Tag: wu xing

Five Elements and Flying Star Feng Shui [Master Class Lesson 13]

I bet most people who study Feng Shui should have heard of Five Elements (五行), a.k.a. Wu Xing.  These five elements, namely Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, are critical to examining the Feng Shui of a living space.

The Flying Star Feng Shui theory is heavily based on the theory of Five Elements.  The promotion of good effects of good Flying Stars and the dilution of the bad effects of bad Flying Stars require your understanding of the Five Elements.  This is why in this second lesson of Flying Star Feng Shui, we shall study Five Elements in details.

I know that many of you may have learnt Five Elements from various sources, such as this Five Elements page on Wikipedia.  Here in this lesson, we shall learn not only what Five Elements are, we would also know exactly how they could be applied in Flying Star Feng Shui.  You would also see examples showing the actual application of the theories.

 

The Five Elements

The Five Elements are Wood (木), Fire (火), Earth (土), Metal (金) and Water (水).  The colors, shapes and Flying Stars of these Five Elements are:

Wood

  • Green
  • Long rectangular / Stripes / Linear
  • Flying Stars 3 and 4

Fire

  • Red / Orange / Purple
  • Triangle / Irregular and pointed shape
  • Flying Star 9

Earth

  • Yellow / Brown
  • Square
  • Flying Stars 2, 5 and 8

Metal

  • White / Golden / Silver
  • Round
  • Flying Stars 6 and 7

Water

  • Black / Blue
  • Curve / Wave
  • Flying Star 1

 

The Interactions between Five Elements

The Five Elements are not standalone substances.  They have interactions among them.  There are two basic types of interactions, generating (生) and overcoming (剋).

 

Generating

Generating means the creation of one substance by using another substance.  Below are the generating rules:

  • Wood generates Fire
  • Fire generates Earth
  • Earth generates Metal
  • Metal generates Water
  • Water generates Wood

Try drawing out the generating path by pointing an arrow from the original substance to the substance being generated.  You would find out that you have drawn a circle.  Yes, the generation of substances is a cycle without end.  In the list above, the Wood being generated could further generates Fire.  In fact, there is no beginning as well.  I started the list in Wood simply because this is how I memorize the Five Elements.  You can start drawing out the cycle by Fire, Earth, Metal or Water first, and the cycle will be the same.

Some people find it difficult to memorize the generating cycle.  You can visualize the cycle by using the following analogy:

  • You drill Wood to make Fire
  • When you burn something to generate Fire, there would be ashes (Earth) produced
  • Earth (underground) is where Metal ore is hidden and created
  • When Metal melts it turns into liquid form (or Metal is where water is condensed on)
  • Water feeds vegetation (Wood)

 

Overcoming

On the other hand, the overcoming interaction means the consumption / reduction / destruction of a substance by another.  The overcoming interactions are:

  • Wood overcomes Earth
  • Earth overcomes Water
  • Water overcomes Fire
  • Fire overcomes Metal
  • Metal overcomes Wood

Again, the overcoming interactions could be drawn in an endless cycle.  However, the cycle is not a simply reversal of the generating cycle.  If you draw out the overcoming arrows right on the generating cycle graph, you would result in a star shaped cycle.  Below is a graph I downloaded from Wikipedia showing the situation:

Five Elements To memorize the overcoming interactions, you could use analogies as well:

  • The roots of Wood penetrates (and damage the integrity) the Earth
  • We create dam using soil (Earth) to block the flow of Water
  • Water could put out Fire
  • Fire melts Metal
  • Axe (Metal) could cut Wood

 

Application of Five Elements in Flying Star Feng Shui

Now we begin the most critical part of this lesson.  The Five Element Theory itself is a complete philosophical system, but when it is applied to Feng Shui, we need to know how to use it in the Feng Shui context.

I’ll devote the whole of the following section to explaining how to use Five Elements to d Flying Star Feng Shui.  After reading this, you would fully understand why in my free Feng Shui 2013 guide I would ask you to do this or that in a particular direction (in other words, you can do Feng Shui yourself and know why so).  In brief, we use the generating / overcoming interactions to maximize the good effects and minimize the bad effects.

Ready to learn this powerful skill?  Read on!
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