contained the Daoist naturalist theories of

Heaven, Earth and Man and the Taiji, Yin

and Yang and the Five Phases, as well as
theories on calculating the current stems and
branches of the Chinese calendar to predict
climate and weather patterns and live
accordingly. This text also included detailed
sections on five phase pattern discrimination
and treatment, and on treatment of the
entire meridian system of regular, divergent
and luo vessels, muscle channels and the 8
extraordinary meridians. The early books on
acupuncture that came out of the PRC
omitted most of this naturalist theory,
especially on the 5 phases and the meridian
system as a whole. Qi Gong, which had a
chapter devoted to its practice in the Zhong Yi
Xue Gai Lun, was also omitted from these
early TCM texts, apparently because they
were based on feudal (read
Daoist/religious) theory that was not
consistent with Maoist materialism.
What had never occurred to me was that
TCM, following Maoist doctrine, severed all
references to the wisdom of the sages of
antiquity, and the practices of self-cultivation
that figured prominently in the works of LaoTzu and Confucius. Chinese medicine had
not only lost its soul, but its very
Chineseness.

Part IV: Reflective

Acupuncture Practice
and High Skills
___________________________
Reflection Eight: The Dao of
the Sages of Antiquity
THE PROBLEM:
As I slowed down the process of these
reflections in Thanksgiving, 2010, after
having discovered the Chinese text, the Zhong
Yi Xue Gai Lun (that was translated into
Vietnamese and then into French, and then
by me for the Quebec Institute of
Acupuncture into English), I started to
realize an error had been made by Van
Nghi in his translations of this text. Aiming
his work at the French Medical
acupuncturists, who were fascinated by the
story of human energetics as laid down by
Soulie de Morant, Lavier and Chamfrault,
and who often practiced European natural
therapies like herbology and homeopathy,
Van Nghi omitted the sections of the Zhong
Yi Xue Gai Lun on herbal medicine, thus
making the text read mainly like an
acupuncture textbook. Felix Mann, also a
medical doctor in England, did the same
years earlier, when his Meridians of
Acupuncture, which drew heavily from the
Zhong Yi Xue Gai Lun which he studied in
PRC in 1962, only 4 years after its
publication, also only referenced the sections
on acupuncture, the meridian system and
how to treat with needles and fire, and
omitted herbal medicine or daoyin practices.

Returning to the Sources/Setting out on

the Way
While few English-speaking scholars of
Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine read
classical Chinese, we are fortunate to have
philosophical discussions of the key concepts
of acupuncture and Chinese medicine from
the late Claude Larre, a Jesuit priest and
former president of the prestigious Institut
Ricci, which is responsible for translation of
classical Chinese texts, and Elisabeth Rochat
de la Vallee, now president of the Institute
and a long-time colleague of father Larre who
both taught at the Quebec Institute of
Acupuncture. We are also fortunate that Paul

The Zhong Yi Xue Gai Lun was, however, the

first textbook for the new TCM colleges on
Chinese Medicine (zhong yi) as opposed to
Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (zhen
jiu). Prepared by academies of Chinese
Medicine by scholars in the field, it

Unschuld, a German scholar of classical

Chinese medicine, has overseen translations
of the Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen and the Nan
Ching and is currently overseeing the team
that is translating the Huang Di Nei Jing Ling
Shu. We are also fortunate to have excellent
philosophical translations of Daoist and
Confucian texts by scholars Roger T. Ames
and Henry Rosemont Jr, among others, and
texts on Neo-Confucian masters, such as
Wang Yang-ming by Tu Wei-ming, who
served as a mentor to Linda Barnes during
the religious studies part of her dual doctoral
degree and who is now teaching his work on
humanity and self-cultivation at the college.

