What are the Five Elements in Taoism? 什么是五行

They refer to the five fundamental elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth that constitute all things in heaven and earth.

The concept of the Five Elements has an ancient origin.

According to records in Discourses of the States · Discourses of Zheng, Shi Bo, a Grand Historian of the Zhou Dynasty, once proposed that "the ancient kings combined metal, wood, water, fire and earth to form all things".

What are the Five Elements in Taoism?

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the theory of the Five Elements became extremely popular, and the Yin-Yang and Five Elements school emerged, represented by Zou Yan. This school expanded the Five Elements theory into a complex system encompassing numerous contents to explain the inevitability of the development processes of nature and the history governed by it.

The essence of the Five Elements theory lies in the principle of mutual generation and mutual restriction. Mutual generation means wood generates fire, fire generates earth, earth generates metal, metal generates water, and water generates wood; mutual restriction and overcoming means water restricts fire, fire restricts metal, metal restricts wood, wood restricts earth, and earth restricts water.

Meanwhile, the Five Elements theory was also used to explain temporal and spatial changes as well as the directions of the four seasons and celestial phenomena: the south belongs to fire and is red in color, the east belongs to wood and is green in color, the west belongs to metal and is white in color, the north belongs to water and is black in color, and the center belongs to earth and is yellow in color. Taoism incorporated the concept of the Five Elements into its theoretical system, and practitioners of Internal Alchemy attached particular importance to this theory, introducing it into alchemical cultivation practice.

Ge Hong expounded the principle of taking elixirs based on the mutual restriction of the Five Elements in Baopuzi · Immortality Elixirs: those whose birth year belongs to earth should avoid taking green elixirs; those whose birth year belongs to water should avoid taking yellow elixirs.

Chen Tuan of the Five Dynasties created the Taiji Diagram, analogized cosmic evolution to human body cultivation, and put forward a set of internal alchemy theories. The cultivation of essence, spirit and Qi was defined as a reverse cosmic evolution process that involves the convergence of the five vital energies (namely metal, wood, water, fire and earth) to the origin, drawing water from Kan to fill Li, returning essence to replenish the brain, refining spirit to return to emptiness, and uniting with the Dao to attain immortality.

The Unity of Immortality and Buddhism integrated the Five Elements theory into specific internal alchemy cultivation, holding that the primordial spirit in the heart belongs to formless fire, and the primordial Qi in the kidneys belongs to formless water. With focused gaze and spirit concentrated on the upper body, the water energy rises and steams—thus refining water with fire and achieving the communication between the heart and the kidneys.