Esoteric Herbology Book?

January 3, 2010

Jason,

who is EC?

and how do we know that smearing doggie doo-doo on our eyes under a full

moon doesn't treat night-blindness? why bat feces, but not dog feces?

I agree with your skepticism of oral teachings, as I am skeptical about

everything, including Jeffrey Yuen, doggie doo-doo, the Nei jing, research

coming out from China, things my teachers told me in school and out of

school, advertised studies from the JAMA, stuff on this email group,

thoughts in my head, God-Dao, enlightenment, evolution, global warming etc.

I'm skeptical, but I do believe in the things that I've seen work over and

over again and I've got to have some faith that the people who wrote the

jings and luns knew something that was worth writing down on silk or bamboo

scrolls and more importantly preserving for longer than Jesus has been

around.

At the same time, were the ones who wrote the Yellow emperor into the Nei

jing's Q and A saying that the information was divinely inspired by this

divine source? or were they just trying to prevent it from getting burned

to warm some cold bones? Was the agenda to create some sense of

cohesiveness among disparate oral teachings?

If Jeffrey has to intro the Nei jing class with " I'm a daoist master " , why

did the Nei jing authors feel like they had to have a divine narrator?

Btw... Jeffrey says that he's not a Neijing expert in those transcripts,

that he taught the class 3 times up to that point in 2000, that 2 weekends

is not enough time to talk deeply about the content of the Su wen and that

everything in life is colored with the perspective of the speaker, including

his own talk. I would suggest that you read those transcripts... It's

actually much more textual than the Co-Q, glycine and glutathione

statements... Which talk is this from? I definitely don't think it's

responsible for us to make medical statements like that without real

research and peer review.

Concerning C) from your statement, just because things haven't been written

down, doesn't mean it isn't true. In fact, most esoteric knowledge, which

was the beginning of this whole discussion, is still passed orally or kept

so secretly that you and I wouldn't even get the chance to read it. It's

definitely not available in the New age section at Barnes and Nobles.

That's the whole idea of the " secret book " . Other esoteric schools orally

relay the interpretation of exoteric texts. The rituals themselves are

visual enactments of the teachings. How do I know this stuff? Because a

little birdie told me....

Why would Jeffrey Yuen, say that he is telling the truth and the information

he talks about is really part of his school's lineage, why would he go

public with all of this?

Either he thinks that it's time for the book to be opened per se or he's

just trying to make a name for himself. Maybe we should ask him.

I'm definitely not for hero/ guru worship, which i've personally seen a bit

of...

the problem is that if you ask the worshipper a question, they can't answer

except to say.. " well.. my teacher is so and so... " ... " Well, what do they

say? " ... " uh... I don't know. "

Then why have you been studying with this guy for the last 10 years of your

life?

Here is my original letter clarifying my stance on this subject. The last

questions would be interesting to think about:

" Jason,

J. Yuen's education background is an example of a non-institutionalized

education, which in my book can be more credible than getting a degree from

a state-run school. I say that because some of the best physicians I know

learned through their families (blood or adopted) and not from a college.

Aside from the daoist priesthood, on his jadepurityfoundation.org website,

he claims an 8 year apprenticeship through his herbal teacher, Gong

Song-Liu, who was a eunuch for the last 2 Qing dynasty emperors and himself

apprenticed with the imperial medical physicians.

I agree that titles don't mean very much, but lineage does. It takes some

karmic currency to become a lineage holder, yet I agree with you that being

a daoist priest doesn't necessarily make you an expert on all things medical

or spiritual. It definitely doesn't give you a license to make up stuff and

pass it off as holy writ. Having a title is actually a huge responsibility

and possibly a deep liability. It's true that there are many

self-proclaimed masters, lineage holders and legalistic experts on the

planet. But, for some reason, many people are drawn to J. Yuen's words

and humble persona. There's something intuitively correct about his

teachings in the eyes of many practitioners and there aren't many people in

our field who are seeing things outside of the box or even through a

classical lens. Do you think J.Yuen's teachings would be popular in China?

or is his popularity in America due to a lack of something in ourselves?

