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Feng Shui for the Home

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By Larry Lim

The art of Geomancy or more commonly known as Feng Shui in the Chinese community is often debated for its facts. After years of studies, Feng Shui has been proven to have its foundation built on natural sciences and not merely based on Chinese superstitions. Feng Shui, just like the name suggests, means wind and water when translated into English. The art has been practiced since 4,500 years ago with the aim to create a harmonial balance between a home’s occupants and its surroundings.

Today, even the Western world have begun to take notice of this ancient practice, incorporating interior design with the art of Feng Shui. In the simplest form, it is divided into 5 key elements – fire, earth, metal, water and wood. All these basic elements are used to help enhance the general well-being and luck of the occupants. This is the reason why a Feng Shui master is invited to survey the house before the family moves in. The Feng Shui master attempts to bring together the natural order of Heaven, Earth and Man, blending these 3 orders with the owner’s Bazi (the birthday) to help create a perfect interior orientation for the house.

When someone buys a new property in Singapore, there are some very basic Feng Shui rules to observe, specifically rules that affect the flow of Chi into the house. For example, Singaporeans would refrain from buying a property located on cul-de-sacs or the ‘dead end’ of a street, or those facing a ‘T’ junction. The properties located at these areas are believed to be bad for Chi flows, either too much or not enough flowing into the house.

The landscape is another basic criteria in determining a Feng Shui of a house. Try imagining a house with a tree planted at its entrance. From common sense, it is bad landscaping because it blocks the walkway. From the Feng Shui point of view, it is an unfavourable because it blocks the Chi from entering the house. Having a winding walkway rather than a straight walkway heading to the entrance of the house is also favourable because it is believed that the Chi is “gentler” when it enters the house.

Another good practice when buying a house is to talk to the owner or the realtor to learn the purpose of the sale because it may affect your fortune in the future. You would prefer to buy a house from someone selling to move to a bigger home, than from an owner who is forced to sell because of bankruptcy or foreclosure.

Most of the time, a renovation is required when the family moves into a new house. Colors and shapes play an important role in determining the Feng Shui of the house. Different colors and shapes will evoke different feelings or emotions in different people. By replacing protruding shapes with sharp ends to something circular, existing relationship problems may go away.

Another useful tip to promote a good and prosperous living for the entire family, is the “pa-gua” positions. Use the “pa-gua” to tackle shortages or imperfect area in your home by literally dividing the layuout into 9 sections.

Finding a house with the perfect Feng Shui is certainly no easy task. However with such a long history and hordes of staunch believers, it is probably wise to spend a little more effort to incorporate Feng Shui into the home for the well-being for its occupants.

About the Author: Larry Lim is a Singapore-based real estate writer. He writes for iProperty Singapore and ST701 Property.

Source: www.isnare.com

Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=287986&ca=Home+Management

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Exploring Mindfulness And Meditation

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By Roy Thomsitt

In our every day lives, we are all guilty of neglecting our minds, allowing our brains to be lulled into a lazy, neglected, and unaware state. It is as if we are allowing ourselves to be sculpted by bland and repetitive consumerism, our individuality being chiselled away by a tedium we cannot even be bothered to challenge with any will.

Life need not be like that. We are each blessed with a powerful mind; but normally people have forgotten or, most likely, never even knew how, to use it. It is such a waste of our own greatest resource.

One way to start to extricate ourselves from the mindless quicksand is to gently exercise our minds, using mindfulness and meditation as a way of bringing ourselves more emphatically into the real world, and start the process of exercising control over our minds and our lives.

Creating a mindfulness meditation is a gentle but powerful exercise. But how do you go about it?

A Simple Mindfulness Meditation Exercise

As with any meditation session, you need to get into a relaxed and comfortable position, eyes closed, and then commence with deep nasal breathing, focusing your thoughts on the breathing to ease yourself into a meditative state.

Once you feel that you are calmed by your breathing and that your breath is under your rhythmic control, then you can move on to focusing on your own body, a part at a time. I was first taught this at yoga class, where we were taught to concentrate first of all on the left foot, focusing on it from a position above ourselves. Then move up the body slowly, left ankle, knee, thigh and so on. When reaching your head, you then do the same in reverse on the other side of the body: right shoulder, right elbow, right hand and so on.

Once you have completed your tour of your own body, as if you were someone else examining it, then it is time to open your eyes and increase your mindfulness of your surroundings.

To do this, focus on any object in the room; it does not have to be anything special: a cup on the coffee table, a vase, a plastic flower, anything. Try to maintain that focus for half a minute, and then move on to any other object. You can repeat this several times, always maintaining a focus on your own body and your own breathing, creating a triple harmony with each object on which you focus.

By using this simple mindfulness meditation you are increasing awareness both of yourself and your surroundings, in a very gentle and easy way. It can serve as a prelude to some mental task, as well as being part of an ongoing mindfulness campaign to strengthen and expand the use of your own mind.

For example, most days I write, but sometimes I just do not seem able to concentrate on what I am supposed to be writing about. I find this type of exercise, even just for 10 minutes, will snap me out of that inexplicable malaise, and I can get right on and write what I should have written earlier.

About the Author: This meditation and mindfulness article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner and part author of the Routes To Self Improvement website.