TCM · The Five Movements and Six Qi · Atmospheric Warming (Part I)
TCM · The Five Movements and Six Qi · Atmospheric Warming
By Fan Zhenglun and Zhang Xiaotong
September 2009
Preface
When we first set out the title "TCM · The Five Movements and Six Qi · Atmospheric Warming," even we felt it sat awkwardly — but after turning it over again and again, no better title came. It is awkward because it tracks our actual process of understanding: it was through Chinese medicine that we came to recognize and verify the laws of the Five Movements and Six Qi, and it was from those laws that we were led to think about atmospheric warming.
So this also became the order of steps and layers in our argument. We thought this might make things clearer for the reader — especially for the non-TCM reader, who, with no prior interest in TCM, might just for the title's sake have the patience to read the whole piece through.
When we finished writing, even we felt the three were one and the same question, though it looks a little obscure, a little dry, and quite distant from common knowledge. There is, however, a thread of consistent method-of-thought running through it.
The title carries a faint shallowness and uncertainty. We had thought to add some suffix like "a first exploration" or "a brief analysis," but a humility that rings false felt worse than plain straight talk. Since the topic itself is somewhat interdisciplinary and on the edges, let us not also push it further to the margin.
It is a small subject, and also a large one. When atmospheric warming has become a matter the whole world watches, we ought to have a clear head and a little hunger for the truth. To take a small subject up as a large one is, in truth, something we cannot help doing.
We have drawn our own conclusions, but in reality this is only a beginning — only a crack pried open in the great gate. To open that gate wide, everyone will have to push.
Are the calculations of the Five Movements and Six Qi accurate?
We came to value the Five Movements and Six Qi from SARS onward. Through the whole course of that disease's appearance, spread, and disappearance, we glimpsed how astonishingly the calculations of the Five Movements and Six Qi matched the facts — astonishingly enough that we could not but stand in awe of the wisdom of our ancestors, and could not but be proud of the depth of our Chinese cultural tradition.
The unsolved riddles of SARS
If we honestly look back, from the outbreak of SARS up to this day, a chain of unsolved riddles remains:
Why did SARS come in March and leave in May? When it came, no one knew where its virus came from; when it left, no one had reported killing it.
Why did SARS strike the lungs, and not the heart, liver, spleen, or kidney?
Why did SARS run from Guangzhou to Beijing? Shanghai is also a big city; Cantonese travelers came to Shanghai too — yet Shanghai remained safe.
Why, when in previous epidemics taxi drivers (who meet the most and most varied people) were the most easily infected, did no taxi driver fall ill in this outbreak?
Why did SARS chiefly strike the young and middle-aged, while the elderly and children, generally thought to have lower immunity, were rarely affected?
Why did medical workers — heavily protected, strictly disinfected, well-trained in prevention — get infected at far higher rates than ordinary people with no protection?
Why did the person who carried authentic SARS virus out of a laboratory the following year (2004), making two round-trips between Beijing and elsewhere and contacting no fewer than several hundred people along the way, infect only one family member — no wider spread at all?
Solving the riddle of SARS
This chain of questions is something the modern-medical virus-and-bacterium account simply cannot answer. To the point that Western-medicine experts to this day have not dared put a foot to it — they all simply look away, play deaf and dumb.
What actually dared face the questions was the very Chinese medicine they had branded "pseudo-science." On TCM's clear, complete, systematic, rigorous theory, we gave the answers easily:
The 2003 of the SARS outbreak was the guiwei year. The year-movement was "water-movement deficient," so fire was bound to flourish. The ruling-Heaven qi was taiyin damp-earth; the qi-at-the-spring was taiyang cold-water. From March to May (the second qi), both host and guest qi were shaoyin sovereign-fire — meaning that damp was dominant with both cold and hot qi coexisting. Chinese medicine holds that Heaven and the human accord: damp, cold, and hot coexisting provides exactly the most fundamental condition for the rise of an epidemic. However varied the viruses serving as infectious agent, however unpredictably they mutate — once the conditions are in place, an epidemic must form. The Huangdi Neijing says of this kind of qi-fortune that "warmth-pestilence runs widely, near and far alike."
Since SARS required damp, cold, and hot coexisting, when late May entered the third qi and the host qi shifted to shaoyang minister-fire — fire flourishing and carrying wind, and wind subdues damp — the damp condition no longer held, and the epidemic ended. We made that judgement in the April of that year: SARS would end in late May. We posted it online at the time and wrote to the government. And on May 20 the national new-case count for SARS was reported as zero — precise enough that even we found it hard to believe.
Modern medicine has, to this day, no drug to kill the virus. Transmissions following viral flu and their atypical variants are common: atypical nephritis, atypical myocarditis, and so on. Chinese medicine held that in that year, with fire in excess, and at the second qi when both host and guest qi were shaoyin sovereign-fire, fire stacked upon fire, and fire conquers metal — and the lung is metal — so the transmission and worsening of the disease was bound to land in the lung.
In the spring of SARS, Beijing's weather went unusually contrary: no wind, much light rain, warm and humid; Shanghai too was different from past years, with little rain but much wind. The wind in Shanghai that spring was greater than in any past year. Wind, with little damp — Shanghai lacked the condition for SARS to break out.
Just because Beijing's weather was so pleasant, taxis ran with windows open; the moving car had a wind, and that wind drove the damp-heat out of the driver's body, turning the susceptible into the non-susceptible.
The elderly and children, though their immunity is not as good as the young, do not stay up late, do not drink to excess, do not overstrain themselves — their bodies hold very little damp-heat — so they are not the susceptible group. Our medical workers, by contrast, wrapped themselves up tight, did not get good rest, then overused disinfectant solutions on floors and walls — making their work environments very damp — so they manufactured for themselves the damp-heat condition of susceptibility. The medical staff of Pingxintang were also on the front line of treatment, but, because they held to TCM-based prevention — heat-clearing, damp-dispelling Chinese decoctions, plus watermelon (called the "natural White Tiger Decoction") — even working night after night, not one of them developed inner fire; thus they were safe and not a single suspected case appeared.
As for the person who in the second year carried the virus out of the laboratory: although the virus was real, by then the macro-natural environment had wholly changed, and the small environment inside people's bodies had calmed with it. Even the fiercest virus, without the conditions to survive, replicate, and cause disease, has no one to inflict on.
To this day we have not heard the joyful news of the SARS virus having been eliminated, yet SARS has left us; the panic that made people pale at the mention of it has melted away. Are there really no SARS viruses around us anymore? Only a fool would be that naive. Then why are we no longer in SARS? That is the answer we no longer need to find an answer to.
The reality of TCM SARS prevention
When SARS came, everyone rushed to drink TCM prevention. What truly worked were those light, clear, heat-clearing, damp-dispelling preparations. At the time, Master Deng Tietao (a famous TCM doctor, now ninety-three, who had recently received the title Master of Chinese Medicine), who was guiding SARS prevention and treatment at the Guangdong Provincial TCM Hospital, called us specifically to instruct: in preventing and treating this disease, the priority is dispelling damp. The facts proved it. Once the body's inner environment is altered, with damp, cold, and hot no longer coexisting, the person will not become ill — and can coexist peacefully with the virus.
The Guangdong Provincial TCM Hospital admitted more than fifty SARS patients; by applying this approach, they cured every one — no deaths, no sequelae. Pingxintang too was working under this theory, and decocted and dispensed over twenty thousand person-doses of medicinal soup. None of those who took the soup — including the staff already declared in isolation at Beijing Jiaotong University, the Film Academy, and elsewhere — developed even a single suspected case.
When causes and conditions meet, an outcome follows. In the SARS outbreak, the virus is the cause; the becoming-ill is the outcome; the damp, cold, and hot in the body, influenced by Nature, are the conditions. TCM's epidemic prevention works from the conditions — that is, from the conditions in — cutting the path from cause to outcome. Whatever type of virus, however the virus mutates, TCM does not use the "antagonistic" method of killing the virus, but the "harmonizing" method of regulating the body's balance, and so attains the goal of preventing and treating disease and safeguarding health. This is what TCM often quotes from the Huangdi Neijing: "When the right qi is held within, evil cannot encroach."
The Huoxiang Zhengqi water we often use in summer to treat diarrhea is, in laboratory tests, a good culture medium for E. coli — proof that the medicine has no bactericidal effect. Its action is precisely to work from the conditions in: it changes the damp-heat environment within the body and so checks the growth of E. coli.
