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Introduction to Ruesi Dat Ton

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This is a guest post by David Wells (E-RYT500, CAS), Yoga Teacher at Integrated Pain Management Clinic. He is a graduate of The California College of Ayurveda and served three years in Peace Corps Thailand. He received Thai Massage and Reusi Dat Ton certifications from The Wat Po School of Traditional Thai Massage in Bangkok and The Thai Massage School of Chiang Mai under the authorization of the Thai Ministry of Education in Thailand. He also studied with Reusi Tevijo and the late Ajan Pisit Benjamongkonware in Thailand. He received advanced Yoga certifications from Kaivalyadhama Yoga Institute, The Sivananda Yoga Center, The Yoga Institute in Mumbai and The Yoga Research Center of Rishikesh in India. He teaches Hatha Yoga and Reusi Dat Ton in New York, USA and also travels conducting continuing education workshops. He recently published “Self-Massage and Joint Mobilization of Traditional Thai Yoga “Reusi Dat Ton” Part1 Handbook. Contact Information: david@wellsyoga.com, www.wellsyoga.com.

 

Ruesi Dat Ton and the Foundations of Thai Massage

Reusi Dat Ton is a little known aspect of traditional Thai healing and culture. It consists of breathing exercises, self-massage, acupressure, dynamic exercises, poses, mantras, visualization and meditation.

“Reusi” in Thai, from the Sanskrit Rishi, is an Ascetic Yogi or Hermit. “Dat” means to stretch, adjust or train. “Ton” is a classifier used for a Reusi and also means oneself. So “Reusi Dat Ton” means the Hermit’s or Yogi’s self-stretching or self-adjusting exercises. Reusis were also known as “Jatila,” Yogi,” and “Chee Prai.” The Reusis were custodians and practitioners of various ancient arts and sciences such as: tantra, yoga, natural medicine, alchemy, music, mathematics, astrology, palmistry, etc. They have counterparts in many ancient cultures, such as: the Siddhas of India, the Yogis of Nepal and Tibet, the Immortals of China, the Vijjadharas of Burma and the Cambodian Eysey (from the Pali word for Reusi, Isii).

There are different Reusi traditions within Thailand. There is a Southern Thai/Malay Tradition, a Northeastern Thai/Lao Tradition, a Central Thai/Khmer Tradition and a Northern Thai/Burmese/Tibetan Tradition. In Thailand, there are Reusis as far South as Kanchanaburi Province who follow the Northern Thai/Burmese/Tibetan Reusi Tradition.

A typical Reusi Dat Ton program would begin with breathing exercises and self-massage, followed by dynamic exercises and poses (some of which involve self acupressure) and finish with visualization, mantras and meditation. The exercises and poses of Reusi Dat Ton range from simple stretches which almost anyone could do, to very advanced poses which could take many years to master.

Some of the Reusi Dat Ton techniques are similar to or nearly identical to some techniques in various Tibetan Yoga Systems, particularly “Yantra Yoga,” “Kum Nye” and the Tibetan Yoga Frescoes from the Lukhang Temple behind the Potala Palace in Lhasa Tibet. (See Norbu, Tulku and Baker) For example; some of the self massage techniques, exercises, poses, neuromuscular locks (bandhas in Sanskrit,) breathing patterns, ratios, visualizations and the way in which male and female practitioners would practice the same technique differently are almost identical. It is possible that Reusi Dat Ton and some of the Tibetan Yoga Systems are derived from a common source, which Rishis brought with them as they moved down the Himalayan foothills into Southeast Asia.

According to the Reusi Tevijo Yogi “The foundation and key to Traditional Thai massage is Reusi Dat Ton. Ancient Reusis, through their own experimentation and experience, developed their understanding of the various bodies (physical, energetic and psychic, etc.) They discovered the postures, channels, points, the winds and wind gates within themselves. Later it was realized that these techniques could be adapted and applied to others for their healing benefit, which is

how Thai massage was developed. So, in order to really understand Thai massage, as a practitioner, one should have a foundation in Reusi Dat Ton and be able to experience it within oneself and then apply it to others. It is not only the roots of Thai massage but it also unlocks the method for treating oneself and maintaining one’s own health.” (Reusi Tevijo Yogi)

It is also interesting to note that there are many similarities between the Reusi Dat Ton “Joint Mobilization Exercises,” many Thai massage techniques and some of the Indian Hatha Yoga therapeutic warming up exercises (the Pawanmuktasana or wind liberating and energy freeing techniques.) There is even an advanced Hatha Yoga pose, Poorna Matsyendrasana, which compresses the femoral artery and produces the same effect as “opening the wind gate” in Reusi Dat Ton Self Massage and Traditional Thai massage. (Saraswati)

Reusi Dat Ton in Traditional Art

In Northeast Thailand, in Buriram province atop an extinct volcano sits the Ancient Khmer temple of Prasat Phnom Rung. Built between 900 and 1200AD, this temple is dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva. The pediment over the eastern doorway features a sculpture of an avatar of Shiva in the form of Yogadaksinamurti. According to the Department of Fine Arts “Yogadaksinamurti means Shiva in the form of the supreme ascetic, the one who gives and maintains wisdom, perception, concentration, asceticism, philosophy, music and the ability to heal disease with sacred chants.” Here “Shiva is dressed as a hermit with crowned headdress holding a rosary in his right hand, seated in the lalitasana position…surrounded by followers. There are figures below him that…represent the sick and wounded.” (Department of Fine Arts). All over the temple one can see additional carvings of Reusis engaged in various activities. In one carving of the “Five Yogis” (or Reusis) the central figure is the God Shiva in his incarnation as Nagulisa, the founder of the Pasupata sect of Shivaite Hinduism. The four yogis on his sides are followers of this Pasupata sect, which is still active today in Nepal.

In 1767, invading Burmese armies destroyed the old Thai capital of Ayutthaya. Soon after his coronation in 1782, the Thai King Rama I established a new capital in what is today Bangkok. He initiated a project to revive the Thai culture after the disaster of Ayutthaya. An old temple Wat Potharam, (popularly known as “Wat Po,”) was chosen to become the site of a new Royal temple

and formally renamed Wat Phra Chetuphon. Beginning in 1789, a renovation and expansion project was begun on the temple. King Rama I also initiated a program to restore and preserve all branches of ancient Thai arts and sciences including: medicine, astrology, religion and literature. As part of this project, medical texts from across the kingdom were collected and brought to be stored at Wat Po. The King also ordered the creation of a set of clay Reusi statues depicting various Reusi Dat Ton techniques.

This restoration project was continued by the Kings Rama II and Rama III. As part of this work, scholars compiled important texts on various ancient arts and sciences and created authoritative textbooks for each of these fields. In 1832, a project to etch the medical texts into marble tablets was begun. Medical theories regarding the origin and treatment of disease, massage charts and over 1000 herbal formulas were all recorded on the marble tablets. Gardens of medicinal herbs were also planted on the temple grounds. Thus, Wat Po was to become “a seat of learning for all classes of people in all walks of life” which would “expound all braches of traditional knowledge both religious and secular,” and serve as “an open university” of traditional Thai culture with a “library of stone.” (Griswold, 319-321)

By 1836, the clay Reusi Dat Ton statues created by order of King Rama I had deteriorated. To replace these, King Rama III commissioned the creation of 80 new Reusi Dat Ton statues. Each statue depicted a different Reusi performing a specific Reusi Dat Ton technique. For each statue there was a corresponding marble tablet upon which was etched a poem describing the technique and it’s curative effect. These poems were composed by various important personalities of the day. Princes, monks, government officials, physicians, poets, and even the King himself contributed verses. The original plan was to cast the statues with an alloy of zinc and tin, but unfortunately only the more perishable material stucco was used. The statues were then painted and housed in special pavilions. Over the years most of the original statues have been lost or destroyed. Today only about 20 remain and these are displayed upon two small “Hermit’s Mountains” near the Southern entrance of Wat Po. The marble tablets have been separated from their corresponding statues and are now stored in the pavilion Sala Rai.

Beginning in 2009, the casting of metal Reusi Dat Ton statues was begun. These new statues are gradually appearing in and around the Wat Po Massage School near the Eastern entrance of Wat Po. So now after almost 200 years, Wat Po will soon finally have it’s complete set of 80 metal Reusi Dat Ton statues as originally envisioned by King Rama III.

Textual Sources of Reusi Dat Ton

We may never know what, if any Ancient texts on Reusi Dat Ton may have existed and were lost when the invading Burmese armies destroyed the old Thai capital of Ayutthaya in 1767. Today, the closest thing to an original source text on Reusi Dat Ton is an 1838 manuscript commissioned by Rama III entitled The Book of Eighty Rishis Performing Posture Exercises to Cure Various Ailments. Like other manuscripts of the time, this text was printed on accordion like folded black paper, known in Thai as “Khoi.” This text, popularly known as the Samut Thai Kao features line drawings of the 80 Wat Po Reusi Dat Ton statues along with their accompanying poems. In the introduction, it states that Reusi Dat Ton is a “…system of posture exercises invented by experts to cure ailments and make them vanish away.” (Griswold, 321) This text is housed in the National Library in Bangkok. There are also other editions of this text housed in museums and private collections as well.

The Benefits of Reusi Dat Ton

In both the Samut Thai Kao and The Book of Medicine, the texts not only describe the techniques, but also ascribe a therapeutic benefit to each pose or exercise. Some poems describe specific ailments while others use Sanskrit Ayurvedic medical terminology.

Some of the ailments mentioned include; abdominal discomfort and pain, arm discomfort, back pain, bleeding, blurred vision, chest congestion, chest discomfort and pain, chin trouble, chronic disease, chronic muscular discomfort, congestion, convulsions, dizziness and vertigo, dyspepsia, facial paralysis, fainting, foot cramps, pain and numbness, gas pain, generalized weakness, generalized sharp pain, headache and migraine, hand discomfort, cramps and numbness, heel and ankle joint pain, hemorrhoids, hip joint problems, joint pain, knee pain and weakness, lack of alertness, leg discomfort, pain and weakness, lockjaw, low back pain, lumbar pain, muscular

cramps and stiffness, nasal bleeding, nausea, neck pain, numbness, pelvic pain, penis and urethra problems, scrotal distention, secretion in throat, shoulder and scapula discomfort and pain, stiff neck, thigh discomfort, throat problems, tongue trouble, uvula spasm, vertigo, waist trouble, wrist trouble, vomiting, and waist discomfort.

Some of the Ayurvedic disorders described in the texts include; Wata (Vata in Sanskrit) in the head causing problems in meditation, severe Wata disease, Wata in the hands and feet, Wata in the head, nose and shoulder, Wata in the thigh, Wata in the scrotum, Wata in the urethra, Wata causing knee, leg and chest spasms, Wata causing blurred vision, Sannipat (a very serious and difficult to treat condition due to the simultaneous imbalance of Water, Fire and Wind Elements which may also involve a toxic fever) an excess of Water Dhatu (possibly plasma or lymph fluids,) and “Wind” in the stomach. Other benefits described in the old texts include; increased longevity and opening all of the “Sen” (There are various types of “Sen” or channels in Traditional Thai Medicine. There are Gross Earth Physical “Sen” such as Blood Vessels. There are also more Subtle “Sen” such as channels of Bioenergy flow within the Subtle Body, known as “Nadis” in Sanskrit. In addition, there are also “Sen” as channels of the Mind.)

In recent years, the Thai Ministry of Public Health has published several books on Reusi Dat Ton. According these modern texts, some of the benefits of Reusi Dat Ton practice include; improved agility and muscle coordination, increased joint mobility, greater range of motion, better circulation, improved respiration improved digestion, assimilation and elimination, detoxification, stronger immunity, reduced stress and anxiety, greater relaxation, improved concentration and meditation, oxygen therapy to the cells, pain relief, slowing of degenerative disease and greater longevity. (Subcharoen, 5-7)

A recent study at Naresuan University in Phitsanulok, Thailand, found that after one month of regular Reusi Dat Ton practice there was an improvement in anaerobic exercise performance in sedentary females. (Weerapong et al, 205)

Thai Reusi Dat Ton and Indian Hatha Yoga

A survey of the traditional Indian Hatha Yoga text Jogapradipaka of Jayatarama from 1737AD identified the following 45 Indian asanas as having similar or identical counterparts in Thai Reusi Dat Ton; Svastikasana, Padmasana, Netiasana, Udaraasana, Purvasana, Pascimatanasana, Suryasana, Gorakhajaliasana, Anasuyasana, Machendrasana, Mahamudrasana, Jonimudrasana, Sivasana, Makadasana, Bhadragorakhasana, Cakriasana, Atamaramasana, Gohiasana, Bhindokasana, Andhasana, Vijogasana, Jonisana, Bhagasana, Rudrasana, Machindrasana (2nd variety), Vyasaasana, Dattadigambarasana, Carapatacaukasana, Gvalipauasana, Gopicandasana, Bharathariasana, Anjanasana, Savitriasana, Garudasana, Sukadevasana, Naradasana, Narasimghasana, Kapilasana, Yatiasana, Vrhaspatiasana, Parvatiasana, Siddhaharataliasana, Anilasana, Parasaramasana and Siddhasana. To date over 200 different Indian Hatha Yoga techniques have been identified which have similar or identical counterparts in Thai Reusi Dat Ton.

One unique feature of Reusi Dat Ton is the absence of Viparitakarani (Inversions) such as Shirshasana (Headstand), Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand.) Reusi Dat Ton also has no equivalents to Mayurasana (Peacock) or Bakasana (Crow). In Hatha Yoga both men and women use the left heel to press the perineum in Siddhasana (Adepts Pose), while in Reusi Dat Ton, men use the

right heel and women use the left. Reusi Dat Ton includes a series of “Joint Mobilization” exercises, many of which are very similar or identical to the Pawanmuktasana (Joint Loosening and Energy Freeing Exercises) taught by the Bihar School of Yoga in Northeast India. (Saraswati) Reusi Dat Ton also includes a system of self-massage, which is typically done prior to the exercises.

Both Hatha Yoga and Reusi Dat Ton practice forms of Surya and Chandra Bhedana Pranayama (Solar and Lunar Breathing.) However in Hatha Yoga men and women both use the right hand when practicing Pranayama (Breathing Exercises), while in Reusi Dat Ton men use the right hand and women use the left. Both use Ashwini Mudra (Anal Lock) and Jivha Bandha (Tongue Lock.) However, Reusi Dat Ton has no counterparts to Uddiyana Bandha (Abdominal Lock) or Jalandhara Bandha (Throat Lock.)

In Traditional Indian Hatha Yoga one will generally maintain an Asana for a few minutes. In contrast, Reusi Dat Ton tends to be more dynamic. Generally, one will inhale while going into the pose, hold the pose for several breaths, and then exhale when coming out of the pose. This is done to encourage the strong, healthy flow of Prana thru the Nadis (or Loam thru the Sen in Thai)

 Reusi Dat Ton Today

Today in Thailand, Reusi Dat Ton is being used in various ways. Some practice Reusi Dat Ton poses and exercises as a way to improve and maintain overall health, in much the same way as Hatha Yoga and Chi Gong are used today. Others such as Ajan Pisit Benjamongkonware of Pisit’s Massage School in Bangkok used Reusi Dat Ton in combination with traditional Thai Massage techniques as a system of therapy. They will use specific techniques for specific ailments, rather like an ancient system of rehabilitation similar to modern day Chiropractic and Physical Therapy. Others consider the energetic effects with the aim of facilitating the normal healthy flow of bioenergy through the “Sen” or energy channels of the subtle body. There are also a few remaining Reusis who still use Reusi Dat Ton in the traditional way as part of their personal meditation and spiritual practice.

The Institute of Thai Traditional Medicine at the Ministry of Public Health requires all their students of Thai Massage and Thai Traditional Medicine to attend Reusi Dat Ton classes as part of their curriculum. In these classes, students learn some of the self-massage techniques as well as 15 poses and exercises. While based on Reusi Dat Ton, these 15 techniques are actually newly created modifications thought to be safe and easily practiced by anyone. In Bangkok, The Wat Po School of Traditional Medicine offers a formal Reusi Dat Ton certification course in which students learn 18 of the poses and exercises. The Massage School Chiang Mai offers a formal Reusi Dat Ton certificate course, which is accredited by the Thai Ministry of Education. Their course is based on the same 15 poses and exercises as taught by the Ministry of Public Health. There are also a number of other places offering Reusi Dat Ton classes. Most of these programs teach either one or a combination of both of the two different programs, as taught by the Ministry of Public Health and Wat Po. There are also a number of commercially available Reusi Dat Ton books and videos.

Today in Thailand, there are a dwindling number of true Reusis and few young people are interested in learning the traditional arts and sciences in their authentic forms. Much of the traditional knowledge of the Reusi traditions is in danger of being lost. Nowadays, most modern day students and teachers of Reusi Dat Ton have learned from second or third hand sources such as commercially available books, videos and classes. They have not had access to primary sources such as actual Reusis or even the Samut Thai Kao. If this trend continues, there is a danger of Reusi Dat Ton becoming diluted and distorted like Hatha Yoga has become in today’s popular culture. Today we may well be seeing the last generation of teachers with an actual living link to the ancient traditions of the past and who are able to transmit the authentic teachings of Reusi Dat Ton. Serious students of Reusi Dat Ton would do well to seek out actual Reusis who have themselves learned from older Reusis who serve as a living link in the lineage of this ancient tradition.

Possible Future Research 

A possible research project would be to seek out Reusis and traditional healers across Thailand. One would then learn as much as possible about Reusi Dat Ton from them and compile it. This way the authentic teachings of this ancient tradition would not be lost in case these people die without being able to pass their knowledge on to the next generation. It could also be well worth investigating the many claims about the therapeutic effects attributed to Reusi Dat Ton practices in the old texts.

Bibliography of Readings about Ruesi Dat Ton

English Language 

  • Baker, Ian A. and Thomas Laird. (2000). “The Dali Lama’s Secret Temple: Tantric Wall Paintings from Tibet.” Thames & Hudson Ltd., London, UK.
  • Buhnemann, Gudrun. (2007). “Eighty-Four Asanas in Yoga: A Survey of Traditions.” (Contains the Jogapradipika of Jayatarama). D. K. Printworld, New Delhi, India.
  • Chokevivat, Vichai and Chuthaputti, Anchalee. (2005). “The Role of Thai Traditional Medicine in Health Promotion.” Thai Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand.
  • Chuthaputti, Anchalee. (2007). “National Traditional System of Medicine Recognized by the Thai Government.” Thai Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand.
  • Covington, Laura. (2010). “Interview with a Reusi.” (Interview with Reusi Tevijjo Yogi). Bodhi Tree Learning Center. Richmond, USA.
  • Department of Fine Arts. “Phnom Rung Historical Park Visitors Guide.” (And displays in the Phnom Rung Museum.) Department of Fine Arts, Buriram, Thailand.
  • Evans-Wentz, W. Y. (2006). “Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines.” Pilgrims Publishing, Varanasi, India. Gharote, M. L. (Editor). (2006). “Encyclopaedia of Traditional Asanas.” The Lonavala Yoga Institute. Lonavala, India.
  • Ginsburg, Henry. (2000). “Thai Art and Culture: Historic Manuscripts from Western Collections.” University of Hawaii, Honolulu, USA.
  • Griswold, A.B. (1965). “The Rishis of Wat Po.” In Felicitation Volumes of Southeast Asian Studies Presented to His Highness Prince Dhaninivat Kromamun Bidyalabh Brindhyakorn. The Siam Society, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • H.H. Prince Dhani Nivat, “The Inscriptions of Wat Phra Jetubon,” Journal of the Siam Society. Vol. 26, Pt. 2. The Siam Society, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Hofbauer, Rudolf. “A Medical Retrospect of Thailand.” In Journal of the Thailand Research Society, 34: 183-200. Thailand Research Society, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Linrothe, Rob, (Editor). (2006). “Holy Madness: Portraits of Tantric Siddhas.” Rubin Museum of Art and Serindia Publications. New York and Chicago, USA.
  • Miao, Yuan. (2002). “Dancing on Rooftops with Dragons: The Yoga of Joy.” The Philosophical Research Society, Los Angeles, USA.
  • Massage School of Chiang Mai. (2006). Yogi Exercise “Lue Sri Dadton” Student Handbook. Massage School of Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
  • Matics, Kathleen Isabelle. (1978). An Historical Analysis of the Fine Arts at Wat Phra Chetuphon: A Repository of Ratanakosin Artistic Heritage, PhD Dissertation, New York University, New York, USA. Matics, K.I. (1977). “Medical Arts at Wat Pha Chetuphon: Various Rishi Statues.” In Journal of the Siam Society, 65:2: 2: 145-152. The Siam Society, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Norbu, Chogyal Namkhai. (2008). “Yantra Yoga: The Tibetan Yoga of Movement.” Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, USA.
  • Reusi Tevijo Yogi. Personal Communication. Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand.
  • Salguero, C. Pierce, (2007). “Traditional Thai Medicine: Buddhism, Animism and Ayurveda.” Hohm Press, Prescott, USA.
  • Saraswati, Swami Satyananda. (2006). “Asana, Pranayama, Mudra, Bandha.” Bihar School of Yoga, Yoga Publications Trust, Munger, India.
  • Schoeppl, Adolf. (1981). Textbook of Thai Traditional Manipulative Medicine, MPH Thesis, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Sheposh, Joel. (2006). Reusi Dat Ton: Thai Style Exercises, Tao Mt., Charlottesville, USA.
  • Subcharoen, Pennapa and Deewised Kunchana, (Editors). (1995). “The Hermits Art of Contorting: Thai Traditional Medicine.” The National Institute of Thai Traditional Medicine, Nontaburi, Thailand.
  • Tulku, Tarthang. (1978). “Kum Nye Relaxation: Parts 1and 2.” Dharma Publishing, Berkeley, USA. Tulku, Tarthang. (2003). “Tibetan Relaxation: Kum Nye Massage and Movement.” Duncan Baird Publications, London, UK.
  • Venerable Dhammasaro Bhikkhu. “Textbook of Basic Physical Training- Hermit Style (Rishi).” Wat Po. Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Wat Po Thai Traditional Medical School, Ruesi Dat Ton; Student Handbook. Wat Po. Bangkok, Thailand. White, David Gordon. (1996). “The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India.” University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA.

