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Qi Hua Part I
82 Plays1 year ago
Qi What?!? Is it Qi transformation or transformation with Qi? Ever been confused by the seemingly amorphous description of this essential lower burner function? Check out this episode for a deep dive into what this key physiological process is and how to treat dysfunctional Qi Hua all rooted in Nei Jing goodness! Enjoy!
Two of the the most telling and essential Nei Jing quotes covered in this episode is:
素问·灵兰秘典论》三焦者，决渎之官，水道出 焉。膀胱者，州都之官，津液藏焉，气化则能出矣。 From the Su Wen, Ling Lan Mi Dian Chapter: "The triple burner, the water managing and irrigating official, the water ways come from here. The bladder, the river managing official, Jin Ye is stored/controlled here, therefore Qi Hua can function/come from here."
素问·六节藏象论》脾、胃、大肠、小肠、三焦、膀胱者，仓禀之本，营之居也 From the Su Wen, Liu Jie Zang Xiang Chapter: "The spleen, stomach, large intestine, small intestine, triple burner and bladder, the root of receiving food/nourishment, the residing place of Ying nutritve."
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Transcript
Introduction to Qi Hua and Transformation in Chinese Medicine
00:00:06
Speaker
This week on Voices on the Mountain with Dr. Steven Wong, we're gonna be discussing qi qua, the transformation, or qi transformation. There it is, there it is. I almost made the snake, man.
Machocha's Influence on Education in America
00:00:21
Speaker
So buckle up, throw your machochas out, because it's not gonna help you today. It'll be a baseline that we can mark up a lot with. Yeah, so bring in your red markers if you keep your machocha around.
00:00:34
Speaker
Machocha does, just for people who have their Machochas out, he does mention Chihua in a bladder section in the foundation's book right up front. So we can give him some props and credit for that. That is props. That is props. And I really like the phrase that you just said, if you've got your Machochas out.
Conflicting Teachings and Foundational Knowledge
00:00:55
Speaker
But yeah, for those of you who are familiar or haven't been through the education system here for Chinese medicine in America, actually I haven't either, but Machocha is the standard textbook for most of the classes and is also what our boards are based on. And it is, it was a good effort, but needs to be updated drastically. And Stephen will have that book out in the next decade or so.
00:01:20
Speaker
That's right. That's right. That'll be episode five, I guess. Just redo every Machocha thing and stick in the giant podcast. Well, or this is just the groundwork for...
00:01:30
Speaker
for the later book. That's right. That's exactly right. And actually, to be honest, I don't even know what's in those books, because I haven't read them. But for the last three or four years, I've been teaching in America. And so I've seen quite a number of Machochas pop up. I'll just start using that as a noun for the boo-boos in the Machocha books. And then we clarify them as we go. So Asher's actually going to be super helpful in helping us know what needs to be clarified, because I don't even know what's in a lot of these books.
00:02:00
Speaker
I will gladly be the test dummy in this situation any day. No, I think it's very much more the one who endured. You will be the the perseverant student and now practitioner.
Verifying Sources in Chinese Medicine Education
00:02:16
Speaker
Well, the biggest problem is is that, you know, as a student, you're trying to hold all these ideas in your head. Yeah. And you're trying to leave room for different practitioners and teachers that come through and give you these different ideas. Yeah.
00:02:29
Speaker
And sometimes they say conflicting things and you have to think, oh, well, how is what this person is saying, right? In certain situations and how is, you know, what the other person has to include, how's that going to fit? And all these puzzle pieces. But then it turns out, you know, every so often you have this nugget about like where the stomach channel starts or something that's just wrong. And it's like, oh, I have to go back and fix that? Like,
00:02:55
Speaker
Ah, it's just a little bit of a letdown after going through a master's program to have to redo some of the foundations, but I'm happy to do the work with you.
00:03:06
Speaker
Nice. Well, I'm happy to do it with you too, man. I always appreciate you guys have the best insight. Asher's totally right. We expect some of it to be, if not shaky, let's call it malleable, but then there's some things like fundamental, like he was talking about the stomach channel. I mean, that shouldn't really be up for grabs, right? That should just be word for word. But unfortunately, there's stuff to fix.
00:03:32
Speaker
So make sure that when people are fixing and or telling you stuff, make sure that they tell you where the source comes from.
Understanding Classical Texts and Context
00:03:38
Speaker
Because if it's just them winging it, I love that. Let them wing. Everybody's got to have some wings sometimes. They just need to really be clear that that's them just riffing on stuff. But if they're claiming any authority to Chinese medicine, to the classics, then we can't have them do that without actual evidence because
00:04:00
Speaker
That's just fake claiming authority and that happens unfortunately way more than it should.
