an event. A good feasibility study can be very scientifically structured.

In metaphysics, we try to study the lives of people using their birth data. We conjecture that the qi structure at the moment of birth describes the potential of a person in many different aspects. In the four pillars studies, we are not just talking about the five elements and whether the chart is balanced or not. We are studying the interaction of the qi in various parts of the chart. This changes with time as the current external qi interferes with the internal interactions. For example, the ability to make money may be weak in the natal chart but time can make it strong. Time can also bring friends and partners to help the person make money. Time, in addition, may also bring romance opportunities to the person. Thus two people with the same four pillars chart may have different outcomes. One may make good use of the timing to get rich. The other may make good use of the luck to enjoy romantic affairs. The outcome is that one gets rich while the other does not. This is by choice and not by birth.

Each element has several representations in a four pillars chart. The same element can do different things in a chart. It is up to the person to take whichever representation and to do whatever according to his free will. The outcome will be totally different.

It is naive to say that astrology is nonsence because two persons born with the same chart have totally different lives. It is stupid to claim that astrology can tell you when you will get married, when you will get rich and famous, when you will die.

Life is like a computer game. Two people playing the same game choosing the same weapons will have totally different results. That is why.

JY

Life (1)

It has been an overly quoted concept that our destiny is influenced by three factors:

Heaven - one's natal chart, the qi structure of the moment of birth and the interaction with Heaven's qi thereafter;

Earth - feng shui of one's ancestral burial site and feng shui of the house for the person;

Man - what is in the person's mind and hence his action.

Some people then hastily conclude that our free will is responsible for 1/3 of our destiny.

There are three factors but it does not mean that each has a equal weight of 1/3. The weight varies with different people. The weight also varies with time.

For example, when someone commits suicide, it has nothing to do with Heaven and Earth. It is 100% the person's exercise of his free will. According to the natal chart, the person may have to deal with some very difficult situation. The feng shui of the house where he lives may have brought him very bad luck. It may even induce a self-destruction notion in his mind. However, it is his free will that causes him to commit suicide.

From the destiny chart we may be able to see that the person may destroy himself. This is not to be interpreted as committing suicide in the literal sense. This only points at the person doing something leading to his own destruction. He may do something to ruin his career, his family and himself. There is no problem that has only one solution - death although this sometimes may be the easiest solution.

Suicide is one extreme example showing our life is in our own hands. It may not be so with other situations. Talk to you later.

JY

My New Year Predictions

In my New Year Prediction for the Year of the Rat, I wrote:

1. Hilary Clinton will be the next US President. When she sees a rat, she will scream with tears in her eyes. Women will give her their votes because they also scream when they see a rat. Men will also give her their votes because they want to protect the fair sex.

This one is wrong. What excuse do I give? Well, she did get the votes from women. However, the young people do not like women screaming because of a rat. They think there is no excuse for women to show weakness against a rat. Therefore, she lost. I overlooked the influence of young people today in politics.

As for the other predictions, they were amazingly accurate although it was all meant for a joke.

2. Oil prices will reach $120 a barrel - because the rats steal too much oil making the supply tight. (This was too conservative.)

3. The world economy will be gloomy - more people will be as poor as a church mouse. (It will be more visible towards the end of the year when the rat is most active.)

4. There will be serious earth quakes as the rats are more active underground disturbing the earth. (I wish it was wrong.)

5. There will be more break-in because of the more activities of rats (Chinese call thieves "rats") . (I also wish it was wrong but it is likely to be true. So, take care.)

Don't take it serious when someone brags about how accurate their predictions are. New Year forecasts are nothing more than entertainment - they should be written in an entertaining way so that people know what they are supposed to be.

JY

A Story about Confucius

One day, Confucius was strolling on the street when he saw two young five or six year old boys arguing. The boys saw him and said, "Let's ask the great scholar Confucius and let him decide who is right."


"What is it that you are arguing about?" asked Confucius.


"We disagree with each other on the distance of the sun to the earth at different times of the day."


"What is your name?" Confucius said to one of the boys, "Tell me your argument first."


The boy said, "My name is Wan Li 萬里(10,000 miles). The same object appears larger when it is closer to the observer, right? When we see the sun rising in the morning, it was huge in the beginning and then it gets smaller and smaller. Therefore the sun is closest to us at sunrise."


The other boy said, "My name is Yao Yang 耀陽(Bright Sun). The same object is hotter when it is closer to the observer, right? The sun is hottest at noon. Therefore, it is closest to us at noon."

Confucius said, "You are both brilliant boys. I am ashamed of myself being ignorant of the sun."

We learn a lot from this lovely story.


JY

Karma

Karma is simply "cause and effect". The theory is most scientific. Unfortunately this term is abused all the time.

There is a Chinese saying, "If you plant melons, you will harvest melons. If you plant beans, you will harvest beans." Karma is just as simple as that.

In the old days, when there was natural disaster, the emperor would reflect on what he did and blame himself as if the natural disaster was a punishment from Heaven for his wrong doing. Well, this might be just a show to tell people he was, in fact, a conscientious emperor. Through that, the people were brought together to reconstruct the country. However, it was abuse of the term "Karma" unless what the emperor did actually caused the natural disaster.

During the "Great Leap Forward", Chairman Mao ordered farmers to turn the soil three feet under to cover up the top soil. His theory was that the soil on the surface had been used for thousands of years while the soil below was "virgin soil" and must be very fertile. This was the cause of the "Great Famine". But, he never had regrets for his crazy policies. Yet, we cannot relate the wrong doings of the Chinese government in those days to the huge earthquake in Tangshan near Beijing in 1976 because these were unrelated things.

The chief editor of a popular magazine in Hong Kong also claimed that the recent Sichuan earthquake to be punishment from Heaven on what the Chinese government did to the Chinese people. Shame on him.

JY