The reason that the public feels
mysterious and strange of the Chinese medicine is its
theory, such as the Yin-Yang, Five-element, Five-yun-six-qi,
etc. Nowadays, people live in the city. They do not see the
sun the whole day or do not see the moon often during the
year. How can they understand that their life is related to
the sun and the moon?
I discussed with my daughter if we
could throw away some of the theory, such as the
Five-yun-six-qi? My daughter said it is impossible. It
should not be depleted out of the whole Chinese medicine
system. People whole know the pulse diagnosis know that our
body is very closely related to the weather change. The
pulse feels different in different seasons. It is felt like
a string in spring, big in summer, floating in autumn, and
solid in the winter. It is also different in the morning and
at night. It is even different in the spring this year, as
compared with that in the last year. The function of each
organ is different in a different season and different
place. Without the application of the Five-yun-six-qi
theory, it would be very hard, or impossible to organize and
to study the role of the pulse variation. My daughter said,
if no this theory, how your mother predicted the kind of
infectious disease in a given year?
Why is the current clinic healing
effect not so good? How many TCM doctors are using the
Five-yun-six-qi theory? The current TCM, in general, has
omitted the Five-yun-six-qi theory in practice. People are
suggesting to use an instrument to replace the hand-feeling
of the pulse, to make the pulse diagnosis more accurate.
These people are actually making a consideration that every
healthy person has the same pattern of the pulse, and the
pulse does not change according to the season and the time
during the day, and so on. They do not know that the pulse
is even different between the old and the young; between man
and women. This fact is very new to many of us since we
cannot feel such variations, but it is true. If the pulse is
variable among people, whose pulse should be used as the
“standard” or the “background pulse”? How can we use an
instrument to replace it?
Think this way: if
there is no Five-yun-six-qi theory, you felt the pulses of
hundred people, if you are not good at the pulse diagnosis
and if you are not sensitive to the variation among the
pulses, you would feel the same for all of the people. If
you are more sensitive in the pulse, you may feel each
people is different for their pulses. This makes that
someone feels the pulse diagnosis is easy to learn, and
others feel it is hard so to deny the pulse diagnosis. This
is also the reason that many TCM doctor cannot apply the
pulse diagnosis in their clinic work. Put aside the
Five-yun-six-qi theory, the pulse diagnosis is an utter
mess.
When I was young, I
had also some critics to the pulse diagnosis, for its
uncertainty. For patients who came from far away places, the
far they came from, the long time my mother felt their
pulses, the more questions she would ask, and the more
careful she made the assessment. Upon treatment, she would
also make a trying first, watching for several days, then
made the decision to use large doses of herbs. I felt
strange at that time, why mother could not make a precise
diagnosis easily as usual?
After learning of the Five-yun-six-qi theory, I understand
right away: a Chinese medicine doctor is alike a Chinese
farmer. Chinese farmer plants according to the season (lunar
calendar). The four seasons of a year are divided into 24
steps, and 72 sub-steps. Plant, transplant rice seedlings,
harvest, every step in the farm work needs to follow the
weather and the natural Qi change. Once missed the natural
weather steps, even if it might be only several days delay,
the year-end harvest could be very different. Farmers use
Farmer's proverb, or farmer is saying, of the "Bible of
Farmers". For example, Chinese farmers said, “Year of cow
and horse is a good year for farm harvest”. No one doubts
it. When I was young, I heard from my grandmother: “If there
is raining in the Chunfen sub-step, there would have fewer
patients”, “If it is not cold in the Dahan sub-step, people
and horse would not be in peace (would have diseases)”. All
are proven correct again and again, year by year. This is
now called the environmental signaling. The study of the
environment signaling is now a branch of science.
“Five-yun-six-qi” is the environmental
signaling of Chinese medicine. A farmer knows how to deal
with the seeds in his hands, after knowing the season at
that time; and knows what he needs to do after seeing the
growing conditions of the plants in the field. There is also
the four-season-eight-step, 24 Qi, and 72 diagnosis system
in the Chinese medicine.
Chinese medicine masters the
relationship between human growth and the sun and the moon.
This is not created from the mind of the Chinese medicine
doctor, but a true exist fact. The pulse in spring should be
felt like a violin string; it would be a disease condition
if it is big. The doctor aims to adjust the pulse to match
the season. This is the goal of the treatment. It is so
simple the Chinese medicine is. In the treatment of female
infertility, my daughter’s Great master adjusted the female
menstruation matching the circle of the moon. He said it is
rare that the woman’s period is matching the circle of the
moon but not get pregnancy especially if the period comes
during the full moon.