00:04:06
Speaker
That's so true. Having that base source that's contextualized for you for whatever they're saying brought back to that source is so useful because then when you have the disagreements later on in your brain or with other people, you at least know, oh, we're going to track back to this. And do you have a different interpretation of the source text? Because if you do, that's fine. But at least we all know what we're talking about at that point, instead of it being
00:04:32
Speaker
Oh, I just had this thought and now I'm going to tell all these students and five years later they might realize that it doesn't track as well with the classics as I maybe led them to believe. It's so true, man. That is, it's 100%. And so, yeah, like, you know, not only should they be telling you where it is, but then when you go back and look it up, I'm not joking, this definitely happens where like some teachers will claim this is what that naging passage means. And they cut it off mid sentence.
00:05:00
Speaker
And they're like, oh yeah, look at the first half of the sentence, like men on the left, women on the right. So that means male pulses and female pulses are flipped. And then if you look at the second half of the sentence, I'm not joking, I've seen this. They're like talking about men and women having facial paralysis starting on the left and right and how that treatment differs then and what the significance of prognosis is.
00:05:20
Speaker
That's a pretty darn different interpretation than their pulses are flipped. Also, unless women's livers are flipped, I'm pretty sure their liver is in the same place as is their liver pulse. But, you know, we'll have a different, sorry, touched on a nerve, I guess. Yeah, no, that's good.
00:05:39
Speaker
So today we're going to talk about qi hua or the transformation. No, man, I'm screwing it up because of Machocha. This is the thing. So it's not the transformation of qi, but it's the transformation by qi of grids.
Translating Chinese Medicine for Western Audiences
00:05:53
Speaker
And I had Steven look this up for me before and the characters of this are made up of the human radical and then a flipped human radical that also means transform, which is the hua.
00:06:08
Speaker
Is that correct? That is spot on. And then the Chi, the first character, is the same one that we're familiar with, but exactly. He dissected the two halves of the transform word, and it's Ren radical on the left, the standing man radical, and the Hua radical on the right, which technically is an inverted man. You got it exactly right. Sometimes you got to flip yourself upside down and it turns out you're right side up. Shout out to the usual suspects. You know that guy in the jail said, I'll flip you. I'll flip you for real.
00:06:38
Speaker
Fenster, I think his name is Fenster. Anyway, if you guys haven't seen that movie, it has nothing to do with TCM, but well worth a watch. And we're going to flip you for real. That's right. We'll flip you for real.
00:06:49
Speaker
So where does this chihua start with? Okay, so let's get back to the name, which I think exactly, like Machocha, everybody else. It's really confusing. And Chinese has this habit of they'll take seven Chinese words and they'll pick the two in order of those seven that make the most sense to abbreviate the whole thing.
00:07:09
Speaker
So for instance, I went to a school in Chinese, it's called, that's annoying. Nobody wants to say all that. So you can just say, for like three characters. And so you can turn all those characters into a smaller character line, because Chinese people don't want to say all those words. That's just a classic thing. So here when we say,
00:07:34
Speaker
Western people think qi transformation that's what it is qi and transformation but they forgot all the words in the middle and it means using kidney qi to transform the fluids we just avoid it all and we say qi transform so qi transformation but it's using kidney qi to transform your fluids
00:07:57
Speaker
I think that's so nice to have the whole context,
Creative Teaching Methods in Chinese Medicine
00:08:01
Speaker
right? And it's like, once you're in the know, if we all know that we're talking about a school, yeah, you can cut the syllables short. And if we all know that qi hua comes from this other, but if you use the whole thing, you'd tell me exactly what it is. Exactly.
00:08:15
Speaker
You know, and this actually, funny enough, is maybe the number one reason why the nejing is just so hard, because they wrote it for our doctors. And you're like, guys, could you tell me what that means? Like, I would like to know what ying nutritive is. Could you just lay that down for reals? But they often miss some of the basics because they're like, well, why would I do that? Everybody knows what xihua means. And 2000 years later, maybe not. Right. And maybe too, that was a part of the
00:08:45
Speaker
you know, you have to be in the know. We don't give all the answers in Chinese medicine because there aren't answers to give. We're trying to build a practitioner with creative thinking and this ability to dive deep on ideas and philosophy. So maybe I think part of the time we leave the answers out for you to fill in. And I think that's both, I mean, that's a teaching method, right?
