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Our Bodies are in the cosmos,
and the Cosmos is in our Bodies
Process Philosophy and
Traditional Chinese Medicine
The cosmology undergirding Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) shares many essential ideas with process philosophy.
Process philosophy suggests that the body is interconnected with the cosmos, and that both are alive with vital energy, rather than composed of "dead matter." Indeed, from a process perspective, our bodies are in the cosmos and the cosmos is in our bodies. Every moment of our experience, psychologically and bodily, is a concrescence of the universe.
Additionally, from a process perspective as from a TCM perspective, the cosmos carries forms of wisdom and guidance that can inform human life; a human desire for harmony in social relations and bodily life derives, not simply from anthropological aims but from the universe itself. Moreover, from both perspectives, everything in the world is best understood as momentary integrations of relationships. There are no isolated substances. These ideas support the practices of TCM and other indigenous forms of medicine, and can be combined with a biomedical model to create an integral medicine for an ecological civilization.
According to process thought, the development of ecological civilizations is the best hope for human life today. Such civilizations are composed of local communities that are creative, compassionate, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the Earth, with no one left behind. Process thinkers have developed ideas and policies relevant to the economics, education, architecture, agriculture, family life, and culture of such civilizations. An integral approach to medicine, which combines biomedical and indigenous forms of healing and health, would be a crucial component of such civilizations.
This integrative approach to medicine is already at work in China, where many people use both TCM and biomedical treatments. By drawing on process philosophy, this approach to medicine can be expanded to other societies as well. Ultimately, an integral medicine for an ecological civilization would see the body and the cosmos as interconnected, and would prioritize the health of individuals, communities, and the natural world.
The purpose of the rest of this page is to provide resources for your own explorations of TCM, process philosophy, and how they might be united in support of integrative medicine.
- Jay McDaniel, 2/24/2023
Process philosophy suggests that the body is interconnected with the cosmos, and that both are alive with vital energy, rather than composed of "dead matter." Indeed, from a process perspective, our bodies are in the cosmos and the cosmos is in our bodies. Every moment of our experience, psychologically and bodily, is a concrescence of the universe.
Additionally, from a process perspective as from a TCM perspective, the cosmos carries forms of wisdom and guidance that can inform human life; a human desire for harmony in social relations and bodily life derives, not simply from anthropological aims but from the universe itself. Moreover, from both perspectives, everything in the world is best understood as momentary integrations of relationships. There are no isolated substances. These ideas support the practices of TCM and other indigenous forms of medicine, and can be combined with a biomedical model to create an integral medicine for an ecological civilization.
According to process thought, the development of ecological civilizations is the best hope for human life today. Such civilizations are composed of local communities that are creative, compassionate, diverse, inclusive, humane to animals, and good for the Earth, with no one left behind. Process thinkers have developed ideas and policies relevant to the economics, education, architecture, agriculture, family life, and culture of such civilizations. An integral approach to medicine, which combines biomedical and indigenous forms of healing and health, would be a crucial component of such civilizations.
This integrative approach to medicine is already at work in China, where many people use both TCM and biomedical treatments. By drawing on process philosophy, this approach to medicine can be expanded to other societies as well. Ultimately, an integral medicine for an ecological civilization would see the body and the cosmos as interconnected, and would prioritize the health of individuals, communities, and the natural world.
The purpose of the rest of this page is to provide resources for your own explorations of TCM, process philosophy, and how they might be united in support of integrative medicine.
- Jay McDaniel, 2/24/2023
An academic essay on
Chinese Philosophy
and Chinese Medicine
Lisa Rapals *
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The first section locates medicine among the Chinese sciences and introduces the intellectual shared common ground of Chinese philosophy and Chinese medicine, including shared theories of qi, yin-yang and “Five Agents” (wuxing) and their use in analogies between the human body and the state and cosmos, including the development of a systematic medical theory of the body.
Section Two introduces the important medical contributions of “nurturing life” (yang sheng) traditions.
Section Three takes up what has been represented as a long shared history of Daoism and medicine in the works of three great Daoist physicians.
Section Four returns to the views of Zhang Xichun and his claims for an explicit link between Chinese Medicine and Chinese Philosophy.
Raphals, Lisa, "Chinese Philosophy and Chinese Medicine", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/chinese-phil-medicine/>.
Click here to read the entire article.
Key Aspects of
Traditional Chinese Medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a system of medical practice that originated in ancient China and has been in use for over 2,000 years. TCM is based on a holistic view of health and the body, and emphasizes the importance of maintaining balance and harmony in the body's energy systems. Some key ideas in the philosophy and practice of TCM include:
Overall, TCM emphasizes the importance of maintaining balance and harmony in the body's energy systems, and uses a variety of methods to promote health and treat illness.
