Cultural Context for our Jin Jing Gong Practices
I’m presenting in this blog a short research article by Michael Stanley-Baker entitled “Indian Massage” from Sun Simiao’s Prescriptions Worth a Thousand in Gold.” In it he describes the origins of qigong or technically “daoyin” practices. Michael Stanley-Baker is a very talented Asian scholar and more about his work can be found here: https://michaelstanley-baker.com/about-me/publications/.
This article describes how daoyin practices evolved and became an integral part of Classical Chinese Medicine. While the specific 18 exercises discussed are not necessarily our JJG forms, they are closely related and the same principles apply. The important thing to remember is that JJG is a “tendon pulling qigong” and quite effective when practiced. “Jin” is tendon or any sinewy stringy material in the body. “Jing” here relates to the meridians or channels for the flow of qi and blood. We start by stretching and pulling the tendons which are major pathways in the body and then this effect subsequently goes deeper into finer tissue layers and organs of the body moving blood and qi, harmonizing excess and deficiency, returning us to our center and opening our awareness to a living connection with Heaven and Earth which is what it is all about. Connection with a living cosmos around us which in the West we call Anima Mundi. We live in a world that is alive, it is speaking to us and if we learn how to listen we will find vast wisdom within. The beauty is the body keeps the score, the body knows what is best AND there is a very powerful innate healing capacity in each one of us which these simple exercises will initiate and activate. If you have time, the references Michael lists at the bottom are excellent sources to dig deeper into these matters. Please come and join me every Tuesday and Thursday online where we practice together and bring these “Prescriptions Worth a Thousand in Gold” to life from the ease and comfort of our living rooms. Enjoy!
“Indian Massage” from Sun Simiao’s Prescriptions Worth a Thousand in Gold
by Michael Stanley-Baker
In medieval China, massage or anmo (literally, “pressing and rubbing”) was catalogued among a kind of stretching exercise called daoyin (literally, “guiding and pulling”), which is sometimes referred to in modern times as Chinese yoga. Guiding and pulling was a broad term, referring to a host of stretching exercises, sometimes quite vigorous and dynamic in tempo, or sometimes simple meditative breathing practices to circulate the breath, or qi, around the body. Chinese sources from this period predominantly do not refer to massaging other people, but to self-massage and stretching exercises contiguous with breathing and visualization practices.
A simple, practicable technique that was easy to perform, massage required no special training or technical materials. Massage practices were more accessible to the wider public than theory-bound medical arts, and circulated among a broad repertoire of methods for nourishing vitality that enabled simple self-treatment. Massage treatments for specific ailments appear as early as the second century BCE, in the Writings on Pulling. This text was excavated from a tomb in Mawangdui (in modern-day Hunan Province) which also contained the Guiding and Pulling Chart, a color chart portraying 44 different exercises. Daoyin exercises later appear in Chinese medical literature, in biographies of transcendents, Buddhist texts, and in nourishing vitality texts favoured by the elite as well as by debaters and intellectuals of the early medieval “Mystery School” philosophical movement.
The eighteen exercises translated here are given the titles “Massage techniques from India” and “Brahmanic techniques” when they first appear, in the medical encyclopedia, Prescriptions Worth a Thousand in Gold. Widely recognized as one of the major medical works of the Tang dynasty, by the fifteenth century it also came to be included in the Daoist Canon among other major medical works. Compiled by the polymath Sun Simiao (541/581-682), and submitted to the Tang court in 652, this work displays the great influence of Indian medical ideas, from Four Element theory, to a compassion-based medical ethics, to numerous foreign drugs and treatment methods. Sun’s wide-ranging repertoire further includes local Chinese drug recipes, acupuncture and moxibustion formulas, meditation and incantations, and stretching and breathing exercises, as well as sexual cultivation.