00:09:10
Speaker
And it's not done in the West very often. We like to do the full explanation. Yeah, I think Ash is spot on. It's like a teaching method. It's also kind of like what he said. It's almost like a weaning method, if you will. It's like we don't want robots that apply the knowledge. We want thinking, creative humans that are fluid with the knowledge and therefore can understand, diagnose correctly, maybe even innovate a little bit and then see all those things working in conjunction.
00:09:40
Speaker
Yeah, so I totally get what you mean, man, like, because then it makes you go back to the drawing board. And this kind of gets back to what people say about the nejing, like every single time you reread the whole book, even or but like passages, even whatever works. Every time you go back to it, you'll have new eyes if you're a practitioner, and you're regularly practicing, because you'll be like, Oh, my gosh, I didn't realize that was talking about water metabolism that just lightens that and lightens that whole light, like a paragraph or line or
Role of Kidney Qi in Qi Transformation
00:10:09
Speaker
whatever.
00:10:09
Speaker
And there is the idea in Chinese language that they like to use like beautiful parallel structure and very concise wording because they think that's like more beautiful. It's not like belaboring concepts and hammering things in. It's like the, you know, larger strokes, just beautiful writing, which doesn't help for clarity sometimes.
00:10:36
Speaker
So the chi comes from the kidneys and we're transforming fluids. That's correct. If you just stop with that information, you get the concept. You just don't know how to use it, but at least the concept is correct.
00:10:48
Speaker
So how do we use it? Well, geez, we're just going to, we got to do this one in metaphorical and ambiguous, just like not playing and playing. Well, the key is to understand what is kidney chi? So, you know, so many people will talk about, I think I've heard this from the Machocha side of things, I don't know, but that the Sanjiao is the pathway of Yuen Chi as well.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's problematic. It's the pathway of the ministerial fire, actually. But even the word Yuanqi is confusing to people because they think it's only kidney related. So that should, I'm not going to go off on all these tangents, but just remember, we got some stuff out there, people.
00:11:28
Speaker
So really what it comes down to is what is kidney qi? And one of the big things that Asher just told me was the Machocha definition of qi hua is. And so one of the big problems is it's only relegated to the kidney yang. That's wrong. That is so wrong because if there's not enough kidney yin, qi hua doesn't work either. And so really the way we can understand what is kidney qi is it's the combination of kidney yin and kidney yang.
00:11:55
Speaker
And we know that kidney yin is synonymous with kidney jing, and if you're jing deficient, qi hua stops. But if you don't have kidney yang, qi hua also stops. And when you can put kidney yang, or what you might also call Mingman fire, with kidney yin, you can also call that jing, you stick those two together, that is kidney qi.
00:12:14
Speaker
And we know this is true because there's a pill called the kidney qi pill, xuan qi wan, or sometimes they use a larger number name called jingui xuan qi wan, which is funny because they're saying, well, it comes out of the jingui yalu. But that's like, you know, that's like saying,
00:12:31
Speaker
Obviously, it's like Zhang Zhongjing's formula, and he just called it the Shun-Chi Wan. So I'm like, well, I wouldn't label everything just on the book it came from. So anyway, the classic word for it is the name is just Shun-Chi Wan. And because of that, it tells you this is how you rebuild Qi. It's two parts kidney yang, which is guizhi and fuzi, and it's six parts or six herbs for the kidney yin, the most notable one being diyuan.
00:12:54
Speaker
And it's actually not shu ri wang, it's gan ri wang, which is the word for shung ri wang. It means dried ri wang. So anyway, when you mix the jing and you mix the kidney yang, you stick those together, you have actual kidney qi. And what is kidney qi? Function of the kidney. So the best one-word way that you can describe qi is function. And so kidney qi is kidney function.
00:13:16
Speaker
It can't function without the yin firewood, and it can't function without the yang fire. There's nothing to burn if you ran out of firewood, but there's nothing to light it if you run out of fire. Beautiful. So that's our kidney qi. And then once we get kidney qi rolling, that's where the qi hua comes in because that's one of probably five, I usually describe this to my students as five major kidney functions, but the first and most important has to be qi hua.
00:13:42
Speaker
And so once the kidney yin and yang, both good, kidney qi, that's what birds kidney qi, and that kidney qi or kidney function is what starts cruising and that's the qi hua. That's the number one, one of the first of five most important functions is qi hua. And so what that does is it takes the water in the lower burner,
00:14:03
Speaker
Notice in this case, they actually do use the word water. In the shang hanun, they'll use the word shui
Fluid Transformation and Urination Issues
00:14:07
Speaker
qi. So it's not dampness, it's not water, and it's definitely not jinye, because you take the water and you turn it into jinye. So this is what they refer to as the steaming process, where this water comes into the kidneys. It's heated, just like you would have a pot on the bottom of your lower
00:14:23
Speaker
burner, steams it all the way up to the very top, all the way up to the throat, the mouth. And that's actually why one of the number one causes, maybe even the number one cause, it's not the only cause. I want to always make sure people tell, you know, we're not saying one to ones here, but probably 60% of chronic mouth dryness is actually kidney yin deficiency or kidney qi hua not working properly because that's where the fluid goes up. Now it doesn't mean there's not fluid up there, but there's no good moistening fluid.
