04/12/2023
// Body as vessel //
Movement is such a vital part of self-care and is one of the pillars of preventative medicine, along with meditative practice and nutrition. Movement, like the others, is a daily practice - promoting and allowing free flow of substance within the channel and vessel pathways, establishing internal nourishment, and regeneration of qi, blood, and fluids. Daoyin 導引, guiding and pulling, is a very simple and preliminary practice with numerous techniques with deep, controlled, and even breathing methods. As the Zhubing yuanhou lun (諸病源候論) states: "the practice consists of drawing together in one's body all the bad, the pathogenic, and the malevolent qi. Then one follows them, pulls them in, and guides them to leave forever. This is why it is called daoyin." (Trans. Despeux, '89).
The true focus of Daoyin is, of course, longevity, and it acted as a self imposed health check for those that lived in solitude in the wilderness. One of the earliest references comes from the Zhuangzi of the 3rd century BCE "To repair to the thickets and ponds, living idly in the wilderness, angling for fish in solitary places, inaction his only concern - such is the life favoured by the scholar of the rivers and seas, the man who withdraws from the world, the unhurried idler. To pant, to puff, to hail, to sip, to spit out the breath and draw in the new, practicing bear-hangings and bird-stretchings, longevity his only concern - such is the life favoured by the scholar who practices induction (daoyin), the man who nourishes his body, who hopes to live to be as old as Pengcu" (Watson 2013).
For those interested I have been studying Daoyin for 27 years, and incorporating it into my clinical practice for 20 years. Feel free to reach out to learn more of this amazing self care tool.
📸 Daoyin Tu of the Mawangdui manuscripts.
