A Book Review by Kartar Diamond
Lighting the Eye of the Dragon: Inner Secrets of Taoist Feng Shui was published in 2000, with a different premise than other books on feng shui. Dr. Baolin Wu’s credentials include doctor of Chinese medicine and Qi Gong healer. Dr. Wu reveals in the first chapter his upbringing, raised within The White Cloud Monastery in Beijing, supervised and taught an array of esoteric practices by Ancestral Master of the Dragon Gate Sect, Du Xinlin.
With this exotic background and formal medical training, he eventually settles in Southern California, where he still appears to have an acupuncture practice today, according to a website search. Sought out for international consulting, one of his more noteworthy feng shui projects long ago included the Bank of China, designed by famed architect I.M. Pei. He also suggested a south entrance for the Nixon Memorial Library in Yorba Linda, California.
The particulars, and the controversy regarding the Bank of China’s shape, is set against a backdrop of how vital the impact of an important piece of architecture can be. Likewise, immense natural features to an environment can also speak to a nation. Like the fertile land of China, America too has its own “dragon” positioned from the northeastern tip of the country and stretched all the way to the southwestern location of downtown Los Angeles, according to Wu. When I first read this book 20 years ago, I was drawn in by his commentary about areas I was very familiar with. However, for a long time now, downtown L.A. has festered some seriously bad feng shui.
While “feng” translates as “wind,” it is also one manifestation of Qi (life force energy) and “shui” is translated as water- referring sometimes to money. He states that “a place’s Feng Shui is a nutrient that nourishes the people who live there.” Readers can anticipate a lot of health-related analogies, since the book’s author is a doctor. And this is true, for the most part, with each feng shui practitioner. They will share feng shui through their own lens, their world view, their training and their own personal and professional experiences.
What sets this book and its author apart from some of the more popular and commercial books written around the same time, is the distinctly Taoist version of Feng Shui. Wu also says that it is imperative to devote oneself to Qi Gong and to understanding the I-Ching, Book of Changes, “like a cookbook, blending just the right proportions of Yin and Yang to achieve the desired effect.”
Covering Feng Shui’s historical origins, Wu notes that “ancient masters of Feng Shui studied the terrain and the movements of the heavens to determine the nation’s fate.” He even states that Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and its military strategies were based on Feng Shui principles. Whether the struggle is on the battlefield, the home, or the office, the same strategies may apply. As a General, a CEO, or father: Get your troops in order!
The author sets out to reveal the Mi Zong techniques of Taoist Feng Shui, only after his teacher was close to passing, instructing Dr. Wu that it was time to reveal the information to the public. Prior, there were too many ethical issues and other concerns for releasing such powerful teachings beyond the closely guarded and sanctioned teacher-student relationship. The co-author (perhaps translator) Jessica Eckstein is the mouthpiece for Dr. Wu; she relays stories about Dr. Wu and anecdotes he shares through her narrative. Likely, she has been a formal student of his or worked with him in some assistant capacity. As I write in this review, quotes or instructions from Dr. Wu are filtered through Eckstein, but there is some confusion in just a few instances, not critical, about whose personal story is being told.
From the first few pages, some very high expectations are set for what we will learn, with magical, meditative imagery and the promise of a special journey led by a Qi Gong master. I was skeptical when I read his book for the first time. Back then, I was a recent survivor of a yoga cult. A wave of yogis and gurus came to the United States in the 1960’s and 70’s, not to be confronted about their misrepresentations and transgressions for decades, or ever.
Similarly, there was a wave of Feng Shui masters, some genuine and some fake, who dazzled their Western students with Eastern philosophy and spiritual practices, while collecting a devotional following. Equally, we had Westerners fabricate their feng shui credentials and lineage, to include one memorable Ad from an interior designer who was very new to Feng Shui. She touted her “combined” experience with design and feng shui as more than 20 years! My own experiences with betrayal has forever clouded me with suspicion when it comes to spiritual teachers.
