From the site selection of settlements in Yangshao culture period, to the site selection of modern urban construction, and even the site selection of each building, all reflect the experience summary of our ancestors on living practice. Geomantic omen, which originated in ancient times, is the crystallization of experience in choosing living environment. From life, scientific and reasonable. It still plays a guiding role in our construction, so it is considered as "promising knowledge that experts are seeking to develop" (city image).
1 What is Feng Shui?
Many people think that feng shui is "hiding the wind and getting water", which is very one-sided. Feng Shui is a knowledge formed by our ancient ancestors' choice of ideal living environment, and it is also a summary of our ancient ancestors' living experience.
1. 1 Feng Shui is a world view.
Let's first look at such a sentence: "Internal qi is born, external qi is born, internal and external products, and Feng Shui is self-contained." This sentence interprets "qi" and "shape" as "internal qi" and "external qi", which are multiplied to form Feng Shui. "Qi" refers to a more abstract substance, while "shape" refers to a more specific substance (discussed in detail below). "Qi" in Feng Shui should be written as "brush". The above sentence can be interpreted as "qi = internal qi+external qi" or "qi = qi+shape". It can be seen that "qi" and "shape" are two aspects of the basic elements of Feng Shui, namely abstract things and concrete things. These two aspects of "playing" interact and transform each other through their internal universal connections, which constitute everything in the world. Therefore, from this perspective, Feng Shui is actually a world outlook, a simple materialism of monism, and a "specialty" of China traditional culture. It is scientific in general philosophy.
In the feudal society with low productivity and underdeveloped science and technology, our ancient ancestors could only have a certain perceptual knowledge of what they saw and felt, but could not conduct in-depth research and discussion on the deeper or essential things of Feng Shui, so as to achieve an accurate rational understanding, or the rational understanding was not thorough. This inevitably makes feng shui subjective speculation. However, with the development of science and technology, we should realize that after removing these subjective speculations, a large part of Feng Shui can be explained by today's science and technology, which determines the scientific nature of Feng Shui. At the same time, because of China's traditional culture, some cultural contents have penetrated into Feng Shui. Because people's dependence on Feng Shui is blind, excessive and wrong, it is both scientific and superstitious, that is, Feng Shui has the duality of science and superstition. How to critically inherit Feng Shui, carry forward its scientific nature, correctly understand its superstition, and "take its essence and discard its dross" are the primary tasks for us to study and learn Feng Shui.
1.2 Nature of Feng Shui
Geomantic omen comes from the life practice of ancient ancestors, and its purpose is to "seek good fortune and avoid evil". In order to achieve this goal, our ancient ancestors gradually summed up a series of methods and means in their lives. After people systematized these methods and means, Feng Shui was formed. From a modern point of view, it "integrates astronomy, geography, environmental protection, architecture, gardening, ethics and aesthetics" (Feng Shui and city). It can be seen that the scientific nature of Feng Shui is the comprehensive scientific nature of many modern sciences, which is consistent with the comprehensiveness and interdisciplinary nature required by the development of modern science. But from its own point of view, its essence is the scientific understanding and utilization of "communication"
"Qi" is a very important concept in China traditional culture, and it is also the core of Feng Shui in China. From 65438 to 0987, Miss Ross Bach of the United States wrote "Feng Shui-China's Orientation Art", saying that "Qi is the most important factor in Feng Shui", and "Knowing Qi, you will understand everything in Feng Shui." "Qi" here actually means "Qi". Because "shape" is something directly felt by our senses, it is relatively easier to understand, so understanding and grasping "qi" has become the key to Feng Shui. At the same time, the word "qi" replaced the word "play", which also led people to focus on "qi" in Feng Shui research.
People who exist in this world are bound to be influenced by "Qi". From the perspective of contradiction, "Qi" itself is divided into good and bad luck, and at the same time, the influence of "Qi" on people is also divided into good and bad luck. "Pursuing good fortune and avoiding evil" means that people are influenced by "qi", and the final result is "good fortune" rather than "evil". Then, how to use "Qi" or even change it, so as to achieve the purpose of "seeking good fortune and avoiding evil"?
Feng Shui schools in China are divided into "Situational School" and "Rational School". The "situation method", also known as the "disorderly head method", pays attention to the dialectical orientation of finding dragons, examining sand, watching water, acupoints and orientation; On the other hand, the method of regulating qi pays attention to the theory of yin and yang, five elements, dry branches, eight diagrams and nine palaces, and it is divided into many sub-methods, such as recovery method, Judas method, nine planets's palace crossing method, open circuit method, twenty-four mountains method and nine palaces flying star method. "Shape method" is mainly used for site selection; The "logical method" emphasizes the determination of indoor and outdoor orientation patterns. "Formal method" is more macroscopic than "principle method" because the unit it serves is not limited to one person, but a family or even a city. "Li Fa" refers to a person or a family more specifically. But no matter which method, its purpose is the same, that is, "seeking good fortune and avoiding evil", and the means to achieve this goal is to use the scientific aspects of Feng Shui.
