The Archaeology of the Qiao Vessels: Ban Xia Tang Formula Family Analysis
The following is an excerpt from Will Ceurvels’ forthcoming ‘The Archaeology of the Qiao Vessels’ by Purple Cloud Press. This passage is taken from the “Ban Xia Tang Formula Family Analysis” section. It is an in-depth look at the Qiao vessels of the eight extra channels, a subject next to nothing has been written on, in regards to their traditional sources. Furthermore, this work is highlighting this subject from a Chinese medical as well as a Daoist internal alchemical perspective.
The narrow passageway above the stomach and below the heart is a major exit point for wei qi as it travels through the interstices of the membranes and into the skin. Yet, like any major bottleneck junction, this crucial aperture is particularly subject to blockage and counterflow. Thus, Tang Zonghai, speaking of vomiting with fullness and urgency below the heart and oppression and vexation in the Da Chai Hu Tang formula pattern remarks:
心下，是指胸前之膈膜，急如裏急少腹急之急，乃是膈膜收縮，促急偏窄也。膜通利，則鬆緩；膜鬱滯，則褊急
The area below the heart is the membrane of the chest. The urgency referred to here is similar to the feeling of lesser-abdominal urgency. The membrane constricts and (qi in) the narrow flat space of the diaphragm membrane becomes urgent and hasty. If the membrane is unblocked and smooth, it is relaxed and harmonious, if it is stagnant and blocked it is narrow and urgent.
The narrow, bottleneck structure of the upper burner opening is such that the slightest disturbance to the flow of qi through the membrane can cause major blockage resulting in counterflow upwards or inability of heart fire to descend downwards.Ye Tianshi observes a similar phenomen in his analysis of a depressed and agitated patient:
情懷悒鬱。五志熱蒸。痰聚阻氣。脘中窄隘不舒。脹及背部。上焦清陽欲結。治肺以展氣化。
In this depressed and agitated patient, the five minds heat steam. Phlegm congeals and blocks the path of qi. The diaphragm is narrow and constrains. There is a bloated feeling radiating to the back. In this case, the clear yang of the upper burn has stagnated. Treat the lung to outstretch qi transformation.
Here again, we see how the slightest stagnation in the flow of qi is exacerbated by the narrow passageway through which qi must pass to upbear and effuse outward.
For the Daoist internal alchemists, who have spent millennia probing the passages of the ren and du channels and cataloguing, through direct experience, the variegated terrain of the body’s center lines, the infracardial region, known as the crimson chamber, was also recognized as a crucial and difficult aperture to penetrate in minor Heavenly Orbit (小周天) cultivation. The Pivot of the Dao (道樞) specifically mentioned the crimson chamber as one of the important gates, or harrowing passages of the body:
正陽子曰：…泥丸者，上關也；絳宮者，中關也；下元者，下關也.
Zheng Yangzi stated: the mud ball is the upper gate. The crimson chamber is the middle gate. The lower origin is the bottom gate.[1]
The Diagram for the Cultivation of Perfection (修真圖) stressed the vital physiological and spagyric functions of the region, stating:
其喉有十二節，號曰重樓。直下肺竅，以至於心…心下有穴，名曰絳宮，乃龍虎交互之處.
The throat has 12 nodes, which are called the layered stories. It descends down into the lung aperture and to the heart…below the heart there is an opening called the crimson chamber. This is the region in which the dragon and heart interact.
Here, the infracardial space, called the “crimson chamber” in Daoist terminology, is identified as an important transitional juncture through which kidney qi bears upwards and heart blood pours downwards. The Essentials of the Shortcut to the Great Achievement elaborates on the specific qualities of this transitional region in the chest, stating:
當陽神由中宮遷上田，必須從十二重樓經過。重樓一關，誠其重矣。惟是默然端坐，若有知無知，若用力不用力，但存一息千里，干里一息之念，才是倏忽過重樓功夫。
As the yang spirit rises upwards from the middle palace to the upper (elixir) field, it must pass through the 12 layered stories. The layered story gate is truly multi-layered. Only by sitting upright and quiet, between focus and non-focus, forcefulness and non-forcefulness, with one’s thought wedded to one, thousand-li breath, does one suddenly and swiftly complete the traversal by one’s gongfu.
Thus, for the Daoists, the passage of qi through the infracardium and up through the throat was a harrowing, but crucial, procedure that required the most subtle quality of focus to achieve. In the Essentials author’s estimation, this passage presented such a profound challenge to practitioners that it was again termed a “gate”, which is a particularly difficult area for qi to pass through. Finally, Huang Yuan-ji (黃元吉), writing in the Lectures from the Hall of Blissful Learning(樂育堂語錄) sees the crimson chamber as a key blocked aperture, which when opened through a forceful, surging flux of qi, induces the opening of all the apertures of the body:
將雙目微閉，凝其心神，調其氣息，任其自自然然，一往一來，一開一闔，呼而出，不令之粗，吸而入，不使之躁，久久自無出無入，安然自在，住於中宮，此即凡息停也。凡息一停，胎息自見。如此慢慢涵養，自然真氣衝衝，上達心府，此展竅也。蓋以真氣有力，直上衝乎絳宮，庶幾一身毛竅亦有自開之時。所謂「一竅相通，竅竅光明」是也.