00:14:51
Speaker
And so we have a very good word for both kinds of good moistening fluids, Jin and Ye. And so you can't produce Jin and Ye without the Qi Hua transformation. So you turn basic water that's not useful to the body and you imbue it with this Yang and then it becomes Jin and Ye that actually has moistening function. And so does the bladder
00:15:14
Speaker
part of this transformation, because from what I remember from Machocha and from also I think a little bit of Dr. Wang Juyi is that the bladder comes in huge in this transformation process, that the kidney almost is just giving the cheetah the bladder to do the process. Is that going to be concurrent with our understanding now that we're building here or no? Absolutely. And so I like to describe this
00:15:43
Speaker
to people, we'll do a whole triple burner episode, I think, that probably makes a lot of sense, but you can identify the triple burner as two things, a pathway for water, which is the route, I call that the bus route, and three major hubs, and I call those the bus stations. So if you've got some neighborhood road, that's still part of the Sanjiao or the triple burner, that's just part of the waterways. If that neighborhood road shuts down, you got like some sort of water leakage out there,
00:16:12
Speaker
That's no problem. We got other neighborhood roads we'll go through. Now, if enough of those get blocked up, we got a big problem. But if a couple would get blocked up, you're fine. But what can happen is those big hubs, those transportation hubs shut down. And those three hubs are the lungs on top, the spleen in the middle. And here's just what Ash was saying. You can't really separate kidney from bladder here on the bottom. So you have to incorporate two for the bottom one. It's like a twofer. So yeah, there's no way to separate bladder from
00:16:40
Speaker
Kidney function here when it comes to Chihua you absolutely need both together, which is why when we treat it we treat both of those organs separately there was the the same job they broke up as The mist for the lungs Mm-hmm ditch for the bladder and then I'm missing what the spleen would be source probably yeah Yeah, you're right after let me dig that one up, but you're right We usually refer to the spleen as the source of water
00:17:10
Speaker
We usually refer to the lungs of the upper source of the water or the reservoir. And sometimes if you want to be a little gross, it can also be the reservoir of dampness and phlegm. But it's the pathological side, obviously. And then the kidneys as the ones controlling the water. So shan zhu shui, it means the kidneys control the water. But again, you can't separate it from the bladder. It's hand in hand. So when we treat it, there's usually an herb more for the bladder and an herb more for the kidneys itself.
00:17:38
Speaker
And so pathologically, this will show up. We talked about the dry throat. I'm guessing, uh, lack of urination. That's exactly. And then for the middle burner, it's just going to be what we all have dampness. Exactly.
00:17:55
Speaker
Yeah. And the lack of urination is really key because sometimes people talk about any urination problem can be a GY transformation problem. Wrong. That is wrong again. It's because it's inhibited urination. For some reason I've seen this in books called disinhibited urination.
00:18:11
Speaker
which as far as I can tell is just hibited urination because they think when you put this and in together, they cancel each other out. I have no idea what a hibited urination is unless like Kermit the Frog is just sitting on your kidneys or something.
00:18:27
Speaker
I mean, what they're really saying, a disinhibited urination should be just normal urination. That's actually wrong. You can use disinhibit for an herbs function, but you can't use it for a pathological state. So this should be inhibited urination, which means they cannot urinate enough.
00:18:44
Speaker
Now, it's true. When you can't urinate enough and you can't urinate enough and eventually your body flips the switch and says, well, one way or another, we got to evacuate this water. That's true. That's called flushing and clearing water. Remember, we talked about that in clinic for a long time ago with one of the cases you brought. Yeah. Well, and then is diarrhea the next step if that's how they're going to present?
00:19:05
Speaker
It's actually flushing water out to the urinary system where they won't maybe drink any water that morning, but they'll go to the bathroom like eight times and just have huge clear peas. Oh, okay. So not in a different way, just a breaking of the dam.
00:19:21
Speaker
It's an emergency valve. And you can tell it's not actually being processed because it's clear like water. And it's just a release. They just open the valve. And also, the kidneys are like, well, shoot. We could have transformed that water if we had transformation function. But we don't. And we've got to release this valve. Somehow or otherwise, we're just going to swell up like a balloon. Yeah. So that's why people are confused why, like, hey, how can it be too little urination and then too much? Because it's stripping the excess water out at the very end. But that's a pretty extreme case.
