This House Is More Than a Home
How traditional Chinese architecture reflects the wisdom of the sages.
There is a preferred geometry to the layout of traditional houses in China. This geometry is a formula derived from a long history of cosmology, lore, superstition, astrology, zodiac traditions, geomancy, spiritual divination, philosophy, horoscope, Ba Gua, Feng Shui and mythology.
Laying out the dimensions and aspects of a building are therefore akin to laying out a physical pattern to influence the hopes and dreams of an individual life, which is in turn a single aspect of a family, a generation, a lineage and and an ancestry.
In other words, the house is an acknowledgement of the ten thousand things and the unknowable but recognized nature of Dragon, which in turn is a symbol of Tao. One does not need to be an expert in Taoist philosophy to understand its fundamental tenet: the one contains the other, they move through and into each other, from creation to oblivion and back again.
It is the all and the nothing at once, and all things are both possible and unlikely. The relationship of a house to the universe of being and non-being is mysterious and obvious at the same time.
The front door is red, the color of auspiciousness and good fortune. The main entrance should face south. This is an auspicious direction because it faces the Red Phoenix and the element of fire and the season of midsummer as well as midday. The west side of the house faces the White Tiger, which represents metal as well as autumn and afternoon. The north side faces the Black Turtle, which represents winter, water and night. To the east, the house faces the Blue Snake which symbolizes spring, wood and morning.
At the center of the house there should be a courtyard where all the elements of nature are present: water in the form of a pond or fountain, plants and trees for wood, stone for metal and torches for fire.
All is carefully laid out in the garden on well cultivated earth, the fifth element. This element corresponds to the center of all things, which is presided over by the Yellow Dragon. Arranged around the center are chambers, hallways and rooms for dwelling, meeting, cooking, eating, contemplation and study. Often houses were built to accommodate three generations of one family, a harmonious arrangement which emphasized the importance of familial ties as the heart of Chinese society.
An extended family, living together, reflected the desired balance of all things and allowed for the flow of positive Chi throughout the architecture.
Another more subtle aspect of this desirable design was how it existed in a larger, more metaphysical relationship to time and space. In regards to three-dimensional space, we can easily see how the inclusion of the natural elements and the overall shape of the house lends itself to a focus to the harmony of the central courtyard. Yet there is another relationship to space here.
Imagine looking down from above at a grid of houses that comprise a neighborhood: one would see an interlocking pattern of squares, streets alleyways with a pattern of open central courtyards dotting the entire area. In this manner, traditional Chinese houses may share a common idea with post-renaissance houses in Europe: central courtyards.
Of course this preferred design was only available to families with the financial means and property to build them. As with so many other human universalities, the poor throughout the world had little choice when it came to living quarters.
The traditional Chinese house seeks to focus one’s experience on the cyclical nature of things: the central courtyard is always a micro-environment that lives in harmony with the time of day, day of the month and the seasons of the year. To live in a traditional Chinese house is to encounter this cycle each day.
The spirit of the Yellow Dragon that resides in the courtyard is a daily reminder that the earth and its profound energies are the center of all things. In this manner, one’s view of a living space is shaped over a lifetime.
The western way to speak about the weather is as an adversary that can also be benevolent. The Chinese way to speak about the weather is to acknowledge it at all times and remove all judgement from its aspects. If it is snowing, it is snowing. If it is sunny, it is sunny. A storm is a storm. A rain is a rain. To live in accordance with the elements is to live in harmony with nature. The permanent now is to be appreciated for its permanent transience.
Yet it is the concept of time that troubles humanity still. The arrow of time seems to fly in one direction only, from the past through the present and into the future. We observe time through our perception of change, and we do not seem to observe a reversal of change in our universe. The tea, once spilled, does not return to the cup.
Why is time the only element we observe and experience that moves in one direction only? One thing becomes the other and then the other in accordance with the rule of change, yet the thing itself does not return to it prior form, nor the form before that, and so on.
Still the seasons cycle around in the course of what we call a year’s time. There is change and there is a return. Both are possible. What then if this is so with time itself? Could there be grand cycles of time we simply have not been able, even with our piercing observations and accurate divinations, to witness?
Is the arrow truly moving in a straight line? What if the arrow rather is tracing the arc of a curve onto itself until it forms a circle? The ancient Greeks called this concept ouroboros, which is derived from the image of a snake eating its own tail.
Imagine a traveler on a path so long and unpredictable that the traveler has no idea that they are walking in a great circle. In some ways, the layout of a Chinese house reminds us of this.
As we observe in the well-known symbol of Yin and Yang, the white and the black begin and end in each other and each contains a small element of the other. The this and the that. The positive and the negative. The construction and the destruction. The future and the past. The here and the not here. The moving forward and the moving backwards. Perhaps only the Yellow Dragon knows about this since it resides always at the center.
If you walk through the traditional Chinese house from chamber to chamber and down the connecting hallways, you are walking in a circle of sorts. You travel from the entrance in the south east to the eastern chambers, then up to the northern, then on to the western, and once again return to the south. You may return counter to this and once again arrive at the entrance. All the while, the central courtyard has been at the center.
What is the true nature of time and space therein?
As I get older, I cannot think of past, present or future as I did once. The space I occupy on this earth seems both as small as a fleeting thought and as vast as a wild imagining. Memory, echoes from elsewhere, suppositions about the now and whispers from other worlds occupy me these days. What is this rush of things moving past me with such aggression? How long has that stone been there on the path? Why do the seasons turn so much faster nowadays? What happened to the things I have been waiting forA single day feels like a lifetime and a lifetime feels like a single day, all at once. I often hear the Yellow Dragon whisper to me in the night, yet I cannot remember what it said in the morning.
A traditional Chinese house reflects both the enigmatic and the essential truth of this thought. If you get a chance to walk through such a house, some of which are preserved all over China, you can glean some of the wisdom inferred in its construction. Step over the raised threshold, wander in silence and you may meet the Yellow Dragon.
