A glossary of Yi jing Terms

Here is a link to a glossary of Yi jing terms from the site "Yijing Dao." 
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Here is a sample entry for wu xing ("five phases"):
wuxing 五行

'Five Phases' or 'Five Agents' – In early translations of books on Chinese philosophy this was usually given as 'Five Elements', but the relation to the Western four elements is superficial and best downplayed. The Five Phases are: wood, fire, soil (earth), metal, and water.

They are ordered in the 'production cycle' and the 'destruction cycle'. The production cycle is shown in the above diagram as the outer pentagon: wood, fire, soil, metal, and water. The traditional explanation is that wood acts as fuel to produce fire, fire forms ashes to make soil, in soil metal ores are found, and metal when it melts becomes liquid like water (an alternative explanation comes from the use of metal mirrors for collecting dew, in that it looks like the metal has generated water). Coming full circle, water nourishes the wood of trees. Thus the Five Phases generate or give birth to each other. The destruction cycle is shown as the inner star and is the order in which the Five Phases conquer or overcome each other: metal, wood, soil, water, fire. Metal tools cut wood, wooden tools such as the plough can break up earth, earth can be used to make dams and cut off water (or simply that earth soaks up water), water can extinguish a fire, and back full circle fire can melt metal. The destruction cycle seems to be the one most smoothly explained, and it is probably the earliest (circa 4th century BCE). The childhood game of 'Scissors, Paper, Stone' – which was invented in China – is an application of a similar kind of thinking to the destruction cycle.