Five Element Meditation: Activating the Elements

Time to address practice.

Let me say that I'm not going to jump into "Fusion of the Five Elements" just yet. I've already
covered some theory about what each of the five elements do; that was the first step: an intro
to understanding the elements. Next, I think that it's important to get a feel for working with,
and activating, each element individually. That's what this essay addresses.

Most Basic Meditation

The most basic way to access the elements is to smile to / meditate on each of the yin
organs, in the creation cycle sequence: lungs, kidneys, liver, heart, spleen (, lungs... and so
on).

Adding a Catalyst

While the above is a good starting point, and should be done, people often find that it's
effective to add some catalyst to really prompt the elemental energy of each organ.
Examples of this are colors, animals, plants, environmental forces, and so on, that each get
visualized / invoked / called upon when meditating on each organ.

I've found that the trigrams are excellent catalysts for the yin organ forces. They provide a
simple and surprisingly effective way to emphasize, activate, prompt, the energy of the
organs.

In this meditation, each trigram is visualized just one at a time, when meditating on that
trigram's organ, and is visualized in the basic vicinity of the organ with a size of
approximately 6"w x 5"h. (There is no need to be exact about the size, use a size that works
for you.)

a little intro to the trigrams...

The trigrams are each made up of three horizontal lines. Each line is either solid (yang) or
broken (yin). If you think of a yang line as strong & forthright, and of a yin line as receptive &
flexible, then the forces of the trigrams will become apparent.

[Background info: The combinations of 3 yin / yang lines produces eight trigrams in total.
(Though we will only be using five of them, here.) The 64 hexagrams of the I Ching are made
by pairing the various trigrams (which is entirely out of the scope of this essay). If you care to
study a version of the I Ching that is alchemically oriented, "The Taoist I Ching", by Thomas
Cleary, is excellent. If you take it up, expect to only learn little bits of it at a time; the I Ching
is an involved text.]

Organ - Trigram Associations

Lungs - Wind
Look at the trigram for wind. Two yang lines on top, with an opening (yin line) at the bottom.
Wind naturally produces a smooth downward force that prompts the lungs.

Kidneys - Water

Water has a yin line at the top and bottom, with a yang line in the center. Its' natural force is
receptive to, and drawing in, of substance and energy from the top and bottom. As energy is
drawn in, it is stored, and grows into something strong, that will naturally want to be
expressed.

The yang line is said to be "trapped" between the two yins. This means that, if not addressed
(shifted, circulated, balanced) via outside sources, water's yang line will express within the
water element, for a while, and then flow out the bottom. Additionally, "trapped" may be taken
to mean that it's not always easy to shift the expression outside of the water element.

In TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) it's said that the kidneys provide the primal,
foundational, yin and yang for the whole body. Integrating water's strength with the rest of the
body is one of the key-stones of Taoist alchemy.

Liver - Thunder

Thunder is a shift from water. It still has two yin lines; it's very receptive to rich nourishment.
And yet the yang line has moved to the bottom... No longer trapped between two yins, the
strength expresses up through the yins. We've shifted from predominantly gathering richness
(water), towards more movement: smoothly guiding, expressing, circulating richness
(thunder). (The kidney-liver transition is one of the levers that pops primal strength out of its'
trapped position.)

Heart - Fire

Fire is a shift from thunder. The center of fire is a yin line: receiving nourishment, soft,
flexible. And on both top and bottom is strength. The three lines together produce the steady
radiance of heart.

Spleen - Lake
Lake is predominantly strong, as its two bottom lines. Yet it has receptivity, and flexibility on
the top. Visualized, this produces an smooth upbearing that supports the digestive activity of
the spleen (raising the "clear part" of food).

Personal Evolution of Practice

Let me tell you how this five element stuff has worked out for me, personally. I've laid out the
five element material on this web-site significantly differently that Mantak Chia has in his book
(provided more prep material, mostly, so far), and that deserves some explanation. I am not
saying that my way is the only way, or that it's categorically better... Just offering what has
worked for me.

First, I got an initial "wow!" from Mantak Chia's "Fusion of the Five Elements" meditations (1
& 2). Especially Fusion 2. The fused elements producing the ever so rich-sweet elixir. I
found it very, very, nourishing... and balanced-rich-sweet in a way that I'd not experienced
before. And it's my belief that that meditation touches on some of the core concepts of
classical alchemical Taoism.

However, I found that I didn't really have a grasp of how each element works of its' own, in
my own body, in its' natural process. And Chia's book didn't address that sufficiently for me.
Traditional Chinese Medicine was a huge resource for filling that gap in understanding. It
took me a long time studying TCM to really "grok" what each element did. Even after the
TCM study, the TCM functions still needed to be somehow accentuated in meditation.

Also, every time I visualized the paqua in the "Fusion.. " practices, I had some vague
confusion about the horizontal axis, the positioning of lake and thunder. Their associations
with the lungs and liver never quite clicked for me, though I tried to memorize their positions.
My studies in the I Ching dove-tailed into this work. After a long time (years) working with the
paqua as presented, but having it never quite click, I gathered the courage to experiment with
varying the associations. Once I tried wind with the lungs, something came into place, big
time. My body really accepted wind as activating the lungs, and lake as activating the spleen.
(Thunder stayed with the liver.) I know that these associations are somewhat non-traditional,
but all that I can say is that my body readily accepted it, and that a lot of progress with the
five elements occurred spontaneously as a result. As far as classical doctrine goes, I don't
know how these associations fit, and am not presenting this as some sort of doctrinal
argument. I do know that they work remarkably well in my body, and have brought my five
element practices forward in leaps, leaps, leaps. I humble myself to what works in my body.
If it works for you, great. If you find some other way that helps you get in touch with the five
elements more effectively, great. How ever you go about it: I do think that it's an important
step to get in touch with each element on a somewhat individual basis (they are never
entirely independent of each other), and that you shouldn't skate over this aspect of five
element practice.

So, once a basic five element understanding was present, and an individualized element
creation cycle meditation practice was in place - that's when I got to track how the elements
really work in my body. That is when a hands-on "oooh, ummm, ah-haaa, oh, I seeee, let-
me-settle-into-that" understanding of the dynamic elements really came around. Crucial
basic ground-work had been laid.
And, arising from that, a recognition of the emotions and the virtues as they are connected to
the organ energies. Before that I was always sort of reading, then slapping the virtues and
emotions onto my organs, most not seeming to really fit, some of them sticking a little,
understanding even less, knowing that the emotions and virtues were deeper (and perhaps
more complex, maybe simpler) than presented. But now, now that I have some
understanding of, and get to work with, the functions of the elements (during easy and difficult
times in my life)... I see how the virtues and emotions arise from the TCM functions of the
organs, and assist their smooth individual workings as well as their transitions through the
creation cycle (or not, as with unvirtuous activity and negative emotions).

So, now that I got through all of that, I have a deeper feeling for the five elements. I have a
better handle on what is out of balance, and why, and so am in a better position to correct the
situation. And I have a feeling for how they work with my psychology, activities in life,
emotions, virtue. For me, I couldn't have gotten these basics without the background work
that I did.

With that background work in place, I feel that I'm in a much better position to successfully
bridge to the Fusion practice. Before, I was trying to fuse pieces that I didn't have a deep
enough grasp of individually.

So, in one way, I've come a long way to get back to the beginning of the Fusion meditation.
Filling in the missing gaps of really understanding the elements, and being able to activate
the elements individually was - for me - crucial... and, really - as well, indispensable practices
in themselves.