01 Introduction: The All-Important Vital Yuanqi

Traditional herbal medicine believes that there are two kinds of qi in the human body. One is our yuanqi (original-qi), which has many names, such as zheng-qi (positive-qi) or zhong-qi (central-qi).

The imperial physician Huang Yuanyu often calls it central-qi. In terms of wuxing (the five elements), yuanqi (original-qi) is produced by the spleen located in the center, characterized by the earth, so Huang Yuanyu called it the central-qi.
On the other hand, Taoists like to refer to yuanqi as yang-qi, and they also like to use the word Yang in their names, such as Wang-Chong-Yang, the founder of Quan-zhen-jiao, and Chun-yang-zi, a legendary fairy named Lv-dong-bin.

02 Taoist Practice and Yuanqi

Taoist practice is to cultivate this breath of yang-qi to nourish one’s own soul. In the end, the soul can separate from the body and exist independently, which is what we usually call becoming an immortal and living forever. Of course, it is almost impossible to become immortal, but through correct practice, one can indeed live a longer life and be free from all diseases, because by practicing in this way, one’s vital yuanqi is very abundant.

No matter what we call the vital yuanqi, as long as we have abundant yuanqi, evil will not conquer us. Or, as long as we have sufficient zheng-qi, evil will not conquer us. As long as we have sufficient vital yuanqi, we will not be contaminated by evil spirits. When we are sick, usually it is because of insufficient vital yuanqi or blocked meridians. The way to treat the disease is to replenish vital yuanqi and to unblock the meridians.

03 Supporting Goodness and Eliminating Evil

Our body is similar to a battlefield. Our vital yuanqi is forever fighting off the invading evil spirits. As long as the vital yuanqi is in victory, our body will be healthy.

Why do people get sick?

It can be summed up in four words:

Evil prevails over Goodness

So the principle of curing diseases is

Supporting Goodness and Eliminating Evil

We have said that the imperial medical school and the folk medical school each have their own advantages and disadvantages. The imperial medical school is good at supporting goodness, while the folk medical school is good at eliminating evil. The treatment of the imperial medical school is comparatively slow, and it does not know how to treat difficult cases. On the other hand, the treatment of the folk medical school is fast because they use very strong medicines.

However, medicines that are strong and cold and laxative will damage the foundation of our body and the cure is only temporary. Thus, they will make the body worse and worse, and finally become weak and sick. Chinese civilization has developed for thousands of years, but there are very few traditional Chinese medicine practitioners who can take into account both strengthening the body and eliminating evil. This phenomenon has a lot to do with the living conditions of imperial doctors and folk doctors.

Imperial doctors know what medicine to use, but they dare not use it under pressure from the imperial court. Folk doctors know that they need to strengthen the body, but the price of medicine for strengthening the body in ancient times was relatively expensive, and ordinary people cannot afford it. If a doctor’s medicine is more expensive than others, ordinary people will not care about strengthening the body or not, and will definitely not come to the doctor.

Imperial doctors dared not use strong medicines, and folk doctors dared not prescribe expensive medicines, which formed a strange phenomenon in ancient Chinese medicine practice, and the treatment of diseases could not take into account both the symptoms and the root causes.

But Huang Yuanyu was different. He was able to do both. Because he was born rich and had no shortage of money, even when practicing medicine among the folks, he did not have to forgo prescribing expensive medicines because of livelihood issues. When he was an imperial doctor, because he had been harmed by mediocre doctors, he would not use only Tai-ping-fang in the palace.

Huang Yuanyu prided himself as a very knowledgeable doctor who knew what he was doing. During his tenure as the imperial doctor to Emperor Qianlong, there had never been any medical malpractice issues. Thus, under various conditions, Huang Yuanyu has achieved the success he has today and became one of the few people in Chinese medicine who has mastered the essence of Chinese medicine, and knows how to strengthen the body and eliminate evil, and can apply it in practice.

Nowadays, more and more people have become richer, and they can afford to spend money on medicines to strengthen their body. As a result, more and more herbal practitioners begin to combine strengthening the foundation and eliminating evil at the same time in their practice. We repeatedly talk about strengthening the body and eliminating evil with the purpose of educating people about the importance of combining the two.

(To be continued)