Guest guest Posted June 23, 2006 Report Share Posted June 23, 2006 Hi everyone, Any chance I could get some feedback on this stream of thought? The practitioners and teachers on our forum (mostly primarily acupuncturists I think) seem reluctant to throw in their two cents... Thanking you in advance, Lionel -- Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. - Jesus of Nazareth, Gnostic Gospel of Thomas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 23, 2006 Report Share Posted June 23, 2006 Ooops! Forgot the link: http://forums.acupuncture.net.au/viewtopic.php?t=562 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- <lionel.y.chan Jun 23, 2006 11:12 PM Approaches in how to read Classics Hi everyone, Any chance I could get some feedback on this stream of thought? The practitioners and teachers on our forum (mostly primarily acupuncturists I think) seem reluctant to throw in their two cents... Thanking you in advance, Lionel -- Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. - Jesus of Nazareth, Gnostic Gospel of Thomas -- Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. - Jesus of Nazareth, Gnostic Gospel of Thomas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 24, 2006 Report Share Posted June 24, 2006 Hi Lionel I think it depends on what one is trying to do with the " classics " . I would divide them into a couple of groups. The antiquities (nei jing, nan jing) and the rest. The distinction being that the nei jing is open to interpretation, but is never wrong, while the others to one extent or another have to stand on their own merit, relative to the nei jing. Traditionally the antiquities have served a couple of roles: -Preserving the meem of Chinese medicine. -Being used as a basis in the presentation of novel ideas. Taking the second one first: We still do this to some extent, but the extent to which this was done in the past is truly astounding. Where culturally we have issues with plagiarism, in the past they had issues of false attribution, by people so driven to connect their novel idea with the cannon that they would forego any credit for the idea. To some extent people are out there doing the same thing today, parsing the classics as a means to come up with or justify effective treatment. There's nothing wrong with it, but sometimes watching people twist things about can be somewhat uncomfortable and embarrassing. The Bible has a similar appeal to Christians, in that it both nourishes the roots, and it is variegated enough to provide substantiation for all manner of crazy nutjobs, Nazis, and space alien Nostradamus types. On to point number one: One issue is the fact that we have a radically different way of looking at the world than the author(s) of the nei jing. I think that if we are going to get to know the medicine, we are obliged to understand the world from their point of view, inasmuch as that is possible. That said, we obviously retain our own culturally based understanding of the world, and we must forge a truce between the buffet of ideas presented as true in CM, and our (or at least my) habitual response of greedy reductionism, which desires to pare away at things till there is nothing left but bones. Another difficulty arising out of this is the classics represent a competition of ideas, and our interpretations of the nei jing are largely colored by the winning ideas in that race. The nei jing itself, as we have it today, was edited substantially by Wang Bing in the 8th[+/-] century, and some contend that the profusion and emphasis of five element information, and the inclusion of much of the material on the stem and branch calculations of pathogens was his invention (which ended up inspiring the four schools era). So the idea that we have a long view into the past is a tromp de l'oile, because as we move from side to side there is no parallax. Unschuld seems to say that the political is what drives this evolution, so that would tend to color it, and perhaps reduce the clinical efficacy of the resulting theory, however, it is also widely acknowledged that the Chinese rarely threw out an idea. Hence we end up with hodgepodges like Daoism, and Chinese medicine, which are chaotic, yes, but in their chaos they throw out novel concepts, and those live or die on their own merits. There is a deep pragmatism to this approach, an ecology of ideas in CM that allows for the coupling of practitioner and technique/theory beyond anything that Western medicine has to offer. In some contexts that relationship thrives, and a practitioner goes on to great things, in some cases it is tepid and there is a wan practitioner going through the motions. For instance: I have friends from school who extend their understanding of CM in all manner of ways that seem flaky and untraditional to me, but they have good clinical results and happy patients, which, when the rubber meets the road, is really all that counts. If I try to emulate them I tend to end up looking and feeling like a bozo. My response to this is to dig deeper into the traditional, gather and hoard information, and try to find a part of the ecology that feels right to me. I don't think they, or I, have any lock on CM, but the prevalent model of CM that thrives and continues is going to be the one that can be explained and passed on, and that will always bring us back to the classics, because in the Darwinian world of ideas they have made themselves the champs of explaining and passing on. The idea behind the word jing is weaving (which incidentally has the same etymological reationship as our word " text " and " textile " ), and the classics are the warp in our medicine. The fact that we seek them out for instruction is part of their ability to get this done. It is arguable that there isn't anybody who actually understands the nei jing as it was intended by the author(s), yet we are called back to it, because of their antiquity and reputation, and its ineffable allure. The rest of the classics