Buddhism and Taoism - Are you confused?

Recently, a temple disciple asked me a question, he said his friend ask him 'You guys are a Taoist Temple, how come there is Buddhist rituals and also Tibetan Buddhist rituals during your Animal Liberation activities ?'

Many who are not familiar with either religion, Taoist and Buddhist will always take a separatist stand or view. It is like a choosing a political view, its either you are right or left. Some un- informed Buddhist with 'Divine Child Syndrome' or what we call 'I am better than thou' attitude will view that Taoist is lower and Buddhist is higher. Some un-informed Taoist will have renegade attitude and think that Taoist Deities are closer and grant our every request more easily.

Both views are mistaken.

Highest Taoist Cultivation is 大罗金仙 Da Luo Jin Xian, a state where you will surpass death and re-birth, the ability to manipulate your body 5 Elements and transform it into light and therefore one with the Dao 道.

This stage of cultivation is also known as Full Rainbow Body in Vajrayana. Which means when the person dies, his (it can be a she also) body turns into white light and glow of rainbow surrounds him, after which the physical body dissappear and only clothes and some parts of nail will remain. It is a manifestation that the cultivator have reached enlightment.

As you can see, the end goal of cultivators is the same for Taoism and also Buddhism. To surpass death and rebirth – samsara. But before we go too far and high up on our standards we must know how to gather merits to be able reach it. Without merits, nothing can be accomplished !

Many do not even know how to differentiate between karma and merit, but they are quick to jump on others when they see what they think is a mix and match. Below is my explanation to the Taoist Disciple.

From a Buddhism perspective, our Taoist Deities are our Protector 护法 in our cultivation in reaching Enlightment, Animal Liberation is a way for us to gather Merit (公德）or on a lower level Good Karma （福报）. During our Animal Liberation, we are doing 2 process at 1 go.

1. Name that have been written on the Biao Wen 表文list is being burn (submitted) to KDS Deities, to gather good karma for those people that have join the animal liberation.

2.At the same time, we chant Namgyalma mantra (Zhun Sheng Fo Mu) on the water and spray to the animal in hope that they obtain better rebirth in their next life - that is according to Buddhism - also we chant for mantras during our circumbulation - is to invite Buddhas and Boddhisatvas to grant their blessings to those fishes also in hope that they will obtain better rebirth.

If we just do the Taoist section, then all of us would only obtain good karma. That is also presuming you have a good request in your heart - better health, good relationship, good finance etc. If the person who went for animal liberation but inside their heart they request for bad luck on their enemies, sickness on the people they don't like, then in fact they will obtain a bad karma by requesting such action from Taoist Deities.

Karma affects everyone and all beings in any dimension.

Good karma can be use up. That is why it is consider a lower level good deed.

Our rebirth as human is also due to the balance of good and bad karma that we have gather in our many lifetimes in samsara. Changes of our luck also indicates, when our Good or Bad Karma will ripen. When the good ripen, we experience as good childhood, high study, good job, loyal spouse enter into a profitable business. When the bad karma ripens, we experience sickness, bad living conditions, failure of business, failure of marriage, Bad children etc.

Good and Bad Karma are constantly ripening, while we are also constantly creating them whether consciously or unconsciously. However good karma will not ensure that your next rebirth will be human or higher realms in samsara such as Deities etc. Only gathering of merits will ensure that you have a good rebirth in your next life. Therefore good karma is only very small compare to merits.

How do we distinguish good karma and merit? It is in your intention of your action.

1.When you do something for the benefit of yourself only - meaning better job, more money in life, successful business - and your intention is to benefit self - then your are USING UP your good karma.

2. When you do something good and HOPE that you can become better in your life situation or obtain something to benefit yourself - then you are creating only good karma for yourself and it is used up once you see improvement.

3. When you do something good, without any thought of self and purely in the hope that others will benefit THEN ONLY YOU ARE CREATING MERIT.

Why merit? Merit cannot be used up and it will follow you in your every rebirth until you achieve enlightment, Merit will constantly produce good karma in your every rebirth to help you in reaching enlightment. By being in KDS is also the result of your previous accumulated merit in your past lives to be able to be here as group to do something useful to benefit others.

While those new members that come to temple, we hope that they can create as much good karma as possible, when they see their life improve then they will start to accept in karma and merits and gather good merits instead.