All eighteen passages from Sun’s text are quoted in Tanba no Yasunori’s Recipes at the Heart of Medicine, completed in 984. My endnotes below reflect variances between this version and Sun’s original. Twelve of these exercises also appear elsewhere under another title, “Brahmanic Guiding and Pulling” in a text which records various other nourishing vitality methods, including guiding and pulling, breathing techniques, geomancy, and lucky days. These twelve exercises are quoted yet again in a text attributed to the name Daolin. It is unclear whether this refers to the stylename of the historical Buddhist monk Zhi Dun (314–366 CE), as has been suggested, given that this text is primarily a sex manual and Buddhist monks in China were usually supposed to be celibate.
References to Brahmins in the text titles and asserted associations with Buddhist figures indicate that the massage techniques described here were very likely of Indian origin, or if not, that it was important to mark them as such for reasons of exoticism and foreign prestige. The practice of massage, as well as the preparation of the necessary clinical space and topical unguents, can be found in descriptions of the earliest Indian hospitals (ca. 100 BCE–150 CE). The appearance of numerous references to Indian massage in the Taisho Tripitika as well as in non-Buddhist writings compiled in China indicates that related methods may have been transmitted to China.
Although the exercises in the following passage are called “massage,” they consist of a variety of massage and stretching techniques to be applied on oneself, not on another person. Only entries 1, 3, and 9 use the hands to press, squeeze or hit any other part of the body. All the others involve twisting, stretching and pulling the legs, arms, head, and torso in order to stretch, work, or loosen the body. Some of the postures, such as numbers 10, 12 and 16, are remarkably close to hatha yoga postures found in the much later Hathayoga pradipika, the seminal yoga text from fifteenth century India.
Further Reading
Despeux, Catherine 1989. Gymnastics: The Ancient Tradition. In: Kohn, L. & Sakade, Y. (eds.) Taoist meditation and longevity techniques. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies University of Michigan.
Engelhardt, Ute. 1989. Qi for Life: Longevity in the Tang. In: Kohn, L. & Sakade, Y. (eds.) Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies University of Michigan.
Kohn, Livia. 2008, Chinese Healing Exercises: The Tradition of Daoyin, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
Needham, Joseph. & Lu, Gwei-djen. 1983. Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 5, Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Physiological Alchemy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
“Indian Massage” from Prescriptions Worth a Thousand in Gold
Indian [self-] massage techniques. These are Brahmanic methods.
[1.] Grip, twist and pull the two hands, as if washing them.
[2.] Lightly interlace the two hands, and turn them over so they face the chest.
[3.] The hands both grip and press the thigh. Do this equally on the left and right.
[4.] Use the hands as if pulling a four hundred kilogram bow five-shi bow. Do this equally on the left and right.
[5.] With two hands, each pushing heavily on the thighs, gently twist the body. Do this equally [towards] the left and right.
[6.] Making a fist, punch forwards. Do the same on the left and the right sides.
[7.] Make a fist and, blocking, step backwards. This opens the chest. Do this equally on the left and right.
[8.] Use the method like pushing rocks, equally to the left and right sides.
[9.] Use the hands to swing backwards and pummel the back, equally on the left and right.
[10.] Press the ground with both hands and, contracting the body and bending the spine, raise upwards three times.
[11.] With two hands clasping the head, twist and turn [downwards] towards the thighs. This pulls the flanks.
[12.] Sit in lotus position and tilt your body to the side. Lean over as if pushing a mountain aside, equally on the left and right.
[13. From] lotus position, extend the two feet, then with one foot press forward to kick onto the air. Do the same on the left and right.
[14.] With two hands prop yourself up from the ground and look backwards. This is the tiger’s glance method. Do the same on the left and right.
[15.] Standing to attention, bend backwards and then lift the body [back up] three times.
[16.] Strongly clasp the two hands together, and use the foot to step into the palms. Do the same on the left and right.
[17.] Standing to attention, kick towards the front and back. Do the same on the left and right.
[18.] From lotus, extend both feet. Use the opposite hand to hook the extended leg through the knee, and using the hands, press it. Do the same on the left and right.
The above eighteen poses are such that if even an old person can make the exceptional [effort] to perform them three times daily, after a month one will remove the various illnesses and run like a galloping horse. They strengthen and bring benefit, lengthening the years, enable one to eat, brighten the eyes, and make the body light and strong so that one is no longer fatigued.