The Intersection of Body, Self-cultivation and Medical Practice in the Early Chinese Philosophical Classics: A Phenomenological Investigation

Sophia Day

B Arts (Hons); B CompSci

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy, School of Humanities and Social Science, The University of Newcastle, Australia

This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship

June, 2020 Statement of Originality

I hereby certify that the work embodied in the thesis is my own work, conducted under normal supervision. The thesis contains no material which has been accepted, or is being examined, for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made. I give consent to the final version of my thesis being made available worldwide when deposited in the University’s Digital Repository, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 and any approved embargo.

Sophia Day

17th June, 2020

Sophia Day i University of Newcastle Abstract

The fundamental principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) – outlined in medical classics like the , Nan and – were developed concurrently with a self-cultivation tradition that promoted physical, mental and spiritual refinement as a path to health and longevity. Each of these two traditions influenced the other in numerous respects, and each sprang from a broader intellectual milieu informed by the Chinese philosophical tradition. This dissertation will argue that the key to understanding the foundations of both the medical and self-cultivation traditions lies in the conception of the human body found in primarily Daoist philosophical classics like the Daodejing, Zhuangzi, and other texts – a conception that significantly differs from classical understandings of the human body in the West. The investigations into this distinctive understanding of the body will draw upon the phenomenology of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty in a comparative philosophical analysis, arguing that they can provide a useful tool for bridging the considerable gap in understanding between the two traditions. The dissertation will proceed with an exploration of numerous issues of classical Daoist cosmology, metaphysics, perception and bodily skill, demonstrating how each of these influences a distinctive approach toward the human body and its relationship with the world. It will then trace the subsequent development of this understanding of the body, examine its connection to health, disease and self-cultivation, and finally demonstrate how it allows portions of the medical classics to be read with a revitalized understanding.

Sophia Day ii University of Newcastle Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 1

Three-way Junction ...... 2

Part One ...... 12

1. Phenomenology and the Lifeworld ...... 13

2. Body, Skill and Perception ...... 26

Part Two ...... 46

3. The Immanent Dao ...... 47

4. The Rhythm of Nature ...... 60

5. The Wandering of the Shenren ...... 74

6. Acuity ...... 85

7. Cook Ding’s Dao ...... 99

Part Three ...... 119

8. De and the Zhenren ...... 120

9. The Harmonious Dance ...... 142

10. Nurturing Perception ...... 171

11. Harmony and Disharmony in the Body ...... 196

Part Four ...... 217

12. Yangsheng and Medicine ...... 218

13. The Physician’s Dao ...... 235

Conclusion ...... 251

Harmonious Integrations ...... 252

References ...... 261

Sophia Day iii University of Newcastle

Introduction

Sophia Day 1 University of Newcastle Three-way Junction

The influence of the philosophical classics of the Zhou, Qin and Han dynasties on the foundational texts of traditional Chinese medicine are extensive and far reaching; indeed, some of the most fundamental issues found in medical classics like the Huangdi Neijing are motivated by the broader philosophical concerns of the era. This is especially true of the Suwen (‘Basic Questions’), the first of the two books comprising the Huangdi Neijing. As pointed out by Judith Farquhar, ‘the imagery and phrasing of many other contemporaneous philosophical works are embodied in Basic Questions (in its fully compiled versions) without attribution. And the medical insights recorded in Basic Questions have much in common with those of more renowned philosophical texts’ (1994, p. 23). In particular, these insights exhibit many of the features of the Daoist conception of the human body and its relationship with a dynamic, transformative cosmos. Furthermore, the Suwen shares an understanding of bodily self- cultivation practices with philosophical texts like the Huainanzi, Chunqiu Fanlu and Zhuangzi, often treating these practices as an inseparable issue from medicine itself. Indeed, Robin R. Wang identifies this link between medicine and bodily cultivation as a natural consequence of the early medical tradition’s focus on maintaining bodily health:

… early traditional Chinese medicine is primarily oriented toward the healthy functioning of the body as a complex system, rather than focusing on removing the elements of illness. From that orientation, it is not surprising that attempts to further cultivate the body overlap and are difficult to distinguish from the practices of medicine. (Wang 2012, p. 184)

Because these interrelated traditions of self-cultivation and medicine are both grounded in a particular understanding of the human body as a complex system, it is helpful to understand precisely what this conception of the body entails. Once again, this is an issue heavily explored in the philosophical classics and intrinsically connected to numerous other philosophical concerns, both personal and cosmic: ‘… the pondering of ultimate questions about existence in has always been intertwined with

