Learning the Essentials of the Golden Chamber 00

The chapter “Pulse and Syndrome of Zang-Fu Organs, Meridians, and Collaterals — Prior and Subsequent Diseases” has long been regarded as the overarching introduction to the entire Essentials from the Golden Chamber. It is credited with establishing the foundation of the zang-fu pattern differentiation system and expounding the laws of disease transmission through the generating and restraining cycles of the Five Elements.

But I have serious problems with it.

First, take the famous dictum: “When you see liver disease, know that it will transmit to the spleen, and therefore strengthen the spleen first.” It appears to offer a solid theoretical grounding for the principle of “treating preventive disease” based on Five Elements theory. Yet I have never been able to reconcile one thing: you can explain the five zang organs through the generating and restraining cycles — but what about the six fu organs? What about the extraordinary fu organs? Where are their rules in all this? Are we to believe that only the five zang organs are capable of disease transmission?

Furthermore, I have long suspected that this section is an interpolation — added text, not original. The reason is simple: why does Zhang Zhongjing’s writing so closely resemble the style of Confucius? And why have successive generations never clearly acknowledged that it was Zhang’s disciples who compiled the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases? No one has seen the original version anyway, and the appearance of the Golden Chamber text came suspiciously late in history. How much extraneous material was slipped in along the way is anyone’s guess.

This section is dense with numerological and cosmological content. To truly understand it, one needs a solid foundation in ancient Chinese culture. Yet if you survey the textbooks published since the founding of the People’s Republic, there is not a single mention of the Five Movements and Six Climatic Factors (Wu Yun Liu Qi). Are the Five Constants (Wu Chang) the same as the Five Elements? Are the Six Subtleties (Liu Wei) the same as the six fu organs? At the very least, students deserve some reference material — because many of their teachers don’t understand this material either.

Much of the content from the Treatise on Cold Damage also appears in this section, and it was likely placed here not by Zhang Zhongjing’s original design. The text also contains many straightforward symptom-based diagnostic methods that really don’t require elaborate interpretation — yet the textbooks have thoroughly over-interpreted them. I hope later students will see through this and think for themselves, rather than simply echoing what they’ve been told.

脏腑经络先后病脉证历来认为是《金匮要略方论》全书的总论，奠定了脏腑辨证体系的地位，还从五行制化规律着手阐释了疾病的传变规律。

问题大大的有。

首先，见肝之病知肝传脾当先实脾，看似以五行制化为理论基础充分论证了”治未病”思想，但是我始终没有想明白，五藏你是可以用生克制化来解释，那六腑呢？奇恒之府呢？他们的规律在那，难道只有五藏能传变么？

再者，我一向认为这一节为衍文，原因很简单，仲景写的书为啥跟孔子这么像，为什么历代都不明说是仲景的弟子整理的《伤寒杂病论》呢？反正原版谁也没看到，金匮的出现又那么近，这里面夹带了多少私货无从而知。

这一节术数内容颇多，想学明白必须要有古文化功底，可是纵观建国后各版教科书，丝毫不提运气，五常跟五行能一样么？六微和六腑是一回事么？好歹要给学生一点参考，因为很多老师是不懂这一块的。

许多伤寒部分的内容在这一节中也有体现，放在这里可能并不是仲景本意；文中还有许多朴素的症状诊断法，其实没必要解释，但教科书中妥妥的过度诠释了，希望后学们能认清现实，不要人云亦云。