Five Element Theory serves as the foundation of healing from a Chinese medicine perspective. This lesson explores the Five Elements and how they relate to your body. You will also discover the roots of this practice in ancient Taoist teachings and how healing sounds are an easy-to-use tool to overcome harmful effects of modern life.
Objectives: By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- List the five elements.
- State which organs are related to each element.
- Explain the concept of maintaining balance in the body.
- Describe two ways healing sounds help your body.
After listening to the audio, or reading the transcript below, you might like to reflect on the following questions.
Questions
How would you describe your awareness of the impact of sounds in your life?
1. I am just starting to notice sounds and vibrations because of this lesson.
2. I sometimes pay attention to how sounds and vibrations make me feel. I might have a favorite song or get startled by some sounds.
3. I regularly tune into sounds and how they make me feel. For example, I have playlists for different moods and notice sounds in nature.
4. I purposefully use sounds in my life. To illustrate, I do sound bathing with Tibetan bowls, drumming, or some other type of vibrational source.
Reflecting on prior knowledge helps us integrate new information into our lives more easily. Take a moment to reflect on how familiar you are with the concept of the Five Elements.
1. This lesson is the first time I have heard of the Five Elements.
2. I have heard of them before but didn’t understand where they came from or how they applied to me.
3. I understand the role of the Five Elements in nature and am only beginning to learn how they connect to my body and health.
4. I have explored the concept of them in depth and understand their connection to my physical well-being.
Qi moves best when the mind and body are in balance. Which of the following four descriptions of balance resonate with you? (You may select more than one.)
1. Balance means regulating my autonomic nervous system so I’m able to come back to a state of calm when I get stressed or tired.
2. When energy flows smoothly through the channels of energy in my body, my organ systems can function properly, and I feel energized and healthy.
3. Each person and part of the body has an ideal point of balance of yin and yang for optimal health. People can increase or decrease the various types of Qi in the body, and its parts, by various medical techniques, to create a healthful yin-yang balance.
4. Balance means keeping my microbiome and emotions in a state of health.
Transcript
Close your eyes a moment and imagine the following. You’re driving in your car, and you suddenly hear a siren approaching from behind you. What do you feel in your body? Where? Now, picture sitting on the beach with gentle waves lapping at the sand. How does this sound make you feel? Where?
Now, place the palm of your hand gently against the front of your neck. Say “Hum” H-U-M and extend the sound, like so. Play around with the vocalization, changing your volume and pitch (making the sound higher or lower in pitch). Notice what your hand feels. Notice other places in your body that resonate with the sounds you’re making.
You’re doing the same thing ancient Taoists did thousands of years ago. They observed and felt, experiences in nature and within their bodies.
Five Element Theory developed from these observations. To illustrate, they noticed thousands of details about the cosmos and saw these ideas reflected in the human body and emotions. Just as the heavenly bodies move and change, so too does the body. They also observed natural elements closer to home and discerned further parallels to the human condition.
Specifically, they noted the characteristics of five primary elemental energies that ebb and flow, control and support each other, and make all life possible. Their observations compelled them to believe that all matter has energetic properties, a belief proven conclusively through modern physics. The terms used in the present to describe this energy include atoms, molecules, quants, etc.
Thankfully for future generations, their observations were not lost to history. The first written record of the five energies appears in The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine and notes, “The five elemental energies combine and recombine in innumerable ways to produce manifest existence. All things contain the five elemental energies in various proportions.”
Simply calling them the five elements falls short of capturing the dynamic, interactive nature of the processes. That’s why the Taoists concentrated their understanding on the processes of the five elemental energies. In the universe, these processes regulate the movement of planets, stars, asteroids, dark matter, and materials humans have not yet even imagined.
In nature, these energies serve as the fundamental units of all matter, much like you might think of atoms and molecules. They promote the interactions between wood, fire, earth, metal, and water Furthermore, the Taoists again found them in the microcosm of the body, in the liver, heart, spleen, lung, and kidney systems.
Imagine each element organ as a pool of liquid energy. The energetic movement, much like water, flows from element to element. This flowing movement of liquid energy is considered to be the body's energetic pulse, moving Qi to and from these pools.
The rivers of Qi cannot exist without the pools of Jing to nourish their flow and function; and the pools of Jing cannot act without the rivers of Qi stimulating their action. Therefore, the principle action of the Five Elements is the circulation of the Yin and Yang Qi.
