Number “five” in Chinese culture elaborates the change of worldly phenomena. This is to say that the fundamental set of five is composed of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. They are the five basic elements that construe the world, and each of them is connected to one another in sequence and rotates one after another in a full circle (i.e., wood produces fire, fire produces earth, earth produces metal, metal produces water, and water produces wood). These Five Elements (Wu-hang) incorporate all other sets of five things, in a sense that all of them correspond to the Five Elements, such as five directions (east, west, south, north, and center), five musical notes (Kung, Shang, Chüeh, Chih, Yü), five internal organs (heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys), five grains (rice, two kinds of millet, wheat and beans), and so forth. Although these numerical categories of five represent different phenomena, each of them is simply a different name for the same principle the Five Elements denote (since all of them correspond to the Five Elements). That is, the universe (whether as microcosm or macrocosm) is presented as a complete circle of change among five elements (each of which is related to one another). Therefore, any set of these five phenomena forms a circle of correspondence among each other and symbolizes completion and perfection.

It is interesting to note that Chih-i’s Five Sections (five categories of analysis or five layers of the abstruse meaning), i.e., name, substance, gist, function, and teaching, are arranged for the interpretation of the Lotus Sūtra. Whether intentionally or not, this number five corresponds to the number of words “Miao-fa Lien-hua Ching” that constitute the title of the Lotus Sūtra. While these five words as the title of the Lotus Sūtra is underlined the profound principle, the Five Sections are designed to explore the profound meaning that is contained in each word. Furthermore, the Five Periods (Wu-shih) in Chih-i’s system of classifying the teaching of the Buddha (P’an-chiao) are able to incorporate the whole of the Buddha’s teachings chronologically. In addition, the five flavors of dairy products are employed to analogize these five periods, denoting the perfection of the complete circle of the Buddha’s teaching career.