The upper class of medicines... governs the nourishment of destiny and correspond to heaven.... If one wishes to prolong the years of life without aging, one should [use these].

The middle class of medicines governs the nourishment of one’s nature and corresponds to man.... If one wishes to prevent illness and to supplement depletions and emaciations, one should [use these].

The lower [class of] medicines... govern the treatment of illness and correspond to earth. If one wishes to remove cold, heat and [other] evil influences [from the body], to break accumulations, and to cure illnesses, one should base [one’s efforts] on [drugs listed in] the lower [class of this] manual.
—Shen Nong Ben Cao

Clearly, for the author of the Shen Nong Ben Cao, China’s oldest herbal text, the highest aspect of healing involves helping the patient fulfill destiny in order to live out the years as allotted by heaven. Below that level of healing is the nourishment of humans’ inborn nature (xing:). The lowest class of medicine treats only physical illness. As early as the third century c.e., the alchemist Ge Hong laments that these words “come from the highest sages,” yet the people of his age have lost their belief in the efficacy of the highest forms of medicine. In this book, I examine the tradition of Chinese medicine, whose primary therapeutic focus is to help patients fulfill their personal destiny. I call this the “inner tradition of Chinese medicine,” hereafter referred to as the “inner tradition.”

As suggested by Ge Hong, even in his time the practice of this inner tradition represented only a small part of the practice of Chinese medicine. Today, the quality of thought inherent in this tradition has been all but lost in the materialistic ideology of the modern era.

At the outset, it is important to comprehend precisely my use of the term “inner tradition.” Ge Hong’s texts, the Wai Pien and the Nei Pien, exemplify the distinction between the inner and outer traditions. The Wai Pien is an external (wai:) text belonging to the Confucian school that addresses public affairs. The Nei Pien is an internal (nei:) text of alchemy that focuses on spiritual transformation and the fulfillment of destiny.

All endeavors in life may be divided into both inner and outer aspects. For example, the practice of martial arts ranges along a broad continuum from relatively “soft” internal styles, such as Tai ji, which focus on self-cultivation, promotion of health, and obtaining longevity, to relatively “hard” external styles, such as Tae Kwon Do, which focus predominantly on cultivating physical strength and self-defense. Despite this distinction, note that even a slow meditative style such as Tai ji has self-defense applications and. likewise, a fast, hard style such as Tae Kwon Do may help cultivate inner virtues such as self-esteem and personal integrity. The inner and outer aspects of a discipline thus are not mutually exclusive. However, the particular point occupied by a given tradition of practice along the continuum from relatively internal (dealing with spirit) to relatively external (dealing with the body) tends to define the limits of practitioners in their ability to address the root of illness and imbalance.

The master practitioner must be able to take the therapeutic action most appropriate in the moment for the individual patient. This entails being able to access patients on many levels, ranging from their depth of spirit to the most superficial aspects of their physical being. Too often, the deeper aspects of treatment are neglected in modern traditions of Chinese medicine, thus depriving the practitioner of tools that could otherwise help to assimilate and apply the wealth of information continually emerging from the patient’s depth of being. Were he present to observe modern practice, Ge Hong might be frustrated by the prevalent lack of belief in “the highest forms of medicine.’’ However, in my travels as a teacher, I have noticed an increasing interest by practitioners of all traditions in the inner aspects of their art that might enable them to address more explicitly matters of emotion, mind, and spirit.

Historically, in China, practitioners of the numerous diverse family traditions of medicine were likely aware of, influenced by, and perhaps took for granted the writings that contain the quality of thought delineated in this text. In the West, contemporary practitioners of relatively external acupuncture and herbal traditions may be aware to one degree or another that their treatments affect their patients at deep levels of emotional and spiritual function and expression. However, in these traditions, no generally available framework explicates either diagnosis or treatment at this level. My work in this text represents an attempt to meet this need. The term “inner tradition” refers to the practice of Chinese medicine in a way that places primary emphasis on the use of medicine as a tool to aid spiritual evolution.

Most notably, a patient’s progress in treatment is assessed primarily by indicators of conscious awareness and balanced emotional functioning rather than, as is done in more external traditions of practice, assessing response to treatment with primary emphasis on the relative presence or absence of pain or other physical symptomatology. Of course, inherent in the inner tradition is the expectation that as the constitutional basis of illness becomes balanced at a deep level, physical symptoms will improve. Similarly, practitioners of external traditions might expect a patient to show a deeper balance of mind and spirit as physical symptoms abate. The distinguishing factor between the inner and outer levels of practice is the level of being, be it physical, emotional, or spiritual, which figures most explicitly in diagnosis, directing treatment, and assessing improvement in the patient.

The inner tradition is most explicitly concerned with the psycho-spiritual basis of illness and views physical symptoms and signs as relatively superficial manifestations that are compensations for underlying constitutional issues. This view is expressed in the Shen Nong Ben Cao, which designates the treatment of physical illness as corresponding to the lowest class of medicine. In this regard the Daoist Liu Cao states:

“If the basic energy is not stabilized, the spirit is insecure. Let insects eat away at the root of a tree, and the leaves dry up. Stop talking about mucus, saliva, semen, and blood—when you get to the basis and find out the original source, they are all the same. When has this thing ever had a fixed location? It changes according to the time, according to mind and ideas.”

Another hallmark of the inner tradition is that it explicitly serves as an extension of the practitioner’s own spiritual quest and path. A foundational principle of this tradition is that a practitioner may only engender a virtue in a patient to the degree that he or she is able to access that virtue within. The diagnostics inherent in the inner tradition require the practitioner to listen with all senses and with increasingly deeper sensitivity to the cues that spontaneously emerge from the patient. This method of honing the senses may, in time, clear away the accretions of experience and interpretation that color the practitioner’s own experience of reality. Hence, through discipline and attentive practice, the functions of the heart and mind of the practitioner may once again be reunited.

