nourishing the development of life 

養 長   yang zhang

Neijing Suwen chapter 2 gives guidelines for the nourishment of life throughout the four seasons. The passage devoted to the three months of summer celebrates the splendour of the development of life, when living is easy, there is a relaxation, a joy of being alive. After the struggles of winter and the constant activity of spring, the surge of life comes to fruition in summer. This part of the text is full of characters for flowering, flourishing, ripening, maturing; abundance, proliferation, accomplishment:

‘The three months of summer are called proliferating (fan 蕃) and flourishing (xiu 秀). The qi of heaven and earth intertwine, and the ten thousand things flower (hua 華) and bring forth fruit (shi 實).’

We are advised to ‘exert the will for life without violence, allowing the blossoming (hua 華) and flowering (ying 英) to be fully accomplished (cheng xiu 成  秀)’. All of the characters used to describe the activity of the qi in summertime contain a variation of the meaning ‘to come in to full bloom’, ‘to give fruit’, and by extension, ‘to be fully accomplished’. Many contain the radical of the plant (艸 /艹), or of ripe grains (禾). The character nu  (怒), translated here as violence, is usually translated as anger, but it implies any kind of forceful expression of the qi. This is appropriate for the spring, but in summer it is a step too far; we are advised against too much activity, too much exposure to the heat of the sun. This is a time for a more gentle approach to life.

The text advises us to avoid overexposure to the sun which would damage the heart – but there is also a suggestion that if we are unable to take part in this flowering, to appreciate the beauty of nature, and to appreciate the flowering of our own nature, we may injure the heart by a kind of lack of joy (bu le 不 樂), a lack of ‘coming to fruition’. The fire element is expressed here in the heat of the sun, but also in its gentle warming which encourages growth and development. The movement of qi in summer continues the yang movement of spring, it moves upwards and outwards, but unlike the forceful action of the spring, the yang of summer is in its old yang stage, it is a gentle opening, beautifully reflected in the text by these characters of flowering, ripening, opening and bearing fruit.

‘This corresponds to the qi of summer, which is the way to nourish the development of life (yang zhang 養 長).’

(This article also appears as the Chinese Lesson in the summer edition of Acu. – the magazine of the British Acupuncture Council.)