I have a story to share. Let me explain. It is unavoidable and it is the truth that we won’t be liked by everyone we encounter in our life. In life there will always be people who try to thwart the progress of those that are spiritually advancing for various selfish reasons.

Some will treat us like a friend to our face, then lie, cheat and steal behind our back. Others will give us the best advice they have to offer and will do it in such a way that we’ll be convinced that they are right, even though they are very wrong, which will bring us much trouble. Still others will implant bad ideas in our head about ourselves or others, that were never our thoughts to begin with.

A particular sect of Tibetan Buddhism uses mantras as a spiritual protection, an aura of defense, if you will. What does it mean to use a mantra as a defense? It means having a protection from harm. You must be initiated into this practice of Yidams in person with a Guru from an authentic Vajrayana Buddhist lineage in order for them to work. It’s one of the highest yoga tantra practices. Yidam Practice is a way that leads to accomplishment and enlightenment. ‘Yi’ means Mind. ‘Dam’ means Committment. It is a ‘Mind Commitment.’

Oh sure you can recite the Yidam’s mantra if you learned it but without the teachings surrounding it and an understanding of the teaching, a true empowerment, you’re as good as useless with it. The majority of practicing Tibetan Buddhists do not practice this type of high yoga tantra as they’ve not been officially initiated.

Now as the story goes, in the late 19 century there was a great scholar who was   accomplished with siddhis and who was a person that possessed supranormal perceptual states. Siddhis are typically defined as “a magical or spiritual powers for the control of self, others and the forces of nature.” Some might say it’s magic while others might say its being extremely adept at controlling the mind.

This scholarly monk was versed in Nyingmapa and had written a text about the Middle Path, about how to clear up some diversification points. As was normal for that time period the Tibetan Buddhists debated the teachings of Buddha holding all the authentic teachings valid.

In the debate about the Middle Path the debating monks first became very sad that this Nyingmapa scholar had defeated them with flying colors. Their sadness grew into hatred and once that happened they held wrong views. They decided they must perform a powerful puja to subdue him and convinced themselves that if they subjugated the Nyingmapa scholar that they would be protecting the Buddha’s holy teachings. Thus they set out like vultures to put him off by performing wrathful prayers and did perform these pujas. Unfortunately for them they had met with someone highly unsusual.

This Nyingmapa scholar remained normal, stayed healthy & happy. He did see a few inauspicious signs so was aware something was up.

Well, when the 13th Dalai Lama heard of what these monks had done he was so worried he sent his messenger to apologize for those monks. The Nyingmapa scholar was none other than Jamgon Ju Mipham Gyatso also known as “Mipham the Great.” (Mipham is considered to be one the three “omnscient” writers of the Nyingma tradition) When the messenger delivered the apology to Mipham Rinpoche he simply smiled & replied: “What those monks had performed was utmost powerful. It could crush a huge mountain into dust. If I have not assumed the Glorious Yamantaka form, I am dead by now.”

What happened to those monks who performed the pujas and wrathful prayers to subdue Mipham Rinpoche? Some committed suicide, some died of an illness, some went crazy, some had bad luck.

There is a lesson in what happened to these monks.

Tibetan Buddhism is divided into two major sectors, Sutra-yana and Vajra-yana and it consists of four schools : Nyingmapa, Kagyudpa, Gelugpa and Sakyapa. All practitioners from every school begin by studying sutras and basic philosophies and then slowly progress to Tantra.

Debating is a method adopted by them to sharpen one’s understanding of Buddhism teachings; while questioning others, one also examines one’s understanding. However, there is one major rule here that everyone must abide to, i.e. this is not a worldly debate, one should not grow hatred if one loses the debate and one should not be proud if he won. A wrong view can lead to one’s downfall therefore Vajrayana Buddhism emphasizes holding the RIGHT VIEW.

Guru Chokling Rinpoche described it in this way,  “As Vajrayana practitioners, like a snake in bamboo, we can only go two directions: up or down.”The bottom line is: If one misses the objective of having debate, it is better not to have one at all.

Many beginners who have heard of Feng Shui have the mistaken belief that Feng Shui is almighty. The beginner thinks, “As soon as I get it right, as soon as I master this technique  I’ll be rich, famous, capture my love’s heart, be CURED of my sickness…etc.”

