A Trace to the Source of Cultural Connotation of Hua Tuo Wu Qin Xi Wang Jinghao In the history of human civilization, life nurturing may be an eternal topic. Down through the ages, people exhaust themselves with perseverance exploring and seeking the way of life nurturing, desiring to reach the living state of a perfect life. Wu Qin Xi (Five-Animal Exercises) is the crystallization of Hua Tuo s explorations and practice of life nurturing. It not only made positive contributions to physical and mental health of the people in all ages, but also produced far-reaching influence on the development of body building and life nurturing methods of later ages, especially Health Qigong. It can be seen that Wu Qin Xi is of a very important status in the Chinese history of life nurturing and body building. This Article attempts to reveal the cultural mechanism contained in Hua Tuo Wu Qin Xi by taking historical materials as the clues and with reference to relevant literatures and modern theory of body building. I. Taking animals as models was due to the influence from the Outlook on Heavenly Way of Nature. The Outlook on Heavenly Way of Nature was a mainstream ideological trend of the society in the Han and Wei dynasties, and was a scientific outlook on nature produced after breaking of theological imprisonment of the Outlook on Induction between Universe and Human Being. So called Heavenly Way of Nature, means that everything has its own nature, and such natural inherent quality is their own nature, whereas acting in accordance with natural quality means conforming to the Heavenly Way, namely the law in conformity with nature. According to the Outlook on Heavenly Way of Nature, the purpose of exercise conduction exercise is to restore the natural inherent quality of human beings, namely health and longevity, because human beings are unceasingly deviating from their own natural inherent quality. If human beings want to restore it, human beings should follow the (Right) Way. Human beings correspond to similar creatures, namely, the due natural inherent quality of human beings should exist in the creatures similar to human 1
beings. Those who have the characteristics of health and longevity as well as life features similar to human beings are just those animals who can breathe. For this reason, imitating the behavioural characteristics of those animals would help human beings restore their own natural inherent quality. So my presumption based thereon is that, Hua Tuo created and designed Wu Qin Xi by taking animals as models, which was due to that he obtained enlightenment from the activity features of animals. Of course, such method of body-building conduction exercise imitating animal features did not originate from Hua Tuo. In Huainanzi therebefore, there was the conduction method for imitating activity features of six kinds of animals. As early as in Zhuangzi Ingrained Ideas, it also mentioned "bear-hanging and bird-stretching ; on a silk painting unearthed from an ancient tomb of the Han dynasty at Mawangdui, there was also a Diagram of Conduction Exercises, containing such movements imitating animals as bird, dragon and bear. Facts prove that the phenomena of biomimetic life nurturing exist universally. Similarly Hua Tuo selected imitation of animal features as the method for conduction, body building and disease treatment, which was related to the then era when people just broke the theological imprisonment of the Outlook on Induction between Universe and Human Being and a historic chance was provided for revitalization of the "Outlook on Heavenly Way of Nature. II. TCM theories are the thinking source for designing and arranging Wu Qin Xi. Hua Tuo said Human body should do labor work, but should not exhaust its energy, which, in other words, means that human beings should often put forth their strength and do movements, but should not reach their limit or do it excessively, thus can keep body health. This is the thinking of motion for nourishing life put forward against stillness. Motion-stillness relationship is just the embodiment of yin-yang relationship, while the intermediary embodying yin-yang relationship of human body is qi-blood. In the Han dynasty, the yin-yang concept became the epistemological prerequisite for formation of medical theory system. The then most typical medicine work Huangdi Neijing (Huangdi s Internal Classic) put forward that, yin-yang balance is the essence of health of human body. The yin-yang balance in human body is manifested through the condition of 2
