Cycles: Pi, Phi, Fibonacci, and the Yi Jing

Fascinating fascinating fascinating story in the New Yorker this week. It uses a profile of financial trader Martin Armstrong to explore the idea of cycles as they apply to historical, political and economic events (Armstrong predicted, to the day, the stock market crash of October 1987). The article does a wonderful job of exploring the many different types of cycles and their various proponents, but ends up portraying Armstrong as a bit of a nutjob.

(Which is probably the safe route. As the article itself notes, financial traders who use the idea that financial markets move according to fixed cycles, rather than the idea that the market is relatively unpredictable, generally don't talk about it in public. "'It's too embarrassing to explore in modern economics,' another trader said. 'These topics are not fit for polite conversation in most circles.'" I suppose if the writer had appeared to take this Armstrong character more seriously, he might have risked looking crazy himself. This is also a very interesting phenomenon, but I'll have to save it for another day...)

How does this relate to Chinese medicine? Chinese medicine is part of an epistemological system that incorporates many different philosophies from different periods of Chinese history. Part of the genius of Chinese society is that instead of discarding old systems and modes of thought (philosophical, mathematic, scientific) for new, the old is built upon and improved. The very very oldest system that Chinese medicine (and by extension, all Chinese philosophy) relies upon is the Yi Jing (aka I Ching), which is essentially a forecasting tool.

The Yi Jing is both very simple and very complex. (I'm hardly qualified to write on the subject - if you're seriously interested, please consult your local library, bookstore or website.) A series of eight trigrams represent all the phenomena in the universe, and by putting two together you get a hexagram. The hexagram can then be interpreted in various ways to give you guidance on a present situation or future event. There's actually a whole branch of Chinese medicine which incorporates the Yi Jing into treatment.

Cycles are found everywhere in nature. What is the most obvious? The cycle of day and night, sun and moon. After that, the cycle of the four seasons. Most people never go beyond this. But suppose it was possible to observe a longer cycle? A cycle of eight years, or twelve, or sixty, or a hundred and eight? Natural cycles come and go, and staying in harmony or "going with the flow" of the seasonal universal energy is an excellent way to maintain and improve your health. Some of these practices come naturally, such as wearing more clothes in winter and less in the summer. Many have been largely forgotten and seem anachronistic in the modern world, which some scientists still maintain is governed purely by matter and not energy. After all, why not drink ice-cold water with your meal? The more esoteric require some calculation and the services of an expert, such as picking an auspicious date for opening a business or the right spot for building a home.

I'm not good at ending these posts. It's a great article, and whoever runs martinarmstrong.org has posted the full New Yorker profile (pdf) on their website. Take a look. Then learn more about the Yi Jing.

Disease Smells

This short National Geographic video here shows how dogs can smell certain diseases and can be trained to help those in need. One researcher in the video talks about how one day we humans might even be able to use the dogs' sniffing skills to diagnose disease.

Chapter Four of the Huang Di Nei Jing had stated thousands of years ago that a medical diagnosis could be made or confirmed by the presence of certain smells, ones that humans can detect. According to the five phases theory:

In the five odours, the odour of liver is stink. (urine)

In the five odours, the odour of heart is scorching.

In the five odours, the odour of spleen is fragrance.

In the five odours, the odour of lung is stinking. (fishy)

In the five odours, the odour of kidney is rancid. (rotten)

The above was quoted from: Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine by Wang Bing (Tang Dynasty), translated by Wu Liansheng and Wu Qi.

I've found that after I leave a patient in the room with the door closed, their distinctive smell is always much more noticeable when I come back. I've definitely smelled the scent of burnt or scorched, but I haven't yet encountered a person smelling like stink and urine during treatment. That's probably a good thing.

Who Is That?

Be the first to correctly name the scholarly scholar in the picture above and receive a gift, compliments of Fat Turtle Herb Company!

Book Review: Pulse Diagnosis

Here's another tribute to the Lakeside Master, Li Shi Zhen.

I've been on a book kick recently, and revisiting the Bin Hu Ma Xue, or Pulse Diagnosis book has been the best pick so far. It's so detailed! Reading this book makes me feel like I don't know anything, which is great. Makes me want to learn more.

For those who love charts, the appendix has charts of 32 different pulses (the 27 classic pulses developed by Li Shi Zhen, plus some variations) that describe the depth, strength, width, meaning behind the pulse, and explanation of the disease process for each of them. It also includes the English, Pin Yin, and Chinese characters for the pulses as well as a list of complicated diseases.

I've been using the book as a reference in clinic for the last month, and it's enriched my practice greatly. Did you know that there are seven different types of floating pulses, and five different types of sinking pulses? Based on that information alone, I've been much more observant of the pulse qualities when determining a diagnosis.

The Bin Hu Mai Xue was originally written in verse and is meant to be succinct. It does not describe in great detail what each of the pulses should feel like. For that, I would suggest referencing Bob Flaws' book, The Secret of Chinese Pulse Diagnosis for the standard TCM definitions, or for an extremely comprehensive exploration of the pulse, read Leon Hammer's Chinese Pulse Diagnosis: A Contemporary Approach.

Book Review: The Face Reader

I highly recommend Patrician McCarthy's The Face Reader for anyone interested in what our faces say about our innate gifts and misgivings. It is a very quick read, especially if you already have an understanding of Chinese medical theory, but is also easy enough to follow if you don't. The book includes a summary of personalities based on the five elements, with a full-color insert of each of the types of faces and combinations of those types. It has pictures and descriptions throughout, highlighting the major differences between facial features. My only criticism of the book would be that it is too short!