While a person can create many many good karma, and in this lifetime they experience all the good karma and good conditions in life. However there is no guarantee their next life will experience the same comfort.

Can the same action produce either karma or merit? YES.

For example, when people come to join our animal liberation - if the intention of the organizer is to gather merit, even if those people who come and have request to obtain something, meaning they will only have good karma, it will also turn into merit. This is because the organization that is doing it is doing it CORRECTLY, therefore they have a higher benefit.

If KDS is built up for personal gains or personal intention, then whatever that is done will only gather good karma and not merits. Because the start is already due to personal gain.
If KDS is built up based on the sole purpose to benefit others and more people, then the whole organization is constantly gathering merits to benefit its member.

Then the next question is - When you are in the KDS contributing, are you thinking for the benefit of yourself or in hope that it can benefit others? Then that will also determine your presence in KDS is for exchange of good karma or to gather merit.
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Rest assured for those who frequent Kam Dong San Temple. I am not half baked cultivator who are filling in the activity when there is a gap. As a Taoist, I have the full lineage of 六壬伏英館 up to 五雷教 and also lineage 風火院. In my sworn oath into Tao Fa 道法, there will be no money requested and earn on personal basis in performing any Taoist rituals or help. In Vajrayana, I have kept and keeping full samaya with my teachers and lamas.

We are only helping you gain more merit in a single action....that however will depend on your karma and merit to join us in our activity! 大顯威靈. Om Mani Padme Hung !

Selecting Date of Birth for Babies

Received an email last evening asking me to select date for twins. I have written a long explanation to Mr and Mrs Lee explaining why they should let nature takes it's course. I am sharing with readers of this blog so that you can understand in detail the consideration for birth date selection.

Here's my unedited reply:

Dear Mr and Mrs Lee,

First of all congratulations on your incoming son and daughter. Wow ! Both at once must be a real blessings.

I have ceased to do any date selection for new born since 5 years ago. I would only do for close clients that could have possible critical situations concerning the mother during delivery.

As you know, I am practicing Buddhist and Taoist Practitioner.

Child come into this world due to their affinity with their parent in their previous life. Whether it is good karmic ties or unfavorable karmic ties, due to the relationship only they will come into this world in this lifetime as your child.

In essence you would also need to have the ideal background (economic condition whether good or bad, husband and wife relationship etc) ,  to fit into their childhood and adult karma.

 As a Feng Shui consultant, I will select an ideal date for the baby- the first and foremost consideration is having the ideal 10 years luck period. There are few conditions that come into analysis. As human beings, only 10% of people would have consecutive two to three 10 years good luck period and about 5% of the population will have consecutive  four to five 10 years good luck period.

Then the consideration comes into the analysis

1. If a person have really good luck period during their early childhood, then they would have lots of toys and grow up in a above average family background. Meaning that before or after their birth, the family would have improvement in their economic condition to MATCH their early childhood luck. However when they reach their 30's or 40's, in time that they need luck the most - they will not have it because they already enjoyed it in their early life.

2. If I select a person to have fantastic luck in their 30's and 40's, then it means that their early childhood must be average or below average luck. To have a REAL CONTRAST between early childhood and adult luck, usually early childhood would be very quite 'bitter' to have that huge impact rise in mid adult life. That would also means that if the child has that luck period, before or after birth - the family economic condition would also need to reflect and MATCH his/her childhood hardship.

Then the ultimate question goes back to the parent - Does the parent wants the child to enjoy childhood luck that would better affect the parent in their children's childhood? or are they willing to endure some setbacks to sacrifice for their child's midlife good luck?

3. If during that period of selection, there is a day that would enable a baby to have consecutive 4 - 5 (10 Years Luck Period), 99.5% of the time, the baby that I have selected that favorable time would be born either one or more days earlier. Why? To have such a good luck in their lifetime, parent would also need to have the right karmic background and economic condition to have such a child. And most important of all, they would need to have very favorable ancestors grave (Yin Feng Shui) to support such a destiny.


After the general luck and destiny, the second consideration is relationship.

1. Some days that favors good luck period, may not favor good relationship with spouse. Then parent's have to decide, they want a capable son who go through many marriages in life or capable daughters in their career but can't seem to find Mr. Right. Of course I am generalising here in my examples, as there could be many more considerations factors or scenario that we could encounter base on the time-frame for birth.

