In the five elements theory, water, fire, gold, wood and earth have only acquired meanings, so water and fire are used for people's diet and heating. Jin Mu is the raw material for making utensils, and the soil is used for living things and carrying things. Five materials are not only used by human beings, but also developed and created by human beings. Water is brought by people digging holes through soil, fire is produced by people drilling wood and beating stones, gold is produced by people scouring and smelting, wood is cut down and carried by people, and soil is cultivated by people, so people's influence and role are reflected everywhere. In the mature theory of the five elements, the five elements have changed from an acquired artificial thing to an innate natural thing. Water is natural water, but it also represents liquid substances. Fire also absorbs sunlight and heat energy, representing invisible existence. Wood is no longer artificial wood, but represents plants and life. Soil also refers not only to soil and farmland, but also to soil and solid matter. So, what does gold represent? As a metal, gold contains the most artificial components (compared with the other four kinds of wires). The appearance of metal is a great event in the history of human life, and even represents the appearance of civilization to some extent. But when it is used as the starting point of everything, gold is the most unreasonable, because this artificially smelted thing cannot be used as the innate basic element of the universe, and metal is rarely used as the starting point of everything in various forms of culture. Therefore, as a metal, gold can no longer be regarded as a line in the mature five-element theory, and it must be given new meaning. So, what should gold stand for?
Comparing the theory of five elements with the theory of elements in ancient Greece and India, we will find that water, wind (gas), fire and earth (earth) are the basic elements of everything in ancient Greek and Indian cultures. In ancient Greece, these elements were dispersed, or water was the basic element, such as Thales, or fire was the basic element, such as Heraclitus, while in ancient Indian culture, earth, water and fire were the basic elements. Incorporating life into the natural system embodies the characteristics of China's culture of harmony between man and nature, but the wind (qi) is not explicitly mentioned in the five elements, which is an omission and deficiency. Therefore, in the mature theory of five elements, the meaning and reference of gold should be changed, from gold to wind (qi).
Wind (qi) is also an indispensable thing in people's daily life. Why doesn't it have a place in the theory of five materials? First of all, because wind (gas) is an invisible and intangible thing, it is also a completely natural and infinitely rich resource, so people don't know that it is used in daily life, and they don't need to consider the lack and pollution of air (this is a difficult problem for modern people). Secondly, because wind (gas) is uncontrollable and man-made, it cannot be the object of human development, production and control like water, fire, gold, wood and soil. Therefore, wind (qi) is not included in the five elements, which creates a natural obstacle to the maturity of the five elements theory.
But as a cosmic system, the metal that plays an important role in the five substances must give way to the natural element of wind (gas), otherwise it will not be established. Wind (gas) not only refers to air, but also represents gaseous substances, so fire, wind, water and soil represent four phases: intangible, gaseous, liquid and solid, while wood represents four phases of life at the same time. Or gold, as an ore, can only represent the solid state repeated with the soil, and cannot change the problem of lack of gas.
Taking Qi (wind) as the starting point of everything is no stranger in China's traditional philosophy. In fact, as the origin of the universe, qi is more important than fire, water, earth and wood. Of course, at this time, qi has been further extended from qi to vitality. Qi-based theory has always played a very important role in China's philosophical tradition. It integrates the origin of the universe with the starting base of everything, thus giving birth to everything in the universe and unifying everything, which is a step further than taking water, fire and other direct elements as the starting base in theory. Therefore, it is not a maverick objection, but corresponds to the cultural tradition of China.
Gold, as the root of all things, should not only be released as wind (gas), but also be released when explaining the internal structure and mutual relationship of the five elements. There is no internal connection between the four elements of ancient Indian culture, but China's Five Elements Theory has formed a competitive internal connection and dynamic structure by bringing life (wood) into the natural system, which has distinct theoretical characteristics.
Five elements is a self-sufficient natural system, in which there are no artificial factors, so gold (metal) as an artifact has no place in it, and should be replaced by natural wind (gas). The order of the five elements is wood, fire, earth, gold, water, aquatic wood, and so on. As far as symbiosis is concerned, natural gold, gold-bearing water and natural gold can be interpreted as elutriating gold from sand or producing ore in soil, but elutriating gold in sand is a kind of artificial activity, not a natural phenomenon, and producing ore in soil can only be realized or completed by artificial mining. Moreover, this explanation can't explain what gold produces water, and gold and ore can't produce water. If it can be metallized into liquid by smelting, it is assisted by manual activities, and this kind of. Or cloud metal can adsorb water vapor to produce dew, which is the positive solution of jinsheng water, but some water obtained in this way may be difficult to water trees. Therefore, if gold is released in the form of metal or ore, the theory of five elements symbiosis cannot be established. If gold is released into gas (wind), the problem will be solved. Natural gold, that is, gas such as water vapor evaporated from the earth; Golden water, that is, the water vapor evaporated from the earth, rises to the sky to form clouds, and turns into rain when it meets cold. Rain tree, namely aquatic wood. This is perfectly reasonable.
