Shaoyang, Shaoyin

[Guest guest]

All,

First, let me add one thing to my previous long post: The point Sharon made about clarifying diagnosis, i.e., carefully explaining and holding students, and ourselves, to exactly what symptoms and signs mean and, perhaps more importantly, what they don't mean, is absolutely crucial. If we did nothing more, we would certainly kick the quality of CM up many notches, and it would stay there. Now, to the point of this post:

 

On Sunday morning I approached Craig Mitchell and others with some ideas I got from listening to him and others. A few months ago I read parts of a J. R. Worsley book on the organ systems and channels. Most of it was pretty basic stuff, but I focused on the chapters on the pericardium and san jiao, because there was information in there new to me, or at least put in a new way to me. He said the triple heater is called that because it regulates the heat flows in the body--the thermostat, you might say. Like the liver and qi, the triple heater does not create or move the heat but regulates its flow, so problems of heat and cold always have something to do with the san jiao, either originating there or originating elsewhere and affecting the san jiao.

 

Another strand of thought: the well-known author and CM expert Nan Lu stole the show at our school's recent symposium, IMO, and he said his lineage teaches that you can't get yang from yin organs: you get yang from yang organs and yin from yin organs, so there really is no such thing as kd yang xu, there is bl yang xu. If this is so, then the real coursing function of the liver is actually in its yang partner, the GB. Shaoyang is SJ and GB. The SJ regulates heat and fluid distribution, and the GB regulates the coursing and discharge of qi. If a pathogen binds in the shaoyang, then you could get a situation wherein qi is pent up, then releases, then is pent up, then releases, like a river logjamming and bursting through. This is why qi yu symptoms come and go. This yu would affect the SJ's heat regulation, so you would get alternating hot and cold, or at least alternating heat and relative normalcy of temperature, or perhaps even alternating cold and relative normalcy. This is perhaps another explanation for alternating hot and cold from the usual one of the pathogen moving more interior and more exterior, or perhaps it is the interior-exterior movement that clogs the flow of qi and thus heat. Whew!

 

Next thought strand: If the shaoyang is the pivot or middle-flow element of the yang depths, is there a corresponding middle-flow, or, since yang moves and yin is still, a middle-setpoint for the yin levels? If so, would this not be the shaoyin, since the heart and kidney are the opposite poles of fire and water and command the upper and lower burners, while the shaoyang commands the middle? So harmonizing the shaoyang and shaoyin might be the primary things necessary to the orderly functioning of the human being, and what is most needed for the right relationship of yin and yang. Which might lead us to formulas that combine such things as Xiao Chai Hu Tang and Jiao Tai Wan, or XCHT and Gui Zhi Long Gu Mu Li Tang, which Z'ev wisely recommended to the excessive sweating patient and is a marvelous and underheralded formula.

 

Next thought: In Leon Hammer's wonderful pulse book, there is a place at the end of an early chapter where he speaks of the heart and kidneys as being the seat of the greatest pathogenicity that he sees in patients in America. It is no accident that heart disease is the number one killer. And it is, in his experience, manifesting in younger and younger patients all the time. He says that adding a few appropriate heart herbs to formulas often resolves otherwise intransigent conditions. I would add that perhaps herbs and formulas which harmonize the heart and kidney should be something we might want to reach for more often, or at least add to our formulas. Jiao Tai Wan is a good one because it is simple: greatly cold Huang Lian for the upper and greatly hot Rou Gui for the lower (yang fire underneath a yin cauldron--yin and yang in right relationship). Tastes bad, but oh well.

 

By the way, I told Craig that I alternate between being really smart and really stupid, and I wondered if this is some sort of weird shaoyang disorder. He said that's just being human, but in my case I have my doubts. I think I'll try my own advice and let you know the results.

Joseph Garner

[Guest guest]

Joseph,

how do you conclude that you get yin from yin and yang from yang?

think about it: all the yin organs have a yang function: moving purer essences through the body. The spleen is nearly alchemical in nature as it transforms and transports food and fluids into qi and blood. The livers reason for being is to move. The kidney yang is dynamic and warm. Jing moves us through linear time.

All the yang organs process yin- namely fluids- through the body. An ongoing process of fluid distillation.

As I see it. Yang is the source of yin and yin is the source of yang.