Sophia Day 2 University of Newcastle thinking through the body… The body partakes of the shape and logic of the cosmos, and the body can express the entirety of creation and cosmic change’ (Wang 2012, p. 185). The dynamics of the body itself are inherently connected to the broader dynamics of the cosmos, and texts like the Daodejing, Zhuangzi and Huainanzi demonstrate how neither body nor cosmos can be properly understood in isolation from each other. The interconnectedness of the early medical and self-cultivation traditions – with each other, and with numerous philosophical issues – is the project of this dissertation. It will investigate the three interrelated issues of body, self-cultivation and medical practice found in the philosophical classics and Huangdi Neijing, demonstrating how the self- cultivation and medical traditions can only be understood in light of a particular conception of the body and its relationship with a dynamic, constantly-transforming world.

In order to understand the importance and uniqueness of the early Chinese philosophical tradition’s conception of the human body, it is helpful to draw a comparison with some of the ways the body has been understood in the Western tradition. According to Gabrielle Jackson (2010, p. 63-65), the most prevalent conception of the human body employed in contemporary Western thought still contains influences from René Descartes, particularly his notion of the corps mécanique ('mechanical body'). Descartes first forms this understanding of the body in the Sixth Meditation, where he contrasts the non-thinking and extended body with the thinking and non-extended mind (Descartes 1984b, p. 54). Aside from maintaining the distinctness of the mind, he also argues for its essentialness. The mind is the essence of the self or ‘I’, and its distinctness leads to Descartes’ conclusion that the self can be considered in a way that is wholly independent from the body. The body is a thing that the mind has: an intricate external object in the world, functioning in a mechanistic fashion and according to the laws of causation. He highlights this by comparing the body with a clock:

... a clock constructed with wheels and weights observes all the laws of its nature just as closely when it is badly made and tells the wrong time as when it completely fulfils the wishes of the clockmaker. In the same way, I might consider the body of a man as a kind of machine equipped with and made up of bones, nerves, muscles, veins, blood and skin in such a way

Sophia Day 3 University of Newcastle that, even if there were no mind in it, it would still perform all the same movements as it now does in those cases where movement is not under the control of the will or, consequently, of the mind. (Descartes 1984b, p. 58)

Whilst Descartes argued that rationality and language were exclusively governed by the mind, he considered the functions of the corps mécanique to account for all other aspects of human experience: the workings of the organs, the emotions, bodily movement and the intake of information by the senses (Descartes 1984a, p. 108). Each of these functions are governed by different mechanisms in the body, all interrelating and forming what Lawrence Hass (2008, p. 76) describes as an overall 'mechanistic object'. Hass argues that although the scientific explanations Descartes offers concerning these functions have become out-dated and replaced in contemporary science, simply changing the science alone does not alter the underlying ontology of the corps mécanique (2008, p. 79-80). The body would continue to remain a mechanistic object whose functions are reflexive responses to external forces, just like any other mechanical object:

... throughout this heritage the body is essentially passive, activated by forces on the peripheral “receptors” that go on to trigger a global response. Indeed, on this image all body activity is truly only re- activity; it is a complex sum of reflexes and conditioned responses to the “environment.” (Hass 2008, p. 80)

Jackson (2010, p. 65) argues that this underlying ontology of the corps mécanique did not receive extensive critique until the arrival of philosophers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilbert Ryle in the twentieth century, who articulated non-mechanistic approaches to the body. Part of this dissertation will aim to show how Merleau-Ponty (and a broader phenomenological background drawn from Edmund Husserl) offers the language and frameworks for fruitful comparative analyses with the body in the Daoist philosophical classics.

The conception of the body found in the Daoist classics emerges from two particular themes commonly explored in the texts, the first of which is the cultivation of bodily skill. This is most famously found in the Zhuangzi, where several stories about the cultivation of skill – like the story of Cook Ding – imply an underlying framework for understanding

