Feng Shui and Gardening

None of the popular authors who write or lecture about Feng Shui and gardens know anything about the subject. They discuss Western landscape philosophy and call it Feng Shui for the garden. If they actually knew something they would first discuss Shan Shui (literally "mountain-water") and how Chinese gardens developed from that art.

A modern Chinese garden, in China, made with water.

Amateurs with the right idea

Landscape design is not just a matter of putting up a building, planting trees and flowers, or building an artificial mountain. It is a means of revealing one's attitude of life by displaying landscape esthetically. Landscape needs to be restrained, gentle, and understated. We should modestly hide, not boldly dominate as is fashionable in the West. This enables a more intimate experience and sense of fitting into the environment.

All of Yin Yang Theory is embodied in design — the harmonious relationship between humans and natural objects is managed in Naturally So. The Chinese understanding of human power follows the understanding of Heaven-Earth-Humanity. Human power is exerted on behalf of subtle landscape preferences guided by the "Taste of Heaven."

The Chinese way of thinking follows a clear path:

• Respect experiences.
• Discern the truth by studying the past.
• Stand between science and theology.
• Combine ethics with esthetics.
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In Chinese history no special ideal or religion controls spiritual life — real life comes before anything else. Chinese respect nature and self-knowing, and people adapt into a natural world more easily.

A Chinese will search for compromise while a Westerner wants a Yes or No answer. This constitutes fundamentally different approaches to landscape design.

In Western thought we oscillate between total belief in a Creator (ignoring real life) or a full belief in human power to explore and dominate the world (which in many respects also ignores real life). Westerners measure their world in human dimensions, with the formal garden recognized as a symbol of human power and achievement. Humans in Western thought are conquerors and improvers of nature, so people want a walled-in and controlled copy of Paradise (perfection beyond real life).

By enabling and worshipping human power, we lose our fear of wildness. We conquer nature, sanitize and "improve" it. And these ideas are intrinsically Western, coming as they do from Plato and Christian theology.

There is an attitude of profit regarding land in the West. The practical and utilitarian trend is Western, which historically was restricted in the East. In the East the attitude encompasses humility and respect for the forces of nature and heaven.

It is very rare in Chinese design history to place geometrical forms on hilly land, as is common in Western countries. Only in the Chinese Emperor's gardens were geometric forms acceptable, because for Chinese they are symbols of respect for natural forces (heaven and earth).

You will find nothing about improvement of the land, no modification of perceived imperfections or a need to control or dominate the landscape. Even the Son of Heaven would not assume he had the authority to do such a thing.

Shan Shui is the Chinese art of landscape painting which was extended to gardening and landscape design. Shan Shui implies mountain and water.

Shan is yang, hard, still, sublime, vertically developed, close to heaven.

Shui is yin, soft, moveable, horizontally developed, close to earth.

Shui embraces Shan, Shan surrounds Shui.

There is space, time, change, feelings, emotions, stories connecting with the essence of nature. The task of Shan Shui is described as "by a simple brush to draw the Qi [spirit or essence] of the whole body of the cosmos" or "to establish the spirit in an ocean of ink."

The Six Positions in Shan Shui:

The Chinese way to look at landscape.

Perspective analyzes space and manages forms which influence ways of depicting a landscape (from one side to another, from one step to the next, "perspective with scattered focus").

Focus is not fixed, but arranged in categories (High and Far, Deep and Far, Level and Far), which depend on what the observer wants to see, appreciate, and focus on.

High and Far

Great height and distance combined. To see the immensity of a mountain, the eye level is intentionally placed very low (like imagination which is not fixed). This is used to express reverential feelings for morality, nature, and especially mountains and water.

Deep and Far

Conveys complex scene with layers and depth, complexity and infinity.

"Through the winding of scenery we are led to deeper feelings." —Huang Binhong

Survey from above, see from a distance and move the viewing to explore the images behind. Complex images and spatial depth are build up by industrious observation and depiction which is beyond the real scenery and may be mystical or illusory. Promotes subjective imagination.

Level and Far

See from a normal, undramatic position, eye level with wider scope and distance. Horizontal emphasis provides intimate, smooth, and familiar scenery. A huge space can show great breadth of mind and reveal a wide range of emotions and moods.

"The more zigzag the way, the deeper the scenery. The winding path approaches the secluded and peaceful place." —Huang Binhong

Life and landscape are linked. The philosophical conclusion in understanding the world is what Laozi called Naturally So.

The four landscape elements:

• Mountain

• Water

• Plant

• Building

The water is the vein of the mountain, the grass the hair, the clouds an expression of spirit. —Goxi

Yin and Yang in the landscape

• Stillness and movement
• Unity and variety
• Locality and generality
• Scenery and subjective reactions

History: A Dream of Eternal Life

Landscape art began before 4 BCE and arose from studies of the elixir of life made from the sacred plants of fairyland.

