The Building Whisperer

We have now welcomed the year of Bing-xu or the Fire Dog. It can be an unpredictable year, but if you know how to apply feng shui and take appropriate action and caution, 2006 can be a very successful year. First, it is important to get your Gua number right and facing the right direction. Feng shui for 2006 began on Jan 29.

You should be practical this year and not let the imagination run wild. Also be careful with your food intake and what you say. If you are reckless and do not heed good sense and advice, bad luck such as sackings, legal proceedings or sickness can befall you.

Be watchful over young children’s health this year, as there is a possibility of a new epidemic. On the political front, disputes can easily occur between nations, and leaders may resign or be ousted. There will be a “change of guards’ and new alliances will be formed.

On the personal front, there will be many arguments and threats of divorce. There will also be lay-offs or sacking of workers. So everyone should remain calm and think rationally and logically. Abide by the law; otherwise, misfortune can be quite severe.

This prediction is done based on the Xuan Kong System, which uses the two Flying Star charts. The black font depicts the 20-year Xuan Kong Fei Xing Flying Star Chart while the blue font is the annual Xuan Ong Fei Xing Flying Star Chart.

The Flying Star feng shui is the most powerful form. It is an analysis of the five star elements and star combinations that occupy a home/ building. These stars change every year, bringing good and bad energy. Next year, 5 yellow is in the West, so do not do any renovation or extensions if your house is facing or sitting West. The 5 yellow is the worst star as it brings with it sickness and many other calamities.

The Three Killings (San Sha) in the N1, N2, N3, NE1 and NW3. Although the concept of the Three Killings is associated with three earthly branches, its position is defined according to one of the four cardinal compass directions, namely North (water), East (wood), South (fire) and West (metal). If your house sits on the North facing South, avoid renovating or extending your house, unless you can find a very good master to select a date for you. The Tai Sui (Grand Duke Jupiter or God of the Year) is in NW1 and Sui Po is in SE1. Therefore, avoid moving any heavy items, renovations or house extension in these two sectors. Tai Sui is also named the Year Star and its position is represented by the earthly branch of the year. Sui Po is the opposite direction of Tai Sui.

General layout of energies in property
According to the Xuan Kong Flying Star School, the following good or bad sectors relate particularly to you if your main door or the room that you use the most is located in the specified sectors.

This year, E, N and SW are good sectors. 8 in the North represents wealth in knowledge and material means. There will be particular good fortune in the 1st, 3rd, 10th or 12th moons.

9 in the SW is future good luck, and brings advancement and celebration but be careful during the 1st, 7th and 10th moons. E represents wisdom and creativity in your area of expertise during 3rd, 5th and 12th moons.

SE, W and S are bad sectors. Try to avoid using or activating these areas. Be watchful over your health if you have a bedroom in the SE sector. W can be particularly troublesome if renovations or major gardening works are carried out in this sector, bringing calamities. Place metal ornaments in this sector, or hang a 6-rod metal windchime in the west part of your property. Be especially careful in the 1st, 3rd, 10th or 12th moons. S sector has the potential of causing legal disputes leading to problems with reputation or authority. Be careful in the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 12th moons.

NW and NE are out-of-luck sectors. No benefits can be gained here.

Your personal Gua benefits
To help you weather the year of the dog and come up on top, you can incorporate the Ba Zhai System to enhance your personal auspicious energies and avoid the harmful.

The simplified table below shows directions and sectors for East ans West Life Gua people. Crosses indicate areas to avoid while no crosses indicate good areas. Not indicated are neutral or not-so-good areas.

For East Life Gua people, particularly good feng shui can be gained if you have your main door facing E and N. You may activate the area with a water feature. Also, good fortune can be had for East Life Gua people if their door faces S.

For West Life Gua people, good fortune comes to those with the main door facing SW, while NW and NE main doors are fairly neutral.

West Life Gua people should avoid facing or activating SE and S. East life people should avoid W, although NW is also not so good.

Also, try to face your stove and your desk towards good sectors or doors receiving good energies.

In feng shui, you should avoid the inauspicious energies and harness the good. Ba Zhai can take you a step further, but choose your favourable directions. The overarching principle of application in the Ba Zhai system is to tap your good personal qi whenever the opportunity arises. If you have a door entering your home in one of the good directions described above, then try to use this door rather than one that is the main door but does not have as attractive a qi. Face your desk in your good directions.

Together with use of good judgement and caution, you may be able to spot opportunities and take advantage of them.

Of course, if you have expert feng shui advice to provide you with a solid foundation of good qi in your office or home, you are in a much better position to safeguard yourself and your family against the rough rides of the economy and would affairsand even benefit in the process.

Boon Yap is the daughter of Grandmaster Yap Cheng Hai and resides in Australia. She can be reached at enquiry@MasterBoon.com or +60 12 303 1991(Malaysia) or +61 3 9859 7712(Australia). Website:www.MasterBoon.com

Yap Cheng Hai Academic Sdn Bhd
Tel: (03)2070 8009
Fax: (03) 2072 8009
Email:info@ychacademy.com

Disclaimer: Yap Cheng Hai Academy Sdn Bhd does not, and cannot, in any way whatsoever or howsoever represent, warrant or guarantee that the recommendations given in this column mean that the happiness and good fortune of the person(s) who put these recommendations into practice will naturally or necessarily follow.

iSmile Magazine, Profile

Profile

She defies the stereotype image of scientists as technical, quiet and serious. The Petaling Jaya-born Ms. Yap Hwee Boon, is vibrant, interesting and humourous. She displays her intelligence and vitality in wide-ranging areas – from stem cells, to mountain climbing and feng shui.

