So as we can see, up until the time of Wang Chong at the turn of the common era, we see that there were two main schools of understanding yin/yang. The original PHYSICAL school of thought that arose with FuXi of the Neolithic (we can call it Old Text School -- even though writing had not yet been invented) and the METAPHYSICAL school that came about 1500 years later when King Wen tried to rearrange FuXi's hexagrams (from the I Ching). We can call this the New Text School because text and commentaries were added as an attempt to make sense of the basic philosophical tenets that form the pillars of the ancient I Ching (Book of Changes).

In the Old Text School (physical viewpoint) there is an avoidance of correlative thinking and the idea of "heaven" (t'ien) as a special place that hears people and speaks to them is also not generally accepted. This "heaven" is translated more as the yielding sky that is constantly expanding and is infinately great.

Yin is equated with this heaven.

In the New Text School (metaphysical viewpoint) which came about after the I Ching hexagrams were rearranged and then the fang shi (recipe gentlemen) added occult elements, there is a strong attempt to make correlations of all sorts and the idea of "heaven" is both a sacred place that hears prayers and sends messages to people, and is correlated with the extreme yang hexagram (six solid lines) believed to be the creator and generative power of the universe.

I have given a list of names of philosophers and sages that will eventually link the Old Text (physical) School to our macrobiotic thinking. And clearly the received written record is evidence of this. Our macrobiotic legacy is quite powerful and is directly tied to the ancient I Ching as well as the Philosophical Taoists. Although there are some who did not want to be connected to any school, such as Wang Chong.

In general, all of the Old Text macrobiotics ate a vegetable-based diet and possesed highly rational thinking, and applied yin/yang thinking to all phases of life. Yet these ancient macrobiotic peoples did not take macrobiotics to level at which we apply it today. Cooking and healing skills were much more rudimentary back them, but at the same time all of their food was local and organic.

Eating this natural way means that physical/mental disease was not as prevelant as it is in the modern age and therefore we do not see yin/yang playing as a medical modality until the later part of Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE). By this time, much of what the I Ching proposed to teach had become distorted. Attempts to resurrect the three main ideas of the original I Ching were few and far apart. These ideas were made even more clouded when Buddhism was brought into China from India.

By the end of the Sui Dynasty (581-618 CE) there were seven major Buddhist sects practicing along side of the materialist and metaphysical schools. Although these Buddhist sects held different doctrines their common tenet was a type of religious idealism which made the world of objective reality a fantasy -- that by conscious efforts at self-cultivation, freedom from the world of reality could be attained and entry into a world of eternal bliss would ultimately result.

This religious trend did not help to advance the yin/yang dialectic in China, but by the time of the T'ang Dynasty (618-907 CE) the Buddhists began to lose hold and the Neo-Confucianists returned to its former examination system and body politic once again became strong and prosperous. At the turn of the 7th century Japan began to send envoy to China to study its system of administration and law, especialy the COnfucian notion of social harmony.

Zen and Religious Taoism began to grow in priminence in Japan. In 702 CE a bureau of religious Taoism, or Onmyo-ryo (the way of yin/yang) was organized to make sure the Japanese government and society conformed to the cosmic order.

In Japan's Heian period (794-1185 CE) the I Ching also rose in popularity but its central purpose was tied with esoteric rituals and a thorough understanding of its meaning was sorely lacking. In 982 CE macrobiotic philosopher Tamba Yasuyori returned to Japan with a translation of thirty volumes of a medical work that was based entirely on Chinese medical theories with the yin/yang concept underlying the theory of disease causation.

In this medical work called Ishimpo, thre is a book titled "The Nurture of Life" that discusses the principles of yangsheng (macrobiotics). In chapter one, General Principles, Tamba writes:

"The great principle of the nurture of life is to prevent athe occurence of hundreds of diseases, both internal and external, and to avoid the development of crisis, chaos, calamity, and damage, since the natural inclination of man is to be well. In other words to practice the nurture of life is to treat diseases before diseases occur. To conform to this tendency does not mean fasting on rosy skies and taking [healing] herbs as snacks, but really abiding by the hundred functions of man. WHen all the hundred functions are carefully maintained, even the heb snacks can be discontinued, for the basis is provided for making long life possible."

The chief "client" that Tamba points out for this yangsheng practice is "[He] who is broadminded, takes things easy and is generous lives long. He who is stingy and overworked lives a short life. This is the difference between the open generous person and the ever-toiling parsimonious person. The tenant farmer lives long; the meat eating rich man lives a short life. This is the effect of having more or fewer desires and lusts." The definition Tamba gives for the practice of long life (yangsheng) as well as his characterization of its adherents, is consistent with the ideas of our current understanding of macrobiotics which seeks to avoid extremes and limits animal food consumption to the bare minimum...

More to come. I would like to hear your comments.

In peace, Roy