The
"Why is this book titled “Contemplating Chinese Medicine” in Chinese? What is it that we are contemplating? It is nothing other than these underlying principles, nothing other than the mysteries of nature and life as deciphered through the orientations of time.”
…”Liu Lihong has
developed the Institute (for the Clinical Research of Classical Chinese
Medicine) into an influential platform that has reintroduced multiple classical
lineages to contemporary scholarly discourse, most notably the Fire Spirit
School of Sichuan herbalism (huoshen pai), the traditional system of emotional
healing synthesized by the Confucian educator Wang Fengyi (1864-1937), and
classical five-element-style acupuncture. Each one of these efforts has had a
considerable impact on the grassroots momentum of Chinese Medicine education in
China .”
Joyful at thus seeing evidence of the importance of my work in China, I was
delighted at last to be able to read the book which was the catalyst those
eight years ago for Mei Long to write to Liu Lihong ,
urging him to acquaint himself with this discipline of traditional Chinese
medicine, one which she recognized was very close to his own approach. It has been with much surprise and delight now
to receive confirmation that all that I was taught by the great master of five
element acupuncture, JR Worsley himself, all that I have since learnt for
myself and from my readings of the classics through translations by Father
Larre and Elisabeth Rochat, all of this finds strong, almost eerie echoes in
what Liu Lihong
writes.
Though the book includes much detailed discussion of herbal remedies, since
“When discussing Chinese Medicine, the backdrop of the natural world cannot be forgotten. If you have a thorough understanding of the natural world, your foundation in Chinese Medicine will be sound and your understanding can progress.”(p. 375)
Of the many insights I gained from my reading of this book, none impressed
me more than the clarity with which he compares traditional Chinese medicine
and modern Western medicine, clearly seeing that they spring from different
approaches which cannot be melded together into one system as so many people
now attempt to do. Instead he regards
them as complementing each other, provided that their fundamental differences
are acknowledged. For instance he
writes:
“Western Medicine is clearly biased towards objectivity rather than subjectivity…..Chinese Medicine is vastly different in this respect and places great emphasis on the subjective experience.” (p.262)
I also find the humility he shows in relation to his own understanding of his discipline quite startling and very impressive, such is his respect for his masters whose influence on his development he acknowledges. I always feel that teachers who are not afraid to know that they have more to learn are the ones I can truly learn from.
And here I encounter a slight problem, for though, quite rightly, he claims that the best, if not the only true way of learning is to sit at the feet of an acknowledged master of whatever discipline we wish to practice (and did I not do exactly that when I was fortunate enough to find my way to JR Worsley?), how are we to find such masters in a world, as he says, where institutionalized classroom learning is valued more highly than the kind of personal transmission from master to pupil? And even more pertinently, where are the great clinical teachers without which there can be no transmission of such profound age-old disciplines?
This is something I have had to struggle with during my time in China, for I often ask myself how can I and my small cohort of two other five element teachers, Guy Caplan and Mei Long, alone pass on as much as we can in the form of personal transmission through our seminars to as many people as we can. It is with great relief, therefore, that, thanks to
The world needs people of vision, such as
Finally, I want to express my admiration for the team of translators, led by the book’s editor, Heiner Fruehauf, who have made such a tremendous job of creating an English version which reads so beautifully and eloquently. As a former translator in another life, and still a translator from French into English of Elisabeth Rochat’s work, I appreciate from a very personal point of view the many hours, days and weeks of hard work such an excellent translation would have demanded.
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