The book dives right into what truly must be its own school (Taoist Feng Shui), because many of the observations, assumptions, and recommendations cannot be tied to other classical schools that I am aware of. I have lost my objectivity in how to read a feng shui book as a beginner, so I do wonder how a person digests this information without other points of reference. For example, one of the first suggestions is to consider what season you were born in: winter, spring, summer or fall. Next, we are introduced to the direction associated with each season and told we should move to that direction (in relation to our birth location) in order to be successful in life.
Using myself as an example, I was born in the spring, so therefore I should have moved east of where I was born. That would mean towards the northeastern part of the U.S. Instead, I moved as a child and have remained in the Southwest portion of the U.S. How much weight should we place on this? Considering how I have supported myself rather well doing Feng Shui professionally since 1992, moving in the “wrong” direction didn’t seem to ruin me in the slightest, yet it’s all relative isn’t it?
He also recommends having a front door location which matches the season of your birth. This premise could have some validity, but so far we have read nothing about personal trigrams, house types, and certainly not the flying stars ranking higher in priority. And those fundamentals are never discussed in this book.
Admitting early on that these computations are talismanic, he recommends finding a house or an apartment where the numbers in the address match the numbers in your birth date. People often assume that Feng Shui has a numerology component to it, but this is the only author I’ve read who relies on this information for making big decisions. Eckstein writes, “If none of the numbers match, he tells them it won’t be worth it to pay him to come over and take a look.” From what Eckstein writes, it does seem that Dr. Wu’s primary occupation is acupuncturist and that feng shui audits are an adjunct, when a patient requests it or if their health issues cannot be resolved through Chinese medicine.
From there, he further extrapolates that you should wear colors which match the season of your birth. Of course, there are Eight Mansion people who recommend colors based on your year of birth, and Ba Zi practitioners who recommend colors, or to surround yourself with certain elements which your chart may be deficient in, but Dr. Wu has a whole new twist on personal compatibility with your space.
I have to be careful with this book review, as practically every page can be challenged and I have to remember that this is “Taoist” Feng Shui. On the one hand, he recommends that people looking for love should have pink and red colors around the house, but when shown another practitioner’s pink-themed Feng Shui logo on a business card, he dismissed the competitor as having little understanding of the I-Ching. Why so harsh? Maybe the practitioner just wanted to generate a little love from clients.
Dr. Wu also recommends surrounding yourself with yellow if finances are stuck and that white walls are good for classrooms, banks and clinics. Regarding the classroom: studies long ago showed that children who have window views to the outside (greenery and sky) actually perform better in school than those confined to a more sterile setting.
Still within Chapter Two, Eckstein explains Dr. Wu’s very unique process for using the trigrams of the I-Ching to locate the best building. With a city map to study, he interprets streets as trigram lines (short and broken or long and solid). Again, using Taoist talismanic magic, he conveys a secretive technique for narrowing in on the ideal location. Problem is, what if that ideal building is not for sale or lease?
The authors claim that this technique was created by a famous general and Taoist named Liu Bowen, used for some of the most important structures in Beijing. It’s called the Qian Kun Gua method. If we can imagine the city streets to be like a computer circuit board, he must be tracing lines of Qi and locating, like an acupuncture point, the pooling of the best Qi, relative to the range and distance from some arbitrary center.
I assume Dr. Wu used this technique to locate his acupuncture clinic in Santa Monica, California, as he notes that the downtown area has 23 streets. He says they run in a north-south direction, which is not accurate as those streets actually align Northwest-Southeast. Perhaps literal directions do not matter for this particular formula. Since I’ve done hundreds of readings in Santa Monica, I barely need to pull out my luopan, so familiar with many of the streets.
Other statements made are “all over the map,” pun intended. For instance, they write “When looking for an office, it’s often best to find one that lies below street level so that the water can flow in and fill it up.” This contradicts a general, but universal Form School principle about not building below street level, for real or virtual water/ flooding concerns. He also states that certain types of clouds in the sky can indicate mineral and oil deposits underground. Natural phenomena like that I can totally relate to. In fact, in Robert Temple’s book, The Genius of China, he mentions that a whole field called Botanical Prospecting was developed long ago by the Chinese, whereby they could locate certain minerals based on what type of plant grows above ground.
