 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Water" wuxing – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(January 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Classical elements |
|---|
InChinese philosophy,water (Chinese:水;pinyin:shuǐ) is one of the five concepts that conform thewuxing. It is the low point of matter, and is considered matter's dying or hiding stage.[1]
Among the five elements, water is the old yin symbol of theyinyang character. Its motion is downward and inward, and its energy is stillness and conserving.
Water is associated with the color black, theplanet Mercury (which was believed to cause the dew to fall at night), night, thenorth,winter or cold weather, and theBlack Tortoise (Xuan Wu) in theFour Symbols of Chinese constellations.
In ChineseTaoist thought, water is representative of intelligence and wisdom, flexibility, softness, and pliancy; however, an overabundance of the element is said to cause difficulty in choosing something and sticking to it. In the same way, water can be fluid and weak, but can also wield great power when it floods and overwhelms the land. In Chinese medicine, water is believed to govern thekidney, theurinary bladder andjing. It is associated with the ears and bones. Thenegative emotions associated with water are fear and anxiety, and the positive emotions are fortitude and thevirtue of wisdom;[2] the "soul" associated with water is zhi (志), meaning "will" or "determination."