What's your explanation? "

K

January 3, 2010

Thea wrote

>

> The part that is not yet semantically clear to me is the difference

> between treating the pattern, and treating the disease name. As far

> as I know, what I do is treat the pattern. The disease name does not

> matter e.g. psoriasis. But I think you mean something different by

> disease name.

>

I think more must be taken into consideration than the " pattern " in clinical

work with Chinese herbalism. And maybe we should be clear on what " pattern "

means to us.

There are the " disease factors " such as blood stasis, Yin deficiency, Qi stasis

etc. Even if it is the pattern giving rise to the pattern, it seems like this

is what you are referring to as the pattern? For the sake of this discussion, I

am calling this the disease factor. (this is from the Qin Bo Wei anthology

translated by Chase)

Then there is the " location " of the problem. So if someone comes in with chest

pain. We may diagnose the disease factor a blood stasis but, unless we direct

the formula to the right location, we will be pretty ineffective. So the

formula would need to be directed to the chest in this case. Locations could be

anything from the shoulder to the chest to the Kidney to the luo vessels to the

Shao Yang etc.

Then there is the " symptom " . The symptom might be pain and then we want to make

sure we are stopping pain. A patient may have hot phlegm (disease factor) in

the chest (location) causing cough (symptom) or it could be causing shortness of

breath or chest oppression. The formula would be a least somewhat different for

the different symptoms.

Then there is the " person " . One person who has a hot phlegm in the chest cough

may be treated very differently from another type of person who has the same

disease factor, location and symptom. One person may be a weak person who

sweats easily and tends to constipation. Another person may be robust and never

sweat.

Then there is also what Trevor is talking about which is the " disease " . Though

of course we treat according to all the above and put and " disease " in the

context of all of the above, diseases exist and are really important in Chinese

medicine. So Trevor mentions psoriasis vs. eczema. There are also Chinese

diseases such as lilly disease and lung wilt. There are certain herbs that are

especially good for certain diseases. When one's foundation in diagnosing and

applying formulas for disease factors, symptoms and locations is sound, then

there is a lot of subtlety to be learned regarding the treatment of diseases

themselves.

I think when Trevor was referring to people treating any dry skin issue as blood

deficiency, he was also showing how a rudimentary and simplistic understanding

of diagnosis that 1. makes dry skin and blood deficiency forever linked 2. does

not see beyond the disease factor - is pretty low level herbalism and will most

often obtain poor results. Am I right Trevor? On the other hand, very often in

the clinic, we don't need to take diseases into account.

A " presentation " is a group of signs and symptoms that can indicate a particular

formula and they indicate certain disease factors, symptoms and locations. But

even a presentation is taken in context of the type of person, the acuteness or

chronic nature of the issue etc.

I'll give an example from my own clinical experience that happened to be

successful (I don't want to give the impression that I always get results like

this because I don't!) In Yang Ming Stomach presentation there is big thirst,

big sweat, big fever and big pulse. We generally think of this in terms of

acute illnesses. However, I recently worked with a woman who was diagnosed with

Hashimoto's hyperthyroid syndrome. She had a pale complexion, soft voice and a

pale tongue. Her symptoms were agitation/insomnia, frequent bowel movements, an

aversion to heat, tendency to sweat, thirst and a moderate pulse. From my point

of view, based on studying with Dr. Huang Huang, this was a Yang Ming Stomach

chronic presentation with thirst, sweat, heat and a bigger pulse than her

constitution represented. So, in this case I gave her Bai Hu Tang modified to

supplement her Spleen Qi. (I actually don't think of Shi Gao as cooling or

damaging to the Spleen but rather as venting stagnant heat from Yang Ming but

that's another discussion) This was very effective and within two months her

thyroid levels were normal and all her symptoms were better.