Basically, Feng Shui is really like a safety-net as it prevents you from falling to death. What does this mean? It means that the right Feng Shui set-up can cushion you from going to the worst (effect from a cause) by your own act (a cause). To rephrase that, what Feng Shui does is to cushion one from going to the worst (effect from a cause) which is caused by one’s own deeds.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re receiving energy (QI) from a particular compass direction and you’ve made a blunder at work that could get you sacked. But because of that positive Qi you’re receiving you might only get demoted or just a warning.

You see, Feng Shui is always a safety net. It can’t change the fact that you will receive some karmic effects from your actions but it can reduce the negative impact. If you combine a spiritual practice with Feng Shui it will be extremely powerful at cushioning the impact although the spiritual practice is not needed for Feng Shui to work.

So it is that life flows and we receive both the good and the bad. Lao Tzu said, “Life is the flow of energy. It is the air that we breathe, the force that moves the weather, the force of all minds combined. The sage understands and utilizes this flow for the benefit of all.” (And so does the Feng Shui master) He also said, “The flow of life can be affected and manipulated by a simple thought or action. The sage is also aware that the results of such activity can be quite unpredictable.” This is where a spiritual practice can strengthen the cushioning as a focused mind is more easily able to overcome.

If someone puts all of their hopes into Feng Shui, believing they will have complete control and being able to turn everything into a benefit for them they are forgetting one important thing~ the KARMIC SUBTRACTER. Bad karma yields negativities. Those negativities reduce the positive effect given by good Feng Shui.

So, if Feng Shui can only cushion you from an impact of your own bad karma, what else can you do to change your destiny, to help you eliminate the negative karma you’ve accrued? The best way is through *doing good deeds.* Every religion, even atheists, believe in doing good deeds. No one owns the rights to the idea of doing good deeds.

How do you change a bad life into a good life? Practice all forms of kindness & develop virtue. To learn more about how you can do that watch these two videos:  http://bit.ly/mHsFz & http://bit.ly/HoWaq.

In closing, I leave you with the knowledge that Feng Shui can most certainly help you overcome difficulties if you can manage to receive positive Qi from your environment. I am here to hep you should you need me. Just ask.

Take every opportunity to do a kindness, because you never know when the chance will come again. The sage understands how a simple kindness can bring great rewards for oneself and others. –Lao Tzu

—– by the Great LF Master Tan Yang-Wu.

Zhu-zi (朱子) pointed out that :” Being descendants, one should learn medicine and geomancy (fengshui). Reason being both arts bring benevolences to our parents and ancestors.”

Should everyone know Medicine, then medicines will be inexhaustable. Should everyone know geomancy, good burial lands and dwellings will be easily accessible.

As we all have parents, and we are also parents to our offsprings. And, the compassion and kindness that directed to our parents are of nature. Based on this ground, if we happened to be competent doctor, we will provide medical assitance to our parents, as well as parents of others. In the same way, if we are skillful practitioner of geomancy, we will rest our parents at right places, and we will certain do the like to parents of others.

It is impotant in Geomancy, you do not strive for good places (burial ground) that will yield wealth and nobility for either yourself or others.

Medicine doctors can make medicine as their career. But, geomancy practitioners can not make providing consultation as their source of income, instead they should only provide necessary help to those with virtues.

Whether one could successfully acquire a good land will all depend on his/her merits. It is definitely beyond the control of FS practitioners .

For medicine, the doctor is the sole person who diagnoses, checks and prescribes treatment ; the patient has no single say throughout the whole process. The effect of treatment can be observed within a short period. However, for geomancy which concerns longer term benefits in future, its effects will only be obvious after quite some times.

When medicine takes effect, everyone are rejoiced. When fengshui takes effect, it seems nobody will applause. Why ? It is not being ungrateful, it is due to the fact that the effects were taken place after a longer period( as compared to the time took for medical treatment to take effects).

You can pay to acquire a doctor’s service, but you have to depend on right karmic-conditions in getting a FS practitioner’s help. To those who cultivate virtues, meeting a competent master and eventually acquired a good land would not take too much effort and time.

