The Chinese view of the world in trigrams and its application in Acupuncture

In the western world, acupuncture has been given a bad press, because it has been – and it still is – proposed mainly in terms that modern science considers unacceptable.
Firstly, modern science finds unacceptable the rather archaic and bizarre language used in most of the western texts which promulgated it in the last 30 years. Sentences like: “Yin-Yang…”, “Perverse energies”, “Fire of the liver” …”Heart governor” and, last but not least “Multicoloured dragons” make contemporary scientists cringe and discourages them from even considering paying any attention to the teachings proposed by Chinese Medicine. A close look at the Chinese bibliography written both in ancient and more recent times shows how this terminology, rather than being an invention of some romantic westerners, forms the essential linguistic patrimony of most Chinese classics. Secondly, the theory of Acupuncture has not evolved much over the centuries and it is still essentially based on compilations written over 3.500 years ago!
Both the above reasons are at the core of much criticism and lack of credibility wedged at it by the scientific world.  
Recent studies applied to Acupuncture, however, have shown how the language used in the transmission of the traditional data is nothing else, but a ‘codified message’ formulated in a very cryptic terminology, according to the rules of ancient Taoist thought. From this perspective, assertions such as: “The Spleen is yellow and it is an organ of digestion” or “The liver is green and it pertains to wood”, which at first sight cannot be taken seriously by the western scientific world, should not be rejected, but put to the test of serious analytic procedures aimed at decoding the message hidden in them. In this way, their content can be gradually revealed.
Thermodynamic energetic applied to trigrams  and further to the concepts dear to traditional acupuncture, allows us not only to understand the effects of acupuncture, but also to decode traditional data and, most importantly, to develop many new areas of research. In the last 30 years, this method has become one of the main ones for the study and understanding of Chinese acupuncture and forms one of the two main branches of contemporary teachings worldwide, namely the school informed by the traditional approach and the schools of contemporary energetic applied to acupuncture.

The Chinese view of the world in trigrams and its application in Acupuncture

 By reading the trigrams as a modality of binary writing and by giving to the Yang line the value ‘1’ and to the Yin the value ‘0’,  the trigrams can be read as follows:

This indicates a continuous and regular increase of the value (potential) form the Great Yin (0)  to the Great Yang (7).   The value of the potential proceeds thus in the contrary order to that of the trigrams: from Yin to Yang.

The above circular arrangement of the Eight Trigrams (BAGUA) is attributed to Fu Xi, a mythical emperor, founder fo the Xian dynasty (2000 a.c.).

"During Fu Xi’s kingdom, a dragon-horse carrying a diagram on his back came out of a river. ...This was when Fu Xi firstly drew the Eight Trigrams” (Lei Jing)   "Looking up to Heaven  Fu Xi discerned its  its signs and lookind down to Earth he, then, understood their meaning".

They revealed the ‘Arrangement of Primordial Heaven’, also called ‘Pre-Heaven’  (Xian Tian). ‘Arrangement’ because it represents the gereral order of the energies, ‘Heaven’ because it is a referent of the  ‘Universe’ and ‘Primordial’ because it represents the root graphic, on the grounds of which are built subsequent ones.
It is interesting to notice how Fu Xi deduced this arrangement from a geocentric stand point, as the wording “Raising the eyes to Heaven and  lowering them to Earth” suggests.
Based on this graphic are  several derivations, representing the ‘mystery’ from which life comes into being and whose regualting laws are  to be found in Heaven. The Fu Xi’s graphic represent thus, the way of Heaven whereas the ‘Eight Trigrams’ the  Eight  ‘Wise Men’, who know Heaven’s mystery as well as the Eight Primordial Energies.

1-3 The scientific validity of Fu Xi’s graphic

The analytic study of modern energetic leads to a particular graphic: a circle symmetrically ordered around the number eight and supporting eight relational stages expressed in binary form (from 0 to 7). The whole graphic is oriented starting from the value 111 (7) on the top, the South.

 If this represents the original organisation of the referent ‘Heaven’ and, as such, it is at the origins of every living system (always within the limits of our knowledge), then it should be possible to integrate the  laws of the biochemistry of living systems within it.  

These considerations give rise to an interesting working hypothesis:

“If it is true that this graphic represents the order of the system-Universe, by arranging over it the four pillar of the organic molecules ( hydrogen, nitrogen, oxigen and carbon) we should be able to find the specific knowldge at the foundation of  all known living systems.

By applying consistently the rules of the movement of the internal spiral, it becomes possible to outline complete trajectories according to three orbits, so to reconstruct the levels of each relational state.  This procedure leads to the observe that, on the three orbit on the negative side of the spiral movement (named structure) appears the chemical structure C5-H5-N5 (adenine) and C5-H5-N5-0  (guanine), which are two vital nucleotides. The same procedure leads also to observe the appearence of another two nucleotides:  C5-H6-N2-O2 (thimine) and C4- H5-N3-O (cytosine).
On the whole, the negative part of the graphic supports four vital nucleotides, wheresas in the  positive one appears the ‘uracile’ (C4-H4-N2-O2) in the southern  and eastern positions.

This is  a highly  selective procedure, as it excludes totally the probability of ‘causal exits’ .

