Secrets of Dragon Gate by Steven Liu

Author:Steven Liu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2011-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

The Cycles of the Five Elements

Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.

—CHUANG TZU

The five elements are largely defined by the relationships among the elements. In other words, each of the elements interacts with the other elements by helping to create, subdue, foster, or hinder them. This is meant to parallel the patterns we see in life. Everything in the world experiences a cycle marked by a beginning, development, and ultimately decline. Likewise, in our lives, we see various paths to success and failure, prosperity and poverty, health and illness, wisdom and ignorance, etc.

In the cycle of the five elements, each of the elements has the property of generating or “being generated.” This cycle was described clearly in the second century A.D. by Liu An, a Chinese nobleman and scholar who authored The Huainan Philosophers, which is one of the essential texts of Taoism. He wrote:“By wood can be produced fire, by fire can be produced earth [that is, fire burns wood, which turns to soil]; from earth can be produced metal [for example, by mining]; from metal can be produced water [that is, metal can be changed through heat to a liquid state]; from water can be produced wood [that is, water feeds plants]. When fire heats metal, it makes it liquid. When water destroys fire it operates adversely upon the very element by which it is produced. Fire produces earth, yet earth counteracts water. No one can do anything against these phenomena, for the power that causes the five elements to counteract each other is according to the natural dispensation of heaven and earth. Large quantities prevail over small quantities, hence water conquers fire. Spirituality prevails over materiality, the non-substance over substance, thus fire conquers metal; hardness conquers softness, hence metal conquers wood; density is superior to incoherence, therefore, wood conquers earth; solidity conquers insolidity, therefore earth conquers water.”

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