Eastern Culture and the True Meaning of Chinese-Medicine Theory
China Academy of TCM — Fu Jinghua, Xu Yanchun
The cosmos is boundless, endless, in unlimited motion; without beginning or end. Nature lies in infinite motion — vast, vague, covering the eight directions — at once the smallest and the most visible, the hidden and the open. As the Neijing says: "The spirit turns and does not return; once it returns, it does not turn."
Faced with this complex change, if we would simply and harmoniously grasp the true meaning of nature, we must see nature as a process. The natural process is the sum of infinite motion-modes and their interactions. The infinite motion-modes, in their interactions, produce infinite changes; in those changes are corresponding rules of number and sequence; and the changes lie in distinct posture, trend, and epoch, expressed in qi, in form, in kind, in image — making the world's colors.
No spirit greater than transforming-the-Dao
When the ancient West was absorbed in seeking the origin of the ten-thousand things in the world of formed matter, the Chinese were extraordinarily focused on pursuing the unfathomable spirit of change. The Xunzi · Exhortation to Learning lauds "no spirit greater than transforming the Dao." The Shizi: "He who blends with the spirit is called the emperor." The Yijing · Shuogua: "He who knows the Dao of change — does he not know what the spirit does?" The Yijing · Xici: "To exhaust the spirit and know transformation — virtue's fullness." The Guanzi · Inner Work: "That which can transform a thing is called spirit."
What the Chinese sages called spirit was the mysterious change. Spirit is great because it hides its form and image, transcends without burden, is dim and unmeasurable, fine and hard to see; it covers all changes and turns by a single mechanism, beyond form-and-qi, leaving no track. Some named it Yi (Change). If Yi stands for boundless change, and the infinity of change is the eternal Yi itself — "Yi has no thought, no action; still and unmoved, yet feeling all, it penetrates all under Heaven; were it not for the most spirit-like under Heaven, who could share in this?" (Yijing Xici).
Nothing in the world is eternal but change. Endless motion-modes arise in infinite change. Chinese medicine borrows the ancient philosophical concept wu (non-being) to mean infinity and the formless. Laozi: "The ten-thousand things under Heaven are born of being; being is born of non-being." Huainanzi · Benjing: "Spirit-brightness hides in the formless." Liji · Yueji: "Spirit is without body; li is dim and deep." And the wu of the Buddhist sutras is the dynamic Buddha-nature, holding infinite motion and formless change.
Wu also has the senses of non-action, non-fixed-direction, non-substance, non-image. Laozi's non-action is not do-nothing nihilism, but the natural self-being and self-doing. Perhaps Wang Chong understood Boyang (Laozi) best; in his Ziran Pian he wrote: "Heaven moves without desiring to bring forth things; yet things are born — this is nature. Heaven sends qi without desiring to make things; yet things make themselves — this is non-action." From here we may at last grasp the much-disputed "act without acting and yet nothing left undone."
The Yi Xici Shang says: "The spirit has no direction; the Yi has no rest." The Suwen · Treatise on the Origin of Heaven's Era extends this: "To be born is called transformation; to reach the extreme is called change; the unmeasurable yin and yang is called spirit; using spirit without direction is called the sagely." Ming-dynasty physician Zhang Jiebin had the marrow of the Neijing: "That which does nothing, yet does — that is called the unmeasurable, that is spirit. By the Dao of Heaven, spirit's use is changing-unmeasurable, hence 'no direction.' 'No direction' is 'large and transformable.'" Large and transformable resembles boundless, formless image. Being though formless, formless though essence — not born of form, hence transformation. As Dongshen Jing says: "The wonderful image has no form; the responsive feeling has body; the true essence and wondrous qi transform into shape." This is image of no image, shape of no shape.
Many changes do have form, and the perceptual world of formed bodies is the chief world that feeling and self-consciousness easily know. But form is only one mode of being; its change is not the spirit of change, but the image of change. Image, too, is more than appearance — there is qi-image, fa-image (law-image) too. Through the image one can examine the mechanism and grasp the spirit. TCM stresses qi over form, Dao over instrument. In diagnosis: "He who knows by looking is called divine", "who gets the spirit flourishes; who loses the spirit dies". In pathology: principle by qi-transformation and qi-mechanism. In therapeutics: regulating qi and harmonizing yin and yang. All flow from the thought spirit-mechanism, qi establishes; ten-thousand changes do not leave the source.
