With the latest book from Monkey Press – Chinese Medicine from the Classics: A Beginner’s Guide – we continue our theme of images from the Mawangdui Funeral Banner, discussed below. The central part of the banner (above) was chosen as the cover image for this book, as it shows the very beginnings of life – brought forth by the intertwining of yin and yang. Yin and yang are symbolized by two dragons, one white, one red; as they pass through the sacred jade disc (bi), life streams from their communion.

The beginnings of life are very important in classical Chinese – both to daoist practice and medicine. We are constantly reminded to go back to the source, to keep our connection with our origins. The following excerpt from the first section of the book shows the emergence of life as it is described in the classical texts:

Chapter 42 of the Daodejing gives a concise description of the way in which life spontaneously arises; there is no external intelligence imposing order, but an implicit order emerging from life itself:

‘Dao gives rise to one, one gives rise to two, two gives rise to three, three gives rise to the ten thousand beings.’

This is not a description of a creation event which happened in the past, but of a continual process of coming into being, changing and transforming and dissolving back into some kind of original chaos or unknowable mystery. Here the dao is before the one, before the state of unity which must then divide in order to bring about movement and change. The two remain, holding each other in a static balance until the emergence of three, which provides the dynamism to produce all life, symbolized by the ten thousand things or beings.

The opening lines of Huainanzi chapter 1, a philosophical daoist text contemporary with the Neijing, describes this universality of dao:

‘As for dao: It shelters heaven and supports the earth, extends beyond the four directions, opens to the eight extremities, high beyond reach, deep beyond reckoning – it envelops heaven and earth and gives rise to the formless.’

The dao supports and maintains all life, extending beyond the four directions and the eight extremities, the eight points of the compass which represent all conceivable space. It envelopes heaven and earth – in a way that suggests holding in a nurturing embrace – and gives rise to that which has no form. A key theme of the Huainanzi is this continual emergence and dissolution of life from a state of formlessness into form and returning back again to the formless. The dao gives rise to the formless, embracing everything from the largest possible expression of life to the smallest and most subtle; it both contains all things, and provides their source.

The formless, a state before physical manifestation, holds the patterns of life, as we see in the opening lines of Huainanzi chapter 7:

‘In ancient times, when heaven and earth did not yet exist, there was only image (xiang) without form (xing)’.

Before form comes into being, before matter coalesces into shape, there is an ‘image’ – an information patterning – which holds the potential for its manifestation. Structure is determined by this information pattern, just as a seed holds the potential for development, growth and adaptation. ‘Information’ is used here and in many places throughout the text to imply the way in which things come into being and take form. The Chinese xiang suggests this idea of a formative principle which guides the various ways in which matter takes shape, an image or pattern which must exist before form. And it is at this place, between form and no-form, that the most subtle of interventions within Chinese medicine take place.

The text continues with a description of the emergence of structure from this primal chaos, which is full of potential:

‘dark obscure, formless soundless, unfathomable profound – two spirits merge into life to regulate heaven and organize earth’

From this chaotic matrix two spirits or archetypal patterns emerge, and the elements of light and space begin to rise and disperse, those of darkness and heaviness to descend and coalesce. That which is light and dispersed is known as heaven, that which is heavy and solid is known as earth. These two spirits, often called Fuxi and Nugua, are in the realm of no-form, of patterning – and could be called the inherent laws of the universe which give rise to the expansion of heaven and the solid contraction that is the earth. In illustrations they are usually represented with compass and square to set the geometry and numerology on which the development of life is based.

Daoist meditation attempts a return to the source – simply by letting go of all the extra ‘stuff’ we have accumulated along the way. Laozi asks us:

‘Can you balance your qi and embrace the one? Can you be soft as a new born babe?…’