However, if we send a farmer who lived
and did the farm work at the North of China to the South of
China, he would be confused after he is given a hand of
seeds or the seeds of the plants growing in the South of
China. He needs to watch, learn and understand and adjust
his previous experience to the South China environment. In
the same way, Chinese medicine also has a territory
specification.
My daughter’s
Great master needed to see 50 to 60 patients every morning.
After my daughter felt the pulse of every patient, he no
longer to feel the pulse again by himself but wrote a
prescription right away. He can judge the pulse of this
person without touching the pulse.. The more the patients
came, the more possible he could master the environmental
signaling, knew the
“disease”
at that time, knew the
“disease”
of the whole local people at that time. This is the
reproducibility and the system of Chinese medicine. This
makes he looked very
“mysterious”
and
“marvelous”.
In the same
hospital where her Great master worked, there were also
other Chinese doctors of old age. Their door of the clinic
opened largely, but with only a few patients visit. My
daughter chatted with them. She said, these doctors also had
rich knowledge in Chinese medicine, but they could not
master the environmental signaling in Chinese medicine, so
they could not correctly practice Chinese medicine. The
pulse is changeable, the pulses of whole residences are also
changeable, moving, in a dynamic changing manner. If a
Chinese medicine doctor does not know this dynamic pulse
changing, he would not be able to master the pulse.
Therefore, if a student with Ph. D. in Chinese medicine
could not treat disease, not because he did not read lots of
books, but because the Chinese medicine cannot be separated
from the actual clinic and actual nature changes. If the
learning of the pulse diagnosis is a not a continuous
matter, if it is learned from textbooks, it is hard to
master, and the student may develop doubt to it. That
Chinese medicine is hard to learn, is because it is needed
to learn from practice, not only from books.
My daughter felt
pulse for everyone everywhere she went. She said I could not
stop to have a break. I need to master the environmental
signaling in this way. If I did not feel pulse for a long
time, I would not be able to know the basic pulse pattern of
the people in this area at this time. At such time, if you
let me feel a pulse, the level of accuracy would not be
high.
Daughter asked me
how her grandmother mastered the environmental signaling at
the beginning of her learning Chinese medicine. I told her,
my mother started Chinese medicine at her 24 years of old.
She rode on a donkey, visited each family, visit patients by
herself… My daughter said, buy a car for me. I would drive it to farms.
If I sit in the city to wait, I would be as many of the old
Chinese medicine doctors who could not practice Chinese
medicine even their mustache turned white. I do not want to
destroy the Chinese medicine as them.
For thousands of years, the population of China
is always one-quarter of the world. In the analysis of the
relationship between the weather and the diseases, Chinese
medicine holds the vast pool of clinic samples. No any other
medical systems in the world had such continuous monitoring
and the data accumulation for thousands of years. Respect
the knowledge and life experience from far old generations.
Chinese medicine is not abstruseness. Chinese medicine is
neither old or modern. It exists in the human experience. It
should be easy to understand this if we stay in the course
of practicing it.
Why Chinese farmers have no problem to
accept and use Chinese medicine? It is because the
principles for the farm and the Chinese medicine match each
other. I have paid attention to the modernization of
agriculture. The farm can be modernized, so can Chinese
medicine. If gene research can change the seed of a human,
Chinese medicine would also be able to use a new way to
treat disease.
In Chinese, we call every day is “Day”.
The time during the day is recorded according to the run of
the sun. For every month, in old times, the old Chinese
recorded the month according to the run of the moon, so did
each year. However, our 24 seasonal steps and 72 sub-steps,
are recorded according to the run of the sun, similar to the
western calendar, which is measured based on the Chinese
Hongtian instrument, e.g., based on the believing that the
earth is a round planet. This means that our ancient Chinese
people have tried to make the subjective and the objective
come to match each other. The experience of the old Chinese
is to bring us to the objective, to the accurate and to the
truth.
Old Chinese expressed, explained and
associated the influence of the sun and the moon to the
human being, with the Yin-Yang concept. They adjusted the
explanation based on their practice, again and again, to
make the theory more cooperated with reality. After the
historical wash, what is left is a clear river bed. This is
the Chinese medicine theory. If we look at Chinese medicine
from the historical development course, we could see that it
is simple, natural, true, and logical.
