Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)

Wuxing

wuxing diagram

Diagram of the interactions between the wuxing. The "generative" cycle is illustrated by grey arrows running clockwise on the outside of the circle, while the "destructive" or "conquering" cycle is represented by blue arrows inside the circle.

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Tablet in the Temple of Heaven of Beijing, written in Chinese and Manchu, dedicated to the gods of the Five Movements. The Manchu word usiha, meaning "star", explains that this tablet is dedicated to the five planets, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus and Mercury, and the movements which they govern.

(Chinese: 五行; pinyin: wǔxíng; Jyutping: Ng⁵ Hang⁴), translated as Five Moving Ones, Five Circulations, Five Types of Energy, Five Elements, Five Transformations, Five Phases or Five Agents, is a fivefold conceptual scheme used in many traditional Chinese fields of study to explain a wide array of phenomena, including terrestrial and celestial relationships, influences, and cycles, that characterise the interactions and relationships within science, medicine, politics, religion and social relationships and education within Chinese culture.

The Five Moving Ones are traditionally associated with the classical planets: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn as depicted in the etymological section below. In ancient Chinese astronomy and astrology, which spread throughout East Asia, there was a reflection of the seven-day planetary order of Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. When in their "heavenly stems" generative cycle as represented in the below cycles section and depicted in the diagram above, they run consecutively clockwise (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water). When in their overacting destructive arrangement of Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, Metal, natural disasters, calamities, illnesses and disease will ensue.

The wuxing system has been in use since the second or first century BCE during the Han dynasty. It appears in many seemingly disparate fields of early Chinese thought, including music, feng shui, alchemy, astrology, martial arts, military strategy, I Ching divination, religion and traditional medicine, serving as a metaphysics based on cosmic analogy.

Etymology

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Taijitu diagram featuring the wuxing in the center (from the Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China by Chen Menglei)

Wuxing originally referred to the five classical planets (from brightest to dimmest: Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Saturn), which together with the Sun and the Moon, were conceived as creating the five forces of earthly life (including yang and yin). This is why the word is composed of Chinese characters meaning "five" (五; wǔ) and "moving" (行; xíng). "Moving" is shorthand for "planets", since the Chinese word for planets is translated as "moving stars" (行星; xíngxīng). Some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts (before 168 BCE) also connect the wuxing to the wude (五德; wǔdé), the Five Virtues and Five Emotions. Scholars believe that various predecessors of the concept of wuxing were merged into a single system of many interpretations during the Han dynasty.

Wuxing was first translated into English as "the Five Elements", drawing parallels with the Greek and Indian Vedic static, solid or formative arrangement of the four elements. This translation is still in common use among practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine, such as in the name of Five Element acupuncture and Japanese meridian therapy. However, this analogy could be misleading as the four elements are concerned with form, substance and quantity. In contrast, the post-heaven arrangement of the wuxing is "primarily concerned with process, change, and quality". For example, the wuxing element "Wood" is more accurately thought of as the "vital essence" and growth of trees rather than the physical innate substance wood. This led sinologist Nathan Sivin to propose the alternative translation "five phases" in 1987. But "phase" also fails to capture the full meaning of wuxing. In some contexts, the wuxing are indeed associated with physical substances. Historian of Chinese medicine Manfred Porkert proposed the (somewhat unwieldy) term "Evolutive Phase". Perhaps the most widely accepted translation among modern scholars is the "five agents" or "five transformations".

Cycles

In traditional doctrine, the five phases are connected in two cycles of interactions: a promoting or generative (生 shēng) cycle, also known as "mother-son"; and an overacting or destructive (克 kè) cycle, also known as "grandfather-grandson" (see diagram). Each of these cycles can be interpreted and analyzed in either a forward or a reverse direction. In addition to the aforementioned cycles there is also what is considered an "overacting" or excessively generating version of the destructive cycle.

Inter-promoting

The generative cycle (相生 xiāngshēng) is:

• Wood feeds Fire as fuel
• Fire produces Earth (ash, lava)
• Earth bears Metal (geological processes produce minerals)
• Metal collects, filters and purifies Water (water vapor condenses on metal, for example)
• Water nourishes Wood (water leads to growth of flowers, plants and other changes in nature)

Inter-regulating

The destructive cycle (相克 xiāngkè) is:

• Wood grasps (or stabilizes) Earth (roots of trees can prevent soil erosion)
• Earth contains (or directs) Water (dams or river banks)
• Water dampens (or regulates) Fire
• Fire melts (or refines or shapes) Metal
• Metal chops (or carves) Wood

Overacting

The excessive destructive cycle (相乘 xiāngchéng) is:

• Wood depletes Earth (depletion of nutrients in soil, over-farming, overcultivation)
• Earth obstructs Water (over-damming)
• Water extinguishes Fire
• Fire melts Metal (affecting its integrity)
• Metal makes Wood rigid to easily snap.

