A Glossary of Feng Shui Terms

Feng shui (pronounced fung shway) is the ancient Chinese art of placement, a 4,000-year-old system of beliefs about the proper arrangement of buildings, rooms, furniture and other earthly objects for the purpose of bringing about good fortune and good health through harmony and balance.

The words feng shui mean “wind” and “water.” They can be taken as a metaphor for the power that nature has over our lives. Harnessing this power for human benefit is the purpose of feng shui.

Chi (chee) is sometimes written as qi or ch’i. However it’s written, it refers to the universal energy force.

Sha chi is sometimes called shar chi. It is negative energy that may be brought about in a variety of ways. Sometimes the sha chi is referred to as “poison arrows” or “killing arrows.”

Ba-gua (bah-gwa) literally means eight-sided or octagonal. The ba-gua chart shows the compass directions and the various powers they exert over human life: fame and fortune, career and business, wealth, knowledge, children and creativity, marriage and partnership, benefactors, helpful people and health.

Lou pan is the Chinese feng shui compass used in classic compass-school feng shui. It is highly complex and can be properly used only by a highly trained feng shui master with decades of study and experience. A standard western compass works just fine for most purposes.

Black Hat or BTB are shorthand terms for another school of feng shui practiced in the United States, known as Black Hat Sect Tantric Buddhist. It was started by Professor Lin Yun in Berkeley and uses entrance doors to buildings or rooms, rather than compass directions, to calculate feng shui positions.