Shang Han Lun Physiology Archives | White Pine Institute

Upcoming Wonderfulness

Oh, this past year! Need I say more?

And now, what a special time, with the light turning toward the new and spectacular conjunctions. I hope many of you had the chance to see the two huge planets aligned!

I look back at this past year as one of profound blessing as I’ve connected with so many in new and inspiring ways. Thank you to all of my students, colleagues, friends, animals, and family for lighting up my heart in so many ways. Now I turn to the future with tremendous excitement for what has been gestating and what is soon to be born!

On January 1, the White Pine Circle will launch. This has been a beautifully collaborative effort on behalf of all of us who love and work with traditional East Asian medicine. Please sign up to be notified of the launch here. It’s only a week away!

Until then, I invite you all to a free talk by Sally Rappaport where she will delve into a most common herbal formula, Gui Zhi Tang. I am sure you will be given a new appreciation of this formula! Not only is it useful for chronic and acute conditions, but it is also the foundation for other important herbal formulas. You can register for this talk here. […]

By Sharon Weizenbaum|2020-12-24T10:05:46-08:00December 24th, 2020|Individual Herbs, Our Courses, Shang Han Lun Physiology, White Pine Circle|0 Comments

What does 經 mean?

In the previous two posts, we discovered that these Six Thing-a-ma-jigs were first named as Jīng, 經 by Qí Bó in NèijīngSùwèn, chapter 6. Therefore, the next step in understanding what these Six Things are is to explore the meaning of 經.

To decide what any character “means”, one must look at the way it is used in different contexts and discover the consistent thread of meaning between these uses. It is virtually impossible to accurately translate 經 as one word, though we often must. For the student/practitioner, a bit of understanding of these complex meanings may expand our relationship to our medicine.

Jīng 經 is made up of the thread radical on the left and the image of water streaming below the surface on the right. A possible definition of 經 is “an underlying structure or constant flow of threads or information that is invisible or enigmatic[1], giving rise to rise to and influencing visible phenomenon.”

This broad definition covers the bases I think. Let’s check. […]

By Sharon Weizenbaum|2020-06-14T11:23:02-07:00June 14th, 2020|Books, Chinese Translation, Classic Formulas, Neijing, Our Courses, Shang Han Lun Physiology|0 Comments

What are These Six Things?

Translation of Chinese into English must be a conversation, not a conclusion. This is something I learned from my friend Sabine Wilms. Her book, Humming with Elephants, is a 340-page book on a single, short chapter five of the Huángdì Nèijīng which models this translation-as-conversation. In this text, she discusses her word choices and the context of her word choices. She also translates historic commentary on the lines in the chapter. In this way, the text invites the reader into the contemplation of the text rather than just telling us what it means. I love this! A translation is a conversation between readers past and present and the text itself.

In this spirit, soon, Sabine and I will be offering a short, four-part class on Chapter 1 of the Huángdì Nèijīng Sùwèn. This class will be a live discussion between the two of us as well as with participants as a way to, not just translate the chapter, but to bring it alive for practitioners. If all goes well, we will continue on in the text together. This way, the text is illuminated through a conversation between the two of us and the text as well as between all of us and the text. Stay tuned!

It is in the spirit of this conversation I […]

By Sharon Weizenbaum|2020-06-10T09:07:32-07:00June 10th, 2020|Books, Classic Formulas, Neijing, Shang Han Lun Physiology|1 Comment

Hu Xi-Shu, Jing Fang Doctor, on Wen Bing

Recently I was speaking to my friend and teacher, Andy Ellis about Wen Bing. He told me about a book I had not heard of. This text is by the late Dr. Hu Xi-Shu called

Understanding Warm Disease through Six Channel Differentiation of Patterns

Below is my translation of his introduction to the text with commentary. (Thank you to Sabine Wilms for helping me with the translation). This is also meant to give an introduction to two talks that are happening today in regard to working with people who are suffering from The Virus: Caroline Radice is teaching on Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Tang.(12:00 pm EST) I am speaking on San Ren Tang and Huo Po Xia Ling Tang. (3pm EST)

Dr. Hu writes:

For the purpose of elucidating the rules of transformation and the diagnostic principles of “10,000 diseases, one origin” Zhang Zhong-Jing wrote the Shang Han Lun. Thereby making clear the range of tools. (showing us our options) Therefore, I often say, “The treatment method of 10,000 diseases is already exhaustively covered in the single book, the Shang Han Lun; and yet, the treatment formulas for the 10,000 diseases , verily are not complete within this single text.

Dr. Hu is telling us plainly that, […]

By Sharon Weizenbaum|2020-04-30T12:24:59-07:00April 21st, 2020|Books, Classic Formulas, Corona Virus, Hu Xi Shu, Shang Han Lun Physiology|0 Comments

Ma Huang and Gui Zhi in the time of Covid

I am now introducing Sally Rappaport’s Talk: which will be on Monday, April 6 at 12 noon, EST. As a follow-up to my lecture from last Friday, April 3, White Pine Institute and the Shen Nong Society, with the generous help of Healthy Seminars, are offering a series of classes on the formulas mentioned in the original lecture. This free series is taught by a group of classical herbalists who are all approaching the crisis with similar foundational principles as discussed in the lecture. These talks are free and are designed to help Chinese herbal practitioners hone their skills in working with the ill patients that come to you. This is the point of view and methods we are using and having great results with. Our group is in the process of gathering our clinical results. We will keep you posted!

