Methods of Analysis in Chinese Terms

Methods of analysis in Chinese terms - the Six Divisions, the Eight Trigrams, the Ten Heavenly Stems, the Twelve Earthly Branches, the Twenty-four Solar Periods, to name but a few.

Volumes have been written on these aspects by scholars in dynasty after dynasty as the Chinese refined their understanding of Qi/energy and its different qualities.

In this, medicine (the study of Man) was seen as just one branch of the whole study of Nature - which when looking up is also the study of the Heavens and when looking down is also the study of the Earth.

Everywhere the same principles were found, manifest in different ways, and a discovery in one field could be used by analogy in another.

This seems likely to occur again as the discoveries - and implications - of modem physics meet the poetic images of the ancient Chinese world view.

The map that will help to chart the 'field' - to use a physicist's term - already exists in the old Chinese compass that analyses in depth the different qualities of Qi/energy in the full circle.
 
Fortunately, for an overview of the system, we can stick to fundamentals: that the unity is in the Dao — a ceaseless natural flow; that this unity must manifest itself through Yin/Yang - upper/lower, outside/inside, dark/light and so on.

That further division of this unity produces the Five Elements or Phases, five keynotes or qualities that can be seen in all things and under which the Organs and parts of the body arc classified in medicine, as shown in the Tables of Correspondences.