Boon, as she likes to be called, reveals that her name has a very studious ring. In the Hokkien dialect, it means ‘bright, intelligent scholar’. She confesses that she does enjoy studying challenging subjects. Bological sciences were her favourite, from an early age. She has put her academic achievements to use in the bio-medical field and has contributed to several biotech breakthroughs. For instance, she developed a multi-million dollar business in new stem cell transplantation therapy and implemented a US$150m biopharmaceutical facility for human blood products. She is sought after now not as a research scientist but one that has expertise in commercialising high-end biomedical innovations.

Boon’s bio-medical consultancy is based in Melbourne, Australia, and she travels extensively in the Asia-Pacific region. “Understanding and managing the science, developing and implementing marketing strategies, dealing with different cultures, regulations and human egos” is how she explains her work. She knows the ins-and-outs of regulatory and clinical trial requirements and the intricacies of doing business in Japan, South Korea, China and Australia, visits the key opinion leaders and evaluates distributors in all these markets.

Having established a good reputation, Boon can pick and choose biotech projects to work on. In between projects, she delves into a totally different world of feng shui. Passing interest? Not really, considering that she is the daughter of renowned and highly respected feng shui Grandmaster Yap Cheng Hai. All her three brothers are fond of this subject and one of them is attached full-time to the Yap Cheng Hai Academy in Kuala Lumpur.

Boon reveals she was ‘never pressurised’ by her father to enter the world of feng shui. “My father liked to renovate and move things around in the house and he would explain to us the significance, but we children were not forced to study feng shui” she recalls. Boon was busy with her career in bio sciences and only seriously studied under her father in 1999. She carries out feng shui consultancy and teaches feng shui under her company Feng Shui For Enriching Lives.

Which is her passion? Bio medicine or feng shui? Boon admits that she is ‘torn between two loves’. “It is a decision I have yet to resolve”, she acknowledges. On one hand, she is excited about playing a role in breakthroughs in bio medicine that can benefit patients. On the other, she finds more satisfaction with feng shui because of the legacy she can leave – “I can pass on the knowledge to people who can use it to help themselves and others”.

While not immersed in the world of bio medicine or feng shui, Boon finds pleasure in outdoor activities. She travels, walks the mountains and scuba dives. Boon is also a qualified martial arts instructor. This, she reveals, is attributed to her father’s strict tutoring from childhood. “We were more or less forced to take up martial arts from the age of four,” Boon recalls. She has mastered the various levels of the arts – right up to using fighting swords, and even taught kungfu during her varsity days. She now sees the benefits of the gruelling early morning practices for they have helped her to develop both a healthy body and mind.

iSmile Magazine, Cover Story

Living in harmony with our environmnt is good for health. The Chinese have mastered feng shui, the science of identifying and tapping ‘positive’ energy and avoiding ‘negative’ energy from the environment. Good feng shui calculations and analyses can point us to ‘auspicious’ energy for health, money, position, relationship and personal harmony.

The first thing that comes to mind when one mentions fengshui is wealth, as in making money. Feng shui practitioner Master Boon Yap notes that the definition of wealth under feng shui covers both monetary and non-monetary components. ‘Health and harmony is part of wealth,’ she says, underscoring the point that one cannot enjoy wealth without health. She explains that good feng shui means tapping ‘auspicious’ energy. ‘Auspicious energy’ can encompass anything that governs prosperity – money, position, health, relationship and personal harmony.

Does feng shui really have any bearing on a person’s health or wealth? There must be some basis considering that feng shui has been practised for over 5,000 years, mainly in the East. The trend has also spread to the West, drawing a good number of staunch believers. The Yap Cheng Hai Academy based in Kuala Lumpur has schooled feng shui instructors from various parts of the world such as Australia, South Africa, South America, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Russia and Switzerland.

Master Boon Yap, daughter of renowned feng shui Grandmaster Yap Cheng Hai, and a scientist by profession (see profile), believes that there is scientific basis as to why feng shui works. She attributes it to the presence of energy as explained in quantum mechanics and the electro-magnetic spectrum. Energy of different wavelengths is everywhere – light, Xray, radio waves, microwaves. In Eastern philosophy, all these energies are simply referred to as qi. The focus of feng shui Master Boon Yap says, is to tap ‘positive energy’ and avoid ‘negative energy’. This duality of energy stems from Tao philosophy where everything exists as part of the duality in nature – black and white, light and dark, hot and cold.

Qi forces are not visible. So where is the positive qi and the negative qi? The Chinese have mastered the science of identifying the ‘right’ qi directions and locations using various calculations, formulas and instruments. Master Boon Yap clarifies that each school of thought on fengshui has its own set of formulas. She notes that there are many schools and outlines the more well-known classical ones – Ba Zhai, San He, San Yuan and Xuan Kong Da Gua. As a practitioner, she has knowledge of these four different schools and can analyse the varying recommendations to put together a set of solutions.

Aligning energy

Once the positive qi directions are identified, the aim of feng shui is twopronged – ‘align the environment (home or office) to receive the energy and align the person to receive this energy’. The alignment depends on a person’s year and time of birth plus the direction of the space where the person lives and works – home and office. In practical terms, many people think of massive renovations and huge expenditure. “It is not necessarily so as a good feng shui master should find the best solution with minimal changes,” says Master Boon Yap. Very often, it involves simple procedures such as changing the direction of an office desk or moving the head of a bed. Master Boon Yap notes the three vital areas in a home:

* Front door
* Master Bedroom
* Kitchen

For health, the kitchen plays an important role because it is where food is cooked, food being the mainstay for…

Full story, get the iSmile Magazine (Nov-Dec 2005) at the nearest bookstore today!