Some statements made are both amusing and intriguing, such as the recommendation for an airline company to occupy upper floors of a building and for a mining company to check out the condition of a building’s basement. These examples serve his “like attracts like” concept. The chapter closes with instructions for how to test the sheng or sha Qi of a doorway, based on the occupant’s birth sign. Testing the quality of the wind is to be performed during the double hour time of day or night associated with their zodiac sign. For example, someone born in the year of the Rooster should check the Qi of their doorway during the Rooster hours between 5 pm to 7 pm.
If the door to the person’s office or business does not open to outside with access to a literal breeze, there is an alternative back-up plan for a door that opens to an internal hallway. Creating an inconspicuous test and to the point of noticing the subtle movement of a person’s shirt hem, I assume it requires some advanced Qi Gong skills. In contrast, and requiring no training, he also writes you can tell the gender of a pregnant woman’s baby, by calling out her name as she leaves a room and see which way she turns her head in response. Spoiler alert: turning her head to the left to look back means she’s carrying a boy and if she turns her head to the right, she’s having a girl, according to Dr. Wu.
Chapter 3 is Sensing the Qi. The authors give many examples of how observing what is right in front of us, and by fine tuning our senses, we can understand essential features to an environment. Dr. Wu is particularly fond of the feedback he can receive from children and from birds. Children are not only very innocent, but a boy under seven years of age can be used as a barometer of good or bad feng shui if brought to a house under consideration, according to Dr. Wu.
If the boy can settle down and play in a room, the energy is good. If he cries and wants to leave, that is a bad omen. Other clues may come from nature, such as Dr. Wu pointing out that it is windy before it rains and animals like dogs and cats can behave strangely before an earthquake. Like birds, all creatures have a certain level of sensitivity to the Earth’s magnetic field. God help us all when we finally comprehend how dangerous and destructive 5G is and how our technologically-driven world is making many of us sick or crazy. Dr. Wu continues to reference Qi Gong and the secrets of the I-Ching to guide many of his decisions, first having to understand the ratio of Yin to Yang in any environment. He tells us that the Yin energy of females makes them better healers and therapists than men.
The occupation a person gravitates towards may be fueled by their innate yin or yang advantage. This passage reminded me of one time when I called the Fire Department because a smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector was sounding off in my home for no apparent reasons and I had no way to reach it without an extra tall ladder. Outside the door I heard the voice of a woman and I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the door. This female firefighter was well over 6 feet tall and the equipment strapped to her body was heavy. In all her statuesque Yang-Qi, I felt confident she could carry anyone out of a burning building.
The Qi of an area can produce people with certain talents and Dr. Wu recounts one province in China where the women are all known their dancing talent. I’ve also wondered about the statistically large number of legendary musical performers who have come out of England. The Qi of a place may also produce exceptionally good or plentiful types of food, such as France’s grapes, or places known for their potatoes, soybeans, or different herbs and spices. It’s good to point out these aspects of Qi since it is otherwise an elusive concept and not so easy to describe without physical examples.
The way a person looks can reveal their personality and intent. Dr. Wu states that the number one requirement of a Feng Shui master is that they need to be able to read Qi. This may sound like a daunting task, unattainable for the average person. The point being, that a feng shui master is not, by definition, an average Joe. And while some things may be obvious, other things should not be accepted at “face” value.
Dr. Wu gives the example that you might assume a lush landscape is an indication of good Qi. But if the plants are growing well just because they are feeding off a buried dead animal as fertilizer, you can’t judge a situation just with your eyes. To the uninitiated onlooker, a Taoist’s preoccupation with so many signs, including the flight path of birds, could be dismissed as superstitious. Assigning meaning to symbols can be called “semiotics” by some, mental illness by others.
In the olden days, the Feng Shui master may even put some soil in his mouth to test the mineral content. Dr. Wu actually states that a current-day practitioner who does not taste the soil around a property is not competent. While I disagree, I continue to remind myself that his approach to feng shui is based on some very different protocols, cultural and historical practices. In a current world sprayed up the Yin-Yang with glyphosate, I would advise against tasting the soil and focus on less hazardous methods. Wu teaches various meditation techniques for developing sensitivity to Qi and its mysterious ways. Perhaps this can be a stand-in for tasting dirt.