So in this case the " disease factors " were heat and Qi deficiency. The

" location " was Spleen and Stomach, the " symptoms " were thirst,

agitation/insomnia, aversion to heat and frequent bowel movements and the

" disease " was Hashimoto's hyperthyroid. The " presentation " was Bai Hu Tang

presentation. In this case I did not need to treat the disease but I did need

to make sure it was getting better.

In other words, there is so much more than the " pattern " that we must take into

account. To summarize:

Disease factor

Symptom

Location

Type of person

Presentation

Disease

Sharon

January 3, 2010

" I'd like to address the issue of what kinds of statements regarding

psycho-spiritual issues seem faulty to me and which kinds don't. I want to

do this because it doesn't seem right that those who have a problem with

faulty statements are made out to be anti-psycho-spiritual or even worse

" fundamentalists " (yikes!). "

Sharon, I really appreciate your thinking on these issues. They clarified a

lot of similar thoughts I've had as well. Of what value is it to assign

special emotional or spiritual qualities to herbs and formulas since these

should already implicit in the broader use of these based on a comprehensive

pattern diagnosis.

Roy Upton noticing a comment in Bensky's latest book that Xiao Yao Wan arose

out of the context of people feeling frustrated with their socio-political

circumstances of the time caused him to write Bensky and say how much more

valuable that information is than simply to say that it is used for stagnant

or irregular qi.

It would really be interesting to learn more how and why certain formulas

were created don't you think?

Michael Tierra

January 3, 2010

>

> Can somebody who has studied with him discuss how the 10 personality types

> of the herbs were formulated?

>

> K

>

Hi K

I don't think " personality types " is quite accurate to Dr. Huang Huang's

teachings. These are more like formula families. Some of the families have

personalities somewhat associated with them such as the Chai Hu or Ban Xia

families - but other's like Shi Gao or Gan Jiang don't really.

Best

Sharon

January 3, 2010

> 1) It is my understanding that Dr. Huang developed this system to teach MDs

> in Japan that had little understanding of Chinese herbs. This system is

> cohesive enough that they could start using it right away.

>

> -

>

Hi Jason,

I think Michael Max would be much more of an authority on this than me but I do

know that the teachings of Dr. Huang on the formula families has a lot of

precedent and lineage associated with it. Arnaud also talks about the history

of grouping the formulas into families. I have a book by Xu Lingtai who was one

of Huang Huang's predecessors who very much thinks this way. I think that when

there is this kind of grouping, the formulas are easier to teach to those

without a deep background but this way of thinking was not created for the

purpose of teaching this way.

Sharon

January 3, 2010

" Finally, if J. Yuen, or anyone else for that matter, presents an idea that

makes little sense from the volumes of Chinese medicine past and present

texts, this must be examined and questioned. Just because someone is a

" daoist priest " and believes in the " deeper meaning in Chinese medicine "

gives them in my opinion no free pass. Proponents of oral traditions often

say things such as, we can't just believe it because it's written down on a

piece of paper, somehow devaluing the rigor of CM's past. Let us not forget

that things written down on a piece of paper are evaluated by tens of

thousands of doctors over sometimes 1800+ years. This is no small matter.

Oral tradition on the contrary has no check and balance system. In quite

simply, because of this, it should be questioned with even more strictness.

It seems too often that because it is " oral tradition " that somehow it is

from the word of God and must be true because their grandfather said it was

so. Ha. "

Jason, I couldn't agree with you more. Nothing wrong with scrutinizing and

critiquing each other's ideas and the entire way that TCM is presented for

that matter. As to Jeffrey Yuen, I have found his ideas insightful and

intriguing, not often clinical practical with the exception I offer below

with his stagnation removing formula that he claimed his teacher gave to

everyone as a first level of treatment regardless of individual pattern

their presentation. I think what most of us are having problems with here is

the notion of applying essential oil on acupoints and claiming this to be a

therapeutically effective mode. There is little or not precedent for such an

approach traditionally so we wonder if he is not just " making it up " and if

he is, he should say so and not claim some oral daoist lineage that no one

can dispute.