- chatGPT.
- Qi (pronounced "chee") - Qi is often translated as "vital energy" or "life force" and is central to TCM. According to TCM, the body is permeated by a network of energy channels through which Qi flows. Illness is thought to be caused by imbalances or blockages in the flow of Qi.
- Yin and Yang - Yin and Yang are two complementary, yet opposing, forces that are believed to exist in all things. Yin represents darkness, coldness, and passivity, while Yang represents light, warmth, and activity. In TCM, health is maintained by balancing these opposing forces.
- The Five Elements - TCM categorizes the world into five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water) that correspond to different organs, tissues, and emotions. Each element is associated with different qualities and functions, and imbalances in the elements can lead to illness.
- Diagnosis - In TCM, diagnosis involves looking at a patient's symptoms and examining their pulse, tongue, and other signs to identify patterns of disharmony in the body. This information is used to develop a treatment plan.
- Treatment - TCM treatment may involve a variety of methods, including acupuncture, herbal medicine, dietary therapy, and massage. The goal is to restore balance and harmony in the body and promote overall health and wellbeing.
Overall, TCM emphasizes the importance of maintaining balance and harmony in the body's energy systems, and uses a variety of methods to promote health and treat illness.
- chatGPT.
Traditional Chinese Medicine
and Whitehead
Bruce Epperly
Today, we are on the verge of a truly global medicine, embracing the insights of both East and West. Twenty-five years ago, when I began teaching spirituality and medicine at a major medical school, my students chuckled when they viewed films on acupuncture, Qigong, and healing touch. They couldn’t imagine a creative synthesis of East and West in the practice of medicine. Today, they ask me for referrals to acupuncturists and reiki healing touch practitioners. I believe that Whiteheadian philosophy can provide the intellectual and practical foundation for the emerging holistic and global medicine of our time.
Whiteheadian philosophy sees the universe in terms of interdependence, creativity, energy, choice, and possibility. Divine energy (chi, prana, pneuma) flows through each entity, constantly providing possibilities and the energy to achieve them. The dualism of mind and body that shaped Western medicine until recently is an abstraction; rather, mind and body exist in continuum of energy, experience, and creativity. Moreover, no person or moment of experience can be separated from its environment. Health and illness are a matter of environment as well as choice. In fact, a person’s current health condition is the result of many factors, including immediate environment, economics, family of origin, DNA and physical condition, personal choices, and spiritual life. In the following paragraphs, I will outline the resources of Whiteheadian philosophy for a truly integrative East-West medicine.
First, Whiteheadian philosophy affirms that the universe is energetic in nature. The primary realities from which all things are constituted are lively and energetic. In contrast to Western materialism and materialistic medicine, Whiteheadian philosophy asserts that existence involves experience and energy. From the point of view of Traditional Chinese Medicine, this energy can be described as chi, universal, life-giving, and interdependent. Chi flows through all things: our health condition is determined, in part, by the balance and flow of this vital energy in our lives.
The body is not inert or passive; the body is sentient and, as researchers such as Candace Pert point out, permeated by mentality and emotion at every level.
Second, Whiteheadian philosophy affirms the interdependence of all life. Health and illness can never be isolated from our environment and relationships. This same insight is at the heart of Traditional Chinese Medicine’s recognition that chi flows from, in, and through us. No organism can be separated from its environment: as Whitehead notes, it is virtually impossible to determine where the body ends and nature begins. All medicine is environmental and communal in nature. Individual choice is essential for health and well-being, but it is shaped by and conversely shapes the environment from which it emerges.
Third, Whiteheadian philosophy sees choice and creativity as essential to health and well-being. We are not passive victims of DNA, our health condition, or environment. Rather, we always have an element of choice in determining our overall well-being. At the very least, we can choose how we respond to illness and that choice can transform the quality of our lives, making it possible both to live and die well. Our spiritual values and practices, will to live, and sense of agency can be the tipping point between health and disease, and life and death.
Fourth, Whiteheadian philosophy allows us to consider the positive values of spirituality and religious commitment in persons’ overall health. Western science is now studying the sacred and has discovered the following: meditation promotes well-being and reduces stress; religious practices and beliefs enable people to respond more creatively to illness and enhance overall well-being; and traditional East-West energy practices (acupuncture, reiki healing touch), all of which have broadly speaking a spiritual component, are associated with pain relief and stress reduction. While such studies are still in their first stages, they open the door to seeing religion as a partner, rather than adversary, to contemporary medicine. Further, recent studies point out that the placebo effect, the ability of beliefs to promote positive health conditions, should be taken seriously as an adjunct to medical care.
