Buddhist Wisdom Is the Power to Escape Superstition
I regard Buddhism as a religion of wisdom. Liberation here does not mean escaping a rebirth that does not exist; it is the continuing process of escaping the delusions, errors, and superstitions that we repeat.
It is not wisdom to accept without question the words of a monk or prophet, a scripture or book, a broadcaster or politician. What matters is not who said it, but whether the statement has evidence that can be checked.
The ability to identify superstition is not a technique for attacking others. It is a practice of liberation from my own ignorance.
More Information Does Not Prevent Deception Without Thought
Modern people encounter far more information than people in the past, yet superstition still flourishes. A greater quantity of information does not automatically produce critical thinking; people usually reach quick conclusions and hold on to familiar explanations.
At school, we learned more about memorizing and selecting correct answers than about examining claims deeply and asking questions. Even unconditional belief merely because a scientist spoke can be another habit of relying on authority.
For a person who does not think, information easily becomes material that reinforces what one already wants to believe rather than wisdom.
Question the Title “The Rich Live on Auspicious Sites” First
The video under criticism connects auspicious feng shui sites with famous places around the world and claims that “the rich live on auspicious sites.” But first we must distinguish whether people became rich by living there or chose an expensive place because they were already rich.
By what test was the place judged auspicious in the first place? Are there no auspicious sites in poor neighborhoods and no poor people in similar terrain? The causal relationship embedded in the title does not even hold.
As soon as you hear a conclusion, ask, “What is the cause and what is the result?” The shell of a plausible claim then falls away.
The Hole in a Hong Kong Apartment and an Invisible Dragon Vein
A central opening in a Hong Kong apartment building is described as a path left open for a dragon, or a dragon vein. Yet no one shows whether such a vein has actually been observed, where it begins and ends, or by what measurement it was verified.
It is easy to attach a story to the shape of a building. What matters is not whether the story sounds impressive, but whether its entity and effects can be confirmed repeatedly. Energy that cannot be observed or tested is imagination, not explanation.
The existence of the word “dragon vein” does not bring the thing supposedly designated by that word into existence.
Hong Kong’s Rise and Fall Cannot Be Explained by Feng Shui Alone
If Hong Kong prospered because of its buildings and auspicious sites, it should always have prospered with the same vigor. The fortunes of a real society change through many intertwined conditions, including relations with China, the international economy, political institutions, industry, and population.
Reducing a relational result to one mysterious cause makes the story easy to tell but takes it farther from fact. Observing that results change when conditions change is the more dependent and relational view.
To cite Hong Kong’s success as evidence for feng shui, one would first have to rule out the many causes other than feng shui.
The Limits of Induction and the Black Swan
No matter how many white swans we observe, we cannot establish that every swan in the world is white. Our range of observation is limited in time and space, and one black swan overturns the universal proposition that “all swans are white.”
Knowledge gained through experience is useful, but it must remain provisional. Being willing to revise it when new evidence appears is scientific and philosophical, and it also accords with Buddhist wisdom by refusing attachment to what one knows.
One precise counterexample can reveal the flaw in a universal claim more clearly than a hundred matching cases.
Elegant Reasoning Collapses When Its Premise Is False
The inference “All humans die; Socrates is human; therefore Socrates dies” works because its premises are true. But elaborate calculations inside systems such as yin-yang, the five elements, or fortune reading cannot guarantee truth in reality when they begin with unverified premises.
The age of a system and the complexity of its explanation are not evidence. Deduction from a false premise can mislead people even more easily when its form is polished.
Do not look only at the shape of the logic. First ask whether the initial premise beneath it is actually verified.
Fraudsters Mix Facts with Nonsense
Feng shui may contain accumulated experience about choosing a place to live, such as sunlight, wind, moisture, flooding, and slope. The problem is that baseless terms such as dragon veins, energy, and killing force are inserted among these observable facts.
A fraudster does not tell only lies. He first earns trust with facts anyone can accept, then transfers that trust to an unverified conclusion. The truth of some parts therefore cannot make the whole system a science.
Putting an empirical fact and a mystical claim in the same sentence does not give them the same level of evidence.
Confirmation Bias Selects Only the Scenes That Fit
Once people believe a conclusion, they readily notice examples that fit it and overlook or ignore those that do not. A person who explains success through feng shui collects successful buildings while withholding places that failed under the same supposed conditions.
The same habit appears in political judgment. After deciding that someone is bad, every scene seems to support that conclusion. We must remain alert to the fact that I am not free from this bias either.
Do not pull the world toward my conclusion. Deliberately search for material that could break that conclusion.
Can Killing Force Be Observed?
It is said that a sharp building or a road pointing straight toward a place sends a killing force. Then what is that force, and by what instrument is it measured? Did every building in the same arrangement fail, and did the same thing happen to all the people there?
Countless people do well and make money even in buildings facing intersections. Sharp points are everywhere in trees, stones, and rectangular buildings. Unless these counterexamples can be explained, killing force is not a verified cause.
If the claim cannot bear the conclusion that everything facing a sharp point must fail, then “killing force” cannot be used as a cause.
Wind Noise Is a Physical Effect, Not Evidence of Killing Force
A building arrangement can intensify wind, produce noise, or create vortices. These are observable and measurable physical effects and real issues to consider in architecture.
But showing a real wind effect and then turning it into evidence for an invisible killing force mixes categories. We must distinguish empirically confirmed causes from mystical labels.
The existence of measurable wind does not prove the existence of an unmeasured killing force.
How UCLA and Beverly Hills Are Packaged as Auspicious Sites
UCLA’s development and the wealth of residents in Beverly Hills and Bel Air are linked to terrain and auspicious sites. But selecting nearby mountains and water after success and attaching meaning to them is merely an after-the-fact explanation.
