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Selects: How Feng Shui Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. I hope your couch is in the right place,
0:04
Speaker 1: and I hope the door is facing the right direction,
0:08
Speaker 1: and I hope everything in your house is set up
0:11
Speaker 1: exactly how it should be to bring you great peace
0:16
Speaker 1: and relaxation tranquility. Because with the show from February, we
0:24
Speaker 1: will tell you all about the ins and outs of
0:26
Speaker 1: fung sway from our episode how feng Shui works. It
0:31
Speaker 1: was a good one and I think we got it
0:33
Speaker 1: mostly right, which is not bad for us, So please
0:35
Speaker 1: enjoy it all over again. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,
0:42
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
0:51
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chok, Bryant uh and
0:55
Speaker 1: Jerry's over there. So this's the stuff you should know.
0:58
Speaker 1: URCHI is one baby cheer or key. Yeah. There's a
1:03
Speaker 1: lot of different pronunciations that are gonna happen today. Well supposedly, Um,
1:07
Speaker 1: it's just the different spellings same pronunciation. Q I and
1:12
Speaker 1: h i are both cheap. Yeah, um, unless they're saying
1:16
Speaker 1: kai for c h I, in which kids had something
1:18
Speaker 1: totally different. Yeah, that's that would be the Greek letter
1:20
Speaker 1: correct um that means energy. Are we going to pronounce
1:24
Speaker 1: this fung shui. I usually say fung chui fungi, but
1:31
Speaker 1: they could go either way. I mean, it depends. If
1:33
Speaker 1: it's Mandarin that we're speaking, Chuck, Yeah, we should say
1:38
Speaker 1: fong shui funui. I guess I usually say it in
1:42
Speaker 1: Mandarin fun hui. If we're speaking in Cantonese, we would
1:46
Speaker 1: say fung sui. Okay, So I guess we're gonna go
1:51
Speaker 1: with the Mandarin. Alright, great, Is that okay with you? Yeah?
1:54
Speaker 1: And Uh, I even looked up because I've always said
1:56
Speaker 1: Tao is um um Yeah, that's right, right. Well, a
2:00
Speaker 1: lot of people say there's been some confusion, so I
2:03
Speaker 1: actually looked it up. And this author, Derrek Lenn had
2:05
Speaker 1: a nice little thing. The first the misconception, he says,
2:10
Speaker 1: is that the first letter in t a o daw
2:13
Speaker 1: is an approximation of a Chinese sound that does not
2:16
Speaker 1: have an exact English equivalent, because apparently in England, I
2:20
Speaker 1: think they say Taoism. But he says that's actually not true.
2:24
Speaker 1: There is an equivalent, and it is a d And
2:27
Speaker 1: he said the misconception was created by an author who
2:30
Speaker 1: had no understanding of Chinese, and that was spread around.
2:33
Speaker 1: He did not name the author, but apparently has he
2:36
Speaker 1: had high academic standing. Jathan friends in and so he said,
2:41
Speaker 1: it is Taoism if you're speaking in English, and that
2:45
Speaker 1: this author has uh spread a mistruth that there is
2:49
Speaker 1: no real translation. So that was fun. Nice. There you go.
2:56
Speaker 1: That was the glossary of this episode pretty much. So well,
3:00
Speaker 1: let's talk about chi first man, because fungi is the
3:05
Speaker 1: the practice of allowing chi to flow in the best
3:10
Speaker 1: possible way. And she is the Chinese concept of the
3:16
Speaker 1: energy that pervades and permeates the universe, including us, and
3:21
Speaker 1: it is linked to Taoism and goes all the way
3:24
Speaker 1: back to sixth century BC. And um, like you said,
3:28
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's supposedly something that can't even be described
3:31
Speaker 1: in language, so I even try. But you did a
3:34
Speaker 1: pretty good job. I think, thanks for someone who uh
3:37
Speaker 1: supposedly is not supposed to be able to do that.
3:40
Speaker 1: The thing is, well, I'm obviously an incredible person. The
3:45
Speaker 1: thing is, um, this chi, this energy can be blocked,
3:49
Speaker 1: it can fall out of balance. There's it's not self
3:53
Speaker 1: correcting necessarily. Sometimes it needs help, that's right. And so
3:57
Speaker 1: when we inhabit an area, build a home, community palace,
4:03
Speaker 1: what have you. We need to build it in such
4:05
Speaker 1: a way that it's not going to block this chet
4:08
Speaker 1: or it's not going to um throw things out of balance,
4:12
Speaker 1: because we will be impacted negatively if it If that happens,
4:17
Speaker 1: that's right, because in the East there is a long
4:19
Speaker 1: held belief that the space we inhabit is not just
4:24
Speaker 1: a space we live in, but we are actually connected
4:26
Speaker 1: to that uh spiritually and with our energy and UM
4:32
Speaker 1: that the way you lay out your home and the
4:36
Speaker 1: way you build like even where you place your home
4:39
Speaker 1: on your property, and the way you align it with
4:43
Speaker 1: the surrounding nature. That's actually very important part of it. UM.
4:48
Speaker 1: That is functual, which is translated literally as wind and water, right,
4:53
Speaker 1: pretty neat UM. A lot of people in the West
4:57
Speaker 1: have jumped on this train since the nineteen eighties. It's
4:59
Speaker 1: very a popular thing to do. UM. Often misguided attempts.
