Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)

Wuxing (Chinese: 五行; pinyin: wǔxíng), usually translated as 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 cosmic cycles, the interactions between internal organs, the succession of political regimes, and the properties of herbal medicines.
The agents are Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. The wuxing system has been in use since it was formulated in 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, and traditional medicine, serving as a metaphysics based on cosmic analogy.
Wuxing originally referred to the five classical planets (from brightest to dimmest: Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Saturn), which were with the combination of the Sun and the Moon, conceived as creating five forces of earthly life. 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 word for planets in Chinese literally translates as "moving stars" (行星; xíngxīng). Some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts (before 168 BC) also connect the wuxing to the wude (五德; wǔdé), the Five Virtues and Five Emotions. Scholars believe that various predecessors to the concept of wuxing were merged into one system with many interpretations during the Han dynasty.
Wuxing was first translated into English as "the Five Elements", drawing deliberate parallels with the Greek 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. However, this analogy is misleading. The four elements are concerned with form, substance and quantity, whereas wuxing are "primarily concerned with process, change, and quality". For example, the wuxing element "Wood" is more accurately thought of as the "vital essence" of trees rather than the physical 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", proposed by Marc Kalinowski.
In traditional doctrine, the five phases are connected in two cycles of interactions: a generating or creation (生 shēng) cycle, also known as "mother-son"; and an overcoming or destructive (克 kè) cycle, also known as "grandfather-grandson" (see diagram). Each of the two cycles can be analyzed going forward or reversed. There is also an "overacting" or excessive version of the destructive cycle.
The generating cycle (相生 xiāngshēng) is:
The reverse generating cycle (相洩/相泄 xiāngxiè) is:
The destructive cycle (相克 xiāngkè) is:
The excessive destructive cycle (相乘 xiāngchéng) is:
A reverse or deficient destructive cycle (相侮 xiāngwǔ or 相耗 xiānghào) is:
In Ziwei divination, nayin (納音) further classifies the Five Elements into 60 ming (命), 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.
The wuxing schema is applied to explain phenomena in various fields.
The five phases are around 73 days each and are usually used to describe the transformations of nature rather than their formative states.
The art of feng shui (Chinese geomancy) is based on wuxing, with the structure of the cosmos mirroring the five phases, as well as 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 to which it belongs. By understanding these energy flows, a feng shui practitioner attempts to rearrange energy to benefit the client.
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 the ritual color (white, green, black, red, and yellow) that matches 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.
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, Chinese medical scientists and physicians use the Five Elements theory to classify the human body's endogenous influences on organs, physiological activities, pathological reactions, and environmental or exogenous (external, environmental) 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. In combination the two systems are a formative and functional study of postnatal and prenatal influencing on genetics, psychology, sociology and ecology.
The Huainanzi and the Yueling chapter (月令; Yuèlìng) of the Book of Rites make the following correlations:
Wuxing being an influential philosophical concept, there are several Chinese martial arts and a few other east Asian styles that incorporate five phases concepts into their systems.
Tai chi trains and focuses on five basic qualities as part of its overarching strategy.
The Five Steps (五步; wǔ bù) are:
These five steps are not mutable states in tai chi.
As for the elemental qualities of the five traditional qualities:
A slightly different interpretation of the five elements in tai chi deal more specifically with the body method:
Due to the occultation and misunderstanding of the original methods, modern Taiji Quan practice tends to have a mental framework that these elements are individual qualities to be developed individually. Thus:
With water energy being traditionally the most famous and developed energy, the water element tends to get practiced to the detriment and exclusion of the others in many branches. More conservative branches also actively cultivate the earth element, giving the style's famous stability and strong frame. The metal energy tends to get lumped in with the water energy, receding and dropping simultaneously. Though some schools give it more thought. The wood energy tends to get lumped in with the earth energy for developing a strong frame. The fire energy tends to get almost no attention, whatsoever, except in very specific branches.
Focusing on element qualities can be a viable form of practice in Taiji Quan, but that mindset is more like and possibly an influence from Xingyi Quan. Otherwise it is more normal for Taiji Quan practitioners to focus more attention on their version of the eight gates (ba gua), instead.
Xingyi Quan uses the five elements metaphorically to represent ideally five different energies, but energy work is subtle, so normally one starts out 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, realization of the five energies has three basic levels: Obvious power, subtle power, mysterious power.
Another way of looking at the three levels involve the name of the style itself, 'Shape Intent Fist'.
A third method of looking at the skill development of Xingyi Quan has to do with its power training.
Wuxing Tongbei Quan is a style intermediate between Taiji Quan and Tongbei Quan which uses five element theory as well.
The Five Animals in Shaolin martial arts are also sometimes known as the Wuxing as their qualities parallel the five phases:
Gogyo Aikido (五行合気道) 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, yang and five-element Traditional Chinese medicine. Its movements, exercises, and teachings cultivate, direct, and harmonise the qi.
The Japanese term is gogyo (Japanese: 五行, 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. As opposed to theory of Godai that is form based philosophy that was introduced to Japan through India and Tibetan Buddhism. These theories have been extensively practiced in Japanese acupuncture and traditional Kampo medicine.