Since the living
things on the earth are affected by both the sun and the
moon, it was necessary that the old Chinese use both the
solar and the lunar calendar. The heavenly stems of 60 years
circle are the near moon circle and the tropical year
circle. It showed that the minimum similarity circle is 60
years, using the Dongzhi (winter solstice) sub-step of the
season as calculating spot, for the relative position among
the earth, the moon, and the sun. This calculation is in
accordance with the nature rule. This makes me think, either
the life of old Chinese is not as short as we believed,
either the records for the nature is very strict and precise
from generation to generation; otherwise, it would be very
difficult to monitor the nature so close to the truth.
Chinese emphasize the tradition and the knowledge transfer
from a Great master to later students. Without such a
tradition, it is impossible to fulfill such monitoring
tasks.
Within such 60 years of the circle, the
change of the relative position among the earth, the sun,
and the moon, cause changes of overall environmental
conditions on the earth. Such environmental signaling is
expressed in Chinese medicine as the Five-yun-six-qi. The
five Yun means Metal, Wood, Fire, Water, and Soil. The six
Qi is Wind, Cold, Hot, Wetness, Dryness, and Fire. Once we
mention the Yin-Yang and Five-element, current people feel a
headache, do not know what they mean. They are not so
complicated. We can understand it in a simple way. For
example, when we start to understand the concept of
temperature, we understand it by use of the concept of cold
and the hot. When it is minus 20 degrees, we say it is cold.
However, could we deny the hot concept from the minus 20
degrees? Is it 10 degrees hotter than the minus 30 degrees?
When we say that 30 degree is hot, does it also colder than
the 40 degrees? Therefore, when we speak of the Yin, it does
not mean there is no Yang in it. Also, when we speak of a
Yang, it does not mean there is no Yin in it. The level of
the Yin in the Yang, and the Yang in the Yin, is expressed
by the five elements. Therefore, the five elements are the
status, or the level, or the extent of the Yin or Yang. I
believe that the Yin and the Yang, and the Five-element is
the very practical fuzzy mathematics. In this point, it is
not overstated that it is advanced science.
After the
establishment of the Yin-Yang and the Five-element theory,
it becomes the
“law” of Chinese medicine. Nowadays, some people stand in the middle
the two major groups who are arguing against or for Chinese
medicine. The people in the middle group suggest to use the
herbs or herbal formula of Chinese medicine, but not the
theory of it. Such only keeping the herbal formula, but not
the theory of Chinese medicine, is just what I suggested
when I wanted to learn Chinese medicine but refused by my
mother. At that time, I thought that, if mother told me the
herbal formula for the treatment of aplastic anemia, or
psoriasis, or infertility, I would have hoped to succeed if
I meet trouble in the clinic treatment in future. For a long
time, I could not understand why my mother is so foolish.
Now, I understand, with the herbal formula but no theory to
guide the use of the formula, the Chinese medicine would
have no regeneration ability, cannot adjust the treatment
according to the environment changes, cannot treat any
possible new diseases in future. At this point, these
theories can be regarded as the life of Chinese medicine.
If there were no
biological changes in our body according to the seasons,
there would have no meaning for the Yin-Yang and
Five-element theory to the Chinese Medicine. My daughter
said, upon the passing from one season to another, the first
group of patients almost all are the
“seasonal” disease because their body did not match the change of the
season. This group of patients can be used as a reference
mark to the diagnosis and treatment for other patients since
the master of the environmental signaling in the clinic
needs to be used in each actual patient. The Chinese
medicine doctor needs to set up a
“standard” to be used as a mark, to express the current environmental
conditions. Therefore, we can say that, to a Chinese
medicine doctor, the more his patients is, the more precise
his treatment is, the higher the efficient his treatment is,
since every patient is related to each other. One patient is
an object of reference of others. An individual is the part
of the whole group. The more the patient's samples is, the
more precise his assessment to the environmental signaling
is, so the better the clinic results is. Therefore, the
doctor who has fewer patients would have less such
“standard” or
“base mark” allowing him to assess the environmental signaling, would have
less level of precision in his diagnosis and treatment. The
doctor who has fewer patients would need to try several
herbal formulae to try for each patient. For this reason, I
do not recommend to change doctor so frequently. We should
give each doctor enough chance to understand the disease
condition.