Sophia Day 4 University of Newcastle the body. These ‘skill stories’ focus on characters that employ skills with a particular aptitude and, in some cases, transcend what might be considered ordinary skill altogether (Lee H. Yearley 1996, p. 163-164). This is interpreted by Yearley (1996, p. 175- 176) as the cultivation of a transcendent drive, one that results in an ideal spiritual state. Edward Slingerland (2000. p. 310-311) shares the view that characters like Cook Ding represent a certain type of spiritual cultivation, but emphasizes that this arises from their skilful efficacy bringing them into alignment with the larger cosmic order of dao. Robert Eno (1996, p. 135-138), on the other hand, argues that characters like Cook Ding achieve a more prosaic (and not necessarily mystical) efficacy that arises from persistent practice. He argues that they form a type of practical wisdom to which the Zhuangzi affords a certain primacy, explicitly elevating it above theoretical forms of knowledge. This type of distinction between theoretical and practical knowing in the Zhuangzi has sometimes been compared with Ryle’s distinction between ‘knowing that’ and ‘knowing how’ (e.g. Paul Kjellberg 1996, p. xx; Philip J. Ivanhoe 1993, p. 648; Angus C. Graham 1983, p. 7, Yong Huang 2010, p. 1064-1065). The discussion of skill in this dissertation, however, will argue that stories like Cook Ding’s describe a type of direct, bodily engagement with the world through which mastery can flourish, one that can be fruitfully compared with Merleau-Ponty’s accounts of practical knowledge, skill acquisition and the relationship between the body and world more broadly.

Another issue that is critical to the classical Daoist understanding of the body is human perception, a topic discussed extensively throughout several texts (including the Daodejing, Zhuangzi, Huainanzi and others). Each advance an ongoing theme about the fundamental vagueness and indeterminacy of the phenomenal world, whilst emphasizing a form of perception that apprehends this world as it is – without projecting theoretical discriminations onto the received flow of experience. Furthermore, they emphasize a fundamental link between the body and perception whilst grounding perceptual acuity in the body’s physiological workings. As noted by Wang (2012, p. 186), this implies that cultivating the body alters the person’s perception of the world; indeed, this forms an important part of the Huainanzi’s self-cultivation project to be examined in later chapters of the dissertation. Finally, texts like the Zhuangzi and Huainanzi emphasize that the various types of perceptual efficacy form an integrated whole across the sense-organs,

Sophia Day 5 University of Newcastle such that they cannot be fully conceived in isolation from one another. For all of these issues, the phenomenology of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty is once again a fruitful point of comparison – particularly their consideration of the fundamental, perspectival, lived experience of the lifeworld (lebenswelt), along with Merleau-Ponty’s discussions of bodily unity and the way in which the perceived world is mediated and sustained by the body. Each of these will serve to highlight a broader theme in the about the bodily engagement of the person with the world, an issue that is critical to understanding the foundations of the self-cultivation tradition and traditional Chinese medicine, as well.

The investigation of self-cultivation will centre on the philosophical roots of the yangsheng (‘nourishing life’ 養生) tradition, broadly defined as a complex of techniques for physical cultivation and longevity. Vivienne Lo (2001, p. 19-51) discusses how numerous practical manuals describing such techniques – including physical exercises, diet, breathing exercises and sexual practices – were produced during the Western Han dynasty, and examines the links between several of these texts and the Huangdi Neijing. However, many of these techniques are embedded within a broader approach to life found in the Daoist philosophical classics. For example, the first known usage of the term yangsheng (養生) is found in the Zhuangzi (within the aforementioned story of Cook Ding), whilst descriptions of various longevity techniques appear in its fifteenth chapter (Ute Engelhardt 2000, p. 75-76). These descriptions are akin with the techniques found in other philosophical and medical classics:

This passage already has the names of various breathing techniques and the first mention of breathing exercises, therapeutic gymnastics and other arts of the body. It is a classical passage, whose ideas, in more detail and technical application, appear in various medical manuscripts found from the late Warring States and Qin periods as well as in later texts, both Daoist and medical. (Engelhart 2000, p. 75-76)

Harold D. Roth (1999, p. 122) points out that many of these techniques also appear in the Neiye chapter of the Guanzi compendium (arguing that the Neiye is their earliest known example), whilst the Han dynasty Huainanzi and Chunqiu Fanlu include specific chapters focused on them. Rather than forming an argument about scriptural lineage and

Sophia Day 6 University of Newcastle influence, however, this dissertation will instead focus on demonstrating the resonance between the yangsheng (養生) tradition and the Daoist philosophical classics; more specifically, it will show how the practices of yangsheng (養生) can only be rendered coherent when considered within the specific Chinese approach to the body and its relationship with the cosmos.