relaxation of meridians and collaterals as well as smooth circulation of qi and blood. In case qi and blood are unsmooth and the qi of zang-fu organs and meridians were blocked for a long time, various diseases will break out. If a person desires to make his qi and blood smooth and his meridians and collaterals relaxed, he should do exercise. As Lüshi Chunqiu Jinshu(Lü s Chronicle Enjoying Natural Span of Life) pointed out, Flowing water does not rot, nor a door-hinge rust, which is due to motion. It is the same with body and qi. If body does not move, essence will not flow; if essence does not flow, qi will stagnate. This emphasizes the effects of motion. Here motion is a correction to excessive stillness, and motion is used for balancing stillness. Motion-stillness balance is also an ideological embodiment yin-yang balance. Since there is a balance between motion and stillness, there should be a proper degree of motion, or in other words, there should be an external standard. This standard is just sweating. Certainly, there is also a standard for sweating. If sweating is not thorough or human body contracts wind or dampness evil after sweating, disease will arise as well. For this reason, the exercise standard put forward by Hua Tuo is that skin should become slightly tacky due to sweating, and talcum powder should be put on skin after sweating. Talcum powder not only makes an exerciser feel comfortable, but also has the effects of astringency and disinfection, thus it can prevent the invasion of wind and dampness. Sweating is the result of motion, and is the standard for measuring the effect of motion. The effect of sweating is just to dredge meridians and collaterals, enable access between zang-fu organs and skin, and then disperse and eliminate the vacuity evil and bandit wind in human body. What should a person do If his body contracts wind evil? A important method is to adopt exercise condution to sweat so as to force wind evil out of human body. For this reason, as Hua Tuo said If a person feels uncomfortable in his body, he should stand up and do a kind of animal exercise, to the extent that his skin becomes slightly tacky due to sweating, what Hua Tuo mentioned is just the method of sweating. If people who live in the present age with an insufficient healthy qi can often manage to sweat through exercise, they would be able to avoid stubborn diseases caused by overdeep invasion of evil qi. This point was also somewhat confirmed in Zhong Zang Jing 3
(Central Treasury Classic), which mentioned that: Condution exercise can expel external evils from joints, while massage can expel excesses from muscles, If a person does not do conduction exercise when he should do so, external evil will invade his joints and make it concretionary and diffult in passage; if he does not do massage when he should do so, excesses will stay in muscles and will not disappear for a long time. It can be seen that Hua Tuo had his obvious intention of disease prevention and body building as he created and designed Wu Qin Xi. It is clear from the foregoing that Hua Tuo was a physician but applied the form of conduction exercise to cure diseases and build body, which is inseparable from the yin-yang and qi-blood theories in medicine science. III. Five-Phase Concept is the direct basis for determining five animals and its movements. The law of five phases and the opposition of yin and yang decide all relations, movements and transformations of everything in the world. Due to the driving efforts by the yin-yang school, Five-Phase Concept as a world outlook achieved rapid development, and became a dominant mode of world recognition in the Han dynasty. It can be said that, Hua Tuo managed to surpass the previous life nurturing masters and created a complete and systematic method of conduction and body building, it was inseparable from the Five-Phase mode of world cognition. (I) Taking five as the total number of items is enlightened by the Five-Phase theory. Before Hua Tuo, there was no fixed number. For instance, Zhuangzi Ingrained Ideas mentioned only two items, namely "bear hanging and bird stretching ; Huainanzi Seminal Breath and Spirit mentioned six items, namely "bear hanging, bird stretching, "wild duck bathing, monkey pawing, "strigidae glaring and tiger looking backward. According to the deduction on the basis of the age when the two items in Zhuangzi Ingrained Ideas were produced, the two items should be a product of yin-yang thinking. In other words, bear is on the earth and stands for Yin, while bird is in the sky and stands for Yang; "bear hanging" is conducted in front of the abdomen and so it stands for Yin, while "bird stretching is conducted behind the back and so it stands for Yang; bear 4
