Monday, October 20, 2008

Education: Science vs Feng Shui

Sir Issac Newton said, "What Descartes did was a good step. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

Feng Shui practitioners today claim to be the xxx generation disciple of Yang Jun Song or even Guo Po, Huang Shi Gong, ... They are proud of peeping under the trousers of these great Feng Shui masters in history. This is how the lineage game is played.

How did Newton learn from Descartes? The answer is simple: from his written work.

If we want to see more, we have to stand on the shoulders of Giants and not hiding under the legs of Giants and claim to be closely related to the Giants. How? The answer is simple: learn from the books written by the great people in history.

The "lineage holders" will say, "You can't learn Feng Shui from books. The masters in the past wrote the books in cryptic language and only the lineage holders can understand the secret. This is because the masters did not want the powerful Feng Shui technique to be in the wrong hands."

How much damage can Feng Shui do if it falls in the wrong hands? Can it be worse than using the knowledge of science and technology to create modern weapons that can kill millions?

There is a Chinese proverb: Stop eating because of hiccups 因噎廢食 that describes this stupid excuse.

Our attitude should be to stand on the Giants' shoulders to see further and to respect the Giants who give us a lift. How? Learn it the way scientists do.

JY

7 comments:

Antje said...

Dear Joseph, dear all,

I would like to offer an interesting "information" as foundation for a constructive debate for discussing "false" and "right".
As it is a quote made by Richard Wilhelm it is also lineage-neutral... :-)

This quote is in the German translation of the I Ging in which he says that the biological sex of the trigrams of the Xian Tian Ba Gua is determined by the first line of a trigram.
So according to this quote Dui, Zhen and Li are the 3 sons - as the first line is the Yang line & Gen, Xun and Kan are the 3 daughters as their first line is female/Yin.

I have posted the original complete quote on my blog (German incl. the scanned page of the book & an English translation).

http://www.barmymedia.blogspot.com/
(posts from 4th and 21st Sept.)

Happy discussing! :-)

Antje

Joseph Yu said...

Dear Antje

People can play with the trigrams in any way they like. Richard Wilhelm can play with the trigrams in his way but let us examine the following way:

The yang line and yin line actually represent the male and female organs (You need very little imagination to get the image).

Where do you find the reproductive organ? Not in the lowest part of the body as that should belong to the feet. Not in the upper most part of the body as that should belong to the head. The middle, right?

Therefore, the biological sex of the trigrams of the Xian Tian Ba Gua should be determined by the middle line of a trigram.

This means that Dui, Kan, and Xun are the three sons while Zhen, Li, and Gen are the three daughters.

Did I play a better game than Richard Wilhelm?

JY

Antje said...

Dear Joseph,

when one considers the 3rd line as upper part of the human body, the 2nd line as the middle part and so on - then it makes sense.
But when playing this a bit further then a trigram should be "born" with starting at the middle line as baby´s are born out of the middle part of a human body.
But with the usual method to derivate the trigrams it´s more like building a house, starting from the bottom/feet.

Wilhelms interpretation is more according to Adam and Eva principle, maybe also enhanced by translation. The German word for "biological sex" is "Geschlecht", which also stands for "family, gender, lineage, dynasty, stirps" etc.) So with using this as "context" for understanding his way of interpretation it makes also sense when the 1st line says if the trigram originates from the Adam or Eva family/lineage.
It would be some cloning kind of lineage, while the number of lines could be interpeted as the number of the generation...

Someone could also say that the number of Yin lines determines if it is male or female.
So Zhen, Kan anf Gen have the most Yin-lines besides Kun) and would be female (they have more female characteristics) and Xun, Li and Dui would be male, because the have all 2 Yang-lines (more male characteristics).

The interpretation of the age of the family members is also interesting.

Antje

Joseph Yu said...

Dear Antje

The story goes like this:

Adam and Eve, or Fuxi伏羲 and Nuwa女娲 made love to create babies.

The first time, Eve created a son with an organ she did not have but Adam had. Adam created a daughter with an organ he did not have but Eve had.

Since it was the first time, Eve created a son represented by the Zhen Gua while Adam created a daughter represented by the Xun Gua. Eve was excited about this and exclaimed, "With one request, I got a son Zhen! 震:一索得男"

Adam was also happy and said, "With one request, I got a daughter Xun! 巽:一索得女"

This is recorded in Shuo Gua Zhuan 说卦传.

When they made love a second time, Eve created the middle son Kan while Adam created the middle daughter Li. When they made love a third time, Eve created the youngest son Gen while Adam created the youngest daughter Dui.

Therefore the sons have the father's reproductive organ on the mother's body while the daughters have the mother's reproductive organ on the father's body. This explains why fathers and daughters, mothers and sons are more intimate.

The position of the single yang or yin line indicates their position in the family.

This is all recorded in Shuo Gua Zhuan.

JY

Antje said...

Dear Joseph,

In the comments on the Shuo Gua I have there is something shortly written about someone named "Bau Hi", probably also a clan who lived before Fuxi came.
It´s written that he invented the 8 trigrams. An order is not decribed. It´s written that this primitive state of human society is called "Be Hu Tung".
During this primitive time there didn´t exist any moral or social orders. Humans only knew their mother, not their father. Hungry they searched for food, saturated they throw the rests away. They ate their food with hair and skin and drank blood and covered themselves with furs and reeds.

(It must have been the time when "a hungry man hasn´t had any conscience".)
This time sounds pretty animalistic.

The structure/order must have been without "positions" in a family. And there obviously haven´t been families. The strongest being survives...
But the trigrams existed already according to the text.

Then Fuxi came and united man and woman, structured the Wu Xing and determined the laws of mankind. He drew the 8 signs for ruling the world.
It has been the beginning of moral and social behaviour/structure.

So Be Hu Tung was before Xian Tian? Or is it the Xian Tian?
Human bodies and instincts existed but no conscience/moral and so natural and human qi forces are in perfect balance.
Relationships, money, academic learning, career, war and peace ect. are only because of moral and social way of thinking.

Antje

Flexon said...

Hi Master Yu, I seriously agree with you that fengshui industry is flawed with so many so called' lineagemasters'.

Seem like Ken Toh agreed also .http://fengshuiforward.com/150/feng-shui-lineage/

Joseph Yu said...

Hi Antje,

Pao Xi 庖羲 is another name of Fu Xi 伏羲. He was one of the three prehistoric Emperors of China. In fact, he was the chief of the tribe who were able to make nets for fishing and tame animals for domestic use. At that time, there was early civilization in China.

Bai Hu Tong 白虎通 is the name of an ancient book written by the joint effort of a team of early Han scholars.

You can search these terms to get better information than what you wrote.

JY