THE 5 ELEMENTS

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The alternation between the state Yin and the state Yang is not done instantaneously, but by a constant process of transformation, determined by 5 key phases: called the 5 elements, or 5 movements that are: Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal.

Each of these Elements consists of 2 Ministers (1 Minister Yin and 1 Minister Yang).

Water Element : 

The balance of the Kidney and Bladder Ministers keeps the Water element in harmony in the body.

The element Water symbolizes winter, night, depth, the inexplicable... Everything that is irrational, that cannot be explained is related to this element... Only experience can testify.

The element Water corresponds to the beginning of Life: the embryo in the amniotic fluid, inside, in the darkness It also corresponds to the end of a cycle: when an animal dies, it will hide in a dark place.

Water contains the ancestral or congenital potential and the acquired potential... These potentials determine the realizing capacity... The Kidney manufactures robustness, hence the expression "to have solid kidneys"... On this potential, this energy depend the will, the ability to undertake... The kidneys are the reservoir of vital energy called...: QI (pronounced "tchi").

In the element Water, it is dark and things are tangled and without contours... It is therefore the feeling, the irrational which prevail.

In our society, Yin properties take a back seat to external appearance (Yang) over internal qualities (Yin), the rational (Yang) is considered "true", while the feeling (Yin) is denied.

These few examples show how much the Yang aspects are emphasized and the Yin aspects are amazing that the most Yin element, Water, is chronically weakened. The areas of the kidneys, genitals and adrenals are therefore painful in most Westerners because, despite ourselves, we are impregnated with the collective consciousness. In nature, winter marks a pause, energy withdraws into the depths and life is a little bit suspended... on the human level, it corresponds to a moment of introspection.

To be in balance in man, the Water element needs periods of interiorization and meditation.

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Wood Element : 

The balance of the ministers Liver and Gallbladder allows to keep the element Wood in harmony in the body.

This element brings us qualities of strength and stability.

It can be compared to a big tree spreading majestically in the human being, ensuring the connection between the sky and the earth... If this tree breaks, it can cause spinal problems and loss of balance.

The stability of the tree is important but also its flexibility.

The state of the element Wood in the body determines the stiffness or flexibility of the body (muscle stiffness or too much laxity) but also of the mind (stiffness of character, fixed ideas).

Negotiation and the ability to adapt belong to this element.

The Wood season is spring. This corresponds to the real season but also to the spring of Life: youth.

It is a phase of exteriorization, discovery, learning. The ability to adapt, to accept new phases, to open up to new horizons mark a balanced Wood element. Isolation, exclusion reflect an imbalance in the element.

The liver plans and the gallbladder decides. But it is planning that is not intellectual because it comes from the soul. This is the part of us that really belongs to us. It is like an inner vibration that determines the country in which we are born, the period of our birth, the family environment, etc. It is like an inner vibration that determines the country in which we are born. It conditions the broad lines of our destiny. Spring also symbolizes the renewal of life after winter.

Fire Element : 

The balance of the Ministers Heart and Small Intestine allows to keep the Fire element in harmony in the body.

This element gives us the joy of living and vitality. He brings us enthusiasm. The expression "All fired up" characterize this element. But the Fire element needs freshness and peace to be balanced. The Fire element governs the spirit. An enlightened mind, clear words, a liveliness of understanding, represent this element... Emotional life, the ability to show feelings, a warm heart, a hand stretched out to the other concerns this element. A balanced Fire element can withstand disappointments in love and is destabilized by passion.

The element Fire governs the psyche as a whole:

• accelerating or decreasing the heart rate

• blushing

• by causing sweats.

The Heart is a conductor, an emperor managing his kingdom with the help of the Pericardium for the Heart and the help of the Triple Heater for the Small Intestine. He has big responsibilities. Like an emperor, he must respond to all the demands of the people: blood brings to the heart the information and complaints collected from the cells of the organism, and in return transmits the response of the sovereign to them.

Fire has four meridians but in reflexology, only the reflex zones of the heart and hail are known and used to rebalance this element.

Fire is linked to our wishes. It is with the heart that we know what we want or what we wish... At certain times, we must do what is useful so listen to the element Wood. At other times, we must follow our hearts and live our dreams.

Earth Element : 

The balance of the ministers Stomach and Rate-Pancreas keeps the Earth element in harmony in the body.

The Earth element represents the support of all life. It is at the origin of all the other elements. Moreover, it is the earth that provides everything we need to eat, vegetables, cereals, fruits, etc. Similarly, in our organism, it is the earth element that manages the nutrition of connective tissues and all cells. This element governs the transformation and distribution of nutrients.

It also represents our internal axis from which we act harmoniously. Feeling connected and inhabited depends on the Earth. A person with a strong Earth element will be centered, well integrated. She will feel at home, as in the outside world and at ease in all situations.

On the other hand, a person whose Earth element is deficient will tend towards obsession, constantly in search of outside help, without realizing that it is in itself that we must seek answers to our questions.

If our inner Earth is shaken or if we find ourselves in a period of personal questioning, we will have in reflexology the sensitive stomach and spleen reflex zones with digestive difficulties.

The spleen represents the Earth element and symbolizes our shadow, our unconscious, which is not yet born in us. The spleen is a very important organ in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

It is compared to a large distribution centre of the organism.

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Metal Element : 

The balance of the ministers Lungs and Intestine Colon makes it possible to keep the Metal element in harmony in the body.

After the peak of the Fire, the summer, and after Earth, the harvest, comes the time to make provisions for the winter. It is autumn that asks us to prepare for a new gestation, a new year.

It is time to sort, to do what is necessary and to eliminate what is superfluous. It is the Colon who responds to this action... Putting his affairs in order depends on Metal. A desk where files, binders, papers, drawers filled with photos, memories, calls out to Metal...

