5 INSIGHTS FROM THE HUANGDI NEIJING EVERY ACUPUNCTURIST SHOULD KNOW

 

The Huangdi Neijing, the Yellow Emporer’s Internal Classic, while acknowledged as the wellspring of Chinese medicine, is very commonly dismissed as too confusing to be of real use in the modern clinic. As imminent an authority as Ted Kaptchuk recently wrote:

“The Nei Jing is profound, difficult, opaque, contradictory, and sometimes bewildering. Much of it can only be read if a person already knows what the book supposedly says.”

 

While it cannot be denied that there have been serious challenges for English speaking westerners to overcome in the study of the Neijing, it is now, thanks to modern technologies and tools, no longer really true that it is so very difficult, opaque, contradictory and bewildering. Certainly, no more so than any other branch of advanced studies in medicine or other sciences.

In fact, for anyone interested in exploring these unique, highly effective and time-tested models of human physiology, health and illness, and especially for acupuncturists, manual therapists and sport coaches, the Neijing presents a wide variety of insightful commentaries. Here I will present five for your consideration.

 

1. As proposed by researchers such as David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School, “growing old”, that is becoming steadily more and more decrepit with less and less ability to enjoy life, is actually a “symptom” of an imbalanced and inefficient metabolism and not at all a truism.

Su Wen chapter one agrees with this idea and tells us:

I have heard people of ancient times, through both spring and autumn they were reaching one hundred years yet their movements were not weakened, the people of today are living half of those years yet their movements are all weakened, have the times changed or have the people lost their way?

Qibo replied: the people of ancient times, they understood the Dao, took yin yang as their standard, attuned to the art of number, eating and drinking were moderate, acting and resting had constancy, they did not rashly make troubles, thus were able to understand and unite form and shen, and achieving a full lifespan reach one hundred years before departing.

 Suwen 1 – Discourse on the Truth of Heaven in Ancient Times

 

Some of these instructions for living to one hundred years old with no troubles are self-evident, while others require further study of the information which the text provides. Taken together, this is a clear recipe for long life and happiness.

 

Insight
We have a great deal of agency in how our health plays out over the course of our lives.

 

2. The Channel system is a model of circulatory patterns, both within our bodies and in the interactions between ourselves and the environment around us.

The channels are physical structures created by the constant movement of our metabolisms maintaining our lives in the sea of life around us. They are at the same time incredibly subtle and glaringly obvious when you know where to look for them. The channels are paramount because they model how things move and movement is life.

Through the twelve jing mai, people are born, sickness is formed, people are cured or sickness flourishes, this is the beginning of the study and this is the fulfillment of the skill. The unrefined is that which is easy, the superior is that which is difficult. Please explain this separating and uniting, entering and exiting. Qibo bowing his head twice to the floor replied, what a wonderful question! The unrefined pass this by, for the superior it is breath, calmness and comfort. Allow me to briefly discuss this.

Lingshu 11 – Channel Divergences

 

Insight
Channels and channel theory are a medical discovery on par with germ theory and antibiotics, the full effectiveness of which is waiting to be exploited.

 

3. The Neijing focuses on acupuncture and moxibustion, but its channel therapy can be applied through many different modalities. 

Huangdi said: I have received the nine needles from the master, and have myself looked over the sundry methods of which we have daoyin and moving qi, hooking and rubbing, moxibustion, ironing, piercing, burning and the drinking of medicines all these. Can one person preserve all of this, applying and consummately putting each into practice?

Lingshu 42 – The transmission of illness

 

Furthermore, the kind of environment created by our modern technological lifestyle lends itself to illnesses, perhaps best treated by methods other than acupuncture:

The central region is flat and by means of the humidity of heaven and earth is able to generate the thousand things in great multitudes, people here have varieties of foods to eat and do not have to struggle, therefore their illnesses are wilting reversal and hot and cold, their proper cures are guiding and pulling exercise, and pressing and lifting the legs, thus these therapies come from the central region.

Su Wen 12 – Discourse on Different Methods Proper to Each Region

 

Insight
This passage is like a clue waiting to be developed through proper research and effort into a full method of treatment for neurological and autoimmune diseases. It is like a seed waiting to be planted.

 

4. Chronic disease and all of the conditions creating burdens on modern health care systems are amenable to channel therapy once we open our eyes to the potential the Neijing is pointing us towards.

Now, in regards to there being sickness in the five zang, to make an analogy it is like having a thorn, like dirty water, like a knotted rope, like a barred gate. Even if the thorn has long been imbedded it can be dug out, the water has long been stagnant it can purified, the rope has long been knotted it can be untangled, the gate has long been barred it can be broken open.

Some will say a longstanding illness cannot be taken on, do not believe these words! Those who are good with needles will take this up, like digging out a thorn, like cleaning dirty water, like unknotting a rope, like breaking open a barred gate.

Even a long illness can be brought to an end. Those that say it can not be properly handled have yet to obtain the art.

Lingshu 1 – Nine Needles Twelve Sources

 

Insight
Despite already being a multi-billion dollar a year industry, the potential of Chinese medicine to reduce suffering in the world is only beginning to be fully recognized.

 

5. The Neijing describes for us the framework of a social medicine. At no point can we hope to simply treat individual illnesses with complete success.

Health is a matter of being in synchronicity and harmony with society as well as with the natural environment. The medicine of Huangdi is a social medicine and demands all levels of society are cared for and afforded basic human rights.

Huangdi said:

I have heard that the past masters had that which they stored in their hearts and did not record in their formulas and procedures, I would like to have these things made known and recorded, standardized and put into practice.

Above use them to govern the people, below use them to govern the body, thus causing the populace to be with out sickness, drawing above and below near to one another, this power and benevolence flowing onwards, children and grandchildren free of sorrow, transmitting to future generations,  never having an end of times, can we speak of this?

Qibo replied:

A wonderfully far-reaching question!  Speaking of governing the people it is aided by their autonomy,  governing those that are far is aided by governing those that are near, governing the small is aided by governing the great, governing the country is aided by governing the family,  thus before there is counterflow and rebellion one is able to govern it, reflecting on smoothness and flow one is able to complete it. Smoothness and flow, this is not only yin and yang, the channels and discussing the counter flow and flow of qi, the families and the people all desire smoothness in their memories, aspirations and resolve.

 

Insight
The scientific, philosophical and social frameworks from which Neijing science arose were very concerned with the development of a harmonious and decentralized society. The Neijing offers us a window into ideas that may well be of great help in facing the challenges of our modern global society.

 

Taken together these five insights along with many others to be found with in the text lead us to the realization that the Neijing was written because the doctors, researchers and philosophers, who worked compiling its texts, realized they had discovered something truly marvelous in the models of health and illness contained in channel theory and the therapies that accompany it. They wished to preserve this discovery for the benefit of all people through all of time.

It is now up to us to realize the potential they left to us.

 

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