Mental energy in Chinese medicine 

Located in the brain, nourished by the five human senses that allow us to relate to the surrounding environment, mental energy in Chinese medicine is formed from conception. It is then influenced by the pure component of food energy and respiratory activity. You are what you eat.

Tell me how you breathe and I’ll tell you who you are , I’d add. 

For the Taoist philosophers, life was the playground for purifying life itself. The arc of existence was used precisely to go and clean that mental energy mentioned above. The target? Wisdom and serenity of spirit. 

Five entities are part of the mental energy , psychic energies in total agreement with the movement of the five elements of Chinese medicine . These psychic entities are: 

1. Shen;
2. Yi; 
3. Bit;
4. Zhi;
5. Hun.

Let’s spend some time with each of them. 

From Shen to Hun . From intelligence to imagination 

The Shen

A great scholar whose texts I have relied on often defines Shen as “psychism director of consciousness, of the rapidity of understanding”. The illustrious one in question is Chen You-Wa , who graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, then from the Faculty of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Shanghai.

An acupuncturist who is also a poet, who knows how to explain the location of the points clearly and effectively. We suggest some of them, but it is obvious that pressing once is not enough to feel a harmony. Nevertheless, the localization of a point can be a beginning, an “I exist because I love myself”.

We said, or rather, we could say, that Shen distinguishes us from animal friends. He makes us understand, understand. He makes us noble of mind, if we cultivate him “in a way”. And what does he mean to give him due regard? To conform to the biological rhythms of the universe .

The Shen lodges in the Heart , it is there to balance reason and emotions. Vulnerability, failing sleep, tachycardia are all effects of a disturbed Shen . There is a very important point concerning this quality and it is the Door of the Spirit . It is found on the crease of the wrist (right or left) in a sensitive dimple, next to that round little bone that you will feel “at the end of the palm”. 

The Yi

Let’s move on to Yi. When you go straight like a sword. When you act as if you “have Mars in your sign” the astrologers would say. This can happen when reflection is a point of agreement between past and present . When you know where to place yourself. Yi is memory of the past, thinking of ideas. It is fine when you are “grounded”. And it is in fact inextricably linked to the Earth and therefore to the Spleen organ .

If there is psychic unsatisfaction , obsessive ideas, memory loss, “the earth is missing under your feet”. The associated point is the Earth Machine, on the inside of the leg, four transverse fingers below the corner of the tibial bone. It is a very sensitive point to pressure, you will notice it. And you won’t see how much it can harmonize and warm. 

The Po

The Po . No, it’s not the river. I always wonder what Freud would have thought of this entity. In the Po there is instinctive life, memory . We mean a multi-level memory: the genetic one, that of acquired experiences, and of the so-called past lives. The Lung preserves this memory and distributes it at various levels and depths: the organ that receives this memory in the periphery is the skin .

The Zhi

Zhi: will, determination. It’s in the Kidney . You should be imagining the very center point of a platform on which to throw darts. If the kidney is strong, the person will have a life oriented towards a precise and therefore sensible direction, in the etymological sense of the word. When initiative is lacking and goals are always labile, the kidney is weak. 

The Hun

Hun forms a couple with Po. If the second reflects the Earth inside us, the first reflects the Sky that inhabits it, in a poetic way (in TCM poetry and medicine are one). The spirit of heaven, the psychological demands. It has to do with intuition, inspiration, the ability to understand “from the gut” one would say and act accordingly. The organ to which the liver is attached .

The fact that it is related to this intuitive part does not have to match it with emotions. On the contrary, emotions are regulated by this unconscious mind on a rational level but very awake on an intuitive level. The safeguard that comes “from the upper floors”. That something that allows us to maintain universal connection. 

Let me be clear, these are all “homeomorphic equivalents” as one would say in terms of comparative philosophy of religions. They are attempts to bring concepts together. But they can help us to better understand other realities and ourselves.