00:19:51
Speaker
Also, instead of them having edema in that water backing up in all the different ways, their body's just going to get rid of it however it can. That's right. That's right. Yeah, it's like the trumpet tube where you just have that little spit hole opener. Did you used to play the trumpet? Thankfully, I didn't. Oh, I did play the trombone a little bit.
00:20:13
Speaker
Well, I'm not the most musical human. You'll see. I think I tried the violin for four squeaky months. That didn't work. That's way harder. Oh, it's way harder. And then I tried trombone because I've got big fat lips. And so people are like, hey, trombone's got the big fat mouthpiece. Big fat lips look like a big fat mouthpiece. Which they were right. I do have the lips for it, but I didn't really have the musical function for it. I was going to be like, Steven, you have the lips for trumpet and trombone, but trumpet too.
00:20:43
Speaker
Well, thank you. I've never looked at Miles Davis' lips, but I can swell with the best of the trombones. The blood also starts going there once you start playing. Oh, that's a good point. I mean, I just get fat afterwards. I mean, I used to play trumpet and your lips are just like, swell afterwards, as the kids now say. Yes. So we're talking about the qi hua, and so the key here is
00:21:09
Speaker
You got to have that functional and then it'll start processing.
Classical Teachings in Modern Practice
00:21:13
Speaker
And so if you go back to Zhang Zhongjing and the Shang Han Mun, he does look at urine as one of the most important things to check. And the number one reason why he's checking it is yang function, kidney yang function specifically. But not just yang, it's actually kidney qi function.
00:21:29
Speaker
And that's, so I almost did the boo-boo there. It's not just kidney yang, it's also, it's kidney chi. And for those of you who are formula people out there, I'll say this a bazillion times, so sorry for the repetition, but I think it's worth it, is the best reason to learn your formulas, which there's a bazillion good reasons, is to understand the physiology better. So if you are familiar with formulas, you want to look them up or you know them already, go check out Zhu Ling Tang,
00:21:58
Speaker
Wuling San, Shen Chi Wan, and Zhen Wu Tang. These four formulas all kickstart the triple earner. The problem is, and to use them correctly, you need to know this, what are they fixing? Zhu Ling Tang is for yin deficiency. Unlike Zhen Wu Tang, which is for yang deficiency. So if we look closer at Zhu Ling Tang, this is yin deficiency breaking down the Qi Hua.
00:22:22
Speaker
And so what do they do? They use ejiao, a blood nourisher, to rehab the yin side of things, and the qihua comes back online. There is no yang tonifier in that formula. There's nothing to activate the yang, and yet it gets qihua back online. So this is the one where we can really be clear it's not kidney yang, it's kidney qi, which is half yin, half yang. And is there no mover or something to make sure that the body doesn't stagnate the yin that you're trying to develop?
00:22:50
Speaker
It's got five beautiful herbs, actually, in it. One is washer, and washer is a really key herb for promoting urination, so that helps things not get stuck. But the most important herb for the lower burner cannot get stuck, so not only does it clear heat, but it also drains any excess dampness and any blockage.
00:23:11
Speaker
For those of you who want to know another Chinese name, it means like a swamp. It means to clear. So that herb literally means to clear the swamp. Slightly different than maybe Washington DC, but you know, whatever, close enough. We can just sprinkle it over there too. We all get all these politicians on drain the swamp herbs. That's right. Well, yeah, they might have kidney and deficiency heat for other reasons and so forth.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, and then the other big ones are fooling, baiju, and juuling. So those ones are for reactivating, clearing fluids out of the middle and the lower. And we need the kidney in because we have to have something for the fire to burn. That's exactly right. Got to have the firewood.
00:24:00
Speaker
And then we also have the Yang side, and that is Chen Wutang is for pure Yang deficiency. Wu Ling San is for if there's still an invasion of wind, though it's less than it was before. And it's actually kind of the neutral one. And then the last one is Jingui Shen Chi Wan, or like I just like to call it Shen Chi Wan, because that's what Zhang Zhongjing called his. And that's for Yin and Yang are both deficient. I feel like the other part is the naming something after yourself, right?
00:24:29
Speaker
Which the person never does, but after they go, other people are like, oh, let's name it after him. That's such a good point, dude. This is Asher and Steven's podcast. Ah, maybe. Do we really need to draw our attention to ourselves? No. Oh my God. Yeah. Uh, I did find that the middle burner, the name that I was looking for was cauldron. So the upper burner would be the mist, the middle burner is the cauldron and the lower burner is the ditch.