Weakening

The reverse generative cycle (相洩/相泄 xiāngxiè) is:

• Wood depletes Water
• Water rusts Metal
• Metal impoverishes Earth (erosion, destructive mining of minerals)
• Earth smothers Fire
• Fire burns Wood (forest fires)

Counteracting

A reverse or deficient destructive cycle (相侮 xiāngwǔ or 相耗 xiānghào) is:

• Wood dulls Metal
• Metal de-energizes Fire (conducting heat away)
• Fire evaporates Water
• Water muddies (or destabilizes) Earth
• Earth rots Wood (buried wood rots)

Celestial stem

Movement	Wood	Fire	Earth	Metal	Water
Heavenly Stems	Jia Yi	Bing Ding	Wu Ji	Geng Xin	Ren Gui
Year ends with	4, 5	6, 7	8, 9	0, 1	2, 3

Ming nayin

In Ziwei divination, nayin () further classifies the Five Elements into 30 ming (), or life orders, based on the ganzhi. Similar to the astrology zodiac, the ming is used by fortune-tellers to analyse individual personality and destiny.

Order	Ganzhi	Ming	Order	Ganzhi	Ming	Element
1	Wood Rat	Sea metal	31	Wood Horse	Sand metal	Metal
2	Wood Ox		32	Wood Goat
3	Fire Tiger	Furnace fire	33	Fire Monkey	Forest fire	Fire
4	Fire Rabbit		34	Fire Rooster
5	Earth Dragon	Forest wood	35	Earth Dog	Meadow wood	Wood
6	Earth Snake		36	Earth Pig
7	Metal Horse	Road earth	37	Metal Rat	Adobe earth	Earth
8	Metal Goat		38	Metal Ox
9	Water Monkey	Sword metal	39	Water Tiger	Foil metal	Metal
10	Water Rooster		40	Water Rabbit
11	Wood Dog	Volcanic fire	41	Wood Dragon	Lamp fire	Fire
12	Wood Pig		42	Wood Snake
13	Fire Rat	Creek water	43	Fire Horse	Sky water	Water
14	Fire Ox		44	Fire Goat
15	Earth Tiger	Fortress earth	45	Earth Monkey	Stage station earth	Earth
16	Earth Rabbit		46	Earth Rooster
17	Metal Dragon	Pewter metal	47	Metal Dog	Jewellery metal	Metal
18	Metal Snake		48	Metal Pig
19	Water Horse	Willow wood	49	Water Rat	Mulberry wood	Wood
20	Water Goat		50	Water Ox
21	Wood Monkey	Stream water	51	Wood Tiger	Rapids water	Water
22	Wood Rooster		52	Wood Rabbit
23	Fire Dog	Roof tiles earth	53	Fire Dragon	Desert earth	Earth
24	Fire Pig		54	Fire Snake
25	Earth Rat	Lightning fire	55	Earth Horse	Sun fire	Fire
26	Earth Ox		56	Earth Goat
27	Metal Tiger	Conifer wood	57	Metal Monkey	Pomegranate wood	Wood
28	Metal Rabbit		58	Metal Rooster
29	Water Dragon	River water	59	Water Dog	Ocean water	Water
30	Water Snake		60	Water Pig

Applications

The wuxing schema is applied to explain phenomena in various fields.

Phases of the year

The five phases are around 73 days each and are usually used to describe the transformations of nature rather than their formative states.

• Wood/Spring: a period of growth, the expansion of which generates vitality and movement; associated with wind.
• Fire/Summer: a period of fruition and ripening flowering; associated with heat.
• Earth can be seen as a period of stability and stillness transitioning between the other phases or seasons, or, when relating to transformative seasonal periods, it can be seen as late summer. This period is associated with centralisation, leveling and dampness.
• Metal/Autumn: a period of moving inward. It is associated with collection, harvesting, transmuting, contracting, loss and dryness.
• Water/Winter: a period of reclusiveness, stillness, consolidation and coolness.