In this way, some
old Chinese medicine doctor looks like a farmer selling his
melon in his clinic work. The farmer picks up a melon:
“6 pounds!”. He picks up another:
“I am sure this one is mature enough to eat!” after he tapping on the melon. If
you need him to show you the evidence for the mature, he can
not. You can weigh it using a scale, or cut it open to see
if it is eatable. When I lived in the farm and went to the
melon field to pick up melons, I never questioned the
scientific evidence for the farmer’s way to tell the weight and the mature level of the melons. The
farmer understands more precise to Chinese medicine than
some scientists. This does not prove that Chinese medicine
does not bear any scientific meaning or prove foolish of the
farmer. In fact, Chairman Mao understood this more.
Modern life is more
and more away from nature. It makes us feel no strong
relationship between our body and nature. Later, the
scientists in the western world started to find
“biological clock”, the
“bio-rhythm”. They found that it is not good to
have physical exercise at night, found that sunbath can
treat poor sleeping… To be honest, because I paid close
attention to the development of scientific research, such
“new” scientific findings pushed me back to the time of my mother.
Compared with what my mother said, such new findings are
only a
“formula”, not at all a
“theory”, or a
“rule”. Such
“formula” can be deduced out
— no need to have such scientific efforts to
“find” it.
It is biased to believe that the current people
are smart than old generations, western people are clever
than eastern people, and scholars are smart than labor
workers. I do not believe that people using a gun is clever
than those who are using a long spear. People in modern life
have technique, but the ancient generations had skill. The
dependence of people in current life on the technique makes
us only see the technique but not human being. The doctors
in the western medicine act as a machine, or as practically
no function. If you tell him that you have pain in the
stomach, he cannot give you a diagnosis, but send you to a
Beta ultrasound detection. If there is really something
growing in your stomach, he is not the one who tells out to
you, the technician who performs the B ultrasound could tell
you already. My daughter said, coming into hospital as into
a factory. Everyone is a technician, chill and icy.
Why are Chinese modest? Why Mr. Confucius said:
“Among three people, there will be one as my teacher”?
This is because if our generation does not learn, we
could not know what the previous human generations knew.
We cannot, from our birth,
know everything. This is like a walk. Everyone needs
to learn the walk when we are a baby, a step no one can
omit. Even if our whole life is to use a car, no need to
walk, we still need to learn to walk. Scientists represent
the current technique. Most people think that these
scientists also represent themselves, so look down the old
generations. Current people with a weak body but with a gun
in hands laugh at the muscular body, braveness, and
skillfulness of the old generations. We, with the robber
manner of the western world, deal with the knowledge of old
human generations.
I dare not to deny
things that look as foolish by looking. Foolish things come
as a flood. Chinese medicine is as the river after a flood.
There has been a man on the internet, who described the
“chicken blood injection”, and
“Red Tea Fungus therapy” that has been spread in China many years ago. He sighed with
emotion for the foolish of the people at that time. Though
we know that these therapies are nonsense, the road not only
Chinese medicine but also modern science is never
straightforward. Have a look at the current science, is it
not also the river bed after a flood? Is the current result
of the science not also an unexpected product of many tries
that have been regarded as
“foolish” actions before? Now the science is
dominated as an empress; some people struggle to give it a
gloried history and an excellent reputation for its past. Is
there such necessary? When I taught the students in middle
school, I told them the real history of the science, so not
to let the students set a superstition to the science and
not to suppress the student’s own creation.
It looks foolish
the
“chicken blood injection” therapy. There is a negative
reaction in people of an allergic body constitution.
However, injection of penicillin can also cause an allergic
reaction. Beside of the surface foolish, if we look from the
Chinese medicine point of view, animal therapy has been used
for a long history. The medicine used is not only the part
of animal but also alive animal. For example, we use leech
for bleeding therapy, and use bee-toxic to treat joint pain,
and so on. The therapeutic effects of pet to human are not
only in emotion but also in the physical body. Now, it is
admitted by the western medicine that, people may get less
chance for the allergic reaction if they have had a pet in
the home when they are young. Old Chinese generations
noticed that cat is a cold animal. It is suited for the
treatment of febrile disease. The dog is a warm animal,
which is suit for the treatment of a chill disease, such as
cancer, liver cirrhosis, and arthritis.
I have a colleague. She never ate
chicken. If she needed to have a party at home, she would
ask me to help her at home. I washed and cooked the chicken
while she stood out of the house. She said she could not
endure the smell of the chicken. To cook the chicken without
the odor of the chicken, I cooked it as the way for
Xiangsouji dish. The chicken was boiled, added orange peel,
cooling wine and mushrooms into the chicken, then brought
the mixture to steam. Then the mixture was fried with oil. I
asked her to smell. There was no smell of the chicken, but
she still refused to eat. To stop me from trying again and
again for her, she told me the reason that she does not eat
chicken. When she was 12, she was very sick to die. Her
parents tried the last way: they picked up a hen and came to
her bed. They pull apart the chest of the hen and put the
hen chest on her chest. She turned alive, but she never ate
chicken from that time.