5:05
Speaker 1: UM as far as traditional functuation, Well, it's like a
5:07
Speaker 1: completely different school. Yeah, basically, um, not basically entirely, yeah,
5:12
Speaker 1: but UM. A lot of people in the West also
5:15
Speaker 1: will poopoo this, and a lot of people in the
5:17
Speaker 1: East poopoo it. Now apparently only about a third of
5:19
Speaker 1: people in modern China even believe it is a thing. Um, well,
5:23
Speaker 1: Chairman Mao rooted it out during the Cultural Revolution. Yeah,
5:27
Speaker 1: I mean it is. It is. It's not illegal to
5:29
Speaker 1: practice it. It is illegal though, to start a business
5:33
Speaker 1: in China, modern China, where you say that you're doing functuation. Um,
5:39
Speaker 1: but they can't really like, well, I guess it could
5:41
Speaker 1: allow the practice. They outlaw lots of stuff from what
5:44
Speaker 1: I've been told. But um, apparently the younger generation it's
5:47
Speaker 1: even less than a third. It's just kind of going
5:49
Speaker 1: the way of the Dodo. But hey, we picked up
5:52
Speaker 1: on it in California and ran with it, you know,
5:55
Speaker 1: especially in the eighties. Yeah, sure, man, that was a
5:58
Speaker 1: super eighties thing. But lot of people poopoo it though,
6:01
Speaker 1: as they do a lot of things in the East
6:02
Speaker 1: and saying this is just a bunch of superstitious gobbitygook.
6:05
Speaker 1: There is no such thing as an energy flowing through
6:08
Speaker 1: your house or your body that needs to be aligned.
6:12
Speaker 1: So we're not here to uh, We're just gonna explain
6:14
Speaker 1: it to you exactly. So just save your emails people. So, um,
6:20
Speaker 1: what's interesting about fung hui initially is that not not
6:24
Speaker 1: just China, but also India lay claim to its origins.
6:28
Speaker 1: Actually that's um. And remember I think you you did
6:31
Speaker 1: a pretty good job defining it, but we should it's
6:34
Speaker 1: bear saying again. Funcui is this practice of arranging your inhabit,
6:39
Speaker 1: your your abode, your life, your workspace, UM in a
6:46
Speaker 1: way that allows che to flow freely. That's right, okay, Um,
6:50
Speaker 1: And there was there's evidence I think back three thousand
6:56
Speaker 1: years ago, no, sorry years ago, so about BC. Yeah,
7:02
Speaker 1: there is evidence of what the Indians call Vastu shastra,
7:07
Speaker 1: which is basically a translation of building science, which is
7:11
Speaker 1: that you should follow certain practices, use certain geometries to
7:15
Speaker 1: allow energy to flow so that you can prosper and
7:19
Speaker 1: not be harmed negatively. Yeah, and uh, this is um
7:23
Speaker 1: been seeing many times. I've read a great article in uh,
7:27
Speaker 1: I think it was history today by guy named Anthony
7:30
Speaker 1: Evini called bringing the Sky down to Earth, with basically
7:34
Speaker 1: the idea that many many cities through history have been
7:38
Speaker 1: built with this concept in mind, that the gods bringing
7:42
Speaker 1: the gods down to your city, like you know, he's
7:46
Speaker 1: a Stonehenge, Beijing, Washington, d c uh and m hmm.
7:51
Speaker 1: This place of Mexico that I will pronounce as d
7:55
Speaker 1: O t hua Kan. I don't know if that's right.
7:59
Speaker 1: It's like in myan ancient Mian city, and they all
8:03
Speaker 1: have the same um philosophy and mine, which is apparently
8:08
Speaker 1: if you go to Beijing, it's very famous for its layout,
8:10
Speaker 1: as is d C. You can stand in Tienamen Square
8:13
Speaker 1: and you can draw a straight line up the bell
8:15
Speaker 1: and drum towers straight through to the Monument to the
8:18
Speaker 1: People's Heroes, to the Masoli liam of Mao z Dong
8:24
Speaker 1: on a perfect north south axis, like everything is planned out.
8:28
Speaker 1: And this is I'm not saying Washington d C was
8:32
Speaker 1: necessarily fun suid functuad, and I know that you shouldn't
8:36
Speaker 1: use that as a verb, but I'm going to. But
8:40
Speaker 1: it's it's the idea like Stonehenge, that the it's the
8:42
Speaker 1: cities are aligned cosmically somehow with the stars in mind.
8:47
Speaker 1: And it can be as simple as um, the entrance
8:51
Speaker 1: to the dwelling or the city, or the burial mound
8:56
Speaker 1: or temple or Stonehenge, whatever is aligned so that the
9:00
Speaker 1: sun comes right up through it on the winter solstice,
9:03
Speaker 1: or sure that that is the basis of fung hui,
9:08
Speaker 1: and it does show up in other cultures across time. Yeah.
9:11
Speaker 1: One of the one of the famous cities that was
9:14
Speaker 1: laid out according to UM, this Indian version of it,
9:19
Speaker 1: Vastu Shastra as um ankor Watt in Cambodia, very famous temple.
9:26
Speaker 1: Those were built and I think the thirteenth century CE.
9:29
Speaker 1: So it's not evidence that the Indians were first, but
9:32
Speaker 1: there is evidence elsewhere that that there were Indian cities
9:35
Speaker 1: and buildings planned out according to these and the idea
9:39
Speaker 1: was that a couple of thousand years later, some Indian monks,
9:44
Speaker 1: Hindu monks, made their way into maybe too bed or
9:48
Speaker 1: Mongolia or China and started spreading the vast Shastra And
9:53
Speaker 1: that's when China got their hands on it and turned
9:57
Speaker 1: it into what we now recognize as Functui. That's one
10:00
Speaker 1: interpretation of the origin of the whole thing. Yeah, And
10:03
Speaker 1: and either way, what both of them are doing is
10:06
Speaker 1: looking and taking two accounts uh the five elements earth, water, fire,
10:11
Speaker 1: air and space and how they affect uh, your your
10:16
Speaker 1: pad and um or your city, like you said, our
10:19
Speaker 1: community or temple UM. And some people might say, well
10:23
Speaker 1: this is you know, you might want to call it
10:25
Speaker 1: functual but I'm just building a house, and I think
10:28
Speaker 1: we've got this lovely mountain view, and I like the
10:31
Speaker 1: sunrise to come up through my kitchen because I like
10:34
Speaker 1: a bright kitchen. So that's how I'm going to build
10:36
Speaker 1: my house. People that practice functional, I would say, brother,
10:40
Speaker 1: that's functuate A T S. You know, it's just how
10:43
Speaker 1: I like to build my house. And they, you know,
10:45
Speaker 1: that's functual. And then they fight, that's right, they lay
10:48
Speaker 1: wrestle or domination. So that, though, would be more Western functuation.