00:24:59
Speaker
Nice. I mean, I know exactly what you're talking about, but I'm trying to remember what the Chinese word for that is. Cauldron is usually a ding. Ding. Ding. But it's kind of just more a third Tony, but yeah. I call that the indignant tone. You're like, seriously, you got me a ding for breakfast? Oh, that's smart. Yeah. Or if you're in Jamaica, what is this ding? Hey, what is this ding? No, not bad. Have you been to Jamaica?
00:25:30
Speaker
I like Bob Marley a lot. If you grew up the hair and then, you know, uh, dreaded it and then those lips, you could go down there and... Dude. Play trombone. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, sweet. All right. Should we get into some? Yeah. Some of the classical. Well, it's, let's, uh, Steven, you know, I want to hold you to the same standards we were holding everyone else to. So where are the quotes that back up what you're saying?
00:25:56
Speaker
Oh my gosh, if I didn't have it, we should probably turn the podcast off right now. All right, let's go for the big boy. And there's, I have a wee little story to introduce this quote. So in China, we have to memorize a bunch of stuff.
Challenges in Modern Interpretations of Qi Hua
00:26:12
Speaker
And it sounds annoying and repetitive and mechanical, but you realize why you have to do it because only the people who memorize this stuff can use this stuff. That doesn't mean only the people who memorize this stuff can think about this stuff. That's different. When you're at home in your armchair, if that's still a thing, we can ask the Gen Zers that too. Do you have an armchair and a smoking jacket? But either way, that's for reading books. But if you want it in the clinic, you don't have very many minutes to be able to apply
00:26:41
Speaker
You don't have a chance to go back and look at the neijing before you put the needles in. It just doesn't work. Same thing with herbs. The best doctors who use the Shang Han Lun and other things too, they have it memorized word for word. It's absolutely stunning. All 398 passages, and when we say passages, we're not talking about lines. Some of these things are paragraphs, and I had to memorize well over 40 of those.
00:27:04
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that took a lot of mental space. But there's a reason for it and there's a reason why I was happy to do it because that's the only way you'll remember it. You can't remember all the characteristics and all the symptoms and the pulses that they're talking about unless it's in there. And if it's in there, boy, can you use it. I mean, you can use it for treating the craziest things, stuff that looks way different than what they're talking about or what the direct and literal translation of these passages and phrases is.
00:27:31
Speaker
So that's a really key one. And so when I was in my aging class, of course, we had to memorize probably, I don't know, upwards of 40 or 60 passages, which was also felt very huge. But one of them was this passage I was about to share with you.
00:27:45
Speaker
When I came back to America, one of the first podcasts I got to listen to about Chinese medicine, there was a practitioner on there who's somewhat well known, and he was talking about how qi hua is actually a modern concept and only comes from the steam engine.
00:28:04
Speaker
That's right. And so because it's a steam engine, it could only have started at the time of steam engines, which I'm not a historian. I guess that's 1800s or something. And I literally almost like, I was walking my dog and I think I almost like choked on my own spit because I was like, are you kidding
Stages of Transformation: Hua and Bien
00:28:18
Speaker
me? And this quote like coughed out of my mouth. So I'm going to try not to do it in the spitty coffee way.
00:28:25
Speaker
And this quote then, of course, directly from the Nejing, for those of you guys, got to tell you where it comes from in the Nejing, this is the Linglan Midian chapter. So shoot, we'll figure out what that number is, but you can go by the names of the chapters. And this is the phrase, it goes, Pangguangzhou, Zhoudu Zhuguan, Jinye Tsangyan, Qi Hua, Zuneng Chu Yi,
00:28:51
Speaker
And this is the one that I like literally coughed out because he was saying it wasn't a classical concept that came from things like the Nejing. And so I had to literally cough out this Nejing quote that I was reminded of because I had to memorize it. And it translates to the bladder, which is Pengguang. Pengguang means the bladder. Zhouduzhuan, it's the minister of Zhou is
00:29:16
Speaker
The rivers, du, is to kind of move and irrigate using those river systems. So it's the irrigation organ. Jinye, tangyen. The jin and the yie fluids are stored here, meaning stored and also interestingly processed. By the way, tang is the same as tang for organs. And then it says, qi hua, zenang chui, qi hua therefore comes from here.
00:29:44
Speaker
He literally says, this is where the qi hua comes from, word for word. So I don't know why people would spread misinformation like that, but it's sad. I need a little bit of clarification here, because earlier when we talked about the qi hua, it was fluids or no, it was water and not the fluids, the jing and the yeah, but now it's kind of mixed up here in the nai jing quote.