Heaven and Earth in dense union — the ten-thousand things mature
The Yi Xici Xia says: "Heaven and Earth in dense union — the ten-thousand things mature." Tang's Kong Yingda glossed dense as the meaning of attaching. "Only with the two qi in dense union — their mutual meeting in harmony." In effect this is the mutual action of yin-and-yang qi producing the ten-thousand things. The dense union describes the manner of yin-yang interaction. As Northern Song's Zhang Zai wrote in Zhengmeng · Taihe: "Qi, like a great void, rises, falls, soars — never ceasing — what the Yi calls dense union"; "The Great Harmony is what is called the Dao; within is the nature of floating-sinking, ascending-descending, motion-rest, mutual feeling — this is the start of dense union, mutual urging, victory-and-loss, contraction-and-stretching." In our words: the interaction of different-mode processes — that is the fundamental cause of change from beginning to end.
Remarkably, Shidajing, unearthed at Mawangdui Tomb 3 in 1973, also says: "Stillness and action mutually nurture; virtue and oppression mutually complete. Two, with each its own, joining together — make. With yin-yang and substance ready, change and transformation are born." The thought of two-poles meeting, change brings forth things is the pride of the Chinese nation. If we replace thing with modes-of-motion-covering-form-qi-ten-thousand-images, and contemplate the infinite interactions of those modes, the wings of knowing draw nearer the cosmos.
The hearts of Eastern peoples seem connected. Ancient India also reflected metaphysically. Buddhism came to China, fused with Confucian and Daoist thought, and Chan arose, the Mahayana flourished. The Chan master asks the new disciple: Before your parents bore you, what were you? You can clap with two hands; what is the sound of one hand? The sound of two-hands is not the sum of their separate sounds, but the result of the interaction of two motion-modes — process from nothing to something. Buddha: when causes meet, life arises; when they disperse, it ceases. Chinese medicine: when qi gathers, life; when qi disperses, death. Yuan is fate; yin is the motion-mode of fate; he* is interaction; the world is the gathering of causes. Qi is various motion-modes; the gathering of qi is the gathering of causes. Buddha, Dao, and medicine pass through one qi. Here is TCM's original starting point and final return — drawn from the vast intellectual source of Eastern culture.
All under Heaven is but one qi
The famed Greek atomism of antiquity sought the ultimate material foundation in a fixed form. Its influence on Western scientific thought is astonishing. Contemporaneously, the Chinese held: "All under Heaven is but one qi." Even Maxwell tried to explain field in Newtonian terms, calling electromagnetic wave the elastic wave of aether, an imagined extremely light substance filling space. In recent years, qi has been explained as some inexplicable tiny substance — startlingly like aether!
Heaven and Earth are full of one qi. Ming physician Zhang Jingyue: "Qi outside Heaven and Earth surrounds Heaven and Earth; qi within Heaven and Earth moves through Heaven and Earth; sun, moon, stars get it and shine; thunder, rain, wind, cloud get it and act; the four seasons and ten-thousand things get it and grow-store. Where is anything not its doing?" (Leijing · She-sheng). Qi is everywhere, every moment; greater than any place can hold, smaller than any inside — embracing the universe, covering all images. So qi is not a specific substance or material element, nor a specific function or energy. It refers generally to infinite motion-modes.
Infinite motion-modes lie in infinite interaction. The sum of those interactions is nature's true origin and at the same time its result. Laozi sensed its objective being: "Something forms confused… can be mother to all under Heaven; I know not its name; I call it Dao." He could not say it clearly; one word Dao — and a thousand-year debate began.