I discussed with my daughter why
chicken could be used for treatment. She said, according to
Chinese medicine, it is to transfer the life Qi from the hen
to the girl. When speaking of the Qi, it is opposed very
much by the people who are superstitious to science. It is
very natural for my daughter that there is Qi in nature. She
said that the pulse is different according to different
seasons, is the association of the human body to the Qi.
Meridian is the pathway of the Qi in the body. If an
acupuncturist only knows the acupuncture point, not the
meridian, not the acupuncture feelings, does not know how to
choose the acupuncture points, his acupuncture is not
acupuncture.
When my daughter
was 2 years of old, she had heart failure. Various
treatments and therapies had been used without clear
improvement. I asked the doctor to inject my blood to her to
save her life. The doctors laughed at me:
“Is your blood a medicine? What disease it can treat?” I insisted. After infusion of 200
ml of my blood, her eyes opened, that had been in close for
two days, and she asked something to eat. I thought, if my
blood, here to draw away and there to infusion, works as the
same as the
“chicken blood therapy” and the pear of the alive hen?
Not to deny
something does not mean to admit or support that thing, but
means a caring attitude. I believe that it is easy to deny
something, but there is no harm to ask more questions. The
knowledge in our brain is different from that of old human
generations, but it does not mean that the brain, the
container is different in quality from that of the old human
generations. Our physical body neither changes dramatically
from that of the old human generations.
Therefore in the medical treatment, it would be safer
to choose some old technique than a new technique. If a
strong body, a brave hunter has a gun in hands, is it not
more perfect? Why after there is a technique, we should
throw away the skill?
My daughter had a classmate. He found a
way to learn Chinese medicine from a very famous Chinese
medicine doctor. He found with great surprise that this
doctor is also good at the use of western medicine drugs.
The healing effects were much high than ordinary western
medicine doctors. In other words, he would have been a
high-level western medicine doctor, but he still stands as a
Chinese medicine doctor. Current Chinese medicine doctors
are not living in old age. The scientific knowledge of many
of them is higher than those who write articles to criticize
Chinese medicine. If science can combat the Chinese
medicine, why they still insist on the practice of Chinese
medicine? As a Chinese medicine doctor can understand
western medicine, and many western medicine doctors also
suggest patients try Chinese medicine. Those of people who
publish articles against Chinese medicine belong to none of
the medical systems.
Discussing Chinese medicine with young
generations is difficult. Even if in talking about
traditional culture, there is hardly a start point to talk.
The young generation is used to think things from the
current life point of view; there is no space for
traditional things in their minds.
Later, I finally
find a way to talk to them about traditional culture. I
asked youth:
“Do you like to eat dumping?” Most of them answered:
“Yes!” I asked:
“What’s the original material for the dumpling?” They generally could answer out:
flour, meat, vegetables, oil, salt, etc. When asked for the
process of the cooking, they also know the preparation of
flour, prepare the dumpling filling, spread the flour, fold
the dumping, etc. I asked, is it hard to prepare? They
admitted it is hard and complicated. I said: since it is
hard to prepare, according to the theory of meat being
broken in the pot, can we add all the material, that is
needed for the preparation of dumpling, in a pot, cook all
together and then eat them? Why should we work so hard to
prepare the dumpling following the traditional way? The
youth said it is still a good taste for the traditional
dumpling! I laughed. This is Chinese! They chase after good
taste. Even if for the youth who keep their everything to
the western style, in the eating, remains the same
traditional way rather than turns back to the western style.
I said, if you
really want to learn from the western, I suggest you start
from eating since it is not a simple thing. It is known that
western people do not spend time on preparing dumpling. For
western people, they eat according to the nutritional
aspects. They do not chase very much after the taste as
Chinese. Food enjoyment is not very important in their daily
life. Therefore, western food is, generally speaking,
simple. Though many foods tasted pretty much the same, but
it saves time and contains enough so-called nutrition. The
concept of western food culture is following their
philosophy. What they research is the rule or the theory of
things. The rule and the theory of things look as the
French-style lamb chop. One side is tomato mud; another side
is the lamb chop, plus some green bean and tomato pieces.
The color is sharp in comparison; the states are entirely
different from one part to another. Each part in the dish
has its color and taste. No mixing, no interrupt each other.