Cara

 

Another strand of thought: the well-known author and CM expert Nan Lu stole the show at our school's recent symposium, IMO, and he said his lineage teaches that you can't get yang from yin organs: you get yang from yang organs and yin from yin organs, so there really is no such thing as kd yang xu, there is bl yang xu. If this is so, then the real coursing function of the liver is actually in its yang partner, the GB. Shaoyang is SJ and GB. The SJ regulates heat and fluid distribution, and the GB regulates the coursing and discharge of qi. If a pathogen binds in the shaoyang, then you could get a situation wherein qi is pent up, then releases, then is pent up, then releases, like a river logjamming and bursting through. This is why qi yu symptoms come and go. This yu would affect the SJ's heat regulation, so you would get alternating hot and cold, or at least alternating heat and relative normalcy of temperature, or perhaps even alternating cold and relative normalcy. This is perhaps another explanation for alternating hot and cold from the usual one of the pathogen moving more interior and more exterior, or perhaps it is the interior-exterior movement that clogs the flow of qi and thus heat. Whew!

[Guest guest]

Cara,

First of all, I do not "conclude" that you only or even primarily get yin from yin and yang from yang. I merely present this as a possibility based on Dr. Lu's teaching of it, which he received from his apprenticeship with some master. He said for the first few years with his master, he kept arguing that "that's not what the book says," and the master kept saying, "I know."

 

I believe that there is always yin within yang and yang within yin, but what I am really questioning is: which organ is primarily responsible for which set of functions?

 

So how do we really know which organ does what? Are you sure that the yin organs have robust yang functions, or are you just telling me what you have been taught? I have immense respect for the CM tradition, but I wonder sometimes how much of it has been subjected to the kind of work it took to create the thought in the first place, when it is just so easy to swallow what someone else says and use that as "authority." Granted it was a vast project requiring many people over many years to create the edifice of CM, but just because somebody says it's so, and somebody else carries on with that, and on and on, does that make it so? I believe in the living faith of dead people AND of living people, and I see no reason why we can't question any part of CM, no matter how sacrosanct. In fact, IMO it seems we must if we are to take it seriously as a science.

 

I mean, is it really the kd yang that is moving fluids under its purview, or is it actually the bladder yang? Does the spleen transform and transport, or is it really the stomach? Quite honestly, I don't know. From my point of view, all this information came from other people as a fait accompli. I can either accept what the consensus is, try to research it within my own body and others' to see for myself, or go sell cars. My mind refuses to stay too closed. The good and bad thing about science is that one can never be completely sure of one's theories, because we are working in the realm of the mind, which is based on relativity. New facts and theories have to have room in CM, or it is a dead faith incapable of defending its own theories. And don't forget, the word theory means just that: theory, not law. Just because somebody wrote a book called "The Law of Five Elements" doesn't make it a law.

Joseph

 

>>>

Joseph,

 how do you conclude that you get yin from yin and yang from yang?

 think about it: all the yin organs have a yang function: moving purer essences through the body. The spleen is nearly alchemical in nature as it transforms and transports food and fluids into qi and blood. The livers reason for being is to move. The kidney yang is dynamic and warm. Jing moves us through linear time.

 All the yang organs  process yin- namely fluids- through the body. An ongoing process of fluid distillation.

As I see it. Yang is the source of yin and yin is the source of yang.

Cara

 

Another strand of thought: the well-known author and CM expert Nan Lu stole the show at our school's recent symposium, IMO, and he said his lineage teaches that you can't get yang from yin organs: you get yang from yang organs and yin from yin organs, so there really is no such thing as kd yang xu, there is bl yang xu. If this is so, then the real coursing function of the liver is actually in its yang partner, the GB. Shaoyang is SJ and GB. The SJ regulates heat and fluid distribution, and the GB regulates the coursing and discharge of qi. If a pathogen binds in the shaoyang, then you could get a situation wherein qi is pent up, then releases, then is pent up, then releases, like a river logjamming and bursting through. This is why qi yu symptoms come and go. This yu would affect the SJ's heat regulation, so you would get alternating hot and cold, or at least alternating heat and relative normalcy of temperature, or perhaps even alternating cold and relative normalcy. This is perhaps another explanation for alternating hot and cold from the usual one of the pathogen moving more interior and more exterior, or perhaps it is the interior-exterior movement that clogs the flow of qi and thus heat. Whew!<<<

[Guest guest]

Joseph,

 

Are you sure that the yin organs have robust yang functions, or are you just telling me what you have been taught?