The core efficacy of the tradition of Chinese medicine that I delineate in this text does not stem from the collection of techniques which it embraces, or even its philosophical orientation. Rather the efficacy stems from the embodiment of the tradition within the life of the practitioner. I consider the regular practice of an embodied discipline such as a martial art or pulse diagnosis to be essential in this regard. One’s efficacy as a healer lies, in large part, in having become one’s art.

A major factor that initially inspired me to research and write this text was my inquiry into how Chinese physiology reflects the emphasis on spirit found in early Daoist texts such as the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) and the Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu). Further, I suspected truths arrived at in my clinical practice had been addressed in the literature of Chinese medicine.

In part, this text is an elaboration of my inquiry into the theoretical and spiritual foundations of my own clinical insights. My training in the neurosciences led me to understand that models of medicine are based on assumptions about the nature of being that are inherent in the scientific models on which they are based. These assumptions define the relative strengths and weaknesses of any medical paradigm based on them.All too often, practitioners of medicine remain ignorant of the fundamental assumptions of the medicine they practice. My goal here is to present the thread I have discovered at the heart of my own practice of Chinese medicine.

In elucidating the inner tradition, I have drawn heavily on the teachings of Chinese spiritual alchemy. Alchemy as a branch of medicine constitutes the meeting ground between disciplines such as acupuncture, herbalism, pure philosophy, and religion. That this is so is well reflected in the alchemist Ge Hong’s citation of the Shen Nong Ben Cao in his own text of inner alchemy, the Bao Bu Zi. The language used to describe Chinese spirituality, alchemy, and medicine is remarkably similar, and these authors, working in overlapping disciplines, were likely to have been well aware of the other contexts in which important characters such as shen, ling, jing, and qi were also used. My own exposition of the language of Chinese medicine is informed equally by my research into the etymology and usage of characters and the role these concepts play in my daily clinical practice.

In ancient China, cosmologists sought a unified theory of the universe. They believed that, if their theoretical models were correct, they would be able to build pitch pipes that would resonate to the vibrational changes at each solstice and equinox, causing music to spontaneously emerge from them. They further reasoned that if the cosmological models were correct, they would be able to produce an accurate calendar. However, their calendar required continual readjustment, and the pitch pipes never sounded. Eventually, Europeans came to China bearing a telescope and an accurate calendar, demonstrating that a precise calendar could be formulated, but through measurement rather than cosmological and spiritual considerations. The impact on China of this quantitative and materialistic science was impressive. No longer were pitch pipes made and no longer were cosmological maps drawn from inner knowing. Thus it has been winter in Chinese medicine since that time. As its practice has spread throughout the world to other cultures, however, a new diversity is emerging and it appears to be springtime once again for this ancient and precious art and science.

Perhaps it is not that the pitch pipes never sounded, but rather that the pitching of the pipes was not listened for with inner hearing. Perhaps the ancient calendar was never correct because the cosmologists were mapping a realm where no time exists. Perhaps it is time once again to build pitch pipes and to draw maps of life based on the heart’s wisdom as well as the mind’s capacity to analyze data. It is time once again to listen to life with our hearts rather than just to “objectively” dissect life with our minds.

By ascribing the term “inner tradition” to five-element constitutional medicine, I do not mean to imply an elevated status over other traditions of practice. A great virtue of Chinese medicine is the diversity of practice and theory it embraces. The spiritual path defined in this text involves removing all constructs creating separation between the functioning of one’s own heart and mind and the hearts and minds of others. Therefore, it is imperative that practitioners of all traditions hold dearly that aspect of their own practice that is closest to their own hearts without diminishing the value of the practice of others.

Diversity emerges as the natural expression of a balanced relationship between human will and the will of heaven. The will of heaven is continuous, creative, evolutionary change. Humans formulate ways of knowing that consist of models and systems. Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics, and the five-element system are examples. These models represent the human attempt to understand the earth and the nature of our lives upon it. It is human nature to cling to these models and the momentary stability that they appear to afford amid continuous change. Our models remain static, and as we build them into towering monolithic structures whose foundations consist of assumptions and meanings we create, the true nature of life continues to evolve and outgrow them. The edge of this creative change is always just beyond the grasp of our deepest intuition. The momentary stability afforded by such models is an illusion because the essential nature of life remains chaotic and unknowable. Models are tools, elaborate stories, and we must recognize them as such. Diversity is what emerges when individuals are each able to embrace the freedom to create their own mythology while simultaneously allowing others that same freedom. For the sage, all stories are created equal inasmuch as they empower the creative flow of life.

In conclusion, to the degree that my thesis conforms to the beliefs and practices of those who have come before me, I am happy to credit them. To the degree that this work challenges those who attach importance to historical antecedents as a requisite condition for defining what is “true” Chinese medicine, I am happy to admit that “I made this work up” and to let a self-aware inner tradition begin with this text. This inquiry is offered to practitioners of relatively more external traditions of practice who seek a deeper access to diagnostic and therapeutic skills focused on emotional and spiritual levels of human experience. Further, it is my hope that this text may provide practitioners of internal traditions with a better grounding in the theoretical basis of their practice and the historical sources of input to their art. It is my hope that this text may provide a window for the inquisitive mind to follow more deeply into the universe that is Chinese medicine.

© Copyright Lonny S. Jarrett 1998