In their philosophical translation of The

Analects of Confucius, informed by the
Dingzhou fragments and other archeological
finds, scholars Roger T. Ames and Henry
Rosemont, Jr. define these stages of
commitment to the Way of the sages in a way
that sounds identical to this first chapter of
the Su Wen, thus pointing to the fact that
these concepts from antiquity were made their
way into Daoist and Confucian teachings on
the Way.
Lest we think that this discussion of setting
out on the Way of the sage is straightforward,
Confucius himself is reported to have said:
In the niceties of culture [wen, character
included in the translation], I am perhaps
like other people. But as far as personally
succeeding in living the life of the exemplary
person (junzi, character included in the
translation), I have accomplished little
(Analects 7.33, p. 118).

Starting near the beginning, the first chapter

of the Su Wen finds Huang Di, the Yellow
Emperor, asking Qi Bo, the Heavenly
Master (ostensibly a Daoist sage) how it is
that the people of high antiquity lived to be
over 100 years old while the people today live
only half that long.
Qi Bo responded: The people of high
antiquity, those who knew the Way, they
modeled [their behavior] on yin and yang
and they complied with the arts and the
calculations. [Their] eating and drinking was
moderate. [Their] rising and resting had
regularity. They did not tax themselves with
meaningless work. //Hence they were able to
keep physical appearance and spirit together
(SW, pp. 30-31).

Confucius is reported to have continued

thus: How would I dare to consider myself a
sage (sheng, character included in the
translation) or an authoritative person (ren,
character included in the translation). What
can be said about me is simply that I
continue my studies without respite and
instruct others without growing weary (AC,
7.34, p. 119). This commitment to staying
on the Way, to lifelong learning is the key to
the way of the Sage.

Wang Bing, the compiler of the edition of

the Su Wen translated by Unschuld, was a
Daoist, and felt that this discussion of
following the Way was referring to selfcultivation, advocated by Daoists and
Confucianists well before the Huang Di Nei
Jing was compiled.

One who has walked the Way a long time

and practiced daily, and who becomes an
exemplary person (junzi) has achieved
calmness of the heart-and-mind and is
calm and unperturbed; the petty person is
always agitated and anxious (AC 7.37, p.
119).

Huang Di goes on to ask Qi Bo about the

people of high antiquity who attained their
full 100 years, including true men,
accomplished men, sages and exemplary
men(SW pp. 42-44).

Ames and Rosemont, Jr. clarify that at least

three of these concepts about categories of
persons were in use before the time of
Confucius and thus represent the wisdom of
antiquity and serve as the very bedrock of
what it means to be a human being in China.

essential endowed potential, but what one is

able to make of oneself given the interface
between ones initial conditions and ones
natural, social, and cultural environments
(ibid, p.49).

These three categories of persons who walk

the Way as road builders are the shi (scholar
apprentice), the junzi (exemplary persons)
and the sheng or shengren(sage). These three
are contrasted in the classics, and in
Confucius work, to the xiaoren (petty
person).

The authoritative person, the ren or shengren

is engaged in the process of growing
human relationships into vital, robust, and
healthy participation in the human
community (ibid).

The scholar apprentice (shi), Ames and

Rosemont, Jr. clarify, has set out on a path,
a road, but he still has a long way to go, and
there is much yet to be done (p. 61). This
path is a spiritual path of self-cultivation,
where material well being and selfish
desires are extirpated.

Dao, seen in this Confucian sense as the way

of becoming human is not a given. The
authoritative person must be a road
builder, a participant in authoring the
culture for ones place and time []. It is this
creative aspect of ren that is implicit in the
process of becoming authoritative for ones
own community (ibid, p. 50).

In the Analects, our translators clarify,

passages about the scholar apprentice show
that this person is striving to become an
exemplary person (junzi). The latter has
travelled a longer way and has taken on
several roles in society, making him a role
model for others to learn from. A
benefactor to many, he is still a beneficiary of
others like himself. While he is still capable
of anger in the presence of inappropriateness
and concomitant injustice, he is in his person
tranquil [] and is therefore a respected
author of the dao of humankind (ibid, p.
62). Reaching the status of the junzi is as far
as most of us can attain, but there is an even
loftier human goal, to become a sage or
shengren, a distant goal indeed (ibid).