Whether you practice Qi Gong, Reiki, pranayama yoga, or any other technique to develop your senses and intuition, this can only add to your skill set. Wu says the ideal time to do these self-development practices is during the double hours that match your time of birth. For example, if you were born in the double hours of the Dragon (between 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.), this is your key time window for Qi Gong.
The book continues with more Taoist meditation practices, mantras and mudras. Were this the first or only introduction a reader has with Feng Shui, they would have a very different impression of feng shui, compared to how it is widely and conventionally practiced. By using any technique, Taoist or otherwise, to enhance one’s psychic and healing abilities, this can only assist in a correct diagnosis I would hope. And yet, what he calls for is not the meat and potatoes of feng shui.
Dr. Wu instructs in how to turn your body and mind into a human dowsing rod, a satellite dish or a wi-fi connection, using these ancient practices. I must confess that I did not stop and practice the techniques he described. Now, as we fully immerse ourselves in technological ways to access more brain power, we also return to Square One: that we are beings of Light. Light and Sound will be the cutting-edge healing modalities of the future. All of his discourse is interesting, including the admission that with the serious practice of Qi Gong or Feng Shui, a person opens themselves up to contact with entities from other planes. At least he trusts that we have nothing to fear from these entities.
So, how should I arrange my bed? These common questions still have to wait for an answer. Dr. Wu is not yet finished guiding us through more mystical exercises. And after reading variations of “if you are a Feng Shui master” a dozen times, it finally occurs to me in the middle of the book that Dr. Wu is not addressing novices or those who are just a little curious about Feng Shui. This is why he leap-frogs into cerebral discussions about the subtle body, the aura, the projection of the mind, etc. He assumes his audience is really the feng shui practitioner who has already learned the rudiments and mechanics of a feng shui audit. That, or he believes one must absolutely become more attuned to the cosmos through Qi Gong before even considering feng shui as a career path.
In the West, we casually refer to a feng shui practitioner as a “master,” not unlike a person who has earned a master’s degree in Sociology or some other subject. It implies a high level of proficiency. And yet, among a sea of feng shui practitioners and dabblers, there are very few masters. I also learned that, historically, one does not become a “Grand Master” in feng shui unless the individual has discovered something new, (worthy of another ring on the luo pan) or if they have passed on.
And yet, the higher one ascends, the more humility is required. I’m reminded of my years in martial arts training, where those ahead of me. Advanced brown belts would train hard to prepare for their black belt testing, but for the final few months of preparation, all the brown belts would go back to wearing their dirty white belts. (You’re not supposed to wash your belts. In the olden days, when the belt became black, that was a sign of how much training you had.) They called it “beginner’s mind,” and it was a reminder to be humble. The graduation to first-degree black belt was not meant to be a completion or ending, rather a beginning.
The Qi Gong exercises and visualizations contained in Lighting the Eye of the Dragon are “soup to nuts.” The insight gained from these practices can help you determine “the fate of a nation or how long a store might stay in business,” according to Wu. You can release and banish spirits and ghosts from a person’s possessed body or residence. You can pray and meditate for the recovery of an ill person by focusing on the internal organ associated with their zodiac sign, such as the heart represented by the Monkey and the spleen by the Ox.
Chants and mudras are also included in the Qi Gong repertoire. Then, the author moves into Animal Forces, discussing the elaborate symbolism of fish and birds. You can place a ceramic Rooster facing an electrical pole to deflect its “sha qi.” All of the symbolism comes from Taoism, where Qi Gong promises the ability to become a living, breathing talisman. Those intrigued by talismanic practices, I can recommend Richard Choo’s Forms of Chinese Talismans and Related Taoist Rituals and The Tao of Craft by Benebell Wen.
Side bar: The word talisman can be used in the singular to describe more than one talisman or it can be written with an “s” as in talismans. This is similar to either luo pan or “luo pans” for more than one.
