Jinlou - Tendons and Meridians and Fasica (Oh My)

[robert]

The Chinese medical text Lingshu Jing has a chapter on jingjin - another term for muscle tendon meridians.

[Appledog]

If you’ve done qigong and can get the tangible sensation of qi to manifest in your palms and fingers.(Everyone has felt their own qi after an extremity falls asleep. The tingling needles as blood flow returns is the qi hitting your nerves.) When you have spent a couple weeks getting this sensation then you should have your fingers sensitized enough to slightly sense the qi on the skin of your arms and body. Now this most likely will not feel like anything because you have spent your whole lifetime with Wei Qi emanating from your own skin. It would be problematic and disastrous if you could. But what you want to do is look at an acupuncture chart and using one or two fingers hover (about 1cm above) over and around the area of a point. And what you will actually be able to feel is where there is a complete lack of Wei Qi. Because the Wei Qi anchors into the acupuncture points. It’s where it enters and exits. It’s almost like a tiny little whirlpool as you can feel it fading and circling around as you hone in on a point, until it’s gone and that’s where you want to needle. Acupuncturist who trained with my teacher use this to find points. They also want to hold the needle in their hand and get a strong sensation before inserting each needle. This not only gets a better effect but also increases your chances of not catching a sickness from a patient.

So I believe that Qigong came first. Then someone found all these points. Then the Jinluo was mapped out.

This is interesting and cool but it's circular, it requires the looking for such a thing. Why would you look for something that you do not know it is there?

So, the problem with whether or not "qigong" came first or "jingluo" came first is that qigong is designed to bring out the jingluo. So, what happened was, jingluo came first.

You should understand how jingluo came about. All living beings have it, but how do you know it is there, it's because, you can see it. How do you see it? You just do, because you are alive. But this doesn't make sense unless you already understand it, so a lot of books were written (like the dao de jing, huangdi neijing, yijing, etc). If I were to tell you I would ask you to stand still for a long time. Perhaps with tension in certain parts of the body. Sounds familiar? Well, that's one way, but there are many others. Some work better for some people who like those ways. But it should be understood that first, before anything, the jingluo must be appreciated.

[D_Glenn]

.

[D_Glenn]

Just kidding.
We’re not talking about human evolution but hypotheses on how the understanding and labeling came out historically.

How long has modern medicine been around and yet the Anatomy trains are still in the realm of pseudo science.

[D_Glenn]

Double post

[D_Glenn]

Try reading the Dao de jing as if it were a guide to qigong and meditation. It uses the ideals of a harmonious society that was popular at the time and later written down as Confucius’ analects as a metaphor. The Dao de jing talks about the governing and ruling of subjects as if they are parts of one’s human body and spirit. (Ideas that would evolve into the Five Shens). Lao Tzu believed that in order to have an orderly society that humans must first govern over and be able to control their own body and mind. It is all about the required selfishness one must first have before they can go onto being selfless and foster and participate in creating an ideal society.

[Appledog]

Try reading the Dao de jing as if it were a guide to qigong and meditation. It uses the ideals of a harmonious society that was popular at the time and later written down as Confucius’ analects...

Yes, you've said this before (and I don't mean just now). This is something you have said before, maybe 2 months ago, and I realized you were probably correct.That's why I mentioned it in my reply today, you gave me the idea. I actually suspected that some chapters were in fact directly about meditation but when you mentioned the entire book could be, I found that to be an interesting hypothesis.

Anyways I typed out a reply using the language of the dao de jing and yijing (you know, wuji, taiji, wuxing, all that jazz) but I decided it's too secret to post here on the forums. Something about the unstable systems between stable systems such as digrams and bigrams (four to eight) where there are, did you know, unstable five, six and seven-systems that also exist, and the perceptual difference between stable and unstable systems leads to the realization of the jingluo. I'm just kidding about secrets. But it was a little long and I don't think anyone here would really understand it tbh. Easier to just show you someday and let you post the reaction video instead of me. TO make a long story short your whirlpool analogy sounds a lot like the analogies I tried to come up with so I am happy with that.

[D_Glenn]

Appledog, You’re a native Mandarin speaker right? and I notice you write JingLuo. I too wanted to write Jingluo because I believe that’s how I heard it pronounced. But I instead edited myself. Can you confirm?

[everything]

not appledog but assume you both mean (from chatGPT):

经 (jīng): This character translates to "channel" or "pathway." In the context of Traditional Chinese Medicine and internal martial arts, it often refers to the meridians or pathways through which vital energy (qi) flows in the body.

络 (luò): This character means "net" or "network." In the context of meridians, it emphasizes the interconnected network of pathways that circulate qi and blood throughout the body.

So, "经络" (jīngluò) collectively refers to the system of meridians or energy channels in the body, a central concept in Traditional Chinese Medicine and internal martial arts like Taijiquan, where the flow of qi along these meridians is considered crucial for health and martial efficacy.

[D_Glenn]

You are correct. Thanks everything.

I found it in one of my old posts on here. The problem is that the muscle- tendon meridians are not typically called JinLuo. My teacher calls them JinMai.

[everything]

interesting. never heard of the distinction. the Google AI went into a little more detail (not sure where its info came from, and never heard of these as well but also never looked or studied the topic):

The meridian system is typically divided into two categories: Jingmai and Luomai.
Jingmai channels include 12 tendinomuscular meridians, 12 divergent meridians, 12 principal meridians, eight extraordinary vessels, and Huato channel.
Luomai are associated vessels, sometimes called "collaterals".
There are three major categories of collaterals:
Fifteen connecting collaterals connect the interior and exterior meridians together.
Muscular collaterals distribute the qi of the twelve major meridians to the tendons, muscles, and joints.
The body is divided in half from top to bottom, with six meridians on each side of the body. Three of these meridians are yin and three are yang.

I assume the 12 tendinomuscular meridians are the same ones you mention.

[D_Glenn]

Yes they are. I will have to dig out my teachers book and see what he wrote about them. Jinbao had talked about them a bit. I will have to check and see if I wrote down what he said, or at least the context of it.

[windwalker]

with out a demonstrated benefit ie "video" of it showing a difference between knowing it, and not knowing it.
what would it matter what anyone's teacher said, or what was written down ?

[D_Glenn]

with out a demonstrated benefit ie "video" of it showing a difference between knowing it, and not knowing it.
what would it matter what anyone's teacher said, or what was written down ?

Just to satisfy my own curiosity. But you’re right, what does it matter, I will just keep it to myself.

[D_Glenn]

I think basically is that in the past, when talking about zhan zhuang (holding martial postures) and movements, they would use the names of the meridians, which outsiders confused as the acupuncture meridians where qi runs, so they presumed that it was to mentally be moving qi energy through the meridian. But what they were actually talking about is the JinMai- what muscles and tendons are being activated and strengthened by that posture or movement. (Which does sort of correlate with the organ that the channel is named for but, in a more generalized sense of overall health improvement,
.