As promised from my first article, i would follow up with three more articles to elaborate on each of the Three Chinese Treasures, specifically Jing, Qi & Shen. This article will strictly focus on Jing. The following article will be focusing on Qi and the last/third article will focus on Shen.
If you missed the first article i have provided a link just below.
https://steemit.com/chinese/@giova/the-3-treasures-energy-jing-qi-shen
For those of you that voted and enjoyed the first article, thank you for your votes, support and comments. It gives me great satisfaction to know that i am sharing valuable information that people enjoy.
So that being said, here we go.
Just to recap before we get into the details. If we remember from the first article, Jing in essence is defined as essence, perfected, spirit, demon, sperm, seed. It is considered the foundation of the body, your health and therefore everything you are - without it we are nothing.
Jing is responsible for your birth and your death. Essentially it comes from your parents who got it from their parents and all the way down the pedigree of evolution, therefore being essentially hereditary. The western world would approach this by saying someone has good genes, whereas in the east they would refer to the Jing.
You can consume your Jing daily if you are not careful. It is something that is easy to squander away in our every day stressful and busy lives. Stress, exhaustion and overwork are the biggest consumers of your Jing reserve. Therefore in order to conserve your Jing you must learn to avoid the aforementioned culprits.
If one is lucky enough to be born with parents possessing strong Jing, well one is one step ahead of the game - unfortunately we have no say in this - luck of the draw. This can be displayed in people who abuse their health all throughout their lives compared to those who do all in their power to protect their health, only to never get sick whereas the person being most careful is constantly battling for their health. Yes this is a vague example, but very common. Once again, this is out of our control and really has to do with luck, so we will not spend too much time on it. Instead we will focus on what we can do to enhance and preserve our Jing throughout our life.
Jing can be compared to our genetic telomeres if you will. Telomeres are the ends of our DNA strands. Many people compare them to the end caps of our shoe lases, which keeps them from unraveling much like a DNA strand. When a DNA strand duplicates itself it loses a base off the end each time. Eventually, with time an perpetual divisions, our telomeres become short and vanish. Telomeres have been gaining much ground in science, which has labelled them as the precursor to longevity and possible immortality. Now, the reproductive cells in our body have an enzyme called telomerase, which is responsible for regrowing our telomeres. With age, this enzyme dimishes, thus the reason we age. Could you imagine if we could activate this enzyme? However, there are talks that reactivating this enzyme as we age could have adverse effects and cause a proliferation of cells which could eventually lead to cancer and kill us anyway. This needs to be further studied and looked into obviously. This idea is still in its infant stage and requires more research. However in a perfect world, lets say all works this easily, then we could actual reverse aging by rebuilding our telomeres through telomerase activity. I digress, all this to say that Jing is like the telomerase enzyme and what it is able to do.
Picture of Telomere Source: www.faim.org
We mentioned in the previous article that Jing is stored in the kidneys. If you recall the "kidneys" in the Chinese sense are not referring to the physical organ, but the organ of the meridian system (See image below for meridian line used in acupuncture which represents the flow of the kidney meridian).
Image source: www.acupunctureschoolonline.com
In Chinese medicine, it is known that knee and back pain are sometimes related to Jing deficiency. Another common symptom is dark circles under the eyes, which is representative of Jing depletion. A challenged immune system is another sigh of Jing issues. A person that is chronically sick and remains so for extended periods of time can be suffering from Jing depletion.
Ways To Deplete One's Jing:
- Stress
- Fear
- Insecurity
- Overwork
- Excessive Exercise
- Trauma
- Childbirth
- Daily toxins
- Poor diet/food choices
- Excessive fasting
- Drug use
- Excessive sex (especially for men) - sorry guys!
Remember the key here is excessive. Everything in moderation will have less or no impact, except some of the more critical ones like drugs, poor diet, stress, toxins, childbirth etc...
It should be noted that the energy of choice for daily consumption is Qi. Qi can be obtained from herbs but also foods and even breathing techniques. Anything chronic or excessive will tap into your Jing reserves. Additionally, there is no way to stop using up your Jing. This is because life and aging automatically tap into it, but we should not add to this or all we will be doing is speeding up the natural process of aging and death.
Now if you learn to avoid the aforementioned, there are numerous other ways to cultivate your Jing. Here is a list of ways to do just that:
Deep Sleep: Sleep is known as the great restorer. It is when your body has the time to repair itself and clean out the trash. Lack of sleep is known to affect the body negatively in numerous ways. The consensus is that we should get 8 hours of sleep, but everyone requires different amounts. This is for you to test and see what you are comfortable with as this is very subjective in nature.
Deep Relaxation: Sleep is crucial for general health as well as for the Jing. Meditation, yoga, hypnosis and various breathing practices are all good approaches to cultivating your Jing.
Internal Practice: Qi Gong, which focuses on the bone marrow or Jing. It is said that the internal alchemy actually refines Qi into Jing.
Foods: Poor nutrition is a way to deplete your Jing and good nutrition can help it rejuvenate. Good nutrition will not exactly enhance your Jing, but it will support it and stop it from leaking out. The herbs mentioned below are used to cultivate it and help regain what was lost.
Jing Herbs: He Shou Wu, rehmania, gogi berries, eucommia, chaga, deer antler, togkat ali, dendrobium, schizandra and many more, but these are the main.
In Ayurvdia (indian healing system), Jing is referred to as Ojas. The top herbs to help with your Ojas/Jing are ashwaganda and shilajit.
The Yin and Yang of Jin
Image source: www.huffingtonpost.com
Everything is about balance, yin and yang. Jing is no exception to the rule. When it comes to the yin and yang of Jing, we break it down as follows:
yin = recovery
yang = power
Yin hers are all about nourishing and replenishing. They are going to help you restore your Jing at a very deep level. These herbs are the ones that will help restore your youth.
Conversely, yang herbs are more empowering. They are the driving force. They will help with sexual, creative and athletic issues.
In Chinese medicine it is recommended to always take both yin and yang herbs in tandem because once again it is all about balance. Say you were to take only yang herbs and you were already deficient in ying. This would be detrimental to your overall health as the power would lead you to over exerting yourself and depleting you Jing once again. Therefore it is crucial to always keep the balance as that is the concept of yin and yang, and this concept plays a part in every aspect of our daily lives.
Stay tuned for the next article on Qi.