This discussion based in antiquity and

carried forth by Lao Tzu, Confucius and later
Daoists and Confucians is most likely what
the classical Chinese medical texts like the
Yellow Emperors Classic are referring to.
Grounded in such a rich and long historical
foundation, classical Chinese medical texts
need merely refer to the sage to evoke this
entire Way of the sage.
But this way has been lost, Qi Bo clarifies in
the first chapter of the Su Wen. Doctors of
antiquity were ostensibly treating people who
were engaged in self-cultivation to achieve a
calm heart-and-mind by transforming the
emotions and following a life in tune with
Heaven and Earth and the seasons, thus
dealing themselves with the ordinary
problems of the physical body through
daoyin self-cultivation practices today
referred to by some as qi gong, healing
sounds and meridian patting. When they
went to a doctor, it was with more serious
problems requiring high skills, and doctors
focused on these high skills that treated the
shen (spirit).

What is striking about this Confucian view

of one who sets out on the Way from being a
scholar apprentice to aspiring to become an
authoritative person (ren or shengren) is that
it is a project undertaken with others. For
Confucius, unless there are at least two
human beings, there can be no human
beings (ibid, p. 48). The way or dao of the
authoritative person is not something we
are; it is something that we do, and become.
Perhaps human becoming might thus be a
more appropriate term to capture the
processional and emergent nature of what it
means to become human. It is not an

Today, Qi Bo clarifies, people are not

engaged in self-cultivation, and hence they
come to the doctor for all sorts of problems
they should be able to handle themselves,
which are not potentially fatal, but which
now preoccupy the Han dynasty practitioner.

more self-reliant, hardier, less reliant on

medical, CAM or AOM treatment for their
own well-being, starting with Daoyin practice
on the part of AOM practitioners.
In the denigration of the ordinary skills of
acupuncture in the Yellow Emperors
Classics, I believe we must see a critique of
how petty people were becoming in the
new city-life, where they ignored the wisdom
of the past and threw caution to the wind as
the frenzy of this life-style took its toll.

I reread the first page of the Ling Shu very

differently than I did a year ago, for the
ordinary skills that preoccupy the typical
doctor are what he must call upon to treat
problems that, while not fatal, have caused
undue pain and suffering for those suffering
from a new city-state lifestyle. High skills,
which would be out of place with such
citified people, would slowly disappear
without the need, or the knowledge to put
them into action. The discussion of
ordinary and high skills in the first
chapter of the Ling Shu, which is where I
started the reflections in THE OTHER
ACUPUNCTURE, is a repeat of the laments
in the Su Wen for a time when people
doctored themselves and only called upon
physicians when things were very serious.

The Su Wen summarizes the Dao of living in

tune with the wisdom of the sages of
antiquity as quoted above, and goes on to
lament how differently people of today are
who have lost the Way:
The fact that people of today are different is
because they take wine as an [ordinary]
beverage, and they adopt absurd [behavior] as
regular [behavior]. They are drunk when they
enter the [womens] chambers. Through their
lust they exhaust their essence, through their
wastefulness they dissipate their true [qi].
They do not know how to maintain fullness
and they engage their spirit when it is not the
right time. They make every effort to please
their hearts [but] they oppose the [true]
happiness of life. Rising and resting miss
their terms (SW p. 33).

This sounds so remarkably similar to our

own times, and should make us sit up and
take notice.
The lesson here is that if people learned
daoyin self-cultivation and life nourishing
practices and practiced these daily, and lived
more in harmony with nature and followed
moderation in all things, and focused on
authentic human relatedness and becoming
human in relationship with others, they
would not suffer from many of the chronic
disorders of stressful living. If this were true,
practitioners of acupuncture and Chinese
medicine would be able to devote more time
to serious disorders and to pressing problems
like weight, diabetes, asthma, and depression.

