Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
The little things of our daily life, accumulated over time, lead to results we never expected. Whether what we do and think each day is right or wrong, quantity eventually turns into quality, and the results can be as different as heaven and earth. This is what Laozi meant when he said: “A tree as thick as a man's embrace grows from a tiny shoot; a terrace nine stories high rises from a heap of earth; a journey of a thousand li begins beneath one's feet.” So whether one's conduct and affairs accord with the Tao is a matter of life and death that one must understand. Even whether our three daily meals accord with the natural Way bears on whether we live long or die young, prosper or struggle, for eating can bring health, but it can also bring illness. Taoism holds that one who knows how to nurture life through diet is an immortal.
In the past people lived poor, simple lives, and their food was not as abundant or nutritious as ours today; yet they seldom suffered the “diseases of affluence” and “diseases of civilization” that people get now. Why? Because people then ate differently from people today, and so they got different diseases. Cancer, high blood pressure, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, obesity, high blood lipids, fatty liver, diabetes, senile dementia, and so on are all caused by unbalanced nutrition, or by overnutrition and toxicity from excess fat.
High blood pressure is caused by high blood lipids. As the name suggests, high blood lipids means the fat content of the blood is too high. When the fat content of the blood is too high, the blood loses its clarity and becomes thick and sticky.
When the blood becomes thick, it cannot flow well; when it cannot flow well, the microcirculation of the limbs and the blood supply to the brain become insufficient. To solve this, the body can only raise blood pressure to push the blood along, and the only way to raise blood pressure is to increase the force of the heart muscle's contractions. But if this goes on for a long time, the heart will be damaged by overwork.
The lungs govern clearing and descending. Blood returns to the lungs through the veins, and because it is thick, the lungs can only complete their task of receiving and descending by working harder; over time, the lungs too are burdened.
Chinese medicine holds that the liver stores blood and likes to flow freely and discharge. The liver is like a warehouse: it converts the excess, unused nutrients in the blood into liver glycogen and stores it, and when the body is short of nutrients, it converts the glycogen back into plasma for use. But people today eat their fill at all three meals, so this stored energy never gets used. With only intake and no outflow, over time the liver gradually enlarges and becomes a fatty liver. Once it is a fatty liver, it loses its vitality and elasticity and moves toward fibrosis and cirrhosis. Once the liver hardens, its ability to detoxify and to flow and discharge freely declines, which in turn harms health.
In addition, when there is too much nutrition in the body, some of it is converted by various enzymes into sugar that enters the blood. As blood sugar rises, the pancreas works harder, secreting more insulin to convert and break it down. But as its workload grows, its efficiency falls, it secretes less and less insulin, the sugar cannot be converted, and diabetes results. In severe diabetes the legs ulcerate, and some patients must have them amputated. And because the blood's sugar and fat content is too high, the kidneys' workload of filtering and metabolism increases and they are worn down. So overnutrition overloads and overworks the five zang organs and six fu organs and brings on illness. The source of all this is overnutrition and fat toxicity.
Where does the fat come from? The meat we eat is fat, and oil is fat! Animal fat in particular congeals easily, and when a person is inwardly knotted up and tense, qi stagnation and blood stasis readily form. If this then meets the yin-cold qi stored in the body, the stagnant blood, acted upon by this yin-cold qi, easily forms the nucleus of a clot. Once this nucleus forms, it draws in the surrounding fat, which sticks to it, and like a snowball it grows bigger and bigger; over months and years it becomes a thrombus.
Once such a thrombus forms, if it blocks the heart, it is a heart attack; if it blocks the brain, it is a cerebral infarction. Once a cerebral infarction occurs, the blood supply to the brain is insufficient, brain cells are starved of nutrients and die, and the brain atrophies—this is the cause of senile dementia. And thick, sticky blood, like scale in a water pipe, sticks and settles on the walls of the blood vessels. Over time the vessel walls thicken, lose their elasticity, become brittle, and narrow, so the blood cannot flow smoothly—this is why cerebral blood vessels burst under high pressure.
All of this is caused by eating. Of course, there are many more illnesses related to eating, drinking, and bad habits, which I will not list one by one. In short, all of this comes from the human heart: the heart is the source of all illness.
Mind and body move in step. If a person remains for a long time in a tense and unhealthy state of mind, qi stagnation and blood stasis become the body's normal condition, because stagnant blood is thick blood. Once such thick blood has formed, even a vegetarian will show the “three highs” (high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high blood lipids), because this is the inner cause of the three highs, while high-fat food is the outer cause. Inner and outer causes acting together are the root of the body's illnesses.
In this physiological environment of qi stagnation and blood stasis, cells, to adapt to their living conditions, are forced to change their genes, triggering cancer. On the other hand, a steady state of qi stagnation and blood stasis greatly lowers the body's immunity, providing an ideal space for cancer cells to survive.
The Taoist way of nurturing life teaches you a healthy way of living, bringing people back to simplicity and plainness and to following naturalness. This is the secret of self-cultivation that Laozi passed down to us: “Show plainness and embrace simplicity; lessen selfishness and reduce desires.” Only in this way can one find inner peace, and inner peace sets in motion the body's capacity for self-repair. Once that capacity is set in motion, all your illnesses will heal of themselves.
Then use grain avoidance (bigu) to clear out the excess nutrition in the body, and teach people to eat vegetarian and raw food. This keeps people from taking in too much animal fat, oil, salt, and seasoning. Food that has been pan-fried, stir-fried, cooked, and deep-fried absorbs the nature of fire, and eating it causes internal heat.
Eaten raw, vegetables keep their natural properties, their living energy, and their pure, clear qi; but the more they are processed by human hands, the more of this living energy is lost. So raw vegetables, which keep their own living energy and pure, clear qi, help detoxify, nourish the complexion, beautify, clear toxins, reduce inflammation, ease the bowels, aid weight loss, cool and cleanse the blood, and bring down fire. If you choose this way of life, many of your illnesses will heal without medicine.
So when people fall ill, they should first reflect on themselves and look for the cause within: repent of their thoughts and intentions and ask whether they have been living rightly, and whether there is a problem with what they eat and drink—rather than rushing to the hospital. Yet when many people fall ill, the first thing they think of is the hospital and the doctor; they push everything onto the hospital and expect the hospital and doctors to solve it for them. This is truly heading south by driving the cart north, and the result can well be imagined.
It is like owing someone money and not wanting to pay it back, but finding an unrelated person to repay the debt for you—can that work? For illnesses caused by overnutrition like these, if you use drugs to treat them, never mind whether they can really solve your problem: as the saying goes, “every medicine is one-third poison,” and the harm done to your body by the side effects of long-term, heavy medication is real.
The grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits of a vegetarian diet contain all the nutrients the body needs, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, and fiber. As long as people eat normally, they will never lack nutrition. If they eat so much oil and meat on top of this, it exceeds what the body needs many times over, and this excess is the cause of the modern diseases of civilization.
Too much is as bad as too little; both harm the body. This is the natural way of nurturing life in food and drink.