Introduction
The phrase "Yin-Yang and the Five Elements (陰陽五行)" is often mentioned in the same breath as Saju and geomancy. Yet its roots lie not in divination but in the natural philosophy of ancient East Asia. This column examines how the theory of Yin-Yang and the Five Elements began as philosophy and later became the theoretical foundation of Meongri.
1. Yin-Yang (陰陽): The Principle of Opposition and Circulation
The concept of Yin-Yang predates even the Book of Changes (周易, Zhouyi) — which was compiled around the 8th century BCE — and its core idea is simple.
- Every phenomenon in the world can be understood as two qualities that oppose yet depend on each other
- These two qualities are not fixed substances; they are defined within relationships
Day and night, heat and cold, motion and stillness are not fixed properties but relative relations. This view differs sharply from the ancient Greek, substance-centered way of thinking.
The "Commentary on the Appended Judgments" (繫辭傳) in the Book of Changes expresses this as "One Yin and one Yang — this is called the Way" (一陰一陽之謂道). In other words, change itself is the law.
2. The Five Elements (五行): Five Modes of Movement
The concept of the Five Elements is systematically introduced in the "Hongfan" (洪範, Great Plan) chapter of the Book of Documents (尙書, Shangshu). The original passage reads:
"The Five Elements are Water, Fire, Wood, Metal, and Earth (水火木金土)."
Here the Five Elements are not simply "five substances" but five categories of movement and disposition.
| Element | Nature | Direction of Movement |
|---------|--------|-----------------------|
| Wood (木) | Generation, extension | Upward, outward |
| Fire (火) | Radiation, differentiation | Upward, scattering |
| Earth (土) | Center, mediation | Regulation, stabilization |
| Metal (金) | Contraction, consolidation | Inward, hardening |
| Water (水) | Storage, descent | Downward, condensation |
This is why translating the Five Elements as "elements" can be misleading. Whereas the Western concept of elements denotes material constituents, the Five Elements denote dynamic processes. For this reason, some scholars render the term as "Five Phases" or "Five Movements."
3. Mutual Generation and Mutual Restraint (相生相剋): The Logic of Relation
The essence of Five-Element philosophy lies in the relations among the five.
Mutual Generation (相生)
- Wood generates Fire (木生火): wood burns and produces fire
- Fire generates Earth (火生土): fire creates ash, which becomes earth
- Earth generates Metal (土生金): metals emerge from the earth
- Metal generates Water (金生水): dew forms on metal surfaces
- Water generates Wood (水生木): water nourishes trees
Mutual Restraint (相剋)
- Wood restrains Earth (木剋土): roots penetrate the soil
- Earth restrains Water (土剋水): earth blocks water
- Water restrains Fire (水剋火): water extinguishes fire
- Fire restrains Metal (火剋金): fire melts metal
- Metal restrains Wood (金剋木): the axe cuts the tree
Mutual generation and restraint are not mere friendliness or collision. Neither can exist alone, and the system achieves balance only when generation and restraint operate together. This perspective later branched into various applied disciplines such as Korean medicine, Meongri, and geomancy.
4. The Huangdi Neijing and the Medical Application of Yin-Yang and the Five Elements
The Huangdi Neijing (黃帝內經, The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon), compiled between the Warring States period and the early Han dynasty, was the first work to systematically introduce Yin-Yang and Five-Element theory into medicine. It mapped the five viscera (五臟) of the human body onto the Five Elements and explained the course of illness through relations of mutual generation and restraint.
- Liver (肝) → Wood
- Heart (心) → Fire
- Spleen (脾) → Earth
- Lungs (肺) → Metal
- Kidneys (腎) → Water
What matters here is that the Huangdi Neijing used Yin-Yang and the Five Elements not as mystical laws but as a conceptual language for describing phenomena. They functioned as "a framework for classifying, relating, and explaining."
5. Yin-Yang and the Five Elements within Meongri
The Japyeong Method (子平法), systematized by Xu Ziping (徐子平) in the Song dynasty, is the result of applying Yin-Yang and Five-Element theory to the interpretation of the human being.
- The ten Heavenly Stems (天干) are ten states formed by dividing the Five Elements into Yin and Yang
- The twelve Earthly Branches (地支) express the flow of time and space across a twelve-fold cycle
- The Ten Gods (十神) translate the Five-Element relations between the Day Stem and the other stems and branches into the language of human relationships
In the end, a Saju analysis is the work of reading the Yin-Yang and Five-Element configuration of the moment of birth and interpreting its patterns of balance and imbalance, generation and restraint.
6. Contemporary Relevance: A Legacy of Relational Thinking
Twentieth-century science shifted its paradigm from the substance ontology of classical physics toward systems theory, complexity, and ecology. This, as it happens, resembles East Asia's relational mode of thinking.
This is not to say that Yin-Yang and Five-Element theory is a scientific theory. Still, the following features of this mode of thought remain meaningful today:
- Attending to relations rather than to isolated elements
- Attending to process and transition rather than to static states
- Viewing a single fact through multiple dimensions that intersect
Closing Thoughts
Yin-Yang and the Five Elements is a conceptual language and a way of thinking that East Asian civilization has developed over more than two thousand years. Meongri is one applied field that has taken that language and turned it toward the object of "the human being."
When a Saju analysis is read within this philosophical and cultural context rather than treated as mere fortune-forecasting, its interpretations become far richer in meaning. Saju Works offers analysis in this spirit, integrating the theories of the Three Great Treasured Books.