A really fun thing about the book is that a handful of the models are former Yo San students. Patrician McCarthy used to teach a course on Mien Shiang here at Yo San, but now does lectures and seminars all over. It's too bad I missed it; the class had been described to me as "life-changing."

Here are excerpts from the book that describe some of my features:

The little wispy hairs that some people have along their hairline are what I call the Veil of Tears. Those delicate hairs act as a veil, hiding the true shape of the hairline, just as these people hide their true feelings when they are hurt.

A rounded nose belongs to the material girls or boys. They are not greedy, but they appreciate things of quality. They would rather go without than put up with an inferior substitute.

If you love good-quality food and drink, you most likely have a gourmand's nose, one with a fleshy tip. If you don't have one yourself, these are the people to dine with.

Meet The Herbs: Bi Zi

Chinese: 田鸡
Pin Yin: Tian Ji (translation - "field chicken")
Pharmaceutical: Rana limnocharis
English: Rice Frog
Vietnamese: Nhái

In Yang Shou-zhong's translation of the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, this herb is listed as Bi Zi. It is sweet and warm, and mainly treats evil qi in the abdomen. It also removes the Three Worms, snakebite, gu toxins, demonic influx, and hidden corpse.

Volume II of the Vietnamese Materia Medica, Cây Thuốc Và Động Vật Làm Thuốc Ở Việt Nam, lists the herb as having different functions depending on its preparation:

• To treat jaundice: pound 1 frog with 12g unbleached black rock sugar and put inside a rooster's gizzard. Cook. When it's done, let cool and remove the frog and sugar. Eat the gizzard.

• To treat mental illness characterized by crazy talk: cook one frog until charred, powder it, and drink it with liquor.

Some remedies for external use also included in the book:

• To treat pustulent open sores: remove the entrails of one frog, fry it til it's black, powder it, mix it with sesame oil, and place on skin

• To treat purple bruises: mix the frog with lá mau (sorry, don't know the translation of this herb) and the leaves of a garden egg, or Thai eggplant, plant. Chop everything finely and cook with water and rice. Wrap everything in cheesecloth or fabric, making a little bundle the size of your fist. Roast the bundle and place on bruises.

• To treat phagedena (rapidly spreading destructive ulceration of soft tissue): crush one frog with Vietnamese coriander and wild betel leaf, then press onto skin.

• To treat pink-eye: squash a live frog and place on affected eye.

I don't know about you, but I can't find enough live ones of these around to use them in my practice on a regular basis. I can, however, occasionally find the hind quarters of these little creatures at the supermarket.

It's what's for dinner!


Black bean and garlic frog legs, sauteed in a shallot and ginger sauce. Served with brown rice, steamed collard greens, and peppered acorn squash soup. Yum!

If you're interested in learning how to prepare this delectable dish, hit me up and I'll let you in on the joys of where to find, and how to cook, rare medicinal meats.

Microcosm/Macrocosm

I'm not sure the origin of these pictures, but they were found at totallylookslike.com, one in the family of lolcat websites.

One of the principles of Daoist medicine is that the body is a microcosm of the universe. Just as there are five planets visible to the naked eye, so there are five major organs in the body, each corresponding to one of those planets (Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, Mercury to go with the Liver, Heart, Spleen/Pancreas, Lung, and Kidney). Click here for a fun website where you can check other Five Phase correspondences.

In some systems of Daoist meditation and cultivation, there are techniques for bringing the universe inside yourself, harmonizing your energy with that of the universe, and ultimately gaining the awareness that there is no separateness between your "self" and everything else that is.

These lofty ideas have not been included in modern, materialist TCM and certainly would seem out of place in any American university science course - it sounds too much like astrology. The closest you'll find is the idea that the weather has an influence on your health. If it's cold, you could catch a cold. But the link is there - if the sun, at least 91 million miles away, can grow plants here on earth, why shouldn't Jupiter and Mars have some kind of influence on us as well? Why not the moon, smaller and colder but so much closer? We already know the moon influences the tides and menstrual cycles.

It's easy to dismiss these ideas because there is no scientific evidence for them yet, but it's quite possible that our instruments just aren't advanced enough yet. In the Daoist tradition, your body can be the most finely tuned instrument in the universe, and physical practices such as qi gong and dao yin are the methods of refinement.

Medical traditions across all cultures, until recently, put higher value on the doctor's ability to wring information from the body with her questions, hands, eyes and nose than the ability to order tests. What will you do if you have no X-rays, no MRI machines? Throw up your hands and give up? In TCM, we learn to pull information by palpation, feeling the abdomen and the pulse, looking at the tongue, even observing a particular patient's odor. There is a wealth of information there - it's just a matter of sorting and ordering it with this system we call Chinese medicine and giving a diagnosis, which then gives us a roadmap for treatment.

From the Life Archive

This photo was made by Carl Mydans in 1941 near Chongqing in Sichuan. Take a look at how long the needles are! Most of the Life Magazine photo archives have been released and are searchable on google image search. Take a look at these photos of an herb doctor who specializes in tiger medicine - he keeps a live tiger in a cage. There are lots of images from the past century on all kinds of subjects.