Acupuncture 5 elements. part 2 

ke cycle

– Ke (mutual dominance-control) this indicates restraint-inhibition.

Fire-water

Wood Earth

Water Metal

Fire dominates-controls metal.
Metal to wood.
Wood to earth.
Earth to water.
Water to fire.

The Sheng-Ke relationships indicate that each of the five elements has a four-aspect relationship:
“That which gives me life” (is the mother). (Water is the mother of wood).
“That which I produce” (is the son). (Fire is the son of wood).
Also called mother-son relationship.
If we take wood as an example, water gives it life, therefore water is the mother of wood. Wood gives life (produces) fire, fire is the child of wood.
“That which dominates me”. Metal dominates wood.
“That which dominates me”. Wood dominates earth.
Within the relationship of mutual production there is “inhibition in activation”. Example:
Wood produces fire and in turn wood is produced by water and water restrains fire.
Fire

Wood

Water

There is also “activation in inhibition”.
Wood dominates earth, earth produces metal which dominates wood.

Wood Earth

Metal

In this way we can see that each element regulates itself to maintain the relative balance.
It seems that in the relations of production-domination the two elements mother-child do not act in both directions, between wood and fire there is only a mother-child relation.
mother-child relationship. Between wood and earth only wood dominates earth, these movements do not occur in reverse.
But if we observe in an integral, global way the action of the five elements we discover that there is a relationship in both directions = “reciprocal action”.
For example, fire in its normal state is controlled:
Fire in its normal state is controlled by water; fire does not act directly on water. But fire produces earth and earth dominates water. Fire through the mediation of earth acts indirectly on water in order to avoid an excessive domination of water over earth and a weakening of fire.

Fire seconded by wood produces the earth to reinforce the earth’s restraint on the water and to attenuate the water’s nourishment of the wood.

The wood does not feed the fire excessively in order to avoid the excess of fire:

Fire

Wood Earth

Water Metal

The same applies to the other four elements. In this way the relative balance of the system is maintained.
2.- Cheng-Wu-relation (aggression-insult)
This indicates disturbances in the production-domination relationship.
– Cheng: means tyranny-exploitation-aggression of one element over another. It would be the same as saying that the dominating element dominates the dominated element in excess, thus producing an imbalance thus producing the imbalance.

The fundamental causes can be:
a) The dominating element is in excess and inhibits too much the dominated element producing its emptiness (insufficiency).
Example:

The wood in plenitude dominates the earth too much and the earth weakens.

Wood Earth
+
It is the aggression of the wood on the earth.