The Guanzi understood the Dao best: "The Dao is between Heaven and Earth; its greatness no outside, its smallness no inside." This Dao, plainly, is an infinite being unrelated to the latter-born human will — therefore not idea or spirit. And though Laozi imaged it as something formed confused, the eternal being is so infinitely large there is no border, so infinitely small no content — therefore not a formed or unformed thing, but the process of infinite interaction. In that process arise infinite motion-modes — the Dao gives birth to the One. The One is qi; also called Taiji, Taiyi, Yuanqi. Dao and qi are everywhere, every moment.
The Zhuangzi: "The gate of Heaven is what is not. Ten-thousand things come from what is not. Being cannot come from being; it must come from what is not." It is because the source of nature is being and non-being arise together that there follow easy-difficult mutually complete, long-short mutually measure, high-low mutually incline, voice-sound mutually agree, before-after mutually follow — countless paired motion-modes. Laozi puts being-non-being together with the other paired motion-modes — showing that being-non-being too refers to motion-mode, not to fixed things. The mutual relation of formless motion and formed motion brings forth the paired category form-qi. Suwen · Treatise on the Origin of Heaven's Era: "So in Heaven it is qi; on Earth it forms; form and qi feel each other and produce the ten-thousand things."
The great rivers flow with harmony
The world is simple and harmonious; theory should be too. Already in the Guoyu · Zhengyu the Chinese knew: "Harmony brings forth things; sameness does not last. To level the other with the other is called harmony; if the same is added to the same, all is cast aside." Harmony is the harmonious interaction of two or more different motion-modes; sameness is simply joining identical modes into one. Opposed harmony alone produces new motion-modes; simple addition of likes is meaningless. Einstein believed in an inner harmony of nature and spent his life seeking the unified base of physics. His was a continuation of the Pythagorean primal aesthetic. The pursuit of harmony is shared by humankind, born of the human life-process itself and its inner unity with the natural process.
Xunzi · Treatise on Heaven: "Heaven runs in regularity; the stars circle in their courses; sun and moon shine in turn; the four seasons rule in turn; yin and yang transform vastly; wind and rain bestow broadly; the ten-thousand things each get their harmony to live, each get their nurture to mature; the work is not seen and yet the result is — this is spirit." Shengji Jing: "Heaven and Earth set up positions; wondrous use lies in qian and kun; sun and moon shine bright; yin and yang lodge in li and kan; one descends, one rises, mutually urging, making cold and summer; one shows, one hides, mutually striking, making day and night." In this great picture, we see that two opposed extremes most easily combine into harmonious motion. The Chinese have long understood two-poles meeting, opposed-harmony. As the poet Wen Yiduo wrote: "The great rivers and Yellow River flow with harmony."
Christianity stirred a war between flesh and soul; Indian myth had the divine self and self-nature forcibly torn apart, and the world divided. But ancient Chinese medicine, in the realm of form-and-qi feel each other, spirit-and-form as one, sensed the dynamic stillness and harmony. Harmony is right; loss of harmony is evil; harmony is balance; loss of harmony is illness. The key to diagnosis is to know the deviation; the key to treatment is to restore harmony. Cold, heat it; heat, cool it; the reversed, descend it; the sunken, lift it. Cold-heat mixed, use warm-cool together to harmonize yin and yang. Upper-lower disharmony, use bitter and pungent to regulate ascending-and-descending. Qi-medicines lean dry; moisten with blood-medicines. Blood-medicines suspected of greasiness; harmonize with qi-medicines. Tonify qi to nourish blood; harmony means mutual engendering. All that guides health and treats the hundred illnesses, lifts old maladies, turns the yuan-qi and opens long life — lies here.
The process of opposed-harmony interaction holds many relational regularities; the most important are opposed-complement and opposed-restraint — or opposed mutual engendering and opposed mutual restraint. Leijing Tuyi · Yunqi I: "The mechanism of creation cannot lack engendering or lack restraint. Without engendering, growth has no source; without restraint, exuberance becomes harm. Engendering and restraint, mutually circling, run unceasing, and Heaven and Earth's Dao is endless." Engendering without restraint, chaotic growth; restraint without measure, growth fails. So engendering within restraint, restraint within engendering — mutually used, mutually filled — running unceasing. TCM's channel-and-zang-image theory, pathomechanism and therapeutic-rule theory, all run through to the end on yin-yang mutual complement and five-phase engendering-restraint.
