A little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous.

Yesterday, one of my relatives called me up in the afternoon, asked me to join him for tea with one of his friend from mainland China. According to my relative, this person also has an interest in Chinese Metaphysics. Having a couple of hours to spare before bringing my kids to play outdoor, I decided to meet this person.

When I met Mr. Leung (in his late 40’s), he told me he is from Hong Kong but now residing in Shanghai. My relative decide to de-tour to his newly bought condominium, I thought he was showing Mr. Leung some investment opportunities in Penang.

When we arrived at the condo building, my relative said “both of you can help check out the Feng Shui of my new place.” Mr Leung said he did not bring his compass. My relative point to me and said he got it in his phone. I reluctantly bring out my iPhone and check the reading. Mr Leung was very surprised with capability of the iPhone (in my daily work, I still use the Luo Pan, I think clients would not pay me my high fees if they see me using iPhone to do audit).

I decided not to say anything about the Feng Shui of his condo, because I am not working and it is a de-tour scenario. And when we got back in the car, Mr. Leung start to ask me some background questions about Feng Shui, the conversation goes something like this

Mr. Leung: How did you study Feng Shui?, you study it yourself from books?

GK Ham: I study under Grandmaster Lau on San Yuan Feng Shui. San He under two different master, and QMDJ from Master Ho in Hong Kong.

Mr Leung : Oh, San Yuan, you use Xuan Gong Flying Star?

GK Ham: No we don’t use Flying Star. Mainly San Yuan.

Mr. Leung: So San Yuan, you subscribe to the principle of changing to period 8 on 2004?

GK Ham: Actually we are not worried about the period. We are more concern about what is the qi structure of the property, exit of qi of the property and using Useful God in BaZi to match with the person’s allocation.

Mr. Leung: Then do you meddle with Ba Zi.

GK Ham: Of course.

Mr. Leung: It is actually good you have studied about San He. So that you can have a more broader outlook on Feng Shui. Just San Yuan alone would not be enough.

GK Ham: (obviously you do not know what you are talking about, if you study 2 system completely you would not be making this statement. San Yuan is a complete system and San He is a complete system, I’ve decided to dedicate my career on San Yuan, case close)

After these few Qs and As, in my mind, I thought Mr. Leung just has an interest in Feng Shui, so it is natural for those who are not in the field to make self and wrong assumptions about different systems or try to create hybrid systems.

When we reach his hotel, my relative asked me whether want to join them(Mr. Leung’s old friend Mr. Liu who is from China doing investment in Penang, and Mr. and Mrs Tan and their small daughter) for drinks, since it is still early, I have decided to join in.

When we sat down, Mr. Liu told my relative that Mr. Leung had helped a lot of people become rich in China. My relative was introduced to Mr. Leung a few days ago through Mr. Liu due to their business relation. Instantly it hit me, that Mr. Leung is also in Feng Shui consultant and Mr. Liu was trying to recommend him to my relative. I have become a human shield because most likely my relative find it hard to turn Mr. Liu down and thus bring me into the picture.

Anyhow, since I am stuck in the position, I might as well enjoy the afternoon tea. Then I saw Mr. Leung bring out his Chinese 10,000 years calendar and a note pad. Mr. and Mrs Tan wanted Mr. Leung to do BaZi analysis for their daughter who is having some illness. After Mr. Leung write up the BaZi, I had a brief glance on the BaZi as I was sitting next to him.

Mr. Leung decided to start his BaZi analysis on the Mr. Tan daughter, “Your daughter belong to water element, water strong like the sea.” (Because his daughter is strong REN壬 Water) “ Her illness will go away when she is 11, she will somehow find some doctors or person that will help her, when she reach her that age. Currently her strong water is being block by Earth, therefore the water cannot run smoothly.”

The young girl is Strong Ren Water, going through XU戌 Earth luck( which later when I go through my calendar, actually she is going through YOU酉 luck, apparently he made a mistake when writing up the young girl’s chart).

Plus her Ba Zi chart has an inherent SI巳, WU午, WEI未 forming Fire in the bottom. Using just a Yi 乙 Wood to prevent both fire and water from clashing. When she was born 7 years ago , the illness is not evident because year is GUI WEI癸未, followed by JIA SHEN甲申 and then YI YOU乙酉. All of it has wood, therefore the evident clash is not there at least until 2006.

The inherent clash, surfaced this year because GENG YIN 庚寅 year, Geng 庚combines with Yi乙 wood and thus inherent fire beneath clash upwards with the water, desease related to the blood. She suffers from Lupus.

(If you got lost in the above explanation, in brief his interpretation of the chart is not detail enough to get to the root of the problem)

Mr. Leung knowledge level is obviously not ready for him to go into this profession full time. Writing up BaZi chart and does not know the difference of Jie Qi 节气 for entering the month is not qualified to be giving advice to others.

