Daoyin Qualities for Clinical Chinese Medicine Treatment
The following contains excerpts from a longer article, still in draft form, presented as a general introduction to a series of practical workshops I am teaching in Halifax (NS) and Montreal (QC), beginning in May. They will be focused on methods for cultivating energetic qualities through the practice of Daoyin, for application in clinical diagnosis and treatment.
Alongside the Su Wen, I quote liberally from Huangdi Neizhen 黃帝內針 (Yang, Liu, 2020), a book I read three times within the first week of receiving it. While the details and prescriptions of the Neizhen system themselves remain of minor interest to me, I really connected with Yang’s way of uniting energetic cultivation with classical acupuncture theory.
The Neizhen came at a pivotal moment for me, where I made the complicated decision to move away from a purely Daoyin 導引/ Neigong 內功 based energetic clinical practice, pick up the needle again, and make the study of the classics of Chinese Medicine (and the hermeneutical con-texts) my primary teacher.
These workshops are designed as an in-person introduction to an upcoming online course on Daoyin-based clinical treatments (popularly, “Qigong healing”). See end of article for details on staying informed in this regard.
Note: The content of these workshops are essentially my own interpretation, and by no means do I claim any ancient provenance or lineage to increase the cultural capital of my humble offerings. However, the theory behind these practices and methods conforms perfectly to the theory of Chinese Medicine, notably Su Wen 5 and 12.
I.
Daoyin 導引 (literally: guiding and pulling) is a technical term for Chinese therapeutic exercises with the purposes of conducting Qi around the body and increasing energetic awareness, via physical movements, breath work and intent.
Chapter 12 of the Su Wen, the Discourse on Different [Therapeutic] Patterns Suitable [for Use in Different] Cardinal Points, lists five treatment modalities (‘Five Skills’) of Chinese Medicine, assigning each one to a compass direction. Among them, Daoyin is connected with the center direction:
“It is for sure that guiding-pulling (daoyin 導引) and pressing-lifting have originated in the center.
Hence, the sages brought various [patterns] together in treatment; each [case] received what was appropriate for it.
Hence, if what one uses for treatment is different, and the disease is healed in all [cases] nevertheless, [then] one has grasped the nature of disease and one knows the entire complex of treatment.”
Su Wen 12, Unschuld and Tessenow, 2011
Yang Zhenhai 楊真海 observes that the modality employed is itself secondary to following Yin and Yang. “The Five Skills all come out of a single theory, which is precisely this Yin and Yang” (Yang, Liu, 2020). Therefore, these arts of Chinese Medicine are valid if they respect the core principle of Yin and Yang.
Some passages from the Nei Jing that reinforce the idea of Yin and Yang as the core principle of our medicine:
“Yin and Yang! We count their associations by tens, extend those to hundreds, multiply them to thousands, extend those to myriads, and from there on to even greater amounts that are innumerable. This is so, and yet their essence is a single one.”
Su Wen 6, trans. Wilms
“Yin and Yang! They are the Dao of Heaven and Earth! They are the guide ropes and connecting threads of the Myriad Things”
Su Wen 5, Ibid
“Yin and Yang are the Dao of heaven and earth, the warp and weft of the myriad things, the father and mother of all change, the root of birth and death, the palace of the spirit light (shenming). To cure disease, we must seek the root”
Ling Shu 5, ibid
Yin and Yang are the ‘root’ we need to always refer back to and treat, when we practice Chinese Medicine. And while all Five Skills grasp the nature of disease by holding true to the principle of Yin and Yang, Yang Zhenhai shows us why Daoyin is fundamentally unique:
“Lancing stones and toxic medicinals are all good, and the Nine Needles and moxibustion are fine as well. All of these require some intervention beyond the individual themselves, an action that is applied to the body from the outside. Or put differently, they require passing through a route from the outside in order to produce their effect and cure.
Only Daoyin is different from these since it takes place entirely within the individual’s body and does not require any intervention from the outside.
As such, the origin of daoyin in the center [direction] [...] can be found in the fact that we can achieve spontaneous harmony of Yin and Yang in the organism through the experience of affect, that we can promote the mutual engendering, transformation, communication, and use of Yin and Yang in our body through the experience of affect.”
Yang, Liu, 2020 (emphases my own)
Now, how does one follow Yin and Yang through the course of treatment? Once again, Su Wen 5 provides us with some direction:
“From the Yin guide the Yang, from the Yang guide the Yin;
By the right treat the left, by the left treat the right;
From their own [experience] know the other; and from the exterior know the interior.
By contemplating the underlying pattern of excesses and insufficiencies [in the patient’s body], they see the subtle [signs] and obtain [control over] what is in excess.”
Unschuld & Tessenow, 2011
The therapeutic principles listed in the above passage are means to harmonize Yin and Yang, the warp and weft of the myriad things, by bringing them to a balanced center.
In the introduction to his translation of Ch.1-2 of Huang Di Nei Jing 黃帝內經 , the third work of the Handbooks for Daoist Practice (Twentieth Anniversary Edition), Louis Komjathy states that Yin and Yang are interrelated and complementary, not antagonistic and opposites; they represent different sides of the same hill (phenomena). (Komjathy, 2023)
陰 陽
Returning to the Neizhen, from the practice of Daoyin we “personally and directly sense this process of drawing forth the Yin through the Yang and drawing forth the Yang through the Yin. Only in this way can we comprehend why we want to address Yin disease by treating the Yang, and address Yang disease by treating the Yin, treating the left by means of the right and the right by means of the left, and choosing below to address above and choosing above to address below.” (Yang, Liu, 2020)
As Daoyin is the treatment method that comes from the central direction, the practice of Daoyin gives an understanding of sensation of the balanced center, on an experiential level (experience of affect) that cannot be otherwise understood, a wisdom beyond knowledge. A teaching beyond words 不言之教 (Laozi 老子, trans. Komjathy).
