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Hoping someone can explain Kidney Yin and Kidney Yang as I dont find what Ive read in various books and articles to be desperately clear.
My starting point was Giovanni Maciocias The Foundations of Chinese Medicine, apparently a leading TCM text.
Maciocia likens the kidneys to a cauldron. His text is ambiguous but he appears to suggests that the cauldron contains a combination of Kidney Jing and Kidney Yin, that the cauldron is heated by a combination of Kidney Yang and the Gate of Life (Ming Men), and that the result of this heating is Kidney Qi.
At any rate, Maciocia appears to regard Kidney Jing, Yin, Yang and Qi and Ming Men as distinct entities. However, rather unhelpfully, at no point does he explain what Kidney Yin and Kidney Yang are.
Maciocia lists the five vital substances as: Jing, Qi, Blood, Body Fluids and Shen. On one reading, it appears that he regards also regards Kidney Yin and Kidney Yang as substances.
I moved on to another leading TCM text, Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine by Nigel Wiseman. In it, he states
Kidney yin and kidney yang are in reality two antagonistic and complementary aspects of kidney essential qi (p71)
.Whilst Wiseman suggests that Kidney Yin and Yang are aspects of Kidney Qi, Maciocia appears to hold that Kidney Yin and Yang exist prior to Kidney Qi. Or is this a distinction without a difference?
Wiseman also writes that
some claim that the life gate fire is synonymous with kidney yang whilst others maintain it is distinct from kidney yang (p72).
Moving on to this article by Jerry Alan Johnson. Johnson writes
The Kidney energies are all closely intertwined: Kidney Jing, Kidney Chi (Qi), Kidney Yin, Kidney Yang, and Kidney Mingmen Fire. The Mingmen Fire, also called Kidney Yang, helps transform the Jing into steam [Kidney Chi (Qi)].
Johnson also appears to see Kidney Jing as separate from Kidney Yin, and Kidney Yang as separate from Mingmen Fire (though his statement that Mingmen Fire can also be called Kidney Yang is confusing).
Questions
So here are some questions Ive been pondering.** Is there consensus in the qigong community as to whether (a) Kidney Yang is distinct from Ming Men and (b) Kidney Jing is distinct from Kidney Yin?
** If they are distinct, what is the nature of Kidney Yin and Yang? Is it correct to view them as substances, like Jing, Blood and Qi?
** Is there a text where this is all explained with crystal clarity?!
Let me answer your last question first:
>>>Is there a text where this is all explained with crystal clarity?!
No. Good luck with such a quest. 😉
This is the problem that I illustrated in our earlier discussions on the “Door of Life”, Mingmen, and Dantian. There is a lot of inconsistency in the literature on all of these things.
The big problem is that the ancient Chinese did not explain themselves very clearly. It’s often believed that they knew the details, but weren’t very good teachers. Whether this is true or not (or they themselves didn’t know) is complete speculation.
People since then–especially a lot of folks in modern times–effectively have just made up their own interpretation. As you can imagine, this creates a horrible inconsistency as one person’s interpretation is not necessarily the same as another person’s. In a lot of cases, these modern-day “authorities” speak with a certainty as though “what they are saying” is strict fact, when in reality a lot of what they are saying is just completely made up–either by them or by those they copy. Then some of these “made-up things” get parroted by others as though they are fact. Hence this creates a lot of inconsistency and confusion. It’s a real problem.
So what is a person to do?
If you are a serious student, you need to look into a lot of different resources and avoid giving any one teacher supreme authority. It becomes a matter of seeing what is consistent in the classical history and trying to determine the truth for yourself. It can be an eye-opening experience to recognize that a lot of the “authorities” in the field say things that you later learn to be false through other means.
This is also why–I feel–that a lot of this stuff is “intellectual baggage”, and is really distracting from what a person’s approach should be . . . and that is, to do a lot of practice and see what arises from your own experience. I.E. put more emphasis on the actual practice, without too much “heady” overlay of “facts” given by others, because these “facts” may not even be correct.
