Contents CHAPTER 5: HEAVEN, EARTH AND HUMANKIND (TIAN, DI, REN) 41 PART ONE TIME, SPACE AND THE DAO 1 CHAPTER 1: NON-TIME 3

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Contents CHAPTER 5: HEAVEN, EARTH AND HUMANKIND (TIAN, DI, REN) 41 PART ONE TIME, SPACE AND THE DAO 1 CHAPTER 1: NON-TIME 3"

Gloria Bryan
5 years ago
Views:

1 Contents Foreword 00 Preface ix Acknowledgements x PART OE TIME, SPACE AD THE DAO 1 CHAPTER 1: O-TIME 3 Four seas 3 Eight extraordinary meridians 6 CHAPTER 2: SEQUETIAL TIME 9 Reproductive life 10 Ageing habits 11 Forbidden years 12 Death 12 Exercises 13 CHAPTER 3: CYCLICAL TIME 15 Day and night 16 The four seasons 17 The five elements 18 Moon cycles 22 Case study 26 Recap 28 Exercises 30 CHAPTER 4: THE CALEDAR 33 Farmer s Calendar 34 Xia (Hsia) calendar 36 Lunar solar calendar 36 Ever increasing cycles 37 CHAPTER 5: HEAVE, EARTH AD HUMAKID (TIA, DI, RE) 41 Humans between a rock and a high place 41 The centre 43 The birth of humankind 44 Humankind s creativity 45 The middle region 46 The triple heater 50 Clear Heaven and muddy Earth 52 ine pulses of the three regions 52 Treatments using the principles of Heaven, Earth and humankind 58 Treatment of mental and emotional disorders 59 CHAPTER 6: WU XIG FIVE ELEMETS 65 The sheng cycle 72 The ke cycle 72 Exercises 78 PART TWO HEAVELY STEMS AD EARTHLY BRACHES TIA GA DI ZHI 81 CHAPTER 7: DIVISIOS 83 Divisions of the body 83 FM-S2961.indd v

2 vi Contents Internal/external pairings of divisions 85 Host divisions 87 Guest divisions 89 Treatment strategies 101 Case study 106 Exercises 108 CHAPTER 8: GREAT MOVEMETS 111 Wood 115 Fire 116 Earth 117 Metal 117 Water 118 Treatment 120 Exercise 128 CHAPTER 9: STEM ORGAS 129 Command points 132 Balanced qi 132 Unbalanced qi 133 Stem treatments 137 Divergent meridians 140 Prognosis 140 CHAPTER 10: BRACHES (DI ZHI) 143 Chinese clock 143 Branch inner energy 143 Branch meridian sequence the sheng cycle 146 Anomalies 150 Branch treatments 150 CHAPTER 11: PUTTIG IT ALL TOGETHER 155 The Stems and Branches Year Chart 156 Personal chart 158 Four pillars 159 Case studies 162 Herbs 167 General rules 167 Exercises 169 CHAPTER 12: OPE-HOURLY METHOD OF POIT SELECTIO 171 Methods based in branches na zi fa 171 Methods using stems na jia fa 172 Intergeneration of points 173 Using the eight extra meridians 173 PART THREE THE IER CORE OF ACUPUCTURE 175 CHAPTER 13: THE CHIESE SKY 177 Huang Di 178 The shape of the universe 180 Divisions of the heavens 182 Three enclosures 182 Five palaces 184 The 28 lunar mansions 187 Four palaces of the cardinal directions 191 Planets 194 Relationships with the stems and branches 196 CHAPTER 14: PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILES 205 Spirit 206 Emotions 215 Element types 220 Stems and the psyche 222 Branches and the psyche 222 Character and the six divisions 227 Typing according to yin and yang 228 Clinical applications 228 FM-S2961.indd vi

3 Contents vii CHAPTER 15: UMEROLOGY 233 The Hetu/Yellow River map 234 The Luoshu magic square 236 Forbidden points 242 eedle technique 244 CHAPTER 16: SYMBOLS 247 Early Heaven arrangement of trigrams Fu Xi 248 Later Heaven arrangement of trigrams King Wen 249 Trigrams and the body 250 Eight extra meridians and trigrams 252 APPEDICES Appendix 1: Charts 259 Appendix 2: Astronomy 271 Appendix 3: Star maps 289 Glossary 295 Bibliography 297 Index 301 FM-S2961.indd vii