have various levels of authority, and may be interpreted and utilized in many different ways. The later work, Jin-Qing tends to be more practical in nature, includes cases, and attempts to convey the author's point of view. I've found this material useful both as a general way of looking at CM, fleshing out basic theory ideas which are not mentioned or only hinted at in the nei jing, and as clinical guides. Zhu Dan Xi has some rockin' formulas, and his patterns sometimes fit much better than modern ones. Zhen jiu da cheng contains cases and advice which are clinically very useful in terms of acupuncture, and have lead to some novel point usages for me. An interesting aspect to these texts is that they almost always present multivalent cases, where the standard texts today will talk about pattern diagnosis, and to some extent leave you to figure out how many and what proportion of which patterns you're dealing with. The other subject that comes up in the thread is case histories. It isn't right to say that the majority of the case histories are written about laborers and farmers. Zhang Cong Zheng [12th century+/-] is, I believe, widely acknowledged as the first writer of case histories, and, while I'm sure he treated a farmer here and there, his clients for the most part seem to be rich and literate individuals, who I think are a pretty good analog to the fairly sedentary and overfed people we treat on a regular basis. Ditto for Zhu Dan Xi. Genetically there is probably more variation between a Han and an Anglo than there is between a han of today and a Han of eight hundred years ago, regardless of their profession. Wow, my two cents ended up being a buck thirty five. Peace, Par Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 24, 2006 Report Share Posted June 24, 2006 Nice one Par, thanks heaps for the two cents plus inflation! It has given me a lot to think and rethink about. Can I forward/repost to our aussie forum? Muchas Gratias, Li On 6/25/06, Par Scott <parufus wrote: > > Hi Lionel > > I think it depends on what one is trying to do with the " classics " . I > would divide them into a couple of groups. The antiquities (nei jing, nan > jing) and the rest. The distinction being that the nei jing is open to > interpretation, but is never wrong, while the others to one extent or > another have to stand on their own merit, relative to the nei jing. > Traditionally the antiquities have served a couple of roles: > > -Preserving the meem of Chinese medicine. > -Being used as a basis in the presentation of novel ideas. > > Taking the second one first: We still do this to some extent, but the > extent to which this was done in the past is truly astounding. Where > culturally we have issues with plagiarism, in the past they had issues of > false attribution, by people so driven to connect their novel idea with the > cannon that they would forego any credit for the idea. To some extent people > are out there doing the same thing today, parsing the classics as a means to > come up with or justify effective treatment. There's nothing wrong with it, > but sometimes watching people twist things about can be somewhat > uncomfortable and embarrassing. The Bible has a similar appeal to > Christians, in that it both nourishes the roots, and it is variegated enough > to provide substantiation for all manner of crazy nutjobs, Nazis, and space > alien Nostradamus types. > > On to point number one: > > One issue is the fact that we have a radically different way of looking at > the world than the author(s) of the nei jing. I think that if we are going > to get to know the medicine, we are obliged to understand the world from > their point of view, inasmuch as that is possible. That said, we obviously > retain our own culturally based understanding of the world, and we must > forge a truce between the buffet of ideas presented as true in CM, and our > (or at least my) habitual response of greedy reductionism, which desires to > pare away at things till there is nothing left but bones. > > Another difficulty arising out of this is the classics represent a > competition of ideas, and our interpretations of the nei jing are largely > colored by the winning ideas in that race. The nei jing itself, as we have > it today, was edited substantially by Wang Bing in the 8th[+/-] century, and > some contend that the profusion and emphasis of five element information, > and the inclusion of much of the material on the stem and branch > calculations of pathogens was his invention (which ended up inspiring the > four schools era). So the idea that we have a long view into the past is a > tromp de l'oile, because as we move from side to side there is no parallax. > Unschuld seems to say that the political is what drives this evolution, so > that would tend to color it, and perhaps reduce the clinical efficacy of the > resulting theory, however, it is also widely acknowledged that the Chinese > rarely threw out an idea. Hence we end up with hodgepodges like Daoism, and > Chinese medicine, which are chaotic, yes, but in their chaos they throw out > novel concepts, and those live or die on their own merits. > > There is a deep pragmatism to this approach, an ecology of ideas in CM > that allows for the coupling of practitioner and technique/theory beyond > anything that Western medicine has to offer. In some contexts that > relationship thrives, and a practitioner goes on to great things, in some > cases it is tepid and there is a wan practitioner going through the motions. > For instance: I have friends from school who extend their understanding of > CM in all manner of ways that seem flaky and untraditional to me, but they > have good clinical results and happy patients, which, when the rubber meets > the road, is really all that counts. If I try to emulate them I tend to end > up looking and feeling like a bozo. My response to this is to dig deeper > into the traditional, gather and hoard information, and try