Cinnabar field and Gate of Life

[Guest guest]

Marco,

 

I share Ray's opinion that it's a very

good thing that you pose basic and

challenging questions. There's certainly no

reason to apologize. I can get the feeling

of loneliness that you describe. Not having

people to interact with directly can be

a great loss, but as Prof. Cheng liked

to say, " Invest in loss. "

 

As it happens I am now working on

a section of a new book dealing with the

meanings of some basic Chinese medical

terms. And lo and behold, this morning

I was working over the dan1 tian2. [Can

you see this toned pinyin: d¨¡n t¨ªan?]

 

You'll also find a bit about this

term in A Brief History of Qi. I think

it's in Chapter Five, the chapter about

qigong.

 

Dan1 means a lot of things. It's a color:

red, the color of cinnabar, which was

a favorite ingredient in Daoist longevity

formulas and the famous External (or Golden)

Elixir formulas that constitute on of the

central themes of Daoist alchemical

literature of the Sui-Tang period.

 

It also came to be the name of cinnabar

as well as general term used to describe

the little pills, dan1, that were made of

the formulas that contained the substance, dan1,

that was red, dan1...all the same word.

 

It now means any little pill, but it also

retains its historical echoes and of course

it continues to mean " elixir " as it is used

to describe both the internal and external

elixirs that so fascinated the Daoists in

their alchemical literature.

 

 

One word of caution about this literature,

whether or not one reads it in the original

or in translation or if one only reads

expository writing about the various

traditions of Daoist alchemy, there is

a characteristic of the terminology and

the whole manner of expression that is

heavily colored with the relatively unrestrained

use of metaphor. In other words, things

are seldom what they seem in this territory;

and often the intended meaning is nowhere to

be found in the text itself, requiring that

one become a kind of literary detective in

order to suss out the " real " meaning.

 

Be that as it may, the term dan1 tian2 can

be fairly accurately defined, at least in

so far is it has been used in both this

" source " literature and a number of derivative

bodies of knowledge, such as the taiji classics

and indeed certain Chinese medical texts and

traditions.

 

If you don't already have a copy of Cheng Tzu's

Thirteen Treatises on Tai Ch'i Ch'uan [by Prof.

Cheng Man Ch'ing, trans. by Bejamin Lo and

Martin Inn, North Atlantic Books, 1985] you

should get one. If you can't get your hands

on a copy, let me know privately.

 

Aside from being an extraordinarily clear

set of writings on taiji, it contains many

of Prof. Cheng's insights and experiences in

traditional Chinese medicine; and I think you'd

find it not only informational but inspirational.

 

I do.

 

He talks about both the Gate of Life and

the Cinnabar Field in various places in the

book, and rather than quote them here, I'll

just refer you to them.

 

One comment I will make is that in the Daoist

alchemical literature there is often mention

made of three cinnabar fields: the lower dan1

tian2, the middle dan1 tian2, and the upper

dan1 tian2. These are three discrete locations

in the body that were all known to Daoist

practitioners to be places where qi4 can be

stored and refined.

 

Another word of caution: one cannot learn

about these things from reading books alone.

The taiji classics contain a line that says,

" To enter the door and be shown the way, you

must be orally taught. "

 

Some thirty years ago, my taiji teacher added

in explanation that " orally taught " in this

case means not just by word of mouth but by

physical connection between teacher and student.

In other words, the meaning of terms such

as dan1 tian2 and Gate of Life is only

partly contained in the words that have

become associated with them. There are also

feelings and experiences that associate with

these locations in the body; and the proper

study of them involves the feeling of what

happens in these locations.

 

I hope you will continue to ask the difficult

questions. I'm still working on a response

the point you raised about colonization/

globalization.

 

Best,

 

Ken

[Guest guest]

Thanks both to Rey and Ken for your responses will try to convey them to the

class and it is a theme that we will return to so maybe some related

questions will arise.

 

However it just occurred to me that I wrote the word " hara " :

 

Someone can maybe relate this concept to life gate fire and or cinnabar

field(s)?

