Need help from experts of the five natures/ five elements.

[Trogdorf]

[Apech]

Hi,

 

That looks interesting. Evasive for water sounds like a negative quality but you seem to have counted it as positive. Where did you get the lists from?

 

A.

[rex]

Nice! Positive and negative human attributes of the four elements are listed here:

 

4 elements in human personality

[Andrei]

Good your analysis but you got wrong the control cycle. Some say the control cycle is following the five star pattern which is the destruction cycle:

 

Some say the control is to reverse the generation cycle (mother-son) into son-mother dominance.

 

The four western type of personality taken by Jung from European medieval ages and antiquity which corresponds to "the four humors" are:

-the melancholic (?)

-the choleric (from the bile of the liver)

-the sanguine (from the blood of the heart)

-the phlegmatic (from the phlegm of the lungs)

 

 

Actually Jung observed there are subtypes: of extroverts and introverts, with excess of energy and lack of energy.

 

excess of energy(the sanguine) has two subtypes: passionate and sanguine

lack of energy (the melancholic) has two subtypes: apathic and sentimental

the phlegmatic has two subtypes: phlegmatic and amorphous

the choleric has two subtypes: the nervous and choleric(furious)

 

In my opinion the best division of the 8 (eight) personality traits matched with the organs are like this, and actually those eight personality subtypes are the expression of the main meridians that circulates the qi energy between organs:

 

 

 

If a person has a 5 elements chart like this, I would definitely say about him is a passionate/sanguine type:

 

 

 

later edit:

 

as a side comment, because this subject comes over and over again on this forum, the Pick Up Artists are melancholic types - lack of energy - and they need to learn "skills" to overcome their natural energetic imbalance, while the "naturals" attractive to women (in general) are the sanguine/passionate types.

Edited January 30, 2010 by steam

[Trogdorf]

[Trogdorf]

Nice! Positive and negative human attributes of the four elements are listed here:

 

4 elements in human personality

 

I'd like to mention that I found this to be the most accurate description of the natures of people and will be referring to this from now on instead..

 

Thanks Rex.

[OneSeeker]

Steam mentioned Jung's personality types without actually naming them. They're familiar to anyone who has taken the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory. Here's the list and corresponding elements:

 

Sensing type, earth

Feeling type, water

Thinking type, air

Intuitive type, fire

 

Jung was to some extent a crypto-Platonist, and his types correspond to the four divisions of ancient psychology:

 

Earth/sensing: body

Water/feeling: irrational soul (subdivided into appetitive and emotive)

Air/thinking: rational soul (dianoia)

Fire/intuitive: spirit (Nous)

 

There are online versions of the Myers-Briggs test, for anyone who's interested; just Google "Myers-Briggs".

[Athanor]

I hate to seem stupid, but what's the point in identifying metal as the fifth element? I mean metal is just a form of earth...

 

I think that books and other sources on Tibetan Medicine could give you a fair insight on the issue of the five elements and their relation to one another, since traditional Tibetan health care is fully based on this concept. However, that system distinguishes water, earth, air, fire, and space instead of metal.

 

I also like the western alchemy approach, it seems logical (although I don't know what its good for):

water - liquid

earth - solid

fire - plasma

air - gas

quintessence - the element of thought, or idea, which is not like any other.

[Taomeow]

I hate to seem stupid, but what's the point in identifying metal as the fifth element? I mean metal is just a form of earth...

 

I think that books and other sources on Tibetan Medicine could give you a fair insight on the issue of the five elements and their relation to one another, since traditional Tibetan health care is fully based on this concept. However, that system distinguishes water, earth, air, fire, and space instead of metal.

 

I also like the western alchemy approach, it seems logical (although I don't know what its good for):

water - liquid

earth - solid

fire - plasma

air - gas

quintessence - the element of thought, or idea, which is not like any other.

 

"Metal is just a form of earth" -- very good, but it's a distinctly next phase, much like "fire is just a form of wood" and "wood is just a form of water."