In terms of the five elements winning (grams), the order is gold, wood, earth, water, fire, fire wins gold, and circulation wins. Among them are Huo and Jin Kemu. Fire can be interpreted as smelting metal with fire, which will be metallized into liquid state, but this is a manual activity, and natural fire will not smelt metal by itself. Jin Kemu seems to be the easiest to explain, that is, cutting down trees with tools such as knives and axes made of metal. However, this is still a manual activity, and metal objects will never cut down trees by themselves. If gold is released into gas (wind), fire means that fire can offset the cold brought by wind and change the conditions of airflow (wind) to some extent. What Jin Kemu means is that the wind can shake or destroy trees, which is a natural behavior, and it makes sense without external human factors.
Therefore, from the internal relationship of the five elements, it is unreasonable to release gold as a metal or ore, and it is reasonable to release gold as a wind (gas). Therefore, the mature theory of five elements should release gold into qi (wind), which is of course fundamentally changed compared with the theory of five materials.
Although there is no clear explanation for the change of the meaning of gold in the evolution of the theory of five elements, predecessors have noticed this problem when developing and applying the theory of five elements. For example, in the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, the lung belongs to gold, the kidney belongs to water, the liver belongs to wood, the heart belongs to fire, and the spleen belongs to earth, among which the connection between lung and gold is very telling. If gold is released into metal, it is difficult to explain, because it is inconceivable that the lung has anything to do with metal or ore. It is very natural to release gold into gas. The lung is a respiratory organ, breathing air, which is of course related to qi (wind). This shows that Chinese medicine theory has realized that gold should represent qi (wind) rather than gold when applying the five elements.
Judging from the relationship between the five elements and the four seasons and five parties, according to the traditional point of view, Mupeidong is spring; Fire matches the south for summer, and gold matches the west for autumn; Water matches the north, which is winter; Although the soil is in the middle and matches the four seasons, this matching theory represents a theoretical exploration. It doesn't make much sense to compare gold and the west to autumn, but autumn is a season of cold and warm exchange, with frequent westerly winds and refreshing autumn breath, which shows that the ancients have guessed the relationship between gold and wind (qi). It seems unreasonable and meaningless to use gold as a metal.
Judging from the relationship between five elements and eight diagrams, gold should also represent wind (qi). The eight diagrams and five elements originate from different ideological systems, and the five elements originate from five substances. At first, they refer to the five basic things that people use and make, and gossip is summed up by people's observation of nature. In other words, the five elements are the objects and products of human practical activities, with artificial and utilitarian colors, while gossip is the natural phase observed by people and has the characteristics of natural origin. Therefore, there are many elements in China culture similar to those in ancient Greece and India, but this theory is not in the five elements, but is embodied in the gossip.
In the gossip, the sky (dry) represents qi just like the wind (smoked), and the sky actually refers to the atmosphere outside the earth, which has no personality and sacredness; Earth (Kun), like mountain (Gen), represents earth, and earth and stone are originally one; Like fire (ionization), thunder represents fire, and lightning is also a kind of fire; Water (ridge) and Ze (exchange) represent water, and Ze is of course water. Therefore, gossip is actually the development of four elements: air (wind), earth, fire and water. In order to cooperate with gossip, it is divided into eight natural phases. (1) Compare the Eight Diagrams with the Five Elements, and you will find that the Five Elements have one more life and one less Qi (wind). Gossip always talks about the natural phase, so it is not necessary to join the life system, and the lack of qi (wind) in the five elements cannot represent a complete cosmic system, so gold should be released as qi (wind).
Zhu Zhenzhi believes that gossip is matched with five elements, earthquake is wood, ten-day is wood, separation is fire, Kun and root are soil, dryness and exchange are gold, and hurdle is water. Dry for gold, dry for the sky, for constant gas, for change, soil and water are mixed and called ze, often transpiration. In a word, dryness and exchange have nothing to do with metal, but are closely related to gas (wind), and gold here should also be released as gas (wind).
There will be some difficulties in the collocation of gossip and five elements, mainly because gossip is a natural system, in which there is no life (wood), and the five elements, as a whole system of the universe, contain life and take life as the center. In order to make the two correspond, we must find out the corresponding phase of wood (life) in gossip. The original explanation is that fire and water are separated, and Kun and Gen are soil. Gold is released into gas, and the stem should be gold, which seems to belong to water, but the existing ridge represents water, so it belongs to gas, which is the same as the stem. Xun is the wind and the wood (Yi Zhuan has this solution), so it belongs to the wood and the earthquake is thunder and fire. It doesn't seem to belong to wood. However, if it is strong, wood can make a fire, so the earthquake can be attributed to wood. These explanations always feel far-fetched, just like the collocation of five elements and four seasons and five parties, which is a hard combination of different theoretical systems and has a sense of neither fish nor fowl. But when the ancients explained this, they had implicitly released gold into qi (wind).