That said, I’ll try to give you MY understanding . . . which for the same reasons as above are limited based on what I’ve come to understand through my own studying of various resources and my own practice.
————-“Yin” and “Yang” are simply the energetic divisions of anything into its relaxed, subdued, contracted nature vs. its opposite energized and expansive nature.
As such, unless specifically talking about the undifferentiated nature of unity and oneness, everything has a yin aspect and a yang aspect. In particular, the kidney system is no different.
Thus “Kidney Yin” is the yin aspect of the kidney system and “Kidney Yang” is the yang aspect of the kidney system. To the degree that the kidney system is real (manifesting in the physical plane), therefore “Kidney Yin” and “Kidney Yang” can be considered real as well (simply the bifurcation of the kidney system into its two polarized aspects of yin and yang). Since these are “real”, they can be viewed as “substances”.
Sidebar:
Many go beyond this interpretation . . . i.e. some consider the kidneys themselves to be the source of kidney yin and consider the adrenals (which are part of the kidney system) to be kidney yang; others, divide the kidney yin and kidney yang between the left and right kidneys (as in say the Nanjing interpretation you mentioned earlier in another discussion relating to the mingmen). While most pairs of anything can be so divided into yin and yang, these interpretations I feel create a mental block as to what “Kidney Yin” and “Kidney Yang” *are* in some kind of “totality sense”. Moreover, some of these interpretations of getting more specific are not matched in other resources. Consequently, I consider all of these inconsistencies to be pure speculation, and I prefer to just stop at the discussion in the preceding paragraph. Namely that “Kidney Yin” and “Kidney Yang” are the bifurcation of the kidney system into its yin and yang aspects, without necessarily specifying what falls into each category.I also personally would not restrict either “Kidney Yin” or “Kidney Yang” to be “qi”, because the division of the energetic phases into jing, qi, shen do not imply that everything is qi. Jing, qi, and shen are all energy, but in different forms. Again, in my opinion, “Kidney Yin” and “Kidney Yang” are simply the bifurcation of the kidney system into its yin and yang aspects–no more, no less.
The classical model of the mingmen is one of a energetic furnace, fed by the Door of Life, and this furnace “cooks” the jing to create source qi (yuan qi). This yuan qi is unprogrammed, undifferentiated, fresh qi that is unique unto itself. Thus this is not “kidney qi” per se . . . at least, I wouldn’t call it that. In my understanding, the kidneys have qi intrinsically already which is separate from this cooking process by the mingmen furnace. In any case, this yuan qi (viewed as a kind of energetic steam) then mixes with other qi in the body to enhance one’s lifeforce. One such process is the mixing of this “yuan qi steam” with “the air that we breathe” (or more precisely, the qi derived from it) and “the food that we eat” (or more precisely, the qi derived from it) to basically just act as additional qi fuel for the body.
Qi,
Stevenon one hand, what is the point/ why obsess over a particular?
on the other, psi systems which work, murky details, well worth perfecting
personal experience:
kidneys and bladder are yin water, they build jing and “magnetism”
I personally alternately charge gonads and kidneys with fire vs water left then rightbut then I place fire in my belly and orange solar charge in the adrenals…
I then charge my brain with orange solar jing..
(?)
RE: these questions, I offer the folowing, as mere opinions:
——-
** Is there consensus in the qigong community as to whether (a) Kidney Yang is distinct from Ming Men and (b) Kidney Jing is distinct from Kidney Yin?
——-Everything in the phenomenal world can be divided into yin & yang aspects. In the sense of the kidney(s), the kidney meridian (which is just the energy flow that is ending up as the physical kidneys) has yin/yang aspects, and so does the aggregate of kidney energy – so the “structure” has yin/yang aspects, and so does the “action” of the kidneys.
“Kidney yang” is the yang aspect of this structure and also its action.