The gift of the river-horse and the Luo turtle
Yin-yang and the five phases are the Numbers of Heaven and Earth. As the Xianjing says: "The great Dao cannot be reckoned by counting; the Dao is not in number. What can be counted is Heaven and Earth's number. Get the number of Heaven and Earth and the great Dao is in it." The natural process itself cannot be counted; but the natural change of Heaven and Earth has corresponding rules — Heaven and Earth's number. As Tong Zhongzhou's Spirit-Interpretation Poem says: "Heaven's motion never stops; the ten-thousand images show themselves… and I dwell within them; rest and motion have li and shu." — life-motion within the natural process has li, shu, xiang.
The famed Hetu (River Chart) and Luoshu (Luo Writing) are the ancient Chinese number-diagrams. Yi Xici: "The Yellow River sent out the chart; the Luo River sent out the writing; the sage took them as model." Tradition has it that in Fuxi's time a dragon-horse rose from the Yellow River bearing the Hetu and a divine turtle from the Luo bearing the Luoshu; Fuxi drew the bagua from them. The Luoshu number: one above, nine below; three left, seven right; two and four at the shoulders; eight and six at the feet, forming the nine-palace number. The Hetu takes one as water-number, plus five makes six at the north; two as fire-number, plus five makes seven at the south; three as wood-number, plus five makes eight at the east; four as metal-number, plus five makes nine at the west; five as earth-number, plus five makes ten at the center — forming the five-phase number. They each reflect astronomy, geography, climate, season, and life-motion.
The TCM classic Neijing — its Suwen · Jingui Zhenyan and Suwen · Tianyuan Jida set out the relations of the Hetu number with the zang-fu; its Lingshu · Jiugong Bafeng discusses the Luoshu number's application in medicine. TCM's three-yin and three-yang theory comes from the Hetu's birth-numbers; the five-zang sequence is based on the Hetu's five-phase orientation-image-numbers. Strangely, the 20th-century thundering of electronics began here. This bizarre wisdom is the gift of the river-horse and the Luo turtle.
How can we explain this divine number in the most ordinary words? As said: there are infinite motion-modes; they lie in infinite interaction. With different numbers of modes interacting, different relational types form. Use two, three, four, five — and a series of natural numbers emerges, each reflecting its own relational rule.
Plainly, two-mode interaction is the most basic. Then three and five. Zhouyi Cantongqi · Upper: "Three-five with one — the essence of Heaven and Earth — can be told by mouth, hard to write." One, two, three, five are the essence-numbers of nature; their wondrous truth can be spoken, not written. Zhouyi Cantongqi · Lower: "Three-five and one — all return to the place of the two." The relational rules of the three-source and five-phase are all grounded in yin-yang. Striking: the S, P, O, E subshells' electron orbits are 1, 3, 5, 7; and each orbit holds two oppositely-directed electrons. So nature does have numbers and basic sequences following common interaction laws.
The binary system is the mathematical expression of yin-yang interaction; it gave the German mathematician Leibniz a simple-yet-mysterious revelation, and the computer was born of it — symbol of the present age. The Yi's Taiji-yin-yang-four-images-eight-gua-sixty-four-gua sequence — from simple to complex, from great to small — is an in-sequence layer of unfolding; the A-T, G-C double-helix four-image model of DNA; the 64 arrangements of mRNA's four bases as triplet code — these vividly show that this law covers the dynamic change of every binary sequence at macro and micro levels.
Yang Xiong's Taixuan Jing with three-source, six-qi, nine-palace, twenty-seven gua, eighty-one gua sequences long ago resolved Laozi's millennial riddle of three brings forth the ten-thousand things. The ternary system is the mathematical expression of this interaction. Suwen · Treatise on the Liu-Jie Zang-Image says "Their growth is five; their qi is three." Luo Dongyi's Neijing Boyi: "What Taiyi sets in motion — creation's smelter — must use three to make a thing." The arising of three has produced astonishing fruit; an endlessly rich world stands before us.