Thai Language 

  • Ajan Pisit Benjamongkonware. (2007). “Twenty One Self Stretching Exercises (21 Ta Dat Ton).” Village Doctor Press, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Ajan Pisit Benjamongkonware. Personal Communication. Pisit’s Massage School, Bangkok, Thailand, Ajan Kong Kaew Veera Prajak (Professor of Ancient Languages). Personal Communication. The Ancient Manuscript and Inscription Department, National Library, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Chaya, Ooh E. (2006). “Thai Massage, Reusi Dat Ton: Therapy for Illness and Relaxation, (Nuat Thai, Reusi Dat Ton: Bam Bat Rok Pai Klie Klieat).” Pi Rim Press, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Karen Reusi. Personal Communication via Dr. Robert Steinmetz of Wildlife Fund Thailand. Thung Yai National Park in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand,
  • Mr. Kayat, (Editor). (1995). “Eighty Poses of Reusi Dat Ton, Wat Po (80 Ta Bat Reusi Dat Ton, Wat Po).” Pee Wa Tin Press, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Mulaniti Health Center. (1994). “41 Poses, The Art of Self Massage for Health, (41 Ta, Sinlaba Gan Nuat Don Eng Pua Sukapap).” Mulaniti Health Center, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Patanagit, Arun Rawee. (1994). “Body Exercise, Thai Style: Reusi Dat Ton, (Gan Brehan Rang Gie Bap Thai: Chut Reusi Dat Ton).” Petchkarat Press. Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Saw Pai Noie. (2001). “Lang Neua Chop Lang Ya.” Sai Ton Press, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Sela Noie, Laeiat. (2000). “Amazing Thai Heritage: Reusi Dat Ton.” Dok Ya Press, Bangkok, Thailand. Subcharoen, Pennapa (Editor). (2004). “Handbook of Thai Style Exercise: 15 Basic Reusi Dat Ton Poses, (Ku Mu Gie Brehan Bap Thai Reusi Dat Ton 15 Ta).” Thai Traditional Medicine Development Foundation, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Subcharoen, Pennapa (Editor). (2006). “One Hundred Twenty Seven Thai Style Exercises, Reusi Dat Ton (127 Ta Gie Brehan Bap Thai, Reusi Dat Ton).” Thai Traditional Medicine Development Foundation, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Various authors commissioned by King Rama III. (1838). “The Book of Eighty Rishis Performing Posture Exercises to Cure Various Ailments (Samut Rup Reusi Dat Ton Kae Rok Tang Tang Baet Sip Rup).” (Also known as Samut Thai Kao) Housed in the National Library Bangkok, Thailand,
  • Wat Po Thai Traditional Medicine School. (1990). “Reusi Dat Ton Handbook (Dam Ra Reusi Dat Ton Wat Po).” (Reproductions from the original Samut Thai Kao). Wat Po Press, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Wat Po Thai Traditional Medicine School. (1958). “The Book Of Medicine (Dam Ra Ya).” (Contains a Reusi Dat Ton section based on the same verses as the 1838 manuscript, Samut Thai Kao, but with completely different illustrations). Wat Po Press, Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Weerapong Chidnok, Opor Weerapun, Chanchira Wasuntarawat, Parinya Lertsinthai and Ekawee Sripariwuth. (2007). “Effect of Ruesi-Dudton-Stretching-Exercise Training to Anaerobic Fitness in Healthy Sedentary Females.” Naresuan University Journal 2007; 15 (3) 205-214. Phittsanulok, Thailand.
Chinese & East Asian Medicines, Religion & Medicine

Daoist Contemplation and Chinese Medicine, Part 1: History and definition of contemplation in Daoist texts

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Different forms of contemplative practices have been one of the key elements in Daoist tradition. This essay will appear in four parts dealing with:

1. History and definition of contemplation in Daoist texts

2. Contemplative practices and concept of body-mind

3. Contemplation and dietary practices

4. Contemplation and art of medicine

In these short essays I define contemplative practices, look historical relevance and how has it affected the development Chinese medicine and what does it has to do with ideals of art of medicine. Some concepts presented might no longer fit to current understanding of Chinese medicine, but they have played consequential role in formulation of ideas and have been influential cultural context for ancient doctors who wrote some of the foremost classics of Chinese medicine. While reading these essays please keep in mind, that heart and mind are same word (xīn 心) in Chinese.

Defining Daoist contemplation

To be able to track down history of contemplative practices we first need to be able to define what we mean by contemplation. Modern practitioners usually prefer to use trendy terms like mindfulness often defined as conscious awareness and non-judgmental acceptance. While this might work well for some forms of practices, for more historical study we have to to rely on Daoist and Chinese Buddhist terms, definitions and context.

Mindfulness research literature often takes terms sati (Pāli) and smṛti (Sanskrit), which directly translates to Chinese niàn 念, to mean contemplation and mindfulness. Niàn means memory or recollection; to think on or to reflect upon something; to read or study. In Daoist context this term can be used for studying scriptures and contemplating or holding an object or idea in mind. Sometimes this is done by concentrating on a deity.

However, most of the Daoist texts use term guān 觀 in Chinese literature. It translates to looking and observing. Very often it is used in connection with word nèi 內 which means inner or internal to denote the nature and direction of observation. Therefore nèiguān 內觀 could be translated as inner observation. Nèiguān also serves as literal translation of Buddhist concepts of vipassanā (Pāli or vipaśyanā in Sanskrit). Inner contemplation or nèiguān is set of practices where one directs his awareness within himself. In different types and stages of the practice object of awareness can be body as whole or some part like an organ. Object can be an emotion and how it is experienced within body-mind in level qì or energy. Many of these techniques concentrate on breathing. Some of the breathing meditations are similar to what is described in Buddhist Ānāpānasati Sutta (Pāli) or Ānāpānasmṛti Sūtra (Sanskrit). However Daoist practitioners often start their practice by concentrating on subtleties of breathing felt on lower abdomen instead the mindfulness of breathing itself.

The aim of contemplation has usually been, especially in Daoist practice, to be able to slowly shift ones attention to mind itself. This is usually seen as the key element of the practice in Daoist context as the “real” contemplation is apophatic in nature, striving to attain total emptiness and complete negation or detachment from desires, concepts and contents of the mind. This emptiness is obtained by silencing the mind with sustained non-interfering observation or Nèiguān. The famous Qīngjìngjīng 清靜經 explains:

能遣之者,内觀於心,心無其心;外觀於形,形無其形;遠觀於物,物無其物。三者既悟,唯見於空。觀 空以空,空無所空。所空既無,無無亦無。無無既無,湛然常寂。寂無所寂,慾豈能生?慾既不生, 即是真靜。

“These [desires] can be removed by internally contemplating the heart (mind). The heart is not this heart. Externally contemplating form. The form is not this forms. From distance contemplating things. These things are not these things. After these three have been realized and [you are] just seeing these as emptiness, contemplate this emptiness with emptiness. Emptiness does not exists in emptiness. In [this] emptiness there is still [further] non-existence. Non-existence of non-existence is also non-existing. [When] non-existence of non-existence is non-existing, there is deepest and eternal stillness. In stillness [where even] stillness does not exists, how could desires arise? When desires cannot arise, it is true peace.”

Despite the epilogue by Gě Xuán 葛玄 (164–244) who attributed the text to goddess Xīwángmǔ 西王母, in reality the text is probably written during early Tang-dynasty (618 – 907)[1]. The wording is clearly influenced by Buddhism but it gives the essential idea about contemplative practice and its apophatic nature. Following this nature we can start tracing contemplative practices through history. This nature is crucial for understanding continuation of the practice, its ideals and importance to Chinese medical and philosophical culture.

Early views and history of contemplative practices in China

Nèiguān practices that flourished in China during Tang-dynasty (618 – 907) are usually thought to have their origin in Buddhism. Buddhism started spreading to China during the 2nd century CE and one of the most well known Buddhist missionaries during the time was Ān Shìgāo 安世高 (c. 148 – 180) who translated Buddhist texts to Chinese language[2]. Among these texts there was also Ānāpānasati Sutta containing outlines of same idea used in practice of nèiguān. But even before that the practice was already well known in China. One of the oldest and synonymous expression to nèiguān is kǎonèishēn 考內身 which can be found from scripture titled Báixīn 白心 or Purifying the mind. In Báixīn there is a passage which says:

欲愛吾身,先知吾情君親六合,以考內身。以此知象,乃知行情既知行情,乃知養生。

“Desires and affections [arise from] our own body. First we understand our emotions, ruling sentiments and six harmonies by looking inside the body. Then we’ll know images after which we understand movement of emotions. By knowing movement of emotions we then understand cultivation of life (yǎngshēng).”

I translate kǎonèishēn here as looking inside the body. It might have been more easily understood by Western readers of spiritual practices, if I had translated it to inspecting inner bodies but that might be a bit stretching for context of early Daoist texts. Therefore the word body (shēn 身) needs bit clarification. The view of body in many archaic Chinese texts was much more broad than our modern use of the word. It was not just torso with four limbs but more a vessel composed of and containing different energies, spiritual influences and essence (jīng 精). It was seen intimately connected to time and world around us. I’ll come back to nature of body-mind in next part but the important thing here is that Báixīn gives advice to turn our attention into our body-minds to become aware of emotions and mental images. Báixīn also belongs to the earliest texts using term yǎngshēng or cultivating life which later formed a central concept in many medical and religious practices.

Báixīn dates back to 285 – 235 B.C. being from last period of Jìxià Academy (Jìxià xuégōng 稷下學宮)[3]. It is included in collection of political and philosophical texts named Guǎnzǐ 管子. The collection contains three other meditative texts namely Xīnshù shàng 心術上, Xīnshù xià 心術下 and Nèiyè 內業. Both Xīnshù texts speak of emptiness of the heart or mind. “Empty it (mind) from desires and Shén (Spirit) enters its domain. Clean from impure and Shén will remain in its place.” (《心術上》：虛其欲,神將入舍。掃除不潔,神乃留處。)

Xīnshù texts expand the ideas presented in older text called Nèiyè and transform individual meditation practice to fit the fields of economics and politics. They advocate importance of contemplative mindfulness practice to rulers and bureaucrats. The ideal ruler must remain detached from confusion of emotions and doubts. Their mind must remain clear in order to rule efficiently. Xīnshù xià states that:

心安,是國安也。心治,是國治也。… 治心在於中,治言出於口,治事加於民;故功作而民從,則 百姓治矣。

“When mind is peaceful nation is at peace. When mind is governed nation is [under] governance…When governed mind stays at its center and controlled words come out of mouth then governed actions are guiding the subjects. Thus good results are achieved and people will follow. In this way the common people are governed.”

Many texts from Huáng-Lǎo School promote contemplation to gain understanding of laws of governing people and contemplation was seen as a mean to understand universal way or law which also controlled the society. This discourse is highly interesting when we compare it to modern mindfulness movement and especially mindful leadership where we see similar claims and uses. Meditative texts of Guǎnzǐ do not demand worship, divination or other ritualistic techniques. They are plain and simple self cultivation practices written by the literati to other members of ruling class of their time. The fact that these texts were included in highly political text collection gives us an impression that these practices were wide spread and not known only in religious circles. This is especially evident as many of the texts in Guǎnzǐ belong to strict Legalist school that saw tradition and softer values as weakness to be cut down[4].

The Guǎnzǐ collection also includes scripture called Nèiyè 內業 or Internal practice, which is probably the oldest of surviving Chinese meditation manuals and dates back to circa 325 B.C. The poetic style of Nèiyè suggests oral tradition and therefore even older origin.[3] Nèiyè presents very clear and plain description of meditation. Its themes are similar to many Tang-dynasty meditation texts and Nèiyè defines connection of man to universe, reason for contemplation, different attitudes and key elements for practice. The text begins with idea how human being is connected to cosmos:

凡物之精,比則為生下生五穀,上為列星。流於天地之間,謂之鬼神,藏於胸中,謂之聖人。

“From the essence of every being comes their life. Below it gives birth to five grains, above forms the constellations. Its flow between heaven and earth we call as spirits and gods. When it is stored within center of chest we call him a sage.”

During writing of Nèiyè the idea of essence (jīng 精) was still developing. The essence was seen as something having nature of divinity or spirit. Later it became described more substantial and bit liquid like as in texts like Huángdì Nèijīng Sùwèn 黃帝內經素問. The concept of Jīng-Shén 精神, which is usually translated as life-force or vigor it still retained its early intangibility. Some of the early texts see essence as one of the “bodily spirits” or shén.

The text proceeds defining how all the sorrows arise from the heart and they are ended with the heart. The heart was seen to effect everyone around us, bringing with it our fortunes or misfortunes. Only cultivation of the heart was seen as means for real moral development and thus Nèiyè states that:

賞不足以勸善,刑不足以懲過。氣意得而天下服。心意定而天下聽。

“Rewards are not sufficient to encourage virtue, nor punishments enough for disciplining. [Only] when qi-mind is obtained, that what is under the heaven will be subjugated. Only when heart-mind is stopped that what is under the heaven will obey.”

Same idea of shedding false morals, ethical values and empty rituals and replacing them by true nature was recurring theme in even earlier Zhuāngzǐ 莊子.

Author(s) of Nèiyè also pondered how or what in the mind can observe itself:

何謂解之,在於心安。我心治,官乃治。我心安,官乃安。治之者心也,安之者心也;心以藏心,心之中又有心焉。彼心之心,音以先言,音然後形,形然後言。言然後使,使然後治。不治必亂,亂乃死。

“How to explain that which is in peaceful heart? [When] I (ego) and heart are regulated, officials (organs) are regulated. [When] I and heart are at peace, officials are in peace. One regulating them is heart. One pacifying them is heart. There is heart hidden within heart. In the center of the heart there is another heart! This heart within heart is the voice before the words. From the voice follow forms, from the form follow the words. From the words follow actions and from the actions follow governing. [From that which] is not governed follows chaos and from the chaos follows death.”

As non-controlled mind was seen as main reason for chaos and destruction the often emphasized benefit from cultivation was freedom from internal conflict and outer catastrophes. In Nèiyè this freedom is describes thus:

中無惑意,外無邪菑,心全於中,形全於外。不逢天菑,不遇人害,謂之聖人。

“Without confusing thoughts within, one is externally without evil and disasters. Heart maintained in the center and form is maintained externally. [Thus one does] not encounter heavenly calamities nor face human troubles [therefore] we call him a sage.”

Freedom from human suffering later became exaggerated more and more until it became immortality and total untouchability during Han-dynasty and was still aim of contemplative practitioners during Tang-dynasty. See for example text called Preserving Shén and refining Qì.
The themes of freedom, emptiness and cultivation of heart were also present in many other writings of the time, but were often less instructive and more ambiguous in their poetic or prosaic expression. Of these texts Dàodéjīng 道德經 and Zhuāngzǐ are famous examples. Zhuāngzǐ for example describes fasting of the heart in following quote:

回曰:「敢問心齋。」仲尼曰:「若一志,无聽之以耳而聽之以心,无聽之以心而聽之以氣。聽止於耳,心止於符。氣也者,虛而待物者也。唯道集虛。虛者,心齋也。」

“[Yán] Huí said: Could I ask about fasting of mind?
Zhòng Ní answered: When having singular will, you’ll not hear with ears but you hear them with heart. When not hearing with heart you’ll hear them with qì. Hearing stops to listening with ears. Heart stops to symbols. The Qì is emptiness that receives things. Only Dào gathers in emptiness. Emptiness is fasting of the heart.”

Dàodéjīng as the best known Daoist text has collected many different translations around it. The text describes contemplation in its 16th chapter:

致虛極,守靜篤。萬物並作,吾以觀復。夫物芸芸,各復歸其根。歸根曰靜,是謂復命。復命曰常,知常曰明。不知常,妄作凶。知常容,容乃公,公乃天,天乃道,道乃久,沒身不殆。

“Reaching the utmost emptiness and guarding stillness and honesty, 10 000 things are working in union. Contemplating this, I’ll return. Countless humans and beings all return to their root. Returning to the root is called stillness. It is also described as returning to life (fù mìng is literally returning the destiny). Returning to life is called eternity. Knowing eternity is called enlightenment. Not knowing eternity [you just] arrogantly cause disasters. By knowing eternal you’ll accept. From accepting follows fairness. From fairness follows completion. From completion follows heavenly and from heavenly follows Dào. From Dào follows continuation and [then even] disappearance of body is not fatal.”

Considering this particular chapter we have to take into account that Dàodéjīng, as we now read it, was edited by Wáng Bì during early third century. The chapter found from the Mǎwángduī excavation, dating to second century B.C.[5] is very similar but a century older Guōdiàn[6] version does not mention contemplation at all. The importance of observing with empty mind is prominent in many other chapters as well.

Taking into account textual evidence about these contemplative practices and the idea of using them for returning to original state or to finding true nature had clearly been already developed before end of Warring States period. The Chinese still remained isolated from India centuries after writing the meditative texts of Guǎnzǐ or Dàodéjīng and Zhuāngzì. It was only at the first and second centuries during which trading of goods and thoughts between China and India really begun. If we consider the possible dating of historical Buddha to be somewhere around the commonly agreed 566–486 B.C.[7], it is hardly likely that Buddhist influence at the time could have induced such a wide spread of contemplative ideology in China. Buddhist tradition speaks of teachers Ārāḍa Kālāmalta ja Uddaka Rāmaputta as well reputed teachers, so we can say that these practices were also more wide spread in India during that time. But with lack of active trade routes, cultural exchange and having textual sources showing more wide spread cultural use of the contemplative ideas in China, we may conclude that it is highly likely that contemplative practices were developed independently in China and the Buddhist influences merged to Chinese contemplative ideologies and practices only later.

Rise of Buddhism in China however sparked new interest in contemplative practices. Old texts were edited, new texts were written and older classics were interpreted from viewpoint more fitting to contemplative practices. Zuòwàng lùn 坐忘論, which quotes heavily on Dàodéjīng and Zhuāngzǐ, is good example of reinterpreting older scriptures. The spread of Buddhism also influenced other areas of practices like dietary taboos and ethical codes. What remained the same was apophatic nature of contemplative practice. To quote a Tang-dynasty text called Nèiguānjīng 內觀經 – Classic of inner contemplation:

道也者,不可言傳口授而得之。常虛心靜神,道自來居。

“Dào cannot be put to words. By mouth it cannot be given or obtained. [By having] constantly empty heart and tranquil spirit, Dào naturally returns to its residence.”

 

References

  1. Verellen Franciscus and Schipper Kristofer. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. University Of Chicago Press, 2005.
  2. Greene Eric M. Healing breaths and rotting bones: On the relationship between buddhist and chinese meditation practices during the eastern han and three kingdoms period. Journal of Chinese Religions, 4(2):145–184, 3 2014. (www)
  3. Roth Harold D. Daoism in the guanzi. In book Liu Xiaogan (editor), Dao Companion to Daoist Philosophy, pages 265–280. Springer, 2015.
  4. Rickett Allyn W. Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China. Princeton University Press, 1998.
  5. Harper Donald. Early Chinese Medical Literature. Routledge, 1997.
  6. Meyer Dirk. Meaning-Construction in Warring States Philosophical Discourse: A Discussion of the Palaeographic Materials from Tomb Guōdiàn One. Doctoral thesis, Leiden University, 2008. (www)
  7. Heinz Bechert, editor. The Dating o fthe Historical Buddha. Die Datierung des Historischen Buddha. Symposien zur Buddhismusforschung, IV, 1, 1991. (www)
Chinese & East Asian Medicines, Religion & Medicine

An Excerpt from Fascicle Twenty-Nine of Huilin’s Yiqie jing yinyi 一切經音義, Pronunciations and Meanings for All [Buddhist] Scriptures

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An Excerpt from Fascicle Twenty-Nine of Huilin’s Yiqie jing yinyi 一切經音義, Pronunciations and Meanings for All [Buddhist] Scriptures[1]

Translated and introduced by Robban Toleno

The following lexical entries come from the Yiqie jing yinyi, a hundred-fascicle guide to the language of Buddhist scriptures that was compiled in 807 by the Buddhist monk Huilin 慧琳 (737-820). Huilin’s philological work builds upon the earlier efforts of the monk Xuanying 玄應 (d.u.). The organization of this reading aid follows the chapters of whatever scripture is under scrutiny. In the excerpt below, Huilin has listed words from the ninth fascicle of the Jin’guangming zuishengwang jing 金光明最勝王經, Sutra of the Most Excellent King of Golden Light[2], which was translated to Chinese in 703 by Yijing (635-713). Much of Huilin’s notation concerns the proper forms and pronunciations of characters. Because the meanings of Chinese words often depended on pronunciation rather than inherent semantic values of characters[3], and because Chinese Buddhists often chanted their scriptures, guidance on the pronunciation of obscure vocabulary had a practical significance. Philological study helped keep chanting in unison, reduced scribal errors in the copying of sutras, and aided readers in interpreting scriptures. Huilin relies on a number of lexical works that predate the arrival of Buddhist writings, effectively grounding the philological study of Buddhist scriptures in a classical vein of Chinese knowledge production stretching back to ancient writings. These lexical notes contain a wealth of information for linguists working to reconstruct the pronunciations of Middle Chinese, which differed considerably from those of modern Mandarin.[4] They also demonstrate that Chinese Buddhist scholar-monks such as Huilin were well versed in practical forms of knowledge including natural history and medicine.

 

Ninth Fascicle of the Jinguangming zuishengwang jing, Sutra of the Most Excellent King of Golden Light

金光明最勝王經卷第九

 

匱乏[5] The first [character’s pronunciation] combines gwijH 逵 and hwijH 位. The Shuowen [jiezi says that] 匱 [means] a box. Derived from 匚, the pronunciation of which is pjang 方, and kjw+jH 貴 for the tone. The latter [character’s pronunciation] combines bjom 凡 and pjop 法. The Shuowen cites the Chunqiu zhuan, saying that [匱乏] is properly interpreted [to mean] lacking (乏). Fa 乏 means paucity.

匱乏(上逵位反。說文匱匣也。從匚，匚音方，貴聲。下凡法反。說文引春秋傳曰:反正為乏。乏少也)。

 

金翅[6] [The second character] combines the sounds syij 尸 and tsyijH 至. Also known as “kae-lju-la” (transliteration of Skt. garuḍa) or ‘dragon-window’, this is the Gold-Winged King of Birds[7], the eater of dragons. Ancient writings render [the character 翅] as 翄 or [羽+氏].

