5 Shens Model of Alchemy

[GreytoWhite]

This is from Kevin Wallbridge who is a martial arts instructor at the Academy of Classical Oriental Sciences in Nelson, BC, Canada. It was originally posted on the Rum Soaked Fist community. I thought I'd share it here as I'm sure our members could benefit as well.

A common model is the 五志 wǔzhì or 5 "wills." This is derived from section of the 黄帝内经 Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic (Neijing) that looks at the storage qualities of the solid organs. Each of the Zang organs "stores" an aspect of the mind: heart-神 spirit, spleen-意 mind, lung-魄 yin "soul," kidney-志 will, liver-魂 yang "soul." This works nicely on many levels. Seeing the heart as the integration of thoughts feeling and being; the kidneys as the will to strive and survive/adrenal responses, and so on.

One of the things that causes problems is the inclusion of the 魂魄, which are pre-Heaven substrates, on this list. One of the key metaphysical assumptions of Chinese medicine is that we are defined by a dynamic interaction of primordial substrate and acquired psycho-biological traits. This list mixes and matches both these systems. I would argue there are much clearer ways of understanding the mind within the Neijing, but that this one fits the Wuxing model of nice clean five-point associations and so has been gravitated towards for centuries. If we consider the celestial (as opposed to cyclical circle and pentagram) organization of the Wuxing, this model works a little better. Then we can see an axis of spirit-mind-will, which places the emotions down in the will, the reasoning in the spleen and the spiritual things like enlightenment or wisdom in the heart. In this way the pre-Heaven aspects sit to either side.

The association of the liver and the 魂 Hun is a pretty good one. It goes like this: the blood is where the spirit is stored by the heart, blood pools in the liver in sleep, the Hun influences the spirit through dreams in sleep, hence the Hun is stored by the liver. If that is all the Hun did then it would be fine, but there is much more to it. When we look at the lung storing the 魄 Po the wheels really start to come off the bus and the Wuxing associations start to look profoundly arbitrary and strained. The Po underlies our physical substrate, nowadays we could consider genetics as part of this. As well, it plays a key role in our ability to have senses and sense experience. Not much to do with the lungs in Chinese medicine.

One of the key issues is that the Po has almost nothing to do with the mind other than providing the ability to have senses. Discussing it as part of the mind is like worrying about where you park as part of fight tactics in a martial arts competition. Sure you are going to need somewhere to put your car, but is it really directly involved in the problem? If there is a parking lot its taken care of. Yes senses are necessary for thought, but only if you lack one is it worth mentioning.

Hun and Po are much better seen in the Yin-Yang of pre-Heaven and post-Heaven development; where Po is the Yin of pre-Heaven and Hun is the Yang of pre-Heaven. In this way 精 Jing is seen as the Yin of post-Heaven and 神 Shen is seen as the Yang of post-Heaven. So in terms of pre/post-Heaven Hun is Yin to Shen's Yang (because Hun is the Yang of the Yin and Shen is Yang of the Yang); and in this way Po is the Yin to Jing's Yang (because Po is the Yin of the Yin and Jing is the Yin of the Yang). Because each one is a Yin-Yang relationship between each one is a particular Qi, follow?

One of the useful things about the preceding model is that you can see how Po is the most Yin and therefore the least changeable. Shen is the most Yang and therefore the most changeable. Po provides the stable platform of protein synthesis and primate traits. Hun provides the innate aspirations and deep tendencies of emotional character as well as the dreams of life; it is who you wish you were. Jing is the acquired constitution derived from physical behavior and diet. Shen is the acquired personality; who you think you are. So Hun-Po provide the possibility of ourselves that gets acted out in the post-Heaven as the interplay of Shen and Jing (with of course the 真气/regular Qi that we usually refer to being that interplay).

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Ok, so to the mind itself. What we are really talking about is the Shen, which has narrow and broad meanings. Broadly Shen is the whole psycho-emotional system of the self, conscious and unconscious together. Narrowly Shen is the spiritual aspects of the self. The part that feels religious awe or spiritual movement. Lets consider that I'm using the broad meaning only from now on.

Because the heart stores the Shen (in the blood) the two terms were freely used interchangeably throughout the Neijing, though more often 心 heart stands for Shen than vice-versa. Often when the word for heart is used it means Shen broadly.

