Saturday, August 8, 2009

introduction to classical chinese medicine


Classical Chinese Medicine was not "invented" by the ancient Daoists, it was discovered. It is about the way the universe already works, undistorted and un"added-to" by human individuals, with their personal ideas and opinions. Unfortunately, like so many works of art handed down through the generations, Chinese medicine has undergone many personal interpretations, mistranslations, assumptions, and fragmentations, resulting in the current idea that there are different "schools of thought" of energetic medicine.

To further describe what has occurred in the field, we present an excerpt from an article written by the founder and president of Jung Tao School, Dr. Sean C. Marshall:

As in any field, many professionals gravitate to and employ techniques with which they personally resonate. Physicists, for instance, sometimes engage exclusively in work with particle accelerators. Some others may be deeply interested in fluid dynamics or astrophysics or purely theoretical physics. This does not change the laws of physics. This does not produce different universes with different physical laws based on differing "schools of thought".

To paraphrase Einstein: For laws of physics to be valid, they must be true for everyone in every part of the universe. The observations of individuals may vary depending on their point of view however, -- even though the observations are as valid as is their individual point of view -- this still does not change the laws of physics.

...The message that must be taken here is -- Chinese medicine is a complete coherent, integral, interdependent and independent system of health care that must be understood within its own context, in whole, not in part, if it is to be mastered. It was born out of Daoist philosophy, which is at the heart of Chinese medicine and contains the original, guiding ideas that nurtured it into existence. Anything else is merely a fragment, no matter how elegant or seductive it may seem, it is only a specialty that, when studied in a vacuum, is merely a facet that will not reveal the jewel that produced it.

mushroom photographed is Ling Chi (Immortal Mushroom) - Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum)