Cosmology [Was: What Paul Unschuld says]

[Guest guest]

 

 

I find it curious that despite our effort to shift this discussion to the

Chinesemedicine.net list, it persists here. Not being one to go against

the tide, I'll just continue.

 

> I should clarify my point about cosmology. I did not mean to suggest

> that chinese cosmology did not influence the development of TCM. In

> fact, the influence is quite overwhelming, by any account. My point

> was, and this is based on my understanding of Unschuld, that we should

> not read too much cosmological significance into the ideas espoused in

> the literature.

 

I am not an expert on Unschuld's work. So what I say here is not intended

as a commentary on it. But I do have an approach to this issue that is

substantially different from the one you present here. I think it may be of

interest to you and others.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by " the literature " but my reading of various

classical texts, for example those listed in Who Can Ride the Dragon?

suggests more or less the opposite to me. Cosmology is critical to the

understanding of yin/yang theory, and what could be more fundamental?

Yin/yang theory predomintates not only in the medical literature but in

the underlying classical literature which supports and deepens the meanings

of the medical texts.

 

If you don't delve into the cosmological significance of yin and yang, I

believe you deprive yourself of a profound lesson of Chinese medical

theory.

 

Why were the writers of the Nei Jing so concerned about harmony

with yin/yang and the 4 seasons except because, according to

their own logic, the movement of qi in the physical world was and

is and always will be inextricably interconnected with the movement

of qi in the human being, in large part as a result of their common

cosmological and ontological root?

 

The existence of the idea that in all the universe there is only one

qi, which we find in Zhuang Zi and Meng Zi, suggests that doctors

who seek to intervene in the movements of their patients' qi should

probably be familiar with the implications of this state of affairs.

 

To relegate the importance of such understanding to any but its

fundamental position among the relative importances of Chinese

medicine is a grave error, I submit.

 

This is not some new innovation of mine. This is what has been

taught to me by my teachers in China. This is what I read in

the classics themselves.

 

It seems that prevailing cosmological concepts as well

> as political and social factors were used as metaphors for functioning

> of the human body. But these concepts have perhaps no significance

> other than their descriptive, metaphorical nature and their relevance

> to clinical practice. They do not reveal anything profound and

> timeless about the nature of the human existence, per se, no moreso

> than the tridosa of ayurveda or the four humors of unani.

 

Here again, I beg to differ. These are the same cosmological principles

that underlie the development of other cultural artifacts of ancient

China such as the magnetic compass and gunpowder, which not only

express profound understanding of the human condition but which

have powerfully influenced that condition.

 

After all, if we accept Needham's conclusions on the subject of the epic of

gunpowder, one of its principal themes was the Daoist search for an

elixir of eternal life. Needham suggests, for those who are unfamiliar with

this,

that it was none other than Sun Si Miao who more than likely performed

the first successful experiments on what was to become the formula for

gunpowder. This suggests an important linkage between Daoist cosmological

concerns and Chinese medical theory. Certainly Qian Jin Fang must

be included in any complete definition of " the literature " and it is

replete with such linkages.

 

For myself, much of Chinese medical thinking and theory just never

made any sense at all until I began to delve into what the Daoists

were doing and why they were doing it. It's one thing to dismiss

it all as some sort of ironic accident that Daoists in search of the

elixir of eternal life managed to concoct instead the formula for

one of the greatest destructive substances mankind has ever

possessed. To overlook the cosmological significances of the

thinking involved in that little turn of events is really a shame.

 

What's wrong with cosmology?

 

If you give credence to the notion from the Nei Jing that the

sages of old preferred to educate people before they became

rebellious and preferred to treat their patients before they became

ill, then the importance of the metaphysical aspects of Chinese

medical theory is firmly established. And the metaphysics are

equally firmly rooted in cosmological concerns and considerations.

 

I believe moreover that among Chinese medicine's most enduring

and attractive characteristics is its concern for preventive medicine,

as reflected in the Nei Jing reference cited in the foregoing paragraph.

I am indeed most definitely stating that perhaps the most profound

clinical implication of Chinese medical theory, i.e. its rationale regarding

the nature of well being and the importance of living in harmony with

the forces of nature, is directly linked to its cosmological origins. For

it is among these cosmological concerns that we discover the origin

and nature of these forces, at least as they are understood and expressed

in terms of traditional Chinese thought.

 

The superior doctors, after all, are indeed those who know how to keep

their patients healthy.

 

Ken

[Guest guest]

on 11/29/00 9:07 PM, Ken Rose at cosmic.dragon wrote:

 

 

>Cosmology is critical to the

> understanding of yin/yang theory, and what could be more fundamental?

> Yin/yang theory predomintates not only in the medical literature but in

> the underlying classical literature which supports and deepens the meanings

> of the medical texts.

>

> If you don't delve into the cosmological significance of yin and yang, I

> believe you deprive yourself of a profound lesson of Chinese medical

> theory.

 

Yes, this is the primary issue for me as well. What attracted me to Chinese

medicine originally, and many others as well, was its seamless cosmology,

practical and transcendent at the same time. Its ability to give a

universal philosphy practical application to medicine and daily life.

>

> To relegate the importance of such understanding to any but its

> fundamental position among the relative importances of Chinese

> medicine is a grave error, I submit.

 

And this is my greatest concern for the survival of Chinese medicine. . .

..that the original cosmology, which is timeless, not be lost.

>