After dispensing many Qi Gong exercises for strengthening and fine-tuning your aura, Wu then turns to Taoist or talismanic protocols more directly related to your physical space. He has very specific instructions for how to train your dragon in order to attract wealth luck. The number of dragons, the color, the position, the direction, the acceptable rooms, are all listed here. For example, you can place a porcelain dragon statue near a kitchen sink, but not near or in view of a bathroom.
What may not be known to the reader, is that concepts about “dragons” are quite varied in Feng Shui and not always depicted as a composite of several different animals, such as the Chinese dragon’s snake-like body with a horse-like head.
“Dragon” is also the word used to describe mountain ranges or underground ley lines and streams. And of course, in Flying Star Feng Shui, we refer to a certain type of magnetic field as a “mountain dragon or water dragon.”
There may be dragon-like deities who rule over certain weather conditions or other natural phenomenon. Like the ancient Greeks, credited with distinguishing between different types of love, the dragon archetype symbolizes numerous things, some seemingly not even related. Lest we get too superstitious, bordering on idolatry, the image of a dragon may also just serve as a visual reminder, a metaphysical “meme,” in the way that an image of Buddha reminds us to be peaceful.
Continuing, Wu states that turtles symbolize longevity and can dispel sickness. He recommends placing a turtle in a direction that matches its material, such as a brass turtle in the west compared to a wood turtle in the east. He states that turtle shells can get rid of ghosts and their curved shells also act like convex mirrors to deflect away negative energy.
Images of horses are also symbolic of business success, and one of the symbols I mentioned in my own case study called Feng Shui Symbolism. But Wu takes it a bit further, prescribing the ideal number of horse images to suit the size of the business and the frosting on the cake would be to place the image of the horse(s) in the South (Horse direction) and between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. (Double Horse Hours). If you think that talismanic magic is like casting a spell with all its ritualistic details, you are correct.
The author has some interesting things to say about cats and dogs and the use of dog or lion statues, not to confuse one for the other, as they serve different functions. One of the most famous lion statue mistakes was at the original entrance to the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. The lion’s mouth as an entrance was eventually changed, in part to quell the negative reactions from Chinese high rollers. Wu goes on to describe how powerful the precise placement of a pair of lions can be at an entrance and claims his own 100% success rate, while resorting to them infrequently and with caution.
This is because their placement will benefit the user at the expense of others, especially the home or establishment directly across from them. He forewarned one furniture store owner that in order to increase his business with lion statues, it would make the Target store across the street close which it did less than two months later. One saving grace is that when lions are placed without the other protocols of perfect direction and exact timing, they may have no influence at all. I’ve never been a fan of “offensive” feng shui, only defensive measures.
Bringing the phrase “tree hugger” to a whole new level, Wu describes how you can commune with plants and trees, appreciate their personalities and healing powers. And yet, there are guidelines for trees as well: how many, placed where, front or back. Some people are allergic to the trees on their own property, causing eczema or other health conditions. We might even call this “Big Picture” feng shui, as it relates to the environment. Having a live tree inside a house (like in an atrium) is apparently not good, according to Dr. Wu. Upon reflection, this might feel like prison for a tree.
Moving from plants to the mineral kingdom, Wu writes about live and dead stones, including natural crystals. He states that crystals are in a special category, with the ability to collect yin qi and radiate yang qi. As a kind of filter, they can harmonize a home or office. He includes a crystal cleansing technique I had never heard of before, which is to place it in the freezer overnight. Note to self: do this next time instead of schlepping all the crystals outside to sit under a full moon.
Dr. Wu says that houses which face southeast or southwest are on the “Ghost Line” and very unlucky. He believes houses should only face one of the cardinal directions. Ironically, I learned early on that a house situated exactly in the middle of any cardinal direction (0 degrees North, 90 degrees East, 180 degrees south or 270 degrees West) was only appropriate for places of worship since that line of Qi can attract spirits. Without further elaboration from Dr. Wu, the only “damning” thing I can say about a southeast facing house is that immediately after its Construction Period, that house goes into a bad phase for 20 years called a People Lock.