00:30:09
Speaker
Oh yeah. So is it just a different part of the fluid metabolism or? It makes the gene in the air. Okay.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah, so when they say jinyetang, jinyetangyen, it means jin and ye are sang here created and stored. Though we know it's not technically stored here, but it's the idea that they're the ones creating it. It's like the granary that holds the grain and therefore can fuel the village. This is the waterway system, the irrigation one that holds and processes that water and therefore, you know, whatever the fluid version of feeding people is, moistens people.
00:30:48
Speaker
Awesome. It's the one that turns water into gin and yam. Yeah.
00:30:54
Speaker
So, and when we talk about the bladder, technically this is where we're going to get into that kidney-bladder combo, where it processes water into gene inia. It goes up, then it has to circulate again through the same waterways. So that's still the lungs circulating out to the surface. That's still the spleen, which keeps it moving in the middle and moistens the spleen and gets down to the bottom. And then when the fluids have circulated enough and they've done their job and finally they've gotten basically to the end of their life cycle,
00:31:21
Speaker
because, you know, fluids, just like anything else, once you imbue with yang, you got to get rid of it. You could technically try and restart and re-embue it with yang, but the body's way of dealing with this is just store it in the bladder and pee it out. And this is where we say there's the difference between hua, transformation, and bien, to change. Hua is the beginning of something. Bien is the end. In fact,
00:31:45
Speaker
Quote number five, quote number four, we'll go for number four. So this one is also from the Nijing, but it's called, the chapter here is called Tianyuan Qi Danglen. Again, we'll pull the numbers out for you guys who want to check that out. But it's also, these are all from the Suwen, by the way, the first half of the Nijing. And then this one says Wu Sheng Weiju Hua. Wu Ji.
00:32:09
Speaker
Weijir bien. This one is one of my all-time favorites because it's so beautiful. The parallel structure here is lovely. And it says, when wu, which means things, the 10,000 things, the myriad things, this is the wu, wan wu, that wu. Sheng means generate or birthed. Wei, which means this is called hua. Weijir hua, which is just a pronoun, so don't worry about that. So when things are birthed, this is called transformation or hua.
Language, Culture, and Understanding
00:32:37
Speaker
And then it says when things have reached their extreme, which means the terminus of their useful lifetime, this is called bien. Hua to start, bien to end. Hua to birth, bien to finish.
00:32:51
Speaker
Nice. And I believe you, because you have the context right there. And if I ever need to challenge you, or if anyone else comes up with different ideas, I can say, hey, how about this quote from the Su'en? You talked to me about that for a second, and then we can talk about your ideas of Hua and Bien. Nice. Good pronunciation, dude. Tonal. Musical. I bet you're musical. I'm trying. You know, I've heard that people are trying to have perfect pitch because they grow up with a tonal language.
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's not everyone, but it is a higher ratio than Westerners. That's true. But I'd love to try this one. I'd love to stick a bunch of white kids and Chinese families in China. This is a very politically correct experiment here. And then have them grow up, or just check diplomats' kids. Dude, when I was there, there were some kids of diplomats and stuff.
00:33:45
Speaker
I swear, I would never be able to tell they're not Chinese to the T. Their tones were perfect. Their phrasing was insane. The way they stalled, everything was perfect. I spoke Chinese when I was there. I had to, but I don't speak like that. People, if they listen to me on the telephone, usually they'll be like, oh, he must be like a Taiwanese person or something.
00:34:06
Speaker
Like, yeah, he's a little rougher on the edges, but we'll figure it out. Sorry. I love Taiwan. I'm not saying that, but mainland, they've got, they've got, you know, they've got stuff, uh, thoughts out there, but anyway, um, but the kids were in what they were there when they were younger though. Yeah. I think they were born and raised there and they went to local schools and I bet you they have the same rate of perfect pitch as the Chinese. Oh yeah. Absolutely. It's a, it's a learned environmental thing rather than, uh, yeah.
00:34:35
Speaker
like an inherent genetic thing or something. Right. Within just makes it another level more difficult to learn. But we'll get there. Yeah, exactly. So there's another one that also has a parallel form to it, which I always love because it just hits so nice to the soul. It's like, oh, it's so simple. You know, it's this way when it's this way and the other way it's this way.
00:35:03
Speaker
So I know that was really eloquent. No, you actually sounded very Chinese in that phrase, too. I was like, where are you quoting Dao De Jing in that one? It's this way, when it's this way, it's that way, when it is also this way. You can do it with English, but it doesn't work as good. It's like, it is it, isn't it? It is. It is it. Oh, God. Yeah. You're right, it does.
