Unlocking the Mysteries of Chinese Medicine
Did you know that behind every amazing Chinese medicine treatment is a deep understanding and focus on the unique and hidden qualities of the organ systems and acupoints? And behind this lies a deep understanding of the roots of Chinese medicine: a mixture of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism.
The sages have written that Chinese medicine arose out of the understanding of the inter-connected networks of the body. Each meridian has its flow through many organ systems and each acupoint has its message.
In Chinese medicine school, we spend at least two years learning this framework of the body and the many meridian points which contribute to our understanding of health and disease.
In the Ling Shu, one of the oldest classical Chinese medicine texts, the meridians are described as receiving subtle information from the environment. Including from the stars, from the other planets and from the earth element, energy of trees and plants, and also from the qi of other living beings.
And so, this is why the human is responding to changes in weather and subtle changes in movement of the stars and the planets, such as the regulation of water passageways during a full moon and is believed that this information is picked up in the meridian system and then relayed around the body.
The meridian network has a fourfold function:
Its function is to communicate. So, the meridians facilitate communication between the inner parts of the body and the outer parts of the body.
The meridians have a defensive function, meaning that they carry Wei Qi, which starts inside of the body and then rises to the surface, circulates underneath the skin and defends the body against attack.
They have a nutritive role in that they are able to circulate food essences all around the body, bringing nourishment to all of the cells in the body.
And four, they have an integrative role, meaning that they are weaving together all aspects of the body, of the organ systems, and of the operation of the totality of the function of the body into one integrated unit.
This is a short intro on the concepts of meridians according to Classical Chinese Medicine.