Finally, Whiteheadian philosophy affirms a universal movement toward health and healing that cuts across culture and ethnicity. Wise people recognize a variety of approaches to health care, ranging from surgery, pharmaceuticals, energy medicine, herbal medicine, to spiritual practices. These practices, from many cultures, can be coordinated to promote the overall well-being of persons and response to serious illness. Accordingly, a many-faceted medical practice is more effective and helpful to patients than a purely monolithic approach. Because persons are multidimensional, a truly adequate medical approach includes meditation and meditation, energy work (acupuncture, reiki) and, when necessary, surgical procedures, chemotherapy and natural remedies.
Whiteheadian philosophy sees the universe in terms of interdependence, creativity, energy, choice, and possibility. Divine energy (chi, prana, pneuma) flows through each entity, constantly providing possibilities and the energy to achieve them. The dualism of mind and body that shaped Western medicine until recently is an abstraction; rather, mind and body exist in continuum of energy, experience, and creativity. Moreover, no person or moment of experience can be separated from its environment. Health and illness are a matter of environment as well as choice. In fact, a person’s current health condition is the result of many factors, including immediate environment, economics, family of origin, DNA and physical condition, personal choices, and spiritual life. In the following paragraphs, I will outline the resources of Whiteheadian philosophy for a truly integrative East-West medicine.
First, Whiteheadian philosophy affirms that the universe is energetic in nature. The primary realities from which all things are constituted are lively and energetic. In contrast to Western materialism and materialistic medicine, Whiteheadian philosophy asserts that existence involves experience and energy. From the point of view of Traditional Chinese Medicine, this energy can be described as chi, universal, life-giving, and interdependent. Chi flows through all things: our health condition is determined, in part, by the balance and flow of this vital energy in our lives.
The body is not inert or passive; the body is sentient and, as researchers such as Candace Pert point out, permeated by mentality and emotion at every level.
Second, Whiteheadian philosophy affirms the interdependence of all life. Health and illness can never be isolated from our environment and relationships. This same insight is at the heart of Traditional Chinese Medicine’s recognition that chi flows from, in, and through us. No organism can be separated from its environment: as Whitehead notes, it is virtually impossible to determine where the body ends and nature begins. All medicine is environmental and communal in nature. Individual choice is essential for health and well-being, but it is shaped by and conversely shapes the environment from which it emerges.
Third, Whiteheadian philosophy sees choice and creativity as essential to health and well-being. We are not passive victims of DNA, our health condition, or environment. Rather, we always have an element of choice in determining our overall well-being. At the very least, we can choose how we respond to illness and that choice can transform the quality of our lives, making it possible both to live and die well. Our spiritual values and practices, will to live, and sense of agency can be the tipping point between health and disease, and life and death.
Fourth, Whiteheadian philosophy allows us to consider the positive values of spirituality and religious commitment in persons’ overall health. Western science is now studying the sacred and has discovered the following: meditation promotes well-being and reduces stress; religious practices and beliefs enable people to respond more creatively to illness and enhance overall well-being; and traditional East-West energy practices (acupuncture, reiki healing touch), all of which have broadly speaking a spiritual component, are associated with pain relief and stress reduction. While such studies are still in their first stages, they open the door to seeing religion as a partner, rather than adversary, to contemporary medicine. Further, recent studies point out that the placebo effect, the ability of beliefs to promote positive health conditions, should be taken seriously as an adjunct to medical care.
Finally, Whiteheadian philosophy affirms a universal movement toward health and healing that cuts across culture and ethnicity. Wise people recognize a variety of approaches to health care, ranging from surgery, pharmaceuticals, energy medicine, herbal medicine, to spiritual practices. These practices, from many cultures, can be coordinated to promote the overall well-being of persons and response to serious illness. Accordingly, a many-faceted medical practice is more effective and helpful to patients than a purely monolithic approach. Because persons are multidimensional, a truly adequate medical approach includes meditation and meditation, energy work (acupuncture, reiki) and, when necessary, surgical procedures, chemotherapy and natural remedies.
Chi in Real Life
Documentary by Bill Moyers
“I can see that although traditional Chinese medicine seems alien to Westerners, it does have something to offer our practice with medicine. On the one hand there’s the practical contribution it can make, herbs for certain diseases, acupuncture. But there’s another level that’s becoming clear to me … that to these people it seems that health is not just the absence of illness, it’s a philosophy of life.”