Unfortunately, we have many FS practitioners out there who apply their skills acquiring good land for people who do not deserve it. And, factually, most of these practitioners faced tonnes of obstacles in their later life – which served as punishement from the heaven.

In this world, descedants to doctors who had been sincerely practising medicine for the benefits of others are still enjoying prosperities as the gift from the heaven. Thus, FS practitioner who practises geomancy for the sake of benefiting others will too be enjoying the like.

Heaven treats all beings with great equality. Medicine doctors who treat their patients lightly or carelessly will certainly be cursed.

So, your life depends on the path you are choosing to follow.

This is my advise from my heart to all the FS practitioners.

Kindly translated by:  千葉衣

In Buddhism, a type of incense known as ‘Sang’ is traditionally offered to the Four Guests while praying, whenever commencing an important task. Sang is special herbs mixed with certain foods and when burned creates a fragrant, perfumed smoke. There are different types of Sang offered to different deities and to be burned at different times of the day. The main reason to perform the Sang offering is so that one will enjoy the benefit of having no hindrances to success and also for the task to be successfully accomplished.

The basic principle of Sang is to increase one’s wakefulness. Tibetans like symbolism a lot and speak in such terms. Wakefulness means wisdom or the power to know the truth. Sang’s strength is that it can dissolve emotions just as the flame  consumes firewood. Sang can be burned for three reasons: 1. To simply fragrance the air; 2. Used for ridding a space of negative energy; and 3. As an offering to the Four Guests.

The Four Guest who are invited to be the recipients of a Sang offering are: First- the Three Jewels, i.e. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha; Second- the Yidam, Dakini and Dharmapala; Third- the Six-Realm Beings; and Fourth- the Karmic Creditors & Debtor which includes various classes of spirits and obstructing forces, etc.

By offering the pleasant smelling smoke to the Four Guests we receive their blessings. It is important to hold in one’s mind and heart that the Sang is an offering otherwise we are simply burning incense for the smell of it.

Breaches of samaya will be mended by offering Sang to Yidam, Dakini and Dharmapala; and, by satisfying the needs of all sentient beings, in particular one’s Karmic Creditors, we purify whatever grudges they may hold against us.

What do we mean by one’s Karmic Creditors? This refers to those that you owe, that you hurt in your past life.

In this life the Karmic Creditor (he or she) will hold a grudge towards you without an apparent reason. It’s to these Karmic Creditors that you offer Sang to pacify their hatred towards you. That feeling they have for you is hidden deep into that person’s mind so much that they may not even be aware of it.

In this instance, your Karma is something like an ‘energy’ hidden right in your soul and it radiates a signal. When you meet someone who has a negative karmic connection with you in your former lives they’ll make your life difficult. In some cases where there is a strong karmic link it becomes like a ‘big bang’ effect for you, but image how many weaker negative karmic links you have with others and what the affects of their feelings & actions have upon you. They’re out there…

The final reason for making a Sang offering to the Four Guests is to increase our opportunities for success which is called ‘Lungta’ (in Tibetan) or literally ‘Wind-Horse’ in English.

The history of Lungta is that Tibetans hung small colored flags, with one’s name written at the corners of the flags, at high places of holy sites. Being higher and at a holy site, the wind would carry one’s desires higher and higher, closer to heaven.

The same theory applies to Sang. The smoke floats up into the air with one’s prayers and the Wind Horse literally carries the person’s energy higher and higher.

When our Lungta is increased we enjoy a lot of benefits. However, when our Lungta is low and decreased, even despite our own tremendous efforts to do good, all things seem incredibly difficult for us to achieve. Even something as simple as a meritorious wish, like acquiring the right circumstances to accumulate merits, just won’t come together for us. Accomplishing the tiniest task will be encountered with an abundance of obstacles. Increasing the Lungta (Wind-horse) is essential because of it’s ability to transform negative circumstances into a positive direction.

In closing, the Sang offering to the Four Guests is incredibly powerful and useful in that it will increase our Lungta strength as well as our own inner wisdom.

“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” Exodus 20:12

“Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.” Chief Seattle

When I was a child, every Memorial Day my great-aunt would take my two brothers and I to the grave sites of our dead ancestors to honor them. In those days, family never moved far away. We lived near, worked near, and died near our family. Each cemetery we visited to see the dead relatives was within 20 miles of the other.