Cosmology and feng shui

Detailed illustration of the Wuxing cycle

Detailed illustration of the cycle

The art of feng shui (Chinese geomancy) is based on wuxing, with the structure of the cosmos mirroring the five phases, as well as bagua (the eight trigrams). Each phase has a complex network of associations with different aspects of nature (see table): colors, seasons and shapes all interact according to the cycles.

An interaction or energy flow can be expansive, destructive, or exhaustive, depending on the cycle it belongs to. By understanding these energy flows, a feng shui practitioner attempts to rearrange energy to benefit the client.

Movement	Metal		Wood		Water	Fire	Earth
Trigram hanzi
Trigram pinyin	qián	duì	zhèn	xùn	kǎn	lí	gèn	kūn
Trigrams	☰	☱	☳	☴	☵	☲	☶	☷
I Ching	Heaven	Lake	Thunder	Wind	Water	Fire	Mountain	Field
Planet (Celestial Body)	Venus		Jupiter		Mercury	Mars	Saturn
Elementary Color	White		Blue (Cyan)		Black	Red	Yellow
Intermediary Color	Aquamarine		Green		Purple	Orange	Grey
Day	Friday		Thursday		Wednesday	Tuesday	Saturday
Season	Autumn		Spring		Winter	Summer	Intermediate
Cardinal direction	West		East		North	South	Center

Dynastic transitions

According to the Warring States period political philosopher Zou Yan (c. 305–240 BCE), each of the five elements possesses a personified virtue (德; dé), which indicates the foreordained destiny (運; yùn) of a dynasty; hence, the cyclic succession of the elements also indicates dynastic transitions. Zou Yan claims that the Mandate of Heaven sanctions the legitimacy of a dynasty by sending self-manifesting auspicious signs in ritual colors (white, green, black, red, and yellow) that match the element of the new dynasty (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth). From the Qin dynasty onward, most Chinese dynasties invoked the theory of the Five Elements to legitimize their reign.

Chinese medicine

Chinese Five Elements Diurnal Cycle

Chinese Five Elements Diurnal Cycle - 24 hour cycle of energy in the human body. waxing and waning of energy in each organ. during the time of the living breath, and the time of the dead breath.

The interdependence of zangfu networks in the body was said to be a circle of five things, and so mapped by the ancient Chinese doctors onto categories of syndromes and patterns called the five phases.

In order to explain the integrity and complexity of the human body, Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners use the Five Elements theory to classify the endogenous influences on organs, physiological activities, pathological reactions, and environmental (exogenous) influences. This diagnostic capacity is extensively used in traditional five-phase acupuncture today, as opposed to the modern Confucian-styled eight principles based Traditional Chinese medicine.

Movement	Wood	Fire	Earth	Metal	Water
Planet	Jupiter	Mars	Saturn	Venus	Mercury
Mental Quality	idealism, spontaneity, curiosity	passion, intensity	agreeableness, honesty	intuition, rationality, mind	erudition, resourcefulness, wit
Emotion	anger, motivation	frenzy, joy	anxiety, planning	grief, compassion	fear, caution
Virtue	Benevolence	Propriety	Fidelity	Righteousness	Wisdom
Zang (yin organs)	liver	heart/pericardium	spleen/pancreas	lung	kidney
Fu (yang organs)	gall bladder	small intestine/San Jiao	stomach	large intestine	urinary bladder
Sensory Organ	eyes	tongue	mouth	nose	ears
Body Part	tendons	vessels	muscles	skin	bones
Body Fluid	tears	sweat	saliva	mucus	urine
Finger	ring finger	middle finger	thumb	index finger	pinky finger
Sense	sight	taste	touch	smell	hearing
Taste	sour	bitter	sweet	pungent, umami	salty
Smell	rancid	scorched	fragrant	rotten	putrid
Life	early childhood	youth	adulthood	senior age	old age, conception
Covering	scaly	feathered	naked human	furred	shelled
Hour	3–9	9–15	change	15–21	21–3
Year	Spring Equinox	Summer Solstice	Summer Final	Fall Equinox	Winter Solstice
360°	45–135°	135–225°	Change	225–315°	315–45°

Music

The Huainanzi and the Yueling chapter (月令; Yuèlìng) of the Book of Rites make the following correlations:

Movement	Wood	Fire	Earth	Metal	Water
Elementary Color	Blue (Cyan)	Red	Yellow	White	Black
Intermediary Color	Green	Orange	Grey	Aquamarine	Purple
Arctic Direction	east	south	center	west	north
Basic Pentatonic Scale pitch
Basic Pentatonic Scale pitch pinyin	jué	zhǐ	gōng	shāng	yǔ
solfege	mi or E	sol or G	do or C	re or D	la or A

• Qing (Cyan) is a Chinese color word used for both green and blue. Modern Mandarin has separate words for each, but like many other languages, older forms of Chinese did not distinguish between green and blue.
• In most modern music, various five-note or seven-note scales (e.g., the major scale) are defined by selecting five or seven frequencies from the set of twelve semitones in the Equal tempered tuning. The Chinese shi'er lü system of tuning is closest to the ancient Greek tuning of Pythagoras.