The ming men is a different “thing”, and not a physical part of the kidneys, nor is the ming men the yin or yang aspects of the energy flow of the kidney meridian.
Kidney jing is something like the “essence” (hormones, hormonal action, hormonal potential) of the kidney/adrenals.
——-
** If they are distinct, what is the nature of Kidney Yin and Yang? Is it correct to view them as substances, like Jing, Blood and Qi?
——-No. The yin/yang associated with the kidneys are aspects of the structure and energy of the kidneys. Neither yin nor yang can exist alone. The two tendencies or aspects of “kidney” yin/yang are the tendencies or aspects expanding/contracting AS the kidneys and/or the energy flow of the kidneys as seen within the overall bodily/environmental energy flow.
We could say that the “nature” of kidney yin/yang is “water energy” or “water nature” within the 5 phases.
——-
** Is there a text where this is all explained with crystal clarity?!
——-Yes. It is called the human body, one of the best ever written, and is, hopefully, “free”!
In terms of the world of reading ideas and concepts, these are, as has been pointed out, often “contradictory”.
Follow the basis of the I Ching, the structure & movement of the universe, the way differentiation and contraction occur, and the basics should be comprehensible.
-VonKrankenhaus
Steven
A very helpful reply. Many thanks. It’s taken a while for me to get my thoughts together in response.
I should perhaps have explained in more detail the source of my frustration re kidney yin, kidney yang and the yin and yang of organs generally. And that is that TCM books happily list the names and symptoms of disease patterns such as kidney yin deficiency and kidney yang deficiency but dont explain the nature of that which is deficient i.e. kidney yin or kidney yang!!!
…and I prefer to just stop at the discussion in the preceding paragraph. Namely that “Kidney Yin” and “Kidney Yang” are the bifurcation of the kidney system into its yin and yang aspects, without necessarily specifying what falls into each category.
It makes sense to me that kidney yin and kidney yang are best understood as the yin and yang aspects of the kidney system. However, to divine what TCM authors mean by kidney yin deficiency and kidney yang deficiency, it’s perhaps necessary to get into specifying what falls into each category.
There are, it seems, various yin aspects of the kidney. One such aspect is that the kidneys a zang rather than a fu organ. Another is that the kidney zang sits lower in the body than the heart and lung zang. Another is the kidney’s structure, in that structure is said to be yin and function yang. And in his book Heavenly Streams: Meridian Theory in Nei Gong, Damo Mitchell divides organ functions into yin and yang. For example, Mitchell writes that the yin function of the liver is the storage of blood and the yang function is to govern the smooth flow of qi around the body. (In a personal communication, Mitchell clarified that, in his view, yin functions are those relating to yin substances within organs such as jing, blood and body fluids, and involving storage as opposed to transportation and transformation.)
So when TCM books talk of, say, liver yin deficiency, Im guessing the yin aspect of the liver system which is regarded as deficient is the yin function. Certainly, this is how Mitchell sees it, writing that liver yin deficiency is a deficiency in the storage of blood within the liver.
[As a slight aside, Mitchell notes that, with regard to the liver, there can also be liver blood deficiency. Mitchell seems to suggests that, while this relates to a deficiency of blood itself, liver yin deficiency relates to a deficiency in the storage of blood – though the difference between the two is not made (nearly) as clear as Id like.]
Going back to the kidneys, Mitchells lists the most common deficiencies as kidney yin deficiency, kidney yang deficiency and kidney qi deficiency. Other kidney patterns listed in Maciocia include kidney jing deficiency. Looking at these four deficiencies, one might be led into thinking that if qi and jing are substances, then so must yin and yang be. And at one point, Maciocia actually says that kidney yin is a substance (although, typically, he never clearly explains what sort of a substance it is).
However, rather than talking of kidney yin as a substance, on reflection I think its more helpful to say, for example, that (storage of) jing is a yin aspect of the kidney system – and, likewise, that (storage) of blood is a yin aspect of liver system. That is, it seems more correct to regard yin and yang as classificatory terms (adjectives) rather than substances (nouns).