If there is any connection, they connect within the dish and
in surface looking. Such philosophy creates the life for the
western culture, making it have advanced development in
natural science, in psychology, and methodology.
However, the procedure for preparing
food, in Chinese, is called cooking. Chinese cooking means
to make the food eatable by boiling, by steam, by fried and
so on. Cooking also means to adjust various tastes in one
bowl. The tastes mean the sour, the bitter, the sweet, the
salty, and the hot. Chinese cooking pays attention to the
beauty of the adjustment of taste. The shape and the color
is the outside beauty, but the taste is the inner beauty.
Chinese food pays more attention to the inner beauty rather
than the surface. The beauty taste needs the original taste
of the food material, the taste after cooking (steam, or
boiling or fried, or smoking, or salty, etc.), plus the
tastes of the additives. The tastes mixed each other to
create more new tastes. Describing the good taste by words
is hard. You can enjoy it by yourself but hard to tell it
out. This is just the same as the Chinese philosophy.
Chinese chase after a kind of hardly described “artistic
conception” in food. Artistic conception is the core of the
art of all kinds, not exclude the food.
To chase after the
good taste is not the real enjoyment of the Chinese to the
food. Chinese medicine pays attention furthermore to the
order and the time of the food taken. The food should be
eaten according to the seasons: in summer and autumn, the
taste should be simple, and light; in winter and spring, the
taste should be relatively stronger.
The taste also needs to be different according to the
environment territory, the time of the year and day, and the
individual needs. It also emphasizes that herbal therapy is
not better than food therapy. Chinese medicine believes that
different taste has a different influence on the body, so
has different healing effects. When we choose food, we need
to take care of the balance of the five major tastes, so to
keep health. If any of the tastes are extreme, there will be
disease happen. The balance of the tastes is the
pre-condition of health maintenance and long life.
My daughter said, mentioning the
medicine, people would think about herbs. In fact, a doctor
can treat a disease without the use of herbs. For many
diseases, such as hypertension, stomach diseases, fat liver,
only change the diet, without herbs or medications, could
also solve the problems. According to the research of the
western phytologists, Chinese eat more than 600 kinds of
vegetables, which is six times more than that eaten by
western people. Every food is allocated to the five tastes,
to make adjustment and coupling, according to Chinese
medicine. The concern about the food is very much by the
Chinese to a very high peak regarding the tastes. There are
so many concerns about the food by the Chinese. Their
chasing cannot easily summarize it for taste. Some of the
current modern diseases are due to the chasing for the
beauty of the taste only. From this point, Chinese medicine
also emphasizes that the disease starts from the mouth. When
my daughter feels a pulse, she may tell the patient: “You
are Korea people”. This makes the patient very surprised. My
daughter said Korea people eat hot food year around, it will
also reflect in their pulse. in the Chinese medicine clinic,
we cannot neglect it.
When my mother is
alive, there is a rule what to eat in each special times of
the year. It does not mean that only Chinese medicine doctor
will do this way, an ordinary Chinese knows this. For
example, in winter, we eat some food for supplement; in
spring, we eat wild vegetables, in summer, add mustard in
the food, and autumn, add turnip, and so on. The fruits and
the vegetables should eat the ones harvested in that season.
This matches the Yin-Yang and Five-element, and the natural
law. If we do things inapposite way, the disease will start
from the mouth. Nowadays, how many modern diseases are not
due to the wrong eating? If we peel off the food culture
into only a taste, how could we not catch a disease?
No matter how I
support Chinese medicine, I still recommend western medicine
as the main healthcare stream in China, not to develop the
Chinese medicine with too many efforts, since the western
medicine is more matching the current needs of the time. In
the population explosion time, in the war, Chinese medicine
does not match the need to handle a large number of wounded
people in the war. If we stop Chinese medicine now, the
society still runs. However, if we close the western
medicine now, with two-fold of Chinese medicine, will it be
able to take the full responsibility of the healthcare need?
The doctors in western medicine can be reproduced through
the classroom and lectures, can be produced quickly. Chinese
medicine is hardly reproduced within a short time.
Some people said that Chinese medicine
falls behind. Yes, it is. The number of Chinese medicine is
as less than half of that before New China (the year 1949).
However, can we say that the Chinese medicine hundred years
ago is at its peak? No. Chinese medicine has never come to a
peak time in history. It should not come to a peak time
either, only because there is no competition force against
it. There is an opinion that the falling behind of Chinese
medicine is due to the impact of western medicine. I think
that it is the excuse of Chinese medicine for its low
competition. The impact of western medicine to Chinese
medicine is the historical necessity, but it is also an
inner power for it to grow later.