The manner in which the philosophical classics understand both the body and yangsheng (養生) bears a relationship with the foundational principles of traditional Chinese medicine as well. Lo (2001, p. 19-49) argues that the authors of the classical medical treatises – like the Huangdi Neijing – adopted concepts from yangsheng (養生) manuals, noting similarities in their approaches to anatomy and specific therapeutic techniques. However, the Huangdi Neijing also employs broader, underlying concepts from the Daoist philosophical classics, many of which are critical to the practice of yangsheng (養生). These include an emphasis on harmonizing with the natural rhythms, responding to seasonal and circadian cycles with appropriate timing (shi 時), remaining sensitive to the resonances (ganying 感應) between phenomena in the body and nature (and indeed, recognizing a broader microcosmic/macrocosmic connection between the two) and a focus on producing a harmonious balance among different elements of the bodily structure. Furthermore, the Huangdi Neijing shares an important insight found in philosophical classics like the Huainanzi and Chunqiu Fanlu; this is the notion that health and disease in the body are governed by underlying yinyang transformations, just like the changes found in the rest of the natural world. The yinyang transformations of the body are the ‘root’ of all health and disease, and it is necessary for the physician to understand their rhythm in order to successfully diagnose and treat the patient (Paul U. Unschuld & Hermann Tessenow 2011, vol. 1, p. 95). Finally, the Huangdi Neijing describes the traits of the physicians in idealized terms that echo the Zhuangzi and Huainanzi’s descriptions of figures like the sage and ‘genuine person’ (zhenren 真人). In particular, the cultivation of their skills and trained diagnostic eye follow a path comparable to the sage and zhenren’s path of self-cultivation in the Daoist classics, especially in the way these efficacies emerge through the physician’s broader harmonization with the yinyang rhythms of nature. It is through an investigation of these issues that the connection

Sophia Day 7 University of Newcastle between the body, yangsheng (養生) and the foundations of traditional Chinese medicine can be explored in the classics.

The groundwork for subsequent discussions of the body, yangsheng (養生) and medicine will begin to be laid in Part One, which focuses on phenomenological concepts useful for comparatively exploring the body in the Daoist classics. Chapter 1 (‘Phenomenology and the Lifeworld’) will examine several fundamental issues in the phenomenology of Husserl, including human experience in the ‘natural attitude’, the lifeworld (lebenswelt) and the relationship between predicative and pre-predicative experience. Particular emphasis will be placed on Husserl’s argument that abstract, theoretical knowledge (as found in the sciences) is grounded upon – and abstracted from – our more fundamental, perspectival experiences of the lifeworld. This leads to an examination of Husserl’s understanding of the relationship between the embodied self and the world, in which the body is an ever- present, essential feature of all human perception. Chapter 2 (‘Body, Skill and Perception’) will examine how Merleau-Ponty built upon this foundation whilst simultaneously critiquing it, arguing that the person does not ‘have’ a body that merely happens to mediate all experience; instead, they are their body and cannot be conceived apart from it. By exploring the way in which the lived body engages with the world, he comes to argue that the body responds to the environment without the aid of explicit, conscious direction through its capacity for motor skills. Merleau-Ponty’s discussions of how the body acquires motor skills, develops them, incorporates them as habits and appropriates tools and instruments is particularly impactful to forming his position on the unity of the body; this is the notion that the body’s tactile, visual and motor functions work toward common goals without the need for explicit coordination. This understanding of the body implies other consequences for Merleau-Ponty as well, including the way in which the body mediates all sensory perception and allows the experience of different senses to be unified into a common meaning. All of these issues provide a vocabulary and framework that is particularly useful for examining the way the Chinese philosophical classics conceptualize the body in later chapters.

The Chinese philosophical tradition will begin to be engaged in Part Two, with an emphasis on how the Daodejing and Zhuangzi provide a background – and rationale – for