 

The translator of the "elements" you quote did what western thinking causes many to do -- to wit, to stop the processes of change (flow down, expand, rise up, rotate, condense) to come up with "elements" (liquid, solid, plasma, gas, "element of thought"). Once this stopwatch approach is superimposed on a system describing processes, you've killed it (the generic you, of course, not you specifically ), you can call anything any name and it still won't pulsate with life. They are not "elements" at all any of them, even though "elements" which you can observe in everyday life are manifestations of each phase -- a small part of each qi phase's spectrum is visible as a corresponding "element," but it's just one frame of each phase's infinite movie!

You have to phase in time to see that metal the process, not metal the "element," describes both air (via "what it does" rather than some "what it is" or other -- and what it does is, e.g., oxidate -- this is what it manifests when you breathe... your blood is capable of carrying oxygen because your every iron molecule in each and every one of your hemoglobin cells grabs a molecule of oxygen as you inhale -- and this iron-oxygen part of the metal process is your "air phase," your breath, a bit simplified... and a lot -- every bit -- part of the metal phase!) as well as a knife, again a metal process whereby you can execute its "destructive" phase vis a vis wood (plants are the wood phase and animals and humans are a form of the wood phase, a modification of plants enabling the rapid-yang part of the wood phase) as well as mercury (an aspect of the moon process, the alchemical yin) as well as gold (an aspect of the sun process, the alchemical yang) as well as the lungs (whose ability to compress-decompress is a manifestation of the innate properties of the metal phase, air being the "decompress" part of the phase --

phases pulsate...)

[Athanor]

"Metal is just a form of earth" -- very good, but it's a distinctly next phase, much like "fire is just a form of wood" and "wood is just a form of water."

 

The translator of the "elements" you quote did what western thinking causes many to do -- to wit, to stop the processes of change (flow down, expand, rise up, rotate, condense) to come up with "elements" (liquid, solid, plasma, gas, "element of thought"). Once this stopwatch approach is superimposed on a system describing processes, you've killed it (the generic you, of course, not you specifically ), you can call anything any name and it still won't pulsate with life. They are not "elements" at all any of them, even though "elements" which you can observe in everyday life are manifestations of each phase -- a small part of each qi phase's spectrum is visible as a corresponding "element," but it's just one frame of each phase's infinite movie!

You have to phase in time to see that metal the process, not metal the "element," describes both air (via "what it does" rather than some "what it is" or other -- and what it does is, e.g., oxidate -- this is what it manifests when you breathe... your blood is capable of carrying oxygen because your every iron molecule in each and every one of your hemoglobin cells grabs a molecule of oxygen as you inhale -- and this iron-oxygen part of the metal process is your "air phase," your breath, a bit simplified... and a lot -- every bit -- part of the metal phase!) as well as a knife, again a metal process whereby you can execute its "destructive" phase vis a vis wood (plants are the wood phase and animals and humans are a form of the wood phase, a modification of plants enabling the rapid-yang part of the wood phase) as well as mercury (an aspect of the moon process, the alchemical yin) as well as gold (an aspect of the sun process, the alchemical yang) as well as the lungs (whose ability to compress-decompress is a manifestation of the innate properties of the metal phase, air being the "decompress" part of the phase --

phases pulsate...)

OK, next time please use more grammatically correct sentences because this is really hard to get for me, I'm not native English. Thanks.

So as far as I understand what you're saying, this looks a bit forced to me. I started to write down the whole thing but I realized that it wouldn't make much more sense than what you wrote. It probably doesn't matter whether we identify them with numbers, or elements, or colors, or whatsoever. And I agree with you that the process is the point, and not the objects involved in the process. But the process is still not clear to me. If you could explain it slower, please, it would be very nice. I never understood how can someone tell whether something is yin or yang, and what element it consists of. Because you know, everything has many characteristics, and all characteristics can be associated with a different element. So everything contains every element - how do you tell which one is the dominant?

[Taomeow]

OK, next time please use more grammatically correct sentences because this is really hard to get for me, I'm not native English. Thanks.