Martial arts

With wuxing as an influential philosophical concept, several Chinese martial arts and a few other East Asian styles incorporate five-phase concepts into their systems.

Tai chi trains and focuses on five basic qualities as part of its overarching strategy.

The Five Steps (Template:Zhi) are:

• Lǎo Jìnbù (老進步) – always step forward
• Juébù Tuìbù (絕不退步) – never step backward
• Yòupàn (右盼) – watch right
• Zuǒgù (左顧) – beware left
• Zhōngdìng (中定) – center pole, point, pivot neutral posture, maintain balance, maintain equilibrium.

These five steps are not mutable states in tai chi.

Xingyi Quan uses the five elements metaphorically to represent five distinct energies, but energy work is subtle, so one normally starts out by learning five basic techniques with complementary footwork to teach the basic concepts behind the energies. Ideally, one can use any technique with any kind of energy, but there are different levels of skill one must go through.

In Xingyi Quan, the realization of the five energies has three basic levels: obvious power, subtle power, and mysterious power.

Movement	Fist	Chinese	Pinyin	Direction	Shape	Subtle Action	Energy	Feeling
Metal	Splitting		Pī	Downward	Fist or palm chopping forward, hand pulling down and back, spine rolling downward	dragging down	condensing power	Dropping (jerking down)
Water	Drilling		Zuān	Upward	Fist drilling upward like water under pressure, hand down and back	spiraling	relaxing power	Shocking (jerking up and down simultaneously)
Wood	Crushing		Bēng	Forward	Fist shooting straight forward	wedging	linear power	Penetrating (expanding through)
Fire	Pounding		Pào	Backward	Fist being propelled forward by body flinging open	flinging	reciprocal power	Launching (uprooting and countering)
Earth	Crossing		Héng	Horizontal	Fist crossing horizontally and turning over to plough through	turning	torque power	Colliding (turning into a strike, falling onto a strike)

The Five Animals in Shaolin martial arts are an extension of the Wuxing theory as their qualities are the embodiment and representation of the energetic qualities of the five phases in the animal kingdom. They are the,

• Tiger - Fire (fierce and powerful)
• Monkey - Metal (hunched over)
• Snake - Water (flexible)
• Crane - Wind (evasive)
• Mantis - Earth (steady and rooted)

Wuxing Heqidao, (Gogyo Aikido 五行合气道) is a life art with roots in Confucian, Taoists and Buddhist theory. It centers around applied peace and health studies rather than defence or physical action. It emphasizes the unification of mind, body and environment using the physiological theory of yin and yang as well as five-element Traditional Chinese medicine. Its movements, exercises, and teachings cultivate, direct, and harmonise the qi.

In Japan

File:Japanese Crest Abe no Seimei Hann.svg

Mon of Abe no Seimei

The Japanese term is gogyo (Japanese: , romanized: gogyō). During the 5th and 6th centuries (Kofun period), Japan adopted various philosophical disciplines such as Taoism, Chinese Buddhism, and Confucianism through monks and physicians from China, helping to evolve the Onmyōdō system. In contrast, the theory of Godai is a form-based philosophy introduced to Japan from India and Tibetan Buddhism. These theories have been extensively practiced in Japanese acupuncture and traditional Kampo medicine.

See also

• Acupuncture
• Chinese Zodiac
• Classical element
• Color in Chinese culture
• Five Races Under One Union
• Flying Star Feng Shui
• Humorism
• Qi
• Wufang Shangdi
• Wuxing painting
• Zangfu
• Yin and yang

Further reading

• 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 ed.). London: Elsevier Ltd.
• Chen, Yuan (2014). "Legitimation Discourse and the Theory of the Five Elements in Imperial China". Journal of Song-Yuan Studies. 44: 325–364. doi:10.1353/sys.2014.0000. S2CID 147099574.

External links

• Wuxing (Wu-hsing). The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, .