This article is a short summary that strives to describe the complex relationships of the various systems in our body. Chinese medicine has certain obvious advantages over conventional Western medicine in that it tries to explain the cause of a health problem and also uses a holistic approach for treatment of a disease.
The five elements theory in Chinese medicine in Spokane is based on an apocryphal approach of connecting energy channels in the body. After all, if we’re able to control energy, we can also control our health. In the system of the Five Elements, there is no such thing as absolute law. The classical Chinese perspective of the universe doesn’t allow room for the existence of absolutes. The rules of the Five Elements pertain to the tendencies toward change based on the foundation of the Five Elements.
The connection between the organs of the human body (zang fu) and the Five elements are as follows:
Elements – Water, Wood, Metal Earth, Fire
Yin (Zang) – Kidney, Liver, Lung, Spleen, Heart
Yang (Fu) – Bladder, Gall Bladder, Large Intestine, Stomach, Small Intestine
Sensory organs – Ear, Eye, Nose, Mouth, Tongue
Tissues – Bone, Tendon, Hair/Skin, Muscle, Blood Vessel
Emotions – Fear/Fright, Anger, Melancholy/Grief, Worry, Joy
Notes – Yu, Jiao, Shang, Gong, Zheng
The energies of the Five Elements, as a means of expression, are believed to contain the following creative qualities.
Water has the tendency to create Wood
Wood has the tendency to create Fire
Fire has the tendency create Earth
Earth has the tendency to create Metal
Metal has the tendency to create Water
The Cycle of Control (or Controlling Cycle) brings balance and harmony through opposite and complementary qualities. It is a type of control in what would otherwise be an unending increase.
The Cycle of Control:
Water has the tendency to control Fire
Fire has the tendency to control Metal
Metal to control Wood
Wood has the tendency to control Earth
Earth has the tendency to control Water
Broken Balance
When the balance is broken, the Insulting and Over Acting sequences govern the irregular relationship among the Five Elements.
Both the Controlling Cycle and the Over Acting Cycle have the same pattern save for the fact that each Element over-acts on another by one Element being energetically in excess.
The Over Acting Cycle is the opposite of the Insulting Cycle. The former cycle deals with energetics that’s opposed to the latter cycle.
There are Ten Stems in the theory of the Five Elements
Each Element has an aspect of Yin and Yang with one balancing the other – this is essentially what defines Yin-Yang.
As Yin lowers, Yang rises
As Yang lowers, Yin rises
If Yin rises, Yang lowers
If Yang rises, Yin lowers
Within each Element, there is an opposite and complementary balance.
Cycle of Creation of the Ten Celestial Stems
The understanding of the Ten Celestial Stems following the tendencies of the Cycle of Creation demonstrates how the elements of Yang create each other and the elements of Yin create each other.
Were there no restriction on the tendencies to create, the outcome would be a incremental rise from one Element’s energy to the other.
One way this is balanced and checked is through the aspect of each Elements’ Yin and Yang with each Element balancing one another within the system.
The system can also maintain balance by balancing the Yin and Yang aspect of any Element by means of the Controlling Cycle.
These tendencies are discussed below:
Ten Celestial Stems
Cycle of Control Balances
The balances follow a Yin/Yang pattern and are bi-directional. If Yin decreases, Yang increases and vice versa.
Wood Yin generated by Water Yin generates Fire Yin.
Fire Yin generates Earth Yin generating Metal Yin, which generates Water Yin.
The Yang elements are the same as the just mentioned Yin energetics.
The entire system is a fragile balance of all its parts.
This system continues to maintain and generate itself in perfect harmony; however, any number of changes of this imbalance can arise if any imbalance or disharmony develops anywhere in the system. The impact of transformations may generate symptoms deemed to be negative effects. Some transformations may not manifest any symptoms at all. Any of the Element’s Yin/Yang energetics can influence the other Elements in a manner based on the specific strength of their Yin or Yang.
The key to harmony is balance.
There is a passage in the book Lu Shih Chun Chiu that perfectly illustrates the dangers of stagnation and the importance of movement.
“The reason the door’s hinge does not age, yet the door does or the water in the stream remains vital, yet stagnant water does not, is because they move. The association between the Chi and the form is the same. The Jing does stream if the form does not move. The Chi turns stagnant if the Jing does not stream. Stagnation becomes like wind or like a tumor if it’s in the head. Stagnation leads to deafness, if it’s in the ear.”
Chung points out in the Lun Hung, written around 82 AD, “Illness is like chaos and confusion. The Shen and Jing become mixed up and confused.”
In the Huai Nan Tzu, the complementary viewpoint is emphasized. Order is the “going through without commotion” that allows action.
Within the Ten Stems, this relationship can be an integral and vital approach and is a better guide to determine diagnosis, disease, symptoms, and energetics.
The exciting implication of this is that if we understand this order and facilitate it, we become more capable.
Conclusion
The key to wellbeing is certainly movement with the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the body intimately tied to each other.
If you try to enhance only the physical, the system will collapse eventually; without yin, yang cannot exist.
This article is designed to express an opinion about the myriad of relative energy or tendencies related to each other as well as the integrity of yin and yang and also to make the reader understand that besides soft and hard, weak and strong, negative and positive, and yin and yang, that there are other countless numbers of relative energies between those opposites.
There are weak and strong areas between the opposite poles at all distances between the opposites similar to the various lines of a magnetic field. Endless tendencies exist between yin and yang in constantly moving and vacillating strengths of energy.
This article has shown us why movement is extremely vital in all things. Joints solidify if they don’t move. Blood stagnates if it doesn’t flow the right way. Death follows if the lungs stopped breathing. There needs to be some changing of thought into the physical by doing, because thinking is not enough.
For optimum health, balance is necessary in all activity.
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