意 Yi means the reasoning mind but not the emotions. So it is a part of Shen/Xin but not the totality. Because it is a part of the mind and the heart stores the mind (in the blood) sometimes when someone says heart they actually mean thinking mind which is Yi.

情 Qing is emotion and is considered a part of the broader Shen. Very closely associated with the heart its is often what is specifically referred to when the term Xin is used, but it does not overlap Yi at all. Like in Xinyi, this refers to emotions and reason together. In fact Qing is rarely used in discourse and Xin is most often substituted, especially in martial arts and Qigong. If Qing is referred to it is often only in the context of the 七情 Qi Qing or 7 emotions, which are the specific manifestations of Qing.

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There is another model of the mind from the Neijing that is more clear as it describes the reasoning process. It breaks the mind down into 5 pieces. Unfortunately it recycles terminology from other places so you need to recognize that these are further narrowing of meanings. It begins with 意 Yi, and here it means the ability to grasp an object of sense experience. It is the ability of the senses to coalesce around a thing or idea and distinguish it from the background. Like metal in the Wuxing it condenses and takes shape.

Next is 志 Zhi, usually seen as the will, but here it is also the memory. We take the object of sense experience deeply into ourselves and compare it to our sense of self. “Ok I see it, what is it to me?” The Zhi is a deep aspect of self that comes the closest to the truth of who we really are. Often say to students that if they really want to feel Zhi do this experiment with someone they trust. Lay down in a tub of water with your face below the water level and you partner holding your shoulders down. Have them count to ten once you try to start getting up for air, even if (especially if!) you struggle. That thing that comes from your core to get up out of the water... Zhi. It is this aspect of self that the first relation of the outside experience is compared to. Very much like water in the Wuxing as goes down to depths.

思 Si si next and could be translated as contemplation. It is often rendered as over-thinking or pensiveness, but these are just when it becomes pathological. We call this the librarian. The object of sense experience is the new acquisition and now you cross-reference it. This is the spleen and its function to separate clear from turbid. That quality of earth that can place things in just the right spot.

虑 Lu is the next stage and where the intake now becomes the beginning of expression. Lu is the plan that forms based on the object, how it relates to you and the associations it evokes. This is, of course, the quality of the liver and of wood. Purposefully driving from the root to the leaf to strive for the light.

智 Zhi is the wisdom that comes from the completion of the action. I saw this, it meant this to me, it made me think of that, so I did this and... now where am I? In an ideal world this is also satisfaction. That free opening from the center of a joyful result, just like the heart.

While these terms are narrower they do serve to bring a level of precision to what we are talking about. We all have tendencies to focus more on one or another of these stages. Some are thinkers and spend too much time in the associations of 思. Some are driven and get right to the plan with out taking care of the what things really mean. Some are addicted to the satisfaction of the end point.

All of these things can inform us about what kind of people we have become through the way we live our lives. What is the process of alchemy if it not the alignment of our acquired selves with our innate potential? Certainly internal mechanics are great for resolving issues of the tissue (精), but if issues of the mind are not also addressed then I would argue that you are just doing mechanics. Most of the dismissal of the internal-external issue on this board has come down to only the meat, so of course there is little difference. I would argue that internal is about the mind, and if the way you think is not part of your training you are not doing internals now matter what your style.

[spiraltao]

I have dealt with the hun and continue to do so.

[kevin_wallbridge]

Sorry for the thread necromancy. I was browsing the back pages and when I saw the topic I thought "oh goody, something up my alley!" I was surprised and amused to see that it was my own outline (and thanks to MithShrike for posting it in the first place). I figured it was time to become a member of the forum and not merely a lurker.

 

I can see that this didn't really spark a discussion yet I thought perhaps if I made myself available to question/justify, someone may take the bait.

[thelerner]

I figured it was time to become a member of the forum and not merely a lurker.

 

I can see that this didn't really spark a discussion yet I thought perhaps if I made myself available to question/justify, someone may take the bait.

Nice piece, lots to digest.