As for me, daoist, can mean anything. My first herb teacher Foon Lee Wong

was a taoist working on a side street adjoining golden Gate Park. There was

no avenue at the time in the US for studying Chinese herbs but Efrem

Korngold and I jointly studied with him briefly at the cost of $1 an herb -

we did $10 sessions so ten herbs at a time which consisted of him

translating a Chinese materia medica text. We had no idea what the herb even

was because he only mentioned them in Chinese with no Latin equivalents. He

was a daoist, tai chi, acupuncture, herbs, calligraphy, perhaps some brush

painting and music. Everything was back room as the whole operation was

illegal. He claimed great success showing photographs and endorsements of

famous people, politicos and so forth from throughout the country who sought

his care. So far as we could tell, herbally he treated everyone with high

quality and high priced wild-grown ginseng, each root costing a minimum of

$600 to $1500 taken in a day after doing a week on liu wei.

This was his clinical strategy and he evidently achieved considerable

success with it.

Ayurvedic doctors prescribe the formula triphala to every patient regardless

of the individual constitution because it clears all excesses without

causing deficiencies. It's the greatest of all herbal formulas in my

estimation.

When people attend Chinese medicine school they are systematically exposed

to a lot of herbs, formulas and so forth much of which is forgotten 6 months

after passing the exam. Bob Flaws and other experienced practitioners say

how advanced herbalists use relatively few formulas. We look at the history

of TCM and learn about Li gong yuan, Zhu Dan Zhi, and others but I wonder if

they did not narrow down the huge tradition of TCM to implement a strategy

they hit upon that seemed most appropriate for their time as exemplified by

their formulas.

My point is that there is a difference between the academic approach to TCM

and its practical clinical use and people tend to adopt it to suit what

works best for them.

If we attend a seminar on TCM and we're an advanced practitioner, there may

be only a few 'gems' that we walk away with and it seems that for many

Jeffrey Yuen's individual non-academic approach based on whatever daoist

oral tradition, it just that. Obviously its caused a lot of people to think

on this forum and that is a good thing in itself.

I have found little practical value to Jeffrey's teaching but I would still

consider him one of the most interesting and original teachers. I'm not into

aromatherapy and don't feel inclined to go in that direction. Actually one

practical thing I received from him as a stagnation removing formula passed

on to him by his teacher who purportedly gave it to every patient as a first

level of treatment, regardless of pattern diagnosis. During the class he

didn't know the formula but he subsequently mailed it to me and I thought

some of you might find it interesting and useful.

Gui zhi 6g

Bo he 4g

Bai shao yao 6-9

Fang feng 6-9

Chuan Xiong 6-0

Fu ling 6-9

Bai zhi 6-9

Ban xia 6-9

Zhi Ke 3-6

Jie geng 6-9

Chen pi 3-6

Xiang fu 6-9

Xi yang shen 6

Zhi gan cao 3-6

He said it was based on Yue qu wan

The point here is herbal strategy and this strategy involves removing in a

balanced way any of the 5 stagnations that would impede healing before

possibly prescribing the indicated formula.

January 3, 2010

Thanks Sharon,

I look forward to reading his formula families book trans. by Michael Max.

and your translation as well.

K

On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 3:56 PM, swzoe2000 <sweiz wrote:

>

> >

> > Can somebody who has studied with him discuss how the 10 personality

> types

> > of the herbs were formulated?

> >

> > K

> >

>

> Hi K

>

> I don't think " personality types " is quite accurate to Dr. Huang Huang's

> teachings. These are more like formula families. Some of the families have

> personalities somewhat associated with them such as the Chai Hu or Ban Xia

> families - but other's like Shi Gao or Gan Jiang don't really.