I thank the eastern forward
moving of western medicine. Though it suppresses Chinese
medicine to a lower valley, it is not an absolute bad thing.
Along thousands of years, Chinese medicine never had a
challenger from outside. It never has a reference to
compare. It is not good for its development. It does not
mean that something has a life power because it is at its
peak and is popularly accepted. Using western medicine as a
comparing point, it allows us to look at Chinese medicine,
with a viewpoint that has never happened in history before.
It also allows us to make a summary of Chinese medicine. The
comparison aims to develop our advantage and to avoid and
deplete the disadvantage. It is not the comparison in the
eyes of a judge.
The aim of the comparison is not to deplete one medical
system. We, Chinese, need to find our position. If western
medicine is good, there is an advantage in it, we should
learn from it. We also need to know our weakness and correct
it.
Now, western
medicine takes the primary responsibility of the healthcare
tasks. It is a good time for our Chinese medicine to come
into an adjustment for the next step of development.
Compared with western medicine, I felt
that Chinese medicine is bigger but also smaller than
western medicine. Bigger means it is associated with every
part of human life. Smaller means its technique is smaller
than western medicine. For example in the science area, Mr.
Li Shizhen said: “Seeing the truth of the world, the
ultimate in creation”. Is his book << Ben Cao >> not
scientific research? Chinese medicine does not exclude the
technique. Chinese Zhenggu is a technique. When meeting a
patient with difficulty in urinating, Mr. Sun Simiao also
used the stem of Chinese green leek (scallions) as urine
conduct tube (catheter). However, none of the technique in
Chinese medicine could smear off the nature of art in
Chinese medicine. Why do we feel the Chinese medicine
mysterious? Why people, in thanks to a good doctor, send him
a banner with the words “Achieve a miraculous cure and bring
the dead back to life"? Why some people, no matter how hard
he studied, cannot be a good Chinese medicine doctor? Why
the course of the Chinese medicine study following a Great
master is as to discuss, to consider, to think, and to
practice then think, and to think then practice again and
again, as to create art? My daughter said firmly that she is
to “be a big Chinese medicine doctor, be a great master”. I
never heard a western medicine doctor say this way, but
heard from many people who practice an art, that they want
to be a Great master, not only a technician. My daughter
said, to save a life does not convince her to learn Chinese
medicine; to find a way of living does not convince her
either. She started the Chinese medicine for the reason that
she found a feeling from the Chinese medicine. I understand
her when she said so. I think it is important to find the
feeling in the professional field. Human life is commonly
searching for the feeling that belongs to the one himself.
For example, the mathematics seek for the beauty of harmony;
physics seek for union field. And the artist search for the
emotional feeling, etc. The feeling of a human being has a
way of excluding “wrong”. It does not hold anything that
does not belong to it. The feeling has a leading effect. Its
far-seeing power cannot be omitted.
My daughter likes
art, and she does not want to get rid of her love of music
after she started the Chinese medicine. On holiday, she
still brings her violin to her previous teacher to practice
it. One day, her teacher said:
“You have a feeling before when you
played it, why you have no feeling now?” My daughter said, after silence for a while:
“I understand, my feeling has
changed. It has changed to Chinese medicine.” My daughter brought the violin back home and said:
“That one mind cannot be spent on two
things at the same time” refers to my current situation. My feeling of art cannot be
spent on two things either. So I decide not to practice the
violin for some time.”
To reach the miracle in healing is the
level of great doctor. The great doctor performs treatment
like performs art ability. However, how art can be
popularized and reproduced on a large scale? How could it be
enjoyed by the people who are with scientific eyes? How
could those numerous fine and practical process, those
feeling and realization, those considerations and
discussion, those practical experience exchanges be framed
in the frame of reasoning? The shrouded Chinese medicine is
surrounded with a layer of a witch spirit. The mysterious qi
around Chinese medicine is composed of artistic factors.
As Chinese, even if in practice of
western medicine, doctors have kind of Chinese characters in
clinic thinking. Dr. Cao Zeyi, a famous doctor in gynecology
in China, faces many cancer patients. In early years, when
he operated, he tried to clear the cancer mass as much as
possible. He was proud of being able to clear more complete
the cancer mass than other doctors. However, when he sees
that those patients got a life but lost a happy family, even
got disaster in life, he doubts his way of treatment. Now,
if other doctors spend ten hours on the surgical operation,
he may spend only two hours and cut very little the tissues.