[voidisyinyang]

Yeah cool stuff - shen is coherent light as spirit and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho writes on the quantum coherent light of the heart --

 

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/HeartbeatofHealth.php

[三江源]

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Edited July 25, 2014 by cat

[kevin_wallbridge]

魄 Po is a bit of a tough one to get at. If we consider 魄魂 Po Hun as the pre-Heaven we can look at them as the nature of the self (as opposed to the nurture). Your Po is no more changeable than your genetics. In medical journalism you will often hear about this or that thing that "change your genes," but that thinking is nonsense. Different stressors can change gene expression and protein synthesis, but the genes themselves don't change. Po Hun are the same way. There are influences that can change how they express, but they as they are when you were conceived.

 

So Po doesn't really "fall into deepest Yin," our acquired self can, but the Po is already there. Comas provide us with a glimpse into this. It is a well documented phenomenon that people in comas often recall upon awakening conversations, sounds and music. Even in an unresponsive state (the deepest Yin of the mind), they are still in the world. This is an effect of the Po (underlying sense experience).

 

There is more to the Po to be found in some very ancient documents that discuss the 三魂七魄 3 Hun 7 Po, where the Po had diverse locations in the body and demon names.

Edited July 28, 2013 by kevin_wallbridge

[ChiDragon]

魄魂 Po Hun seems to me they are in the reverse order. Normally, the expression goes like 魂魄(Hun Po), the soul(魂) and the body(魄) are giving an indication that the two always stay together for life person. They will be separated when the person dies.

[kevin_wallbridge]

There is nothing intrinsic to the terms that requires them to be stated together or in any particular order. Certainly in colloquial Chinese they sound better the other way, but last I checked I wasn't writing in colloquial Chinese. We say "hot and cold running water" in English and so "cold and hot running water" sounds funny to the ear. Still there is no change of meaning or any reason other than habit to say it so, same thing here. Saying 魂魄 does not convey any more sense of their profound connection than writing it the other way. I consciously chose to reverse the normal order because 魄 was the subject of the discussion and knowing that I was not writing the rest of the paragraph in Chinese I knew it really didn't matter.

[ChiDragon]

Yes, I agree. It just sounds better and less awkward if they were putted in the proper order. To a native speaker, hmm.....it's really not quite acceptable if they were in the reverse order. However, if you insist to write it your way. I will stay out of your way. Sorry for the intrusion.

Edited July 28, 2013 by ChiDragon

[三江源]

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Edited July 25, 2014 by cat

[kevin_wallbridge]

Yes, I agree. It just sounds better and less awkward if they were putted in the proper order. To a native speaker, hmm.....it's really not quite acceptable if they were in the reverse order. However, if you insist the write it your way. I will stay out of your way. Sorry for the intrusion.

 

 

Thanks ChiDragon that's very.... passive-aggressive of you

 

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Hi cat, yes of course mastery is mastery of the basics

 

The whole thing can perhaps be best approached by getting into the differences between 先天後天 pre- and post-Heaven.

 

When we examine them in medicine we see the 先天 pre-Heaven as the true nature of a being. It is not something that can be treated clinically. Its a bit like congenital issues from a biomedical perspective. Say Down's syndrome, this can be seen as a genetic disorder as the extra chromosome is problematic causing major and obvious health and cognitive issues. Yet at another level the Down's syndrome is merely the truth of that person. You can have Down's syndrome, but are not really sick with it, it is simply your actual nature. For that person the extra chromosome is simply their truth. They have issues that affect the expression of their acquired self, but that is 後天 post-Heaven.

 

This perspective is a useful one for getting at 魂魄 Hun Po and the role they can play in cultivation; whether that is 養生, 氣功, 導引, 內功 Yangsheng, Qigong, Daoyin, Neigong or whatever. Whenever we consider the 先天 pre-Heaven we can look at it as the truth of who and what you are. It cannot truly be disordered, it cannot truly be damaged, it cannot be really be manipulated and cultivated because it already is fully what it is. Whenever we see discussion of disorders of the 魂魄 Hun Po we are looking at a slight parsing error where disordered expression has been confused for disordered substrate. Those disorders are actually in the 精神 essence and spirit, the 後天.

 

 

which gradually allows the Po (the more dense) aspects to more and more fully support the Hun (the more subtle) aspects.

 

How do we allow the yin dense Po, the senses, to support the subtle aspects of us.