The idea was to design an artificial environment with mountains and water to symbolize the magic places of the gods, and the magic plants were the favorites of emperors. This was sometimes referred to as "a jeweled palace in Elfland's Hills" because the landscape featured certain typical features:

• A centrally located pool (the Sea of Elfland)
• Three islands or mountains in the middle of the pool (Ponlai, Fanzhan, Yinzhon)

This comprises the most basic patterns of Chinese garden.

In the minds of early Chinese, things on earth depend and rely on each other. The logical attitude was that humans are not conquerors of nature — we cannot loot from the earth too much. Our survival depends on heaven and earth together.

Doctrines about the suitable manner of living were developed and passed down to succeeding generations in time-tested knowledge. To adapt was the best way to achieve a balance against contradictory forces, Yin and Yang, which crystallize all observations and experiences of the world and which serves as an analog for basic contradictory natural forces.

The Three (Trinity) — heaven, earth, humanity — is the outcome of the movement from Tao/Taiji.

To Laozi it was Tao, One (Qi), Two (Yin + Yang), Three.

To Zhou Duenyi it was Taiji/Tao, Two (Yin Qi, Yang Qi), five elements, myriad creatures.

The correspondences summarize all kinds of relationships — from a human body to the environment, from sensation to philosophy. Nature, society, and humanity form a trinity.

Kongzi's Influence on art, architecture, and gardening

The school of Kongzi (Confucianism) is a theory about the administration of family and country which seeks to create order and harmony from the chaos of the world and presents a positive attitude toward life.

Human fate is handled by heaven. Harmony between heaven and earth depends on a perfect order which is paralleled with human social life. Heaven is an ambiguous concept associated with forms of power — a natural force which has an intimate relationship with real life.

One should obey the order of heaven and embody high moral standards to achieve a benevolent government of family and country. One should start by learning how to behave, from there one achieves humanity, justice and virtue.

Kongzi said the Golden Mean or compromise was the core of his teachings. He believed in and promoted the concept of destiny. There was no god, no devil, only the order set up by heaven. It is a philosophy of pragmatism and ethics.

He emphasized participation in social life. As a social being a human should fit into family and society, find a fitting position in the social order, and behave according to a certain moral code.

Design activities are the result of an understanding of the meaning of this social being, of different positions in the hierarchy and of a moral code conducting one's behavior. His philosophy translated into town planning and housing design as well as interior design. The housing pattern, spatial order of city designs, and interiors in the Forbidden City all relate to Kongzi's political and philosophical standards.

The influence relates to land use, landscape design and garden management, but further understanding of nature, esthetics and landscape design came from Tao and Chan (Zen).

Buildings in a Chinese garden relate to the influence of Kongzi. There is a strongly architectural orientation in Chinese landscape design. Modern landscape (design not based on the Classics) did not arrive in China until the late 1980s.

Naturally So, Tao and Te (virtue)

Humanity models itself on earth, earth on heaven, heaven on the Way, and the Way on that which is Naturally So. —Laozi

Nature created itself and should be venerated as the source of life. Daoism says the world is an entity consisting of a myriad of things derived from an essential but not entirely tangible Tao, like the Big Bang, born before heaven and earth which "confusedly formed the world."

Earth, heaven, and all creatures are organized in the whole structure which is what is meant by Nature. The logical structure is that humans model themselves according to earth, earth models on heaven, and heaven models on Tao.

But nature is both abstract and animate object. All beings on earth are constantly changing, overcoming, or creating one another. The essence of this complicated nature is where natural beauty lies.

The flowing water makes the still mountain move; the vivid trees make the obdurate stone alive. —Shitao

A scenery is not still. It is a refined picture related to seasonal changes and spiritual responses.

A landscape then can never be thought of in terms of its visual elements or pictorial likeness. Coherence means the truth of Tao, the myriad beautiful creatures and virtue are one.

Human feeling must associate with objective being to form the Qi and rhyme in an artistic realm.

To appreciate landscape is to seek not only the pretty view but the complete understanding of universal coherence through the use of an expressive yet abstract artistic language. One must depict unexpected relationships such as changing clouds, mist, lights, rocks, even the presence of bugs and wildlife to help open one's "inner eye" to observe and express landscape delights and human wisdom.

You can look at scenery all you want, but you must imbue your vision with spiritual sustenance.

The Chinese word for garden combines forms for soil, landforms, a well, and an enclosure plus trees. It is generally interpreted as a man-made place for recreation containing three elements:

1. Flowers, trees, fishpond
2. Buildings
3. Artificial mountain

A landscape is a living thing that talks to people. Landscape is process, not pictorial recording. A landscape is a home of feeling, not something to be shown off. It is a communication with nature. The Western idea of naturalism is, for Chinese, in extremely poor taste.