Finally or most important about Health.

If we select a date that does not have much up or down in their destiny in order for the person to have average health throughout their life. Which also means luck wise is average throughout whole life.

Furthermore in your case, a boy and a girl born each year would have their luck ELEMENTS (5 Elements) arrange in reverse order. Days that favors a male luck arrangement sometimes would not favor so much a female born on that day. Therefore it adds on, more complexity and consideration to the selection.

In conclusion, I would suggest to you just let nature takes it course.

As parent, our main priority is to ensure that we as providers for our child, would be able to provide them with the best education, time and most all love in their lifetime. Thus we need to USE Feng Shui to balance our own destiny, so that we can have the edge in our economic circumstances to have the time for them. Also also use Feng Shui to avoid the possible health causes that are caused by the environment. If we want to leave something permanent to our children and grandchildren, then pre-select a good Yin Feng Shui ground so that all generations in the future can reap our decision we make while we still are here.

I wish you all the best in receiving your boy and girl soon. Having twins is already a blessing, furthermore a boy and girl. You will be alright!

Warmest regards

GK Ham

What is NOT Feng Shui?

Since I've posted up questions on GK Ham International Feng Shui Consultant Facebook page, I receive request to write about what is and what is not Feng Shui.

My experience with new clients nowadays, 99% of them are able to differentiate 'trinket' Feng Shui and real Feng Shui.

'Trinket' Feng Shui is when the ‘Feng Shui consultants’ ask you to purchase 1 or more statues/ornaments to place in each corner of your house. For romance, maybe you would require to buy some items that have shapes or imagery that reminds you of couple, togetherness etc. For support, mountain pictures, fibre/steel or wood base material to represent mountain and place it at your back.

These are all classified as Trinket Feng Shui - which is NOT Feng Shui. If having all these trinkets can change a person's life in their environment- then the shop that is selling it must be enjoying the best Feng Shui - which sadly in reality is never the case.

Then why do people still buy those trinkets home and place it year after year?. Additionally there is always a new batch of people every year who are really interested in improving their life with Feng Shui but somehow not having enough merits in their destiny, therefore leading them to read the wrong books and unknowingly lead them to a road of endless trinket buying spree!

Trinket Feng Shui have ideas similar to modern medicine, something wrong with your body and surely the doctor would have a pill to fix it. In this case, something inadequate in your life, there's a Feng Shui item that can fix or help you.

If you are really wanting to know what is real Feng Shui and want to use Feng Shui to assist you in your goals in life, the first thing you have to wake up from is the trinket Feng Shui dream. If you are able to pass that- then you might just have enough merits in your destiny to know what is real Feng Shui and how it can help improve your life for which the system has been improving others destiny for many centuries before us.

So what is real Feng Shui? Feng Shui is using the energy of your environment to balance YOUR destiny. Whenever there is balance, there is harmony, and where harmony exist - prosperity comes naturally and easily. You are in flow with your destiny - things that you willed, objectives that you set are easily put into motion and achieve without much obstacles. What I described seems like fluff and above the air. Prosperity does not mean money will fall from the sky, or just wait and someone will knock at the door and give you a big chunk of money.

Some term it as Classical Feng Shui, following the Classics that was written by previous practitioners. Even within classical Feng Shui there are differences in the system that is used and of course the variations of result.

One of the WORST beliefs to adopt in Feng Shui is to think that it is a Do It Yourself (DIY) hobby. Hence many would think that a How To Feng Shui book costing less than USD100 will be able to help their destiny and improve their life, if only they follow it to the dot. Would you DIY surgery for your own medical condition?

The major difference of ancient Chinese authors and Western authors is that, for Chinese practitioners who are forefront in their field, their writings of books most of the time is published to impress their peers of their capability and knowledge findings. Rarely are those books being published to be How To or Guide books of DIY Feng Shui. Readers who are not familiar with this would then take these books as self-learning books of Feng Shui.

Some Western authors would then translate these early classics or make interpretations on those classics. BUT are those interpretations or translations useful? Applicable in modern household? Or even correct?

So how do we determine the classics are correct? It is through experience gather from many case studies through time back by logical principles and interactions of the 5 elements. Is an experience of a person enough to render a principle useful or applicable? NO definitely NOT, you need a group of people through generations to apply, validate, re-assess and finally render that principle useful.