I'm thinking that I have never actually thought of this in such detail, or isolated the Po to think about, so I am pursuing this line of thought, bear with me , if you wonder why I am zoning in on the Po particularly.

 

I think Michael WInn said that the Po can be grief in the lungs, can be a part of us which finds it hard to move on, and may indeed be a ghost in the body or after death. ?

 

This is a good example of the parsing error. The 魂魄 are fully integrated, the easiest clinical check for this is "are you alive?" Any disorder of the meeting of the two is at the moment of death, so nothing about their relationship needs to be fixed. When we say in Chinese medicine "death is the separation of 陰陽 Yin Yang," it is exactly this relationship we are talking about. Even the person about to leave is alive until they are not. While we say it colloquially, there is no such thing as half-dead. The organism is alive until it is not.

 

That being said, there can be huge issues in the way this relationship gets expressed in the 後天 post-Heaven and that can look like a problem in the 魂魄 relationship. I would say the process is more on the order of getting the distortions of the acquired constitution (精) and the acquired personality (神) out of the way to allow the true nature to be expressed. The actual practice is the same, only the perspective on it is different.

 

As for the 魄 Po being grief in the lungs... well you see there is problem with the 五行 5 phase theory. Its so neat and compelling that it dominates some of the dialogue around the self because of the 五臟六腑 5 organ 6 viscera model. If the only tool you have is the 五行 soon every problem starts to look like a pentagram. In the initial essay I alluded to the problem of associating the 魄 to the lung. Its arbitrary and only makes sense from a very narrow perspective. The association to lung is more clearly seen in the manifestation of 宗氣 Zong Qi, the first differentiation of the 氣 in metabolism, when we consider its role in setting the rythmicity of the breath (cue huge digression into breath as a tool for understanding the truth of yourself and the basis of your whole physicality). Its relationship to grief is clearer the further you back in time.

 

Perhaps we need to discuss the 七魄? That will take us into the realm of demonology and possession.

[Taomeow]

Nice topic...

Two quickies.

 

1. Before deciding that wuxing is too neat and tidy and simple to be true, have you considered the following:

 

the place of wuxing phenomena within the ten stems/twelve branches system? such as Dry Wood vs. Moist Wood, Stony Earth vs. Fertile Earth, etc.?

 

phase transitions on each side of the wuxing phases within the bagua system? such as Young Wood vs. Dead Wood, Old Water vs. Fresh Water, etc.?

 

yin-yang transitions of each phase -- yang Fire of a nuclear explosion vs. yin Fire of an obsessive idea (an electrochemical phenomenon which is a manifestation of the Fire phase of qi)?

 

ganying resonances of each phase in the case of a strong presence of another -- Wood with Metal (in the natural world it would be a cactus), Water with Fire (in the human world it would be a bottle of whisky)?

 

 

2. One of my favorite areas of alchemical work has to do with establishing a distinction between yang zhi and yin zhi. You don't seem to make this distinction (unless I missed it, in which case I apologize). I would submit that making it (as well as fazing in all I mentioned above and a bit -- OK, a lot -- more) renders an introduction of non-wuxing-affiliated shens, or for that matter of anything else I've ever had a chance to investigate to date, pretty redundant.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Taomeow

[ChiDragon]

先天 pre-Heaven: prenatal
後天 post-Heaven: postnatal
精神: In TCM, it is a descriptive term for the appearance of the vitality of a person

Edited July 28, 2013 by ChiDragon

[kevin_wallbridge]

Hi Taomeow, yes I'm familiar with looking at the Wuxing those ways, but I'm actually talking about something else. I'm not dismissing the usefulness of the model, yet there a problem with how it gets used. One of the keys to applying Chinese medicine in a clinical context is to recognize that not all of the tools need to be used all of the time. The problem comes when one cannot bear to put the Wuxing down and the failure to realize that it does not need to be accounted for all of the time. Sometimes its a meridian problem and the six divisions will be the lens that will make the situation clearer. Trying to make a 6 meridian problem fit into a 5 phase pigeon hole can lead to over thinking and convolutions in the treatment principle that does absolutely no service to the patient.

