Chapter on Nourishing Nature in Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand Gold千金要方养性篇
- Also known as
- Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand Gold for Emergencies: Nourishing Nature, Qianjin Fang: Nourishing Nature
- Author / transmission
- Sun Simiao
- Period
- Tang · Compiled by Sun Simiao of the Tang in the thirty-scroll Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand Gold for Emergencies, completed around the third year of the Yonghui era (652); "Nourishing Nature" is scroll 27, referred to here as this chapter, an appended entry.
- Canon division
- Medical text (outside the Daoist Canon)
- Collected in
- Outside the Canon (a medical text)
- Category
- Medicine and Nourishing Life
- Fascicles
- Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand Gold, 30 juan (Nourishing Nature is juan 27)
Synopsis
Chapter 27, "Nourishing Nature" (Yangxing), of the Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand Gold for Emergencies (Beiji qianjin yaofang) is the summa of Tang-dynasty nourishing-life learning, divided into sections on the preface to nourishing nature, forest-Daoist nourishing of nature, methods of dwelling, massage methods, methods of regulating breath, methods of ingestion, the Yellow Emperor's miscellaneous taboos, and the benefits of bedchamber restraint. Sun Simiao proposed that "one who nourishes nature wishes to make a habit into a nature, so that the nature becomes good of itself," holding that nourishing life is not a technique for a single moment but the cultivation of a long-term habit; he stressed that "one skilled in nourishing nature treats the illness that has not yet arisen," advocated "constantly seeking light exertion, but never great fatigue," and held that in eating one should "not eat only when starving, nor eat to excess." He also gave detailed accounts of regulating breath (the Six-Sound Breath Formula), massage (the Laozi Massage Method and the Method of Massage from India), daoyin, and moderation in bedchamber arts. Much of this material overlaps with the Records of Nourishing Nature and Extending Life and the Pillowbook Methods for Preserving Health, showing the deep intermingling of Tang-dynasty medical scholarship with the Daoist tradition of nourishing life. Sun Simiao himself was versed in medicine, Daoism, and Buddhism alike, and was honored by later generations as the King of Medicine and as "Perfected Sun"; his discourse on nourishing nature became the common foundation for nourishing-life texts from the Song and Yuan onward, repeatedly cited across the centuries.
Key Ideas
- Summa of Tang-dynasty nourishing-life learning
- Nourishing nature as the long-term cultivation of habit into nature
- One skilled in nourishing nature treats illness before it arises
- Regulating breath, massage, daoyin, and moderation in bedchamber arts
- Intermingling of medical scholarship and Daoist nourishing-life tradition
Structure
Scroll 27 of the Qianjin Yaofang, divided into sections on the preface to nourishing nature, forest-Daoist nourishing of nature, dwelling, massage, regulating breath, ingestion, and the benefits of bedchamber restraint.
Editions
- Editions descending from the Song Bureau for Correcting Medical Texts printing
- Photolithographic and punctuated/collated editions by People's Medical Publishing House
- The Daozang separately preserves short nourishing-life pieces attributed to Sun Simiao
Translations
- Portions are treated in English translation studies by Sabine Wilms and Livia Kohn
Full Text & Online Resources
Related scriptures
Pillowbook Methods for Preserving Health, Perfected Sun's Treatise on Preserving Health, Records of Nourishing Nature and Extending Life, Daoyin Methods in the Treatise on the Origins and Symptoms of DiseasesRelated figures
Sun Simiao- 干祖望《孙思邈评传》
- Livia Kohn, Chinese Healing Exercises, 2008
- 维基百科「备急千金要方」条
- 人民卫生出版社《备急千金要方》点校本