I have no idea where he learn his BaZi or Feng Shui, anyway I am not interested to know. No wonder this field is being shun by some parts of the general public, it is these standard of “consultants” going around giving others advice on things and knowledge they thought they knew it inside out. Which in actual fact, what they are doing is just giving Chinese Metaphysics a bad name.

My advice is, if you learn it for own knowledge, you can consult your own family members and friends while maintaining a good feedback relation with your master, at least they can tell you when you make a mistake and correct you.

If you are doing it full time as a career. Thinking learning from books and some short talks by Feng Shui master, then you are trying to take a short cut and not doing your dues. The law of karma always catches up with you when you have done a string of damage through your advices to countless families and businesses. Which in reality their life would be better off not taking up your service in the first place!

And if you are doing it full time and try to wing it, one day there might be someone like me who just happen to sit next to you when you are doing your consultation and write up on his blog about it.

(All names have been changed for privacy reasons except for Mr. Leung)

Can creating a tomb before you die actually enhances your luck?

Doing a tomb or grave for a person before they die can actually bring about good luck or enchance a person's overall luck. Usually a master would help a person who is suffering from terminal illness or very down in their luck. However most of the time, we have to take into account the person's overall destiny and also his/her behaviour and character in society.

End of the day, somebody has to settle or nullify the karmic effect if such exercise is being carried out. Here are excerpts from a Hong Kong magazine, Grandmaster Lau was interviewed for his view on doing 'live tombs'.

Yi Jing 易经 Image from our planet

About 12 days ago, I heard on the radio that our planet Earth currently is experiencing severe cold storm on the North and extreme heat on the South. This undoubtedly had caused great disturbance in our eco-system. It is also due to our long term abuse on the environment. From the Yi-Jing 易经perspective, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching one of the oldest systematic form of Chinese oracle, the current Earth situation has given us a Hexagram or Gua 卦.

There are many methods of Gua Divination; the more accurate and fastest is through the image formation that one can capture from a situation. However image capture from a situation is more of an art than science.

The Gua image that imprint on me for this situation is the 63 Hexagram – Ji Ji 既濟. With water above and Fire below. The Gua meaning means Finished – “At the start there is good luck and at the end there is disorder. It denotes perfect balance has been reached and any movement may cause order to revert disorder. We should take thought of misfortune and arm ourselves against it in advance”.

And superimposing this on our current Earth condition, looks like more serious natural disasters will follow if we do not act personally, as a group, as a nation and as inhabitants of this planet.

Then on 12 January, Haiti was struck with a massive earthquake. If you look at the 63 Hexagram closely, the only way to let the water extinguish the fire is breaking of the third line. Hence further clue to this hexagram, changing of the third line. Movement of the third line has one very crucial meaning – ‘Time makes all the difference’

Which means if you want save or rescue our environment, the best time is to start with ourselves and NOW.

Oracle from Yi Jing will show us our likely path and turn of events if we do not do anything and just follow the flow of events. It is not a fix eventuality but high probable reality if the current conditions are left to run its own course.

Not only Hollywood has given us the warning, planet earth has also given us the sign to act now and act fast.

2012 - Is it going to end??

Recently there have been a number of people asking me “Is it all going to end on 2012?” From the movie 2012, it has created a mass paranoia on the end of days coming to us on Earth.

My reply was “It better be, or else there's going to mortages, loan and all the bills to pay” with a smirky smile on my face. Let's face it in a brief and simple sentence – 'Death is imminent the minute you are born'. Nobody can escape it, no matter how high your spiritual cultivation, there is a 'bus' waiting for you. Well for some they can fly/float when they reach certain 'attainment'. However that's another discussion altogether.

In Chinese Metaphysics, there is no such recording that our calendar would run out. For the record of time, we use the 60 Jia Zi 六十甲子. That can calculate time in solar or lunar terms. Ancient Chinese, they view time in a circular manner. Means that there is a cycle to things in nature, human body, weather and almost all in the physical reality.

Most Western culture view time in a straight line, therefore the past is gone and looking forward to the future. Whereas for the Chinese culture, what you do now may not affect you but will come back to affect you later in life or your children. Things like being environmentally friendly now has it's benefit? Hint hint.

Comic courtesy of walruscomix.com

Therefore from a Chinese calendar perspective, life will still go on beyond 2012. Most likely Earth would have more hostile living conditions but life still goes on (not from Chinese Metaphysics but from Al Gore documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth', sadly most politicians don't get it) .

What we need to do instead is take a real hard look on your own life plan and ask yourself some real difficult questions.

1. What do you aim to achieve in the next 3 years for yourself and also your family?

2. Do you have a plan in the first place?

3. What is your luck outlook for coming 5 years? Is it a time to march on gallantly or is it a time to shelter yourself in a bunker with enough savings to last you through probable change of jobs or career or slowdown of business.

