Introduction
Chinese Medicine is built on a canon of received texts, and the last 2000 years of practicing physicians (modern Western pedagogy of the medicine aside) have understood that clinical practice and study of these classics are to be undertaken synergistically.
Anyone can make claims about theories and developments of Chinese Medicine, but they don’t hold any weight without the literacy (and, I increasingly feel, the language) to back up one’s statements. Charlatans abound in the commercialism of East Asian culture and medicine.
Treating according to principle 理 is what separates the physician from the technician. Proper understanding of this comes from engaging with the classics regularly, and as much as possible, in the original language.
I had the good fortune to become friends with a colleague who has been reading and translating 黄龙祥’s (Huang Longxiang) works on Nei Jing channel theory. HLX is a behemoth in the field, but unfortunately his work has never been brought to the West. His books are the reason why I’m making language study my top priority.
黄龙祥 compiled several (~200..) axioms from the Nei Jing. These short statements are an excellent way to engage with what the classics *actually* say, and provide a digestible strategy for engagement (memorization?) of these key principles.
The Nei Jing Axiom Project was created to share these quotations containing the key principles of our medicine, compiled by 黄龙祥 and shared with me in Mandarin by Corey Dillow.
Translations - when not my own - are adapted from medical anthropologist Paul Unschuld’s colossal works, and accordingly indicated.
“Axiom:
1: a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference.
2: an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth”