Chinese 5 Element Theory: How It Works

reply to post by KenArten


Ginger seems to heat my innards and makes me feel a little better for a while. It also seems to mildly boost my energy. It has about the same effect as Arizona green tea has with me. Powdered ginger doesn't seem to have that effect so much. The rest of your post is probably to someone else.

reply to post by Bybyots


It sounds like a variation . He uses the word cannon instead of chin . There are sects in China.
The guy who taught my teacher had been in a prison most of his life ,because he fought in the revolution against Mao tse tung.
All those guys did in jail was practice .

Pi chin pao chin beng chin .five of them ,one for each element .

reply to post by KenArten


Tai chi is an internal art . All the movements can be used for defence . It's not taught that way ~traditionally~ ,but anyone who masters an internal art,can make it an external art .
There's a tai chi school in Manhattan that teaches tai chi for defense and fighting .
They even wear gloves and padding .


www.examiner.com...

reply to post by rickymouse


No,because this became an issue between myself and my mom . I would have a fever of 99,and feel awful .
I had taken my temp enough to know,it was normally 97 . If I told her,or went to the doctor ,and it was 99,they would say ,oh not so bad ,and I would argue ,no ...my temp is normally lower .
If my dad or his family had it,my mom would have known .

reply to post by rickymouse


You should see a Chinese herbalist . You need a yang formula.
Probably something with ginger ginseng and fu zi in it .
Hmmm.....

I've spent the past hour or so trying to decipher this and I don't get it. I'll blame my ignorance for this. Can you tell me what I'm supposed to be looking at or seeing?

I went to the link the dude in the first few posts made (where you said you'd hoped to find that to make it more interactive...) and I'm even more confused.


Birth chart says -
"The following is your birth chart. You are Green Chicken, born in the year of White Chicken. The first character in DAY represents you. So you are equivalent to Wood."

Cool.

Then in the boxes...
Hour (Kids) - (underneath)
Female Fire
Red Cow

Day (you)
Female Wood
Green Chicken

Month (parents)
Male Metal
White Rat

Year (ancestor)
Female Metal
White Chicken


Then below that it says -
"Your birth chart was generated using the Chinese Stem-Branch Calendar system. The Stems, upper row in the chart, are Five Elements which are Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth. The Branches, lower row in the chart, are 12 animal names which are related to Five Elements. The following Five Elements distribution chart is produced from your birth chart."

Then the next set of boxes -
Wood (you)
90

Fire (kids)
15

Soil (money)
13

Metal (job)
153

Water (mom)
78

Then below that is -
"Here we select an element from the Five Element chart as your Lucky Element. The Chinese Yin-Yang Five Elements describe the BALANCE. When the Five Elements are balanced, they are in harmony and you will be lucky. When they are out of balance, they are in conflict and cause you trouble. So your lucky elements are the ones that bring the Five Elements into balance. Usually the lucky elements are the ones with a lesser weight (score). Here we want to pick Soil as your lucky element, because your Five Elements have a better shape when the weight of Soil increases. Using the balance theory, we can predict the rise and fall of your entire life."


-----

How do I take all of that and make sense of it? What do I plug in where to see if this makes sense?

Lol, sorry for all that. I just want to understand and don't know where to start.

Metal and wood are confusing to me, the western system of Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether is more obvious to me.

I did some Indonesian Martial arts years back and I recall they had Earth, water, air, fire and Iron

I tried to taste fire once. It tasted like burn.

Sour???

reply to post by RicketyCricket


No, no. Your post really made my day, and it cracked me up. What a pain in the ass, right? Not only does it just sound completely crazy; I think in this case we are also struggling with some not so great translation.

I'll try to straighten it out. Let me go see what the deal is and then I will try to pick apart the results that you got.

reply to post by LUXUS

Metal and wood are confusing to me,

In the general sense or just the boxing attributes?

2nd.

reply to post by tgidkp


Thank you for that link!

Last time I did Chinese astrology I was a double metal dog,
this says a little different but is still very cool
My best years are coming up!
Interesting about the age of 26-35 too,
as I went through some seriously rough times there.

This is interesting,
as I can verify the eye problem at least.

