I Ching Divination Basics: Foundations Part 2.3: Applying the Five Elements (Wu Xing) in Liu Yao Readings

👤 By Fiona

📅 November 28, 2025

⏱️ 5 min read

📂 Divination, I Ching, I Ching Basics

How generation, overcoming, and peer harmony reveal real life relationships in Wen Wang Gua charts

I. Foundations

Part 2: Five Elements

2.3 Applications of the generation, overcoming, peer harmony

Generation, overcoming, and peer harmony describe how energy flows between two elements.
I Ching Divination is an ancient art that often involves looking at a hexagram in Liu Yao or Wen Wang Gua. You are always asking: who is feeding whom, who is controlling whom, and who is standing at the same level. This is how Five Elements logic becomes something you can actually read in a chart.

2.3.1 Generation: who gives, who receives

Generation points to giving, nurturing, attraction, and long term support.
The generating side is like the person or factor that keeps giving energy, time, money, or attention. The side that is generated is the one being nourished.

For example:

Wood generates fire: like firewood feeding a flame
Water generates wood: like rain nourishing a forest

In readings, generation often shows:

Voluntary giving, investment, devotion
What you genuinely like, pursue, or long for
Where your time, money, and emotional energy flow

We can distinguish two directions:

Active generation (主生): this is the side that takes action and gives. It shows active support, caretaking, investing in someone or something.
Passive generation (受生): this is the side that receives. It can feel cared for, supported, or nourished, but also become dependent if it receives too much without giving back.

In a love reading, if your significator line generates the partner’s line, you may be the one chasing, giving, and investing more. In a wealth reading, if your wealth line generates the host line, you will gain wealth in a steady way.

2.3.2 Overcoming: control, pressure, conflict

Overcoming shows control, pressure, conflict, damage, or a hard push.
In the Five Elements, each element has another that it controls:

Water overcomes fire
Fire overcomes metal
Metal overcomes wood
Wood overcomes earth
Earth overcomes water

In readings, overcoming can describe:

Tight control, discipline, restriction, or blocking
Conflict, hostility, resentment, or harm
Strong intervention, including “forcing a change”

Again, we look at direction:

Active overcoming (主克): this is the side that presses, controls, or attacks. It has more initiative or power in that interaction.
Passive overcoming (被克): this is the side that gets pressured or hurt. It may be constrained, under stress, or forced to adjust.

Sometimes overcoming also shows strong pursuit, especially when someone pushes hard to get a result or to “take” something. The same energy that hurts can also be the energy that breaks through an obstacle, depending on context.

But being overcome is not entirely a bad thing. In a reading about seeking wealth, if the wealth line overcomes the host line, it means wealth comes to seek me, wealth comes to find me, indicating that making money is easy. By contrast, if the host line overcomes the wealth line, it means I am the one seeking wealth, which is exactly what the reading is about in the first place: my seeking wealth.

2.3.3 Peer harmony: equal footing, help or competition

Peer harmony is interaction between things of the same nature.
In the Five Elements chart, this is simple: C or D wood with C or D wood, F or G fire with F or G fire, E, H, L, B earth with E, H, L, B earth, J or K metal with J or K metal, A or M water with A or M water.

In readings, peer harmony can show:

Mutual support and teamwork, people at the same level helping each other
“Robbing wealth”, competitors chasing the same clients, market, or partner
Siblings, classmates, colleagues, roommates, or people with similar status
A mirror of yourself, like meeting someone with the same habits or issues

Because peer elements share similar needs, they understand each other easily, but they also easily step on each other’s toes. Whether it becomes cooperation or competition depends on the question, the positions of the lines, and the overall balance of the chart.