Wu introduces the use of a Ba’gua mirror and/or a 5-rod metal wind chime to deflect or disrupt the “ghost line.” He also recommends small round mirrors to correct the sha Qi from exposed beams. Aha! Now I am starting to see how much the Black Hat School has borrowed from Taoist magic.
Dr. Wu is a big fan of crystals and lest you assume that is just a “New Age” version of Feng Shui, he refers to their use as “sympathetic magic” or a talisman to negate the Ghost Line. When you don’t have access to a natural crystal, he swears you can use a pile of nails, sea shells, a mound of rice, or glass marbles as a substitute. Emphatic that you bury these items outside your home for protection; he even says it is worth it to break up the sidewalk in front of your house to get these cures into the ground. Another Taoist practice, called Shui Jin Gong (water crystal practice), requires that you place a clear crystal ball in the far-right corner of your work desk as a wealth formula. Wu also recommends that a crystal ball or a floor light be placed in alignment with the front door opening at a 45 degree angle.
In Chapter 7, The Ideal Environment, Dr. Wu gets into more recognizable material in terms of conventional Feng Shui. Some of his observations and interpretations are nearly universal, with some comments here and there that contradict what he wrote earlier in the book. One example illustrates a house below street level as a problem in terms of Qi flow and that a bumpy road passing a house can siphon off the occupant’s wealth. In the beginning of the book Wu had described an ideal building location placed lower than surrounding structures so that the Qi would in fact flow into the building. He also stated earlier that a gravel road is better than a paved road, which could put a lid on the free circulation of Qi. Dr. Wu could probably defend those contradictory statements with more details or context.
Where we agree are in his statements about the issues with living on top of a mountain or in the foothills, when common sense around safety should prevail. As well, living in a place that is too windy or no wind at all would be examples of excessively yin or yang environments. He rightfully cautions against living close to very Yin environments, like a church or cemetery, where the Yang nature of the adjacent residential zones would not constitute a “balance” for the yin counterpart.
Wu describes the ideal environment to include not only a Ming Ta (aka Ming Tong), which is the bright, open, airy spaces, but he also mentions the classic Four Celestial Animals.
The Green Dragon (east), White Tiger (west), Black Turtle (north), and the Crimson Bird (south) can be represented a number of ways to provide protection for any given home, but he is not so specific about how far away all of these features can be and rather hard to find in our modern living developments. At the beginning of the book, he presented a very complex way to choose an ideal location based on the streets representing trigrams and hexagrams. Now he couples that technique with the directional cues of the Four Celestial Animals. But true to Taoist symbolism, if you don’t have a real Crimson Bird to your south, you can just post some feathers at your front door.
This book really keeps me on my toes with every other sentence. For example, I agree when he states that living near a school can be good because the innocence and yang Qi of children can flow over to your home and provide an extra dose of vitality. I also agree with his premise that a home’s size should be to scale with the number of occupants. He states that sometimes wealthy people live in larger homes just because they can afford to, but obviously a large mansion with only one or two occupants will become too yin (and lonely).
These solid statements are followed by a passage where Eckstein concedes that she lives in a small bungalow surrounded by tall buildings. She writes that at least the bungalow has a pepper tree behind it, buffering the taller building and then mentions that there are banana trees to help balance the other buildings. Well, hold on here! All the emphasis on Ghost Lines and the advice to not live near a cemetery: but the banana tree is well-known for attracting ghosts!
It’s not just a feng shui edict; it’s also cultural, so I’m surprised Dr. Wu doesn’t forewarn readers (and his co-author) to not live near banana trees.
Without naming the following pages as examples of Form School, the authors describe different shapes of houses as good or bad. They think the square shape is the best and that a rectangular house is not good. Well, I beg to differ. Once we apply a flying star chart to the rectangular shaped house, there is at least a chance that the best flying stars will land in the largest sectors of the floor plan, taking up the majority of space. Wu also states that a triangular shaped house can cause fertility problems. This may very well be true since the triangle shape is known for making occupants more accident-prone. Certainly, a miscarriage is a regrettable accident.