10:54
Speaker 1: We'll get into it. But basically, the distinction between Western
10:58
Speaker 1: functual eighties function way and classic functui um is the
11:04
Speaker 1: amount of scientific formulae put into it, the amount of
11:10
Speaker 1: calculations at least that are put into it, the amount
11:12
Speaker 1: of thought. It's like, Western functual is functual light and
11:17
Speaker 1: not even l I G H T like L I
11:19
Speaker 1: T E like that kind of eighties light. Yeah, well
11:24
Speaker 1: we might as well talk about the schools. Then it's
11:26
Speaker 1: a great seg before we do. Though, sorry to interrupt
11:28
Speaker 1: the segua because it was pretty good. We should say that. Um.
11:32
Speaker 1: Most historians now believe that it was actually China that
11:35
Speaker 1: came up with. Yeah, just the evidence is is just
11:40
Speaker 1: earlier for the idea that it originated with burials in China,
11:45
Speaker 1: Like you bury people a certain way, and you built
11:48
Speaker 1: the burial grounds in a certain way according to functui.
11:52
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is they leg wrestled. They won
11:55
Speaker 1: the leg wrestle very good. So the different schools, um,
11:59
Speaker 1: There are a lot of variations, but the three main
12:01
Speaker 1: categories are the form school, which was from southern China,
12:07
Speaker 1: and that is heavily based on the environment. Like we
12:09
Speaker 1: were talking about classic functional, it's the oldest form and
12:14
Speaker 1: that's when you're talking about and back then it was
12:16
Speaker 1: practical because what they were trying to do is build
12:19
Speaker 1: a safe place for your house to be. UM. So
12:23
Speaker 1: maybe you uh set your house up with a wind
12:26
Speaker 1: block at the mountains with that landscape that slopes or
12:31
Speaker 1: you know, the water flowing down to you is super important,
12:34
Speaker 1: so you may want to open your house up to that. Yeah,
12:36
Speaker 1: but it was. It was practical though, right exactly. UM.
12:39
Speaker 1: And another practical way of um figuring out where to
12:43
Speaker 1: put your house is found in the compass school. That
12:46
Speaker 1: one just forget about it. That's that's the one I
12:49
Speaker 1: understand the most. Really, this one makes the most sense
12:51
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, because it's math and you're like weird
12:54
Speaker 1: like that, well a little maybe a little bit. But
12:57
Speaker 1: basically what this says is it it's kind of like
13:00
Speaker 1: the form school where you're looking for different features of
13:05
Speaker 1: the landscape to to most benefit where to build your house. Sure,
13:09
Speaker 1: but this is this is using that same kind of
13:11
Speaker 1: thought process but aligning it with magnetism and the stars.
13:17
Speaker 1: To write, right, well, you're using the stars to determine magnetism,
13:21
Speaker 1: like which way is north and south and that kind
13:22
Speaker 1: of thing. But it does combine some math, Chinese astrology,
13:27
Speaker 1: and then fung shui together and you get that what's
13:31
Speaker 1: called the compass school, which is also very frequently known
13:34
Speaker 1: as traditional funcui, and it includes a lot of detailed
13:39
Speaker 1: research to figure out exactly what you're supposed to do
13:44
Speaker 1: where your house is supposed to be facing, if it
13:46
Speaker 1: is facing a certain way, what you can do to
13:48
Speaker 1: kind of correct it. There's just a ton of thought
13:51
Speaker 1: and calculation put into what we'll learn later is called
13:54
Speaker 1: the Bogue map. So that's that's mostly the traditional school
13:58
Speaker 1: is the compass school, and it's based on the idea
14:01
Speaker 1: that magnetism dictates which way your whole jam should be
14:06
Speaker 1: facing and oriented. Okay, and I think to the north
14:10
Speaker 1: is the right way. That's the right way. Where as
14:13
Speaker 1: far as your entry way, yes, okay uh. And then
14:16
Speaker 1: we have, um what the Westerners have latched onto, um
14:20
Speaker 1: the black Hat sect or that'shenmos it does or the
14:26
Speaker 1: black sect esoteric Buddhism Functui, which was founded by Professor
14:32
Speaker 1: Thomas Lynn Jun who was known UM and believed to
14:36
Speaker 1: be an enlightened man. And um he basically came to
14:41
Speaker 1: the West and founded this sect of Functual and it
14:44
Speaker 1: blew up and um. Westerners love this one because it's
14:49
Speaker 1: the one that most easily translates to an h G
14:51
Speaker 1: TV show, right, you know, like put this plant there,
14:55
Speaker 1: put a fountain there, put your door here and painted
14:57
Speaker 1: this color, and and you're going to be wealth unsuccessful.
15:01
Speaker 1: Don't put this there, don't put that there. It's it's
15:04
Speaker 1: a lot of object placement. So it's easy for us
15:07
Speaker 1: dummies over here to understand. It's basically interior design pretty much.