II.
“人身小天地 The human body is a small heaven and earth”
This quote by Zhāng Jièbīn (also found on my home page) supports the cosmological / naturalist view of Chinese Medicine theory that observations of the natural world can equally be applied to the human body (and vice versa).
“The Dao generated the One;
The One generated the two;
The two generated the three;
The three generated the myriad beings.”
The Laozi 老子, trans. Komjathy 2023
The Taiji (“the two”) was generated into binary existence from the One, but is static and unmoving. “The two” cannot generate the myriad beings or bring dynamic movement until we have “the three’: Yin, Yang, and Yin-Yang. The three is the interaction of Yin and Yang, in dynamic and continual interaction.
In the macrocosm, these are Heaven (Yang), Earth (Yin), and the separated space between them where movement exists and humans dwell (Yin-Yang).
On the microcosmic level, as a small heaven and earth, the human body also has its Yin and Yang: Jing and Shen, body and mind. But once again, we need the three to have life and movement. The practice of Daoyin fits perfectly with this idea of the three.
When we practice Daoyin, we coordinate the Yin (structure) and the Yang (intent), to create the conditions to manifest a change. As an ‘energetic’ practice, we are generating and manipulating sensations we refer to as Qi. (In the context of this article) Qi is immaterial and cannot be objectively measured, giving it a Yang quality. At the same time, Qi can be felt and perceived, which means it also has a Yin aspect to it. It is Yin-Yang. The same arguments can be made for the breath(ing).
Seasoned practitioners of energetic arts like Daoyin know that Qi sensation is not generated by trying to make it or force it to come. Qi sensation and development happens when the practitioner has an Open (qián ☰) attention to what is happening at the moment. Qi sensation comes as the necessary (Yin-Yang) result of clear coordination between the body movement and structure (Yin), and the intent and attention applied to the exercise (Yang). When the three are present, it generates these myriad things.
The energetic awareness and movement we induce through the practice of Daoyin is how we achieve the spontaneous harmony of Yin and Yang in the organism that Yang Zhenhai wrote about. It is how we guide the Yin from the Yang, and the Yang from the Yin, in perfect conformity to the core principle of Chinese Medicine.
While Daoyin is often thought of as a healing modality in the form of exercises prescribed to patients outside of clinical treatment, it can most certainly be applied as the primary clinical treatment tool as well. This latter aspect is what I wish to focus on in these workshops.
Being techniques that require external intervention, applied to the body from the outside, the other Skills listed in SW12 (Nine Needles, moxibustion, lancing stones, toxic medicinals) produce their curative effects through relatively observable and empirical processes. Daoyin takes place entirely within the practitioner’s body, through the “experience of affect,” and is not observable in the same way.
Nonetheless, all five modalities are effective tools of Chinese Medicine. Applying these five modalities, conforming to the principles of Yin and Yang, each case receives what is appropriate to it: they are equally valid ways of practicing this “general medicine.”
Healing a patient (a term I bristle at on the best of days) is about stimulating their system to return to balance, and the state of health that preceded their illness. The rebalancing / restoring of circulation / healing is a movement, a result of interaction (the three; Yin-Yang) between the Yin and Yang of the reference point. ‘Healing’, especially in the context of an energetic medicine like Chinese Medicine, is about inducing the appropriate Yin-Yang energetic response from the therapy, whether that therapy requires external intervention or not.
In an INR seminar I recently watched, David White described acupuncture as a kind of micro-surgery that brings the Shen to specific levels or directions within the structure, so that its illumination / awareness can restore circulation to the stuck or diseased region. (Apologies to Dr White if he reads this and I totally mangled his teaching.)
Looking at acupuncture in this way, Yin (the needle, inserted into the structure of the practitioner) and Yang (Shen of the patient being alerted to the needle’s influence) create the condition for the Yin-Yang movement of rebalancing to happen.
Similarly, to use the qualities developed in Daoyin practice for clinical treatment, the practitioner needs to have clear understanding and experience of the Yin and the Yang, for the reference point at hand.
Once these are in place, the Daoyin practitioner can successfully apply Yang (their intent) to Yin (the patient’s physical structure, via the practitioner’s own structure), to create a desired Yin-Yang (energetic) effect - the therapeutic action that results in rebalance (health).
During the workshops, we will study the foundational practices that develop the Daoyin qualities needed to successfully apply one’s intent, via their structure, in the treatment of the patient. I leave the treatment modality used for this experience of affect to the practitioner - 針, 手, or even 灸 (why not?).
Jordan Whitten
Jing Zhe
Jia Chen year
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Please check back soon, subscribe to my newsletter (form below in page footer), or follow my instagram account @zhenjiu_halifax, for forthcoming information about these workshops, as well as future online courses in Daoyin cultivation.
Post Script: My sincere thanks to my teacher, the Bái Yuán 白猿 for the genesis of many of these ideas.
I would also like to express my appreciation to Liu Lihong, whose works inspired a budding interest in Chinese character etymology study.