Wu is back to recommending crystals, this time two amethysts to be buried next to the front door of one of his patients. With fertility problems in a triangular shaped house, the author admits that when the patient got pregnant soon after, this defied logic. Perhaps here I could interject my own speculation: If the triangular shaped house also represents fire, placing the crystals close to the door as earth elements, we could say from a standpoint of Five Element Theory that the crystal earth “totems” reduced or drained the excessive fire energy of the home, making it more hospitable for conception. (Kartar Logic At Work). This chapter ends with intriguing historical information about Xiong Huang wine, (yes, the alcoholic beverage), how it is made and how it is used as another cure for getting rid of unwanted spirits or ghosts.
Inside the Space is a chapter that deals mostly with the interiors. In one perplexing example, the authors describe an apartment unit near the center of the building as being superior to another unit that is further away from the center, even claiming that the further a unit is away from the center, the worse it is for you. Without even a few remarks as to why, the same paragraph describes the worst type of building as having an empty courtyard in the center. A flower bed or tree in the middle will make you financially broke, they say. This comes as a surprise, given that a classic Chinese design is a square house with a square internal courtyard. The square symbol being so revered, that the old Chinese coin was designed with the central hole as a square. See photo below of common Chinese design with courtyard.
Wu also states that the master bedroom should be the largest room in the house and if need be, occupants should turn their living room into the master bedroom. This one is going to be highly impractical for most to accommodate, not the least of which is that he says a master bedroom should not have a fireplace. Since many living rooms have a fireplace, this means massive remodeling in order to accommodate this recommendation.
While I agree with his statement that a bedroom should be clean and allow for plenty of fresh air, a very large bedroom is not “cozy” and it can alienate the married couple sleeping there, according to my first teacher Master Sang. And of course, I’ve seen this with my own clientele. And while he says that there should be nothing stored under a bed, Dr. Wu does allow for a crystal wealth talisman.
He is against mirrors in a bedroom, as many practitioners are, but his solution for mirrors is to install track lights angled at them, as a way to keep ghosts away. To quote the short-lived late night talk show host Arsenio Hall, “things that make you go hmmm.”
Wu also has a strong opinion about not displaying pictures of spiritual teachers who left the Earthly plane before the age of 60. He sees this as a karmic situation, assuming they “did not live long enough to reach the level of cultivation that only age can confer.” Wow. I assume that Jesus might be the exception to this rule?
The section on the kitchen is one of the most strange passages I’ve read about Feng Shui kitchen principles. He states that when a refrigerator and stove must be side by side against each other that you can place aluminum foil on the side of the refrigerator as a cure. You could also hang tortoise shells or three feathers as a back-up plan (to separate their supposedly conflicting energies). If your stove hookup is not on the south side of the kitchen, he recommends you have a hot plate or an electric wok in its place. Kitchen myths are particularly annoying and I’m reminded of a Chinese client I had years ago who insisted on cooking with a wok IN HER GARAGE, because she thought her kitchen was in the wrong location. No amount of feng shui advice to the contrary from me could convince her otherwise.
In the section on The Bathroom, Wu blames a centrally located bathroom when all family members are sick. He continues with strict rules about what direction the toilet must not face, with a mirror opposite the toilet as a cure. I don’t see how a reflection of yourself on the toilet enhances anything. Which came first: Black Hat Feng Shui or Taoist Feng Shui?
According to the authors, shower heads and sink faucets should also not face southeast or southwest as they too can create a Ghost Line. Nowhere in the book does he explain why those directions are considered so “yin” that they become conduits for ghosts. If we consider the trigrams associated with the directions, Southeast is the Xun trigram, a rather lively yang-ascending energy. Southwest, as the Kun trigram may also represent “Indian summer” and the life-giving nurturing energy of Motherhood. If I were to label any direction more “yin” than southeast or southwest, I’d pin that on the North or the West. Then again, he’s working with a different deck of cards.
