Chinese medicine and the body
The classic explanation of Chinese medicine to a Western reader, by someone trained in both. The best cure available for reading qi as a mistaken attempt at physics rather than as a functional description of a working body.
Related article: Qi: The Word Everything Rests On
The standard clinical textbook. Where to look up what the tradition means by yuan qi, wei qi, the five shen, or jing depletion, stated precisely and without mysticism.
The foundational medical classic in a scholarly translation. Its opening chapter sets out the arc of jing across a life in cycles of seven and eight — the oldest statement of what the three treasures article describes.
How the ideas actually developed, and how much they changed. A useful antidote to the claim — made by Mo Pai and by most traditions — that a body of knowledge came down unaltered for two thousand years.
