Case: Amenorrhoea - Help Needed - subtopic: bao mai

[Guest guest]

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:36:37 0000, " simchagottlieb "

<simchagottlieb wrote:

 

>>… an interesting correlation. I'd be grateful

if you could shed more light on Jeffrey Yuen's

linkage of bao mai, da luo, and dai mai.

 

He has mentioned these in passing in several

lectures I've attended. My notes from all these

run to some 500 pages, not all computerized or

indexed. So I have to foot it from memory for now.

 

Structurally, the " da bao " (Great Luo of the

Spleen) forms a ring around the chest/thorax,

analogous to the dai mai forming a ring at the

waist. (Classically, the da bao is associated

with the location of GB-22, as well as what is

today called Sp-21, as a planar ring around the thoracic cavity.)

 

" Bao mai " is a trajectory between the Heart/PC

and uterus. There's also a " bao luo " said to

connect kidney and uterus. Together, there's here

the pathway between the Heart/PC and the kidney,

e.g. the pathway of " heart and kidney

communicating " , as we know in TCM from the

pathology " xin shen bu jiao " / heart and kidney

not communicating, as in " running piglet qi " .

I've seen some reference to bao mai as perhaps

part of the chong mai or core / embryonic vessel of the body.

 

And the Du and Ren form a sort of ring (or oval)

in the anterior-posterior vertical plane of the

body, so altogether these provide a sort of energetic geometry of the trunk.

 

In the context of various different topics,

Jeffery has referred to these vessels when issues

of the chest/thorax, the low abdomen/pelvis, and

energetic interrelation have arisen. He often

uses a framework consisting of the body as three

" bony cavities " the pelvis, thorax and skull.

Each centers on a " dan tien " : the lower, more

commonly considered one; one at the heart, or

rather ca. Ren-17; and the upper at the 3rd

eye/YinTang point. In classical suwen medicine,

these are the areas of " termination " of the

energetic passages with originate at the " root " ,

or jing-well points. Classically, the

terminations were more related to areas than to

specific organs, the latter becoming emphasized

from Song-Jin-Yuan times down to the present.

 

The chong, ren-du, dai mai, da Bao, and bao

mai/luo form a referential framework for

relationship and alignments among these three

bodily centers. Another topic Jeffery discusses

often is that of the " five ancestral sinews "

which link and articulate these three bony

cavities… But that's going further astray from the question here.

 

More about the da bao that I do recall: Jeffery

has described the luo vessel system as a

progression mapping childhood psychological

development, both physiologically and

pathologically; in the classical order, from LI,

Lu, etc through to GB and Lr, then proceeding to

the da bao (Gt Luo of the Sp). Then comes the

luos of the Ren and Du, hence entering the

jing/yuan or constitutional level. (The Ren and

Du luos are according the SuWen, whereas in the

LingShu these functions are associated with the

yin- and yang-qiao vessels.) The luo system

itself is a bridge between the wei or external

layer and the ying or internal layer (qi and

blood = ying, domain of the primary channels as

well as the bridging luos). Whereas the luos

bridge from the exterior to the internal, the

progression ends up plunging into the yuan or

constitutional layer. In terms of pathology, that

means a degree of seriousness such at it affects the constitution.

 

Fresher in my memory are ideas from a 2-day

discussion of post-trauma-stress-disorder (PTSD)

that Jeffery gave two weekends ago in Los

Angeles. The discussion was of PTSD in terms of

meridian theory. In terms of the luo system, he

outlined a pathological progression which

resembled the developmental luo progression in

reverse, i.e. a decline with age (or more

generally with degeneration as sequellae of

trauma) as retrograde of childhood development (at least as I interpreted it).

 

But he also made mention in that discussion of

the idea of heart-kidney communication, not

using, in my notes, the term bao mai, but I think

nonetheless related. The context was the idea of

memory or the past (as the medium whereby PTSD

takes hold). Interestingly, he differentiated

between " heart not communicating with the

kidney, " and " kidney not communicating with the

heart. " The former would be not seeing (heart)

new possibilities (in the generative chaos of the

kidneys), as in " zang zao " or " visceral

aggitation " , a condition, a sense of hopelessness

classically found in fuke. The latter would be

kidney becoming unable to create properly,

instead generating " false reality " , or delusion.

The rational aspect of the heart then becomes

disoriented, in the direction of schizophrenia.

Again, both are here in the context of

considering the mechanisms whereby a past trauma

can entrench itself as a persistent and often continuously downhill pathology.

 

Someone asked about the article I mentioned from

Bob Flaws. I searched but haven't found it yet. I

tried a Google search on " bao mai " which didn't

yield this article, but did find a couple of

possibly useful references. One is in an article by Giovanni Maciocia, at:

http://www.giovanni-maciocia.com/articles/heart.html

which does mention heart-kidney communication.

Another one, at

http://www.pacificcollege.edu/alumni/newsletters/summer2004/4.html

is a discussion by Dona Keefe, who also studies

with Jeffery, and specialized in fuke. (c.f. her web site MyAcupuncturist.com)

 

The other internet references I found were

minimal simply stating the bao mai as linking

heart and uterus. More or less like the entry in

Wiseman's Practical Dictionary, p. 643, on " uterine vessels " .

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Thank you, Chris - this was certainly more elaboration than I had anticipated

here and is

greatly appreciated. I had intuited from your first post that Jeffrey might

have made

reference to a relationship between the bao mai 'trajectory' and the shao yin

(H<>K) axis;

this is of immediate relevance to a case I'm currently looking at, and your

offering here is

very helpful, even inspiring. I particularly like the nuanced distinction

between 'heart not

communicating...' and 'kidney not communicating...' It suggests a certain

clinical

specificity that would not likely have otherwise occurred to me. Much obliged.

 

Simcha

 

Chinese Medicine , <

wrote:

 

> Interestingly, he differentiated

> between " heart not communicating with the

> kidney, " and " kidney not communicating with the

> heart. " The former would be not seeing (heart)

> new possibilities (in the generative chaos of the

> kidneys), as in " zang zao " or " visceral

> aggitation " , a condition, a sense of hopelessness

> classically found in fuke. The latter would be

> kidney becoming unable to create properly,

> instead generating " false reality " , or delusion.

> The rational aspect of the heart then becomes

> disoriented, in the direction of schizophrenia.

> Again, both are here in the context of

> considering the mechanisms whereby a past trauma

> can entrench itself as a persistent and often continuously downhill pathology.