金翅(尸至反，一名加婁羅，一名龍䆫，即金翅鳥王也，食龍者。古文作翄亦作[羽*氏]也)。

 

滋繁[8] The first [character’s] pronunciation is tsij 諮 and its proper form comes from 水 and 並, with two 玄. When today it is rendered 茲, this is a vernacular form of the character. The latter [character] is pronounced byon 煩, with the tone of khawX 考; [its form] derives from 敏, with hejH 系 for the tone.[9]

滋繁(上音諮，正體從水並二玄，今作茲時俗字也。下音煩，考聲也，從敏，系聲也)。

 

老耄[10] The latter [character’s pronunciation] combines maw 毛 and pawH 報. The Liji annotated by Zheng reads, “Mao [means] senile and forgetful.” In ancient writings it derives from 蒿 and is rendered [蒿 over 老]. The Gujin zhengzi derives it from 老 with maw 毛 for the tone. The Zishu‘s having it [老 over 鬼] is a vernacular form of the character.[11]

老耄(下毛報反，鄭注禮記云:耄惛忘也。古文從蒿作[蒿/老] ，古今正字從老，毛聲，字書有作[老/鬼]俗字也)。

 

痰癊[12] The first [character’s] pronunciation is dam 談; the second is a combination of ‘im 陰 and kimH 禁. Note that the characters for 痰癊 do not have a definitive form. An illness of the breath located in the diaphragm. Bodily fluid that congeals and does not disperse due to a shortness of breath, and which like tendon glue (a collagen/gelatin product) does not sever when stretched. Its name is dam ‘imH 痰癊 and among the root [causes] of the four [types of] illness, this one can cause a hundred illnesses, all of which are ailments of the diaphragm.

痰癊(上音談，下陰禁反。案痰癊字無定體。[凶/月]鬲中氣病也。津液因氣疑結不散，如筋膠引挽不斷。名為痰癊，四病根本之中此一能生百病，皆上焦之疾也)。

 

鹹醋[13] The first [character’s] pronunciation is heam 咸. The “Hongfan” [chapter of the Shangshu] says of water that it trickles downward and becomes salty (鹹). The Erya says saltiness is bitter. Annotation [of the Erya] by Guo says bitter is great saltiness. The Shuowen [says] 鹹 [is pronounced] haem 銜 and is the flavor of the northern regions. [The character] derives from 鹵 with heam 咸 for the tone and luX 鹵 for the sound. The Lujing‘s use of 酉 to make 醎 is erroneous, as this is not a proper form [of the character]. The latter [character in the headword] combines tshang 倉 and kuH 固, [having the same] tone as khawX 考, and refers to vinegar. The Jixun [gives] swan 酸 [for 鹹酸, salty and sour].[14] This character (酸) is not proper, and according to the customary meanings and pronunciations [given] in scriptures, the character tshuH 醋 [associated with] fermented bean sauces is [to be] used. The wordbooks of the various philologists of recent generations are in agreement on the above pronunciation.[15] The Shuowen and [other] ancient wordbooks have since former times held that the construction 醋 is pronounced the same as dzak 昨. Where the [Jixun] says, “A guest pours (tsyak 酌) wine with the host,” this corresponds with the [second] character in dzyuw tsak 酬酢 (to toast with wine), the pronunciation of which combines dzang 藏 and lak 洛 and means to toast reciprocally with wine. If we rely on [information in] the Shuowen, the seven wordbooks Yupian, Gujin zhengzi, Wenzi dianshuo, Guangya, Qieyun, Zitong, and Zilin have both tsjangH 醬 (fermented bean sauces) and 醋 as derived from dzraeH 乍 to form tsak 酢 (the return toast of a guest to a host). Orthodox physicians [have] the character 酢 deriving from 乍. The Shuowen says it is verified. The Cangjiepian [has] 酸. The custom today is to revert to using the pronunciation dzak 昨. [I] still do not know which of the two forms is right, in the past or today, so for now I am writing both [solutions] together here.

鹹醋(上音咸。洪範云水曰:潤下潤下作鹹。尒雅云鹹苦也。郭注云苦即大鹹也。說文鹹銜也北方味也。從鹵，咸聲,鹵音。魯經從酉作醎誤也，非正體。下倉固反，考聲，云醋䤈也。集訓酸也。此字非正，且依經義音之俗用醬醋字也。近代切韻諸家字書並同上音。說文及古字書從昔作醋者並音為昨。訓云客酌主人酒也，是相酬酢字也，音藏洛反，獻酬也。若依說文，玉篇、古今正字、文字典說、廣雅、切韻、字統、字林七本字書醬醋字並從乍作酢。音倉固反。正醫酢字從乍也。說文云驗也。蒼頡篇酸也。今俗用却音為昨。未知二體今古孰是，今並書之也)。

 

甛膩[16] The first [character’s pronunciation] is a combination of drip[17] 䐑 (M. zhé) and yem 閻. The Guangya [says it means] sweet. The Shuowen [says it means] tasty 美, deriving from a sweet (甘) tongue (舌), which if formed into 甜 also means the same. The latter [character] is a combination of nrij 尼 and trjeH 智. The Chuci annotated by Wang Yi says that 膩 means oily. The Shuowen [gives] [月+㔾] (perhaps a variant of chì [月+匕], meaning an oily/slick appearance), [saying] it is derived from 肉 (meat) with nyijH 貳 for the tone, and is not derived from 月 (moon).

甛膩(上䐑閻反，廣雅甛甘也。說文美也，從甘舌，或作甜亦通。下尼智反，王逸注楚辭云膩滑也。說文[夗-夕+月]也，從肉，貳聲，從月非也)。

 

鍼刺[18] The first [character’s pronunciation] combines tsyip 執 and nyimH 任. The Guangya [says] 鍼 also [means] to prick (刺). The Liji says married women wear on the right side of the waist a needle tube and silk thread. The Shuowen accordingly [refers to] sewing. The Yupian [gives] the patching of clothes. Vernacular usage makes 針 based on 十, which not only accords with the times but is moreover in [common] use. The proper [form] derives from 金 (metal) and 箴 (needle), with simplification of the phonetic [element of the character, i.e., 箴 becoming 咸]. Pronunciation of the latter [character] 刺 [in the headword] is a combination of tsheng 青 and yek 亦, and also of tshjeX 此 and sijH 四. The two pronunciations are both acceptable for the proper form of the character. The Shuowen [says that 刺 means] to meet with injury. Gu Yewang[19] writes that [it means] needle-sharp and piercing into human flesh,[20] and says that the Gujin zhengzi [has it] derived from 刀 with tshjeH 朿 for the tone, 朿 being pronounced tshijH 次.[21] Deriving it from 朿 is not correct. Where scriptures have it derived from 夹 to make 刾, this is a vernacular character form.

鍼刺(上執任反。廣雅鍼亦刺也。禮記婦右佩鍼管線纊，說文所以縫也。玉篇綴衣也。俗用從十作針，亦順時，且用也。正從金從箴，省聲。下刺音青亦反，又此四反，二音並通正體字也。說文直傷也。顧野王云銳鑱人(=入)人肉中曰古今正字從刀，朿聲，朿音次，從朿者非也。經從夹作刾俗字也)。

 

鼻梁㩻[22] The last [character’s] pronunciation is khi 欺. Gu Yewang writes that 㩻 [means] slanted and not straight. The Shuowen [says it means] 陋 (provincial, inferior),[23] and that it derives from ngjwe 危, with tsye 支 for the tone. Others have it derived from 山 to make 崎; still others have it derived from 器 to make [器+支]. These are all ancient characters. Where scriptural writings derives it from 奇 to make 攲, this is not right. Sun Qingzi (the philosopher Xunzi) wrote that the ancestral shrine of Duke Huan had in it a ’tilting vessel’ (㩻器), which slanted when empty, overturned when full, and [remained] level when filled to the middle, in conformity with [the way] people [are].

鼻梁㩻(下音欺顧野王云㩻傾側不正也。說文陋也，從危，支聲。或從山作崎，或從器作[器+支] ，皆古字也。經文從奇作攲非也。孫卿子曰桓公廟有㩻器焉，虛則㩻，滿則覆，中則平，以誡於人也)。

 

餌藥[24] Combining nyi 而 and tsyiH 志, [餌] is a falling-tone character (去聲字).[25] The Cangjiepian says that 餌 is food. Gu Yewang says that in general everything that is eaten is called 餌. The Gujin zhengzi [says it refers to] cakes. The Shuowen derives it from [弓+畐+弓] to make [耳 over 弓+畐+弓], [defining it as] pastries.[26] Deriving it from [弓+畐+弓] with nyiX 耳 for the tone is an ancient character. Today it is derived from 食 to make 餌. The Zhouli annotated by Zheng Xuan (127-200) writes that what is steamed together is called pjengX 餅 (cakes and other products made from flour). The Zishu says it is 餻 (cakes or pastry).[27] The Shuowen derives it from 食 (food) with nyiX 耳 for the tone.

餌藥(而志反，去聲字也。蒼頡篇云餌食也。顧野王云凡所食皆曰餌。古今正字餅也。說文從[弼-百+(幅-巾)]作[耳/(弼-百+(幅-巾))]粉餅也，從[弼-百+(幅-巾)]耳聲古字也。今從食作餌。鄭玄注周禮云合蒸曰餅。字書云糕也。說文從食耳聲也)。

 

豺狼[28] The first [character] is pronounced dzrea 柴 [and] is the name of a rural animal. The Kuodi zhi says that the shape of dholes is like that of dogs but smaller, that they like to move in groups, and that they are a social animal. There is a [status] difference between the high and the low. Slave (i.e., low status) dholes will often move on ahead [of the group] and hunt down a bird or deer, and, not daring to start eating first, will keep guard, waiting for the leading dhole. The leading dhole arrives later but eats first, and only when it is satiated and abandons the remaining meat will the slave dholes commence eating together. The “Yueling” chapter of the Liji says that in the moon of the autumn season (the ninth month of the lunar calendar), dholes make sacrificial offerings of animals. The latter [character of the headword] is pronounced lang 郎. It is a wild animal. The deserts of the northern lands abound with this animal. They often live in dens [near] rivers and marshes. The Shuowen says wolves resemble dogs, with a pointed head and white forehead that is protruding in the front and wide in the back, the ears rising up vertically, the mouth square, the tail usually hanging downward, [and the fur] a bluish yellow or white color. They are exceedingly strong––donkeys, horses, people, and domestic animals all suffer harm. The Erya says of wolves that the males are called xwan 貛 (“badgers”), the females[29] lang 狼, and their young 獥 (M. jiào[30]), and that they are incomparably strong and fast. [狼] is a phono-semantic character (i.e., with one part providing a sound and another indicating something about the meaning). The pronunciation of 貛 is xwan 歡.

豺狼(上音柴。山獸名也。括地志云豺形似狗而小，好羣行，義獸也。有良賤之異。豺奴常先行獵得禽鹿等物，不敢前食，守待豺郎。豺郎後至先食，飽棄餘肉，豺奴方始共食。禮記月令云季秋之月豺乃祭獸。下音郎。野獸也。北地沙漠多饒此獸。常居川澤穴處。說文狼似犬，銳頭白額高前廣後，耳聳竪，口方，尾常垂下，青黃色或白色。甚有力，驢馬人皆遭害。爾雅曰狼，牡貛，牡狼，其子獥，絕有力迅。形聲字。 貛音歡也)。

 

狐玃[31] The first [character’s] pronunciation is hu 胡. Above, I already explained 野狐 (wild foxes). The latter [character’s pronunciation] is a combination of kju 俱 and ngjak[32] 籰 (M. yuè). The Erya annotated by Guo says that the jue 玃 is like the macaque only larger, bluish-black in color, and that it is able to seize and carry off humans, from which it gets its name.[33] Looking back [over the written record], this type of category is exceedingly common. Each has a different name. The Shuowen says it is a female monkey. Another name [for it] is naw 獶, a character with the form (a semantic indicator) on the left and the sound on the right. The pronunciation of 獶 is a combination of nu 奴 and taw 刀.

狐玃(上音胡。前已釋野狐也。下俱籰反。郭注爾雅云玃似獼猴而大，倉黑色，能[玃-(目*目)+賏]持人，故以為名。好顧眄此等種類甚多。各別異名。說文母猴也。一名獶，左形右聲字也。獶音奴刀反)。

 

鵰鷲[34] The first [character’s] pronunciation is tew 彫. The latter [character’s pronunciation] is dzjuwH 就. Because the third fascicle of the [Yiqie] yinyi on the Da bore jing (Skt. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra) already has an explanation [on this], I will not reiterate.[35]

鵰鷲(上音彫也。下音就。前大般若經音義第三卷已具釋文，繁不述)。

 

宛轉[36] The first [character’s pronunciation] is a combination of ‘jwon 冤 and hjwonX 遠. The Shuowen says 宛轉 [means] wo 臥 (resting, reposed). [The first character] deriving from xi 夕 (evening), [it means] resting (臥), temperate (有節). It derives from 夕 and 卪(= jié 節). Scriptures also have it derived from 女 (woman) to make ‘jwonX 婉 (gentle), [but that] is not this usage.

宛轉(上冤遠反。說文宛轉臥也。從夕，臥，有節也。從夕從卪。經又從女作婉，非此用也)。

 

欲涸[37] A combination of ha 何 and kak 各 [constitutes the second character’s pronunciation]. The Guangya says that 涸 [means] to be exhausted. The Guoyu annotated by Jia says that 涸 [means] to be used up. The Shuowen says that water dries up (涸). It derives from water 水, with kuH 固 for the tone.

欲涸(何各反。廣雅涸盡也。賈注國語云涸竭也。說文水涸也。從水固聲也)。

 

象廄[38] The first is the proper form of the character 象. The latter [character’s pronunciation] is a combination of kjuw 鳩 and hjuwH 又. The Shuowen [says these are] lodgings for elephants and horses. The Zhouli says 214 horses make up one jiu 厩 (stable).[39] Derived from 广 and 段. The pronunciation of 广 is ngjaemX 儼. The pronunciation of kjwieX 𣪘 is the same as [what was given] above.

象廄(上正體象字也。下鳩又反。說文象馬舍也。周禮曰馬二百一十四匹為一厩。從广段，广音儼。𣪘音同上也)。

 

皮囊[40] [The second character is] a combination of nak 諾 and lang 郎. Explanatory notes in the [Qieyun[41]] say that it is a bag with a base. It derives from [襄-〦], which derives from hwonH 㯻 (to tie up), simplified to [襄-〦] and pronounced nreang[42] 儜 (M. níng). 㯻 is pronounced hwonH 溷.

皮囊(諾郎反。韻詮云有底袋也。從[襄-〦]從㯻省[襄-〦] ，音儜。㯻音溷)。

 

循岸[43] The pronunciation of 循 is zwin 巡. Zwin 循 (“to follow the course of”) developed from 行 (walking).

循岸(循音巡，循由行也)。

 

睡寤[44] The first [character’s pronunciation] combines dzywe 垂 and lwijH 淚 and means sleep. The latter [character’s] pronunciation is mjuH 悟 and means to fall asleep. [It] derives from mjuwngH 㝱, economizing by deriving from [only] 爿.

睡寤(上垂淚反，眠也。下音悟，睡覺也。從㝱省從爿也)。

 

References

Baxter, William H. and Laurent Sagart. Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction. New York: Oxford, 2014.

Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants => Taiwan Ministry of Education. Yitizi zidian 異體字字典, http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/home.do; accessed November 2016.

Kroll, Paul W. A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese. Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2015.

Kwan, Tze-wan. “Abstract Concept Formation in Archaic Chinese Script Forms: Some Humboldtian Perspectives.” Philosophy East and West 61, no. 3 (2011): 409–52.

McDonald, Edward. “Getting Over the Walls of Discourse: “Character Fetishization” in Chinese Studies.” The Journal of Asian Studies 68, no. 4 (2009): 1189–213.

Muller, A. Charles, ed. Digital Dictionary of Buddhism. http://buddhism–dict.net/ddb. Edition of 2016-08-28.

SAT => SAT Daizōkyō Text Database 大正新脩藏經テキストデータベース , http://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/satdb2015.php; accessed November 2016.

T. => Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經, Taishō-Era Newly Revised Tripitaka, the digitized text of which can be accessed through CBETA or SAT.

Notes

[1]           T. 2128, v.54, 502c07-503a16.

[2]           Skt. Suvarṇa-prabhāsôttama-sūtra. Yijing’s translation is T. 665, v.16, beginning on 403a04. For detailed notes regarding this sutra and its various editions, see Michael Radich, “Jinguangming jing 金光明經,” in Muller, Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, http://www.buddhism-dict.net.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/xpr-ddb.pl?91.xml+id(‘b91d1-5149-660e-7d93’).

[3]           The compound qīqū is a good example of a word that can be represented with different character sets (崎嶇, 陭䧢, and 㩻䧢) and still mean the same thing. On the ideograph/logograph debate over what constitutes a word in premodern Chinese, see McDonald, “Getting over the Walls of Discourse” and Kwan, “Abstract Concept Formation in Archaic Chinese Script Forms.”

[4]           For an example of how Huilin’s work has been useful to linguists, see Baxter and Sagart, Old Chinese, 114.

[5]           MC gwijH bjop / M. guìfá; Skt. vaikalya; poverty. Huilin’s lexical notes include pronunciation glosses based on Middle Chinese (MC), which differs from modern Mandarin Chinese (M.) pronunciations. Where pronunciation is mentioned, I provide first Middle Chinese and then Mandarin readings, giving the Mandarin tone only for the headword and for instances where the body text discusses tonal values. The Middle Chinese readings are from Kroll, A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese, 53, which are based on Baxter and Sagart’s reconstructions. In some cases I have inferred Middle Chinese readings from the fanqie 反切 explanations provided by Huilin, if I cannot otherwise find a reconstruction. Because the logic of some of his explanations does not work there is a good likelihood of errors, whether entering from Huilin’s judgment or dialect, from problems with our modern-day reconstructions, or from my own carelessness. The traditional tonal system of Middle Chinese is indicated as follows: an unmarked (no X, H, or k) final position indicates a píng 平 tone; -X in the final position indicates a shǎng 上 tone, -H a qù 去 tone, and -p, -t, or -k in the final position a rù 入 tone. I find this notation cumbersome, but follow it because it is in use. See Baxter and Sagart, Old Chinese, 14.

[6]           MC kim syeH / M. jīnchì; Skt. garuḍa; a kind of mythical super bird like a roc.

[7]           An alternative reading has 王 as 正. The statement would then read that, of the different names for this bird type, jinchiniao 金翅鳥, or Gold Winged Birds, is the proper one.

[8]           MC tsi bjon / M. zīfán; proliferate.

[9]           Even after comparing Middle Chinese reconstructions, the logic of this statement is not clear.

[10]         MC khawX mawH / M. lǎomào; an elderly person; senile.

[11]         This text is probably the Ganlu zishu 干祿字書, by Yan Yuansun 顔元孫 (jinshi ca. 685-688).

[12]         MC dam ‘imH / M. tányìn; phlegm.

[13]         MC hen tshuH / M. xiáncù; salty and sour.

[14]         The identity of this work is not clear, as “jixun,” which appears to mean an anthology for training purposes, is likely an abbreviation of a longer title.

[15]         Wordbooks 字書 are semantically organized word lists, such as the Erya.

[16]         MC dem nrijH / M. tiánnì; sweet, sweet and fatty. A character variant is used which cannot be represented digitally: 肉*(武-止+(二/貝)). Having confirmed this variant (see A03366) in the Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants (異體字字典) maintained by the Taiwan Ministry of Education (http://dict2.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/home.do), I use the standard form.

[17]         Inferring the reconstruction from 直葉切, as given in the Shuowen jiezi, accessed through the Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants.

[18]         MC tsyim tshjeH / M. zhēncì; pricking with needles; acupuncture.

[19]         Author of the Yupian and other works. He lived 518-581 CE.

[20]         Reading the first 人 as 入, since this appears to be a transcription error.

[21]         Discrepancies like this show the tentative nature of our knowledge of Middle Chinese reconstructions.

[22]         MC bjij ljang khje / M. bíliáng qī; “the bridge of the nose is slanting.”

[23]         Although this is the character appearing in the print and digital editions of the Taishō Buddhist canon, it appears to be an error, whether by Huilin or by a later scribe. The Shuowen gives khju / qū 䧢, meaning slanted. This character occurs in the compound qīqū, meaning steep (as in a road or hillside), and variously represented as 崎嶇, 陭䧢, and 㩻䧢.

[24]         MC nyiX yak / M. ěryào; to take medicine. Despite Huilin’s discussion here about cakes and pastries, historical sources use this compound as verb+object, meaning to eat medicine.

[25]         Huilin would have it pronounced nyiH.

[26]         “Powder cakes.” These are a type of small pastry made from powdered ingredients lightly bound together.

[27]         Following the Taishō print edition. The digitized canon shows 糕.

[28]         MC dzreaj lang / M. cháiláng; dholes (Asian wild dog) and wolves.

[29]         The Taishō print edition and corresponding digital text is in error here. The second 牡 should read pin 牝, a female animal.

[30]         The Middle Chinese is not clear for this character, which seems to have had multiple phonetic readings through its history.

[31]         MC hu kyak / M. hújué; foxes and apes.

[32]         Inferring the reconstruction from 玉縛切, as given in the Shuowen jiezi.

[33]         Reading 倉黑 as 蒼黑 and [玃-(目*目)+賏] as kjak / jue 攫, which appears to be the implied meaning.

[34]         MC tew dzjuwH / M. diāojiù; eagles and vultures.

[35]         Huilin provides explanations in several places, e.g. T54 n2128, 334b20-21.

[36]         MC ‘jwonX trjwenX / M. wǎnzhuǎn; resting, reposed; in some contexts it has the nuance of being supple, accommodating.

[37]         MC yowk hak / M. yùhé; desires dry up.

[38]         MC zjangX kjuwH / M. xiàngjiù; elephant stables.

[39]         Three characters have entered modern usage as acceptable variants for the word kjuwH / jiù, “stable”: 廄, 厩, and 廐.

[40]         MC bje nang / M. pínáng; leather bag.

[41]         Or perhaps this refers to another rime dictionary.

[42]         Inferring from 女耕切, as given in the Yupian and Guangyun.

[43]         MC zwin nganH / M. xún’àn; to follow the course of a riverbank.

[44]         MC dzyweH nguH / M. shuìwù; to sleep and wake.

Religion & Medicine

Workshop Report: Sacred Cures – Situating Medicine and Religion Across Asia

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This announcement first appeared in the IASTAM newsletter: http://iastam.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/IASTAM-newsletter-Summer-2016.pdf

Workshop Report
Sacred Cures – Situating Medicine and Religion Across Asia
(Max Planck Institute for the History of Knowledge, May 2-4)

This workshop, co-organised by council members Michael Stanley-Baker and Pierce Salgeuro, brought together specialists in the intersection of religion and medicine in the Himalayas and East, South, and Southeast Asia. All together, they examined what work has been done by the terms medicine/religion, or related binaries such as medicine/healing or classical/vernacular. What is clarified or distorted when these categories are mapped onto other languages, periods and regions? They explored commonalities across regions and across time, working from the classical to the contemporary. How do scholars and cultural actors alike produce “medicine” and “religion” as fields and as methods? Taking stock of recent gains in the field, they discussed remaining areas for study, and compared and refined the tools and terms that might be used in that endeavour.