represents walking beasts, while bird represents flying birds. By analogy, "six items", "eight items" and "five items" should also be in consistency with ancient diversified cognitive schemata. However, the yin-yang and five-phase theory as the explanatory mode for explaining everything in the world was finally fixed and inherited in medicine science, but has disappeared gradually in other fields. The reason is that yin-yang and five-phase theory more correctly explained those physiological and pathological phenomena. On the contrary, "six qi" and "Eight Diagrams" failed to be inherited in medical field, because they have no higher rationality than the yin-yang and five-phase theory upon explaining physiological and pathological phenomena. Therefore, Hua Tuo created and designed Wu Qin Xi by taking five as the total number of items, which should result from his enlightenment from the five-phase theory, and should be a specific application of the mode of five-phase theory. (II) Five animals were selected according to the corresponding relationship between the physical features of five kinds of animals and the five internal organs (heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys) of human beings. As aforementioned, Hua Tuo realized that: exercise could reach both the internal and the external; wavering of human body could enable the grain qi in zang-fu organs to disappear, and promote qi-blood circulation in blood vessels, hence prevent arising of diseases. Therefore, when he selected the five kinds of animals, he should proceed from analyzing the featurs of postures and movements of animals, and then pertinently selected the animals with special significance and its characteristic movements as the objects of imitation, which was a specific embodiment of the thinking mode of Analogizing from the Similarity of the Appearances in ancient Chinese culture. Upon making selection, it also related to ancient people s dialectical thinking on "conformity and inversion". Conformity, refers to conforming to the way of nature; inversion, refers to inverting the humanizing trend of human beings themselves and returning to nature. Specifically for human body building exercise, conformity should refer to conforming to physiological rule of human body, whereas human physiological rule should be in consistency with that of animals, which we also call instinct ; inversion should refer to strenthening human's abilities which are not often applied in daily life but 5
are necessary to health and longevity, whereas such abilities can be learned and acquired from animals. Therefore, as Hua Tuo selected such five animals as tiger, deer, bear, monkey and bird, his selection should be based on the following consideration: First, he was enlightened by some biomimetic exercise methods already existing at that time. The most direct ones should be the six animals mentioned in Huainanzi. Through comparison of the five animals (namely tiger, deer, bear, monkey and bird) selected by Hua Tuo and the six animals (namely bear, bird, wild duck, monkey, strigidae and tiger) in Huainanzi, we can find that two animals wild duck and strigidae are not included in the five animals selected by Hua Tuo, and both these two animals belong to the category of birds, so we could guess that Hua Tuo might merge them into one category of bird, however, he added another animal deer. Thus, each animal represents one category. Such selection results from the fact that Hua Tuo saw the special values for body building which different animals have. Second, it was related to the then cultural concepts of pursuit for long life and life subjectivity. For instance, the selection of deer might be related to the concept that deer symbolizes longevity and auspiciousness; as for bird, its initial prototype should be crane, which might be related to such immortality concepts of flying to the sky, ascending to heaven and become immortal, and celestial beings enjoying longevity; as for tiger, it might be related to the fact that tiger is the king of animals, and symbolizes the power of deity and the domination by king s authority; as for monkey, it might be related to the fact that monkey bears a strong resemblance to mankind due to its sagacity, divinity (freedom) and humanity; as for bear, it might be related to the fact that bear is fierce and can stand up like human being. So, it can be said that, Hua Tuo saw the consistency between the physiological rule of five animals and that of human beings, therefore human beings would be able to be healthy and live a long life as long as they act according to the habits and characteristics of the five animals. This is just the thinking of conformity. Third, movements were determined on the basis of physiological conditions of human beings and for the purpose of dredging meridians and collaterals, qi-blood and sinews, and then enhancing the functions of five viscera and six bowels. Accordingly, there are 6