15:12
Speaker 1: So we'll talk a little more about the distinction and
15:14
Speaker 1: then what some of the commonalities they have are right
15:18
Speaker 1: after this. So Chuck the black hat school. That's hilarious
15:44
Speaker 1: to me, Like, why would you call it that? I
15:47
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm sure there was a great reason I
15:50
Speaker 1: couldn't find it anywhere. What I found instead is that
15:53
Speaker 1: most people call it Western functure, and a lot of
15:57
Speaker 1: functual practitioners pooh pooh Western there like this this is
16:03
Speaker 1: some like perversion of an interpretation of functui. Yeah, it's
16:10
Speaker 1: it's americanized um, and it's taught by people who don't
16:13
Speaker 1: even necessarily aren't functual masters. Even they'll just if they
16:17
Speaker 1: can set up a website and say pay me a
16:21
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, I'll come and tell you where to put
16:22
Speaker 1: your plants exactly. But Thomas lynn Un and his followers say, no,
16:27
Speaker 1: we had we hit the basics, Like yeah, definitely, traditional
16:31
Speaker 1: functuation is very detailed, very um mathematically oriented, but we're
16:38
Speaker 1: still getting the same point across and coming to the
16:40
Speaker 1: same conclusions and just an easier corner cutting way. That's right.
16:45
Speaker 1: Why go to all the trouble if you can get
16:47
Speaker 1: the same results. What's more Western than that? Good point? Uh?
16:52
Speaker 1: So should we talk about um the five elements a
16:54
Speaker 1: little bit? I guess yes, um. Like I said, there
16:57
Speaker 1: is earth, fire, metal, water, and would. And these are
17:01
Speaker 1: the phases through which the energy or the chi or
17:04
Speaker 1: the key moves and um, I think this article said
17:08
Speaker 1: it very well. It's like a sort of a game
17:10
Speaker 1: of rock paper scissors. If you look at a creative
17:13
Speaker 1: or productive um way in which these elements can interact. Uh,
17:18
Speaker 1: you have would producing fire. Uh. Fire produces earth av
17:24
Speaker 1: as an ash. Earth produces metal, um metal produces water,
17:30
Speaker 1: water produces wood, metal producing water. Don't get that one,
17:34
Speaker 1: mm hmm, all the rest of them, like, yeah, made sense.
17:39
Speaker 1: My refrigerators metal and it has a water dispenser. In
17:42
Speaker 1: the day you have it, is it? Uh? And then
17:45
Speaker 1: you have the destructive. This is when the it's bad.
17:47
Speaker 1: Che And if you look at the little illustration on
17:49
Speaker 1: how stuff works on the on the first one, you
17:52
Speaker 1: have this great circle of arrows and it's just lovely,
17:55
Speaker 1: and this other one has a a nasty bunch of
17:58
Speaker 1: arrows just laying all over one another, and it's just
18:01
Speaker 1: a big mess. Yeah, like um would burdens earth. Yeah,
18:06
Speaker 1: nobody wants that. Water douses fire. That's a clear one. Sure,
18:09
Speaker 1: um metal chops would, Yes, it does. There's there's Uh. So,
18:15
Speaker 1: the the interaction between these elements in your house, or
18:18
Speaker 1: the way you arrange your house will determine whether these
18:23
Speaker 1: phases of chi are destructive or productive in their interactions together.
18:29
Speaker 1: And if you have too much of one thing, you
18:31
Speaker 1: need to balance it out with something else productively exactly
18:35
Speaker 1: the other two for destructive. Our fire melts metal and
18:38
Speaker 1: earth blocks water like a damn. You don't want a damn.
18:41
Speaker 1: You want that water flowing, baby, You know you forgot
18:44
Speaker 1: hulk smash? Was that the other one? The final one?
18:50
Speaker 1: And then uh, the yin yang? We can't go any
18:52
Speaker 1: further without mentioning that. No, it's basically a really clever
18:57
Speaker 1: conception of chi. Yeah, the opposite states of cheek, light
19:02
Speaker 1: and dark, night and day, young and old man woman. Sure,
19:08
Speaker 1: And there there's actually a way that it's supposed to
19:11
Speaker 1: be properly represented. The white is supposed to be on
19:14
Speaker 1: top because the white represents in part heat, and the
19:17
Speaker 1: idea is that heat rises, but they're they're both constantly
19:21
Speaker 1: in motion. But if you ever see a yin and
19:23
Speaker 1: yang symbol displayed, though, the lighter one should be on top,
19:28
Speaker 1: that's right, And not only heat for the white, but
19:31
Speaker 1: masculinity and spirit and hardness and activity when it's yang
19:36
Speaker 1: by the way. Yeah, oh yeah, we didn't point that out,
19:38
Speaker 1: and it's not yang yang by the way. We I
19:41
Speaker 1: used to say it that way. I think everybody did it,
19:44
Speaker 1: sure at some point. And yeah, I equipped in my
19:47
Speaker 1: early forties. Um, it's it's yin and yang. Yes. Uh.
19:52
Speaker 1: The yen uh is femininity, femininity, matter, nighttime, coldness, softness, passivity,
20:01
Speaker 1: and as long as you want those things balanced and
20:04
Speaker 1: the way they just fit together in that little circle. Man,
20:06
Speaker 1: it's just like it's pleasing to the eye. And I
20:08
Speaker 1: think that's kind of says it all. You know, it
20:11
Speaker 1: just looks nice. It's not jagged. It's like it's like
20:15
Speaker 1: two people just cuddling up, you know, in the form
20:19
Speaker 1: of a tattoo you wish you hadn't gotten. That's right
20:22
Speaker 1: with some maybe Chinese characters that you don't know what
20:25
Speaker 1: they mean any longer. Uh there, Um, well, I guess
20:30
Speaker 1: we're at the bagua, right, Yeah, so this has made
20:33
Speaker 1: sense to me. Right. Um, Remember what we're dealing with
20:37
Speaker 1: here is she She flows through the five elements, and
20:40
Speaker 1: you deal with the five elements in your house to
20:42
Speaker 1: figure out where in your house, you need a little
20:45
Speaker 1: more of one element than another, you have to construct
20:50
Speaker 1: a bagua map. Yeah, like this is where the rubber
20:52
Speaker 1: meets the road. We've been talking in esoteric terms. But
20:55
Speaker 1: if you're like, great, dudes, what does this mean for
20:58
Speaker 1: my freaking living room? Right, this is what it means
21:01
Speaker 1: for your freaking living room. Yeah. And the Bagua map
21:04
Speaker 1: is based on boxes squares. They're the basic units of
21:09
Speaker 1: UM of functional Yeah, nine squares three by three right, uh?