 

 

No- not from books: from living with it, being with it, practicing, watching, I totally agree that it’s a good thing to examine assumptions. I had had an assumption, years ago that yin was yin and yang was yang. But I think li’s yin fire theories and discrepancies between dampness and dryness led me to rethink it. And that further developed ideas around using yang organs to tonify the yin. I hope to get back to this to illustrate my points, but I’m swamped w/ patients just now

 

Cara

[Guest guest]

>>>One

could easily argue, there is no such thing as kindey yang or bladder

yang!  by changing yin or yang or the functions of the organs, I ask,

how does this help us?  Theory almost always follows Action,

observation, or results, not the other way around...

 

-Jason<<<

 

Jason,

Your point about this whole discussion being moot may be true, but it may not. If one decides that kd yang is really bladder yang, then one could change one's acupuncture treatments, at least, accordingly. This may or may not affect one's herbalism treatment, but it may affect the way one understands the herbs/formulas, which might alter the way one constructs or prescribes formulas. Nan Lu says, as I reported, that he thinks Liu Wei Di Huang Wan is really mostly a kd qi formula, and I have seen this in another source--the Institute of Chinese Herbology--whose conclusion is based not on theory but on clinical experience. I don't always agree with everything ICH says, but this one I do agree on.

 

For me, this began when I was researching prostate disorders and treatments in TCM some time ago. I realized that I had never seen a patient or read a case history that did not, to me, have some element of heart disease or dysfunction. Then I heard Nan Lu lecture. Then I recalled the French Energetic School acupuncture book Joseph Helms, MD, wrote, called "Acupuncture Energetics." Helms mainly practices French-style medical acupuncture and teaches it to physicians, the infamous 300-hour course, which is actually a pretty good course, IMO. This school posits that within the 12 main channels are three subcircuits of four channels each: Taiyin-Yangming, Shaoyin-Taiyang, and Jueyin-Shaoyang. Within the 12-channel circuit, according to this school, only wei qi circulates, but within each subcircuit wei, ying and yuan qi circulate. (I think I remember this right.)

 

This means that anyone presenting clinically with primarily, say, kidney problems, might also be expected to have heart, bladder and SI problems, at least potentially or to some degree, which fits pretty dandily with the clinical reality of prostate disorders, which commonly present with urinary difficulty, constipation, heart weakness and general debility. When Nan Lu spoke, something about what he said resonated with me. I do not swallow it whole, but I consider the possibility this could change the way I understand and use CM, at least in some, perhaps important, aspects. It may, at least, change the way we assign channel tropisms to the medicinals.

Joseph Garner

[Guest guest]

, acugrpaz@a... wrote:

> Cara,

> First of all, I do not " conclude " that you only or even primarily

get yin

> from yin and yang from yang. I merely present this as a possibility

based on Dr.

> Lu's teaching of it, which he received from his apprenticeship with

some

> master. He said for the first few years with his master, he kept

arguing that

> " that's not what the book says, " and the master kept saying, " I

know. "

>

> I believe that there is always yin within yang and yang within yin,

but what

> I am really questioning is: which organ is primarily responsible

for which set

> of functions?

>

> So how do we really know which organ does what? Are you sure that

the yin

> organs have robust yang functions, or are you just telling me what

you have been

> taught? I have immense respect for the CM tradition, but I wonder

sometimes

> how much of it has been subjected to the kind of work it took to

create the

> thought in the first place, when it is just so easy to swallow what

someone else

> says and use that as " authority. " Granted it was a vast project

requiring many

> people over many years to create the edifice of CM, but just

because somebody

> says it's so, and somebody else carries on with that, and on and

on, does that

> make it so? I believe in the living faith of dead people AND of

living

> people, and I see no reason why we can't question any part of CM,

no matter how

> sacrosanct. In fact, IMO it seems we must if we are to take it

seriously as a

> science.

>

> I mean, is it really the kd yang that is moving fluids under its

purview, or

> is it actually the bladder yang? Does the spleen transform and

transport, or

> is it really the stomach?