>

> Best

>

> Sharon

>

--

""

www.tcmreview.com

January 3, 2010

Wow. What a great discussion. Through the fall it seemed CHA was slow and I

thought " oh, OK, people are busy " and then this innocent question sparks

fantastic threads of thought. I'm just sitting back observing but even as we

have to say all these authors, past and present, Jefferey Yuen and others are a

part of a long CM tradition, now so are we in our virtual esoteric herbal

tearoom of CHA.

Doug

January 3, 2010

Michael,

I think the context in which formulas were designed is more important than the

simplified 'actions and indications' of those formulas.

It is like looking at the blueprints or notebooks of architects rather than the

finished architecture. Formulas have their specific architecture, and they

arise out of the mind and strategy of the physician, as well as the times they

lived in.

For me, artist's notebooks such as Leonardo da Vinci are more interesting than

the finished paintings. . . they show the thought process before the action. .

On Jan 3, 2010, at 3:54 PM, Michael Tierra wrote:

> " I'd like to address the issue of what kinds of statements regarding

> psycho-spiritual issues seem faulty to me and which kinds don't. I want to

> do this because it doesn't seem right that those who have a problem with

> faulty statements are made out to be anti-psycho-spiritual or even worse

> " fundamentalists " (yikes!). "

>

> Sharon, I really appreciate your thinking on these issues. They clarified a

> lot of similar thoughts I've had as well. Of what value is it to assign

> special emotional or spiritual qualities to herbs and formulas since these

> should already implicit in the broader use of these based on a comprehensive

> pattern diagnosis.

>

> Roy Upton noticing a comment in Bensky's latest book that Xiao Yao Wan arose

> out of the context of people feeling frustrated with their socio-political

> circumstances of the time caused him to write Bensky and say how much more

> valuable that information is than simply to say that it is used for stagnant

> or irregular qi.

>

> It would really be interesting to learn more how and why certain formulas

> were created don't you think?

>

> Michael Tierra

>

January 3, 2010

Michael,

Thanks for sharing the formula,

but it doesn't look much like Yue ju wan.. by Zhu Dan-Xi...

How long do you prescribe triphala for your patients?

Can you take it on a chronic basis?

Thanks,

K

On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 4:53 PM, Michael Tierra <mtierrawrote:

>..................ng in itself.

>

> I have found little practical value to Jeffrey's teaching but I would still

> consider him one of the most interesting and original teachers. I'm not

> into

> aromatherapy and don't feel inclined to go in that direction. Actually one

> practical thing I received from him as a stagnation removing formula passed

> on to him by his teacher who purportedly gave it to every patient as a

> first

> level of treatment, regardless of pattern diagnosis. During the class he

> didn't know the formula but he subsequently mailed it to me and I thought

> some of you might find it interesting and useful.

>

> Gui zhi 6g

>

> Bo he 4g

>

> Bai shao yao 6-9

>

> Fang feng 6-9

>

> Chuan Xiong 6-0

>

> Fu ling 6-9

>

> Bai zhi 6-9

>

> Ban xia 6-9

>

> Zhi Ke 3-6

>

> Jie geng 6-9

>

> Chen pi 3-6

>

> Xiang fu 6-9

>

> Xi yang shen 6

>

> Zhi gan cao 3-6

>

> He said it was based on Yue qu wan

>

> The point here is herbal strategy and this strategy involves removing in a

> balanced way any of the 5 stagnations that would impede healing before

> possibly prescribing the indicated formula.

>

--

""

www.tcmreview.com

January 3, 2010

, " swzoe2000 " <sweiz wrote:

>

> Hi all,

>

> I'd like to address the issue of what kinds of statements regarding

psycho-spiritual issues seem faulty to me and which kinds don't. I want to do

this because it doesn't seem right that those who have a problem with faulty

statements are made out to be anti-psycho-spirtual or even worse

" fundamentalists " (yikes!).

Great post, Sharon!

Eric

January 3, 2010