Feng Shui, Karma and the Butterfly Effect

Woo hoo, its Chinese New Year, a time when people can't seem to stop talking about fortune and luck. What's CNY without a personalized reading of the Chinese zodiac anyway.

But its fun. Feng shui is a fantastic business. Nobody will begrudge you if none of your predictions came true, thanks to the caveat of "heaven luck" or so I'm told. Yes I've learnt a few things these past few days. ^_^

You see, feng shui is divided into parts that include human luck, earth luck and the heaven luck. One part can feed or frustrate the other. You can shore up the human part like moving things around your house or office and activating chi at certain times but if your heaven luck says you're screwed, then no amount of interior decoration can save you.

Now the meaning of "heaven luck" might differ depending on who you talk to but the feng shui guy I spoke to, probably sensing where I was coming from, likened it to karma.

Interesting.

Since only a Buddha would know what his karma is, it does seem like a handy excuse to have if a year later, none of the predictions you're given actually came true. And seriously, how many readings have you gotten all these years that turned out to be 100% correct? Or 50% correct? 30%?

But that's not the eyebrow raiser. More interesting to me is the feng shui concept of predestination; the belief that if your heaven luck or karma is such, then there's nothing much you can really do to change it. Well, except for moving objects around a bit to "dampen" the effect I'm told.

At the core of it is the view of heaven luck / karma as something predetermined, fixed and unchanging. The only problem is, that's not how I understand karma to be. But then again, I am partial to the Buddhist view of these things which may not be where the feng shui master is coming from.

The Buddha likened karma to a lump of salt. Put it in a glass of water and the water will taste salty. Put it in a large flowing river and you won't notice its there.

The water represents one's conscious actions.

What does it mean? It means that even if you hit a spot of bad karma next month, if you've been living a wholesome life and practicing kindness, generosity and concentration, you'll hardly feel the pinch.

The other thing I understand about karma is that you can actually change the amount of salt with free will. Yeah dudes, you can change your own karma.

From what I'm told, conditions determine what karma will ripen at any given moment so obviously by making choices that change the conditions in your life, you also change the nature of your karma. Some people blame their poor school grades on bad karma. Others actually make an effort to study. By studying, one changes his life conditions, thus allowing different a type of karma to ripen. The effects of negative karma is diluted or delayed to some other moment when new conditions allow it to ripen.

Now I don't know if changing our bedrooms from one side of the house to another is the action that will change our destiny. The feng shui masters seem to think so and well, maybe there is something to it if you consider the Butterfly Effect. That's something out of chaos theory that says that the flap of a butterfly wing in a jungle can make the difference between a gentle wind and a coastal hurricane.

Let me illustrate. If you crossed the road and escaped being hit by a car by just one second, just imagine all the things that needed to happen to make that one second difference possible. You'll begin to appreciate that sometimes the only thing that stands between you and a life-changing event can be as insignificant as a sneeze, a quick dash to the restroom or a moment of hesitation to glance at your watch. Come to think of it, even a burp can change the entire trajectory of your life.

So its anybody's guess if placing a wind chime near your door will trigger a chain of events that precipitate your rise or downfall in 2009 - the simplest one being to get hit by a car on your way to buy the dang wind chime - and the fact is, we may never know. But that's the beauty of feng shui. If the prediction comes true, we praise the good master. If not, we just blame it on bad karma.

So I guess I'll just relax and try to do as many good things as I can. It might actually do me more good than messing with a bronze tortoise with a dragon head.

Xi Nien Kuai Le. Gong Hei Fatt Choy. Have a happy new year.