Lightly close the eyes and focus the heart’s spirit, adjusting the breath. Let the breath come naturally, in and out, opening and closing. The outbreath should be smooth and the inbreath should be steady and unhurried. After some time, there is neither inbreath nor outbreath, but only a sense of calm as the breath returns to the middle palace. This is what is called no-breath. Once the breath ceases, embryonic breathing naturally commences. After slowly cultivating this breath, true qi naturally surges upwards into the heart court. This is what is known as venting the apertures. When true qi is strong and surges upwards through the crimson chamber, the pore orifices of the skin instantly unlock. So they say, “when one aperture opens, all the apertures are bright and radiant.
This description is reminiscent of the previously mentioned commentary of the Exposition of the Eight Extraordinary Vessels in which it is said of Yin qiao, that “if yang qi can pass through this orifice, then all the apertures will open”, and the Jade Pendant notion of “qi that has been accumulating at the perineum suddenly shoots forth and breaks through the Caudal Funnel.” Just as in these passages, the crimson chamber is conceived of as a small, subtle passage that easily accumulates yin accretions and becomes blocked. However, like the “Yin Qiao”, by accumulating true qi and channeling it upward in a concentrated surge, the aperture unblocks, setting off a chain reaction of openings throughout the body. Notice how, just as in the medical paradigm, the Daoist’s also discovered through inner cultivation how crucial the infracardial bottleneck is to the smooth passage of qi out through the exterior into the “orifices of the skin.”
What happens when the delicate flow of qi through the narrow aperture of the upper burner membrane becomes blocked due to vacuity or external evil? Just as in Zhi Shi Zhi Zi Chi Decoction, in the Ju Pi Zhu Ru Tang formula pattern, qi is unable to effuse out through the interstices and into the skin and thus counterflows upwards, manifesting in retching, hiccupping and vomiting. Yet as we saw above in the Da Chai Hu Tang formula pattern example, the same counterflow outwards or inability to descend downwards that causes vomiting can also lead to urgency, oppression and vexation, all of which contribute to insomnia. Thus, it is no surprise that in Wen Dan Tang, which combines elements of Ju Pi Zhu Ru Tang, Zhi Shi Zhi Zi Chi Decoction and Worked Water Decoction, the counterflow (or the inability of heart fire to move downwards) manifests as insomnia. The Farmer’s Classic of Materia Medica states that Ju Pi resolves, “胸中瘕熱逆氣”(Conglomerations, heat and counterflow of qi in the chest. Zhang Zhicong commented on this line, saying:
謂胃上郛郭間，濁氣留聚，則假氣成形，而為瘕熱逆氣之病。橘皮能達胃絡之氣，出於肌腠，故胸中之瘕熱逆氣可治也.
This refers to turbid qi collecting in the outer layer (membrane) above the stomach, and slowly taking on form as qi collects, leading to conglomeration heat and counterflow of qi. Ju Pi can unblock the network vessels of the stomach, allowing qi to flow into the interstices, thus conglomeration heat and counterflow are resolved.
Zhang has a slightly more complicated model of the physiology of the membranes, but the essential idea is the same: Ju Pi unblocks qi in the membrane below the heart, restoring the flow out into the interstices and skin. In textbook descriptions, Ju Pi is normally described as rectifying qi, so it might seem odd to think of it as effusing middle qi outwards through the interstices into the skin, but this unique use of Ju Pi is not limited to Wen Dan Tang. The famous “fire god” Lu family lineage have a modified form of Ma Huang Tang, which they call the “Ma Huang method”. The core of this formula contains: gui zhi, cang zhu, shan zha, chen pi (ju pi), gan cao and sheng jiang. Of ju pi’s action in this formula, Lu Chonghan states:
生陳皮使皮腠雙走，內外交通。。。疏通腠理與毛竅相合，使營衛協和。肌腠得理，濁穢可分.
Ju Pi courses through the skin and interstices, unblocking movement inward and outward… it courses and unblocks the interstices, such that the qi of the interstices can enter into the skin, harmonizing ying and wei qi. When the interstices are rectified, turbidity and foulness are parted.
This is not just “talking military strategy on paper” (紙上談兵), this formula has been used by the Lu family in place of Ma Huang Tang for three generations with reliable results.
[1] This specific line is raising an objection to these designations. However, this only proves that these designations would have been well acknowledged in common Daoist discourse.
-Will is a Chinese medicine scholar-practitioner living in Taiwan and currently undertaking his masters in Qing Dynasty Jing Fang Materia Medica research, including physicians such as Zou Run‘an [鄒潤安], Zhang Zhicong [張志聰], and Huang Yuanyu [黃元禦]
Post-Scriptum: The discounted pre-sale for this work will be launched within the next three weeks, while the title will be shipped around mid to end of July.
Post-Post-Scriptum: Another excerpt can be viewed here:
The Yin and Yang Qiao Vessels in Chinese Medicine and Daoism by Will Ceurvels
Post-Post-Post-Scriptum: The image is from the Wellcome Collection:
Woodcut illustration of the practice known as ‘Collecting fire and transporting’ gold from Xingming guizhi (Pointers on Spiritual Nature and Bodily Life) by Yi Zhenren, a Daoist text on internal alchemy published in 1615 (3rd year of the Wanli reign period of Ming dynasty). (Cataloguing incomplete)