Papers were pre-circulated, and no presentations were made in the workshop. Participants were invited to address the following areas:

  1. Historiography: How has the religion/medicine question been framed by different academic communities?
  2. Materials: What primary sources or archives are available for the given historical periods and/or cultural contexts, and how these afford different kinds of analysis of the question?
  3. Means: What moments, encounters, processes, practices, and relationships produce or reveal significant (re)structurings of medicine and religion?

Many of the panellists are long-standing IASTAM members, and the forthcoming edited volume will be published with IASTAM members in mind.

Speakers

  • Pre-Modern/Classical-Medieval: Donald Harper, Vivienne Lo, Katja Triplett, Michael Slouber, Tu Aming & Joey Hung,
  • Early Modern: Projit Mukharji, Katharina Saberning, Leslie DeVries, Angelika Messner
  • Modern/Contemporary: Helen Lambert, Celine Coderey, Elisabeth Hsu, Geoffrey Samuels, Mona Schrempf
  • Closing remarks: Judith Farquhar & Kenneth Zysk
Religion & Medicine, Thai & SE Asian Medicines

Translation of Chinese Jivaka Story

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By Phillip Behrns

Translated from the French version in Chavannes, Edouard. 1962. Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues: Extraits du Tripitaka Chinois et Traduits en Français. Paris: Libraire d’Amerique et d’Orient, #499.

Sutra pronounced by the Buddha about the Avadana on Daughter of Mango Tree (Amrapali) and Kiyu (Jivaka).

Here is what I heard: one day, the Buddha was in the Kingdom of Loyueche (Rajagrha) and was explaining the law in the middle of the meeting of twelve hundred and fifty disciples, bodhisattvas, mahasattvas, devas, nagas and the eight categories of the great Assembly. Among the people of this time, many were donors, yet, one of them, who was a poor man, only had a handkerchief in rags. He wished to give it as a gift, but remained undecided because he was scared of causing disgust. Then, in the audience, a bhiksuni named Daughter of Mango Tree stood up, arranged her cloth, paid tribute, kneeled on both her knees, joined her hands, and said to the Buddha: “O honoured of the world, I can remember that in a previous life, I was born in the kingdom of Polonai (Varanasi) as a poor girl. At the time there was a Buddha named Kia Ye (Kacyapa), who was explaining the law in the middle of a large assembly. I sat down to hear about the holy books and I was happy; I gave the intention to make a donation, but considering I did not have anything and thinking about my poverty, I became sad; then I went to someone else’s garden and begged for fruit; I was given a mango, it was big and its fragrance excellent; I held a bowl of water in my hand at the same time as this unique mango and gave it as a gift to Buddha Kia Ye ( Kacyapa) and the assembly. The Buddha knew the excellence of my intention, he accepted my gift and made a wish, then he shared and gave out the water and the mango, making sure everybody received some. Thanks to this good fortune, when my life ended, I was born a devi and I became a devi queen; then, when  I was born down here, in this world, I did  not come from a foetus, but was born in a mango flower for ninety one kalpas; I was fresh and beautiful and always knew my previous lives. Now I met the Honoured of the world who opened for me the eye of wisdom. Daughter of Mango Tree recited those stanzas:

The loving beneficence of the Three Venerable is universal, – its intelligence saves men and women without distinction; – the great reward I received for giving a little bit of water and fruit was that I could be freed from all sorrow.
In this world, I was born in a flower; – above I was queen of the Devis; – since I found shelter in the Blessed Saint (Bhagavat); – my field of happiness is deep and fertile.

After she finished paying tribute, the Bhiksuni, Daughter of Mango Tree went back to her seat.

When the Buddha was in this world, in a royal garden of King Weiyeli (Vaicali), a mango tree grew spontaneously; it had numerous branches and leaves, its fruit were a lot bigger than those of other trees, they were shiny , and smelled and tasted wonderful. The king liked this tree a lot and no one was allowed to eat the fruits, except the most honoured women of the harem. Yet in this kingdom, there was a Brahman grhapati whose riches were uncountable and no one in the kingdom could be is equal; moreover, he was intelligent, discerning and more talented and wise than the crowd of the men; the King liked him very much and had made him one of his ministers. One day, the King invited this Brahman for diner, when the meal was finished he gave him a fruit from the mango tree; realising that this mango had a particular fragrance and taste,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                the Brahman asked the king, if there was, under this mango tree, any small offshoot he could ask to be given as a gift. The king answered: “there was a large number of those offshoots, however, because I was afraid they could be detrimental to the big tree, I removed them one after the other; I will give you one if it is your wish.”

So was done, and the Brahman brought this offshoot home and planted it; he was watering it morning and night. The tree was growing day after day, its branches were plentiful and strong; after three years, it grew fruits that were worth the king’s mango tree’s for their beauty and their size. The Brahman thought happily : “ My riches are uncountable and do not compare unfavourably to the King’s; I was only his inferior because I did not have this mango tree, but now that I have it, I am just as good as the King. “ He took one of the fruits and tasted it, but it was very acrid and he could not eat it. The Brahman became very sad; having withdrawn himself, he thought that the reason for that should be that the soil had not been fertilized well enough. So he took the milk of a hundred cows and gave it to drink to one cow, then he collected the milk of that cow and cooked it to make a kind of butter, which he sprinkled on the roots of the mango tree. He did that daily, and the next year the fruits were sweet and delicious, just like the King’s mangos.

However, on the side of the tree, grew an excrescence, which was growing more and more. The Brahman thought the sudden apparition of this excrescence could be detrimental to the fruits, but when he wanted to cut it off, I got afraid to hurt the tree. He meditated for several days perplexed and undecided, until suddenly, from the middle of the excrescence, a branch grew, straight to the sky, strong, straight, flexible and beautiful, it outgrew the top of the tree. When it was seventy feet high, the top divided into several branches, which spread on the sides in a circle to form something like and upside down canopy. The flowers and leaves it was covered with won out over the main tree’s ones. The Brahman was amazed and, because he could not figure out what was at the top, he built a wooden scaffolding and climbed to have a look; he saw that at the top of the branch and at the centre of the upside down canopy, there was a pond of fresh and fragrant water, also there were many flowers with fresh and bright colours, he looked under one of the flowers and found a little girl who was in one of them, the Brahman took her in his arms and brought her home, he fed and raised her. Her name was Daughter of Mango Tree.
When this child reached her fifteenth year, she was so beautiful that nobody in the world could compare, her reputation spread to far away kingdoms. Seven kings arrived at the same time and went to the Brahman to ask to become engaged to Daughter of Mango Tree and make her their wife. The Brahman was very scared, and did not know to which one he should give her; he built a high tower in the middle of a garden and put Daughter of Mango Tree at the top, then he went out and told the kings: “This girl was not conceived by me, she was created spontaneously at the top of a mango tree, I really don’t know if she is the daughter of a deva, a naga, a demon or a djinn. Now, here you are, seven kings coming to ask for this strange person, if I give her to one of you, the six other kings will be annoyed. However I am not going to refuse her to you. .Now, this young lady is in a tower in the garden. Discuss and when you have decided which one of you should have her, this one may just take her. I am not going to decide”.

Then the seven kings started to discuss the matter between them and the night came before the debate was finished; then, one of them, who was king Ping-cha (Bimbisara) entered the tower, found the girl and slept with her. The next day, when he was about to leave, Daughter of Mango Tree told him: “ Dear King, you bothered to lower your highness to come to me, but now, you want to leave, if I have a child, they will have royal blood, who should I entrust with them?” The King answered: “If it is a son, you will give him to me, if it is a girl, I give her to you. “ Then the King took a golden ring with a seal of his finger and gave it to Daughter of Mango Tree to use as an attestation. Then the King went out and told his ministers: “I managed to take Daughter of Mango Tree and I spent the night with her, she has nothing extraordinary and she is just like any woman, thus I am not going to marry her.” All the soldiers of King Ping Cha (Bimbisara) cheered and said:” our King was able to take Daughter of Mango Tree.” Hearing this, the six other kings left.

After King Ping Cha (Bimbisara) left, Daughter of Mango tree became pregnant; then she ordered the doorman to say she was sick if someone asked to see her. When the term came, she gave birth to a boy with a fine face, who was holding a bag of acupuncture needles in his hand. The Brahman declared:” This child is the son of a king, and he is holding a medical instrument; he will certainly be a king doctor.” Then Daughter of Mango Tree wrapped the child in a white cloth and ordered a maid to go and leave him in the street. As per this order, the maid took the baby and abandoned him. At this time Prince Wou Wei was in his chariot, planning to visit the great King and had sent people to clear the road. But the prince noticed from afar a white item on the path , he made the chariot stop and asked his escort:” What is this white object?” He was answered that it was a little boy. “Is he dead or alive? “ He asked. “Alive”, he was replied. The prince ordered his people to take him, and then looked for a wet nurse to feed him; because he was alive, a Brahman took the little boy and gave him back to Daughter of Mango Tree. He was named Ki Yu (Jivaka).

When he reached the age of eight, because of his intelligence, his strong talents and his knowledge of all sorts of books, he was very different from the average children. When he was playing with the neighbourhood boys, he was despising them because he thought they were not his equal. One day, those little boys insulted him together and told him: “Fatherless son, born to a depraved girl, how dare you despise us?” Taken aback, Ki Yu (Jivaka) remained silent and did not answer. He went to his mother and asked her:” I can see that the other little boys are not my equal , however they are insulting me by calling me fatherless son. Where is my father now?”His mother answered:” your father is none other than King Ping Cha (Bimbisara)
– King Ping Cha (Bimbisara), said Ki Yu (Jivaka), can be found in the kingdom of Loyueche (Rajagrha), which is five hundred lis away. How did he conceive me? And if you are telling the truth, O mother, how will I prove it?” His mother showed him the ring with a seal and told him:” This is your father’s ring. Ki Yu (Jivaka) examined the ring and saw that it had the following inscription “Seal of King Ping Cha”. He took the ring and went to the kingdom of Loyueche (Rajagrha) and went straight through the palace door, there was no one at the door to tell him off. I reached to the king, paid tribute, kneeled and said:” O King, I am your son; I was born to Daughter of Mango Tree. Now that I have reached my eighth year, I learned that I am your offspring and this is why I am bringing you proof in the form of the seal ring, and I am coming from far away to become part of your family.” The King saw the inscription on the seal, he remembered the promise he made in the past and admitted he was really his son. Filled with compassion for him, he named him crown prince.

Two years later, he who was to become King A Cho Che (Ajatacatru) was born; Ki yu (Jivaka) said to the King: “When I was born, I was holding a bag of acupuncture needles, it was a sign that I had to become a doctor, even though you named me crown prince, I am not happy. Because you had a son with your first wife, he should succeed to you in your function. As for me, I wish to practice the art of medicine.” The King consented, and told him:” Because you are not the crown prince anymore, you cannot enjoy free emoluments from the King anymore. You need to study the medical science.” The King ordered all the best doctors of his kingdom to teach him all the recipes of their art, but Ki Yu (jivaka) was only playing and did not receive their teachings, all his masters told him:”The art of medicine is not very high: to tell the truth it is not a subject for the honourable prince heir. However, we cannot go against the great king’s injunction, we received orders several months ago, and, O Prince, you didn’t even memorise half a sentence of our formulas. If the King asks, what would we answer?” Ki Yu (Jivaka) told them:”When I was born, I was holding a sign that I would be a doctor, this is why I told the great King: “I renounce the glorious titles and I am asking to study the art of medicine” How can I be so neglectful as to make you reprimand me? My behaviour can be explained by the fact that your science is inadequate to instruct me”. Then he took all the books about plants, medical recipes, acupuncture and pulse, and asked embarrassing questions to his masters, who did not know how to answer. All of them bended in front of Ki Yu (Jivaka ) and paid tribute to him. Kneeling and with joined hands, they told him:”This day we have to admit, O prince, that we cannot reach your divine holiness. All the questions you asked have been subject to controversy for our masters for generations, and we cannot understand them. We are wishing, O Prince, that you explained them to use completely, and that you solved the mysteries that have been tormenting us since we were born.” Then Ki Yu (Jivaka) explained the solution to those problems to them, all the doctors got up full of joy and paid tribute to him by bowing down, saying that they were receiving his teaching with gratitude.

Ki Yu (Jivaka) had the following thought:” Among all the doctors the King gave orders to; none was able to teach me. Who will teach me medicine?” Meanwhile, he found out that, in the kingdom of Tochachelo (Taksacila), there was a doctor named Atili (Atri) nicknamed Pinkialo (Pingala), who had great knowledge about medicine, he could certainly teach him. And so, young Ki Yu (Jivaka) went to this kingdom and upon arriving to Pinkialo (Pingala) he told him:” Great Master, I am asking you to agree to teach me.” After studying under his direction for seven years, he thought: “Now I am trained in the art of medicine, when will I finish?” Therefore he went to his master and told him:” Now I am trained in the art of medicine, when will I finish?”His master gave him a basket and tools needed to collect plants, and told him:”On the length of one yojana, in the kingdom of Tochachelo (Taksacila), look for all the plants and bring me those that do not have a medicinal use. ” Following his master’s orders, Ki Yu (Jivaka) looked for all the plants without a medicinal use in the kingdom of Tochachelo (Taksacila), but in the end he could not find any. As a matter of fact, he could identify all the plants and all the trees he could see, and he knew when they could be used, and all of them could be used in medicine. He came back empty handed and told his master those words:”o Master, now you need to know this: In the kingdom of Tochachelo (Taksacila), I searched for plants that did not have any medicinal use on a surface of one yojana, but I could not find any such plant. For all the plants and tress I saw I could perfectly identify their use”. The master answered to Ki Yu (Jivaka):” You can go now; you know the science of medicine to perfection. I am the first for this art in the Jambudvipa, but after I die, you can succeed to me. “

Then Ki Yu (Jivaka) left and started healing illnesses; all of those he was treating healed at once. His reputation was known all across the kingdom.

Later, Ki Yu (Jivaka) wanted to enter the royal palace. In front of the door, he met a little boy who was carrying a bunch of fire wood. As soon as he saw him from afar, Ki Yu could see this child’s five viscera, including his gut and stomach, and was able to distinguish them neatly. Ki Yu (Jivaka) had the following thought:” In the book of plants, it is told about the king doctor tree (bhaisajyarajà) which illuminates the inside from the outside and allows seeing the viscera inside a person’s stomach. Could it be that there is a piece of king doctor tree in the wood this child is carrying?” He went to the child and asked him what price he wanted for his wood. The child having answered that he wanted ten coins, he paid this price to acquire the wood. The child put the wood down and we could not see the inside of his stomach anymore. Ki Yu (Jivaka) realised that he did not know where in the faggots was the king doctor wood. He untied two faggots and took the sticks one by one and brought them close to the child’s stomach. As he could not see anything appear, he kept trying with all the sticks. The last twig was slightly longer than a foot, he tried to use it to make some light and he saw everything in the stomach. Ki Yu (Jivaka) was very happy, because he knew that this twig was certainly the king doctor wood. Then he gave the child his wood fire back, which as he had received money and had kept his wood left very happy.

However, Ki Yu (Jivaka) was having the following thoughts:” Who am I going to heal now? This kingdom is small and it is on the border. The best would be that I went back to my country of origin to start practicing medicine.” And so he went back to the kingdom of Pokiato (Saketa). In the city of Pokiato, there was an important public figure, whose wife had been constantly suffering from migraines for twelve years; all the doctors had been treating her without being able to heal her. Ki Yu (Jivaka) heard about her and went to her home, he said to the door man:” Tell your master that a doctor is at the door”. The doorman went in and passed the message. When the public figure’s wife asked what did the doctor looked like, he answered that he was a young man. She thought that if old, experienced doctors couldn’t heal her, a young one would be even more incapable. She ordered the doorman to tell that she did not need a doctor now. He went out and told Ki Yu (Jivaka):”I gave your message to my master, but his wife answered that she did not need a doctor.” Ki Yu (Jivaka) insisted:”Go tell your Master’s wife that she only allowed me to treat her, if she is healed, she can give me what she wants.” When the doorman had reported those words, the lady thought that she did not risk anything and ordered the doorman to let him in. When Ki Yu (Jivaka) was with the public figure’s wife, he asked her about her sufferings, she answered that she was suffering in such and such way. “How did your illness start?
– It started in such and such circumstances
– Is your illness old or new?
– It started in such time.”
After all these questions, Ki Yu (Jivaka) declared:”I can heal you.” Then he took a good remedy and fried it in butter, then, he poured it in the woman’s nose. The butter came out from the patient’s mouth mixed with saliva. She collected it all in a vase and kept the butter after separating it from the saliva, which she discarded. When he saw her behaving like this, Ki Yu (Jivaka) felt sad because he was thinking:”If she is this thrifty for a little bit of soiled butter, what will she do when time comes to reward me?” The patient noticed his preoccupations and asked him:” Are you afflicted? “After his positive answer, she asked him about the reason of his affliction. “I was thinking, he told, that if you are this thrifty when it comes to a little bit of soiled butter, it would be even worse when time comes to reward me, this is why I am becoming sad.” The woman answered:” Keeping a household is not easy. What was the point of throwing this butter that could still be used to light a lamp? That is why I collected it. As for you, focus on healing my illness, no need to be afflicted.” He treated her and she was healed. Then the wife of a public figure gave him four hundred thousand ounces of gold as well as slaves and maids, and chariots with horses.

After Ki Yu (Jivaka) received all these riches, he went back to the royal city (Rajagrha) and went to Prince Wou Wei’s (Abhaya) residence. He told the doorman:”Tell the Prince that Ki Yu (Jivaka) is outside.” The doorman passed the message and the prince ordered to invite Ki Yu (Jivaka ) in at once. When he was inside, he bowed with his head on the floor, and after paying tribute he sat on the side. He gave the prince a detail tale of what had happened to him and declared that he wanted to give all the riches he had acquired to the prince.The prince convinced him not to by telling him he should not give him such a gift and by encouraging him to use this fortune on himself.

This is how Ki Yu’s (Jivaka) first recovery happened.

At the time, in the kingdom of Kiuchanmi (Kaucambi) there was the son of a notable whose intestine got tied together in his tummy when he was playing on a wheel, what he was eating and drinking could not be digested of eliminated anymore. No one in this kingdom could cure him. Locals heard that there was a great doctor who was excellent at healing patients in the kingdom of Mokie (Magadha), and sent a message to the King:” The son of a notable of the Kingdom of Kiuchanmi (Kaucambi) is ill, Ki Yu (Jivaka) can cure him, we are asking, O King, that you sent him to us.”Then King Ping Cha (Bimbisara) called Ki Yu (Jivaka) and asked him: “The son of a notable of the kingdom of Kiuchanmi (Kaucambi) is ill, can you cure him?” Because he answered that he could, the king continued:” Because you are able to cure him, I authorise you to go and treat him.” Then Ki Yu (Jivaka) got on a chariot and went to Kiu Chan Mi (Kaucambi). The son of the notable was already dead when he arrived, some musician were escorting his body. When he heard the noise, Ki Yu (Jivaka) asked:” What are this music and those drum sounds for?” Someone next to him answered:” The son of the notable you came for is dead. What you can hear is the music of the musicians escorting him.” Ki Yu (Jivaka) could differentiate all the sounds and said:” Go tell to bring this body back, it is not a corpse.” They came back as soon as the order was given. Ki Yu (Jivaka) came off his chariot, took a very sharp knife and cut open the child’s stomach. He opened where the intestine was tied up and showed the mother, father and all relatives, and told them:” His intestine got tied together like this because of playing on a wheel, therefore food and drinks were not digested anymore, but it does not mean he is dead.” He untied the intestine and put it back to its place, then he stitched the stomach and the flesh went back together, he rubbed it with a balm. The wound healed instantly and hair grew back, so much so that the scare looked like there had never been a wound. After that, the son of the notable rewarded Ki Yu (jivaka) by giving him four hundred thousand ounces of gold. His wife also gave him four hundred thousand ounces of gold, and so did the notable and his wife.

Ki Yu (Jivaka) was thinking:” I must acknowledge the role of my master. I am going to take those sixty hundred thousand ounces of gold and give them to the great master in the kingdom of To Cha Che Lo (Taksacila), Pinkialo (Pingala).” After reflecting, he took his gold and went to see his master. He honoured him by putting his face on his feet and offered the gold with the following words:” I wish, master, that you would accept this.” His master told him:”You better make an offering, I do not need this money.” As Ki Yu (Jivaka) insisted, Pinkialo( Pingala) accepted the gold. Ki Yu ( Jivaka) said good bye and left after honouring his feet.

At the time, in the kingdom, lived the fifteen year old daughter of a kialoyue  grhapati), on her wedding day, she suddenly had a very acute headache and died. Ki Yu (Jivaka) was informed and went to her home, he asked her father:”What common illness caused this young girl to die early?” The father answered:” Ever since she was a child, my daughter was experiencing headaches which grew stronger by the day, this morning the pain was so intense that she died.” Ki Yu (Jivaka) entered the room and with the help of the king doctor (wood), he lit the inside of the girl’s head and saw worms, which were multiplying. There were several hundreds of them. The worms were devouring her brain, and because they had eaten all of it, she had died. Then Ki Yu (Jivaka) cut her head open with a golden knife, took all the worms out and locked them in a jar. Then he rubbed the wound with three kinds of supernatural oils. The first one fixed the damage caused in her bones by the worm bites, the second one regenerated the brain, and the third one healed the wound caused by the knife. Then Ki Yu (Jivaka) told the girl’s father:” Let her rest peacefully and make sure that she does not get scared. She should be completely healed and back to normal within ten days. I will come again when this time has passed.” After Ki Yu (Jivaka) left, the girl’s mother started crying and screaming:” My child died a second time, did anyone ever survive after having their skull cut open? How could the father let this man take our child?” The father stopped her and said:” When Ki Yu (Jivaka) was born, he was holding in his hand a bag of acupuncture needles; later he gave up some high function to practice medicine, and he did this for the greater good of all living things. He is a king doctor appointed by the sky, how could he do something unreasonable? He recommended that you did not scare the patient, but now, on the contrary, you are crying and screaming and risk to upset and scare her, because of you, our child will not be able to live.” Upon these words, the mother stopped complaining and both parents took care of their daughter. She remained still for seven days. On the seventh day, at dawn, she sighed and woke up as if she had been sleeping. She said:” I cannot feel any headache anymore, and all my body is at ease. Who healed me?” Her father told her:” You were already dead when the king doctor Ki Yu (Jivaka) came to give you a cure, he opened your head and took all the worms out, this is how you could revive.” He opened the jar and showed her the worms. When she saw them, the girl was horrified and grateful for her good fortune. She said:” Great is Ki Yu’s (Jivaka) divine power! I cannot wait to acknowledge his good deed.” Her father said:” Ki Yu (Jivaka) promised he would come today.” Moments later, Ki Yu (Jivaka) arrived. She honoured him by putting her face on his feet, she kneeled and joined hands and said: “ O Ki Yu (Jivaka) I wish to become your maid, and serve you until death to acknowledge the good deed you performed by bringing me back to life.” Ki Yu (Jivaka) answered:” I am a master doctor, and I go everywhere to cure people. I do not have a home. How would I use a maid? If you really want to reward me for the service I paid you, give me five hundred ounces of gold, not that I would use this gold, but this is the reason I am asking you this: anybody who has studied has to thank their master, even if my master did not teach me what I know, I am still his pupil, and after I have received your gold, I will give it to him.” The girl took five hundred ounces of gold and gave them to Ki Yu (Jivaka) who accepted them and gave them to his master.