21:15
Speaker 1: And you take those squares and somehow this is really
21:20
Speaker 1: clever too. But even though there's nine squares, you can
21:24
Speaker 1: take them and turn them into a hexagon. If you
21:26
Speaker 1: take the center square and convert that into well as center,
21:31
Speaker 1: and then the eight boxes around it become eight sides
21:35
Speaker 1: of a hexagon if you shave off a little here there,
21:38
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, what you have are is
21:41
Speaker 1: a bogua. Yeah. And they can represent color as well
21:46
Speaker 1: as UM these elements as well as for the actual
21:51
Speaker 1: map that you're going to use, UM for laying out
21:54
Speaker 1: your home, aspects of your life, like you know, career
21:59
Speaker 1: and wealth and prosperity and love and marriage and things
22:03
Speaker 1: like that. So there's multiple meetings and it also is
22:06
Speaker 1: if you've seen the TV show Lost, they totally ripped
22:09
Speaker 1: it off with the Dharma collective symbol. It is just
22:13
Speaker 1: that is nothing more than the Bogwa grid with the
22:16
Speaker 1: yin yang in the center right, and the yin yang
22:20
Speaker 1: is frequently represented in the center is yellow, correct, yep.
22:24
Speaker 1: Yellow is the center of the Bogua map, which is
22:27
Speaker 1: actually the center of this nine squared box called the
22:30
Speaker 1: low shoe square UM. And in each of the different
22:33
Speaker 1: boxes there is a static representation. So this is this
22:37
Speaker 1: is what you need to know about the Bogua map.
22:39
Speaker 1: It is hexagon that the placement is always the same.
22:46
Speaker 1: What you do is you take your Bagua map and
22:48
Speaker 1: you oriented a certain way over your house, over your
22:51
Speaker 1: your actual house or the room in your house or
22:53
Speaker 1: something like that, and that's what changes. So if you
22:58
Speaker 1: look at the Bogua square, the yellow is always owner
23:00
Speaker 1: and then black, which represents water and career. UM is
23:04
Speaker 1: always at the bottom. Okay, yeah, a k A supposed
23:09
Speaker 1: to be the entrance to that room or your home, Okay, exactly, yeah,
23:14
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's not necessarily always at the bottom. It's
23:16
Speaker 1: always at the entrance. Well, you placed the bottom at
23:20
Speaker 1: the entrance. So if I were to walk into my house,
23:23
Speaker 1: you can either visualize it or you can literally draw
23:25
Speaker 1: this uh square. You want the bottom which is uh.
23:31
Speaker 1: The bottom, center is career or water. Bottom right is
23:35
Speaker 1: helpful people and travel, bottom left is knowledge and self cultivation.
23:39
Speaker 1: You just want to find out where your front door is.
23:42
Speaker 1: In my case, mine is pretty much in the center
23:44
Speaker 1: of my home, which would be career, but it could
23:49
Speaker 1: fall if your door is on your left, it would
23:51
Speaker 1: fall under knowledge and self cultivation. So it's it's not
23:54
Speaker 1: like you move the map over to to to help
23:57
Speaker 1: yourself out. Like where your door is where it is,
24:00
Speaker 1: you can move it if you want. Yeah, you could
24:03
Speaker 1: move your door. But basically the map is just supposed
24:06
Speaker 1: to be static. Okay. So and it's static, like you said,
24:10
Speaker 1: it's oriented um with the black on the entrance right.
24:14
Speaker 1: No matter where the entrance is, the black is on
24:16
Speaker 1: the the black is there. So when you orient your
24:21
Speaker 1: your black box onto your entrance, what you're doing then
24:25
Speaker 1: is using your Bogwa map to show you how you
24:28
Speaker 1: need to change your house in order to maximize the
24:33
Speaker 1: flow of che through it. Yeah, it's basically and by
24:36
Speaker 1: the way, you shouldn't supposedly use any additions built, you
24:40
Speaker 1: should do those separately. Okay, So if you if you're
24:43
Speaker 1: living room has a big new addition to the lefty like,
24:46
Speaker 1: you shouldn't even include that. So basically you're what you're
24:48
Speaker 1: doing is you're you're dividing your space up into zones
24:53
Speaker 1: according to this grid. And so if you were to
24:55
Speaker 1: look at my house according to the low shoe square,
25:00
Speaker 1: my TV would be in the wealth and Prosperity corner,
25:05
Speaker 1: which is probably not good. You're gonna make money on
25:08
Speaker 1: TV that didn't exactly happen. Uh. My couch is the
25:14
Speaker 1: knowledge and self cultivation. I'm not sure what that means.
25:17
Speaker 1: And then my sun room would be helpful people in travel,
25:20
Speaker 1: that's what that means either. And in the center is
25:23
Speaker 1: my coffee table. The if I wanted to have good
25:25
Speaker 1: chea to have a yellow rug there, Yeah, but I don't,
25:30
Speaker 1: But you should. We have some nice tile squares of
25:32
Speaker 1: varying colors. Yes, so you can do that, chuck for
25:36
Speaker 1: every room of your house, and you're supposed to like it,
25:39
Speaker 1: like what you just said, Well, now I know where
25:42
Speaker 1: I should put a yellow rug in my in my
25:44
Speaker 1: house like you would want to put that in the
25:45
Speaker 1: center of where the Bogua map falls over that room.