Originally posted by Bybyots
reply to post by LUXUS

 

Metal and wood are confusing to me,

In the general sense or just the boxing attributes?

2nd.

In the general sense, metal and wood are not elements so I find it goes against logic.

reply to post by RicketyCricket


Alright man,

Here we go. Tzu Ping astrology is also called Four Pillar astrology. The Four Pillars are one pillar each for the day, hour, month and year.

Each hour, day, month and year are represented by what is called the 12 Earthly Branches and 10 Heavenly Stems. The 12 Earthly Branches are considered to be Yin, and they represent the influence of the Earth on the birth chart. The 10 Heavenly Stems are considered to be Yang, and they represent the influence of Heaven upon the birth chart.

And so, the Four Pillars are sometimes referred to as the Bazi, because the Yin and Yang differentials make for "Eight Characters". And don't be disturbed by that Heavenly 10, there is an extra Earth inserted to make a balanced 12 on the Yang side.

So, let's take a look at what you got...

Hour (Kids) - (underneath)
Female Fire
Red Cow

Day (you)
Female Wood
Green Chicken

Month (parents)
Male Metal
White Rat

Year (ancestor)
Female Metal
White Chicken

In the schema provided by the free website, they have the stem on the top tier and they have the branch on the bottom.

Hour = Children Element. They Receive/Take

Day = You. Sibling Element. Support

Month = Parent Element. Gives to and supports the Child Element which Receives/Takes

Year = Grandparent/Ancestor. Controls Child Element, can be made to support the Parent.

So there you are in the middle of it all, as a humble Wood Rooster (chicken), trying to keep it all in balance. Your kids are Yang Fire, your parents are Yang Metal and your grandparents are Yin Metal.

Here we want to pick Soil as your lucky element, because your Five Elements have a better shape when the weight of Soil increases. Using the balance theory, we can predict the rise and fall of your entire life."

They are just suggesting that your 'lucky' element (phase) is Earth. If this were the case then it might be recommended that you include more yellow in your wardrobe.

Does that help?



P.S. I forgot to add that the 12 Earthly Branch-o-ramas are the 12 Chinese Zodiacal animales that one can see on the menu at the local noodle joint.

I was hoping that one of the things this thread would do is help folks see past those, if possible,. I hope that this helps towards accomplishing that.

reply to post by LUXUS

metal and wood are not elements so I find it goes against logic.

I know. The 'Element' thing is not a very good descriptor. Translators have been trying to come up with just the right word for the entire time I have been interested in this stuff and it doesn't look like they are going to get a break anytime soon.

The scholar that I mentioned, Porkert, used the terminology, Evolutive Phase and Circuit Phase, to try and do away with using the word 'element'.

I really love Silat, too, but sometimes gong-fu is what happens when you are trying to learn Silat. Life just had other plans for me.

So yer a wrassler?

reply to post by Darkblade71

My best years are coming up!

That's an incredibly happy thought.

Get this, I go to straighten out that website thing and discover that this is my year: The Year of The Black Water Snake.

Florida here I come!



*sip*

reply to post by Bybyots


A good year for Florida!



I agree!



c(_)
*sip*

reply to post by PtolemyII


When I have a temp of a hundred and one, I go to sleep and won't wake up till it is down. My one daughter is the same way. I haven't talked to the other daughter about this, her normal body temp is 97.8 though, she is more like my sister was. I don't understand how it works and the doctors ignore what we say.

Originally posted by PtolemyII
reply to post by rickymouse

 

You should see a Chinese herbalist . You need a yang formula.
Probably something with ginger ginseng and fu zi in it .
Hmmm.....

The problem is that to speed things up brings along the temporal lobe epilepsy that I acquired from an auto accident. I cannot take the meds because I was allergic to all of them, I have to use diet to control it. I kind of like the signal shooting around the brain instead of going straight through to the right temporal lobe. It picks up a lot of information I accumulated over my life to compare things to. It took me a while to master using this deep thought.

Originally posted by RicketyCricket
I've spent the past hour or so trying to decipher this and I don't get it. I'll blame my ignorance for this. Can you tell me what I'm supposed to be looking at or seeing?