Sally will be giving a foundational talk on Ma Huang Tang and Gui Zhi Tang, As You’ve Never Heard Before. Though these particular formulas will not be appropriate for most presentations of Covid-19, understanding them as Sally is teaching them, is key to understanding the logic behind other very key formulas. I encourage all practitioners who are facing patients with coronavirus to register for this free lecture.

There is […]

By Sharon Weizenbaum|2020-04-05T11:59:46-07:00April 5th, 2020|Classic Formulas, Corona Virus, Individual Herbs, Shang Han Lun Physiology|0 Comments

Classical Chinese Herbal Principles in Action in Response to Covid-19: Free Talk

Good Morning!

Today, at 12:30 EST (9:30 am PST) I’ll be giving a free, online talk called Classical Chinese Herbal Principles in Action in Response to Covid-19. You can register free at this link:

https://healthyseminars.com/sharon

This lecture discusses the foundational principles a group of us are grounding ourselves in as we work with patients with the coronavirus. The treatments that follow from these principles are proving to be very helpful for those who are quite ill. This talk will be followed by a series of talks that go into the specifics about the formulas we are using, when and why.

After the talk, the recording will be available for 48 hours.

I hope you can make it!

By Sharon Weizenbaum|2020-04-03T04:04:40-07:00April 3rd, 2020|Classic Formulas, Corona Virus, Individual Herbs, Opening Through, Shang Han Lun Physiology, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Coronavirus: Does the Exterior Still Need Resolving?

In my last post, I expressed why it is so important to know if the exterior still needs resolving and I promised to let you know how I evaluate this.

Since then, a group of us are starting to work collectively sharing and helping each other with our Covid cases and finding our methods to be working very well. Without exception so far, all cases have turned for the better instead of getting worse. The principles are sound. This is very exciting.

I’ll be giving a free lecture on the principles I am referring to on Friday, April 3, at 1 pm EST. Here is a link to register for this lecture: https://healthyseminars.com/sharon. A group of us are also planning to follow-up with a series of classes about the formula patterns we are finding especially useful.

When someone comes in with an acute upper respiratory issue that has clearly gotten stuck in their chest and is getting hotter and more stuck every hour, it may be easy to think that you just need to clear heat from the lungs. However, as I discussed in the last post, it is super important to know if the exterior still needs to be resolved as well, before simply using cooling herbs, especially bitter cold herbs.

There are two important […]

By Sharon Weizenbaum|2020-03-30T12:32:21-07:00March 30th, 2020|Classic Formulas, Corona Virus, Shang Han Lun Physiology, Theory and Practice|0 Comments

Shang Han vs Wen Bing? What is Shang Han Lun Theory?

Shang Han Lun

Beware: Long Post, hopefully interesting and helpful!

To be able to treat the manifestations of Covid-19, one must understand, not just the nature of how a virus manifests in the body but also how the body works to process it and the outside world in general. In a previous post, I discussed the two vectors that are involved with the way an illness like Covid 19 manifests in the body and the idea of using herbs to help the body process it. I described health and a healthy immune system not as a function of being able to keep things or get things out, but as a function of being permeable and able to be in relationship with and able to process the things that come in from the outside world. For me, the physiology that is inherently described within the Shang Han Lun is key to being able to help a body process the world in general and a virus in particular.

I want to start this multi-post discussion with transparency as to my own bias. We all have a particular way of viewing the way the body works and how […]

By Sharon Weizenbaum|2020-03-22T08:18:53-07:00March 22nd, 2020|Classic Formulas, Corona Virus, Diagnosis, Shang Han Lun Physiology|0 Comments

Can Chai Hu Excessively Raise the Qi?

When I first learned about Chai Hu, I learned that, among other functions, it serves to “raise the Yang Qi.” In combination with Huang Qi, it is used for this purpose in Li Dong-Yuan’s Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang. Because this function has been attributed to Chai Hu, I learned that I must be very cautious using it. I could over raise the Qi. My guess is that other practitioners are familiar with this caution as well. I was under the impression that I could, in using Chai Hu, raise the pressure in a person’s upper body by sending the Yang up. Indeed, the Formulas and Strategies cautions us to avoid using Chai Hu in cases in which the liver Yang is rising pathologically. Many practitioners take this to the extreme of avoiding Chai Hu for any case of headache or hypertension. Zhang Xi-Chun cautions us in this respect as follows:

“For raising the liver, Chai Hu is the most effective. However when there is a pattern of liver not rising and stomach not descending, Ma Ya should be used instead of Chai Hu. This is because, Chai Hu not only raises the liver, it also can excessively raise the stomach Qi. On the other hand, Mai Ya can not only raise […]

By Sharon Weizenbaum|2020-01-19T07:50:27-08:00January 19th, 2020|Classic Formulas, Diagnosis, Huo Shen Pai, Individual Herbs, Li Ke, Shang Han Lun Physiology, Zhang Xi-Chun|0 Comments