The above are also the initial keys that allow us to penetrate genetics and understand the logic at the basis of chemical evidence.
A simple analysis that extends the symmetry to the four nuclotides uncovers immediately the code of complementarity between A-T and G-C:  the biochemical key of the genetic code!
What, however, is reallly amazing is that this code, which looks incredibly contemporary, is in reality extraordinarely ancient and  corresponds directly to the ‘Primordial Heavenly Arrangement’  of Fu Xi, where the ‘Eight Relational States’ are here expressed by a sequence of ‘lines’ (value ‘1’) and non-lines (value ‘0’) or, in other words, by  trigrams; the Eight Trigrams are the Ba Gua or, in other words, the ‘Eight Wise Men’, who knew the mystery of Heaven....
The Eight Trigrams of the system of Fu Xi  relate continuously and gradually to each other. This system, thus, allows for all kind of possible relationships to be formed amongst trigrams. This is, ultimately, how it is possible to arrive to a total  of 64 (8 X 8)  possible combinations.
It is, however, fundamental to try to come to an orderly transcription of these combinations (rather than a chaotic one): an order  that is automatically imposed by the spiral movement.
To this scope it suffices to start from the trigram-value that  begins the movement: 000. This acts as a common denominator, whereas the other values as  numerators, according to the spiral trajectory.
 

NUM.             000      001      010      011      100      101      110      111

DENOM.       000      000      000      000      000      000      000      000

In this way we exhaust all the possible readings with denominator 000 (denominator). The next stage consists in substituting the 000 denominator with the value following it in the spiral movement, namely: 001. 

NUM.             001      010      011      100      101      110      111      000

DENOM.       001      001      001      001      001      001      001      001

When this procedure is repeated to the exhaustion of all the possible logical combinations, the last sequence will, thus, have 111 as denominator. Eight sequences of eight combinations give 64 orderly possibilities. 

Thus, two figures emerge:
One according to horizontal lines, each qualified by a common denominator. Every line supports, therefore, eight possible combinations, creating thus a square with 64 orderly trigrams.

Another, which derives from the first one, where the sequences of the eight combinations are written according to the spiral order.

As this dispostion is circluar, it pertains to Heaven and surrounds the square (Earth) in the middle.
This representations is nothing else but the Fu Xi diagram and, as it expresses all its possible permutations, it represents the Perfection of Heaven.
This line of thought leads to the Great Table of the Yi Ching, the ‘Book of mutations’ known as a divination text which hides, in reality, one of the most interesting field of modern reserch: the study of life’s mechanisms. 
This graphic is strictly connected to what has been said overleaf with reagrds to  the vital nucleotides; from here are born twice four sequences of 8 exagrams each and four nucleic basis (C-U-A= G) forming the 64 DNA codons!
At this point, it becomes possible to conclude with Pien Zi, a famous doctor  (as significant for medicine in the east as Hyppocrates in the west) that:
“There is nothing magic, everything corrresponds to the body as the shadow does , to the drum as the srums steak does. ...the only disease that cannot be cures is to believe in magic and superstition...”

The six energies

The ‘Nei Jing’, paragraph 293 (Philastre)states:
"The place of Gua (Trigram) Qian is midday, that of the Gua Kun is North, of the Gua Li is  East, of the Gua Kan is West, of the Gua Zhen is  North-East, of the  Gua  Xun is south-west, of the Gua Gen is North-West and of the Gua  Dui is South-East”.

The trigrams can be arranged with one of the four cardinal and sub-cardinal coordinates always with reference to an observer standing on Earth ( in this case in the centre of the circle), who faces the location of the culmination of the solar referent  known as South.  

"South" and "North’ represent respectively Heaven (Great Yang) and Earth (Great yin). Yin and Yang are, however, only conceptual reference points as ‘truth’ is to be found somewhere in the middle:
“Heaven and Earth, according to the top and bottom reference points separate left and right,  so Qian and Kun form the vertical axis with Six Children at their sides” (Nei Jing).
Thus, emerges another very important notion on which acupuncture is based: from the Union of Heaven and Earth are born "Six Energies": three Yin and three yang...("six children")....
This is not all as, by forming two groups of three trigrams each, it becomes evident that the group on the right pertains to  ‘Yin’, as it has a Yin line at the base, whereas the group on the left, to  the ‘Yang’. (Yang trigrams).  The ‘pathway’ of ‘YinYang’ is therefore lateral in relation to the ‘Heaven-Earth’ vertical axis:
“Heaven and Earth are above and at their side is the path of yin-yang" (Nei Jing, cap. 68)
Last, by examining the decimal value of the trigrams, the YinYang pathway starts from the lower value (Yin) and ends with the highest one (Yang):

The propagation of this potential, in addition, shows that the three trigrams Yin rotate anticlockwise, from right to left. Thus, as the apparent movement of the sun  is regarded as positive, the three trigrams Yin are seen as negative. On the contrary, the three trigrams Yang rotate with the solar referent and are, thus, regarded as ‘positive’ .

Conclusions
Energetics explains and develops concepts of traditional Chinese Acupuncture according to an approach based on thermodynamic physics and continuously verified by contemporary science.  With energetic it becomes possible to understand the scientific meaning hidden behind traditional concepts transmitted through the centuries, as  in a codified analogical system
This teaching can help  to solve what appear to be the problems of credibility that acupuncture faces today, by removing it from a strictly traditional Chinese realm and allocating it a place in its own right within the realm of the disciplines of the third millennium.
Franco Menichelli