So as far as I understand what you're saying, this looks a bit forced to me. I started to write down the whole thing but I realized that it wouldn't make much more sense than what you wrote. It probably doesn't matter whether we identify them with numbers, or elements, or colors, or whatsoever. And I agree with you that the process is the point, and not the objects involved in the process. But the process is still not clear to me. If you could explain it slower, please, it would be very nice. I never understood how can someone tell whether something is yin or yang, and what element it consists of. Because you know, everything has many characteristics, and all characteristics can be associated with a different element. So everything contains every element - how do you tell which one is the dominant?

 

They are grammatically correct, those sentences of mine, but if you mean they would better serve their purpose if they were shorter... well, perhaps. I do much of that chop-up work behind the scenes anyway, originally it's usually just one sentence! -- something reflective of the peculiarities of my cognitive process, not of my grammatical impairment. (English is my third language but I'm bent on freedom therein. Wanna be the queen of that castle someday, the way I am of my native one.)

 

OK, to the point... "Forced?" no, it's "deep"! Deep I tell ya! -- and effortless at that.

 

All right, I'll try going slower.

 

1. To understand whether something is yin or yang one must keep in mind at all times that there's no absolutes and something is yin or yang only compared to something else, not by itself. So you need to first memorize, and then apply empirically, and then learn to discern on autopilot, what constitutes the "properties of yang" compared to the "properties of yin." (Just don't fall for one of those misguided lists floating on the internet that have it all backwards -- or one of those that pile together what they think of as "good" and call it yang, vs. all they think of as "bad" and call it yin. These are bogus. I can't recommend a source of a good "list" off the top of my head -- maybe someone will help out?) Soooo... OK, let's look at some of these properties in comparison.

 

"Up" compared to "down" is yang. "Light" compared to "heavy" is yang. "Fast" compared to "slow" is yang. "External" compared to "internal" is yang. "Hard" compared to "soft" is yang. (Think an egg. The outer shell, hard, dry, superficial, visible, is yang compared to the inner part of the egg -- soft, internal, moist, hidden... yin.)

 

Nothing is "pure yin" or "pure yang" for "all" purposes -- only in comparison with something else. Thus "egg white" compared to "egg yolk" is yang. (It's closer to the surface compared to the yolk, and less condensed.) A hard-boiled egg is more "yang" than a fresh one. (Heat did it -- heat is yang compared to cold.) An egg sitting in your refrigerator is more "yin" than an egg a hen is sitting on.

 

How am I doing so far? If I made this part clear enough, I'll move on.

[OneSeeker]

"Up" compared to "down" is yang. "Light" compared to "heavy" is yang. "Fast" compared to "slow" is yang. "External" compared to "internal" is yang. "Hard" compared to "soft" is yang. (Think an egg. The outer shell, hard, dry, superficial, visible, is yang compared to the inner part of the egg -- soft, internal, moist, hidden... yin.)

 

Nothing is "pure yin" or "pure yang" for "all" purposes -- only in comparison with something else. Thus "egg white" compared to "egg yolk" is yang. (It's closer to the surface compared to the yolk, and less condensed.) A hard-boiled egg is more "yang" than a fresh one. (Heat did it -- heat is yang compared to cold.) An egg sitting in your refrigerator is more "yin" than an egg a hen is sitting on.

 

I like those, and would like to add one that has been on my mind a lot: Crude oil in a cavern inside the Earth is very yin compared with the extreme yang of refined oil being burned to power cars, airplanes, cities.

[liminal_luke]

For a really interesting examination of this whole topic check out Gilles Marin's book--"Five Elements, Six Conditions: A Taoist Approach to Emotional Healing, Psychology, and Internal Alchemy."

[Athanor]

How am I doing so far? If I made this part clear enough, I'll move on.

Thanks, I get it so far, move on please

[rex]

I'd like to mention that I found this to be the most accurate description of the natures of people and will be referring to this from now on instead..

 

Thanks Rex.

 

You're welcome Trogdorf