In the same way, knowing how to "tidy up" one's ideas and how to structure a discourse depend on Metal. When a person takes a long time to tell you what he is consulting for, he gets lost in the details and forgets the essential, it already shows an unbalanced Metal. Such behaviour is more often found in older people who are already in the metal period of the human life cycle.

The Metal Element represents protection, which manifests itself at the psychological level through wisdom, discernment, and at the physical level through the immune system. This system has the wisdom to discern what belongs to the organism from what is foreign to it, so it is attributed to the element Metal.

Ngu Hành

The 5 mouvements

Definition :

With that of the AM and the DUONG or the YIN and the YANG from which it ensues, the theory of Five elements forms the essential contents of the Vietnamese Sino Traditional. It defines and explains the analogies between the Man and the Nature, between the natural phenomena and those of the human vital activity. Pressed on the concept of " the Man in compliance with the Sky ", it highlights the unity of the Universe, the indivisibility of the Man and the uniqueness of the link which unites them. Five movements are quite at the same time five dynamic states of the Energy, the structure of the Life, the organization of this structure, five strengths which drive according to precise and inviolable laws.
 

Of the perpetual dynamic transformation of the AM and the DUONG is born:

in the Sky, six climatic energies, Wind, Heat, Warmth, Cold, Drought, Humidity, on the Earth, Five movements, AM or DUONG, bound to the Earth and to the Sky:

the Wood,(Môc) yang of yin,
The Fire,(Hoa ) yang of yang,
The Earh,(Tho) at the center that feeds the other mouvements of its Yin,
The Metal,(Kim ) yin of yang,
The water, (Thuy) yin of yin.


Five elements or Ngu Hành are quite at the same time:

A method of logical, rational and universal classification of things and phenomena according to their energy characteristics, according to their functions, of forms them.
Five particular states of the Energy generated by the growth/decrease of the AM and DUONG.
Five states of the material livened up by the energy phase which corresponds to them.
Five categories of elements united by their energy analogies, coexisting in a system of mutual, dynamic relations in which each, transformer of Energy is for time stimulating and regulating.
Finally, they are the expression of Life in its forms and in the movements livening up the Form.

In conclusion, Five elements are five categories of ground demonstrations, five categories of vital phenomena linked to the seasons.

General characteristics:

The Wood: yang of yin, it is the plant element corresponding to spring, period of seeding, revival, discount in movement. It symbolizes the growth, the flexibility, the vital impulse, the free movement, it bends, recovers, extends. It applies to all the processes of growth, realization, decline.

The Fire: yang of yang, air element, it symbolizes the ignition, the combustion, the sublimation, the magnificence. It produces some heat, rises, warms. It symbolizes all the dynamic activities.

The Earth: yin, solid element of realization, it corresponds to the interseasons the most important of which are situated between summer and autumn. Central pillar of the system, it is nourishing, balances, revitalizes and limits the other Movements by its Yin. It produces and transforms Thousand things, transport liquids, nutriments, the other Movements. It represents all the functions of support, all the matrix functions.

The Metal: yin of yang, mineral element, it corresponds to autumn, it symbolizes the crystallization, the senescence. Characterized by the hardness, the rigor, but also the flexibility, the malleability, it cuts, prunes, restricts, but also gathers, collects, returns to the main part. It concerns more particularly the strength, the endurance, the resistance, the reprieve.

The Water: yin of yin, liquid element, it corresponds to winter, symbolizes the disintegration, the liquefaction, the decay. It comes down, stagnates, moistens, accumulates, hoards. It expresses all the functions of fertility.


Relations : 

Mutual begetting: or Relation of the Mother to the Son, or cycle Tcheng. Every Movement engenders the one who follows him by passing on him his energy yin or yang. Also he is engendered by the one who precedes him, in an unchanging and endless cycle. So:

The Wood engenders the Fire, the wood is necessary for combustion, for the production of fire.
The Fire engenders the Earth, the fire produces the ash.
The Earth engenders the Metal, the ash contains minerals.
The Metal engenders the Water, under the influence of the time and or of heat, the metal liquefies, dissolves.
The Water engenders the Wood, without water, there is not a humidity which made germinate granulates her.

Control: grandparents check the grandchildren. Every Movement, by his energy checks and limits the one who follows his son and is checked and limited by the one who precedes her mother. So each can, harmoniously, grow by receiving the energy of her mother and to decrease by passing on his energy to his son. The cycle Ko is a regulating system in which every movement is checked and checks. The loser is brought down there never but not only decreased.

So: the Water puts out the Fire.
The Fire melts the Metal.
The Metal cuts the Wood.
The Wood feeds on the Earth.
The Earth absorbs, dykes the Water.

Regulation/transformation: by this double relation of begetting and domination which are only a transformation process of Yin in Yang and vice versa and mutual opposition between the Yin and the Yang, each of Five movements is in relations with the others in a process of regulation and transformation. The domination regulates the begetting which engenders the domination. This perpetual cycle of growth and decrease engenders and organizes the Demonstration, maintains it in a state of inevitably relative balance. The begetting regulates the domination which checks the begetting. So, Ten thousand things appear, develop, coexist, evolve in the order of the Nature. This harmony is however disrupted by situations of excess or insufficiency.

Excess: the mother grows excessively. She cannot decrease anymore normally and feed her son.
The son grows excessively, he turns around against her mother, he hurts her mother.
The dominant grows excessively. He dominates excessively dominated sound. It is a situation of conquest.
The dominated grows excessively. He turns around against dominant sound. It is a situation of revolt.

Insufficiency: the mother decreases excessively or grows insufficiently. She cannot feed anymore her son.
The dominant decreases excessively or grows insufficiently. Dominated sound rebels and dominates him in turn.