This is where a REAL Feng Shui Master needs to be able to tell others the name of their teacher or Master, their grand master and great grandmaster. Not because they can show off, it is so that we can trace their line of knowledge, collective experiences and also the effectiveness of their work. You MUST place an importance on this if you ever want to experience the effects of Feng Shui.

When a practitioner put their Feng Shui consulting name as ‘research for Feng Shui’ it always gives me a big doubt in my mind. Because there is NOT even a remote possibility within a lifespan of ordinary human being to be able to research anything out of Feng Shui. Lets look at the figures, BaZi possibility runs in millions of possible combinations, not encompassing the background, place of birth and locality of the person. Then with house and environment, there are almost infinite possibilities of external environment, internal layout.

If the person’s foundation knowledge of Feng Shui principles are not strong, in which they are just experimenting here and there, points pick up from books and short seminar here and there. Do you think they would ever research anything from it? And you let them CHARGE you money for experimenting on you.

For example Chinese martial arts, famous Wing Chun practitioner Ip Man. His Master or Shi Fu is Chan Wah Shun and from him we can trace it all the way back Wing Chun. Now famous globally is Samuel Kwok, his master is Ip Ching and Ip Chun, sons of Ip Man. And wherever you go to learn Wing Chun in the world – those masters are able to tell you their lineage. Even Bruce Lee the founder of Jeet Kun Do is able to tell you his master is Ip Man, and from it he refine it further. All these legends of our time, do not tell people I study it from books or I am doing some research in Wing Chun on my own. Why? Because it takes a person a lifetime in order to refine the skills of their lineage.

Author's partial collection of Feng Shui Luo Pan

Feng Shui is field of knowledge by itself, and within it have few systems that are being used. Studying Chinese Traditional Medicine takes 5 years of theory and 2 years of recognizing herbs. For Feng Shui each system will take 3 – 5 years to familiarize for a student, refinement will take 1 decade or more.  If you are willing to invest the time and effort, then practicing Feng Shui as a career may suit you. If you just want the results, by all means hire a professional who have gone through the required learning and just pay his fees. DIY? Why don’t you opt for clay craft instead :)

Major points of the article

1. Product placement is not Feng Shui.
2. Feng Shui is not a Do It Yourself (DIY) subject.
3. Feng Shui is managing the energy in your environment to balance YOUR destiny.
4. You cannot learn Feng Shui from books. Feng Shui Classics are extended papers published to impress their peers. They are not meant to teach a layperson on Feng Shui.
5. If you want to learn, learn from someone who can name you their teacher and also teacher’s teacher.
6. It takes 3 – 5 years to learn Feng Shui.
7. If you want immediate results, hire a professional.

FS Difference between House and Apartments

What is the difference?

In internal Feng Shui evaluation of house vs apartments - 2 areas of importance have a lot of difference in flexibility.

1. Internal Water Exits of the home. House can spend some money to correct the problem, whereas for apartments, majority of the cases you will be unable to change it.

2. Kitchen and Stove. If kitchen is not in the correct location, you can still change it. For apartments, it will be a major project. If the building adopts central gas supply then changing location will be almost impossible.

For external evaluation,

1.If there is a major sha in the environment, if an apartment building faces sha, the sha effect will be shared by all the occupants. If a house faces a major sha in the environment, then they will be affected wholly by it. 

2. For external water, which is bringing strong vibrant qi into the house or strong sha qi into house - depending on the house setup- house will definitely have more advantage in receiving qi compared to apartments.

Landed properties are increasingly more expensive all over the world. From a Feng Shui consultants perspective and experience - if you cannot afford a landed property, find a qualified Feng Shui consultant and find the appropriate landed property that are available for rent!

If you have rented a house that are suitable for your BaZi- it will definitely helped your destiny. When the correct luck period arrive, then you will be able to afford your first landed.

When I started moving out from my parent's place, I've decided to rent a house even though the rental was much more than I can afford. Within 3 years, me and my wife bought our first house. And after another 5 years we upgraded again.

So part of the plan to improve your destiny are:

Find a suitable landed property- if you cannot afford to buy - RENT !
And most important of all get a qualified Feng Shui consultant to advise you!