By Janet Shin

If there is an auspicious site, is there an unlucky site, too?

Referring to modern feng shui, people try to make their houses a more pleasant and healthy place to live in and their offices a more prosperous place for business. How can we make our living place more delightful and our business more profitable? There are tons of feng shui tips to improve our environment. The same applies to a place which brings bad luck and we should stay away from these aspects of the environment.

One day, one of my students invited me to her office. She worked in real estate but she said she was going to change her occupation because of a downturn in the real estate market. Shifting one’s career path is not simple especially for the self-employed. Those accumulated connections, contracts, and know-how will be discarded so it is quite frustrating to change careers while middle-aged. Also they have to learn from A to Z if they are to start anew.

When I visited her office, I was able to see why she was driven out of the business. Her office was located on T-junction roads. There is a feng shui teaching that a poison arrow aims at the office aligned with the center of the T-shape. Actually in her case, two roads were heading towards her office like a V-shape. And there was a building in between the V roads. Therefore this building has a sharp and angular structure towards her office. Consequently her being out of business is not caused by the downturn economy but by the bad feng shui.




As taught, feng shui literally means wind and water. In order to understand the qi channels of wind and water, people studied the shapes and directions of mountains, roads and rivers. In ancient days, it was comparatively simple to define our environment. And people merely gathered in front of mountains to protect themselves from sharp winds and near rivers to make their living. The river provided fish for food and water for farming and people were able to trade what they reaped. That’s the reason why they built advanced civilizations around the basin of big rivers.

However this has changed with population growth. People had to exploit more for habitation and they moved to areas without mountains and rivers. The original translation of feng shui, wind and water, must adapt to the modernized residential environment. Buildings take the place of mountains while roads play a similar role of rivers. Cities are formed by the geographic proximity of transportation. And the construction of buildings and stores are centered on these areas.

Under these circumstances, not only making a living with well arranged interior decoration and having an ambient environment excluding harmful energy are key factors to determine good feng shui. Straight roads, big buildings with sharp ornaments on the surface and electric wires are what we need to be careful of. We need to make a conscious effort to sense those structures that emit poisonous energy. They inadvertently direct toward our residences or offices with a killing arrow. The harmful energy is mostly created by sharp or pointed structures. While it is feasible to change the interior structure within our house, it is not possible to change those surrounding buildings or roads, unless we are moving out. So the effective remedy to dissolve these harmful energies is not always easy and curable. There is some advice to place certain objects between your place and the source of killing energy but this cannot be an ultimate measure.

Dissolving bad feng shui (or so called bibo feng shui) is an important academic sphere to investigate.

The environment keeps changing as people move in and out and sometimes they add new constructs while removing others. Even an artistic statue with pointed edges or with dark images can release negative energy. Try to be aware of what’s going on around you. It is so lamentable to see people undergo painful experiences owing to negative surroundings.

Info: Are you interested in learning more about the ancient Chinese teaching about the “Four Pillars of Destiny”? For further information, visit Janet’s website at www.fourpillarskorea.com and contact Janet at 010-5414-7461 or email janetshin@hotmail.com.

The writer is the president of the Heavenly Garden, a saju research center in Korea, and the author of “Learning Four Pillars.”.