Secret Passages: the Language of the Shang Han Lun
theory and a line-by-line study
with Genevieve Le Goff
63 CEU/PDA
(CAB provider #1005, NCCAOM #1134)
~18 online classes every other Saturday January 29th - September 24th, 2022~
The Shang Han Lun can be viewed as a form of language.
Like a language, it reflects a certain understanding of the world, which it has distilled into the metaphorical cyphers of herbs. Welcome to the Shang Han Lun, where the living practice of clinical herbalism ties into a systemic understanding of the cosmos, and where time, space, nature and and physiology meet.
The 6 conformations are more than stages of disease; they are aspects of life and physiology, linked by the intricate relationships of fire, water, blood, ministerial fire, yang and yin. These relationships are what explains the various passages and transmutations of disease that the Shang Han Lun is famous for exposing. This masterful Han dynasty work by Zhang Zhong Jing looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the body in relation to the natural influences surrounding it, and delineates the probability tree of the possible transformations of the domino effect of cold damage.
It would be mistaken to think that the Shang Han Lun is a book that only treats wind-cold; cold damage can be understood in a much broader sense, the desertion of life’s energy from the body, leading to the eventual coldness of death.
In essence, Shang Han Lun theory is alchemy, the Yi Jing of health and disease. By understanding what leads to the decrepitude of life, one can also understand what repairs it, and what preserves it.
Comprehending the language of the Shang Han Lun not only leads to wonderfully efficacious clinical results and a better life for patients, but also is a vehicle for personal cultivation and one’s relationship to the world. Like any discipline, its mastery has benefits one cannot even fathom when one begins the journey.
Its sibylline yet straightforward language both reveals and hides so much depth that it has induced fascination for over 2 millennia. This apparent contradiction stems from the fact that the basic tenets of classical physiology are not always crystal clear to the reader, and there has been much debate and conjecture over the centuries. To complicate matters, the changing historical views of physiology have sometimes muddled the understanding of the readers.
This course proposes to explore the classical roots of the principles that are apparent in the Shang Han Lun:
It is my hope that soon after starting the class, you will be as mesmerized by this vast topic as I have been for the past 15 years!
Like a language, it reflects a certain understanding of the world, which it has distilled into the metaphorical cyphers of herbs. Welcome to the Shang Han Lun, where the living practice of clinical herbalism ties into a systemic understanding of the cosmos, and where time, space, nature and and physiology meet.
The 6 conformations are more than stages of disease; they are aspects of life and physiology, linked by the intricate relationships of fire, water, blood, ministerial fire, yang and yin. These relationships are what explains the various passages and transmutations of disease that the Shang Han Lun is famous for exposing. This masterful Han dynasty work by Zhang Zhong Jing looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the body in relation to the natural influences surrounding it, and delineates the probability tree of the possible transformations of the domino effect of cold damage.
It would be mistaken to think that the Shang Han Lun is a book that only treats wind-cold; cold damage can be understood in a much broader sense, the desertion of life’s energy from the body, leading to the eventual coldness of death.
In essence, Shang Han Lun theory is alchemy, the Yi Jing of health and disease. By understanding what leads to the decrepitude of life, one can also understand what repairs it, and what preserves it.
Comprehending the language of the Shang Han Lun not only leads to wonderfully efficacious clinical results and a better life for patients, but also is a vehicle for personal cultivation and one’s relationship to the world. Like any discipline, its mastery has benefits one cannot even fathom when one begins the journey.
Its sibylline yet straightforward language both reveals and hides so much depth that it has induced fascination for over 2 millennia. This apparent contradiction stems from the fact that the basic tenets of classical physiology are not always crystal clear to the reader, and there has been much debate and conjecture over the centuries. To complicate matters, the changing historical views of physiology have sometimes muddled the understanding of the readers.
This course proposes to explore the classical roots of the principles that are apparent in the Shang Han Lun:
- to let natural philosophies of the pre-Han eras, ancient astronomy and history inform our understanding of physiology
- to study in detail the language of herbs and flavors through the lens of the Nei Jing, Tang Ye Jing, and a back-and-forth process of analysis of the formulae
- to understand the ways formula architecture reflects the secret or not-so-secret physiological relationships of fire and water, and speak of passage and transformation
- and to explore and analyze, line by line, in the (deemed) original Song dynasty order, the entirety of the Shang Han Lun.
It is my hope that soon after starting the class, you will be as mesmerized by this vast topic as I have been for the past 15 years!