 

Chinese medicine is a series of overlapping perspectives and not every one of these viewpoints can account for every disease circumstance. Just as you can take a close-up photo with a telephoto lens or a zoom into a distant object with a macro, each lens can be used to do the job. Its just that you can also select the most appropriate tool and not try to apply the whole kit every time.

 

In my experience, while the Wuxing is a great model for explaining many aspects of the acquired constitution, it really falls flat in terms giving clarity to the pre-Heaven. Yin-Yang is the model that provides the clearest and most succinct picture.

 

I personally would not distinguish between 陽志 Yang Zhi and 陰志 Yin Zhi, as I see them as the head and tail of the same snake. We can certainly see Yin characteristics and qualities as well as Yang characteristics and qualities, yet I would not go so far as create a cognitive separation between them. I think it serves us to recognize that Yin-Yang is not dualism; not an either/or situation. Rather it is Yin until it is Yang, and then Yang until it is Yin.

 

That being said keep in mind that it is Chinese medicine that informs my alchemy, not the other way around, so I have a bias. I have seen a great deal of strange folk-modelling within the alchemical world and when it differs from my experience in Chinese medicine my bias falls to clinical experience. I have heard many things said in the Qigong world that demonstrably wrong from the experience of Chinese medicine, but my own experience has been that the knowledge derived from the constant testing that Chinese medicine undergoes in clinical circumstances serves to deepen clarity in the practice.

 

In no way do I want to convey the impression that I have exclusive rights to knowledge or perception. Only that my perspective is grounded in a study of a specific set of medical classics that are a part of a living tradition that is far better documented and far more transparent than any alchemical lineage that I know of. I may come across as a mister know-it-all, but I don't want to give the impression I am closed to other ideas. Its just that I have tested a lot of my understanding in hands-on clinical circumstances. If my understanding was very wrong I do not believe that I would get the clinical results that I do.

[kevin_wallbridge]

Thanks ChiDragon that's very.... passive-aggressive of you

 

 

Oh and ChiDragon, just pulling on the Dragon's tail there. I don't actually want to hurt your feelings. It may have come across harsher than I really wanted it to be.

[Taomeow]

I see, thanks for your perspective, Kevin.

 

We all have our biases, but only the coolest ones of us know that we have them.

Mine are easy to summarize in seven precepts: hetu, luoshu, yin-yang, wuxing, bagua, ganying, I Ching. I would have more trouble separating them in my overall taoist cognitive paradigm than pulling apart the seven stars of the Big Dipper. I mean, nothing is dispensable in this system, nothing optional or superfluous or arbitrary.

 

As for clinical results, maybe you're just talented? I've known a talented TCM practitioner, a taoist traditionalist trained in TCM in both its pre-Rockefellerian-reform, purely non-Western form AND the reformed way it is handled today, who "sees" wuxing phases (e.g. he spelled out my xiantian layout by just looking at me for thirty seconds -- blew my mind.) Much like Tesla, when he would come up with a complex invention and his associates would tell him, OK, this is a great idea, now we need to build a prototype and test it, would shrug and say, sure, go ahead, you can build and test it or not build and not test it, the result will be the same. I know how it works.

 

Of course those who are truly in the position to say "I just know" and have this statement to contain no BS are rare... the rest of us do need to make use of the fool's method of trial and error. Well, I've tested the wuxing theory in my own world with taoist arts, sciences and practices available to me, and so far have found no holes...

 

I might have more to say -- e.g. about the difference between yin zhi and yang zhi striking me as very crucial to discern... basically it's not unlike the difference between your conscious and unconscious mind, true that it's all one snake but how often does a modern head know what its own tail is up to?.. -- later...

[kevin_wallbridge]

As for clinical results, maybe you're just talented?

 

Hahahahaha

[Azad]

Hello
I'd like to ask you something:
Where can I find most detailed information about wuxing/five elements theory? Medical and physical? Books or website ?
I'm not livin in US that's why its difficult to buy books from amazon for me.

Regards

[Azad]

Please correct me if I'm wrong;

5 Shens are rooted on each 5 main organs. When I said shens I mean yin/yang both.

In some kind of neigong practices first we are trying to purify the organ energies with celibacy (for men) and keeping emotions calm (for women). When all these energies come critical level they try to "produce" dantians. And 5 shens will come inside of dantien. Mostly we know that cauldron. Also same as Golden Flower exercise. Am I wrong?

