chinese cosmology week 2: symbolic systems

In this lecture we continued on symbols in Chinese medicine and the different symbolic systems used to understand the 12 chinese organs (which, again, are not referring to the physical organs in our body necessarily, but are "symbolic representations of functional vibrations"). Although there are a wealth of such systems in this medicine, we focused mainly on the 5 element, 6 conformation, and 12 organ network systems.

The 5 element system pairs yin with yang organs together into 5 groupings. Wood: associated with spring and the organs liver and gall bladder. Fire: associated with summer and the organs heart and small intestine. Also associated with pericardium and triple burner. Earth is associated with late summer, also the transition between seasons- and the organs spleen and stomach. Metal is associated with fall and the organs lung and large intestine. Water is associated with winter and the organs kidney and bladder.

On the other hang, the 6 conformation system pairs yin-yin and yang-yang organs together and proponents claim it is more classical because of its origins in the Shang Han Lun. These six conformations can be thought of as six different positions on a sine wave curve, the upper part of the curve representing "yang" and the lower representing "yin". Yang starts off with taiyang, which is represented by the small intestine and bladder organs. Next is yang ming, which is the stomach and liver. Shaoyang is the last yang pairing, gall bladder and triple burner. Taiyin is the first yin pairing- lung and spleen, followed by jue yin (liver and pericardium) and shao yin (heart and kidney).

The twelve organ network system is considered in classical chinese medicine to be the superior framework to operate on because it incorporates both the 5 and the 6 model, which are in a sense complementary to each other, equally necessary. In this system the 12 organs can be drawn out on the borders of a circle subdivided into 12 sections. This makes it easy to visualize the organs' specific relationships to time; both the 12 months of the year as well as 12 groupings of 2 hours within each day. More to come.