There are two main transformational cycles of interaction at play. Their purpose is to sustain homeostasis. One is called the creative or generative (sheng) cycle, in which one energy stimulates or amplifies another. For example, fire generates earth. Think of the ashes from fire making new growth possible by enriching the soil.
The second cycle (ke) is controlling or destructive. When the elemental energies are in harmony, they control each other positively to maintain balance. In this cycle, water impedes fire, fire reduces metal, metal controls wood, wood reduces earth, and earth impedes water.
The wisdom of Five Element energy processes led to the develop of strategies to guide and balance the five elemental energies that compose the human system. Some examples include acupuncture, acupressure massage, the five tastes, herbal remedies, qi gong, healing colors, and the topic of this course, healing sounds.
By working with the elements, practitioners maintain or restore normal balance among the vital energies that govern the internal organs and regulate their related functions and tissues. The activities can stimulate or dampen the energies, which influences the five major organ systems in the body.
For example, wearing red, eating bitter foods and herbs, and making specific sounds amplifies the fire energy of the heart. Eating pungent foods and wearing white does the same for the metal energy of the lungs. The permutations and combinations of this system are innumerable and can be tailored for each person’s state of health at any given moment in time.
One of the most important goals for the Taoists is to gain mental and spiritual calmness, peace, and balance. From this mental balance, qi, the body’s energy, its source of movement and life, can flow smoothly, preventing disease and illness. They observed that many illnesses are caused by mental and emotional excess, which use of valuable qi and cause stagnation in the energy channels and organ systems, causing you to get sick.
For example, depression can cause stomach ulcers and indigestion. Anger can cause liver problems. Sadness leads to compression and tightness in the lungs. While fear disrupts healthy kidney and bladder function. So, to avoid illness, the Taoist realized that you must first control your thoughts, called regulating the mind (tiao xin).
In summary, the Metal element represents energy solidifying and is associated with the lungs, autumn, courage and breath. Water energy represents sinking or resting and connects to the kidneys, winter, inner peace, and listening. Wood energy expands and is associated with the liver, spring, kindness, vision. Fire energy is activating and ties to the heart, summer, love, and speech. Finally, Earth represents energy becoming stable and centered and is associated with the spleen, late summer, open-mindedness, and taste.
In your body, these solid organs are the Yin organs. They find balance through their partner Yang organs, the hollow organs of the body. The matched sets include: the lungs and large intestine; kidneys, urinary bladder, and reproductive organs; the liver and gallbladder; the heart and small intestine; and the spleen with the stomach and pancreas.
Because of this relationship, they respond to the same healing sounds.
The healing sounds you will learn in this course benefit your health in two ways. Firstly, they focus your mind, drawing it away from thinking about the past and the future. By vocalizing the sounds, you focus the mind in the moment. Secondly, the vibrational energy of the sounds energizes or sedate both the mental and physical bodies, clearing stagnation and allowing for greater qi flow.
Written records show that healing sounds have been used since the Qin dynasty in China, about 221 BCE. Ancient qigong masters discovered that all humans produce similar sound patterns in certain situations, for example sighing after a tense situation.
There are six healing sounds: Xu (Shu), Ke (Haa), Hu (Who), Si (Sss), Chui (Chree), and Xi (Shee). These sounds can be whispered or vocalized/chanted. Each one relates to a yin organ, as you will learn throughout the course. These sounds heal the emotions and any physical issues related to the five yin organs and the triple burner.
When practicing all six healing sounds, each sound should be practiced a minimum of 3-6 times before moving on to the next sound. No sound should be practiced more than 24 times in a day. The exception is when someone is doing one or more healing sounds for a specific therapy, then the maximum allowed repetitions is 36.
Healing Sounds Qigong is a impactful way to heal your body. It is important to note that there are several healing sound systems used by different Medical Qigong schools and other cultures. These sound systems all affect the body's sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves to some degree.
The main emphasis, when performing any healing sound, should be placed on the connection of the mind, breath, and imagination to the area or internal organ on which you’re focusing.
This will reduce the potential for causing Qi deviations. You must have an internal image and hear and feel the resonating sound inside the body. It is also important that you feel enveloped in the sound, vibration, energy, and light of the therapeutic tone.