In the days leading up to this national holiday my great-uncle would have cut fragrant yellow daffodils, blue bearded iris, fern fronds, and salmon and red colored roses from around our yard. With much care he would lay them out on a newspaper, cut their stems, then bundle them with a rubber-band into small beautiful bouquets. Then, they’d sit in a bright red bucket full of water until the next day when we delivered them to each family member’s tombstone.

Visiting a cemetery has never been scary to me. For my younger brothers it was even a bit of fun. They would playfully chase each other through fresh mowed grass across the large green field as I was by the side of my great-aunt. Our feet would get damp from the early morning dew, and my brother’s white tennis shoes would be covered in grass stains. My great-aunt would always cry a  little as she placed the flower bouquets in the green, cone shaped metal holders that were provided by the cemetery for a small fee. She always said a prayer for our family. Afterwards, she would often talk out-loud to the dead loved one as if they stood right there with us.

In my early childhood I was raised in a devout Catholic home. I even attended a private Catholic school from first through third grade. My family’s understanding of Exodus 20:12 is something different from the way it is most often interpreted and used in church today. I was taught and shown that the word honor in this passage meant to hold my parents in deep respect, but it did not mean I must obey their every word as if a dog obeying it’s owner’s command. The passage is about how to have a long life and for us it meant to not forget where we came from, that our luck, our life even, was connected to that of our parents. My family had great respect for the dead. To me then, it makes sense that I might somehow be personally affected if something bad happened to my ancestor’s grave.

Perhaps it was because of these moments that I found Yin Zhai Feng Shui so easy to accept. Yin Zhai literally translates to ‘yin house’ but it might more appropriately be known as ‘yin grave.’ In this type of Feng Shui a master will locate a burial site for the body in a favorable spot where it will receive the most beneficial Qi. This method, used to locate a favorable spot for the dead is somewhat different then that used to find a good location for the living but the principles are still the same.

In Feng Shui there is Na Qi and there is Cheng Qi. Na means ‘riding’ and Cheng means ‘receiving.’ Qi is an invisible subtle energy and believed to be a real physical force. There is internal Qi and external Qi. The dead, material body of the ancestors is touched and affected by the external Qi. The placement, the location of the burial plot of the deceased, will have some impact on their living descendants. The only way to study these things is to exam what happens to the living family members when the body is placed in a favorable or unfavorable location. A Feng Shui master can tell you what is happening to each family member based on the location of that person’s deceased parent’s body.

Although Chinese Feng Shui masters of ancient didn’t call it DNA, they knew a connection existed between the physical body of the dead to their living descendants. While it cannot be proven in Feng Shui it’s believed the DNA of living descendants resonates with that of their dead parents. It’s like this: Imagine your parent’s DNA is a guitar string. If your parent’s string is plucked or picked, you’re going to feel a little of it too. The reason? The other strings on the guitar will vibrate with the parent strings. Beautiful, right? So, if you don’t want bad things to happen to you make sure that nothing bad is happening to your parent’s grave. (Around a favorable site: Digging up the landscape and destroying hills, or putting in drainage pipes, digging under graves to put in transporation, pipes, etc. will all have a disturbing and negative affect on the dead body and it will be felt by the living descendants.) If the grave is water logged and flooded, undoubtedly the descendants will suffer misfortune and illness, typically one or many will have cancer in that family line because of the swamped burial plot(s).

Why might someone who is having good luck while their parents are alive suddenly have bad luck when their parents are dead & buried? The buried body might be buried in a bad spot and receiving negative Qi. How long will the descendants bad luck last? Answer this question: How long does it take for the human body to decompose?

Also, the cremated ashes of a parent will have considerably less impact on the living descendents then the entire decomposing body. The residual energy of the DNA is said to last for only about two to three years after a cremation. If your parents have had an especially difficult life, (street person, alcohol/drug addict, mental illness, etc.) it might be best to consider cremation rather than burying their body otherwise you’ll be affected for a longer period of time.