 

My 2 cents,

 

I think these are good questions, but maybe somewhat moot. IMO, what

really matters is what treatments work for what conditions. Let's

say you have a condition X, that traditionally is cured with Tx Y,

and is said to be caused by kindey yang xu. The latter is purely a

theoretical construct to help explain the treatment etc... There is

no truth to any of this TCM stuff (IMO) it is just one set 'rules'

& 'relationships' that help us. If you theortically change the

function of kindey to bladder then you must rework the whole system

(i.e. entering channels of herbs, functions of herbs, etc.) I ask

what is the point?? You have to ask, is there anything 'true' about

kindey yang or bladder yang function, what is it, but relationships

that have already been built on the treatments and history... One

could easily argue, there is no such thing as kindey yang or bladder

yang! by changing yin or yang or the functions of the organs, I ask,

how does this help us? Theory almost always follows Action,

observation, or results, not the other way around...

 

-Jason

[Guest guest]

There is no truth to any of this TCM stuff (IMO) it is just one set 'rules' & 'relationships' that help us.

>>>Very well said

alon

[Guest guest]

>>>...Going back to basic yin yang theory, doesn't each organ have _both_ yin and

yang aspects and functions?  The yin yang paired organs are paired because

they function together in a synergistic way.  One may be more yang in nature

or function and the other more yin, but each needs to be yin yang balanced

within itself to function harmoniously with its paired organ and the rest of

the body.  I would think that _any_ organ system could have either a yin or

yang imbalance....

Judy Saxe<<<

 

Judy,

Of course you are correct. The unspoken part of the reasons I brought all this up has to do with a different strain of herbalism in CM. So far I have encountered three prominent CM practitioners who prescribe formulas based primarily on the channel affinities of the formulas and/or individual medicinals in the formula--Richard Tan, Nan Lu and Jeffrey Yuen. According to Bob Flaws' considerable ben cao studies, this information is the least reliable and the most controversial. But this did not stop him from publishing a translation of Ye Tian-Shi's take on medicinals which have affinities for the extraordinary channels. In any case, these heterodox (love that word) practitioners all come from unique lineages which seem to agree internally on medicinal/formula channel affinities.

 

Richard Tan claims he prescribes formulas based on his Yi Jing acupuncture-style systems. This means that hypothetically he might, for example, prescribe a lung formula for a bladder dysfunction. Nan Lu understands and uses at least some formulas differently than they are traditionally taught due to his lineage's understanding of how individual medicinals work per particular organs/channels. I have only heard of how Jeffrey Yuen prescribes herbs, but what I heard sounds like a more channel affinity-based system than that of TCM. None of these practitioners works strictly from a mainstream TCM tradition, though Nan Lu certainly does not seem to discard it by any means. Richard Tan seems to have little use for TCM. I cannot speak to Jeffrey Yuen's practice from experience.

 

Having said all that, I still entirely agree with your statements, except to point out that, as in the taiji symbol, the yin side of the symbol only has a small dot of yang, and vice versa. This is all it takes to balance the function. A yin organ, according to this symbol, would only have a small amount of yang function, and a yang organ would only have a small amount of yin function. If the interior-exterior organ pairs work together in function, which they seem to do, then does it not make sense that the yang functions of the paired systems are accomplished more by the yang organs, and the yin functions more by the yin?

 

When I was studying prostate disorders in depth I found a lot of information which went on at length about the importance of the qi transforming function of the bladder in the kidney-bladder system. In basic theory classes, relatively little is ever said about the bladder, or any of the yang organs, for that matter, in comparison to the yin organs. Perhaps in the body things work as in life with males (yang) and females (yin): If you want to shape up a woman's life, you get her to take better care of herself. If you want to shape up a man's life, you get a good woman to help him (ba-dum-bump). In any case, I have always felt that the yang organs get short shrift in our understanding and potential clinical use of them. And please say hi to my alma mater, CSTCM!

Joseph Garner

[Guest guest]

> could easily argue, there is no such thing as kindey yang or bladder yang!  by

> changing yin or yang or the functions of the organs, I ask, how does this help

> us?

>

I don't have much experience and am certainly not as well read and studied

as most of the members of this group, yet I can't help thinking that this

issue needs to be looked at from the most simplistic perspective.

 

Going back to basic yin yang theory, doesn't each organ have _both_ yin and

yang aspects and functions? The yin yang paired organs are paired because

they function together in a synergistic way. One may be more yang in nature

or function and the other more yin, but each needs to be yin yang balanced

within itself to function harmoniously with its paired organ and the rest of

the body. I would think that _any_ organ system could have either a yin or

yang imbalance.

 

my 2¢ worth,

-judy saxe

student, CSTCM, Denver