Concept
Wood (wuxing)
Overview
In Chinese philosophy, wood (Chinese: 木; pinyin: mù), sometimes more accurately translated as tree, is one of the five concepts that conform the wuxing. It is the growing of the matter, or the matter's growing expanding stage. Wood is the young yang symbol of the Yinyang philosophy, it can be seen as the fuelling Fire. It stands for the season of spring, the eastern direction, the planet Jupiter, the color blue (qing), windy weather, and the Azure Dragon (Qing Loong) in Four Symbols.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Wood (wuxing) is discussed.
The wood of the palm and the cork-tree is soft, while that of the apple and the pear is compact. Such, however, is not the case with the maple, its wood being brittle, as, in fact, all veined woods are. In every kind of tree, the varieties in the wood are still more augmented by the wild trees and the males. The wood, too, of the barren tree is more solid than that of the fruit-bearing ones, except in those species…
the Elder Pliny, The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; opens on it
There is still something to be said on the subject of wood. It is not easy to see why wood should have come to represent a woman or mother, but here a comparison of different languages may be useful to us.
Sigmund Freud, Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
It is remarkable, that altho’ oak or fir shall lie ages immersed in water under ground, it shall not putrify; but acquire such sulphureous particles by lying in steep, in the bog-water, as to qualify it for this use. Other wood, deposited in marly ground, is found incrusted over, trunk and branches, with a white crust; the wood remaining intire within. At other times, wood thus incrusted shall be eroded by the…
Various, Philosophical transactions, Vol. L. Part I. For the year 1757.
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; opens on it
These three qualities are represented as the essential being of nature. The Sanc’hya says, “We speak of them as we do of the trees in a wood.” Yet this is a bad simile, for the wood is but an abstract universal, in which the individuals are independent. In the religious ideas of the Vedas, where these qualities also appear as Trimurti, they are spoken of as if they were successive modifications, so that “Everything…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
states what it is; names the idea
We might better speak of this period as an age of wood. Wood is not only decidedly easier to manipulate than stone, but it is always more easily obtainable in shapes suitable for constructive purposes. Possibly even the arrow-head was originally always made of wood, as it sometimes is even to-day. Only in later times was the wood replaced by a sharpened stone or by iron acquired through barter.
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
names the idea; states what it is
Philosophers who discussed Wood (wuxing)
Related ideas
- Yin and yang
- Chinese astrology
- Ren (philosophy)
- Taoism
- Optimism
- Courage
- Chinese philosophy
- Traditional Chinese medicine
- Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)
- Fire (wuxing)
- Earth (wuxing)
- Water (wuxing)
- Metal (wuxing)
Place in the tradition
Part of School of Naturalists.