Some of you might think, “One or both of my parents are alive. Does where they’re living now and how they live affect me?” In Feng Shui the answer is a definite YES. In addition, the life and death of a child does not affect the parent’s DNA in the same way. The parents are the original cause of that chain of energy and not the the child. There is only one parent string. So, if you don’t have children your particular mixture of energy is said to no longer be in existence once you die and your body is gone.

So be kind to your parents whether they are dead or alive. You need to do it not just for them, but for your own good luck.

“To support mother and father, to cherish wife and child and to have a simple livelihood; this is the good luck.” ~ Buddha ❀

My boss has me working on a chapter for his book about an orangutan that looks exactly like a woman. I had to ask my Buddhist friend Hermit for help in understanding the nature of animal love vs. human love. Here’s the start of the chapter, based on the information my dear friend shared with me.

Charles Robert Darwin must have good karma. People still celebrate his birthday today. He’s the man who brought us, “On The Origin of Species” in 1859, the theory of evolution by natural selection. It’s hard to believe that in 1859 the ‘modern’ theory of atoms was only 6 years old, and the world was thought to be a mere 6000 years old.

I mention Darwin because in learning Feng Shui, it’s nice to understand how things evolve. (Although it’s been said that knowing the theory is not necessary if you’ve been taught the proper FS application.) And energy, according to Taoism, had a role in creating our world.

It’s believed that the I-Ching arose from Taoism, and Feng Shui is the material application of the I-Ching principles of energy to our physical environment. Taoism shares some similarities to Darwinism but it doesn’t compliment it. Yet Taoism doesn’t offer any straightforward answers. It is more like a puzzle.

In Taoism we believed in a heaven and earth, and from Nature there came the beings. Thus the earth and it’s life forms are not created from divinity. According to Taoism, everything is constantly moving………It’s the Natural Law. In the beginning everything was homogenous. Then over time they separated and formed different energies. The heavier ones produced Yin and sank to create our earth. The lighter ones produced Yang and floated to heaven. When they mixed, they created beings.

In addition, there are different categories of Yin and Yang. They can be divided further. Some are lighter Yin or Yang, and some are heavier Yin or Yang. Yin and Yang are mutually attracting and opposing forces. By their fundamental natures, they are equal in all respects but forever separate entities. It is like Ci-Xiong, the concept of Male and Female. Without this differentiation it would mean no living things.

Taoism agrees with Darwinism to some extent, but not all of it. Depending on where these different types of Yin and Yang energies met and mixed, different forms were created. The modern evolutionary theorists tries to trace human life back to “Lucy” from Africa. Taoist beliefs don’t fit with that assumption. Ask yourself, “Why do we find so many different human-type skeletons that only share some similarities?”

Where Taoism is concerned, different types of humans could have been in existence almost simultaneously. They could have been in today’s China, Africa, America, India, or anywhere, all at the same time, if the conditions were right. In Taoism, the reason we have so many creatures in this world, such a variety, (including humans), is because these energies met and mixed in different environmental conditions.

Taoism believes that the world is a mirror to the sky. Whatever energies appear in the universe will be materialized on earth, as an emanation. This is also a Feng Shui concept.

Originated in India or China. The lion is featured in Buddhist lore, being the mount of Manjusri

Once upon a time in Batu Pahat, Malaysia, there sat facing each other a Chinese Society building and a Hindu temple. For many years they had peacefully co-existed.

For those of you who don’t know, the country of Malaysia sustains a diverse culture, with a mixture of religious heritages. The most influential ones there being Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus.

Now, one day the Hindu committee in charge of taking care of the temple there decided it was time to rebuild the temple’s old dome. Only, when they made their plans, they decided they would make their Hindu temple’s dome larger, and taller, than it had previously been.

Whether it was intended to show force or not, when this monumental structure was completed, it was higher than the Chinese Society building. In fact, the new Hindu temple dome towered over it, and put a tremendous pressure on the Chinese Society building.

Not long after it was built, one by one, the Chinese Society committee members began to fall sick. They had no choice. Something had to be done. They called a Tibetan Buddhist who was also a Feng Shui master for help.

The Feng Shui master surveyed the site and took note. He examined the landscape and other buildings surrounding the Chinese Society building.