4 Preface If you receive some instruction without thoroughly understanding the ultimate principles involved, you will begin to cast some doubts about what you have been taught.... When you say you are unable to make distinctions and to understand the principles it means that the major theory passed on to us from previous generations has gone down the drains. Su wen, ch 75:17 The appeal of the modern Traditional Chinese Medicine system lies in its ability to act as a bridge between a reductionist, linear way of thinking and the lateral approach more natural to the system of correspondences of Chinese medicine. This book takes you to the far side of that bridge and into a Daoist world where Heaven, Earth and Humankind are all of one original qi, where a vibration in any part affects the whole. We will forge through a seemingly impenetrable jungle of intertwining correspondences that have appeared resistant to linear methods of cognition. Hopefully you will find the journey fascinating and even exhilarating in places but what you won t find in this jungle are any new species of acupuncture theory. According to Chinese medical theory there are only three ways to categorise phenomenon: according to Heaven, Earth and Humanity, according to the five elements and to yin and yang, all of which are part of rudimentary acupuncture training. However, most acupuncturists will not have been presented with these concepts in quite this manner. Stems and branches is a basic calendrical counting method used by the Chinese for millennia to count the hours, days, months and years. It groups 10 stems and 12 branches into the same polarity (yin or yang) pairings to provide a recurring sexagesimal sequence. In the West we denote time numerically, for instance am, (14 March) which contains no descriptive value. The Chinese equivalent of this time is denoted 3.7; 4.8; 10.4; 4.12, where the first number of each pair is the stem and the second is the branch. Certain acupuncture methods select points according to the specific stem and branch of the hour or day and are therefore essentially a numerological acupuncture system. This is widely known as stems and branches acupuncture. This method is briefly explored in one chapter of this book but is not this book s primary focus. Instead, this book explores time in a wider context and through this exploration we come to a profound understanding of the basic principles of Chinese medicine and of how time (of which stems and branches is but one component part) is woven into the very fabric of acupuncture theory. As Joseph eedham so eloquently expresses it, The earliest, and in the long run the most influential kinds of scientific explanation, those so basic that they truly pervaded the ancient Chinese world view, were in terms of time (eedham 1954/84, vol. 5, p. 222). Time is the first expression of the interaction between Heaven and Earth, philosophically speaking and also in real terms, i.e. time is the measurement of the apparent motion of the heavenly bodies around the Earth. Because, according to Daoism, we are born from the interaction between Heaven and Earth, all living creatures are physiologically time sensitive. Yin and yang were early on depicted in relationship to the sun (the sun rising over a flag, or the sunny and shady side of a mountain). The five elements are expressions of qualities of the seasons. The 12 main meridians are related to the 12 branches, just as the 10 organs are related to the 10 stems. Even the number of the main acupuncture points (idealised as 360 in the ei Jing and presently complete at 361) is related to the calendar, the Jupiter cycle and the interaction between the sun and moon. FM-S2961.indd ix

