In bibo feng shui, the word bibo originally holds the meaning of helping and filling in a place that falls short. That is, it points to a feng shui methodology that does not leave terrain deemed inauspicious as it is, but mends and trims it by human hands to lift sunken energy and call in good fortune. Beneath this thought lies an attitude that does not revere the inborn lay of the land as a fate that can never be changed. Even if the land falls short somewhere, it held that a person, by adding devotion and wisdom, can fill in that shortfall. The very passage that shows most clearly that feng shui is not a passive fortune-telling that wanders in search of merely good land, but the active wisdom of homemaking in which a person tends a place together with nature, is precisely this bibo.
The means of bibo that the people of old liked to use were quite varied. Foremost among them was the bibo grove, the method of tending a forest to mend a place that falls short. When a village entrance lay bare and wide open so that energy seemed to leak straight out, they planted trees in rows at that entrance to soften the wind and to wrap the view gently. Beyond this, in a spot wanting in water they dug a pond to fill the empty energy; in a direction deemed frail they raised a pagoda to hold up the energy; at a village entrance they carved and set up a jangseung totem as a sturdy guardian; and to gather scattered energy into one they would carefully pile up a cairn of stones. All of this was not a matter of going against nature, but an expression of devotion that sought to fondly recover the balance of a place by lending a hand where it fell short.
Within the history of the Korean peninsula, the traces of such bibo remain unusually rich. The village groves that firmly shelter a village entrance remain here and there even today, beloved by people, and it is handed down that when a temple was set on a spot overlooking a broad plain or an empty stretch, there too lay the intent to mend the land's shortfall with the temple's energy. It is also told in many places that when an old capital was founded, they reckoned the wanting directions of that site and sought to mend it by raising a pagoda, digging a pond, or bringing in a grove. Such cases show well that bibo did not remain a merely abstract theory but carried on long as a living practice that actually tends villages and fortified capitals.
The spirit of bibo feng shui carries on naturally into today's living feng shui as well. When we bring a single green potted plant into a bare corner of a home to fill the empty energy, light a lamp in a dark corner to lift a sunken mood, and add accents of warm color to a cold room to soften its grain, all of it touches straight upon the heart of bibo. A single small plant, one painting, a single length of cozy cloth becomes the modern bibo grove and the accent of bibo that fills a place that falls short. Just as the old village tended its entrance with a grove, we today tend the places of daily life with a small touch.
In this way, bibo feng shui unfolds without strain even through the eyes of a reasonable view of the environment. A grove at a village entrance held the real usefulness of blocking fierce wind, slowing the washing-away of soil, and cooling the heat of midsummer, while a pond, by gathering and holding water, eased dryness and kept the surrounding air moist. That is, bibo can be read not as a superstition that goes against the environment, but as the reasonable sagacity of landscaping and homemaking that examines a place that falls short and seeks to recover balance. Here, too, lies the reason FortuneLeaf seeks to tell the story of bibo. To find, in the place where you dwell, a corner that looks somehow empty and forlorn, and to fill it fondly with a small touch—that active and warm attitude is, after all, the most precious wisdom that bibo feng shui hands across long ages to us today.