We must also compare poor areas with similar terrain and famous universities or wealthy neighborhoods in different terrain. Selecting only favorable examples and saying “therefore it succeeded” does not prove cause and effect.
For any successful place, one can select mountains, roads, and water and construct an auspicious-site story. That is interpretation after the dream, not verification.
The Counterexamples of Busan Hillsides and Gangnam
Many neighborhoods on Busan’s hillsides housed refugees and poor people after the war. If wealth arose simply from having a mountain behind and water in front, the history of such places could not be explained.
Gangnam did not grow because the land had always emitted the energy of wealth. Development policy, transportation, capital, and institutional change drew people and money there. Removing the history of these conditions and leaving only terrain reads reality backward.
Poor hillside neighborhoods and pre-development Gangnam are counterexamples that demand an answer before accepting the claim that a favorable shape creates wealth.
Do Not Legitimize Inequality with Blessings and Karma
The claim that good people earn blessings, obtain good land, and live rich lives on auspicious sites makes wealth look like a moral reward. Conversely, it easily shifts poverty onto supposed wrongdoing in a past life or a lack of blessings.
Wealth can also arise from inheritance, speculation, institutional loopholes, power and fraud, and a structure in which capital produces more capital. Those with great wealth can borrow more easily, undertake larger ventures, and widen the gap. A religion that covers this reality with karma legitimizes inequality.
The moment religion describes poverty as the result of sin and wealth as proof of blessing, it stands with the powerful rather than with those who suffer.
The Blue House Site and Feng Shui Around Power
Another explanation says that the mountain behind the Blue House turns its back and makes the site one of betrayal, so a president should not enter it. Attaching human behavior and a government’s fate to the shape of a mountain lets the interpreter invent any answer desired.
The same shape can be called yin or yang; success is credited to an auspicious site, while failure prompts a search for another destructive force or energy. A claim that can be declared correct under every outcome cannot risk being wrong and therefore cannot be tested.
The more a decision of power is explained by feng shui, the more actual political responsibility and institutional causes disappear into fog.
Northern-Hemisphere Experience Cannot Become a Law of the Universe
Sunlight for a south-facing home or the arrangement of mountains and water may be advantageous at particular latitudes and in particular climates. But sunlight comes from a different direction in the Southern Hemisphere, and river flow, wind, and climate differ by region.
Cities beside rivers flowing north to south can prosper, as can cities on plains and reclaimed land. Expanding the living experience of one region into a mysterious global law cannot escape the many counterexamples elsewhere.
Respect empirical wisdom suited to a region and climate, but do not turn it into a universal law of dragon veins.
The Historicity of Feng Shui and Auspicious Graves
Feng shui is said to have entered from China around late Silla and the Later Three Kingdoms and spread through Goryeo and Joseon. Stories connecting grave sites with the fortunes of descendants grew especially strong, and disputes over favorable graves continued.
Yet kings and aristocrats did not secure eternal prosperity for their dynasties and descendants by seeking good sites. The Joseon dynasty fell, and prominent families rose and declined. History itself refutes the permanent power attributed to grave sites.
If a grave could grant prosperity for ten thousand generations, one must first explain why that family nevertheless declined in history.
First Test for Superstition: Find Counterexamples
When a claim says it applies in every case, search for cases that contradict it. Look for a successful building in a supposed killing-force position, a poor neighborhood with auspicious-looking terrain, or a family that declined despite using a favorable grave.
A seller of superstition shows only examples that fit and never presents counterexamples. Because one counterexample can overturn a universal claim, deliberately seeking one is the first safeguard against deception.
Critical thinking begins by seeking evidence that I may be wrong before evidence that I am right.
Second Test for Superstition: Run a Thought Experiment
Follow an assumption to its end by asking, “Did this result really occur because of that cause?” If killing force is real, every building facing a sharp point must fail; if auspicious sites create wealth, everyone in the same terrain must become rich.
When that conclusion conflicts with reality, return to the initial claim and revise it. Even without elaborate equipment, a thought experiment exposes hidden contradictions and reversed causality.
Temporarily assume the claim is true and push it to the end. If it produces an untenable conclusion, question the premise again.
The Wisdom to Question Instead of Believe
Believing without evidence means setting intellect aside. We must ask whether a statement establishes causality, describes a fact arising among many conditions, or merely attaches an interpretation to coincidence.
Knowing words such as killing force, energy, vein, and dragon vein does not mean knowing their reality. We must keep asking, “Is it really so? Can it be observed? Are there counterexamples? What other causes exist?”
The demand to believe an unverifiable thing because of authority is anti-Buddhist, anti-scientific, and anti-philosophical.
I Must Also Question My Own Bias
I too can fall into confirmation bias while criticizing others. Once I decide that someone is a fraud, I may notice only scenes that make him look fraudulent and overlook the possibility that he sincerely holds a mistaken belief.
Critical thinking is therefore not a blade used only against another person. I must keep checking whether I examined counterexamples to my conclusion, ran a thought experiment, and asked questions.
A wise life does not end with ridiculing another person’s superstition. It is completed by leaving open the possibility that my own judgment may be wrong.
Feng Shui Is Not Science but an Object of Testing
Some accumulated experience about selecting land and building homes may exist within feng shui. But it is also filled with superstitions about unobservable energy, blessings, and the fate of descendants.
We should therefore not call feng shui as a whole a science. Useful environmental knowledge can be tested and used separately, while mystical claims without evidence can be discarded. Robes and authority cannot make that distinction for us.
Separating plausible statements from baseless ones and asking “Is it really so?” of every conclusion is the path out of superstition.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.