4. Is your environment favourable for you and your family?

Many people choose to fight with the tide of life, venturing into business or a new career just because they think they got everything figured out. If luck is not on your side, any brilliant business plan would also sink like the Titanic. 'It is always better to be lucky than smart'. A very difficult point to digest, however if you know when you are going to have the trend on your side, then half of your goals it is already done.

Bottom line is, if you had a wake up call from the movie. It means that you have been procrastinating on the things you should have / would have / need to do in life. First step to beyond 2012, is to check where you are now in terms of destiny and where you would want to go and how much is destiny on your side in achieving what you want to achieve.

There is hope beyond 2012, if you have a plan now....

Catching up in Russia

Just completed 6 days of teaching Feng Shui and Bazi in Moscow. Tomorrow will be a day off and tour familiar Moscow with a new angle of my camera.






This trip to Moscow also manage to give an interview to my student Margarita Shumenko who will be writing about Qi Men Dun Jia and also Yin Feng Shui. The great drive that attracted me to come to Moscow at least once a year are my students here. It is always a great feeling when I catch up with them, and hear some of the great effects they have achieved from applying San Yuan Feng Shui and Qi Men.

However I was taken aback when one of the student ask me "Is it true that you told some of us that you will not be coming back to Moscow to teach?" After some pondering, only I realize that the statement I gave last year was actually 'lost in translation'. What actually happened was that, last year someone sabotage my organizer's Russian website and in the process my computer was infected with some virus. When I did meet up with some students then, I told them that if this continue, I would most likely not come to Russia anymore to teach and I will not be the one who lose out on the inormation and knowledge. Anyhow I was glad that I manage to clarify it again.






Some were also asking when will I give permission for them to teach basic Qi Men. All of that is in the process however there are 2 or 3 students that have gone out to teach others on San Yuan and Qi Men without our permission. As the information and teaching is lineage base, all of them have already signed an agreement and also orally agreed not to disseminate the information on their own. I am not surprised when I was told some of them actually encounter difficulties in life such as sickness and bad luck. Most likely the law of karma has caught up to them before I did. There are bound to be bad apples no matter in what .organizations or school. They have not completed the full teaching and have already show their 'horn'.

As my master once told me, even in university, in the same class of graduates - some will become industrialist, business person but some will also become crooks, robbers and thieves. So I cannot expect much from a group of Chinese Metaphysics students. However I am very glad that 97% of them did uphold what we call 'respect the teacher and place emphasis on the correct Tao of learning'.

It is this group that are the driving force of authentic Chinese Metaphysics in Russia, and it is honor for me to be able to conttribute my part.

Location: Moscow.
-- Posted from my iPhone

Fly with Qi Men

For the past 6 years I have been to various countries around the world teaching Qi Men Dun Jia 奇门遁甲. The Chinese ancient science on timing. Many students have had good results using it from helping students increase their study luck to finding a job.

Lately one of my students in Russia, Margarita Shumenko writes about her experience with Qi Men in their daily newspaper. Here a complete translated article in English.










FLY WITH QIMEN

Recently I went through a course of Qi Men Dun Jia from Master Ham and now I’d like to tell you about my impressions.

I should confess that I’m scarred of travelling by air.
But I have to fly quite often – once or twice a month and sometimes the distances are very large. I acquired this fear after my friends had told me about the extreme situations they had happened to face. One of them was flying to Egypt when their plane started to fall down impetuously. I was the first person whom she called after the landing that’s why I had to listen to the most thrilling details. Another friend of mine was on board of the plane which made emergency landing because of the fire in the engine. As I was going to take Boeing which is as I think differs greatly from our Russian Tu model planes like Mercedes differs from Zaporozhets, I started to fall in panics nearly a day before the flight. Moreover travelling by Russian planes is absolutely inadmissible for me.

The third day of the course from Master Ham was coming to an end. I was impressed immensely by the Master, he was a born teacher, a brilliant master who spent his powers very reasonably and treated the audience in front of him with great respect. The state of inner harmony remained during all the days of the seminar because Master answered any questions that arose in my mind almost immediately. It even seemed to me that he scanned the needs of everyone and of the whole group at once! Master and the group as if united in a single body, sensible, full of thick informative energies and very subtle on the level of receiving and perceiving the material. I’d like to thank the group for its tact – the questions were asked economically and in good working speed; and the organizers - for the opportunity to get this knowledge; and Master – for the unique learning and methods.

The third day of the course was coming to an end and it was high time to fly back home. I knew that I could leave for the airport only from 5 to 7 p.m. but my flight was late at night. I bought the tickets myself for the first time in my life the day before. During that large break a small group of us once again checked the safety of our direction and the time of leaving for the airport. Then mystical thing were going on or at least they looked like this way because our attention was focused on confirming or disposing the information about the safety of our flight. All those who practice Qi Men will agree with me and give lots of their own examples that when you choose the right time and the exact direction, the Universe itself starts to help you.

