On the Principle by Which Chinese Herbs Cure Disease
Chinese medicine uses insects, minerals, roots and bark to treat people. By what principle?
Chinese medicine holds that humans and the ten thousand things are all born of Heaven and Earth. When Heaven and Earth first separated, the two qi — yin and yang — arose. Heaven is yang qi; Earth, yin qi. Their interaction produced the five phases — metal, wood, water, fire, earth. Phase (xing) means move; hence also five movements (wuyun). The mutual flowing of yin and yang produces the three yang qi — fire, heat, wind — and the three yin qi — cold, damp, dry; together, the six qi. The human is born between Heaven and Earth, a product of their dense mingling. The motions of Heaven-and-Earth's qi reflect themselves in the human: the two qi give rise to male and female; the five movements give rise to the five storehouses; the six qi to the six bowels. Having received Heaven-and-Earth's whole qi, the human is the most spirited of the ten thousand things — a small Heaven-and-Earth in his own person. Insects, beasts, plants, minerals — though of a kind other than the human — were also born of Heaven-and-Earth's yin-yang qi, also grow under the five movements and six qi; so their natures are continuous with the human's. They differ from the human in this: they do not receive the whole qi but only a partial qi — hence one tilts to yin, another to yang; one bitter-cold, another pungent-hot. This is where the ten thousand things fall short of the human.
When the human's qi tilts — flourishing somewhere, withering elsewhere — what flourishes is in excess, what withers in deficiency; the excess subjugates, the deficient is humiliated; balance is lost; yin-yang are out of accord; disease arises. Chinese medicine then uses the partial qi of plants, minerals, and the like, to regulate the human's flourishing and withering: drain the excess, supplement the deficient — to reach balance, yin level, yang dense, qi calm, illness gone.
Chinese medicine's treating disease, in the final analysis, is borrowing the partial yin-yang of plants and minerals to adjust the human's yin-yang balance, to remove illness. This is the root of TCM's drug-therapy. Human and ten thousand things both stem from Heaven-and-Earth's yin-yang and the five-movements-six-qi; correct human imbalance with herb-imbalance, so that herb-nature and disease lock into one another — this is TCM's great law of treatment, the iron rule of its pharmacology.
There are countless drugs, of many flavors and natures — too many to list. I describe a few to make the principle plain.
**1. Renshen (ginseng).** Earlier bencao held that renshen tonifies qi and is yang; or that it generates fluids and is yin. Both miss the whole. Renshen grows in Guandong, in the cool damp forest. It receives the north's water-yin, moistening qi — so its flavor is bitter-sweet with juice. Its stem-and-leaf is three-pronged and five-leaved: three and five are yang numbers. It rises from the yin-damp; yin issuing yang. In the sweet-and-bitter yin-flavor, there is a current of life-arising yang. Receiving yin and yet bearing yang, in receiving yin it can supplement yin; in receiving yang it can supplement yang. And its shape resembles the human — so to the human's yin-yang it has benefit for both. The human's yuan-qi rises from kidney-water up through the lungs; born in yin, issuing in yang — same principle as renshen issuing yang from yin. Hence renshen is potent in qi-transformation; qi transforms upward, issues at mouth and nose — that is fluid. So renshen tonifies qi and generates fluid.
**2. Yangqishi (actinolite).** Yangqishi is found on Mount Yangqi in Shandong. Snow does not lie there in winter; in summer clouds form on it. Cloud is qi of water steaming upward by heat — so it can ride fire-qi and rise. This stone is pure yang and ascending. For those whose yang-qi has fallen, whose male organ does not rise, use this — it lifts yang-qi, and the effect is like striking a drum.
**3. Wugong (centipede).** Wugong grows in dry earth, with a strongly pungent flavor. It is born of Heaven-and-Earth's dry qi; dryness is metal; metal restrains wood — so it can treat the spasms of internal-liver-wind disturbance.
From these three, it is clear: in using Chinese herbs — whether plants, minerals, or insects — one must understand the herb's nature. To understand the nature, one must trace its origin and end, with attention to shape, color, taste, time, and place. Then, with the herb's nature, treat the human's illness — the herb hits the spot, the illness goes.
Chinese medicine and Western medicine differ utterly — from thinking-method and philosophical base to diagnosis and treatment. TCM starts from the macroscopic whole; thinks dialectically with motion-and-change; takes the essence of natural foods and drugs; uses a fuzzy, harmonizing approach; treats illness before it manifests. All this is greatly different from Western medicine's precise instruments, microscopic inspection, stilling of dynamic things into static, and precision-disease theory. Only at the cutting edge of life-science exploration can the two roads converge — together to open humankind's new era.