Wu Xing

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The Wu Xing (Chinese: 五行; pinyin: wǔxíng), or the Five Movements, Five Phases or Five Steps/Stages, are chiefly an ancient mnemonic device, in many traditional Chinese fields.

It is sometimes translated as Five Elements, but the Wu Xing are chiefly an ancient mnemonic device, hence the preferred translation of "movements", "phases" or "steps" over "elements". By the same token, Mu is thought of as "Tree" rather than "Wood".^[1]

The five elements are:

• Wood (Chinese: 木, pinyin: mù)
• Fire (Chinese: 火, pinyin: huǒ)
• Earth (Chinese: 土, pinyin: tǔ)
• Metal (Chinese: 金, pinyin: jīn)
• Water (Chinese: 水, pinyin: shuǐ)

The system of five phases was used for describing interactions and relationships between phenomena. It was employed as a device in many fields of early Chinese thought, including seemingly disparate fields such as geomancy or Feng shui, astrology, traditional Chinese medicine, music, military strategy and martial arts.

The system is still used as a reference in some forms of complementary and alternative medicine and martial arts. Some claim the original foundation of these are the concept of the Five Cardinal Points.

Cycles

The Interactions of Wu Xing: The creation cycle (black, circle shaped arrows) and the overcoming cycle (white, star shaped arrows).

The doctrine of five phases describes two cycles, a generating or creation (生, shēng) cycle, also known as "mother-son", and an overcoming or destruction (克/剋, kè) cycle, also known as "grandfather-nephew", of interactions between the phases.

Generating

The common memory jogs, which help to remind in what order the phases are, are:

• Wood feeds Fire;
• Fire creates Earth (ash);
• Earth bears Metal;
• Metal carries Water (as in a bucket or tap, or water condenses on metal);
• Water nourishes Wood.

Other common words for this cycle include "begets", "engenders" and "mothers."

Overcoming

• Wood parts Earth (such as roots) （or Trees can prevent soil erosion ）;
• Earth absorbs (or muddies) Water (or Earth dam control the water);
• Water quenches Fire;
• Fire melts Metal;
• Metal chops Wood.

Also:

• Wood absorbs Water;
• Water rusts Metal;
• Metal breaks up Earth;
• Earth smothers Fire;
• Fire burns Wood.

This cycle might also be called "controls", "restrains" or "fathers".

Another illustration of the cycle.

Cosmology and feng shui

According to Wu Xing theory, the structure of the cosmos mirrors the five phases. Each phase has a complex series of associations with different aspects of nature, as can be seen in the following table. In the ancient Chinese form of geomancy known as Feng Shui practitioners all based their art and system on the five phases (Wu Xing). All of these phases are represented within the Ba gua. Associated with these phases are colors, seasons and shapes; all of which are interacting with each other. ^[2]

Based on a particular directional energy flow from one phase to the next, the interaction can be expansive, destructive, or exhaustive. With proper knowledge of such aspect of energy flow will enable the Feng Shui practitioner to apply certain cures or rearrangement of energy in a way they believe to be beneficial for the receiver of the Feng Shui "Treatment."

Ba gua

The movements have also been correlated to the eight trigrams of the I Ching:

Chinese medicine

Five Chinese Elements - Diurnal Cycle

The interdependence of Zang Fu networks in the body was noted to be a circle of five things, and so mapped by the Chinese doctors onto the five phases. For instance, the Liver (Wood phase) is said to be the "mother" of the heart (Fire phase), and the Kidneys (Water phase) the mother of the Liver. The key observation was things like kidney deficiency affecting the function of the liver. In this case, the "mother" is weak, and cannot support the child. However, the Kidneys control the heart along the Ke cycle, so the Kidneys are said to restrain the heart. Many of these interactions can nowadays be linked to known physiological pathways (such as Kidney pH affecting heart activity).[citation needed]

The key thing to keep in mind with the Chinese medical application of the five elements is that it is only a model, and it is known to have exceptions. However, in general the device seems to be useful for arriving at good clinical results[citation needed], so they were kept by the critically thinking Chinese medical doctors and researchers since they were first introduced.[citation needed]

The citation order of the Five Phases, i.e., the order in which they are cited in the Bo Hu Tong and other Han dynasty texts, is Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. The organs are most effectively treated, according to theory, in the following four-hour periods throughout the day, beginning with the 3 a.m. to 7 a. m. period: Metal organs (see the list below), Earth organs, Fire₁ organs, Water organs, Fire₂ (the "non-empirical" Pericardium and Triple Burner organs), and Wood organs, which is the reverse of the citation order (plus an extra use of Fire and the non-empirical organs to take care of the sixth four-hour period of the day). These two orders are further related to the sequence of the planets going outward from the sun (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, or Water, Metal, Fire, Wood, and Earth) by a star diagram similar to the one shown above. ^[3]

The sequence of the five elements（Traditional Chinese medicine）：promotion,inhibition,Cheng (bullying),Wu(insult)

^[4]

Celestial stem

Music

The Yuèlìng chapter (月令篇) of the Lǐjì (禮記) and the Huáinánzǐ (淮南子) make the following correlations:

(Notes:

• The Chinese word 青 qīng, has many meanings, including green, azure, cyan, and black. It refers to green in Wu Xing.
• In most modern music, various seven note or five note scales (e.g., the major scale) are defined by selecting seven or five frequencies from the set of twelve semi-tones in the Equal tempered tuning. The Chinese "lǜ" tuning is closest to the ancient Greek tuning of Pythagoras. See Chinese musicology.)

Martial arts

Taijiquan

Taijiquan uses the five elements to designate different directions, positions or footwork patterns. Either forward, backward, left, right and centre, or three steps forward (attack) and two steps back (retreat).^[5]

The Five Steps (五步 wǔ bù):

Chin Pu (進步 jìn bù) - Forward step.

T'ui Pu (退步 tùi bù) - Backward step.

Tsuo Ku (左顧 (simpl.: 左顾) zǔo gù) - Left step.

You P'an (右盼 yòu pàn) - Right step.

Chung Ting (中定 zhōng dìng) - The central position, balance, equilibrium.

Xingyiquan

Xingyiquan uses the five elements to metaphorically represent five different states of combat.

See also

• Qi
• Zang Fu
• Humorism
• Flying Star Feng Shui

Bibliography

• Feng Youlan (Yu-lan Fung), A History of Chinese Philosophy, volume 2, p. 13
• Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, volume 2, pp. 262-23
• Maciocia, G. 2005, The Foundations of Chinese Medicine, 2nd edn, Elsevier Ltd., London

References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (February 2008)

External links

• Acupuncture Text Book Corrections Corrections to English translation errors in textbooks
• Five Elements Malaysia I Ching Net
• Five Element Information Five Element interrelationships, concordances and causative factors.
• Chinese Zodiac Chart Find your Chinese Zodiac sign based on your date of birth.
• The sequence of the five elements

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