 

or are they not interrelated, is hara a Japanese development out of Chinese

source material?

 

In other words some elaboration on hara both as a diagnostically approach or

historical development-recognition of hara and what can de actual English

language representative term be for hara, just like I never have

contemplated that Shiatsu means finger-pressure...hara?

 

Is hara used (relevant) both in acumoxa and natural Japanese drug therapy?

Is hara diagnoses used in other Asian counties Korea (the two), Vietnam?

 

any comments most well come....

 

By the way have a few responses to do of the list, my apologies for the

delay...

 

 

 

 

Marco

[Guest guest]

, " Marco " <bergh@i...> wrote:

 

>

> However it just occurred to me that I wrote the word " hara " :

>

> Someone can maybe relate this concept to life gate fire and or

cinnabar

> field(s)?

 

 

In English, this is really explained best in Matsumoto & Birch's Hara

Diagnosis Reflections on the Sea.

 

 

>

> or are they not interrelated, is hara a Japanese development out of

Chinese

> source material?

>

> In other words some elaboration on hara both as a diagnostically

approach or

> historical development-recognition of hara and what can de actual

English

> language representative term be for hara, just like I never have

> contemplated that Shiatsu means finger-pressure...hara?

>

 

 

" Hara " is the Japanese reading (kun-yomi) of the Chinese character

fu4; " fuku " is the " borrowed " or " foreign " reading (on-yomi, most

Japanese words based on CHinese characters have at least two

different pronunciations: a native Japanese and an approximation of a

foreign -- usually Chinese -- pronunciation).

 

The meaning of hara or fuku is really just " abdomen " or " belly " . An

example is the feudal practice of ritual suicide known alternately as

seppuku (qie1 fu4) or harakiri (fu4 qie1) -- both terms the same

characters in different order. The term is made up of the

characters " cut " and " belly " respectively, which gives one an

immediate sense of the manner in which this practice was carried out.

 

" Hara " in the Japanese vernacular is a very important concept which

aside from the mystical stuff most Westerners like to speculate on

means roughly the same as " guts " would mean in English. There is for

example a concept known as haragei which has very similar uses to the

concept of c*j*nes in Spanish. I'll leave it to the readers to

speculate on any connection with Mingmen in that usage.

 

 

> Is hara used (relevant) both in acumoxa and natural Japanese drug

therapy?

 

 

Yes, in Japan abdominal dx is a very important part of both acumoxa

and natural drug therapy (kanpo).

 

Some sources I have read feel that the use of abdominal diagnosis in

Japanese acumoxa was adapted from its use in kanpo. The root of

kanpo abdominal dx is SHL/JGYL. In Japanese classical acupuncture

(really Sino-Japanese), known as keiraku chiryou, the abdominal dx is

largely based on Nan Jing ch 16. All of this means that the practice

of abdominal dx goes back at least to the later Han period. So I

would say your conclusion about fukushin ( or hara dx) as a Japanese

development of CHinese source material would be more or less accurate.

 

 

> Is hara diagnoses used in other Asian counties Korea (the two),

Vietnam?

>

 

I can't comment specifically on that, though I'd be interested to

hear about abdominal examination in various countries. I do know Tae

Woo Yoo incorporates some abdominal dx into the Koryo hand therapy,

but whether he was influenced by people like Manaka is hard to say.

Certainly Korea's long history of occupation by Japan is a

significant influence (many Koreans would say negative influence),

but Japan received Chinese classical culture including medicine

initially from Korea, so I would be surprised if there wasn't some

history of abdominal dx there.

 

 

> any comments most well come....

>

> By the way have a few responses to do of the list, my apologies for

the

> delay...

>

 

no te preocupes, chico (sorry, i couldn't resist throwing a cubanism

in there).

 

robert hayden

http://jabinet.net

 

p.s.: this email was composed with the aid of Wiseman's Glossary,

which for me is indispensible in linking the Japanese and CHinese

terms. No other book uses the old characters any more, and the

Japanese/Chinese cross-reference is invaluable. Unfortunately I

think it is out of print. Anyway, just a note of appreciation for

Wiseman's work.