He had a solution. He asked the Chinese Society committee to close all the windows and doors of their building that faced the Hindu temple. They were also instructed, they should hang a black Lion’s Head used in the Chinese Lion Dance on the second floor balcony, facing the Hindu temple. The Feng Shui master also wrote a Buddhist mantra on a yellow piece of paper, asked them to frame it, and hang it above the Lion’s Head.

When the heavy wooden doors of the Chinese Society building were permanently sealed shut, the Luan Tou effect of the high Hindu temple dome, (with hundreds of statues on it), was reduced. The people in the Chinese Society building are now not exposed directly to the pressure of the dome.

In addition, the fierce looking black Lion Head creates a LT (Luan Tou) effect towards the Hindu temple. The Black Lion Head is seldom used in the Lion Dance. Furthermore, the mantra used is of the ‘White Umbrella’ – Dugkar (Tibetan). This wrathful mantra, placed above the Lion’s Head, creates a spiritual uneasiness. This particular mantra is seldom used because it is only for attacking or defending.

Not long after the Chinese Society committee members made the corrections, one-by-one the committee members of the Hindu temple fell sick. One of them even went crazy.

With the power of Feng Shui, and the power of the mantra, the negative Qi sent towards the Chinese Society building had been reversed.

Moral of the story: “Love thy neighbor.”

(This is key advice to all who practice real Feng Shui)

There is such a thing as the three types of luck. Bad luck and good luck is a combination of these three:

1. Heaven Luck: This is the luck you were born with. It tells us about the qualities that lie within you, that you brought to this planet with you.
2. Man Luck: This is the luck you create for yourself.
3. Earth Luck: This is Feng Shui.

To begin, Heaven Luck, will tell you the path that you are on and what is most likely to happen in your life, as an ordinary person. We can learn a lot about you by using the date and moment of your birth as a reference point when we study the Chinese 4 Pillars astrology chart. Although it is difficult to change your destiny, your Heaven Luck can be changed, through your own positive actions.

No other astrology is as accurate in predicting life events as 4 Pillars astrology. Why do I say this? Because 4 Pillars astrology is the only astrology that says we humans are an aggregate of 4 elements. 4 Pillars astrology will show your weaknesses and strengths, your entire composition. No other astrology on earth takes into account our entire being.

Second, Man Luck is your own mental thoughts, feelings, emotions, as they turn into actions, thus creating your own karma on earth.

A person with a Bi-Polar “DIS- order” of the body, is actually experiencing a chemical imbalance in their brain. The thoughts they think, the way they treat themselves, and the way they behave towards others, all of this falls into the category, “Man Luck.” By doing good deeds for others they could develop GOOD merit. When a person accumulates enough good merit, heaven smiles on them and they can change the course of their life by reducing negative Karma that happens to them.

Earth Luck is Feng Shui. The electromagnetic energy of the earth, in combination with the waves coming from outer-space, affects not only our brain patterns, but also the cells in our body. Because of DNA, the treatment of the bodies of the dead affects the lives of their living descendants.

In the beginning, Feng Shui was originally reserved for use by only the kings. The correct burial location ensured that king’s descendants continued to acquire their ancestor’s good luck. Of course, those same concepts could be applied to their living surrounds, and they were again used by the ancient kings to enhance their own luck.

Way back then, the average Joe did not have a chance of using, or learning the REAL Feng Shui. In fact, today’s average Joe still does not have a chance of learning it, or using it, today.

I don’t believe that an energy healer can ever be protected ‘enough’ from the negative influences of others. When you heal someone with your vital life force (known both as either Qi, or Prana), you transmute that sick person’s life force. In fact, one of my trusted spiritual sources tells me that most energy healers in Asia die of a heart attack. (In the United States it would be hard to say if this is true as the majority of Americans don’t think about the invisible elements that surround us, and affect us whether we ‘see’ them or not.)

Anyway, my main objective in sharing about the human aura was to introduce feng shui enthusiasts to the idea of how we are affected by the energy of the person we are attempting to help with feng shui. So, in this comment to you I am providing a warning now to so-called feng shui masters.

My own personal experience is that I have felt the karmic effects, repercussions, of helping someone, even at a distance. Part of my experience has to do with the magnetic aura which surrounds each of us and extends out for as far as the energy can reach.

As I am touching, so am I being touched.