The text goes on by clarifying that such a

reckless and haphazard lifestyle and overwork
lead people to only live to half their lifespan.
The sages of antiquity stressed the
importance of guarding ones essence and
spirit, and of a calm heart-and-mind. As the
Su Wen goes on, in this way, the mind is
relaxed and one has few desires. The heart is
at peace and one is not in fear. The physical
appearance is taxed, but is not tired (ibid p.
34). Commoners accepted what they had to
eat and drink, and their clothing and station
in life and did not long for a different
lifestyle. In this way people knew true
satisfaction. Unschuld adds Wang Bings
decidedly Daoist take on this passage here:

One way of changing our current practice of

Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in
North America would be for AOM colleges
and their graduates to teach people how to
engage in these Daoyin practices and become

They had reached a state of no request. That

is the so-called satisfaction of the heart. Lao
zi has stated: There is no greater catastrophe
than not to know satisfaction. And there is
no grater calamity than to long for gains.
Hence, those who know the satisfaction of
satisfaction, they will be satisfied constantly.
Hence, those who do not speak of being
satisfied with material items, they have
knowledge of [true] satisfaction. Those who
are satisfied in their hearts, they know
satisfaction. Not to give free rein to desires,
this is identical with the natural state of
things (Ibid, p. 35).

care of practitioner and patient alike with

practices like meditation, yoga, Tai-Qi,
derived from the East; and Ericksonian
hypnotherapy, NLP, Pilates and Gyrotonics
from the west to name a few practices that
have entered the domain from New Age
Medicine, to Holistic Health, to
Complementary and Alternative Medicine,
to Integrative Medicine, and now to the m
ore inclusive Complementary and Alternative
Health Care.
What is clear and quite remarkable is that
Classical Chinese Medicine was predicated
upon Self-Cultivation, which it lost as life
became more focused on the busy city-state.

Coping with Daily Life

AOM practitioners who return to these selfcultivation practices themselves, with the aim
of sharing these practices with their patients
while maintaining Self, would be in a
position to offer an ancient approach to selfcare consistent with their medicine, with an
openness to parallel practices from East and
West to suit the times and their patients
proclivities.

If Daoyin practices of self-cultivation are not

medicine, then what they treat are not
diseases strictly speaking. And if people
before the Han dynasty and before the
Yellow Emperors Classic was written
routinely engaged in self-cultivation, of the
body and mind and all the senses, and strove
to attain a calm heart-and-mind, then the
afflictions of the heart-and-mind would have
been far fewer, and related to serious events,
of loss, of suffering, of despair, rather than to
the common travails of city-life and its
stresses, to use a very modern but perhaps
appropriate word.

Way of Learning Classical Chinese

Medicine

In such a Utopian vision the average person

would not experience undue discomfort or
distress from the strains of an active life, and
would only seek medical care rarely and only
when disease struck which could not be
handled alone. In such a society, everyone
would potentially possess ordinary skills of
meridian and point patting, healing organs
with sounds and breathing, maintaining a
healthy sexual practice, while avoiding
excesses.

One of the most powerful things about the

slow-down in writing THE OTHER
ACUPUNCTURE, as a monthly affair, is
that it gave me time to carefully reflect on
how the college itself abandoned selfcultivation practices that it taught in the fist
decade, as the North American TCM
Cultural Revolution took its toll, making
TCM an orthodoxy to be fought against, lest
the ability to teach and learn anything more
classical, or from other East Asian or
European approaches, be shoved into
oblivion.