After that, Ki Yu (Jivaka) informed the king of his intention to go visit his mother for some time. So he arrived into the kingdom of Weiyeli (Vaicali). There was in this kingdom the son of a kialoyue (Vaicali) who liked to practice martial arts. He had made an over seven feet tall wooden horse and was training to jump on its back, he could jump on it from the beginning and with time he was becoming more and more skilled. But all of a sudden, one day, I went over his target, lost his balance, fell on the ground and died. Ki Yu (Jivaka) was informed, he went to him straight away and used the king doctor wood to light the inside of his stomach, he observed that his liver had turned upside down. The chi was blocked and could not go through; this was what had caused his death. Ki Yu (Jivaka) cut his stomach open with a golden knife, and dipping his hand inside to explore and put things in order, he turned the liver around. Then he rub the patient with three kinds of divine balms, the first one repaired the spots his hand had felt, the second one let the chi and breath flow again, the third healed the wound caused by the knife. After he finished, he told the father:” Make sure to not scare him. He should be healed in three days.” His father followed the instructions, let the patient rest, took care of him and looked after him. When the third day came, the boy sighed and woke up, he looked like he had just woken up from a sleep, and he could get up straight away. Not long after that, Ki Yu (Jivaka) came back, the boy met him happily, he paid tribute to him, putting his face on his feet, went on his knees and said:” O Ki Yu (Jivaka) I wish to become your slave and serve until death to thank you for the good deed you made by bringing me back to life.” Ki Yu (Jivaka) replied:” I am a master doctor, the families of my patients are fighting to serve me. How would I use a slave? My mother worked very hard to raise me, and I did not have a chance to thank her for her kindness she showed taking care of me. Therefore, if you want to thank me for my services, give me five hundred ounces of gold that I would use to reward my mother for her kindness. So he took this gold and gave to his mother, Daughter of Mango Tree, and went back to the kingdom of Loyueche (Rajagrha).

After Ki Yu (Jivaka) had healed these four people, he became famous all across the Empire, and no one ignored him. In the south, there was a big kingdom, which was 8,000 lis away from Loyueche (Rajagrha), King Pin Cha and all the other little kings were his vassals. The king of this kingdom had been sick for several years . He was suffering from rage attacks. He looked at men with disdain and made them perish. When someone raised their eyes to see him, he was killing them, when someone was bowing their head and did not raise it again; he was killing them as well. Men who walked too slowly, he was killing them, those who walked to fast, he was killing them too, people who were serving by his side did not know what to do with their hands and feet. When a master doctor was preparing a remedy for him, the king was scared that he would put poison in it and kill him. He had killed countless people for various reasons, ministers, women from the harem and doctors. However, his illness was getting worse day after day, the poison was attacking his heart, he was suffocating and had a short breath, and he was feeling like his body was burning. He heard about Ki Yu (Jivaka) and wrote a letter to king Pingcha (Bimbisara) to notify that he was requesting for Ki Yu (Jivaka) to come to him. Ki Yu (Jivaka), who had heard that this king had killed numerous doctors, was very scared, as for king Pingcha (Bimbisara) he was feeling for Ki Yu (Jivaka) and was scared that he would be killed, so he did not want to let him go, but at the same time he was scared of being punished. Father and son were hugging each other in despair and did not know what to do. Eventually, king Pingcha (Bimbisara) took Ki Yu (Jivaka) with him and took him to the Buddha, he honoured him by putting his face on his feet, and said to the Buddha:” O Honoured of the World, this king has got a bad temper and I am afraid he might have the king doctor die, should he go to him?” The Buddha answered to Ki Yu (Jivaka):” In a previous life, you and I made a pact to work together to save the all universe: I would heal the illnesses of the soul, and you would heal the diseases of the body. I became Buddha, this is why, as per our wish, you should gather all beings before me (so I can heal them). The king is critically ill and he asked you from afar, why wouldn’t you go? Go rescue him quickly, make up a good remedy to cure his disease. This king is not going to kill you.”

After receiving the Buddha’s blessing, Ki Yu (Jivaka), went to the king, he took his pulse and lit his body thanks to the king doctor (wood), and noticed that the blood and the chi in his five viscera and his one hundred blood vessels were mixed-up, it was caused by the venom of a snake in his body. Ki Yu (Jivaka) said to the king:” I can cure your illness, and when I am finished, I can guaranty that you will be healed. However, I need to go in and see the queen-mother in order to discuss the composition of the remedy with her. If I cannot see the queen-mother, the remedy cannot be prepared properly.” Hearing these words, the king could not understand the reason and wanted to lose his temper, however, because he was ill and knew Ki Yu’s (Jivaka) reputation and he had mandated him to come in hope to get some help; he also considered that Ki Yu (Jivaka) was a young child and should not have ill intentions, he accepted his conditions. He mandated an eunuch to introduce him to the queen-mother.

Ki Yu (Jivaka) told the queen-mother:” The King’s disease can be cured, but now the remedy must be prepared, and because the recipe must remain a secret, it is important to exclude assistants. The queen-mother sent the eunuchs away. Then Ki Yu told to the queen-mother:” When I examined the king, I realised that the chi in his body has been poisoned by a snake, it seems like there is something not human. Whose son is the king? Queen-mother, please tell me the truth, and I will be able to heal him, if you don’t tell me, the king will never recover.” The queen-mother told him:”A long time ago, I was in the room with the golden columns. I went to sleep during the day. Suddenly some being came on me. I was kind of confused, in a state between dream and reality, it seemed like I have had a nightmare. I had sex with this being, and suddenly I saw a big snake, it was over thirty feet long and was going away from me. Then I realised that I was pregnant, the king is probably the son of this snake. I was ashamed of this adventure; this is why I did not say a word. But now, young man, you understood what happened. Your science is wonderful! [If the king can be healed, I wish to entrust you with the king’s life], what remedy should be used?” Ki Yu (Jivaka) answered:” I need melted butter.
– Alas young man; cried the queen-mother; refrain from speaking about melted butter, because the king hates the smell of it, and also hates hearing the word pronounced. You can count by the hundreds, even the thousands the men who died for speaking about melted butter. If you talk about it now, you will probably be killed. If you gave it to the king to drink, you will never get it to go down his throat. I wish that you used some other remedy.” Ki Yu (Jivaka) answered:” Melted butter fights the poison, therefore, people who are ill because of poison will hate smelling melted butter. If the king’s illness was not serious and caused by some other poison, I would have been able to cure him with some other remedies, but because the venom of the snake is violent and has affected all of his body, we can only destroy it with melted butter. Now we need to transform the melted butter and purify it to make it a taste less liquid. The king will drink it naturally, without suspecting anything, the remedy will go down his throat, and he will be healed, don’t worry.”

Ki Yu (Jivaka), went out to see the king, he told him:” I just had an interview with the queen-mother, I gave her the recipe of the remedy, she is going to prepare it, it will be ready in two weeks, but I have five requests. If you agree on what I am about to ask you, your illness will be cured, but if you refuse, it will be incurable.” After the king had asked him about his requests, Ki yu (Jivaka) said:” First, I want you to get from your army stock, some cloth that you have not worn yet, secondly, I wish to be allowed to come and go as I wish without being controlled. Third, I request to be allowed to see the queen-mother and the queen alone every day, fourth, I want that, when you drink the remedy, you drank all of it without stopping half way, fifth, I would like the royal white elephant that can go eight thousand li.”

Hearing those words, the king lost his temper and said:” Child, how dare you make those requests? I demand that you gave a good reason for each of them, if you fail, you will be beaten to death. How dare you ask for my new cloth? You probably want to kill me, wear my cloth and pretend to be me!” Ki Yu (Jivaka) answered:” It is necessary to be clean and pure to make the remedy, however, my cloth is soiled, this is why I would like to wear a king’s outfit when I prepare the remedy.” The king understood and said:” Very well, but why would you want to come and go as you please without control? Won’t you take advantage and bring some soldiers who will attack and kill me? Ki Yu (Jivaka) answered: “ Many time before, you have employed master-doctors, but you were suspicious of all of them and did not trust them, then you killed them and you did not take their remedies, so much so that, when I arrived, all the ministers were saying that you would make me die as well. However, because your illness is very serious, I am afraid that some people outside would make trouble, but if I can come and go as I please without control, people outside will know that your highness is trusting me, and thus will take my remedy and heal. They will not dare thinking about revolution.” The King said:” Very well. But why do you want to see my mother and my wife alone every day? Is it that you want to corrupt them?” Ki Yu (Jivaka) answered:” O King, you have killed so many people on many occasions, thus, your subject, big or small, are all scared and they do not wish for the recovery of the king. Therefore, there is no one I could trust. If I teamed with one of them to prepare the remedy, they would take advantage of a second of inattention to throw in some poison without me noticing. It would be serious. This is why, when I was thinking about who I could trust, I could only think of your mother and your wife. I need to be introduced to the queen-mother and the queen to prepare the remedy with them, it will be ready after cooking for fifteen days, I want to get in to check that the fire is well balanced every day.”Very well, but why do you want me to drink all the remedy in one go? Isn’t it that you want to put some poison and you fear that I would notice?” Ki Yu (Jivaka) answered:” The dosage of each ingredient in the remedy follows strict proportions, the vapours and taste must work simultaneously, if you stop half way, there will be no more links between the elements of the remedy.” The king said:”Very well, but why do you want my elephant? This elephant is the gem of my kingdom, it can walk eight thousand lis per day, I won power over the other kingdoms thanks to him. Don’t you want to steal it to bring it home and then attack my kingdom with your father?” Ki Yu (Jivaka) answered:” On the southern border of your country, in the mountains, there is a wonderful medicinal herb growing four thousand lis from here, it is necessary that you ate this herb after drinking the remedy. I want the elephant to gather this herb leaving. I want to leave in the morning and come back in the evening to make sure you can still feel the taste of the remedy.” After receiving answers, the king gave him everything he had asked for.

Ki Yu (Jivaka) started to purify the butter by cooking it, after fifteen days, he has made it look like fresh water, he obtained five tenth bushels. Then he went out with the queen-mother and the queen, he was holding the medicine. He announced to the king that he could drink and expressed the desire that the white elephant was prepared and kept in front of the palace, the king agreed. When the king saw that the medicine looked like fresh water and was odourless and tasteless, he did not know that it was melted butter, moreover, because the queen-mother and the queen had witnessed the preparation, he was convinced that it wasn’t poison, and so he drank everything in one go as previously agreed. Ki Yu (Jivaka) and went straight back to the kingdom of Loyueche (Rajagrha), however, after travelling for three thousand lis, because he was young and not very resistant, he could not bear the speed of the race, he got dizzy and was very tired, then he stopped and went to sleep.

After midday, the king did a burp and smelt the melted butter; he lost his temper and screamed:” This little boy dared to make me have melted butter, I was wondering why was asking for my white, but it was because he wanted to run away from me.” The king had a minister named Crow (Kaka) who was a brave man, his supernatural power allowed him to catch up with the elephant by foot. The king called Crow and told him:” Chase this boy and bring him to me alive, I want him beaten to death in my presence. However, you are always lacking frugality and you are eating and drinking eagerly, that’s why you were named Crow. People like this master doctor often like to serve poison, so, if this boy offers you food, do not eat it.”

Crow received the instructions and went. He reached Ki Yu (Jivaka) in the mountain and told him:” Why did you make the king eat melted butter and pretended it to be a remedy? This is the reason why the king ordered me to chase you and ask you to come back, come back with me quickly, if you apologize and admit your fault, you might have a chance to remain alive, but if you try to escape, I will kill you straight away, and you cannot escape.” Ki Yu (Jivaka) thought:” Despite finding a way to get this elephant, I cannot escape with it anymore; I need to come up with a new stratagem. How can I follow this man?” He said to Crow:” I have not eaten anything since this morning, if I take the road to go back, I will certainly die, it would be good if you gave me some time to find some fruit to eat and water to drink in the mountain. When I will be full, I’ll go to death!” Because he could see that Ki Yu (Jivaka) was a young boy, scared by the idea of death and who was expressing himself with difficulty, Crow felt sorry for him and gave him what he was asking for, saying:” Eat quickly and we are going to go, we cannot stay here for a long time.” Then, Ki Yu (Jivake) took a pear and ate half of it, but he poured some of the poison he had under his nail on the other half and put the pear down on the ground. He also took a cup of water, and after drinking half of it, he put the rest of the poison in what was left, and put the cup back on the ground. Then he said with a sigh:” This pear and this water are divine remedies, their fragrance is pure and they are delicious, eating and drinking them is making your body healthy, all the diseases heal, and at the same time, your breath and strength are doubled. It is a pity that we can’t find them at the kingdom’s capital so that all the inhabitants can enjoy them, it is unfortunate that they remain unknown from the mountain men.” After he had finished talking, he left to the mountain to look for more fruit. Crow was a glutton, and he had heard Ki Yu (Jivaka) praise those divine remedies, and finally, he had seen Ki Yu (Jivaka) himself drink and eat, so much so that he was thinking that these foods were certainly not poisoned, he took what was left of the pear and ate it, he also finished the water. He immediately started to suffer from diarrhoea, which made his stool look like water. He fell on the ground and laid down. Every time he was getting up, he was feeling dizzy and falling down, he was unable to move.

Ki Yu (Jivaka) told him:” The king took my medicine, and therefore he is likely to be cured, but for now, the remedy has not worked yet, and the venom has not been completely destroyed yet. If I went to him now, he would kill me. You did not know this and wished to seize me to fulfil your mission, this is why I made you ill. But this illness is not serious, refrain from moving, and in three days, you will feel better, but if you get up to go after me, your death will be assured.” He got on the elephant and left. In the first village he crossed, he said to the leader of five men:” There is over there, a messenger of the king who fell suddenly ill, go and get him quickly and bring him to your home, take good care of him, give him a soft bed, give him porridge and make sure he doesn’t die. If he died, the king would destroy your kingdom.” After these words he left and went back to his country. The leader of the five men followed the orders that had been given to him, he brought Crow back and looked after him. After three days, the poison had been completely eliminated, Crow went to see the king, he bowed to the ground in front of him and said:” Truth is I am a fool, I didn’t follow your highness’s recommendations, and I trusted Ki Yu’s (Jivaka) words, I drank and ate what he had left of fruit and water, I have been affected and got diarrhoea for three days. Only now I am feeling better. I know that I deserve death.”

During the three days before Crow returned, the King had healed from his disease, he had pondered his actions and had regretted sending Crow away. When he saw him come back, he was feeling torn between compassion and joy. He told him:” Thanks to you, the young boy wasn’t brought back here when I was irate, and when I would have him most certainly beaten to death.  I benefited from his actions and I am back to life. My perversity would have been terrible if I had made him died instead of rewarding him.” Then the king started to feel remorse about all the people he had unfairly killed on many occasions. He gave them honorary funerals, exempted their families from taxes, and gave them money. I wanted to see Ki Yu (Jivaka) again and say thank you for his good deed, and so he sent some messengers to fetch ki Yu (Jivaka), despite knowing that the king was healed, he remained fearful and didn’t want to go back. Ki Yu (Jivaka) went to the Buddha again, he put his head on his feet to show respect, and told him:” O honoured of the world, the king sent some messengers who came to call me, should I go? “ The Buddha answered:” Ki Yu (Jivaka), in a previous life, you promised to perform a praiseworthy action, how could you stop half way? You need to go now, and when you have cured this king’s external disease, I will cure his inside illness.” And then, Ki Yu (Jivaka) followed the messengers.

When the King saw Ki Yu (Jivaka) he was very happy, he made him seat with him, and told him, holding his arm:” Thanks to what you did for me, I was granted a new life, how can I reward you? I want to split my kingdom and give you half. I will give you half of the beautiful women in my harem, half of the precious items in my warehouse and half of my treasures, I want you to accept.” Ki Yu (Jivaka) said:” I used to be a crown prince, even if it was in a small kingdom, the population and riches I would have had were more than enough, but I didn’t enjoy governing a kingdom, and this is why I asked if I could become a doctor. I need to travel to heal my patients, what would I do with land, women and treasures? They wouldn’t be of any use to me. O King, earlier, when you granted me my five wishes, I was able to cure your outside disease, now, if you granted me one more wish, your inside illness could be removed.” The king answered:” I am ready to receive your instructions, please express your wish.”

Ki Yu (Jivaka) said:” I am asking you, O King, to invite the Buddha to come and to receive the wise law from him.” He took the opportunity to sing the praises of the Buddha to the king, and to explain the peculiar elevation of his function. Hearing his words, the king said happily:” I want to send my minister Crow on the white elephant to get the Buddha. Can I make him come this way?” Ki Yu (Jivaka) answered:” No need for the white elephant. The Buddha understands everything, he can read the thought of men from afar. Content yourself with practising abstinence and purification for a while, then prepare some offerings, burn perfumes, and praise looking in the direction of the Buddha, then stand on your knees and express your invitation: the Buddha will come by himself”.

The king followed this advice, and the following day, the Buddha arrived with a procession of one thousand two hundred and fifty bhiksus. After he finished eating, he explained the sacred scriptures to the king: then the mind of the king opened up and he felt the true and real wisdom without equal (anuttara samyak sambodhi). All the inhabitants of the kingdom came to receive the five defences and left after paying tribute.

Here is another story about Daughter of Mango Tree: ever since birth, she has been extraordinary. When she grew up, she proved herself to be intelligent, she had studied with her father and knew the theory of the holy books. She even knew more about the movement of stars than her father, moreover, she was practicing the musical arts and was singing like a deva of Brahma. Five hundred daughters of kialoyue (grhapati) and brahmanes joined her to study and to make her their great master. Daughter of Mango Tree, was always followed by her pupils and was celebrating and spreading the word of the holy books. Sometimes she was going for walks in parks or along lakes to play music. People in the country, who did not understand her behaviour, started gossiping about her; they were saying that she was depraved and her five hundred pupils had been nicknamed “the bunch of depraved”.

When Daughter of Mango tree was born, were born in the same kingdom and at the same time Daughter of Siu Man (sumana) and Daughter of Potan (udambara). Daughter of Siu Man (sumana) was born in a flower of siuman. In this kingdom, there was a kialoyue (grhapati) who was pressing siuman (sumana) flowers to make some perfumed oil, but on the side of the stone used to express the oil, an excrescence appeared suddenly, at first it was as big as a crossbow bullet and it was growing day after day until it reached the size of a fist. Then the stone exploded and in the hole, a conglomerate, which looked like a glow-worm, exited quickly and fell on the ground, after three day, a siuman plant grew, three days later, this plant grew a flower, and when the flower bloomed, there was a little girl in the centre of it. The kialoyue  (grhapati) took her in and fed her, she was named Daughter of Siuman, when she grew up she became extremely beautiful, she was also talented and intelligent, only Daughter of Mango Tree could compare.

At the time, there was another Brahman. A blue lotus grew spontaneously in his pool. The flower was especially big and was growing by the day until it was the size of a five bushels jar. When the flower bloomed, a little girl could be seen in the centre. The Brahman took her in and fed her. She was named Daughter of Potan (udambara) when she grew up she became very beautiful, she was talented and intelligent, just like Daughter of Siuman.

Having heard about the beauty of the two young girls, the kings of various kingdoms kept coming and asked them to get married, but the two young girls were answering:” We weren’t born from a foetus, we came out of flowers, we are not like ordinary women, what is the point of following a man of this world to get married?” Then, when they heard about the intelligence of Daughter of Mango Tree and found out that her birth had been similar to their, they both left their father and mother to serve Daughter of Mango Tree and ask her to become her pupils. Because of their understanding of the holy books and their wisdom, they were better than the other five hundred pupils.

At the time, the Buddha came to the kingdom of Weiyeli (Vaicali), Daughter of Mango Tree, followed by her five hundred students, when she met him, she praised him with her face and kneeled. Then she said:” I wish, O Buddha, that you came to my garden to eat tomorrow.” The Buddha agreed in silence. Daughter of Mango Tree went home and prepared the offerings. When the Buddha came into town, the king met him as well and after praising him, he kneeled and said:” I wish that you came to my palace to eat tomorrow.” The Buddha answered:” Daughter of Mango Tree has already invited me, you’re coming after her.” The king said:” I am the king of this country, I came to invite you with all my heart, I was hoping that you’d accept. Daughter of Mango Tree is a depraved girl, every day, with five hundred other depraved girls, her students, she is committing illegal actions. How can you reject me to accept her invitation?”

The Buddha answered:” Daughter of Mango Tree is not depraved. In a previous life, she acquired great honours for making offerings to three hundred thousands bhuddas, back then, she, Daughter of Suiman and Daughter of Potan were sisters. Daughter of Mango Tree was the eldest, Daughter of Suiman was the second, and Daughter of Potan was the youngest. They were born in a powerful and very wealthy family, showing each other good example, the sisters were making offerings to five hundred bhiksunis, everyday they were preparing food and drinks for them, and made cloths for them to wear. They made sure they didn’t lack anything. It lasted until the end of their lives. Those three sisters had made the following vow:” In our future life, we wish to meet the Buddha and be granted to be reborn by spontaneous transformation, without going through the foetus stage and be kept from any impurity.” Now, according to their previous wish, they were born at the time I am on earth. Also, despite making donations to the bhiksuni, because they were from a powerful and wealthy family, their words were sometimes too light, sometimes they were making fun of the bhiksuni, saying:” Dear nuns, you have been looking sad for a long time, you may want to get married, but held back by our donations and our care, you cannot express your passion.” This is why these young ladies are going through this pain, even though they dedicate everyday to the promotion of the holy books, they are subject to the unfair accusation of being depraved. As for the five hundred students, they had teamed up with the girls and helped them to make the offerings, and they had enjoyed it as much, this is why they were born with them, the result of their actions has followed them.

At the time, Ki Yu (Jivaka) was the son of a poor family, when he saw Daughter of Mango Tree make offerings, it brought a lot of admiration and joy in his heart, but because he did not possess anything, he started sweeping for the bhiksunis. Every time he was making the place clean and tidy he was making this vow:”If only I could sweep this easily all the diseases and impurity that are in people’s bodies in this world.” Daughter of Mango Tree, who was compassionate poverty and approved of his efforts, always called him her son. When a bhiksuni was sick, she would always make Ki Yu (Jivaka) get the doctor and prepare the potion or remedy. She was saying:” If only you could get the reward of this good deed with me in a future life.” When Ki Yu (Jivaka) was getting the doctor, the patient always healed. Then Ki Yu (Jivaka) made a wish:” I wish to be in a future life, a great king doctor, and always cure the illnesses of the four elements of the body of every human being and heal all of those I will go to.” Thanks to his past actions, he has now become the son of Daughter of Mango Tree and everything is according to his previous vow.”

Hearing the words of the Buddha, the king kneeled and apologised for his mistakes, he also postponed the invitation to the day after. The next day, the Buddha arrived in Daughter of Mango Tree’s garden with all the bhiksus, he informed her about the honours she had gained thanks to her previous vow, when they heard the holly books, the three girls could feel their intelligence bloom and rejoiced with the five hundred students. They took orders to practice good conduct and dedicated all their energy and time to it, all of them were granted the wisdom of arhat.

The Buddha said to Ananda:”You need to keep those teachings to read them to the pupils of the four classes, and to avoid losing them. May all living beings think about their actions, their words and their thoughts, may they not become arrogant or behave too freely. Because she teased the bhiksunis in the past, Daughter of Mango Tree was wrongly accused of being depraved. Therefore, you need to keep watch over what your body, your mouth and your thoughts do. Always make excellent wishes, those who will hear you will enjoy your company and will accept your example faithfully and joyfully. Do not make false accusations, because you would fall in such hells were you would be subjected to such punishment as being reborn as an animal, then after going through hundreds and thousands of cycles, you will be born poor and despised, won’t be able to hear the real law, be born in an heretic family, always meeting a mean king and having a disabled body. Therefore you need to practice those teachings, memorise and recite them, and do not allow them to be lost in the future.”

Then Ananda stood up, he paid tribute to the Buddha’s feet by pressing his head against them, he kneeled, joined his hands and said to the Buddha:” O Honoured of the World, what is the name which should be given to the sutra in which this point of the doctrine is explained?” The Buddha answered:” The name of this Sutra is: Sutra about the Avadana on Daughter of Mango Tree and Kiyu (Jivaka). Practice the doctrine that has just been showed to you; make offerings to bhiksus and bhiksunis, give medicine, get doctors, rejoiced with others that because they made a wish in the past they are now receiving their reward. Observe all of that.”

After the Buddha had pronounced this sacred text, the big assembly, composed of the eight categories that are, men, devas, nagas, and so on, started to practice the principles joyfully.

Notes:

1 This Sutra was translated under the second Han dynasty by Ngan CheKao (the Arsacid) who came to China in the year 148 AD and worked on translations until the year 170 AD.

2 In the Kattaharijataka (Jataka #7), king Brahmadatta even gives his golden ring to a woman with whom he had an accidental encounter and told her :”if you have a girl, use the price of this ring to feed her, but if you have a boy, bring me the ring and the child.”

3 In order to make sure it would not be assumed that she had had a relashionship with an other man and to make sure the child would be recognised to be King Bimbisara’s.

4 To say thank you for taking him in

5 The Tibetan text, translated by Schiefner, informs us that this king was Shanda Pradyota

Global Asian Medicines, Religion & Medicine

“Health” in the Buddhism and Science Dialogue

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This is a syndicated post that first appeared on Patheos.com.

In the current dialogue between Buddhist traditions and the sciences—an engagement dominated by Tibetan and Zen Buddhists on one side and psychologists and neuroscientists on the other—the subject of health is featured prominently. However, despite the shared term, participants aren’t actually talking about the same thing.

Early proponents of the Buddhism-science dialogue, like Paul Ekman, Richard Davidson, Matthieu Ricard, and Alan Wallace, have focused on the theme of psychological health. One prominent outcome of this dialogue has been the mindfulness movement, which has grown out of the clinical study of Buddhist-based meditation practices. Recently, Buddhist scholars such as Robert Sharf and Jared Lindhahl have pointed out the ways in which Buddhism and mindfulness diverge on meanings of health and well-being.

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Definitions of health, as they enter into a field of knowledge, also participate within fields of power, with social and economic consequences. The gay and lesbian social movements, for example, had to fight to remove homosexuality as a mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, in order to gain the right to be recognized as healthy. It took another 16 years for the World Health Organization (WHO) to remove homosexuality from its International Classification of Diseases in 1990. Conversely, individuals may wish to receive the unhealthy label because of the rights gained from such recognition, especially in the case of gray area or borderline conditions such as migraines, fibromyalgia, or chronic fatigue syndrome.

The current focus is on an individualized health, where the burden is placed primarily on individual autonomy to strive for improvement and maintenance. The power structure of contemporary society shifts responsibility away from corporations that are responsible for pollution and government policy that allow them to get away with it (or pay for carbon offsets) towards individuals who bear the consequences. In other words, social ills are pathologized or medicalized as individual disease. Reflecting on these assumptions of health is a first step in changing these conditions.

The concept of health is by no means easy to pin down. But just as with the definition of religion, so notoriously elusive, tackling and constantly revisiting definitions of health may uncover the unexamined assumptions that mask its social power. Definitions delineate and set bounds, but that is not the end goal. The intent is not to arrive at a perfect, unchanging definition of health, but rather illuminate what it means to be healthy and why.

Scientific studies of Buddhist meditation and mindfulness practices examine how they can promote mental and somatic health. Clinical research on these practices have done the most studies on stress, anxiety, depression, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and substance abuse disorders. Looking for the philosophical foundation of health on which this body of research rests allows us to examine how the Buddhism and science dialogue does not have a consistent idea of health.

The first definition to consider is by the WHO, drafted in 1946 and still unchanged: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” WHO, it should be noted, bases its approach in the Western scientific model of medicine, as evidenced by their exclusion of all else as complementary/alternative medicine. And like its conception of medicine, WHO’s definition of health assumes a paradigm situated in Western modernity. This definition of health, however, has been criticized as being vague, idealistic, conflating health with happiness, and difficult to operationalize or measure. Since scientific research need physically measurable and operationalized definitions, this is not the likely foundational model. For example, Erika Rosenberg et al.’s 2015 study that shows how meditation impacts compassion could not simply claim subjects showed more sadness when viewing upsetting images. Rather, they had to record physical data from all 44 muscle groups on the face to make the case that the subjects were indeed sad. This emphasis on concrete data suggests that the WHO’s difficult-to-operationalized definition does not support these studies.

A more likely candidate for  the philosophical foundation of such research is a negative formulation of health, which defines health as the absence of disease, in contradistinction to WHO’s positive formulation. Bjørn Hofmann argues there is no positive definition of health in the philosophy of Western medicine because the field can function without it. Christopher Boorse articulated a definition that accommodates scientific research: a biostatistical definition of health.

In his widely cited 1977 essay Health as a Theoretical Concept, Boorse gives the following definition: “health is normal functioning, where the normality is statistical and the functions biological.” For example, since the biological function of the heart is to pump blood, an individual is healthy if her heart is able to perform within a statistical range compared to  her peers. Boorse champions the biostatistical definition of health as “value-free”, which he considers a benefit, based on his desire to provide an objective scientific definition. However, his view has been criticized as not truly value-free, and also has been opposed by those who argue for “value-laden” accounts of health and illness. Problems with taking this definition for granted include reifying a statistical norm, which excludes the differently abled, neuroatypical, and other underrepresented minority groups (statistical, and otherwise) as healthy.

It is important to note the lack of attention towards this term in the Buddhism and science dialogue, despite its common usage. The surface compatibilities between the two conceptions of health dissolve upon further investigation, which reveals deep incongruities. For example, the studies on how Buddhism-based meditation can alleviate anxiety and prevent depression relapse presume the latter are unhealthy mental conditions. The contemporary understanding of these states associate them with loss of value, hopelessness, despair, distress, shame, and anger. Sharf develops Gananath Obeyesekere’s observation that these states reflect a good Buddhist who has overcome ignorance and are signs of Buddhist mental health, defined as wisdom and insight into the predicament of samsaric reality: that to live is to suffer. Lindhahl questions if the way suffering is addressed in mindfulness-based interventions is the same as how Buddhism addresses suffering. He notes that there is no agreed upon operationalized definition of suffering in psychology. Rather, there are components such as stress, anxiety, and depression. And the resulting reduction of suffering for the purposes of mental health rests in large part on reduction of symptoms. In contrast, he argues Buddhist models of health explains the origin of suffering, and thus the way to reduce, alleviate, or overcome it towards health and well-being, is in relation to ignorance, craving, and karma.

The Buddha said that health (arogya, literally the absence of illness), is “the highest gain (labha).” He is portrayed in the canon as the “king of physicians” (vaidyaraja), concerned with healing sentient beings from physical illness and soteriological dis-ease. The Four Noble Truths have been compared to four stages of medical treatment: diagnosis (the truth of dukkha), etiology (cause of dukkha), prognosis (cessation of dukkha), and cure (path to cessation). Pierce Salguero (2014) provides the following summary:

From its very inception in northeastern India in the last centuries BCE, the Buddhist tradition has advocated a range of ideas and a repertoire of practices that are said to ensure health and well-being. Early Buddhism also provided devotees with certain types of rituals to comfort the sick and dying, ascetic meditations on the structure and function of the body, and monastic regulations on the administration and storage of medicines. Buddhist texts also frequently used metaphors and narrative tropes concerning disease, healing, and physicians in discourses explaining the most basic doctrinal positions of the Dharma. As Buddhism developed in subsequent centuries, a number of healing deities were added to the pantheon, monastic institutions became centers of medical learning, and healer monks became famed for their mastery of ritual and medicinal therapeutics.

The above examples reveal that although Buddhism is concerned with health, its models of health are difficult to reconcile with the paradigm of health assumed by most researchers in this dialogue, who are conducting studies on how meditation affects health and well-being. To elaborate, the Pali canon mentions demons, imbalance of the four elements, and tridosa (the “three defects” or “three disturbances”)—Wind, Bile, and Phlegm—as causes of physical disease and suffering. Mental illnesses are caused by illusions or wrong views (greed, ill will, pride). In addition, Buddhist conceptions of health are intricately tied to ethics and karma. Unethical conduct may lead to karma that causes physical illness.

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Though Buddhist meditation has been researched as a means to lower blood pressure and stress, in early Chinese Buddhism, meditation was prescribed as an activity to get rid of negative karma. According to Zhiyi’s classification of the causes of illness, one etiological category was improper meditative practice. Some Chinese and Japanese Buddhists warned of meditation sickness (禪病 Ch. chánbìng, Jp. zenbyō). Willoughby Britton’s work on “The Varieties of Contemplative Experiences” highlights potential adverse effects of meditation in Buddhist and other contexts. Thus, while meditation is currently promoted for health, it can have the opposite effect.

Even if one is not interested in Buddhist soteriology, or Buddhist conceptions of karma (which entails rebirth and is not a psychologized karma of “secular” or “atheist” Buddhist interpretations), looking to Buddhist models of health is a step away from accepting the contemporary biostatistical model. It is an open question if and how much Buddhist models can influence the current model. Nevertheless, raising this topic is a first step if the dialogue between Buddhism and science wishes to learn from each other.

What does a society look like if it treats the Buddhist poisons of greed and hatred quite literally as causing mental illnesses? What happens if people are deemed unhealthy when such greed and hatred leads to a lack of meaningful relationships to other sentient beings and the environment? Should there be more attention towards social defects and imbalances as causes of disease? While Buddhist societies in the past will never live up to a romanticized ideal, the supposed goal of the dialogue is toward mutual understanding and improvement.

Rather than leaving the term health unexamined, investigating science and Buddhism’s convergences and divergences on health sheds light on the relationship between the two fields, which are not monolithic unchanging entities. There may be few psychologists today who, taking after Freud, consider religion in general as a neurosis, or like his student Franz Alexander, understand the Buddhist obsession with self-absorption as mental illness. Yet, some scientists—like biologist Richard Dawkins and neuroscientist Sam Harris, or other “militant/new atheists”—consider religion as a social ill. On the other side, there are Buddhists like Tsültrim Lodrö, a contemporary Tibetan Buddhist scholar and head of a monastic college who criticizes the sciences as less rational than Buddhism. To invert Alexander, it is not difficult to imagine Buddhists who see modern psychology’s obsession with ego-self-development as deluded mental illness.

Image via pixelbay.

Looking at health also clarifies the relationship between Buddhism and mindfulness. Touted as a panacea, mindfulness has been advocated as mental hygiene, one of the newest health fads. Critics of the Mindfulness movement question what sort of mental health the practice of nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness cultivates. To obviate the problems with an unreflective definition of health, elucidating this term will lead to new directions in healthcare and clinical research, and provide fodder for the dialogue. It will challenge what it means for individuals, communities, and societies to be healthy.

 

Boorse, Christopher. 1977. “Health as a Theoretical Concept” Philosophy of Science 44 (4): 542-573.

Rosenberg, Erika L., et al. 2015. “Intensive Meditation Training Influences Emotional Responses to Suffering.” Emotion 15 (6): 775–90.

Salguero, C. Pierce. 2014. “Buddhism & Medicine in East Asian History.” Religion Compass 8 (8): 239–50.

Religion & Medicine, Yoga, Ayurveda & South Asian Medicines

THE SIX MOST IMPORTANT THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE CHAKRAS

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This is a syndicated post that first appeared at: www.tantrikstudies.org

Over the past hundred plus years, the concept of the chakras, or subtle energy centers within the body, has seized the Western imagination more than virtually any other teaching from the yoga tradition. Yet, as with most other concepts deriving from Sanskrit sources, the West (barring a handful of scholars) has almost totally failed to come to grips with what the chakras meant in their original context and how one is supposed to practice with them. This post seeks to rectify that situation to some extent. If you’re short on time, you can skip the contextual comments I’m about to make and go straight to the list of the six fundamental facts about the chakras that modern yogis don’t know. (See the postscript for a precise definition of ‘chakra’.)

First let me clarify that by ‘the West’ I mean not only Euro-American culture but also the aspects of modern Indian culture that are informed by the Euro-American culture matrix. Since at this point it is nearly impossible to find a form of yoga in India not influenced by Euro-American ideas about it, when I use the term ‘Western’ I include all the teachings on yoga in India today that exist in the English language.

Okay, I’ll give it to you straight: for the most part, Western yoga understands almost nothing about the chakras that the original creators of the concept thought was important about them. If you read a book like Anodea Judith’s famous Wheels of Life or other books inspired by it, you are not reading a work of yoga philosophy but of Western occultism, based on three main sources: 1) earlier works of Western occultism that borrow Sanskrit terms without really understanding them (like Theosophist C.W. Leadbeater’s The Chakras, 1927); 2) John Woodroffe’s flawed 1918 translation of a text on the chakras written in Sanskrit in 1577; and 3) 20th-century books by Indian yoga gurus which are themselves based on sources 1) and 2). Books on the chakras based on sound comprehension of the original Sanskrit sources exist only in the scholarly world.

‘But does that matter?’ yogis ask me. ‘I’ve benefited so much from Anodea Judith’s book and others like it, don’t take that away from me!’ I won’t and I can’t. Whatever benefit you’ve received, from whatever source, is real if you say it is.  I’m just here to tell you two things: first, that when modern Western authors on the chakras tell you they are presenting ancient teachings, they’re lying—but they don’t know that they are, because they can’t assess the validity of their source materials (since they don’t read Sanskrit). Second, for those who are interested, I’m here to let you know a little bit about what yogic concepts mean in their original context (because I’m a Sanskrit scholar, and a meditator who happens to prefer the traditional forms). Only you can assess whether that is of any benefit to you. I’m not claiming that older is intrinsically better. I’m not trying to imply there’s no spiritual value to Western occultism. I’m just approximating the historical truth in simple English words as best I can. So I’ll get on with it now: the six fundamental facts about the chakras that modern yogis don’t know. (Again, please see the p.s. at the bottom for a definition of what a chakra is.)

1. THERE’S NOT JUST ONE CHAKRA SYSTEM IN THE ORIGINAL TRADITION, THERE ARE MANY.

So many! The theory of the subtle body and its energy centers called cakras (or padmas, ādhāras, lakṣyas, etc.) comes from the tradition of Tantrik Yoga, which flourished from 600-1300 CE, and is still alive today. In mature Tantrik Yoga (after the year 900 or so), every one of the many branches of the tradition articulated a different chakra system, and some branches articulated more than one. Five-chakra systems, six-chakra systems, seven, nine, ten, fifteen, twenty-one, twenty-eight and more chakras are taught, depending on what text you’re looking at. The seven- (or, technically, 6 + 1) chakra system that Western yogis know about is just one of many, and it became dominant around the 16th century (see point #4 below).

Now, I know what you’re thinking—’But which system is right? How many chakras are there really?’ And that brings us to our first major misunderstanding. The chakras aren’t like organs in the physical body; they aren’t fixed facts that we can study like doctors study neural ganglia. The energy body is an extraordinarily fluid reality, as we should expect of anything nonphysical and supersensuous. The energy body can present, experientially speaking, with any number of energy centers, depending on the person and the yogic practice they’re performing.

Having said that, there are a few centers which are found in all systems—specifically, chakras in the lower belly, the heart, and the crown of the head, since these are three places in the body where humans all over the world experience both emotional and spiritual phenomena. But apart from those three, there’s huge variety in the chakra systems we find in the original literature. One is not more ‘right’ than another, except relative to a specific practice. For example, if you’re doing a five-element practice, you use a five-chakra system (see point #6 below). If you’re internalizing the energy of six different deities, you use a six-chakra system. Duh, right? But this crucial bit of information has not yet reached Western yoga.

We’ve only just started down this rabbit hole, Alice. Wanna learn more?

2. THE CHAKRA SYSTEMS ARE PRESCRIPTIVE, NOT DESCRIPTIVE. 

This might be the most important point. English sources tend to present the chakra system as an existential fact, using descriptive language (like ‘the mūlādhāra chakra is at the base of the spine. it has four petals,’ and so on). But in most of the original Sanskrit sources, we are not being taught about the way things are, we are being given a specific yogic practice: we are to visualize a subtle object made of colored light, shaped like a lotus or a spinning wheel, at a specific point in the body, and then activate mantric syllables in it, for a specific purpose. When you understand this, point #1 above makes more sense. The texts are prescriptive — they tell what you ought to do to achieve a specific goal by mystical means. When the literal Sanskrit reads, in its elliptical fashion, ‘Four-petaled lotus at the base of the body’ we are supposed to understand ‘The yogī ought to visualize a four-petaled lotus…’ See point #5 for more on this.

3. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES ASSOCIATED WITH THE CHAKRAS ARE COMPLETELY MODERN AND WESTERN.

On countless websites and in countless books, we read that the mūlādhāra chakra is associated with survival & safety, that maṇipūra chakra is associated with willpower & self-esteem, and so on. The educated yogi should know that all associations of the chakras with psychological states is a modern Western innovation that started with Jung. Perhaps such associations represent experiential realities for some people (though usually not without priming). We certainly don’t find them in the Sanskrit sources. There’s only one exception I’m aware of, and that is the 10-chakra system for yogi-musicians that I’ve done a blog post on. But in that 13th-century system, we do not find each chakra associated with a specific emotion or psychological state; rather, each petal of each lotus-chakra is associated with a distinct emotion or state, and there seems to be no pattern by which we could create a label for the chakra as a whole.

But that’s not all. Nearly all the many associations found in Anodea Judith’s Wheels of Life have no basis in the Indian sources. Each chakra, Judith tells us, is associated with a certain bodily gland, certain bodily malfunctions, certain foods, a certain metal, a mineral, an herb, a planet, a path of yoga, a suit of the tarot, a sephira of Jewish mysticism (!), and an archangel of Christianity (!!). None of these associations are found in the original sources. Judith or her teachers created them based on perceived similarities. That goes also for the essential oils and crystals that other books and websites claim correspond to each chakra. (I should note that Judith does feature information from an original Sanskrit source [that is, the Ṣhat-cakra-nirūpaṇa, see below] under the label ‘Lotus Symbols’ for each chakra. I should also note that Anodea is a really lovely person whose work has benefited many. This isn’t personal.)

This is not to say that putting a certain kind of crystal on your belly when you’re having self-esteem issues and imagining it purifying your maṇipūra chakra might not help you feel better. Maybe it will, depending on the person. While this practice is certainly not traditional, and has not been tested over generations (which is the whole point of tradition, really), god knows there’s more on heaven and earth than is dreamt of in my rational brain.

But, in my view, people should know when the pedigree of a practice is a few decades, not centuries. If a practice has value, then you don’t need to falsify its provenance, right?

4. THE SEVEN-CHAKRA SYSTEM POPULAR TODAY DERIVES NOT FROM A SCRIPTURE, BUT FROM A TREATISE WRITTEN IN 1577.

The chakra system Western yogis follow is that found in a Sanskrit text written by a guy named Pūrṇānanda Yati. He completed his text (the Ṣhaṭ-chakra-nirūpaṇa or ‘Explanation of the six chakras’, actually chapter six of a larger work) in the year 1577.

In an earlier version of this post, I called the 7-chakra system ‘late and somewhat atypical’. But after a few days, I realized that I was mistaken—a simpler version of the same 7-chakra system is found in a 13th-century postscriptural text called the Śāradā-tilaka (‘Sarasvatī’s Ornament’), though that text does plainly acknowledge that there are multiple chakra systems (such as systems of 12 or 16 chakras). However, most yogis (both Indian and Western) know the 7-chakra system only through Pūrṇānanda’s 16th-century work, or rather, through a relatively incoherent and confusing translation of it, done by John Woodroffe in 1918. Still, the text is important to many lineages in India today. Would it have been without the Woodroffe translation? I doubt it, since there are very few people in modern India who read Sanskrit fluently.