Wang Anshi's reading of the Hongfan: "That which comes and goes between Heaven and Earth without exhaustion — this is called xing (the moving)." If we read xing as the infinite motion-modes pervading the universe, and read wuxing as the interaction of five such modes, our heart accords with the old man of Banshan. To make plain the dynamic character of the wuxing sequence, the Neijing reasserts: "Five-phases and yin-yang are the Dao of Heaven and Earth…" The Shuo Gua: "Take three from Heaven and two from Earth and base the number; observe change in yin and yang and set the gua." Three-Heaven and two-Earth hides the three-yang two-yin five-phase mechanism — fire, metal, wood, earth, water. Neighboring qi restrain; alternating qi engender — hence the engendering-restraint and transformation-and-regulation theory.
Liver is like fine wood, prospering; kidney is like the spring of Mingmen, trickling forth. The five zang belong to a five-phase sequence — five basic life-activity modes. In the running mechanism relative to life-information, heart, lung, liver, spleen, kidney are like dynamic, transmission, feedback, transformation, generation — clearly resting on the dynamic process of life, not on entity-organs. The Suwen · Lingmi Disclosure describes the sovereign, the chancellor, the general, the granary, the strong-doing — vividly reflecting five life-motion features. TCM gazes laterally at the life-process and the interaction of its modes; Western medicine gazes longitudinally at the human structure and the function of its organs. The two stand in opposed-complementary relation. To want, with fundamentally different concepts and category systems, to mutually interpret, mutually verify, mutually remake, and become one, will only bring the eventual extinction of Chinese medicine.
"The laws of nature are written in mathematical language." Process-and-modes, numbers-and-sequence, category, etc.; their interactions sum to the ever-changing nature. Taiji, yin-yang, three-source, five-phase — simple, harmonious yet finely divided — cosmic algebra — disclose the foundational laws of different-mode interaction in the natural process. They thus serve as the mathematical models and theoretical paradigms of life. On this base Chinese medicine has built a complete and unique conceptual, category, and theoretical system — showing a light of wisdom unlike that of the Western world.
Wisdom is not as good as riding the momentum
In infinite interaction, beyond yin-yang and five-phase regularities, the various sides also stand in different postures. In the right-and-evil engagement, right and evil may stand in one waxing, the other waning, one advancing, the other retreating — postures and trends.
The trend in evil's coming and going also has direction — exterior or interior, upper or lower, sudden or slow, gathered or scattered. We may call the first posture and the second trend. In their ongoing development, sides often have phases of relative steadiness; we call this epoch.
Ancient China spoke of posture-theory in statecraft, warfare, and the management of persons. The Sunzi Bingfa has a Shi chapter on the force of battle: "The momentum of one who well uses men in war is like rolling a round stone from a thousand-zhang mountain — that is momentum." The Xunzi · On War: "What war prizes is favorable momentum." The Memorial Hall of Marquis Wu in Chengdu has the famous Qing-Dynasty couplet of Zhao Fan: "Strike the heart and the rebel dissolves; from old, knowing soldiers do not love war. Misjudge the momentum and both leniency and severity err; for him who comes after, governing Shu wants deep thought." Strike the heart is regulating relations to win harmony; judge the momentum is to know-the-times-and-grasp-the-momentum, guide by the trend. Liu Zongyuan's On Feudalism: Feudalism is not the sage's wish but the momentum. The Warring-States Shen Dao advocated governing-by-momentum; Han Feizi advocated holding-the-law-and-occupying-momentum — both showing momentum's natural existence and importance. As Mengzi · Gongsun Chou Shang says: "Even with wisdom, better to ride the momentum."
Tradition has it that Gun controlled flood by piling up dikes; nine years, no success, and he died at Yushan. Yu controlled flood by building dikes and dredging channels — gathering the momentum, then opening rivers to lead it. The first is posture — the property of momentum, whether waxing or waning, harmful or beneficial — and one corrects against it; the second is trend — its direction, east or west, up or down — and one rides with it. Li Bing's flood-control — meeting bend and cutting corners, meeting straight and pulling the heart, scouring the bar and building the weir — also balanced suppressing and guiding.