And not only SARS
We have spent much ink on SARS for one purpose only: to verify the scientific character of the Five Movements and Six Qi. The Huangdi Neijing says: "First set the year, then clarify its qi: the numbers in which wood, fire, earth, metal, and water move; the transformations in which cold, heat, dry, damp, wind, and fire visit and govern — then the Way of Heaven becomes visible, and the people's qi can be tuned." TCM, following these laws, makes prevention and treatment effective — and in turn, this verifies the laws. As is said: "Facts beat eloquence; practice is the sole criterion of truth." We would say: "time" should also be added — practice and time are the criteria of truth. That, perhaps, comes closer to the truth.
Not only SARS confirms the science of the Five Movements and Six Qi; many other cases can be cited:
For example, before SARS: in 1956 (bingshen year) Japanese encephalitis B broke out nationwide. The senior TCM doctor Pu Fuzhou, on the basis of the year-movement being "fire-movement in excess" — with shaoyang minister-fire ruling Heaven and jueyin wind-wood at-the-spring — drew up a prescription with heavy use of pungent-cold gypsum, with relieving the muscle and clearing heat as its core. It was rolled out nationally; the epidemic was quickly contained, mortality fell, and sequelae were reduced. In 1958 (wuxu year) Japanese encephalitis B again broke out. People tried Master Pu's earlier prescription and found it weak. They consulted him, and he pointed out that 1956 had been governed by fire, while 1958 was governed by earth and damp — taiyang cold-water ruling Heaven and taiyin damp-earth at-the-spring, a cold-damp year. He said one must use heavy bitter-drying cangzhu (atractylodes) to scatter cold and dry damp. Adjusting the prescription accordingly, he again obtained remarkable results — showing the power of TCM.
Or this year's H1N1 flu. This year is the jichou year, a year of balanced earth qi, with taiyin damp-earth ruling Heaven and taiyang cold-water at-the-spring — damp and cold predominant. The pig is a cold animal, so its host is the pig. The outbreak fell in the second qi of spring, when shaoyin sovereign-fire governs — wind-fire stacked above cold-damp. We judged that the conditions of the H1N1 outbreak were the four qi of cold, damp, wind, and hot, with cold the principal. Western research has confirmed the same: H1N1 contains the components of swine flu (cold; pig as water-natured animal), human flu (damp; the human is earth-natured), and avian flu (heat; the bird is fire-natured) — and its broad spread is precisely the work of wind.
The four qi of cold, damp, wind, and heat let H1N1 spread in every season. Because cold predominates, the outbreak is heavier in spring and in cool autumn-winter; but because the four qi check one another, this flu is not as fierce as SARS, its mortality not so high, and it stands near to common influenza and can readily turn into common influenza.
We recommend taking Fangfeng Tongsheng Wan, which combines wind-dispelling, cold-scattering, heat-clearing, and damp-dispelling actions; its effectiveness has been borne out in this year's preventive practice. We predict that H1N1 should disappear by late January 2010, because at Great Cold a new year-movement begins — a year of balanced metal-movement, with shaoyang minister-fire ruling Heaven and jueyin wind-wood at-the-spring — no longer the cold-damp-dominated qi-fortune of this year (see Appendix 1, Climate Characteristics and Yangsheng Notes for the Gengyin Year [2010]).
Verifying the Five Movements and Six Qi again
From SARS onward, we have year-by-year, month-by-month calculated against the Huangdi Neijing's Five Movements and Six Qi. The more we have checked, the more we feel the Five Movements and Six Qi are not only believable but rational; not only rational but usable, and greatly usable.
What is still fresh in everyone's memory: the winter of 2007. From late November (Light Snow) to the Great Cold of mid-January 2008 (the terminal qi of the dinghai year), the Huangdi Neijing says: "Terminal qi… the yang greatly transforms; dormant insects come out (in the sense of appear); flowing water does not freeze; the earth's qi greatly issues forth; grass grows; people are at ease; their illness is warmth-pestilence." That was just what happened. Except for an uptick in flu cases, people relished the warm winter and were intoxicated with the stock-market climb — and overlooked the Huangdi Neijing's warning. The sky shows no mercy. From the Great Cold before Spring Festival, temperatures plunged; the south had heavy snow and freezing rain — a disaster the country had not seen in decades (truly once in thirty or sixty years).
Only then did we think to open the Huangdi Neijing again, and read the description of the first qi of the wuzi year (i.e. Great Cold, January 20, 2008, to before Spring Equinox, March 20): "First qi: the earth's qi migrates; dryness is about to leave; cold begins; the dormant return to storing; water freezes; frost again descends; wind comes; yang qi is pent up…" Again, it spoke true.