We caught the taxi and rushed to Vnukovo. A two-hour break before the flight looked nice in the south-west (my native city is situated in that direction relatively to Moscow), there was a Structure which allowed to get results out of nothing. And the north-west was rather favourable as we could get help from there.

The traffic jam prevented us from getting in time and the taxi driver turned back the car trying to get through in a roundabout way. I felt nervous as it was obvious that we weren’t meeting the deadline. At that moment some kind of insight came to me. Once again I looked at my accounts while they were broadcasting over the radio that the traffic jams were throughout the city: in the east and in the south-east of Moscow apart from the south-west and the north-west… After driving out of the northern part of Moscow the taxi headed for the airport making its way through the north-west. The traffic lights lit up with green and didn’t change its colour until we arrived at the airport.

It was amazing but I can’t say that it was new for me. Every time when universal accounts adapt to a definite person and his definite task, everything around him confirms the correctness of the chosen path and helps him by all possible means. It’s just necessary to take notice of some signs. Traffic lights are signs too. We had the same experience in Prague when we managed to get to the clinics in 11 minutes instead of ordinary 45 minutes. There another Qi Men method was used: we chose excellent time for leaving the house and the place of positive energy concentration increasing the effectiveness of the operation. This allowed us to enter the clinics from the right side. Then the Czech doctors took a very strange step – they brought forward the start of the operation at 6:45 a.m., anesthetization specialists were called for, and for some reason they started the operation at an unusual hour. Later after the operation we were asked to explain our persistence and their compliance as well. Such tolerance of foreign doctors who are to follow strict disciplinary rules is absolutely inexplicable from the point of view of modern logics.

However for us it was one more sign as well as green traffic lights which proved the wellbeing of the result.

The car drove up gently to the airport. And everything else was going on like in a sweet dream. It seemed to me that I was a witness of a story with a good end. The flight was delayed for such time that the takeoff fell into a good time structure. Half a year before these hours could turn into a real nightmare for me. I’m such a person who should know what’s happening around me, and then it’s easier for me to come to a decision, adapt to the situation and survive. If I hadn’t understood that the time was working for me, the delayed takeoff would have turned my life at that moment into two hours of hard challenge. Instead of this a calm voice inside was repeating – a good structure, a good structure. The Universe starts to help you when you ask it about that….
Our plane was landing slowly in Rostov – evenly and majestically. Would you like to know about my fair emotions? I was crying! But only because it was the first time in my life when it wasn’t scaring for me to fly. I was crying as I felt grateful to ancient knowledge for its logic and confidence which made me strong.

P.S. During this fortnight I travelled by air twice – and I never failed to control the situation.

November 2008, Moscow – Prague

Shumenko Margarita
The International Feng Shui Forum Consultant

Is it better to be smart or lucky?

These few days have been doing Feng Shui audits for families that have growing childrens and also friends have been voicing concerns and excitement of their children school major examination.

From my own experience of being in formal school for 16 years, much of the 11 years are more about examining or testing how good my memory is compared to the rest of my class. Only later years in my college and uni that started to require me to use my own analysis and viewpoint into a subject or discussion.

I still find it true that examination in primary and high school has nothing to do and not a way to gauge how high a person will achieve in society.

From a Chinese Metaphysic conclusion, if your youth luck is favourable, then likely you will perform above average as a student. If you have unfavourable luck during your youth, you will encounter alot of difficulties and distraction in your study or shall we say memorizing capabilities.

Then the answer is obvious, from purely a grade standpoint in school, it is much better to be lucky than smart. If you are lucky and smart then you will be a top student.

Sometimes I find parents over stress themselves on how will a child perform in school. I would be more concern on how their prime age luck would turn out and which area that they can most likely be successful with what they are already being equipped from the day they are born. Each person character traits and luck phases or cycle will be different. It is doing the right thing at the right time such as venturing into own business OR maintain in a corporation during those times will ended differing you from a mediocre achiever or a high achiever in life. Timing is everything, knowing when you luck trend is in your favour and when to lay low is a critical part to master if you want to win in the game of life.

Then as a parent, our job is to provide and guide our children to best maximize their destiny in life instead of just preparing them to be good at the memory game in our school system.

Prepare them in life skill such as politeness, able to engage in a friendly conversation, rapport skills with others, how to think constructively and critically, how to stand up and speak up fo your rights, respect others, how to get into a real win-win solutions with others, how to enjoy finer things in life, how to laugh at yourself, laugh with others and many more that is not taught in school. But critical to their survival and success in any our modern society aroun the world!

-- Posted from my iPhone