to find a part > of the ecology that feels right to me. > > I don't think they, or I, have any lock on CM, but the prevalent model of > CM that thrives and continues is going to be the one that can be explained > and passed on, and that will always bring us back to the classics, because > in the Darwinian world of ideas they have made themselves the champs of > explaining and passing on. The idea behind the word jing is weaving (which > incidentally has the same etymological reationship as our word " text " and > " textile " ), and the classics are the warp in our medicine. The fact that we > seek them out for instruction is part of their ability to get this done. It > is arguable that there isn't anybody who actually understands the nei jing > as it was intended by the author(s), yet we are called back to it, because > of their antiquity and reputation, and its ineffable allure. > > The rest of the classics have various levels of authority, and may be > interpreted and utilized in many different ways. The later work, Jin-Qing > tends to be more practical in nature, includes cases, and attempts to convey > the author's point of view. I've found this material useful both as a > general way of looking at CM, fleshing out basic theory ideas which are not > mentioned or only hinted at in the nei jing, and as clinical guides. Zhu Dan > Xi has some rockin' formulas, and his patterns sometimes fit much better > than modern ones. Zhen jiu da cheng contains cases and advice which are > clinically very useful in terms of acupuncture, and have lead to some novel > point usages for me. An interesting aspect to these texts is that they > almost always present multivalent cases, where the standard texts today will > talk about pattern diagnosis, and to some extent leave you to figure out how > many and what proportion of which patterns you're dealing with. > > The other subject that comes up in the thread is case histories. It isn't > right to say that the majority of the case histories are written about > laborers and farmers. Zhang Cong Zheng [12th century+/-] is, I believe, > widely acknowledged as the first writer of case histories, and, while I'm > sure he treated a farmer here and there, his clients for the most part seem > to be rich and literate individuals, who I think are a pretty good analog to > the fairly sedentary and overfed people we treat on a regular basis. Ditto > for Zhu Dan Xi. Genetically there is probably more variation between a Han > and an Anglo than there is between a han of today and a Han of eight hundred > years ago, regardless of their profession. > > Wow, my two cents ended up being a buck thirty five. > > Peace, > > Par Scott > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 24, 2006 Report Share Posted June 24, 2006 If I said anything that bears repeating your welcome to post it anyplace you like, I've had a really exciting fever so I've been a bit stream of consciousness lately. - Saturday, June 24, 2006 9:22 PM Re: Fwd: Approaches in how to read Classics Nice one Par, thanks heaps for the two cents plus inflation! It has given me a lot to think and rethink about. Can I forward/repost to our aussie forum? Muchas Gratias, Li On 6/25/06, Par Scott <parufus wrote: > > Hi Lionel > > I think it depends on what one is trying to do with the " classics " . I > would divide them into a couple of groups. The antiquities (nei jing, nan > jing) and the rest. The distinction being that the nei jing is open to > interpretation, but is never wrong, while the others to one extent or > another have to stand on their own merit, relative to the nei jing. > Traditionally the antiquities have served a couple of roles: > > -Preserving the meem of Chinese medicine. > -Being used as a basis in the presentation of novel ideas. > > Taking the second one first: We still do this to some extent, but the > extent to which this was done in the past is truly astounding. Where > culturally we have issues with plagiarism, in the past they had issues of > false attribution, by people so driven to connect their novel idea with the > cannon that they would forego any credit for the idea. To some extent people > are out there doing the same thing today, parsing the classics as a means to > come up with or justify effective treatment. There's nothing wrong with it, > but sometimes watching people twist things about can be somewhat > uncomfortable and embarrassing. The Bible has a similar appeal to > Christians, in that it both nourishes the roots, and it is variegated enough > to provide substantiation for all manner of crazy nutjobs, Nazis, and space > alien Nostradamus types. > > On to point number one: > > One issue is the fact that we have a radically different way of looking at > the world than the author(s) of the nei jing. I think that if we are going > to get to know the medicine, we are obliged to understand the world from > their point of view, inasmuch as that is possible. That said, we obviously > retain our own culturally based understanding of the world, and we must > forge a truce between the buffet of ideas presented as true in CM, and our > (or at least my) habitual response of greedy reductionism, which desires to > pare away at things till there is nothing left but bones. > > Another difficulty arising out of this is the classics represent a > competition of ideas, and our interpretations of the nei jing are largely > colored by the winning ideas in that race. The nei jing itself, as we have > it today, was edited substantially by Wang Bing in the 8th[+/-] century, and > some contend that the profusion and emphasis of five element information, > and the inclusion of much of the material on the stem and branch > calculations of pathogens was his invention (which ended up inspiring the > four schools era). So the idea that we have a long view into the past is a > tromp de l'oile, because as we move from side to side there is no parallax. > Unschuld seems to say that the political