1.3 "Wind" and "water" are opposites.
As a special term, "Feng Shui" first appeared in the Book of Funeral (Jin Guo Pu). The book says: "The air is dispersed by the wind, and the boundary water stops. The ancients gathered to make it, but stopped it, so it was called feng shui. " It is also said that "the method of geomantic omen, water is the top and wind is the bottom". It can be seen that "wind" diffuses gas and "water" gathers gas. This is the basic dialectical relationship between "Qi" and "Shape". Therefore, the roles of "wind" and "water" in Feng Shui are opposite. As long as qi is gathered and maintained, it will act more on the human body, producing so-called "auspicious" and "fierce" effects. Therefore, we can think that "keeping the wind" and "getting water" are two general principles of Feng Shui. The correct and wrong understanding of the dialectical relationship between "qi" and "shape" is one of the fundamental reasons for the scientific and superstitious nature of Feng Shui.
1.4 "auspicious" and "fierce"
We know that everything in the world always exists in opposition. Without "good luck", there is no so-called "fierceness". The influence on people is "good luck" for people's survival, and vice versa. "Auspicious" and "fierce" come from people's psychological judgment, which is based on people's experience in material contact with the outside world in life and from human simple life practice. First of all, we should satisfy people's defensive psychology, secondly, we should satisfy people's auspicious psychology, and thirdly, we should satisfy people's pursuit of "satisfactory ecological environment". When a straight road goes straight to the door of a family, we say that the family was hit by Shaqi, which is unlucky. But is the straight road in front of Versailles also hit by suffocation? No. It can be seen that the definitions of "auspicious" and "fierce" are also influenced by cultural differences in different regions, depending on the degree of people's ideological attention. However, if we rely too much on Feng Shui and have a wrong understanding of Feng Shui, it will lead us to ignore its scientific nature and make Feng Shui more superstitious. This is inevitable in feudal society where productivity and technology are underdeveloped. We should grasp the main aspects of contradictions and correctly distinguish between science and superstition.
In geomantic omen, qi is divided into good and bad, which can gather "good luck" and disperse "evil" as good luck, and gather "evil" and disperse "good luck" as evil. For example, the house where we live is not ventilated, so it can be said that "gas" is gathering. But if people live in this unventilated house for a long time and can't breathe fresh air, it will easily lead to people's weakness and poor resistance, which is harmful to people's health. In this case, "qi" is of course "fierce", and it needs the wind to continuously blow fresh air into the house to achieve the "auspicious" effect. For example, Lanzhou, a major town in the northwest, has a good terrain. In terms of geomantic omen, it hides both wind and water. However, due to the pollution of petroleum, chemical and metallurgical industries in this city, the air quality is quite poor, ranking second from the bottom in the world. This is because the wind speed in the city is 0~ 1 m/s, which belongs to static wind, and the pollutants in the air cannot be discharged (see Figure 2). It has caused great interference to the quality of life of urban residents. At this time, the "qi" is still very fierce, and the wind is needed to dispel this "fierce".
Figure 2 Only the analysis of the static wind in Lanzhou can achieve the "auspicious" effect.
Visible, feng shui is through the use of "qi" and "shape" dialectical relationship, so that human beings can survive and reproduce for a longer period of time. In order to achieve this goal, only by exploring nature, understanding nature by scientific means, and then achieving harmony with nature, is the fundamental concept of Feng Shui. In other words, the fundamental reason why Feng Shui can exist and develop is its scientific side, while its superstitious side is based on science and is caused by misunderstanding of its science.
2 "Qi" concept
Since "Qi" is the focus of Feng Shui research, what is "Qi"? What are the characteristics of "Qi"? Let's discuss the scientific nature of "Qi" from several different aspects.
2. 1 What is "Qi"?
"Qi" is a very important concept in China traditional culture. In the theoretical thinking of philosophers of past dynasties, its connotation and extension have developed continuously and become very broad, and each academic has extended applications and different meanings. In Feng Shui, "Qi" contains almost all its meanings and plays a role.
"The husband's yin and yang are the wind, rising to the clouds, falling to the rain, walking on the ground and being angry, and everything is born." ("Burial Book")
"Fu Shan Xuan also, its gas just also; Sichuanese are mobile and soft; Rigid and soft, standing upright. " (Buried Wings)
"Internal gas is born, external gas is born, internal and external products, and feng shui is self-contained." (Mr. Kate's Funeral)
"Qi begins to be biochemical, but it is scattered and tangible, scattered and educated, and finally changes." (On Su Wen and Zheng Wuchang)
Figure 3 Master Plan of Three Dry Dragons in China ...