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Li Shizhen
A Scholarly Discussion offered by BBC
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of Li Shizhen (1518-1593) whose compendium of natural medicines is celebrated in China as the most complete survey of natural remedies of its time. He trained as a doctor and worked at the Ming court before spending almost 30 years travelling in China, inspecting local plants and animals for their properties, trying them out on himself and then describing his findings in his Compendium of Materia Medica or Bencao Gangmu, in 53 volumes. He's been called the uncrowned king of Chinese naturalists, and became a scientific hero in the 20th century after the revolution.
Li Shizhen (1518-1593)
from Harvard Magazine
THOUGH VIRTUALLY unknown in mainstream American culture, Li Shizhen (lee sher-jen) is virtually a household name in China. A kind of patron saint of Chinese herbal medicine, widely lauded by historians and practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), he is widely represented in popular and scholarly media. Movie star Jet Li recently named him one of his personal heroes, and he has been the focus of comic books, popular songs, TV dramas, and films. This is all rather impressive for a sixteenth-century doctor who lived, worked, and died in south China in relative obscurity.
[He] spent the last half of his life researching and writing an enormous book that became his magnum opus, the Bencao gangmu (ben-sow gong-moo)—an encyclopedic work in the tradition of bencao (materia medica) literature, which includes works explaining the qualities of the various substances used in making medical drugs: plants, animals, stones, clothing, household implements, and assorted other materials.
One of the most ancient forms of medical writing in China, a bencao was often composed or revised at the behest (and with the financial backing) of an emperor. Instead, Li took it upon himself to spend decades traveling—interviewing hunters and fishermen and local healers—reading omnivorously, and trying various treatments for his own patients until he had compiled enough information to satisfy himself that it was time to sit down and compose an encyclopedia of his own. He spent 10 years writing his enormous book, and perished before it was published. Only due to the hard work, editing, and perseverance of his sons and grandsons was the Bencao gangmu finally printed in 1596, three years after his death.
But what an amazing book it was! The largest and most complete work on materia medica of its time, the Bencao gangmu contains 52 chapters of descriptions, stories, poems, histories, and recipes for how to use and understand everything from fire and mud to ginseng and artemisia, turtles and lions, and even human body parts as medical drugs. Li was a man obsessed: convinced that the only way to properly use something as a drug was to understand as much as possible about it, he stuffed everything he could find into his bencao, from as many different books as he could get his hands on.
He experimented both on the creatures around him and on himself, recording his experience getting “half-drunk” in local bars and trying out remedies on patients to test the hypotheses of other doctors, poets, and scholars. In the pages of his book, one can find prescriptions for dragon bone, stories of corpse-eating demons and fire-pooping dogs, instructions for using magic mirrors, advice for getting rid of locusts, and recipes for excellent fish dinners."
- Harvard Magazine, Carl Nappi, 2010. Click here for entire article.
[He] spent the last half of his life researching and writing an enormous book that became his magnum opus, the Bencao gangmu (ben-sow gong-moo)—an encyclopedic work in the tradition of bencao (materia medica) literature, which includes works explaining the qualities of the various substances used in making medical drugs: plants, animals, stones, clothing, household implements, and assorted other materials.
One of the most ancient forms of medical writing in China, a bencao was often composed or revised at the behest (and with the financial backing) of an emperor. Instead, Li took it upon himself to spend decades traveling—interviewing hunters and fishermen and local healers—reading omnivorously, and trying various treatments for his own patients until he had compiled enough information to satisfy himself that it was time to sit down and compose an encyclopedia of his own. He spent 10 years writing his enormous book, and perished before it was published. Only due to the hard work, editing, and perseverance of his sons and grandsons was the Bencao gangmu finally printed in 1596, three years after his death.
But what an amazing book it was! The largest and most complete work on materia medica of its time, the Bencao gangmu contains 52 chapters of descriptions, stories, poems, histories, and recipes for how to use and understand everything from fire and mud to ginseng and artemisia, turtles and lions, and even human body parts as medical drugs. Li was a man obsessed: convinced that the only way to properly use something as a drug was to understand as much as possible about it, he stuffed everything he could find into his bencao, from as many different books as he could get his hands on.
He experimented both on the creatures around him and on himself, recording his experience getting “half-drunk” in local bars and trying out remedies on patients to test the hypotheses of other doctors, poets, and scholars. In the pages of his book, one can find prescriptions for dragon bone, stories of corpse-eating demons and fire-pooping dogs, instructions for using magic mirrors, advice for getting rid of locusts, and recipes for excellent fish dinners."
- Harvard Magazine, Carl Nappi, 2010. Click here for entire article.