Sophia Day 8 University of Newcastle the later explorations of the body. Chapters 3 (‘The Immanent Dao’) and 4 (‘The Rhythm of Nature’) will begin by exploring the conception of the cosmos that appears in both texts, focusing on their discussions of dao and a dynamic, transformative world that is fundamentally pervaded with rhythm – the rhythmic changes of . It is within this dynamic world of rhythmic yinyang transformation that we find the person – not just located within it, but inextricably linked with it. This relationship between the person and a dynamic cosmos is a central issue for the Zhuangzi more broadly, especially in how a harmony with the natural rhythms promotes self-cultivation, allows the person to perceive with greater acuity and allows them to respond to situations with greater flexibility. Chapters 5 (‘The Wandering of the Shenren’) and 6 (‘Acuity’) will examine how the Zhuangzi forms some of these foundational ideas by starting with a discussion of knowledge; more specifically, a critique of theoretical and conventional knowledge as a means for approaching the world. This critique ultimately motivates an alternative approach, one that leverages practical efficacy from mental stillness, vagueness and indeterminacy. The discussion of this alternative approach comes to full fruition in Chapter 7 (‘Cook Ding’s Dao’), which examines the story of Cook Ding the butcher – a character who finds the highest levels of practical efficacy in an approach that avoids discrete, conscious direction in favour of non-coercive action (wuwei 無爲). Furthermore, his story demonstrates the role of bodily skills and movement in the person’s harmonization with the yinyang rhythms of dao, and why this connects to both the person’s cultivation of practical efficacy and the nourishment of life (yangsheng 養生) as well.

The connection between the body and yangsheng (養生) is explored in Part Three, with Chapter 8 (‘De and the Zhenren’) focusing on how the efficacy (de 德) of dao is realized in the Zhuangzi’s idealized sage and ‘genuine person’ (zhenren 真人). By harmonizing with the yinyang rhythms of dao, these idealized figures manage to cultivate de (德) and achieve a full, healthy lifespan. The sage and zhenren (真人) are explored further in Chapter 9 (‘The Harmonious Dance’), which examines how the Outer Chapters of the Zhuangzi increasingly come to physiologize their process of self-cultivation – framing it in terms of the mechanics between different elements of the bodily structure. Furthermore,

Sophia Day 9 University of Newcastle it demonstrates the Zhuangzi’s view that the cultivations of de (德), yangsheng (養生), perceptual acuity and even efficacy in the social realm all form part of a unified, integrated path of self-cultivation. The way in which these themes are expanded in the Huainanzi (and some other texts) is explored in the next two chapters, with Chapter 10 (‘Nurturing Perception’) focusing specifically on the connection between bodily cultivation and perceptual acuity. By emphasizing concepts like timing (shi 時), resonance (ganying 感應) and the primacy of internal (nei 內) cultivation, the Huainanzi provides a more detailed account of how figures like the zhenren (真人) come to achieve a certain type of penetrating insight – a trait that will later come to characterize the ideal physician as well. Finally, Chapter 11 (‘Harmony and Disharmony in the Body’) examines how the Huainanzi grounds its discussions of yangsheng (養生) upon a detailed physiological framework that attempts to account for physical, mental, emotional and psychological health. This framework is centred on the connection between concepts like the physical shape (xing 形), (氣) and shen (神), and provides a means for understanding human health through the relative harmony or disharmony of their dynamic relationships. The result is an overall approach to bodily health that is thoroughly grounded upon the philosophical tradition that came before, employing their particular conception of the human body and its relationship to the cosmos.

The final two chapters of the dissertation form Part Four, and examine how the Huangdi Neijing explores the relationship between body, yangsheng (養生), medicine and the practice of the physician. First, Chapter 12 (‘Yangsheng and Medicine’) begins by demonstrating how the discussions of bodily health in the Huangdi Neijing heavily resonate with similar discussions in the Daoist philosophical classics, whilst significantly developing many of the crucial concepts as well. These developments include more detailed accounts of the body’s physiological workings, the origins of disease and the role and function of medical interventions. Finally, Chapter 13 (‘The Physician’s Dao’) investigates the Huangdi Neijing’s depictions of the physicians themselves, with a focus on the traits that characterize the ideal or master physician. These physicians share certain traits with the sage and zhenren (真人) in the Daoist classics, with the chapter focusing on three examples: their perceptual acuity, skilful hands and a pre-emptive

Sophia Day 10 University of Newcastle approach to dealing with difficult issues. Investigating the Huangdi Neijing’s descriptions of these traits alongside the Huainanzi, Zhuangzi, Daodejing and other texts demonstrates how the master physician follows their own, personal path of self- cultivation. This is a unified and integrated path that involves the nourishment of life (yangsheng 養生) and a heightening of their physical, mental and perceptive capabilities, just as it did for the sage and zhenren (真人). What this will serve to show is that the idealized physician of the Huangdi Neijing is a figure thoroughly embedded within the Daoist philosophical tradition, and the descriptions of their medical practice are particularly enriched when considered in the light of the classical Daoist conceptions of the body and yangsheng (養生).

Sophia Day 11 University of Newcastle