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Wu Xing are the five phases or five elements of fire, water, earth, metal and wood. They are part of what is known as the Five Element or, more correctly, the Five Phases System, used in both Chinese medicine and qigong practice. From the Shambhala Dictionary of Taoism:
These five elements-water, fire, wood, metal and earth-are not to be understood as real sustances but rather as absract forces and symbols for certain basic characteristics of matter: e.g., it lies in the nature of water to moisten and to flow downwards; of fire to heat and to rise; of wood to bend and straighten again; of metal to be cast or hammered into various forms; and of earth to be fertile.
In the generating cycle it is said that water gives birth to wood (as in water feeding plants); wood can be be used to feed fire; fire, when reduced to ash it can be produces earth; then from earth we take metal; and metal can be fashioned to hold water. In this all five elements support each other. In Chinese medicine this is used when one organ (the parent) is treated in order to enhance the healing of another (the child).
Each element is also part of a very complicated system of correspondences giving each one a color, season, taste, emotional scale and internal organ etc. For instance the wood element corresponds to the liver, spring, the color green, the taste of sour and the emotion of anger.
Spontaneous qigong is when, instead of doing a form of routine, the practitioner allows the qi to move freely throughout the body, causing spontaneous movement. Many modern qigong masters feel that this is where deep healing occurs. It is sometimes called "dredging the channels". Some modern forms such as Soaring Crane or Essence Qigong have a spontaneous movement section built into the form itself (usually at the end). Other teachers teach spontaneous movement exclusively. Oftentimes it can be quite cathartic, with the practitioner accessing deeply held emotional areas. Some people's movements can be quite erratic, even violent, while others move in gentle swaying fashion.
Another way it can be explained is that while the practitioner is practicing the form itself they are using their mind to direct the qi to specific points or channels. Then, in the spontaneous section, they disengage their mind from the process and let the qi itself guide the movements. Different people have different energy confingurations or different health problems which is why the qi moves so differently in different people. The movements themselves must never be forced. Instead the practitioner allows the qi itself to guide the movements, usually resulting in a feeling of deep release and harmony.
Many qigong masters feel that it is important that when people are first working with spontaneous movement they work with a qualified master or teacher. This way they can be taught the proper way to both enter and get out of the spontaneous movement state, especially if they are working with a lot of intense emotional areas or feel that they are losing control of their movements.
Spontaneous movement can be a valuable addition to any qigong practice. It is sometimes said that this is when the qi practices the student. It is also said that this is when the qi itself becomes the teacher.
If the I Ching is used as a cultivation tool, not just a divination tool, then it can affect one both psychologically as well as spiritually and energetically. The I Ching is used in the Taoist tradition for spritual reflection. I suggest you ask for guidance on how to proceed in your quest for psychological balance. I also suggest you get ahold of a copy of Hua Ching Ni's version of the I Ching-the Book of Changes and the Unchanging Truth (we can order it for you if you can't find it). This is a very easy to use Taoist version of the I Ching, with a substantial introduction on using it for cultivation purposes.
To the Taoists, emotions and many psychological states can be understood from an energetic perspective. Meditation, grounding, movement, breathing, herbs, diet, reflection-all of these can be used to help cultivate a stronger and more balanced personality and emotional life.
There are many similarites between what Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu have to say. However, they speak with quite differnt and distinct voices. Lao Tzu is the wise old statesman, putting many of his teachings about the Tao into metaphors about the sagely king and such. Chuang Tzu, on the other hand is the rascally sage of the "wisdom of the foolishness". He also used metaphors but in a much more outrageous and often comic fashion.
Both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu differ very much from the teachings of Buddhism in that they are not part of any organized school of religion, even of Taoism. Religoius or organized Taoism came into being long after both teachers.
Both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu are part of what is often referred to as the HuangLao traditions of Taoism or what is often called philosophical Taoism. They are both from a tradition of the outsider, the rebel, the poet mystic, the contrarian (especially in Chuang Tzu's case). They both say look to Nature as the best teacher. Zen Buddhism's original dictim of not relying on scripture or priests for true knowlege but instead looking to direct exprience is taken from Taoism (via Chan Buddhism).
Nowadays there is a form of religous Taoism with a vast liturgy (1400 volumes) and lots of ritual and prists and nuns but the original Taoism of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu is still about direct experience with the infinite (or Tao) via Nature, both internal and external. Qi being just one manifestation of the eternal and infinite Tao, this would explain the widespread use of qigong as both a health practice and spritual (or immortality) practice that we see in modern Taoism.
I hope you don't mind me asking you some questions even though we've never met. I'm teaching a course on Taoism at the theological school where I study (I'm in a PhD program) and there have been lots of questions about Taoist sexual practices. Some of these I have an idea about, others I'm confused about. I've read your book "Embarking on the Way" and know you discuss these to some extent there. I'd appreciate your perspectives here:
1. Are the "arts of the bed chamber" Taoist? I ask because K. Schipper seems to indicate in "The Taoist Body" that they really aren't, or are only superficially Taoist.
2. How would you respond to charges that Taoist sexual practices really are "sexual vampirism"? My own sense is that they don't have to be, and your presentation in "Embarking on the Way" doesn't portray them as such but is this merely a contemporary Western interpretation?
3. Can you suggest traditional Taoist sources which portray sex as mutually beneficial to both partners? So much seems to be pitched to a male who seeks to "nourish his yang" that I wonder.
4. Must Taoist sex be heterosexual? You make brief mention in "Embarking on the Way" that it need NOT be but you don't really elaborate.
Difficult question I know. I'm not trying to trick you or even requiring final definitive answers but I thought you might be able to provide mystudents and myself with some additional information that may bring things a bit more into focus. Thanks.
1. Yes the arts of the bedroom are uniquily Taoist. I know of no other form of Eastern religion that focuses on the energetic aspects quite the same way. There are some other forms of tantric sex practices from Hinduism but they are really of a different, more devotional flavor. To find out more about that check out Sexual Secrets: The Alchemy of Ecstasy by Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger.
2. As with any practice there inevitably becomes versions of corruption. I believe that the forms that Taoist sexcual practices took on in later dates did contain a form of sexual vampirism (for instance, having a man sleep with mulitple partners, as in young virgins to procure their yin or a woman sleeping with many young men to procure their yang). These are people who are approaching this practice from a purely energetic viewpoint. There is also the spritual approach which is more concerned with balancing yin and yang and running qi and spritual energy between both partners. This is the approach I discuss in my book.
3. The reason that so much information is available on the men's practices is that they have much more work to do to balance themeselves. It is believe that women are already naturally closer to balance and to the Tao itself. There are several books such as Immortal Sisters by Thomas Cleary and Art of the Bedchamber by Douglas Wile as well as entire book on women's practices called Healing Love Through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy by Mantak and Maneewan Chia.
4. No, but as I mention in my book, both partners have to pay close attention to the yin yang balances, both between them and within each partner.
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