25:48
Speaker 1: That's right right. Um you might also so for example, um,
25:52
Speaker 1: if you just kind of had a dead space where
25:55
Speaker 1: the red boxes which is for fame and reputation and
25:59
Speaker 1: you want to fall auster that kind of thing, Man,
26:01
Speaker 1: there's a dead space there. Would um you would put
26:05
Speaker 1: something like awards there, animal related items, maybe a stuff
26:10
Speaker 1: jackalopet or something would be a good spot for that
26:13
Speaker 1: or a good thing for that spot. Yeah. Um. And
26:16
Speaker 1: so you basically what you're doing is using the Bogue
26:18
Speaker 1: map to say you're just cross referencing spots of your house.
26:22
Speaker 1: And when you add these things and basically do interior decorating, um,
26:27
Speaker 1: you can maximize a Flowchi. Yeah, if you look at
26:32
Speaker 1: my master bedroom and bathroom, I have a bad functual
26:36
Speaker 1: because right in that top left corner wealth and prosperity
26:40
Speaker 1: is my toilet. Oh yeah, so supposedly you're flushing it
26:44
Speaker 1: all down the toilet. They say you should not put
26:46
Speaker 1: your bathroom or your toilet specifically in your wealth grid
26:51
Speaker 1: right square. So what we've just described is what a
26:56
Speaker 1: Western practitioner would do, because again, Western functional has a
27:01
Speaker 1: lot to do with interior decorating, and so too does
27:06
Speaker 1: to an extent um traditional functional, but a traditional functional
27:11
Speaker 1: practitioner um, if they came to your house and they
27:15
Speaker 1: used the Bagua map over your house, they would they
27:18
Speaker 1: wouldn't just align it to an entrance, they would align
27:22
Speaker 1: it to a magnetic direction. I'm pretty sure it's north.
27:25
Speaker 1: I think I think you're right. But the black the
27:28
Speaker 1: black um square in the Bogua map would be oriented
27:32
Speaker 1: in that direction, so it wouldn't necessarily be facing your entrance.
27:36
Speaker 1: And so there's this kind of It reveals this really
27:39
Speaker 1: big distinction between Western functional and traditional functional. Whereas with
27:43
Speaker 1: Western functional it's like, oh, we'll just line it up
27:45
Speaker 1: to the entrance, and maybe you've got a problem with
27:47
Speaker 1: your toilet flushing, your your fame away in your bathroom,
27:50
Speaker 1: or your money away in your bathroom. With traditional functional,
27:55
Speaker 1: there's no getting around it. It's once it lays over
27:58
Speaker 1: your house. According to Magnetic North, what it gives you
28:04
Speaker 1: a really clear picture of what you're going to have
28:06
Speaker 1: to do, and you may have to tear down your
28:08
Speaker 1: house and start over and rebuild facing the right way. Um,
28:13
Speaker 1: it could reveal a lot of real problems with your house. UM,
28:16
Speaker 1: and you may have to fill in more areas than others.
28:19
Speaker 1: Whereas if you're just orienting each room based on its entrance,
28:22
Speaker 1: like in Western functual, there's UM, you're not gonna find
28:26
Speaker 1: quite as many problems in a lot more easy solutions.
28:29
Speaker 1: That makes sense also with a traditional functional consultant who
28:33
Speaker 1: um is basically telling you what you need to do
28:36
Speaker 1: with your house, they're going to do research on your
28:39
Speaker 1: house itself too. They're gonna find out when it was built,
28:42
Speaker 1: when the roof wasn't closed. That's a big one too.
28:46
Speaker 1: And then they're going to also create this Baguo map
28:48
Speaker 1: and a chart based on Chinese astrology as well, because
28:52
Speaker 1: time factors in a lot with traditional functual way more
28:56
Speaker 1: than Western. Again, Western is very um, quick to the
28:59
Speaker 1: point and just put some stuff here, like another example
29:03
Speaker 1: that people criticize Western functual and kind of point like
29:07
Speaker 1: it's just basically UM. Interior design is plaid is considered
29:12
Speaker 1: a form of the wood element. So if you have
29:15
Speaker 1: too much plaid, like a plague couch in a room,
29:19
Speaker 1: you might need to encounter that with like a little
29:21
Speaker 1: fountain or something like that. But where where did the
29:24
Speaker 1: idea that plaid was would come from. It's definitely not
29:26
Speaker 1: traditional Chinese. No, I don't think so. No, I don't
29:29
Speaker 1: think they have plaid in China, do they? I don't
29:31
Speaker 1: think so. But that raises another thing to another criticism
29:35
Speaker 1: of Western functual is that very frequently um functually consultants
29:41
Speaker 1: in the West will be like, oh, you just need
29:43
Speaker 1: to add a food dog, you know, like that kind
29:46
Speaker 1: of lion looking dog. You need to add some you've
29:49
Speaker 1: seen a million times. Was it like a little statue
29:51
Speaker 1: or something, Or you need to add like some Chinese
29:53
Speaker 1: pottery or dragon mural or something, And traditional function practitioners
29:58
Speaker 1: are like, yeah, arc ounce, but um it doesn't have
30:02
Speaker 1: to be Chinese. Right, So if you're consultant is selling
30:05
Speaker 1: you Chinese art and this is right, this is essential. Yeah,
30:10
Speaker 1: that's not that's not correct with the red flag. Yeah, alright,
30:14
Speaker 1: Well we have some more um uh tips from fung
30:18
Speaker 1: shui experts that we'll get to right after this. All right,
30:43
Speaker 1: so we're talking the bagua grid. Like we said, it's
30:47
Speaker 1: all represented with the different colors. Those colors also correspond
30:51
Speaker 1: to numbers, and they also correspond to aspects of your
30:55
Speaker 1: life or chi it sounds confusing. It kind of is.