00:35:27
Speaker
You know there's funny ones in Chinese too. There's one from Confucius. He goes... And you're like, really? Is that real? What does it translate to? The first part is... means to know that this is this.
00:35:51
Speaker
to know that this is not this, shirjuriye is true knowledge. And so he's basically, it's his way of saying, um, many things, but if you know what you do know, and you also know the deficits of what you don't know that this is true knowledge, because a lot of, I think a lot of people are blinded by what we'd call like a small amount of knowledge. But they don't know that it's a small amount of knowledge. They think it's everything. Then that's the exactly, so they're kind of blinded by it.
00:36:20
Speaker
And just a shout out to you guys, too. I mean, part of the reason we're putting these quotes on here, too, is if you have questions or challenges or anything like that, we should totally. That's the sort of really useful discourse that helps practitioners get better, helps academics get clearer. But it's also that it gives you a chance to go beyond all of us. The whole point of a good translation should be to
00:36:47
Speaker
transcend the knowledge of that translator. Unfortunately, translations are usually the apex of what the readers can hope to achieve, but a good translation should let you think about, stew, come to your own understanding, and maybe with your greater understanding or experience, be able to have a better, more transcendent knowledge or clearer knowledge of
Comprehension vs. Memorization in Practice
00:37:09
Speaker
these things.
00:37:09
Speaker
So that's a really great reason to go back to the classics. Even if you don't read Chinese, you can pick out the seven best books on the Beijing, which I have no idea which ones to pick for you guys. Sorry. But you could pick all seven and see what they all say about the same phrase and be like, well, why would they say this? And there's still lots of room that you can do even if you don't speak Chinese. Yeah. Absolutely. When you were talking earlier about having to memorize all the passages that you did over in China and how important that was, I think
00:37:39
Speaker
The memorization is a first step, but the second one, which I think is equally, if not more important, is the comprehension. It's just being able to recite or have that in your brain. Because in clinic, you can't, in the five seconds, it's not like, oh, bring out that memorization quote and then think about what it means and then apply it back to the patient. It's like, no, it just got to be there. And you're so busy being present with the patient that it's kind of got to happen on its own.
00:38:07
Speaker
Like this wheel that's turning, that's bringing this stuff up has to just autopilot to bring out useful information so that it's not pulling all of your attention away from the patient to like think about what's happening with them. It just naturally is kind of coming up. And then another reason to review your patient's treatments and what they said afterwards is because then you can bring in more of that analytical brain.
00:38:32
Speaker
bring in more of your, what did we say, arm chair, the reading chair knowledge, right? And like, let's send the other theories and be like, oh, what did I miss? And then, you know, mull over that, tong over that until you reach a new level. Yes. So true. So true. Asher's spot on with this one.
00:38:53
Speaker
Yeah, and so that's why I think the best way to do, you know, any exposure is good for this information, but the best is try and find, you know, a teacher or a book that's fairly good and reputable and so forth, and then stew through the concepts, figure out, okay, why is the, for instance, the bladder, the ji and ye store or the generator?
00:39:14
Speaker
How then does Qiyi Hua come from here? And you get all these nuances. The Shaanlin Lun is a really great example. It's maybe the easiest of the classics to translate. I would say without a doubt, actually. Well, Shen Nong Bonsai is not really that hard either. But it's one of the two easiest for translation, but it's one of the hardest to understand the meaning of it. If he tells you three symptoms, well, so what? But if he tells you three symptoms that tell you pathological location, pathological nature, and pathological tendency,
00:39:44
Speaker
Then you've got the diagnosis down pat. You just didn't, we just didn't realize he was telling us the three most important signs of how to zoom in and like really sink that battleship.
00:39:57
Speaker
And this would be another example, too, of that we're leaving breadcrumbs for students and future practitioners to pick up, but we're not going to give them the answer. We're not going to spell it out for them that this is the diagnosis. But here are all the cookie crumbs. And then also here's what I treated them with, right? Like the end result. So here's the beginning. Here's the end. You have to comprehend and work to figure out that middle.
00:40:23
Speaker
That's right. And to read into the depth of what they have to say, don't forget too that old books were either carved or brushed onto bamboo or sometimes even written into stone, though that wasn't usually the author doing it. So yeah, that's a tough one. If I have to write all of this on bamboo slats,
00:40:43
Speaker
I'm probably not gonna be like, so do you guys get it? Are you with me? Do you understand that I'm talking about the tendency of the disease here? Nah, I'll just be like, they got chills, man. Yeah, efficiency of word usage when carving into stone is something that we don't appreciate, I don't think. Come back next week for the second part of this episode.