Ancient sages used their brains or not?

Today we discuss whether ancient sages did use their brains or not?

In Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic (YEIC), Heart is compared to Fire, something hot. Kidneys are compared to Water, something cooling. Spleen is compared to Earth, something stable.

Western Medicine scholars surely laugh at such ridiculous comparison. They only focus on actual facts : how large is the heart, what colors, what cells etc.. They often consider YEIC not scientific.

Let me use simple logic to explain.

Isn’t heart continuously pumping bloods, and it is like machine in constant motion. Such motion produces heat, isn’t it? Hence ancients sages use Fire to represent Heart.

Logic also tells us, Kidneys function is concerning filtration of liquid into urine to be sent to the bladder. it is like irrigation system, Then liquid is a form of water, And Water is used to represent Kidneys.

Ancients sages also figured out how Fire (Heart) and Water (Kidneys) work hand in hand. They observe the nature, the sun is high up, hot. The earth and ocean are down below, cool.

In out body, heart is like the sun, high up and kidneys are like the ocean, down below.

The earth and ocean needs heat from the sun, otherwise the earth and ocean will be frozen into ice.

The sun cannot be too hot, otherwise the earth dry up and become deserts. Then the oceans, after heated by the sun, steam rises to form cloud to cool the upper sphere.

Then the high atmosphere is cool, rain forms when cold is encountered. Falling rain nourishes the earth.

This is the natural cycle and phenomena, which the ancients sages observe.

Sun heats the earth / ocean, the heated water vapour rises to cool the upper atmosphere, to shield the hot sun, and fall as rain to cool the earth.

From such observation, ancient sages conclude our body system behaves in similar fashion, and consider our internal body like an internal universe.

Then the heart heat must be able to heat the kidney water, and the heated steam rises to the heart to cool it down. The cycle repeats.

On conceptual level, Heart is Yang, and Kidney is Yin. Yin-Yang theory was formulated to explain phenomena. And such theory is used to explain deviation, like illnesses.

So what the ancient sages did was the following process : 1) Observation, 2) Making hypothesis, 3) Experiment, 4) Verification.

Now you tell me, didn’t ancients sages use their brain and use scientific methods?

If you think that ancient sages are indeed scientific in approach. Do you think the Western Medicine is not scientific?

Of course not! The key difference is ancient sages observe the nature and universe to understand how things work. Whereas Western Medicine, since the invention of microscope, they narrowly focus on what can be seen underneath the microscope, virus, bacteria etc. and use these to explain the body symptoms and illnesses. And they cut of emotions and person’s personality in their study of Western Medicine, consider them non-contributing factors.

Ancient sages preferred to understand things holistically.

Ancient sages did use their brain, ya?

This discussion involves a few key concepts which are elaborated in on-line training .
“Yin Yang 阴阳”，”Organs Functionalities 五脏六腑”， “Small Universe 小宇宙 ” ，。。。
“Words in Chinese are texts from the book YEIC, 3000 years ago.”

Welcome to enroll

Video Training on the Ancient Wisdom

黄帝内经视频课程