two logical clues: one is "the internal clue", namely searching corresponding animal characteristics with the principle of massage to five viscera and six bowels; another is "the external clue", namely searching corresponding animal characteristics with the principle of dredging meridians and qi-blood, while the key for achieving this goal is the movement of spine, because there are the ren meridian in front of spine and the du meridian behind spine, and these two meridians connect and communicate the meridians and collaterals of the whole body. The ancients had realized the importance of spinal movement, so Hua Tuo said "moving the waist", which means spinal movements by bowing forward and leaning backward. However, human body is a unity, so the two clues cannot be separated completely; while a person exercises his zang-fu organs, naturally he also exercises his spine at the same time, which is an integral process. Similarly, as Hua Tuo said exercising all the joints, it means conducting comprehensive exercise of all parts of human body. Modern physiological research argues that, a complicated nervous center runs in the spine, while its upper end connects the brainstem and its lower end connects the peripheral nerves. Exercising the spine produces stimulating action to the whole nervous system, which may result in enhancement in the nutrition effect of nerves and meanwhile may also promote the connections between nerves -- internal secretion --- immune network, so as to produce comprehensive promotive effects to human body. It can be seen that, just due to that Hua Tuo saw people did not often actively exercise their zang-fu organs and spines in daily life, but exercise of zang-fu organs and spine is very important to health and longevity, he adopted the movements imitating five animals for exercise. This is just the thinking of inversion. (III) The naming of Xi (Play or Exercise) fixed the movements of five animals as a complete formula. Xi (Play or Exercise), is related to the primary Wu (dance). Various dances with contents of imitating animal movements arising in primitive society, such as monkey dance, bird dance and bear dance, were called "Bai Shou Wu (Hundred-Animal Dance) in Shangshu (Classic of History). In the Han dynasty, Bai Xi (Hundred Plays) prevailed, while Bai Shou Wu (Hundred-Animal Dance) was integrated into Bai Xi (Hundred Plays). Zhang Heng in the Eastern Han dynasty gave relatively detailed records of the 7
Palace Hundred Plays of the Han dynasty in Xijingfu (Rhyme-prose on the Western Capital), wherein, it mentioned many false-shape plays in which people acted as animals, such as bear play, tiger play, monkey play, elephant play, peacock play, giant turtle play, large toad play and performances of acting as magical creatures. For this reason, in the Han dynasty, Xi(Play) refered in general to such activities as singing, dance and acrobatics, which were of appreciation and self-entertainment nature. Naming the movements of five animals with Xi (Exercise), aims not only to categorize Wu Qi Xi (Five-Animal Exercises) into vaudeville, but also to take Wu Qin Xi as a kind of complete form of performance, which requires to pay attention to contextuality upon performance and exercise. This can be seen from the performance of Bai Xi (Hundred Plays). Upon performance of Bai Xi (Hundred Plays), each kind of false-shape play has a set of corresponding clothing props. The animals acted by performers marched on while dancing, whereas fiery trees spewing color flames led the way in the front, and some little players with strange looking played and entertained the animals. As far as Hua Tuo s Wu Qin Xi be concerned, its contents are composed of five groups of movements with different themes, and each group of movements consists of several movements. Each group of movements can play independent roles of exercising body, just as Hua Tuo said If a person feels uncomfortable in his body, he should stand up and do a kind of animal exercise ; if a person exercises all the five groups of movements, he will achieve the effects of comprehensive body building, just as one of Hua Tuo s students, whose name was Pushi, who persisted in exercising it, and maintained normal hearing and eyesight as well as complete and solid teeth when his age exceeded ninety. It is thus clear that, Wu Qin Xi is different from the previous single movements such as bear hanging, bird stretching and strigidae glaring, and it is a kind of routine form that not only has complicated movements assembly but also has complete theoretical foundation. The features of Wu Qin Xi lie in that, practising movements in a form of Xi (Play) puts an exerciser in a context of play and performance, and organically connects postures and internal organs, body and mind as well as human and nature. The human body building effects of such exercises conducted in a natural and 8
harmonious state far surpass that of simple repetition of a single movement. For the aforesaid reasons, the fact that Hua Tuo named the Five-Animal movements with Xi is an embodiment of holistic view of the Five-Phase theory; Hua Tuo s Wu Qin Xi surpassed the entertainment sense of the Palace Hundred Plays, shifted to the field of body building and life nurturing, and fixed the five-animal movements in a complete formula, hence opening up the beginning of body building and life nurturing for later ages. 9