5 x Preface In this book the term stems and branches acupuncture is used in the broadest sense: it is an acupuncture style that stresses the importance of the relationship between Heaven, Earth and Humanity, and time as it accords with that relationship The approach presented here is therefore Daoist, closely modelled on Huang- Lao Daoism. Huang-Lao Daoism, 1 as explained by Major (1993) in the introduction to his translation of Huainanzi, is a combination of the teachings expressed by Lao Zi and cosmological ideas centred on the solar god Huang Di. The early Han text Huainanzi is heavily borrowed from by the ei jing. That the ei jing refers specifically to Huang Di in its title expresses more than a reverential bow to the mythical Yellow Emperor. It lays down time and our connection with the heavens as the foundation stone of medical theory. This approach to acupuncture could therefore be called Huang-Lao acupuncture, or perhaps simply Daoist acupuncture, but what it is not is an acupuncture by numbers system, which has unfortunately become associated with stems and branches when this term is used in its narrowest sense to refer to the specific stem and branch of the day or hour. This book is organised in three sections. The first section deals with the basic principles that underlie acupuncture. It is my intention that this section should not simply provide a quick revision of familiar concepts but that it should deepen understanding of the fundamentals. Section Two deals with the technicalities of time and fits the sexagesimal stems and branches into the broader context of time and its interweaving cycles. Section Three deals with more advanced concepts, which, while not absolutely imperative for the practice of acupuncture, will undoubtedly throw a light on the more obscure passages from the ei jing and put to rest most of the shadowy confusions and perplexities that bedevil a substantial number of acupuncturists. In fact, in exploring these concepts, I was struck by how even the most esoteric passages were easily illuminated by reframing them in the context of time. Many of the frankly occult references were settled by an understanding of Han astronomy. This book sets out to explain this system in detail, both its philosophical basis and its practical applications. Regardless of one s preferred acupuncture style, many of these concepts can easily be integrated into practice. Because of the interconnected nature of this theory you may at times feel lost, as if in a maze of disturbing complexity. This feeling can initially accompany a shift in mental processing that happens once we build up a substantial linkage between the various groups of correspondences. I can only say that if you take it slowly and, if you wish to, integrate the concepts one step at a time, you will eventually reach the heart of this maze. The odd thing is that once you reach the centre and grasp the core concepts, the previously opaque walls turn crystal and it all suddenly seems so very simple. Roisin Golding October 2007 OTE 1. Sivin has argued that there is no link between Lao Zi and his emphasis on wuwei and the later Han Daoism that incorporates Huang Di. I would like to propose that the link is through astronomy and specifically the pole star the perfect expression of wuwei, and Tianhuangtaidi, the stellar representation of the ultimate Dao that places Huang Di within the ultimate position of Heaven see page 000 in this book for a full explanation of the meaning of these stars. I thank James Flowers for sending me a copy of Sivin s speech objecting to the term Huang-Lao Daoism Drawing Insights from Chinese Medicine Keynote Address for the conference of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy, Australia, 14 July ACKOWLEDGEMETS Thank you to all the teachers in my life, and to those who share their expertise and wisdom, whether through speaking, writing or just being. I am particularly grateful to the late Johannes van Buren, the founder of the International College of Oriental Medicine, who kept interest in Stems and Branches philosophy alive in Europe despite the flaws in, and paucity of, resource material on the subject and against a tidal wave of theories and opinions that threatened to carry acupuncture ever further away from its classical roots. I am indebted to Henry C. Lu for his mammoth undertaking in translating The Yellow Emperor s Classics of Internal Medicine and the Difficult Classic, without which this book would have been impossible. He was also kind enough to personally answer all and any 1 2 FM-S2961.indd x

6 Preface xi queries I had regarding his work, and I d like to thank him for his permission to quote without limit. It was in Lu s 1978 translation that I first found a reference to ancient Chinese star constellations and I thought then that I would never be able to discover what these meant. I therefore couldn t believe my luck when I found The Chinese Sky During the Han by Sun Xiaochun and Jacob Kistemaker. This book, through its detailed sky maps of the Han dynasty and explanations of the meaning of the Chinese sky, provided the key to understanding the deepest mysteries contained in the ei jing. Professor Kistemaker s enthusiastic response to this work has meant so much to me. I would like to thank Helmer Aslaksen, of the Mathematics Department of Singapore University, for his generosity in publishing a wealth of information on the Chinese calendar on his website, and for showing an equally generous spirit by answering a number of questions via . Thank you so much to James Flowers, Francesca Diebschlag and Sandra Hill, who all made valuable comments on the manuscript. For moral support, whether through reading my manuscript or simply putting up with my obsession for several years, I thank Penny Clay, Atsuko Cowley, Stephen Gascoigne, my daughter Vanessa and my family. I owe a special thanks to my husband Josh for preliminary editing an unenviable task of sifting through shifting spellings and mis-spellings of unfamiliar words, willy-nilly Pinyin and Wade-Giles. And a special thanks goes to Antonio Javier Caparo for his magnificient rendering of the Yellow Dragon, aka the Yellow Emperor, in his celestial residence, Xuan Yuan, at the front of this book. And finally I thank GMJ for teaching me the meaning of shen. Roisin Golding, 2008 FM-S2961.indd xi

Ching, or the Book of Changes, as a sort of Chinese divination tool fewer have

Ching, or the Book of Changes, as a sort of Chinese divination tool fewer have Basic Principles of Numerology in the I Ching The Tao begot one. One begot two. Two begot three. And three begot the ten-thousand things. The ten-thousand things carry yin and embrace yang. 1 -Lao Zu Today,