This is remarkably similar to modern day

North American mind-body and stress
reduction approaches, which advocate self-

By April of 2011, several students asked the

college and me to make some online
resources available to them through our

library and learning resources, to render

possible access to information on a return to
the classics and classical Chinese medical
practices. This lead to a college subscription
to Classical Chinese Medicine, a web-based
resource founded by Heiner Fruehauf, PhD,
director of the School of Classical Chinese
Medicine of Portlands National College of
Naturopathic Medicine.

in his tangible Qi approach, grounded in

Daoyin practice, and to two cycles of a
revived 300 hour post-masters advanced
credit bearing course that will eventually be
one of the major areas of concentration that
graduates will be able to select as their major
in the colleges eventual First professional
Doctoral Program to start I July 2012 and
run for 10 months each time. It is the aim of
this collaboration that at the end of the
second cycle, a sufficient number of college
faculty will be trained so as to be able to train
MSAC and eventual DAc students in the
foundations of Andrew Nugent-Heads
training, so that he would focus on training
4th year doctoral students and other
experienced licensed AOM-practitioners in
more and more advanced skills.

This also lead, only recently, to a link from

the colleges library webpage link to the
Association for Traditional Studies video
series of Classical Chinese Medicine and
Daoyin practices with Andrew Nugent-Head,
MSOM, ATSs Founder and President.
Through this interactive process, and a
students familiarity with ATS and the videos
of Andrew Nugent-Head, I contacted him
about attending his San Francisco seminar
slated for Spring 2011, introduced myself
and asked if he and ATS would ever consider
him teaching at the Tri-State College of
Acupuncture In New York City.

This will greatly enhance the colleges

Strategic Plan goals of bringing the classics
back into our training, including a study of
Confucian and Neo-Confucian approaches
to cultivation of the Heart-and-Mind, a
required first year course in the human
dimension that Confucianism represented
throughout Chinese history and which
constituted its Chineseness, and a revamping
of AOM bodywork and Daoyin courses to be
more tangible and integrated into the
acupuncture training.

Within a few months of almost daily email

dialogue between Andrew Nugent-Head and
myself, he and ATS arranged for him to
teach his MaDanyang Heavenly Star Points
Seminar, and to spend 3 subsequent evenings
with faculty and recent grads exposing them
to the 8 Healing Sounds Daoyin Practice,
and to a Grand Rounds treatment so that we
might see how he worked. I attended all of
this, was a demonstration model for the
weekend seminar three times and was treated
in the Grand Rounds. The synchronicity of
where the college wished to go regarding a
return to Classical Chinese Medicine and
Daoyin self-cultivation practices, and of
Andrew and my deep conviction that
acupuncture is physical medicine and that all
of Classical Chinese Medicine is rooted in an
embodied way of learning and practicing, led
to a joint venture between ATS and the
college. In this collaboration, Andrew
Nugent-Head has already committed to
training our physical medicine clinical faculty

As a core group of the colleges faculty

embark on study with Andrew Nugent-Head,
and engage in regular Daoyin practice
themselves, the college will begin to be in a
position to endorse and reinforce a very
Confucian Way of Learning Classical
Chinese Medicine.
In this Way, these faculty, me included, will
have to commit to becoming scholarapprentices(shi), those who aim to become
exemplary practitioners, role models for
students, junzi. In this process, we will have
to take a deep look at our commitment to
lifelong learning, to our practice of selfcultivation, and to our goal of becoming
inspirations for future practitioners.

As I looked at the definitions of exemplary

persons, of junzi , I realized I could never
hope to attain a higher position than that.
While I had indeed become a road builder in
the AOM profession over the past three
decades, and helped establish and usher
along this new field, which the authoritative
person (shengren) would be expected to do, I
was still, and perhaps always will be prone to
anger and will need to work at all times to
attain a calm heart-and-mind. I recognize that
like my own role model in all this, NeoConfucian Wang Yang-ming, I must attend
to my own self-cultivation at all times. I also
have a lot to learn, as a scholar-apprentice,
from those like Andrew Nugent-Head who
have studied and learned in pre-PRC
Chinese, with a sense of the classics one can
never get otherwise.
What is exciting is that the college is in a
position to infuse its training in Disciplines
of Mind with Neo-Confucian self-cultivation
and Embodied Learning parallel to the Tacit
Dimension espoused by the late Donald
Schon, founder of Reflective Practice, and
his precursor, Alfred Polanyi.