Ken's Cyber Cave: BRUCE LEE & Feng Shui

Sunday, August 5, 2007

BRUCE LEE & Feng Shui

Note: The following was written on Oct. 22, 2002

Don't worry, I'm not doing an audit of Bruce Lee's former home in Hong Kong. There are so many "guess-timations" already.

I watched AMC's (Am. Movie Classic Channel) "TV for Movie People" tonight. It is about how Bruce Lee developed his "Arts of Intercepting Fists" and the filming of his last movie, "The Game of Death".

It is interesting that the problems Bruce ran into, are so similar to the development of Chinese Feng Shui in the western world.

Bruce was a non-conformist in the Chinese martial arts world. He refused to abide by the old traditions and formula of different Chinese martial arts schools. He said what traditional martial arts taught were unrealistic in real life situations, like the step-by-step procedures in fighting.

He emphasized flexibility in learning to fit real life situations.

Bruce had studied different schools of martial arts and then developed his own style of Kung Fu. If you are familiar with martial arts, you could see he had used styles from many schools in his last film, "The Game of Death".

Same philosophy can be applied to learning Feng Shui. Currently, some Feng Shui trainers promote pseudo-scientific Feng Shui which fossilizes students' mind-- "if the method is not listed in ancient Feng Shui classics, then it is not real Feng Shui." "This is not scientific or logical!"

These trainers, in a way like Rush Limbaugh (right wing radio personality, who claims he has a monopoly on truth), have a monopoly on "scientific Chinese Feng Shui" based on their limited knowledge base.

Bruce said, "Open your mind, be water, be formless, be shapeless. If water is poured into a cup, it has the shape of a cup. If water is poured into a teapot, it has the shape of a teapot." What Bruce meant is be flexible with an open mind and try as many new ideas as possible.

This philosophy applies to Feng Shui equally well-- try to learn from different Feng Shui schools, try new methods, try new fixes, and try not to be biased by any preconceived logic or theories.

While respecting your teachers is a must in learning Feng Shui, but do not think that they are infallible and blindly follow whatever they promote. As a general rule of thumb, if a particular teacher is more interested in collecting money or selling you craps than the intellectual development of his/her students, s/he is probably just an opportunist.