Dr. Wu, through Eckstein, explains that the energy for a residence should be moving outwardly, in the same way that a person leaves their home to make a living. In contrast, the ideal movement of energy for a business is inward. From this theory, they explain the best locations for a residential door versus a business entrance, and how one leaves or approaches those distinct spaces, based on the person’s season of birth. I don’t mind this little nuance; at least it is grounded in literal directions and a nod to Five Element Theory. Unfortunately, for the beginner this is going to come across as a very rigid way to acquire good Feng Shui.
Next, when it comes to these ideal entrance locations, the authors state that for spaces below the fifth floor of a building, the ground floor entrance direction should be the main influence for all the individual units. But above the fifth floor, the window side should be taken as the facing direction. I only agree with this partially. I think that the most yang side of an apartment may be the facing side, no matter what floor we are reviewing. A ground floor or any level floor may also face the same side as the main windows, light and views.
The over generalizations continue with such comments as “East facing windows are the best” and “North facing windows are dangerous.” They also admonish against putting “carpeting on your ceilings or walls.” Well, I’ve audited many thousands of homes and I can say that I’ve seen some really wild things, but no one to date has put carpeting on their ceilings or walls.
In a section on the office, they emphasize a list of three points:
- Qi coming through the main door or windows (above fifth floor) must enter through the direction associated with the season of your birth.
- No faucets in an office. (Drains prosperity)
- Fish or birds in the office must be the birth color of the woman in the family (who owns the business?)
Anyone who has any familiarity at all with traditional feng shui knows that there are much more important things to be concerned with in a office space than this short, odd list provided. The most successful businesses often have kitchen break rooms and private bathrooms, with faucets. To pass on an office with faucets is pure nonsense. Lumped into the same section, we find the following sentence: “According to Dr. Wu’s I-Ching calculations, from 1992 to 2003, your child’s desk should face southeast. This will be very good for your kids.” Really? Wouldn’t southeast be a potential Ghost Line? As you can tell, I would have appreciated more context and more theory behind many of Dr. Wu’s pronouncements.
In the closing chapter regarding the Ethics of a Feng Shui Master, I do agree in principle with much of what was written, to include being a kind, patient, honest person who cares more about helping people than making money. The Feng Shui master should also be working on themselves spiritually, but how many will adhere to removing all meat from their diet three days before a reading and to fast completely on the day of the consultation? I would have died in the late 90’s and 2000’s since I saw clients nearly daily.
Dr. Wu also believes that Feng Shui masters come from two classes of people: those with a “chosen decree from heaven” and those with physical handicaps. He elaborates that those with handicaps will overcompensate, stating that if a person is blind, “the heart is strengthened.” I understand the sentiment, but if a Feng Shui Master is blind, he certainly won’t be able to physically see the good or bad feng shui during the audit. Maybe this is where Qi Gong mastery comes to the rescue. This also contradicts an earlier statement in the book about how one should be skeptical of a feng shui master’s abilities if they are not healthy and vibrant. I know a few feng shui masters who were smokers and it didn’t seem to impede their ability to help people.
All told, this was a very entertaining book from beginning to end. I think when I read it for the first time many years ago, I put it down about half-way through. I thought a lot of it was preposterous, even a spoof, but now I am a little less judgy and I’ve lived a few more decades. I’ve experienced more other worldly and surreal things myself, so everything doesn’t have to have a scientific explanation. After dispensing another symbolic placebo in the form of the Chinese character for “luck,” Eckstein wrote, “Don’t look down on this concept as a superstitious old wives’ tale. Modern people have only just begun to recognize the power of directed thought.” I’m on board with that. And with what little I know about Taoist magic, I believe that inter-dimensional beings and other planes co-exist, accounting for some of what happens to us.
Lighting the Eye of the Dragon is not essential reading in a foundational way, for anyone interested in learning traditional feng shui. But it does give readers a glimpse into an alternative practice, in the same way that Chinese medicine works in its own way, so different from western medicine. There is no downside to learning Qi Gong and the I-Ching, two major skill sets Dr. Wu incorporated into his own idiosyncratic Feng Shui style.
Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®
From the Book Review Blog Series