More important, however, is the fact that the tradition itself regards scripturaltexts as infallible and human authors as fallible, so it’s ironic that modern yogis functionally treat Pūrṇānanda’s 7-chakra system as divinely revealed. Personally, I’m not sure that anything written in words can be considered infallible, but if you want to revere a yogic teaching as divinely revealed, it makes more sense to do it with a text that actually claims to be such — like the original Tantrik scriptures (composed prior to 1300). Of course, Pūrṇānanda does base his work on earlier, scriptural sources — but that doesn’t mean that he perfectly understood them (see point #6 below). In summary, then, the seven-chakra system that you know is based on a flawed translation of a nonscriptural source. This by no means invalidates it, just problematizes its hegemony.

Note that Tantric Buddhism (e.g., of Tibet) often preserves older forms, and indeed the five-chakra system is dominant in that tradition (as well as the fundamental three-bindu system). For a typical five-chakra system as found in classical Tantra, see page 387 of my book, Tantra Illuminated.

5. THE PURPOSE OF A CHAKRA SYSTEM IS TO FUNCTION AS A TEMPLATE FOR NYĀSA. 

As far as the original authors were concerned, the main purpose of any chakra system was to function as a template for nyāsa, which means the installation of mantras and deity-energies at specific points of the subtle body. So, though millions of people are fascinated with the chakras today, almost none of them are using them for their intended purpose. That’s okay. Again, I’m not here to make anyone wrong, just to educate the folks who are interested.

The most outstanding features of the chakra systems in the original sources are these two: 1) that the mystical sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet are distributed across the ‘petals’ of all the chakras in the system, and 2) that each chakra is associated with a specific Hindu deity. This is because the chakra system is, as I said, primarily a template for nyāsa. In nyāsa, you visualize a specific mantric syllable in a specific location in a specific chakra in your energy body while silently intoning its sound. Clearly, this practice is embedded in a culturally-specific context in which the sounds of the Sanskrit language are seen as uniquely powerful vibrations that can form an effective part of a mystical practice that brings about spiritual liberation or worldly benefits through magical means. Invoking the image and energy of a specific deity into a specific chakra is also culturally-specific, though if Western yogis come to understand what those deities stand for, the practice could potentially be meaningful for them as well, though probably never as meaningful as for someone who grew up with those deities as paradigmatic icons emblazoned on their subconscious minds.

The so-called Cause-deities (karana-devatās) figure largely in every chakra system. These deities form a fixed sequence. From the lowest chakra to the highest, they are Indra, Brahmā, Vishnu, Rudra, Īśvara, Sadāśiva, and Bhairava, with the first and last of these often not appearing, depending on the number of chakras. The last deity in the list of Cause-deities is never the ultimate deity of the given system, for that deity (whoever it is) is enthroned in the sahasrāra on or above the crown of the head (which technically is not a chakra, since chakras by definition are pierced by Kuṇḍalinī in her ascent, whereas the sahasrāra is her destination). Therefore, Bhairava (the most esoteric form of Shiva) is only included in the list of Cause-deities when he is transcended by the Goddess.

6. THE SEED-MANTRAS THAT YOU THINK GO WITH THE CHAKRAS ACTUALLY GO WITH THE ELEMENTS THAT HAPPEN TO BE INSTALLED IN THOSE CHAKRAS. 

This is simpler than it sounds. You’ve been told that the seed-mantra (bīja or single-syllable mantra) of the mūlādhāra chakra is LAM. It’s not. Not in any Sanskrit source, not even Pūrṇānanda’s somewhat garbled syncretic account. And the mantra of svādhiṣṭhāna chakra is not VAM. Wait, what? It’s simple: LAM (rhymes with ‘thumb’) is the seed-mantra of the Earth element, which in most chakra visualization practices is installed in the mūlādhāra. VAM is the seed-mantra of the water element, which is installed in svādhiṣṭhāna (at least, in the seven-chakra system you know about). And so on: RAM is the syllable for Fire, YAM for Wind, and HAM for Space. (All these bījas rhyme with ‘thumb’; though I should note in passing that in esoteric Tantrik Yoga, the elemental bījas actually have different vowel sounds which are thought to be much more powerful.)

So the main point is that the fundamental mantras associated with the first five chakras on every website you can Google actually do not belong to those chakras, but rather to the five elements installed in them. This is important to know if you ever want to install one of those elements in a different place. ‘Gasp! I can do that?’ Totally. What do you think might be the effect on your relationships of always installing the Wind element in the heart center? (Remember, YAM is the mantra of Air/Wind, not of the anāhata chakra.) D’you ever notice that modern American yogis have really unstable relationships?  Could that be connected to repeatedly invoking Wind on the level of the heart? Nahhh….. (I can be funny now because only a small percentage of my readers have made it down this far.)  So maybe you want to install some Earth in the heart sometime, cuz grounding is good for your heart. In that case, it’s kinda handy to know that LAM is the Earth element mantra, not the mūlādhāra-chakra mantra. (Note that, traditionally, though the elements can be installed in different places in the body, they can’t change their set sequence. That is, they can telescope up or down depending on the given practice, but Earth is always lowest, then Water, etc.)

Furthermore, some of the geometric figures associated with the chakras today also properly belong to the Elements. Earth is traditionally represented by a (yellow) square, Water by a (silvery) crescent, Fire by a downward-pointing (red) triangle, Wind by a hexagram or six-pointed star, and Space by a circle. So when you see those figures inscribed in illustrations of the chakras, know that they actually are representations of those Elements, not of a geometry inherent in the chakra itself.

This brings me to my last point: even a Sanskrit source can be confused. For example, in Pūrṇānanda’s 16th-century text that is the basis of the popular modern chakra system, the five Elements are installed in the first five chakras of a seven-chakra system. But this doesn’t really work, because in all the classical systems, Space element is installed at the crown of the head, since that is where the yogī experiences an expansive opening into infinite spaciousness. Space is the element that merges into the infinite, so it has to be at the crown. I would speculate that Pūrṇānanda placed Space at the throat chakra because he lived at a time of increasing dogmatic adherence to the received tradition without critical reflection (a trend which sadly has continued), and the tradition he received was a Kaula one in which the classical Cause-deities got shoved down to make room for later, higher deities (specifically Bhairava and the Goddess), and the elements were uncritically kept fused to the deities and chakras with which they were previously associated. (Having said that, the fact that Pūrṇānanda was drawing on Kaula sources is not obvious, because instead of enthroning the Goddess at the sahasrāra as we would expect in a Kaula 7-chakra system, we find Paramaśiva, probably due to the influence of Vedānta. See the questions and answers below for more on this.)

So, we’ve barely scratched the surface of this subject. No, I’m not kidding. It’s really complex, as you can gather by taking a look at the scholarly literature, like Dory Heilijgers-Seelen’s work, or Gudrun Bühnemann‘s. It takes uncommon patience and focus to even read such work, let alone produce it. So here’s what I hope will be the result of this post: some humility. A few less claims to authority when it comes to really esoteric subjects. Maybe a few less yoga teachers trying to tell their students what the chakras are all about. Heck, I’m humbled by the complexity of the original sources, and that’s with twelve years of Sanskrit under my belt.

This is still mostly uncharted territory. So when it comes to the chakras, don’t claim you know. Tell your yoga students that every book on the chakras presents only one possible model. Nothing written in English is really authoritative for practitioners of yoga. So why not hold more gently the beliefs you’ve acquired about yoga, even while you keep learning? Let’s admit we really don’t understand these ancient yoga practices yet; and instead of seeking to be an authority on some oversimplified version of them, you can invite yourself and your students to look more clearly, more honestly, more carefully, and more non-judgmentally at their own inner experience.

After all, everything that every yoga master ever experienced is in you, too.

Postscript: This post is getting a wider circulation than I’m used to, and some people who don’t know me interpret my wry tone as arrogance or sarcasm. In fact, I’m a real softie at heart. Please read my bio so that you can assess my qualifications to make the statements that I do. And if you’re in the Bay Area or Colorado, come out to one of my live teaching events!

Postscript #2: Someone pointed out that I didn’t offer an actual definition of a chakra in this post. So here it is: “In the Tantric traditions, chakras (Skt. cakra) are focal points for meditation within the human body, visualized as structures of energy resembling discs or flowers at those points where a number of nāḍīs or meridians converge. They are conceptual structures yet are phenomenologically based, since they tend to be located where human beings experience emotional and/or spiritual energy, and since the form in which they are visualized reflects visionary experiences had by meditators.”

An 18th-century image of several chakras, probably from Rājasthān.

An 18th-century image of several chakras, probably from Rājasthān.

 

Acknowledgements: this post owes much to conversations with Christopher Tompkins about his as-yet unpublished work in the primary sources of Tantrik Yoga. However, I have followed up these conversations with my own investigations, and therefore I take full responsibility for any factual errors that might exist in this post. I hope there aren’t any. If you are a Sanskrit scholar and you disagree, please get in touch.

 

Chinese & East Asian Medicines, Religion & Medicine

The Doctor, the Scholar (and the Meditator?) 
in Middle Period China

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A doctor, a scholar, and a meditator walk into a bar… and they’re the same person!

This (admittedly rather bad) joke flitted into my head while we sat together on a grey October day at Johns Hopkins’ Institute for the History of Medicine discussing the frequent but frequently fraught intersections of meditation, healing, and the scholarship that claims to understand these two. Continue reading The Doctor, the Scholar (and the Meditator?) 
in Middle Period China →

Chinese & East Asian Medicines, Religion & Medicine

Healing the Heart: Meditation and Healing in Daoist Philosophy

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Guest post by Park Seung-Hyun

Bio: I am HK Research Professor at the Institute of Mind Humanities, Wonkwang University. I received my B.A. and M.A. at the Department of Philosophy, Chung-ang University in Korea, and completed my Ph.D at the Department of Philosophy, Peking University. My thesis was titled “A Study on Huainanzi and ZhuanhXue in early Han Dynasty.” I believe that the true meaning of philosophy emerges only when the essence obtained by pursuing theoretical issues is implemented in real life. In this regard, I believe that philosophical questions should be focused on how human dignity can be realized in the real world. My research interests go to the subject of philosophical counseling and healing, where the issues of human pain are dealt with in various perspectives. My working project lies at the intersection of the train theory and the subject of mind healing. 

 

Recently, there has been burgeoning interest in healing for illnesses of the heart.1 People living in developed civilizations are burdened by heavy workloads that force them to live busy lives. As people produce more, they also consume more. It is common knowledge that in modern society, people are often treated as tools of production, and are valued for their utility rather than their being. Human dignity is determined by one’s degree of usefulness, and thereby humanity loses its true meaning.

Why do people today place such high value on material civilization to the detriment of living a happy life? Perhaps they suffer because of an incorrect interpretation of what it means to live a happy life. They seem to believe that happiness is not a matter of the heart, but instead depends on external material conditions. They strongly believe that happiness requires a certain status or social success, and to secure such a happy life, they are taught to believe that they must triumph through fierce competition to secure wealth and status. They believe that they should desperately use all means and methods to achieve such an esteemed life. However, owing to such beliefs, life can spiral downwards. Social pathologies and pain arising from misguided beliefs can only be resolved when one’s viewpoints and attitudes change.

A change in viewpoint and attitude toward life must begin by reflecting on oneself. We should reflect on our wrong belief, and attempt to distance ourselves from it. Distancing ourselves means changing our viewpoint. However, a shift in viewpoint cannot be achieved simply by way of intellectual exploration. Intellectual work, which pursues the knowledge of the objective world, is just an auxiliary means to resolving pain. Beyond this intellectual effort, we should also look at the disposition of our mind, and practice resting the mind. This is the starting point of meditation.

Meditation, in my view, is not about pursuing external objects, but a disciplined way of looking for the lost self. Meditation is an attempt to search for the origin that gives the self his or her identity. The ordinary active mind is formed by our habits and experiences, as well as by our education. In this frame of mind, we can distinguish right from wrong according to our life standards, but can always easily slip into self-centered thought and act according to our own biases. When we do this, discrepancies in opinions arise, causing disputes and contributing to a painful life. Meditation aims primarily to distance ourselves from such an ordinary, habitual mind. It further seeks to eventually find the true self.

Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism all uphold the goal of a perfected human being—represented by a saint, an immortal, or Buddha, respectively—and promise that this is a state human beings can reach through various practical disciplines taught by each tradition. From the viewpoint of all three Asian traditions, the realization of such an ideal human life lies in the search for one’s inner foundation. In all cases, discipline and practice starts with overcoming the self, specifically, with winning the fight against the selfish persona. This paper discusses how this practice appears in the Chinese Daoist classic, the Book of the Way and its Power (Daode Jing), by Laozi.

Meditation in Laozi

Laozi’s Daode Jing does not mention a specific meditation technique. However, there are hints of Laozi’s ideas about how to practice. He instructs: “Close the mouth, shut the doors. Blunt the sharpness, untie the tangles. Soften the light, become one with the dusty world. This is called profound identification.”2 This expression suggests three stages of meditative practice.

The first stage, “close the mouth and shut the doors,” is the pre-meditation stage. Although it mentions only the mouth, the implication is we must close all of our sensory organs. This closes the doors through which qi exits, and via which our life energy is wasted. If we thus sit quietly, we are not distracted by the temptation of external objects.

Laozi’s second stage of mediation is to “blunt the sharpness and untie the tangles.” This is the stage of mental discipline in which we refine the roughness of our mind. In this stage, it is important to forsake unnecessary desires that cause conflicts with others. Laozi also warns against pursuing futile knowledge. If we do so, we can be free from worries; we can empty our mind and remain serene.

In this serene condition, we can see the true nature of all things, which is the third stage. This transformation cannot come simply from philosophical thoughts, but must be achieved through a transcendental consciousness that is beyond the ordinary state of mind. That is the realm where light is softened, and one becomes one with the dusty world. This last stage of the discipline is called xuantong, “becoming one with the mysterious.”

Unfortunately, the Daode jing does not give more detail about specific methods involved in meditation. But, Laozi presents various ideas in the text about the practice and its benefits.

Laying down desires

The path of cultivation laid out by Laozi involves modesty, humbleness, and surrendering. By overcoming problematic situations caused by the bondage of the selfish self, we can heal a confused heart. Laozi sternly warns of the results of endlessly expanding material desires: “There is no greater woe in our lives than not knowing our satisfaction.”3 The more desire we have for wealth, power, and sensuous pleasure, the further we pursue them. People always seem to want to be satisfied, to stay ahead of other people, and to feel happy by pursuing sensuous desires. If we do not step away from the pursuit of these worldly values, we will not be able to attain peace of mind and a sense of balance.

In constrast, Laozi finds the true value of human life in remaining simple: “People around me are very bright, but only I seem to be dull. People around me have a calculating and careful mind, but only I remain in the dark. Quietness seems like a sea, and gusts of wind seem to run wild. People around me are all useful, but only I am uncivilized and outdated. Only I, different from others, see it important to move toward the Way.”4 It seems that, compared with others who seem to be moving at a fast pace in response to changing times, Laozi might look like a fool or outcast. However, unlike people who pursue their immediate interests in daily life, his mind is focused on the Way, which is the origin of things. This state of mind is not to be gained naturally, but must be reached through the practice of meditation.

People with Laozi’s “foolish mind” can deal with everyday situations with a flexible attitude. They will not manipulate people, and will not resort to acting immorally. They will handle work naturally. Laozi expresses such a life attitude as “soft.” He insists, “When human beings are alive, they are soft, but when they are dead, they become firm. As plants grow, they are flexible, but when they are dead, they become hard. Those things that are dead are hard and strong, and those things that are living are soft and weak.”5

Though a person who is like water might be humiliated by a strong person, hardness will always eventually be subjugated by softness. “There is nothing in the world softer than water, but when water accumulates and grows bigger it can penetrate even the hardest material. Everyone knows that something feeble can win against something strong, and something soft can win against something hard, though they do not properly practice this principle.”6

Worldly people continuously consume their lives competing with other people to attain more wealthy and honorable positions. In contrast, Laozi emphasizes that we should stay humble, yield to others, and live in a low position that is not usually favored. He says, “Rivers and seas allow all streams to flow into them because they stay low. Therefore, they can become the king of the streams.”7

Laozi believes that this concept of non-competition can help remove the roots of social injustice, and open the way to accept other people’s position. A person with a water-like mind is able to restrain him or herself from fighting with other people. Laozi says, “Water benefits all things, does not pick a fight, and yet it stays where many people disdain it. It resembles the Dao.… It avoids fighting and thus, it has no transgressions.”8 Likewise, “A saint, although seated above, does not feel like a heavy burden to people, and he, although seated in the front, is not like an obstacle to people. Therefore, all people willingly honor him, but they are not bored with him. He does not fight with other people, and so he has no enemies.”9

Thus, Laozi, through his suggested methods of being flexible, keeping a low profile, and being non-competitive, intends to open the way for each of us to restore our own nature and to allow all things to realize their own nature. Through such efforts, we can aim to step away from being bound by our immediate desires and consumption, instead cultivating a yielding and modest mind that looks for a mutually beneficial situation for everyone.

Overcoming artificiality and affectation

However, while modesty and humility are desirable, our habitual, ordinary mind easily falls into temptation and vanity. We seek to resolve our life problems in a simple way rather than in a right way.

Laozi warns against “artificial doing” (youwei, or renwei), which can also be translated as “affectation.” Laozi says in this regard, “A person, with heels up, cannot stand long; and a person, with legs spread wide, walks clumsily and cannot go far. A person, if claiming his insistence, is not bright; a person, if insisting on being right, is not bright; a person, if showing off himself, loses his meritorious achievements; and a person, if boasting of himself, will not sustain his presence long.”10 A person with heels up, a person walking clumsily, and a person showing off or boasting are people who act unnaturaly. Such acts are all deemed “redundancies from the viewpoint of the Way.”11 Vanity is an unnecessary attitude one carries with them when doing a particular act. Such vanity hampers the course of a normal life, and, in worse cases, it leads to unhealthy situations. Laozi notes the diversity of affectations in our lives driven by vanity, and asks us to escape from them.

The causes of such artificiality can be explained in three ways. The lowest level of artificiality refers to the intemperate pursuit of sensuous desires. The stronger and more diverse the stimuli received from external sources through our sensory organs, the further our consciousness is pressed by and subjected to such external stimuli, and the further disabled the mechanism to look upon ourselves becomes. Laozi says, “Five colors blind people’s eyes, five sounds deafen people’s ears, and five tastes hurt people’s mouths.”12 In other words, stimuli of all kinds dull our sensory organs, making us more and more numb. Obviously, the pursuit of temporary pleasures like these does not lead to true happiness. Furthermore, sometimes, manipulation in the pursuit of pleasures leads us directly to pain.

The second level is psychological or emotional artificiality: feelings of pleasure, anger, or numbness when showing off and employing one’s skills to gain favors from others. The third and last level is manipulation through thoughts,  theories, and ideologies. These three levels—sensuous desires, vanity, and ideological distortions—all lead people to manipulate others and to lose their true nature. Such loss of nature causes them to plunge into non-freedom.

To oppose and negate the manipulations of “artificial doing” (youwei), Laozi presents the concept of “non-doing” (wuwei). For Laozi, non-doing does not simply mean inaction. Non-doing is the positive action of refusing to give rise to the factors that lead to the abovementioned manipulations. The verb wu in wuwei can mean “to negate” or “to remove.” The target of such negation are mental states like dependence, falsehood, manipulation, and externalization. Human beings, if bound in these states, will become unnatural and devoid of freedom. Thus, Laozi asserts that, in order to escape from pain and move towards freedom,  these need to be negated and removed.

Non-doing is thus a training to negate and remove artificiality and affectation from the mind. It can be reached only through the course of strenuous discipline, paying attention to each moment in meditation. Only when this practical meaning of Laozi’s philosophy is properly disclosed, can the healing aspect of discipline be clearly understood.

Cultivation of a serene heart

In Laozi’s text, the goal of meditation is to produce a serene heart, through which we can escape from the bondages of life and pursue ultimate freedom. Stopping our desires and our artificial thinking is not merely to sit idle or stay in a dull state, but has the purpose of making us clearly awake and allowing our life to be guided intuitively.13

This state is described by Laozi as “empty” (xu) and “serene” (jing).14 He emphasizes one must become “wholeheartedly” empty and serene. This means concentrating our heart/mind on one thing.15 If our heart/mind is confused, we cannot achieve anything, and we will be driven by external influences and only be troubled. But, if our heart/mind remains truly empty and serene, our life is undisturbed by the movement of external objects.  “Although all things around me are turbulent, I can return to serenity.”16

Laozi closes with this sentence: “If we do not know steadfastness, we will become irrational and wild.”17 This is what we always experience in our routine lives. If we are continuously agitated by external objects, we experience never-ending suffering. We need to stop this situation. If we stop, we can distance ourselves from such situations, and clearly see ways to return to the origin. Then we can regain our stability and search for a steady way of life. However, most people do not properly understand the way to a steady life, and instead are consumed by external things and become ill because of their sensuous desires.

Pursuing meditation is different from the pursuit of external knowledge. Laozi says, “Acquiring knowledge requires daily accumulation; practicing Dao requires daily reduction.”18 Acquiring knowledge can be thought of today as the main pursuits of the natural sciences, social sciences, and other empirical fields. Knowledge pursued in these arenas are obtained outside oneself. On the other hand, practicing the Dao requires the person to look within. Elevating oneself is possible not by filling but by emptying, not by the external but the internal.

Through this inner awakening, we can obtain a clear and pure mind, and discover our true nature beyond our specific environment. Nonetheless, Laozi’s pursuit of mental freedom through meditation is not to suggest we neglect our daily activities. Daoist philosophy is not simply about staying in the area of theoretical exploration. Laozi writes: “Embracing light with our heart and becoming one with the dusty world,”19 we should endeavor to purify and clarify our mind so we can apply these truths in real life. Daoist philosophical approaches thus are part of a practical system of overcoming pain and healing the heart.

Notes

  1. The Korean sim (Chinese xin)⁠ is an East Asian word connoting both mental and emotional qualities in addition to the physical heart organ. For readability, I have most often used the translation of this term as “heart,” although in certain cases, I have opted for “heart/mind” in order to make clear what I am referring to.
  2. DDJ 56
  3. DDJ 46.
  4. DDJ 20.
  5. DDJ 76.
  6. DDJ 8.
  7. DDJ 66.
  8. DDJ 8.
  9. DDJ 66.
  10. DDL 24.
  11. DDL 24.
  12. DDJ 12.
  13. Kim⁠ 2011.
  14. DDJ 16.
  15. The discipline method of emptying the heart to obtain serenity shown in Xunzi, jiebi, comes from Daoism.
  16. DDJ  16.
  17. DDJ 16.
  18. DDJ 48.
  19. DDJ 56.