is what drives this evolution, so > that would tend to color it, and perhaps reduce the clinical efficacy of the > resulting theory, however, it is also widely acknowledged that the Chinese > rarely threw out an idea. Hence we end up with hodgepodges like Daoism, and > Chinese medicine, which are chaotic, yes, but in their chaos they throw out > novel concepts, and those live or die on their own merits. > > There is a deep pragmatism to this approach, an ecology of ideas in CM > that allows for the coupling of practitioner and technique/theory beyond > anything that Western medicine has to offer. In some contexts that > relationship thrives, and a practitioner goes on to great things, in some > cases it is tepid and there is a wan practitioner going through the motions. > For instance: I have friends from school who extend their understanding of > CM in all manner of ways that seem flaky and untraditional to me, but they > have good clinical results and happy patients, which, when the rubber meets > the road, is really all that counts. If I try to emulate them I tend to end > up looking and feeling like a bozo. My response to this is to dig deeper > into the traditional, gather and hoard information, and try to find a part > of the ecology that feels right to me. > > I don't think they, or I, have any lock on CM, but the prevalent model of > CM that thrives and continues is going to be the one that can be explained > and passed on, and that will always bring us back to the classics, because > in the Darwinian world of ideas they have made themselves the champs of > explaining and passing on. The idea behind the word jing is weaving (which > incidentally has the same etymological reationship as our word " text " and > " textile " ), and the classics are the warp in our medicine. The fact that we > seek them out for instruction is part of their ability to get this done. It > is arguable that there isn't anybody who actually understands the nei jing > as it was intended by the author(s), yet we are called back to it, because > of their antiquity and reputation, and its ineffable allure. > > The rest of the classics have various levels of authority, and may be > interpreted and utilized in many different ways. The later work, Jin-Qing > tends to be more practical in nature, includes cases, and attempts to convey > the author's point of view. I've found this material useful both as a > general way of looking at CM, fleshing out basic theory ideas which are not > mentioned or only hinted at in the nei jing, and as clinical guides. Zhu Dan > Xi has some rockin' formulas, and his patterns sometimes fit much better > than modern ones. Zhen jiu da cheng contains cases and advice which are > clinically very useful in terms of acupuncture, and have lead to some novel > point usages for me. An interesting aspect to these texts is that they > almost always present multivalent cases, where the standard texts today will > talk about pattern diagnosis, and to some extent leave you to figure out how > many and what proportion of which patterns you're dealing with. > > The other subject that comes up in the thread is case histories. It isn't > right to say that the majority of the case histories are written about > laborers and farmers. Zhang Cong Zheng [12th century+/-] is, I believe, > widely acknowledged as the first writer of case histories, and, while I'm > sure he treated a farmer here and there, his clients for the most part seem > to be rich and literate individuals, who I think are a pretty good analog to > the fairly sedentary and overfed people we treat on a regular basis. Ditto > for Zhu Dan Xi. Genetically there is probably more variation between a Han > and an Anglo than there is between a han of today and a Han of eight hundred > years ago, regardless of their profession. > > Wow, my two cents ended up being a buck thirty five. > > Peace, > > Par Scott > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 24, 2006 Report Share Posted June 24, 2006 Par write: >For instance: I have friends from school who extend their understanding of CM in all >manner of ways that seem flaky and untraditional to me, but they have good clinical >results and happy patients, which, when the rubber meets the road, is really all that >counts. If I try to emulate them I tend to end up looking and feeling like a bozo. My >response to this is to dig deeper into the traditional, gather and hoard information, and try >to find a part of the ecology that feels right to me. Given this, and I (albeit from a beginner's/student's perspective) tend to follow a similar way of thinking, does anyone have any ideas of a meta-theory/context that could possibly be used to help explain/ how this can be so? How this plurality can exist in such a way, where there is still such thing as a bad theory/practice? The closest I have heard of something like this is the RAP (Reflective Acupuncture Practice) protocol used in Mark Seem's TSCA. From the site: " With the College's unique integrative protocol as a foundation, students are able to analyze and understand any style or tradition of acupuncture practice. As students gain clinical experience, the protocol facilitates the integration of multiple acupuncture perspectives, and leads students to develop those critical self-reflective skills for engaging as Reflective Acupuncture Practitioners ( http://www.tsca.edu/hp1-6.htm ) " . Does anyone have any knowledge/experience in what this Reflective Acupuncture Practice thing is all about? Cheers Li -- Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. - Jesus of Nazareth, Gnostic Gospel of Thomas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 25, 2006 Report Share Posted June 25, 2006 , " Par Scott " <parufus wrote: > Wow, my two cents ended up being a buck thirty five. Good post, Par. Take two bucks and keep the change. Eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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