Master Yun’s Paintings Part 7: The Feng Shui Art of Master Yun Long Zi

Some say Master Yun treats his art like a business. Well...in a way, it's true. Some say Master Yun treats his business like an art. And it is very, very true.

Master Yun thinks of his business like an art more than he treats his art like a business. And as far as I am concerned, he sees more similarities in them than differences.

Some people ask Master Yun how had he planned his business in such a way that Lotus on Water bloomed within such a short span of ten years. Master Yun says that we must plan, and we should be scientific in calculating our risks. Just like we should have a concept and plan before we drop our first stroke.

But Master Yun thinks that great success in business, and art alike, does not come from very mathematical planning.

To illustrate his point, he stated Christopher Columbus’s ventures.

Columbus first went to Portugal to propose his venture. But the academicians and experts then said that Columbus had calculated wrongly. So the Portuguese king did not sponsor Columbus’s venture.

Thus, Columbus went to get the sponsorship from the Spanish Queen, Queen Isabella. And we know, Columbus found the new world.

Indeed, Columbus has calculated wrongly. In fact, till his death, he thought he had gone to India but he actually went to America. He had made a scientific mistake.

But the question is: if Columbus were scientifically correct, the scientists and experts would have done the venture already. Who would have waited for him to discover the new world?

So when it comes to business, it's the same. If it were a business idea that can be calculated scientifically, others would have done so before you. Accountants would be the first people to do those businesses. But besides Rockefeller, how many great business figures we know today started from accounting?

A great business would be something that no one had ever thought possible – but you did it, and awed the market.

And so is art.
 

So if you asked me if Master Yun learned his paintings from somewhere, oh yes he did learn how to paint. Since young at schools, from teachers and other masters, from books, from exhibitions…but the elements in his paintings that awe and move the viewers, he gets them from his inspirations. Such as using precious metals, using paints that glow in darkness, writing the whole sutras and mantras onto luminous lines and columns, making the peacocks in the paintings flap wings in the bask of celestial lights...he gets all these ideas from his inspirations, mostly dawning upon him in his morning meditation.

Just like how he gets his inspiration on how to run Lotus on Water. Whenever he calls or texts me as early as 7am, or earlier...there he comes.

 

-- Kan Ying Loong, Executive Director