31:00
Speaker 1: Let's just say it. But here are some things that
31:03
Speaker 1: functual A practitioners say will help unlock that q um. Black,
31:09
Speaker 1: which is your career. Uh, they say a fountain or
31:12
Speaker 1: a mirror might be a good thing to have. Their blue,
31:16
Speaker 1: which is skills and wisdom. Maybe that's where you put
31:18
Speaker 1: your computer workstation or your library. Okay, yeah, books, yeah, books,
31:25
Speaker 1: green your family Maybe that's where you want to put
31:28
Speaker 1: your family photos and you want to arrange them nicely too. Yeah.
31:31
Speaker 1: Supposedly if you have your family photos out of order
31:35
Speaker 1: in your green section, Um, you're gonna have misbehaving kids. Yeah.
31:39
Speaker 1: Actually that's the white zone. That's children. Oh sorry, that's okay,
31:43
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's that's that's what they say. If you
31:46
Speaker 1: want good kids, keep those photos nice. Right. I'm not
31:49
Speaker 1: sure about that one. Uh. Purple is your prosperity zone,
31:53
Speaker 1: and that's where you want to have it, says healthy plants.
31:57
Speaker 1: Don't put your dying plants there, or sailing ships. I
32:02
Speaker 1: guess that's just um sailing towards prosperity. I guess maybe
32:08
Speaker 1: don't don't put a painting of a sinking ship. No,
32:11
Speaker 1: that that's that is western function there. Yeah, sure that
32:15
Speaker 1: you don't like that. That whole kind of psychology would
32:19
Speaker 1: be detrimental to the health of the area. Yeah, why
32:23
Speaker 1: would you want that anyway though? Like good painted sinking
32:25
Speaker 1: ship Yeah, um, a depressed sea captain probably guess would
32:31
Speaker 1: be my guess. Red is famine reputation. That's where you
32:35
Speaker 1: want to put your various awards. Um so yeah, we
32:39
Speaker 1: got a couple of those, and your jackalope head your
32:41
Speaker 1: jackalope yeah, animal animal related things. You're right, we should
32:45
Speaker 1: lay out our next studio like according to Functui dud,
32:49
Speaker 1: we totally should you know? I just noticed is red
32:52
Speaker 1: supposedly is what you want to put on the back
32:54
Speaker 1: of your chair to block a badge. And we've got
32:56
Speaker 1: a huge red foam thing in between us and Jerry.
32:59
Speaker 1: Oh so we gotta get rid of that. Oh I
33:02
Speaker 1: was gonna say, that explains why I've been able to
33:04
Speaker 1: put up with her cheeks for so long. Now, Jerry,
33:07
Speaker 1: she has the good flow our way, So we need
33:09
Speaker 1: to open that up in our new place. Um, pink
33:14
Speaker 1: love and relationships, that's where you want to put maybe
33:17
Speaker 1: photos of your family or paired items. Again with the
33:20
Speaker 1: family photos Yeah, I don't have that many family photos.
33:24
Speaker 1: Paradig items that's cute, that makes sense, like bookends, salt
33:28
Speaker 1: and pepper shakers. Uh, boxing gloves, Um, that's where you
33:37
Speaker 1: hang your boxing gloves. Remember Joe Garden from The Onion
33:41
Speaker 1: with those giant boxing gloves he had. Yeah, those were
33:43
Speaker 1: so much fun. He had a thing where he just
33:45
Speaker 1: wanted to get as many people to pose with those
33:46
Speaker 1: as possible and take a swing at him. Uh. White
33:51
Speaker 1: what we already mentioned was children or creativity. That's where
33:53
Speaker 1: you might want to put some art or pictures of
33:56
Speaker 1: your little brats. Um gray travel um or helpful people.
34:02
Speaker 1: But you're souvenirs from Disneyland there, and not just Disneyland
34:06
Speaker 1: any trip you've taken. Sure the Disney company wants you
34:09
Speaker 1: to just put Disney souvenirs there though. Uh and yellow finally,
34:13
Speaker 1: health um pottery and stone objects will help unlock your
34:16
Speaker 1: chee there. Yeah. But speaking of Disney, Hong Kong, Disneyland,
34:20
Speaker 1: they apparently had a functual expert consulted, and uh they
34:24
Speaker 1: made some changes because of that consultation. Yeah, probably that
34:28
Speaker 1: was probably a nice paying gig. The Yeah, you know
34:32
Speaker 1: that consulting was like good che yeah, or they were
34:36
Speaker 1: saying e jing. Anyway, the they opened on September twelve
34:42
Speaker 1: because they were told that was a lucky day according
34:44
Speaker 1: to the astrological chart. Their consultant drew up. Yep. They
34:48
Speaker 1: changed the entrance by twelve degrees. Obviously it was a
34:52
Speaker 1: traditional um functual practitioner uh, and added some boulders. Apparently
34:59
Speaker 1: one of the restaurants has a projection of a fire,
35:02
Speaker 1: which to me that wouldn't count, but maybe it does.
35:06
Speaker 1: That's gonna that seems pretty Western to me because one
35:09
Speaker 1: of the big bases of Western function is psychology. If
35:14
Speaker 1: traditional function is based on magnetism and astrology, Western functuali
35:21
Speaker 1: is based on psychology. And it is as simple as
35:24
Speaker 1: you don't put a painting of a sinking ship in
35:27
Speaker 1: the office of a business that's struggling to stay afloat
35:30
Speaker 1: because the mind makes those kind of associations and it
35:33
Speaker 1: messes up your cheek. That's right, um, And a lot
35:37
Speaker 1: of this stuff as well, Like we said, um, I think,
35:40
Speaker 1: like you just mentioned maybe like it just seems like
35:42
Speaker 1: common sense. Um, Like a horseshoe shaped building that opens
35:47
Speaker 1: up into a courtyard, it's gonna feel good, it's pleasing. Um.
