Good morning Readers

Today I’m going to talk a bit about the laws that rule Traditional Chinese Medicine when it comes to the 5 Elements.

The 5 Elements are the philosophical base for the body proper functioning, be it in physiology (normal body functioning), or be it pathology (in disease).

It’s explained in the 5 Elements, that, an organ is capable of donating energy to another, meanwhile another organ controls the energy reception.

Why does this Happen?

In case an organ was able to receive all energy in a indiscriminate way, it would enter in a state of “Energy Excess”, thus leading to a disease, that is why there is an organ countering or controlling this energy reception. This movement of, donating, receiving and controlling energy, makes the following laws: Generation (Mother and Son) and Control (Grandpa and Grandchild).

Besides showing us how energy is distributed, this laws are also useful to treat patient who suffer from Excess Diseases (Qi stagnation, Blood or presence of Pathological Factors – cold, humidity, heat, dryness, phlegm or wind) and Deficiency Diseases (when there is a decrease in Qi production, Blood or Body Fluids).

How do the Laws work?

Generation Law (Mother and Son)

This law is divided in 2 parts, being the first that states:

When we tone the mother – we tone the son. To make it simple, when we nourish the mother, we nourish the son.

On 5 Elements, we have:

Heart is Spleen mother                                     Small Intestine is Stomach mother

Spleen is Lung mother                                      Stomach is Large Intestine mother

Lung is Kidney mother                                      Large Intestine is Bladder mother

Kidney is Liver mother                                      Bladder is Gallbladder mother

Liver is Heart mother                                        Gallbladder is Small Intestine mother

In other words, when we Tone Heart, we Tone Spleen. When we Tone Spleen, we Tone Lung. When we Tone Stomach, we Tone Large Intestine and so on. We must keep in mind, that organs will only tone organs and viscera will only tone viscera, according to the pair above,

The practical use of this Law is when we need to tone an organ that is suffering from a deficiency disease.

Example: When Heart is in Deficiency, we tone it’s mother, that is, the Liver. When Bladder is in Deficiency, we tone it’s mother, Large Intestine.

The second part of the Law, states:

When we Sedate the son, we Sedate the Mom. 

Based on the previous pairs, we already know that:

Heart is Liver son                                          Small Intestine is Gallbladder son

Liver is Kidney son                                        Gallbladder is Bladder son

Kidney is Lung son                                        Bladder is Large Intestine son

Lung is Spleen son                                         Large Intestine is Stomach son

Spleen is Heart son                                        Stomach is Small Intestine son

We can observe, based on this law, that when the Son gets Sick the Mother suffers. Basically, when we Sedate the Kidney, we Sedate the Lung. When we Sedade Bladder, we Sedate Large Intestine. Equal to the prior section, organs will only sedate organs, and viscera will only sedate viscera, according to the pairing stated above.

The practical use of this Law is when we need to Sedate an organ who’s suffering from an Excess Disease.

Example: When Heart is in Excess, we sedate it’s son, Spleen. When Bladder is in Excess we sedate it’s daughter, Gallbladder.

Before we proceed to the Control Law, I suggest to the readers that study this first part in depth. Since it’s crucial that we master it, so that we are able to figure out the next step, tied to this one, that will give birth to the treatment by the 5 Elements

Practice a lot, I will be back in a few days to explain the second law🙂

A very tight hug!

Profa. Fernanda Mara