Understanding Sheng Qi

Understanding Sheng Qi

SHENG QI 生 气

Sheng Qi is the most important factor in Fengshui and is also of similar importance in the study and research of other related Chinese Metaphysics (中 华 玄 学). Any student starting off to learn Fengshui should at least have a good working knowledge of Sheng Qi and how it works.

Here I shall only discuss ShengQi in the context of Fengshui. I shall also discuss the understanding of Sheng Qi (or different concepts of ShengQi) and the different methods and applications of theories of ShengQi by different Fengshui schools. Only then can the reader appreciate the theories and applications of ShengQi as propounded by Yang Gong Fengshui.

There are differing opinions on how to describe Sheng Qi and differing understanding of how Sheng Qi works. But it boils down to only one basic fact: every Fengshui school or method has only one motive, and that is to generate or to harness Sheng Qi for the benefit of either Yang Zhai (house of the living) or Yin Zhai (grave of the dead). All Fengshui schools and methods have this same objective.

In this chapter, I shall try to describe it and analyse it in the best possible way I know how. I may not have discussed and analysed Qi in its totality because this is not thesis about Qi but rather how Sheng Qi is used and applied in Yang Gong Fengshui.

What is Qi 气

Qi, In very simple words, is pervasive ‘universal energy’. It is called in many ways: ‘universal breath’; ‘cosmic breath’; ‘cosmic energy’; ‘cosmic life force’; etc, etc.

Chinese Metaphysicians believe Qi to be the life force of everything on earth whether it is animate or inanimate. Qi is pervasive and encompass everything from mountains to rivers, from trees to flowers, from human to animals. The general concensus is that without Qi, all the myriad living things on earth will perish.

It is not Oxygen per se but something more than just oxygen, and it is almost indescribable with our limited language. There are many attempts by scientists and scholars to describe Qi in the most apt term, but I think its best we stick to the most simple way to understand it.
In Chinese Metaphysics, Qi is the life force. From Traditional Chinese Medicine to Bazi (Chinese Astrology) reading, From Chinese Qigong to FengShui, the word Qi is an indispensable term and it almost always describes the same thing: Life Force.

So we now know that Qi is indispensable to all phenomena, especially to all living things. Without Qi living things would perish. This concept is synonymous with Fengshui whereby, Qi is the main target to be ‘managed’ and ‘harnessed’.

In Fengshui, as in other metaphysics studies and practices, Qi can be categorized as Benevolent Qi called ShengQi or Malevolent Qi called Sha. (There are many practitioners who like to describe Malevolent Qi as Sha Qi which is not totally wrong, but I feel its using the word Qi added to Sha is not giving Qi its due).

Sheng Qi can be analysed and viewed in two view aspects – the macro and the micro. We shall go into this when we analyse Sheng Qi, which is the main purpose of this chapter...............................


The above is part of a chapter from my new ebook -- Yang Gong FengShui: Fundamental Theories. (ISBN 978-983-43773-0-4) -- which is available from the following website:
http://www.kanyu-world.net