What are the Five Movements and Six Qi?
The Five Movements refers to the wood-fire-earth-metal-water year-movement changes calculated by the heavenly stems (jia, yi, bing, ding, wu, ji, geng, xin, ren, gui). In brief: jia and yi belong to wood and govern wind; bing and ding belong to fire and govern heat; wu and ji belong to earth and govern damp; geng and xin belong to metal and govern dryness; ren and gui belong to water and govern cold. Within this there may be excess, deficiency, or balance. The year-movement and the year-qi calculations are mutually linked and inseparable.
The Six Qi refer to the year-qi calculated by the earthly branches (zi, chou, yin, mao, chen, si, wu, wei, shen, you, xu, hai). The year's twenty-four solar terms are divided into six qi — four terms to each qi. Reckoning from Great Cold: Great Cold to before Spring Equinox is the first qi; Spring Equinox to before Grain Full is the second qi; Grain Full to before Great Heat is the third qi; Great Heat to before Autumn Equinox is the fourth qi; Autumn Equinox to before Light Snow is the fifth qi; Light Snow to before Great Cold is the terminal qi.
By the regular climate of every year, the host qi of each qi-period is constant. The host qi of the first qi is jueyin wind-wood; of the second qi, shaoyin sovereign-fire; of the third qi, shaoyang minister-fire; of the fourth qi, taiyin damp-earth; of the fifth qi, yangming dry-metal; of the terminal qi, taiyang cold-water. The six host qi do not change from year to year.
The concept of jueyin wind-wood: yin is spent, yang is born — hence it is set as the beginning of the year. The climate is the earth's qi returning warm, the ten thousand things stirring to life. "Wood" indicates rising-and-issuing; "wind" indicates many wind, and also instability — what is called good at moving and many in transformation.
The concept of shaoyin sovereign-fire: yin gathers in, yang first arrives. The climate is warm but not hot. Sovereign-fire and minister-fire differ. "Sovereign-fire is in brightness; minister-fire is in position" — a figurative statement. Sovereign-fire, like a sovereign over the realm: bright and shining, more heat in display than in substance; once it shifts to minister-fire, like a minister governing the realm, the heat becomes substantial.
The concept of shaoyang minister-fire: the yang is at its young-and-strong. The climate grows hotter day by day; with fire flourishing and carrying wind, the wind qi often assists.
The concept of taiyin damp-earth: at the extreme of yin, yang returns; yang qi is outside; summer-heat carries damp; earth nurtures the ten thousand things. The climate is many-rain and damp-flourishing.
The concept of yangming dry-metal: yang stores by the autumn window. The character ming in its old form had moonlight on the lattice — a figure of yang gathering in, heat going away with autumn, metal being the qi of cutting-down. The climate is dry-airy and frost approaches.
The concept of taiyang cold-water: at the extreme of yang, yin returns; yang qi gathers within; water sinks below. The climate is sky-cold and earth-frozen.
Besides the host qi, which moves by the regular seasonal rhythm, each qi-period also has a guest qi to assist it. The guest qi is calculated from each year's year-qi variation (see Table 1: A Survey of the Year-Qi Variation Cycle). The year-qi variation is expressed by ruling-Heaven and at-the-spring. The ruling-Heaven qi and the at-the-spring qi command the whole year — the ruling-Heaven qi weighing more heavily on the first half, the at-the-spring qi on the second. Furthermore, the ruling-Heaven qi is the same as the guest qi of the third qi, and the at-the-spring qi the same as the guest qi of the terminal qi — strengthening the influence of the guest qi yet more. At times, the climate of the qi-period reflects the state of the guest qi more than that of the host qi.
Under the joint action of host and guest qi, each qi-period takes on its regular climate characteristic, varying with the year-qi.
For example, 2009 is the jichou year: ruling-Heaven qi taiyin damp-earth; at-the-spring qi taiyang cold-water. The whole year runs damp-cold; the first half more rainy, the second half colder. The third qi just past (late May to late July) had host qi shaoyang minister-fire and guest qi taiyin damp-earth — noticeably more rainy than past years. The terminal qi that has not yet come (late November to late January 2010) has at-the-spring, host, and guest qi all taiyang cold-water — three colds stacked. Although the principle of extremes reverse may bring short hot spells, overall this winter is sure to be colder than in past years. By that time, you may want to verify it. (See Appendix 2, Climate Characteristics and Yangsheng Notes for the Jichou Year…