I went to the link the dude in the first few posts made (where you said you'd hoped to find that to make it more interactive...) and I'm even more confused.


Birth chart says -
"The following is your birth chart. You are Green Chicken, born in the year of White Chicken. The first character in DAY represents you. So you are equivalent to Wood."

Cool.

Then in the boxes...
Hour (Kids) - (underneath)
Female Fire
Red Cow

Day (you)
Female Wood
Green Chicken

Month (parents)
Male Metal
White Rat

Year (ancestor)
Female Metal
White Chicken


Then below that it says -
"Your birth chart was generated using the Chinese Stem-Branch Calendar system. The Stems, upper row in the chart, are Five Elements which are Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth. The Branches, lower row in the chart, are 12 animal names which are related to Five Elements. The following Five Elements distribution chart is produced from your birth chart."

Then the next set of boxes -
Wood (you)
90

Fire (kids)
15

Soil (money)
13

Metal (job)
153

Water (mom)
78

Then below that is -
"Here we select an element from the Five Element chart as your Lucky Element. The Chinese Yin-Yang Five Elements describe the BALANCE. When the Five Elements are balanced, they are in harmony and you will be lucky. When they are out of balance, they are in conflict and cause you trouble. So your lucky elements are the ones that bring the Five Elements into balance. Usually the lucky elements are the ones with a lesser weight (score). Here we want to pick Soil as your lucky element, because your Five Elements have a better shape when the weight of Soil increases. Using the balance theory, we can predict the rise and fall of your entire life."


-----

How do I take all of that and make sense of it? What do I plug in where to see if this makes sense?

Lol, sorry for all that. I just want to understand and don't know where to start.

Chinese astrology is very complicated . I have to do this a pie e at a time ,but most basically ,your sign is
I didn't use the generator on that page,but it calculates your horoscope .
In the Chinese system ,it goes by years .
For instance this the year of the water snake .
However,each part of the Chinese year is subdivided into three parts.
The first 4 months of the year may be wood ,the middle four fire ,the last four earth .
So even if you're born in the YEAR of the water snake ,you personally may be born during a time with another elemental influence .
So you're born the YEAR of the water snake,but born AS a wood snake .
You are a wood snake ,but the yearly influence of water,will also have an affect on your life .

Here ,they are using colors instead of elements. It's just interchanging the color/element .
So you are a green chicken ,a wood chicken . You were born in the year of the metal chicken .

You are a wood chicken . Whatever your element is for your personal birthdays ,usually that element is where you see health problems.
So wood is liver and gall bladder.
The yearly influence is an added component ,but not as big an influence .

reply to post by RicketyCricket


Then this part
Then in the boxes... Hour (Kids) - (underneath) Female Fire Red Cow

Day (you) Female Wood Green Chicken

Month (parents) Male Metal White Rat

Year (ancestor) Female Metal White Chicken

Shows other elemental influences .
You were born in a metal year ,in a metal month ,on a wood day ,during a fire hour .
So you have a lot of metal influence ,with wood and fire as well .
The kids parents etc ,indicate how your relationships with those people ,will play out .
Metal with your parents ,fire with your kids .etc.


This part
"Your birth chart was generated using the Chinese Stem-Branch Calendar system. The Stems, upper row in the chart, are Five Elements which are Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth. The Branches, lower row in the chart, are 12 animal names which are related to Five Elements. The following Five Elements distribution chart is produced from your birth chart."

Then the next set of boxes -Wood (you) 90

Fire (kids) 15

Soil (money) 13

Metal (job) 153

Water (mom) 78

Just shows how much of each element is influencing your life .
This is even a bit too complex for me . How they come to these totals ,ut it shows which elements have more pull on your life.
Since earth has the least amount ,they've called it your lucky element . It means you should incorporate this element into your life.
All of this would be important if you chose to say,feng shui your home .

Wood can mean plants ,things that come from the earth . So you should have plants around ..Trees and growth all around .
You should read up on the five elements . What their attributes are .
Emotion ,direction ,taste .
The Chinese devise diets based on this.

And I think the western four elements came from the five . Lost something in translation ,but that's a personal thought of mine .