References

  • DDJ: Laozi. 2007. Daode jing. Translated into Korean by Lee Gang-su. Seoul: Gil.
  • Kim Jeong-ho. 2011. Mentoring on mind control and meditation. Seoul: Bulkwang.

 

 

Chinese & East Asian Medicines, Global Asian Medicines, Religion & Medicine

Women’s Qigong in America Tradition, Adaptation, and New Trends

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Content previously published in Journal of Daoist Studies, 3, 2010.

Posted with permission from the editor of the Journal of Daoist Studies

ELENA VALUSSI, Loyola University Chicago

This article examines the following eight publications on women’s qigong techniques:

Videos
Chia, Mantak, 1998. Slaying the Red Dragon.
Lee, Daisy. n.d. Radiant Lotus: Qigong for Women.
Liu, Yafei. n.d. Nüzi qigong (Chinese/German).
Books
Chia, Mantak. 2005 [1986]. Healing Love through the Dao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy. Destiny Books.
Davis, Deborah. 2008. Women’s Qigong for Health and Longevity: A Practical Guide for Women Forty and Over. Shambhala.
Ferraro, Dominique. 2000. Qigong for Women: Low-impact Exercises for Enhancing Energy and Toning the Body. Healing Arts Press.
Johnson, Yangling Lee. 2001. A Woman’s Qigong Guide: Empowerment through Movement, Diet and Herbs. YMAA Publication Center.
Zhang, Tinna Chunna, 2008. Earth Qigong for Women: Awaken Your Inner Healing Power. Blue Snake Books.

Female meditation techniques in China
The point of departure for this article is my research on female meditation techniques in China, also called nüdan 女丹, of female alchemy. Over the last few years, I have described the historical emergence of the nüdan tradition and its Chinese development both in my dissertation and several articles (see Valussi 2003; 2008a; 2008b; 2008c; 2009). Simply put, female alchemy is a textual tradition of Daoist meditation and physiological exercises for women, which emerged in China in the seventeenth century and developed throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is part and parcel of the much older tradition of internal alchemy (neidan 內丹), which advocates the possibility to achieve immortality through the progressive refinement of the body, aided by meditation, breathing, visualization, and massage exercises. Unlike neidan, though, nüdan followers adapt theory, practice, and language specifically to the female body.
My research reviewed most of the historical literature available in Chinese on meditation techniques for women, as well as contemporary publications on female meditation techniques in Chinese and English. When talking about contemporary publications on the topic, while Chinese publications are mostly a contemporary rendition of historical texts, those in Western languages and especially in English reveal a vast contemporary market of healing, spiritual, and meditative techniques for women inspired by Chinese traditions. For the purposes of this paper, I chose to concentrate on American publications simply because I am more familiar with them, but I am aware that these techniques have reached Western audiences outside of the U.S., and one of the items on my list was produced in Germany (Liu Yafei video).

Historical Context
Historically, nüdan texts were produced within the Daoist tradition, mostly during sessions of spirit-writing, a form of communication between gods and the community of believers, starting in the seventeenth century. They were religious texts, guiding practitioners to immortality and ascension into heaven. This is definitely not the context in which these techniques are described, taught, and performed in the United States. Their aim, rather than complete transcendence, is health and well-being. Even though there is often, but not always, a clear spiritual component in these publications, it is seen as yet another way to help the healing process.
Offerings available on the American market are wide and varied. In some instances, language and techniques are quite similar to what is found in historical nüdan texts; in others the practices seem to have no link whatsoever with that tradition. Some contemporary publications have a strong focus on sexuality and its importance in the physical and spiritual well-being of practitioners: this is not present in nüdan works and generally uncommon in the neidan tradition. Yet despite the variety, I found that nüdan techniques and language are widely used and appropriated in Western publications. It is also useful to mention that most of the neidan techniques of old are now referred, both in China and in the West, as qigong, a more modern term that is less linked to a religious milieu and favors a health-scientific background.
The mysticism surrounding the techniques and the oral transmission between master and disciple of Daoist techniques, common in Daoist communities in traditional China until the late Ming dynasty, started to dissipate in the Qing when practices became available more widely to a larger market through cheap publications and open transmissions. Secrecy almost ceased in the 1930s, when inner alchemy transformed from a religious to a lay practice and its techniques became a political tool of nation strengthening. In the Republican period, intellectuals reformulated and reorganized alchemical knowledge in order to renew the Chinese heritage, which they thought needed reviving in the face of Western cultural and political onslaught as well as of the Japanese invasion. This effort was intended to help national strengthening and progress.
Under Communist rule after 1949, traditional techniques were not discarded but made even more accessible and public. Already in the 1940s Communists formulated a conscious policy for the “Liberated Areas” to make use of local medical resources within a “scientific orientation.” Mao called on modern-trained doctors to unite with traditional therapists who were closer to the people, encouraging them to “help them to reform” (Palmer 2007, 29). Accordingly traditional neidan techniques were “reformed” to meet contemporary “scientific” standards. Liu Guizhen, a local Communist cadre, who brought these practices to the Party’s attention, spearheaded this transformation from neidan to more “modern” and “scientific” practices, which eventually lead to the creation of qigong. Together with a group of other cadres, Liu “set to work on the task of extracting the method from its religious and ‘superstitious’ setting. The method was compared with techniques described in classical medical texts, its concepts and were reformulated, and its mantras ‘reformed’ (Palmer 2007, 31).

During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s, qigong fell out of favor. It was rediscovered in the 1980s, the time of “qigong fever,” then made its way to the West both through Chinese and Western practitioners. The latter incorporated it in regimens that fit Western healing styles, some with more spiritual accents, others purely health regimens, others again with sexual overtones, and many marketed as forms of “spiritual healing”.
Much work has been done in the intersection between religion and healing; in the West the category of “spiritual healing” has widened to encompass many techniques that might at one point have been connected with specific religious traditions but that are now used in separation from their original religious context to heal a variety of ailments (see Cohen 2002-03). In the specific case of Chinese spiritual healing and qigong, too, some powerful studies have appeared, detailing the specificity of Chinese conceptions of the body and healing, as well as the political implications of the practice of qigong in China (e.g., Ots 1994; Chen 2003). There are also some studies on the transfer of knowledge to the West, notably in the field of acupuncture. Linda Barnes, in her 1998 article on the Western adoption of Chinese healing techniques and especially acupuncture, argues that “this indigenization of Chinese practices is a complex synthesis which can be described as simultaneously medical, psychotherapeutic, and religious” (1996, 1). She describes a process of acculturization that is at first uncritical, then becomes more and more inquisitive: “Initially, there was a tendency among the non-Chinese to adopt these teachings uncritically. Over time, however, they began to look for sources and methods through which to articulate questions, which, in some instances, they themselves had introduced into the Chinese practices” (1998, 415).
The process of questioning that acupuncture has undergone over the past three decades has yet to happen for qigong practices, especially those dedicated to women. Only now do critical views of some practices and the questioning of sources appear in American qigong circles. Where do the practices come from? What is the affiliation of the people who teach and write about them?
In many ways the traditional secrecy that had clouded the transmission of neidan and also qigong in China has been more accentuated with their transfer to Western practitioners. Books often describe the origins of practices as often shrouded in mystery or too ancient to be verifiable. This is entirely unnecessary. Both Chinese and Western scholars outline the historical development of neidan as well as qigong traditions, schools, and techniques (see Kohn and Wang 2009). For the modern period, especially the works of Xun Liu (2009) David Palmer (2006) and Nancy Chen (2003) trace the birth and growth of neidan and qigong during the Republican era and under Communism as a mixture of inner alchemical techniques and Western medicine. For the pre-modern period, many more monographs, articles and books are now available. At this stage Western practitioners should take these studies into consideration instead of describing the Chinese tradition as an ahistorical continuum that contains all techniques, schools, and teachers. The various presentations of women’s qigong discussed below would have greatly benefited from such consideration.

Nüzi Qigong

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This DVD is by the physician and qigong teacher Liu Yafei, the daughter of Liu Guizhen, the cadre responsible for the transition from neidan to qigong. Liu Yafei works at the Beidaihe sanatorium in northern China founded by her father and teaches widely abroad, mainly in Europe, but has not yet published Western language books on her practice. In her DVD and classes she keeps the practice firmly within the realm of medicine and healing, downplaying any spiritual or religious elements. This stance is partly related to the transformation that alchemical techniques underwent during the Republican and Communist periods, and partly due to the fact that her father had been harshly criticized for his involvement in the development of qigong. The repression of the Falungong religion and various qigong forms in China today, and the limits of religious expression also play a role.
Still, there are obvious similarities in Liu’s terminology and traditional nüdan texts, starting with the cosmological positioning and defining of men and women. “Men are strong and refine their qi, women are soft and refine their blood. Women have inner soft beauty. Men are high mountains, women are flowing water.” Both practices pay specific attention to the breasts, and especially to the point between them, historically considered the starting point for female practice and the activating point for women. Both also include extensive and repeated breast massages. In addition, they pay attention to the lower abdomen, and to the Meeting Yin (huiyin) point at the perineum. All of these points are located on an extraordinary vessel (Renmai, Dumai, Chongmai, or Daimai). According to Liu, they are essential for female health because they cross the front part of the body and intersect on the abdomen. She thus applies nüdan knowledge to Chinese medical readings of the body.
Another element essential in both practices is blood. However, whereas nüdan sees blood as a pool of energy to be transformed, nüzi qigong supports its normal function. The exercises accordingly serve to regulate menstruation and female hormones, to eliminate breast problems like cysts, to help in recovery after breast cancer as well as during pregnancy and menopause, and generally to maintain and improve the blood and energy flow in the body.
Not all of nüzi qigong derives from nüdan, though. Many elements also come from neiyang gong, internal nourishing, the other form of qigong Liu teaches. Her language in all cases is eminently biomedical, speaking of different health problems and of how this practice can help solve them. The questions asked by the practitioners during classes are equally focused on health and healing. No mention is made of a spiritual or religious dimension of this practice.

Radiant Lotus

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Daisy Lee is a qigong instructor certified by the National Qigong Association. The DVD, after showing a class of her students performing a series of exercises specific to female health, contains an interview on her practice. Lee notes that Radiant Lotus is designed specifically for women and addresses health issues unique to women like perimenopause, menopause, hot flashes, painful periods, low back pain, swollen ankles, intense emotions, as well as uterine and breast tumors. This is achieved through a series of movements, divided into four routines, all featured on the DVD: 1. Shaking and cupping 2. Self-massage (of breasts and reproductive organs) 2. Vibrational sound healing 4. Kwan Yin closing.
The first series of movements starts by tapping the center of the chest. Lee describes this center biomedically as the thymus gland. Nüdan texts call it the “milk stream” (ruxi) and name it as the starting point of practice and as one of the main locations where the practice returns. The next movements include cupping the breasts, the neck, face, and abdomen, as well as the legs; special attention is given to breasts and ovaries, echoing nüdan materials. The second section describes a massage routine which includes, among others: ovarian, abdominal, groin, vaginal, kidneys, and breasts. All these areas are essential in nüdan practice. The movements, moreover, are performed nine times, which is also the typical number of repetitions in the nüdan tradition.
Daisy Lee uses biomedical language (thymus gland, ovaries, perimenopause, etc.) to talk about the locations as well as the effects of the practice, and she does not dwell on spiritual effects. However, the fact that she uses Tibetan vibrational sound healing as well as the Kwan Yin (Guanyin) closing, reflects the fact that spiritual practices have been integrated into a health routine. She does not say who developed the “Radiant Lotus” method nor does she discuss the mixing of Daoist (nüdan), Chinese Buddhist (Guanyin) and Tibetan Buddhist (sound healing) elements.
Both Lee and Liu Yafei speak of women’s yin nature and define it in a similar way to nüdan manuals, as soft, flowing, and internally beautiful. Both note that this nature may be more attuned to natural processes and therefore be better suited to accomplish a qigong routine. “There is a natural flow in a women’s body that helps in how you move in qigong. …you find that women are more naturally drawn to qigong” (Lee, Intro.). This is, not surprisingly, what nüdan texts already say, albeit in different terms, in the eighteenth century.

However, while Lee sees this as “a place of empowerment for women,” traditional texts use the “special predisposition of women” to maintain a woman’s place in society: in the home and away from the public eye; not a place of empowerment but a reiteration of the status quo. Both Liu Yafei’s and Daisy Lee’s instructional DVDs repeat many exercises and focus on locations featured in nüdan texts yet do not resemble each other very much. Both techniques, it appears, have a similar source, but have been refined and influenced by other traditions.

Mantak Chia

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Mantak Chia was one of the first practitioners to bring neidan, or inner alchemy, to America in the 1970s. Since then, he has trained many Western practitioners to becoming full instructors while also publishing—in close cooperation with Michael Winn—a series of books that have strongly influenced the field of spiritual healing. Chia’s teachings have had a large impact on how Chinese healing and spiritual techniques are understood and adapted in the West. This is how he is described on many online sites selling his books:

A student of several Taoist masters, Mantak Chia founded the Universal Healing Tao System in 1979 and has taught and certified tens of thousands of students and instructors from all over the world. He is the director of the Tao Garden Integrative Medicine Health Spa and Resort training center in northern Thailand and the author of 31 books, including Fusion of the Five Elements, Cosmic Fusion, and the bestselling The Multi-Orgasmic Man.

In his many publications, Chia talks about inner alchemy and about the spiritual goals of the practice. His “Fusion of the Eight Psychic Channels: Opening and Sealing the Energy Body” describes the practice: “Advanced Inner Alchemy exercises that promote the free flow of energy throughout the body in preparation for the Practice of the Immortal Tao.” He credits several teachers for his knowledge of neidan practices, among whom Yi Yun “One Cloud Hermit” from Lone White Mountain, Cheng Yaolun and Pan Yu. However he does not give detailed explanation of their histories or of how the transmission of their knowledge (oral or written) to him took place. He does mention, however, that these teachers were already mixing elements from Daoism , Buddhism and Thai boxing in their teaching. To this knowledge, he added intensive study of Western medicine and anatomy.
Thus, while Chia’s publications make full use of the neidan ideology both in terminology and in the sequence of the practice, he also employs biomedical language. For example, ”When fully developed, the pineal gland becomes the compass that guides the spirit to the primeval Tao” (2005, 116). Differently from traditional neidan and nüdan manuals, he provides a profusion of details about the physical practices with many diagrams of the body, and especially of the genital area, and explains both practices and expected physical reactions in Western medical terms. Yet, he still describes the results in terms of transcendence, spirituality, and spiritual union. Thus Chia successfully maintains the esoteric nature and appeal of neidan while explaining its efficacy in a way that appeals to a Western audience.
In his Healing Love through the Tao (2005) on female practice, the technical language and description of the female body present several similarities to nüdan, starting with his use of language and the importance given to specific body locations: breasts and breast massages, ovaries, Governing and Conception Vessels (Dumai and Renmai)—all essential to female energy. He also presents an extensive discussion of sexual feelings; here is where his work differs significantly from traditional nüdan as well as from Liu Yafei’s and Daisy Lee’s modern take. Chia’s goal is to teach how to develop a better sexual relationship with a male partner through the strengthening of internal energy. Nüdan teachings, in contrast, acknowledge the emergence of sexual feelings during the practice, but teach the practitioner (who does not practice jointly with a partner) how not to dwell on them but sublimate them.
Last but not least, traditional nüdan texts talk at length about the practice of “Slaying the Red Dragon,” a technique of breast massage and internal visualization that results in the gradual disappearance of the menses. This is definitely not the message in Chia’s book.

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“Slaying the Red Dragon” is the title of Chia’s video where , together with  his wife Maneewan and one of their female practitioners, he describes their specific version of female practice. Despite the title, which is a clear reference to the traditional nüdan practice of eliminating the menstrual flow,   the video does not discuss the disappearance of the menses. Instead, it focuses on “a Taoist way to control menstruation” attained through the strengthening of female sexual power with specific techniques like meditation, breast massage, vaginal massage, and the strengthening of the perineal muscles with external devices. In other words, the video pairs visualization techniques and breast massages from traditional nüdan, with sexual techniques that were never part of this traditionally solo technique to form an entirely new way of female sexual empowerment. Throughout video and book, Chia maintains a good balance between spirituality, sexuality, and health. The work remains a point of reference for all later books on neidan, qigong, and sexual health by other practitioners, providing a strong focus on exercises for pelvic floor health, ovarian and breast massage, and female sexual health. His work differs from other recent books on female qigong, which all give sound exercises for the female body—some for specific illnesses, others for specific life phases— in that the latter have few spiritual overtones.

Earth Qigong for Women

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Tina Zhang starts her book in this way: “Earth Qigong is based on a special medical qigong developed and perfected over the course of 1,700 years by Daoists, Traditional Chinese medicine doctors, and qigong experts in China to address the needs of a woman’s unique anatomy” (2008, ix). She thereby equalizes Daoists, Chinese medical doctors, and qigong practitioners, mixing traditions and time periods into one unquestioned bundle. The term “Earth Qigong” and the Chinese subtitle to the book “Kungong”, which can be translated as “feminine practice,” are not explained. However, Zhang gives a general survey of the development of qigong and healing techniques in China, then focuses specifically on techniques for women. She says :

“This qigong program is designed to provide more movement than other qigong sets, some of which are based on seated meditation and do very little in motion. The basic goal of this program is to help women combat stiffness and the sedentary life that’s become too common. Its gentle approach helps women relax. Within this practice the deeper qi work will give positive energy to women, because it has the cultivation of the female center of qi as its main goal.” (2008, 48)

Zhang offers an apparently effective and comprehensive series of practices for women, called “The Earth Energy: Cultivating Female Energy,” “Creating Pelvic Health and Helping the Liver,” and “The Spirit of Vitality: Bringing out the Real Female Spirit.” These series focus on the pelvic area and on solving problems related to menstruation, breast swelling, and pre- and post-partum complications. Her sequences combine different styles of qigong while focusing on areas of specific female interest. She also discusses the importance of acupoints for women’s health, notably Meeting Yin at the perineum, Ocean of Qi (qihai) under the umbilicus, and Gate of Life (mingmen) between the kidneys in the back. She notes:

“Earth qigong includes several qi movements that exercise or massage the internal and external organs of the female body, some of which are not addressed in most other qigong routines or forms. These movement purposely move the blood and cultivate more of the female energy that women naturally have in their bodies in order to gain more inner power to ease and arrest uncomfortable symptoms during the different stages of menstruation, pregnancy, perimenopause and menopause.” (2008, 49). Zhang’s book betrays a deep knowledge of female physiology and offers good practical advice, but lacks historical perspective.

Women’s qigong For Health and Longevity

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This book by Deborah Davis addresses women over forty and divides into sections according to age (40 to 49; 50 to 64; 65 and over). It, too, focuses on specifically female concerns like pre-menstrual syndrome, breast-health, depression, menopause, insomnia, osteoporisis, heart health, and sexual issues. Davis combines her extensive knowledge of both qigong and women’s health to produce a manual of general qigong exercises that are beneficial to a woman’s body. Unlike both traditional nüdan, Liu’s nüzi qigong and Chia’s guidelines, her practices focus less on specifically “female” areas of the body and instead devote practices to whole-body health. Still, even Davis acknowledges that the “Uterine Palace” (zigong) is fundamental in the female body, and has exercises called “Soothing the Middle”, “Renmai Massage” and “Pelvic Floor Lift” that focus on the middle of the body.

Qigong for Women

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Dominique Ferraro, like Deborah Davis, uses her extensive knowledge of qigong and Chinese healing techniques, including her profound understanding of acupuncture, and applies it to the female body. The last two chapters of her book are devoted to “Qigong and Sexuality” and “Common Physical Problems of Women.” The chapter on sexuality introduces the concept of a healthy sexuality between men and women, recalling the tradition of Chinese sexual manuals; it refers directly to Mantak Chia’s work, then notes the importance of blood and its proper flow. The chapter on common ailments concentrates on bones, joints, teeth, memory, and hearing; only at the end does it turn to more specific gynecological problems and pregnancy. Again, this is a good manual for general health, but the advice is often not specific to women. As Davis’s work, her book is eminently interested in physical sequences and effects.

A Woman’s Qigong Guide

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This book by Yangling Lee Johnson (2001), as noted in the title, is not only about qigong but also about movement, diet, and herbs—albeit within the Chinese tradition. It provides a fairly long historical introduction about the development of Chinese medicine and qigong. The introduction also includes a personal perspective, and Johnson shares her story of self-healing during the Cultural Revolution and the hardship she underwent when relocating to the U.S.
Unlike other books of this kind, this work does not consist largely of detailed descriptions of practice postures. Only in Chapter 5 does Johnson begin to talk about “short forms,” i.e., quick postures to do in the morning, in the car, at work, outside, etc. These quick forms deal with problems such as sterility, depression, weight loss, the flu, amenorrhea, and the like. Johnson’s book contains various passages she herself translates from Daoist and Chinese medical texts, scattering advice about almost everything: alcohol intake, work, nails, sexual activity, sleeping, sweating, dieting, and more. The book concentrate on the physiology of women or on specific areas of the female body. In sum, it is not quite a qigong guide for women as advertised in the title, but rather a general guide on wellbeing for women that mixes psychological, dietary, and energetic advice.

Conclusion

In sum, I find that the field of women’s qigong publications in Western Languages is developing fast, and at the same time has a lot of room to grow. Some of the above publications are just beginning to discuss what it means to practice neidan and qigong as a woman, what are the important areas to concentrate on, and where the practice should take us. In most of the publications reviewed, there is particular attention to female physiology and to ailments that are specific to women, and there are a variety of techniques offered to relieve them. Some concentrate on health, other on sexuality, others again mix healing, sexuality and spirituality. Some are more thorough than others, but all of them, to a certain extent, lack historical perspective. Though I realize that not all are meant to include historical introductions to the field, paying attention to the historical significance and development of a tradition, as well as describing one’s affiliations with contemporary masters, and one’s place in that tradition, puts the physical practice in a clearer context. My interest in this review was to highlight the appropriation and adaptation of a Chinese tradition with roots in a religious practice. Pointedly, most if not all of the above publications do not portray women’s practices in any way as religious.

References
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