To complicate matters, Mitchell notes that there are exceptions to his scheme of dividing organ functions into yin and yang, writing (p153) that
The Kidneys also have two main functions which are not divided by Yin and Yang: they are quite unique in this way. First, they anchor the Lungs energy which means that they assist the Lungs drawing in of Heaven Qi. If this anchor becomes weak then the Lungs can become negatively affected. Second they control the health of the Bones and the Brain. This is not actually a Kidney function but a function of Jing. Since the Jing is controlled by the Kidneys this function is usually assigned to the Kidneys themselves.
As you say, in the literature, things are rarely straightforward!
Many thanks for your thoughts. Very helpful.
Having read what you and Steven wrote and having contemplated further, I take the view that it’s not helpful to regard “kidney yin” and “kidney yang” as substances. I’ve set out my musings in my reply to Steven.
>>>That is, it seems more correct to regard
>>>yin and yang as classificatory terms (adjectives)
>>>rather than substances (nouns).Yes, that’s what I was getting at in my more extended description. 🙂
The other ideas that you mentioned, promoted by others, to me feels more like speculation.
To restate what I said before:
In my opinion, “Kidney Yin” and “Kidney Yang” are simply the bifurcation of the kidney system into its yin and yang aspects–no more, no less.
If one is talking about “deficiency” in one of these, to me it means that the “vibrancy” of how strong that particular aspect is, is considered weaker than normal. This means that on all relevant jing/qi/shen levels, the “amount” of these energy reserves is low with respect to the portion of the kidney system that is bifurcated into that yin or yang category. So a person with “Kidney Yin deficiency” has lower amounts of jing/qi/shen in whatever part of the kidney system falls into the yin category. By understanding this, and then through historical knowledge and/or experimentation, one can understand which set of herbs or acupuncture etc. can correct this problem. In other words, you can identify that there is a deficiency (through whatever empirical testing means you have, either through reading of pulses, patient symptoms, etc.), and you can know what herbs/acupuncture/treatment can treat the deficiency, without ever getting into any kind of intellectual consideration of what “specifically physically” is being treated. You can simply say the “yin aspect of the kidney system is weak” and this is what will tonify (i.e. strengthen) it. Here again, “Yin” and “Yang” are simply the energetic divisions of anything into its relaxed, subdued, contracted nature vs. its opposite energized and expansive nature.
I personally don’t know if it needs to be more spelled out than that. In a lot of ways, I don’t think it should be or is meant to be.
S
Hello:
I suggest you focus your attention on one area at a time.
For the human body and medicine the Chinese medical term for dna is Jing, which contains the life code. In Chinese philosophy, the one (the dao) gives life to the two (Yin-Yang). In Chinese medicine, the one, which is Jing, gives life to Yin and Yang. Jing is stored in the Kidneys. In post-natal life, the two are inseparable. Jing unfolds as Kidney Yin and Kidney Yang; they unfold to provide the Yin and Yang to the entire body (especially the organs). Each organ has a function, the nature of the function can be both a deficiency or excess and Yin or Yang. Stay with this model as your foundation and you can learn all the other ideas.
The body’s Yang (includes ming-men fire) and physiological functions mingle with Yin to create.
Jing contains Yin and Yang.
The kidneys contain or house Jing, therefore, Yin comes from Jing.
Jing-Yin-the body, blood, fluids
Jing-Yang-Activity, QiKidney Yin comes from Jing
Kidney Yang comes from JingWe can view this process all existing simultaneously; its not so linear.
Also, IMHO the Chong channel is Jing in channel form. The Chong (the one) give life to Yin-Yang: The Ren and Du Channels.
If we start here, they maybe we can understand what others are saying. Often, people explain the same things in multiple ways and words. And sometimes they make stuff up.
Hope this helps.
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