The various motion-modes of nature and life lie in interactive harmonious postures and trends. Yang engenders and yin grows, yang kills and yin stores, fire blazes up and water moistens down, liver rises and disperses, lung purges and descends. In disease, right and evil lie in corresponding unharmony of posture and trend. Deficiency-excess reflects right deficient or evil exuberant. Cold posture reflects right-evil-yin-yang engagement: yang-qi deficient, yin-evil exuberant — cold; yang-evil exuberant, yin-qi deficient — heat. Exterior-interior reflects the trend — exterior/interior, in/out, upper/lower, ascending/descending, opening/closing, gathering/scattering — not formed site of disease. TCM also has three-yang/three-yin six-disease, three-jiao, wei-qi-ying-blood pattern-discernment, each reflecting the unfolding of right-evil engagement; the different stages we call epoch.
Momentum holds an extremely important place in TCM pattern-discernment treatment. Beyond determining what motion-mode has lost harmony, the next key is the posture, trend, and epoch of that loss — TCM's pathomechanism. Pathomechanism lies not in localization, qualification, quantification but in seeking-cause, seeking-belonging, seeking-momentum. In life-process this falls in the three-source sequence. Cause — six-evil, seven-emotion, food-and-fatigue — is what evil arises from. Belonging — qi-blood-fluid, zang-fu, fourteen channels — is where the evil sits, where disease arises. Momentum — deficiency-excess, cold-heat, dryness-damp posture; exterior-interior in-out, upper-lower ascending-descending, opening-closing gathering-scattering trend; three-yang-three-yin six-disease, wei-qi-ying-blood, three-jiao epoch — the momentum of right-evil engagement, the picture of disease's advance.
A medicine has no high or low; effective for the pattern is good. A method has no high or low; matching the moment is right. To turn the posture: support the right and expel the evil, harmonize yin and yang. Deficient, supplement; excess, drain; cold, warm; heat, cool; dry, moisten; damp, dry; urgent, soothe; stagnant, free. To ride the trend: lead by the momentum, send evil out. Evil at exterior, release with sweat; evil at interior, attack and expel; turbid qi above, drain it; clear qi below, lift it. To grasp the epoch: treat in season, forestall. Take warm-disease principle: "After wei, then qi; after ying, then blood. While at wei, sweat is permissible; on reaching qi, then clear qi; on entering ying, still transfer heat back to qi; on entering blood, fear consumption — cool blood and disperse blood." (Ye Tianshi, Wenre Lun).
Treat disease, seek the root
Suwen · Great Treatise on Yin-Yang Correspondence: "Yin and yang are the Dao of Heaven and Earth, the framework of the ten-thousand things, the parent of change, the root-and-origin of life and death, the storehouse of spirit-brightness. Treat disease, seek the root." The root of life lies in yin and yang; the human is born of yin-yang qi and formed by the rule of the four seasons. Seek the root in treatment means seek yin-and-yang of the human's life — not the root of disease. The human is the root, the disease is the branch. Chinese medicine is not the medicine of treating disease but of treating the person.
When qi is harmonious, it is right; when not, evil. The disharmony of the relations among various life-motion modes is the fundamental cause of disease. Adjust the disharmony, regulate yin and yang — that is the great law of TCM treating the person. Suwen · Great Treatise on the Most-True: "Hold strictly to the pathomechanism, regulate each according to belonging; what is there, seek; what is not, seek; the exuberant, charge; the deficient, charge; first sort the five wins, free the qi and blood, let them reach harmony, attain balance." — concisely the basic spirit of pattern-discernment treatment.
People call the involuntary, the necessary, the unyielding side of life fate. In the disease process, the most important part is exactly the involuntary. TCM in treatment stirs and pushes this non-volitional process, not chiefly the volitional. Qigong does the reverse: erases feeling to wake intuition; suppresses reason to mobilize insight; forgets self to approach the natural. From this it perceives the complex world and human life.