2. 1. 1 "Qi" is the essence of nature
There is an old saying: "Where gas gathers, it looks like the sky and the earth." China explained in ancient times that the formation of everything in the world was a process of "beginning-machine-completion". Our ancestors thought that the world was a mass of chaotic gas, with clear gas rising slowly and turbid gas falling. Clear air becomes natural phenomena such as wind, rain, thunder and electricity, while polluted air becomes objective substances in nature such as mountains, rivers and rivers. So we also have weather, atmosphere,
Figure 4 The underground stratum is said to have folds such as "astronomical phenomena" and "topography".
2. 1.2 "Qi" is essentially energy.
As we all know, the formation of Himalayas is the result of continental plate drift. In modern science, the topography of China is high in the west and low in the east, and the important orogenic belt is the eastern Kunlun Mountain in the northwest. 【 In ancient geomantic omen, it was believed that Kunlun Mountain was the ancestral vein of all the mountains in the world, and all the mountains originated from Kunlun Mountain. China is divided into three dry dragons (south of the Yangtze River, middle reaches of the Yangtze River and Yellow River, and Yellow River).
Fig. 5 underground strata fracture). See fig. 3].
Due to the compression of plates, underground strata will form geological conditions such as folds and fault zones (see Figure 4 and Figure 5), and at the same time, some energy will be released. We know that the conservation of energy will transform the released energy into other forms such as temperature, electric energy and biological energy, which will cause various natural phenomena such as climate change and earthquake, and then act on the human body, and affect the changes of people's mood and physical condition through subtle energy changes. Under the influence of this energy change, people always seek a dynamic harmony consistent with natural changes in order to achieve long-term survival and reproduction.
2. 1.3 "Qi" is the essential need of human existence.
Nature is the foundation of human existence, and human beings are also a part of nature. The first sentence in the opening of the geomantic classic "Ten Books of Yangzhai" says: "The place where people live should be dominated by mountains and rivers." Why? Because water is the source of life, mountains and rivers can provide people with food, wood for building houses and other means of subsistence. All the advanced civilized areas in history, such as the Yellow River Basin, the Yangtze River Basin, the Nile River Basin and the Aegean Sea, are close to water sources. This is the so-called "qi stops at water". Where there is water, gas will "gather", which is the result of people's choice of living environment and the essential demand of human survival. At present, both the Yangtze River Delta Basin and the Pearl River Delta Basin in China are economically developed areas, while the Songhua River Delta Basin in the northeast is originally an economically and industrially developed area. However, due to people's poor awareness of environmental protection and serious environmental damage, some areas of Songhua River Basin have been cut off. Is this just a coincidence with the gradual backwardness of the economic situation in the delta region? Can't help but cause people to think. Some scholars have also made corresponding geomantic assessments on some foreign cities such as Moscow and Washington, and found that the patterns of these big cities also meet the basic requirements of geomantic omen. It can be seen that no matter ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, cultural similarities and differences, the essential needs of human survival are the same. In Feng Shui, this is "Qi".
2. 1.4 "Qi" is the expression of human spirit.
In the traditional culture of China, "spirit" is the embodiment of whether a life has vitality. People often refer to words such as beaming, effeminacy, temperament, talent and misfortune in their lives. "Qi" here refers to people's mental outlook. After people meet their material needs, they will have higher needs-spiritual needs, which refer to people's psychological needs. It comes from people's experience in meeting material needs and the experience accumulated in this process. Of course, we can't rule out the idealistic part that people speculate out of thin air. Therefore, the ancestors linked the appearance of geographical rivers with the reality of life, and named them Bijia Mountain, Gaihua Mountain, Wenbi Mountain and Yuji Mountain to realize their inner desire for "good luck". Maanshan, Anhui Province is a typical example.
2.2 the essence of "Qi"
2. 1.5 "Qi" is a kind of microwave.
Two American radio astronomers found that there is a kind of microwave in the universe, which is not weakened by any external conditions, but also affects other things in nature. Scientists have also found that the curved parts of animals' feet, palms, faces and plant leaves are like TV antennas, which receive such electric waves all the time, thus affecting themselves. Under some conditions, this wave is reflected into different colors of light, which is usually invisible to the naked eye. This kind of microwave is called "cosmic background radiation", and its discovery is called "opening the door to explore the evolution of the overall physical properties of the universe". Some scientists believe that this wave is the "qi" in Feng Shui.
2.2.2 Everything has "Qi"
Everything in the world is related to a certain extent, which is manifested in the law of universal gravitation in physics. When the "Qi" around a substance itself is organized according to a certain relationship, it constitutes a "field". In real life, we often mention the word "aura". People use infrared rays and microwaves emitted by other substances in nature to invent advanced scientific means such as remote sensing technology, which is also the use of "gas". People who practice qigong have a skill called "gathering qi". They think that the "gas field" around qigong masters is very strong, while the "gas field" of other people or things is very weak, which means that people radiate microwaves and energy like other substances in nature. Infrared thermometer works by using this characteristic. When the microwave of human body is roughly the same as that of nature, there will be a * * * sound between man and nature to achieve harmony.