Five-Element Theory在线视频

Hello everyone

Today we’ll study the third section of chapter 2

As we have talked about

that the qi monism theory

yin-yang theory and five element theory

have all become the philosophical bases

since they were introduced

into the TCM theoretical system

As one of the element of the Chinese culture

Chinese philosophy has greatly influenced

the development of TCM

For today’s class

we are going to see the five-element theory

The ancient Chinese people recognized that

Wood fire earth metal

and water were the most necessary elements

and these were first known as the five matters

The five matters have been considered

as basic substances

to constitute the universe and they are also daily used by people

For example water and fire are used for cooking

metal and wood are used for

cultivating earth gives birth to all things

Based on the five matters

the ancient philosopher abstracted

the concept of five element

from the abstract original qi of the universe

The five elements are used to describe the characteristics

and interrelationships of the five categories of matters

and phenomena

They are not used to refer to the concrete

and visible natural materials

when all the elements are used

as the specific five-element

The theory resulted from the observations

and studies of the natural world

by the ancient Chinese people in the course of their lives

and productive labor

After a long time of observations

and studies of the five elements of

wood fire earth metal and water

the ancient philosopher developed the five-element theory

The five-element theory is

an ancient philosophical thought

which studies the connotations characteristics classification

and relationships of generation

and restriction of the five elements of

wood fire earth metal and water

Through observation

the ancient people discovered

the respective characteristics of the five elements

And the application of the theory is based on

the characteristics of each element

Let’s see the five elements one by one

With the developing and applying of

five-element theory

ancient people recognize

that everything in the universe might be respectively attributed

to one of the five elements

For instance

wood has the nature of growing freely and unfolding

So anything that is similar to the characteristics

is attributed to the category of wood

Fire has the nature of flaring up

Thereby the things similar to the nature of fire

are classified into the attribute of fire

Earth has the nature of giving birth to all things

Thus those possess the nature of earth

are attributed to earth

Metal has the nature of purifying and descending

Hence those with the nature of metal

can be attributed to metal category

Water has the nature of

moistening and flowing downwards

For this reason

the things that have moistening downward movement

and coldness correspond to water

The methods people used to classify things

or phenomena into the five-element system

include direct method and indirect method

Let’s take the five zang organs as an example

to see how does the direct method work

The liver prefers to grow freely

and dislike depression

So it is correspondent with wood

The heart pumps blood to warm the body

So it is correspondent with fire

The spleen is responsible for transforming

and transporting cereal nutrients

to all parts of the body

So it is correspondent with earth

The lung is marked by the functions

of purification and descending

So it is correspondent with metal

The kidney is in charge of storing essence

and governing water

So it is correspondent with water

Liver is attributed to wood by using the direct method

Other organs and tissues

like gallbladder eyes

tendon tear and fingernail

they all belong to the liver system

according to the visceral manifestation knowledge

Therefore all the organs and tissues

we mentioned above attribute to the wood system

This method used here is indirect method

Among the five-elements

there exist the relationships

of generation and restriction

Generation means that one kind of things

can promote aid or bring forth another i. e

wood generates fire fire generates earth

earth generates metal metal generates water

and water in turn generates wood

Each of the five elements contains

the dual nature -being generated and generating

This relationship of the five elements

is called the "mother-child" relationship

The element that generates is called the "mother"

while the element that is generated

is called the "child"

Take wood as example

because wood produces fire

it is the mother of fire

but it is produced by water

so it's water's child

Restriction means bringing

under control or restraint

The order of restriction goes as follows

wood restricts earth earth does water

water does fire fire does metal

and metal in turn does wood

Any one of the five elements

has two aspects-being restricted and restricting

For example the element restricting wood is metal

and the element that is restricted by wood is earth

In TCM the five-element theory

as a theoretical tool

is used to explain different kinds of medical problems

by analogizing and deducing

their properties and interrelations

It also used to guide

clinical diagnosis and treatment

About constructing five systems centered

on five zang organs

Just as we talked about

the liver belongs to wood system

by using the direct method

The eyes tendon fingernails and gallbladder

are all closely related with liver

so all the tissues and fu organs

we mentioned belong to the liver system

that is wood system

The five-element theory is used to

explain the interrelationships among five zang organs

Let’s take liver as an example again

wood generating fire

corresponds with liver blood

nourishing heart and so on

The five-element theory is also used to

describe the pathological changes of zang fu organs

Still we take liver as an example

Based on the generation relationship

liver generates heart

so liver is the mother organ

and heart is the child organ

when the function of liver is disorder

can affect the function of heart

Liver as the child organ of kidney

the function of liver can be affected

by the disorder of kidney

Based on the restriction relationship

liver restricts the spleen and be restricted by lung

so the disorder of liver can affect

the function of spleen in an over-restriction manner

while affect the lung function

in a counter-restriction manner

For guiding the treatment in the generation order

it is need to tonify the mother-organ

to treat deficiency if the mother-organ affects child-organ

However it is needed to reduce

the excess of child organ

if disorder of child-organ affects mother-organ

In the restriction order

inhibiting excessiveness will be selected

for treating the syndrome of over-restriction

while supporting weakness will be used

for treating the deficiency of controlled organ

In summary

the five elements have been considered as

basic substances to constitute the universe

and they are also indispensable for life

The five-element theory was introduced into TCM

and was used to explain

the physiological characteristics of five zang organs

and construct physiological and pathological system

centered on five zang organs

That’s all for today

see you next class