I'm tryin to understand the phases. I know how Hun can be controlled. But I don't know how Po can be controlled. Because if it was move by itself this could be dangerous. I know this cause of my wife.

If these questions are not suitable for this topic pls inform me I stop writing here

Regards.

[三江源]

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Edited July 25, 2014 by cat

[kevin_wallbridge]

Hello

I'd like to ask you something:

Where can I find most detailed information about wuxing/five elements theory? Medical and physical? Books or website ?

I'm not livin in US that's why its difficult to buy books from amazon for me.

 

Regards

 

 

 

You might look for the work of Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallee. She has a book on the 五行 5 phases (I may be called "The 5 Elements"). Its from the Monkey Press out of Paris. I think they have a Belgian distributor.

[kevin_wallbridge]

how often does a modern head know what its own tail is up to?

 

That is exactly what the original post is about. Grasping the nature of our experience so that we can look at where we unconsciously distort our perceptions. When we go through the 意志思慮智 model we can apply it to our own process to allow ourselves a mirror to reflect upon the ways and places where our own cognitive tendencies may show signs of excess or deficiency. Being able to see one's own process one can see one's own myths about one's self. The acquired mind 神 is never what it thinks itself to be, its always just the best guess. The 魂 Hun, being pre-Heaven and so the actual primordial substrate upon which the acquired personality is based, is always more real than the 神 Shen. Yet the 神 Shen can be 調和 regulated and harmonized so that its distortions to the lens of perception can be minimized to allow the innate aspirations of the 魂 Hun to come through.

[三江源]

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Edited July 25, 2014 by cat

[Taomeow]

That is exactly what the original post is about. Grasping the nature of our experience so that we can look at where we unconsciously distort our perceptions. When we go through the 意志思慮智 model we can apply it to our own process to allow ourselves a mirror to reflect upon the ways and places where our own cognitive tendencies may show signs of excess or deficiency. Being able to see one's own process one can see one's own myths about one's self. The acquired mind 神 is never what it thinks itself to be, its always just the best guess. The 魂 Hun, being pre-Heaven and so the actual primordial substrate upon which the acquired personality is based, is always more real than the 神 Shen. Yet the 神 Shen can be 調和 regulated and harmonized so that its distortions to the lens of perception can be minimized to allow the innate aspirations of the 魂 Hun to come through.

I see what you mean.

 

And I have to disagree. Recognizing one's own processes without getting down to the level of their underlying roots does not change these processes anymore than knowing you have the flu cures it.

 

"Looking at where we unconsciously distort our perceptions" would mean making the unconscious conscious, no? In a dark room, chasing a black cat who isn't there, illuminating this room with the light of your consciousness won't help catch the cat. You have to be where she is. And that's the level of fundamental qi permutations, or if we do insist on psychologizing (something TCM never did), the level of the preverbal and the non-verbal, pre-analytical and non-neocortical, the room where your contemplating mind can't enter because everything was/is/will be happening there quite independently of its existence and any and all of its bright ideas. (I mean a generic "you" of course, not you personally.) Or even the level of destiny (which is where yin zhi comes into the picture) which can't be reached by awareness of the now, planning for the future, etc. etc., because the cat isn't in THAT room, it's in the back room, knowing in advance where it's going and why but not necessarily informing you.

 

Wuxing analysis helps overcome this difficulty -- if you know which phases are out of whack and how exactly, and set out to correct that, your own processes will change -- no need to contemplate what they were/are like while they were/are out of whack unless doing this normalizes them, which it doesn't. Normalizing your wuxing layout does. Doing it on the level of any ONE shen is pointless, because none are independent of the others and none are out of whack "by themselves" without the cause-effect cascades submerging all the rest. That's the power of the acausal, which wuxing is.

 

The wuxing approach is systemic, that's its beauty and its power, while tweaking with this shen or that alone is like brushing the dust off that mirror -- OK, it's clearer now but it reflects exactly the same picture. To change the moon by treating its reflection in the lake?.. Yes, you can watch it in calm weather and believe it's been pacified. But wait for the storm...

Edited July 31, 2013 by Taomeow