35:52
Speaker 1: Functually practitioners say that's energy. Or hey, don't don't build
35:57
Speaker 1: a house on a dead end street, um, because it
36:00
Speaker 1: blocks the CHI. I had a friend who lived at
36:02
Speaker 1: a dead end street and it just felt like every
36:04
Speaker 1: time I went over there, I felt closed in and
36:07
Speaker 1: sort of weird. Did you end up killing his whole family?
36:10
Speaker 1: He did not. He did move though. Um they were saved.
36:14
Speaker 1: They were thanks to him moving. Um your office A
36:20
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of times, he stays, people will
36:22
Speaker 1: um their new offices. They will take this into account.
36:25
Speaker 1: Some very famous people like Richard Branson and Donald Trump
36:28
Speaker 1: have enlisted the help of functual experts to design their
36:31
Speaker 1: offices because they want that chi and ergo money flowing. Yeah,
36:36
Speaker 1: you don't have to be a Richard Branson or Donald
36:38
Speaker 1: Trump to arrange your office, whether it's a cubicle or
36:41
Speaker 1: what have you. UM, so that you can maximize the
36:44
Speaker 1: flow of chief if you want to do a little
36:46
Speaker 1: messing around. Supposedly, the one one one thing that you
36:50
Speaker 1: want to ensure as much as possible is that you're
36:53
Speaker 1: facing the entrance to your office. Yes, UM, that way
36:58
Speaker 1: the chief flows correct towards you, not towards your back. Yeah,
37:02
Speaker 1: you don't want the cheat you're back. No, remember the
37:04
Speaker 1: Southern China um, the Southern China functui placement, the form school. Yeah. Um,
37:13
Speaker 1: like you you put your the entrance of your house
37:17
Speaker 1: is facing away from a hill, so the back of
37:19
Speaker 1: your house backs up to a hill, so the chief
37:21
Speaker 1: flows correctly. Same thing. You want the entrance to your
37:25
Speaker 1: office to be flowing towards you, facing it if you
37:28
Speaker 1: If you can't do that, then you just put up
37:30
Speaker 1: a mirror so you can reflect the cheat towards you. Yeah,
37:34
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Like you said, you want to put
37:36
Speaker 1: something red on the back of your chair to block
37:38
Speaker 1: the chief from your back. Yeah. Actually, now that I
37:40
Speaker 1: think about it, this isn't so bad in here because
37:42
Speaker 1: the chief, the red is to our side. It's coming
37:44
Speaker 1: in that door and bouncing off of that right on us.
37:47
Speaker 1: So Jerry is really the one is getting the short
37:49
Speaker 1: end of the cheese stick. Here, a short short into
37:53
Speaker 1: the cheese stick. Um, what else can you do? You
37:56
Speaker 1: can put a fountain or a plant. Um, honestly, water
37:59
Speaker 1: and would uh And they said even the picture of
38:02
Speaker 1: a waterfall in your cubicle could help your chi. Your
38:05
Speaker 1: workplace Chi. Again, there's a lot of disagreement about what
38:11
Speaker 1: works and what doesn't with traditional FUNCTIONI it's like you
38:15
Speaker 1: need to know where magnetic north is and you need
38:17
Speaker 1: to orient your building according to that, and whatever you
38:20
Speaker 1: do inside is almost irrelevant. Yeah, get rid of those
38:24
Speaker 1: fluorescent lights though they all agree on that. Sure, I
38:27
Speaker 1: know anything about cheet to know that fluorescent lights are
38:30
Speaker 1: terrible for you? Agreed? Do you anything else? No, there's
38:35
Speaker 1: it's a pretty good overview, I think, right. Sure, you
38:38
Speaker 1: feel good about it. I feel better than I expected.
38:41
Speaker 1: How's your ch It's fine? Yeah, all right, it's it's
38:45
Speaker 1: not out of balance, it's not jumping for joy. It's
38:48
Speaker 1: just it is today. Got you. Uh. If you want
38:53
Speaker 1: to know more about chi or fung shui or any
38:56
Speaker 1: stuff like that, you can type those words in the
38:59
Speaker 1: search part how stuff works. And since I said that,
39:01
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this
39:05
Speaker 1: G E D success story. Hey, guys, got my G
39:09
Speaker 1: E D way back in six so I could attend college.
39:12
Speaker 1: Back then, the University of Illinois Chicago co Flames allowed
39:16
Speaker 1: you and as a freshman, if you graduated high school
39:19
Speaker 1: and had a pulse they called the student body. After
39:22
Speaker 1: the first year, though you didn't perform, you're out. I
39:24
Speaker 1: did reasonably well there and ultimately ended up at the
39:27
Speaker 1: University of Cambridge in England, got my pH d in
39:29
Speaker 1: archaeology there and worked in the field for a few years. UM.
39:33
Speaker 1: I am now a stay at home dad of three boys,
39:36
Speaker 1: five three and one living in uh Karl's Ruhe, Germany.
39:40
Speaker 1: One of the things I love most about the American
39:42
Speaker 1: education system is that a guy who dropped out of
39:44
Speaker 1: high school at seventeen still had the opportunity to attend
39:48
Speaker 1: college and ultimately end up with a PhD from one
39:50
Speaker 1: of the greatest universities in the world. Thanks for another
39:54
Speaker 1: great episode, guys. Has been listening since two thousand eight
39:56
Speaker 1: and actually remember the before Chuck days. Uh and that
40:01
Speaker 1: is from Chris, So way to go, Chris, Way to
40:04
Speaker 1: go Chris. That is pretty awesome story. G d archaeologist,
40:09
Speaker 1: stay at home dad five three and one. Sounds like
40:11
Speaker 1: he's doing it right. Nice job, Chris. If you want
40:14
Speaker 1: to let us know about your personal success story, we
40:17
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40:19
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40:24
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40:26
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40:34
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