Lengyan Jing: when the Guanyin practiced, his ear did not turn outward to sound, but turned inward to know what could hear. Reaching the place where motion and stillness are not born, entering the great-self-being. So Observing-the-Self-being. TCM stresses inward observation of life-activity, seeks the highest layer of life-consciousness, pursues the harmony of the great life-force — and at last perceives that life has its own inner regulating mechanism for various disharmonies, and thus the capacity to prevent and treat all manner of disease. The Chinese have always focused attention on inner activity, holding firm on the root of life.
In sum: TCM, with its qi and form-qi-yin-yang theory, describes the natural process and the universal interrelations of its various modes; the five-phase doctrine and zang-image theory reflect the engendering-restraint and transformation-regulation among various life-motion modes; the channel doctrine and pathomechanism theory display the picture of life-activity in a similar-response-probability language; the seek-the-root and pattern-discernment-treatment therapy rules, utterly different from modern medicine, are established as clinical rules. All these have, from the root, cast aside the mechanistic worldview, and gained the deep experience of dynamic life.
TCM is the science of process, not the science of structure; the science of evolution, not the science of being. Or: the science of life-process, not the science of human structure; the science of life-process's evolutionary modes, not the science of human structure's existential forms. This essay therefore tries to use the categories of process-modes-and-interaction, number-sequence-category, posture-trend-epoch, qi-image-form-image-fa-image to understand TCM and its yin-yang form-qi, five-phase zang-image, pathomechanism, and therapeutic-rule theories, and to set up the general principles of a natural-process theory. Perhaps it may give a new methodological world for knowing nature and our own life.
Five-thousand years of culture, guarding the sacred land
"Opening the wild and rising — four-hundred million descendants, soaring through the world; ask the dragon and the river's course — five-thousand years of culture, guarding the sacred land."
When the wave of modern science and technology, with overwhelming force, breaks all incompatible traditional theory, history is astonished to find that in the East a miracle of human science-history exists: TCM, with concepts and categories utterly different from modern medicine and from natural science as a whole, and with profound theory and outstanding clinical efficacy, stands firmly in the forest of world science. It preserves the marrow of Eastern culture almost entire and exerts profound influence on the revolutionary change of future science.
Yet in the past hundred years, in TCM's theoretical construction, every effort has been made to substitute concepts and shift theories, to fold TCM into the categories of Western medicine — to scientize TCM. In the end people may find that the wishfully pushed wish was a Sisyphean rock. We recall a long-meaningful tale from the Zhuangzi: the emperors of South Sea and North Sea wanted to repay Hundun's kindness: "All have seven orifices to see, hear, eat, breathe; he alone has none. Let us try to drill them." One a day; on the seventh, Hundun died.
Worth deep thought: since mid-century, modern natural science's newest theories have shed their tradition and moved toward ancient Eastern thought. Cybernetics, systems theory, information theory have penetrated every field of natural and social science, becoming general methodology. Nearly simultaneously, the new three theories — synergetics, catastrophe theory, dissipative-structure theory — swept the world with might. Since the 1970s, with fractal theory and hyper-cycle theory, modern physics has brought in the symbolically meaningful chaos. Chaos theory is reshaping the structure of all science, seeking the general behavior of complex systems — opening a fatal breach in the cycle that has trapped Western theoretical thought for 400 years.
A people without cultural-psychological support is in crisis. TCM is not only an applied science but a cultural phenomenon. It is rooted in the long Chinese civilization; its thought-modes and theoretical system run in one line with Eastern traditional culture — sharing its sorrows and joys. We sincerely await an unprecedented revival of national culture, recovering the soul of ancient China. When TCM, as the envoy of Eastern culture (and not as object to be interpreted, verified, remade), walks into the future hall of science, humankind will truly begin to know Eastern culture and TCM anew, leading at last to the return of ancient Eastern civilization — and, against the great spiritual background of humankind, realizing the opposed-complementary harmony of ancient and young, conservation and innovation, structure and process, yang-rigid and yin-soft.
(Originally published in Traditional Culture and Modernization, no. 6, 1993)