He started to risk. The death rate becomes higher than
before since he emphasizes the treatment more on letting the
patient later lives as a human, instead of letting the
patient lives but suffers, e.g., he pays more attention to
the quality of the life of his patients after surgical
operation. In other words, he would rather risk the death of
the patients, than create disaster for the patients with his
surgical operation procedure.
His concept of medical treatment needs much
consideration and pay attention to evaluate it. This is a
different way from a doctor who only sees the disease but
not the human being. This kind of treatment increases the
risk factors for the patients; it is therefore not in a
strong position in theory. However, many Chinese can
understand and accept his way of treatment.
President Chen Guoqian, in the research lab of
the Shanghai Hematology Institute, China, heard: there are
some old Chinese medicine doctors in the North East of
China, who applied the “treat the toxic with toxic” theory,
used arsenic to treat cancer patients. These doctors kept a
large volume of clinic data for such therapy. He studied
these data and found that, among 32 patients with cancer,
there were 28 of them got a complete release. Dr. Chen
Guoqian, in his clinic study, infused 10 mg of pure arsenous
oxide solution in high-risk patients, every day for
consecutive three to four weeks, until the patients got a
complete release. Most of the patients had no strong side
reactions. This result makes the western people stunned. In
their mind, arsenic is highly toxic for killing or for
suicide. They felt very strange and hard to believe that the
infusion of arsenic in vein did no cause apparent side
effects.
The western medicine in the China
territory, could turn, sometimes, independent of their will,
to the road of Chinese medicine. I thought, is this because,
in the mind of Chinese, there is more imaging thinking power
than the western people?
When my daughter was young, I have
tried to culture her scientific reason thinking. Like many
girls, she is not good at accepting the scientific reason
thinking. It was common that reasons for something have been
explained clearly to her, but she still said: yes, the
reason is as such, but I still want that other way.
Well, it is to waste time to explain
her any more reasons. Considering that many girls are not
good at mathematics, physics or chemistry, I have tried to
create her interest for those objects. Started from her
third grade of school, I spend three years, read the book <<
Science history >> to her every night. I thought, the
courses of mathematics, the physics, and chemistry in the
middle school, do not start from encouraging the interests
of students. They peel the history of the science
development. Such a way of education does not in assistance
with the law of cognition. If I could culture the interest
of my daughter to the science, the education in middle
school would not be a difficult process for a student to
accept. Within the three years, I finished the reading and
explanation of the history of scientific development but
also emphasized the theory of relativity of Einstein. We
also read the book << Mysterious traveling in the science
world >>. Then, I thought it would be enough. However, in
middle school, my daughter, together with most of her girl
classmates, felt hard to the mathematics, physics, and
chemistry. I have thought it is due to the wrong education
manner in the school. I started to help her by myself at
home. I soon found that my daughter’s mind refused the
solving tests, refused linear thinking. Her teacher in
physics got to mad and yelled for help from God, by her
strange questions in class.
I made strenuous efforts but failed to
bring her back to logical thinking. I felt confused and
asked her: “I explained to you for three years the science.
You opened your bright eyes, excited, focused on me. I ask
you, where are the things that I explained to you before?”
She smiled: “I felt fascinating when I see you were
performing. Who listened to you?”. I, as her physic teacher,
to cry for God: “My God, does it not mean that I wasted
three years? “ She said: “How can you say it is wasting?
Without trying for so many efforts, how could you know that
I am not good at leaning science? How would you accept the
fact that I can not learn the science?” My daughter forced
me to accept that people’s manner of thinking is not the
same.
In fact, I know. My mind is not a pure reasoning
thinking way either. I studied with others to solve the
mathematics test for “Olympic”. If others can solve ten
tests, I could only then solve nine. People said it is not
bad. With little trying you would also solve all of the
tests. But I studied the last test and found that the
problem is not whether I try or not. I could not solve that
test at all since that is the limitation of my mind in
science wisdom. From the surface, it seems that the
difference between me and others is only one math test, but
in fact, the difference is from the sky to the earth. The
people who can solve the remaining math test must be the
pure math mind, but I am not that one. From other’s eye,
there is the only small difference between me and math
master, but the “small” difference is far apart between us.
From this point of view, to learn from others, we can only
learn the surface, not the real thing. If we want to be
really as other, we cannot mimic others. Later, when I help
my daughter in homework, I no longer force her to think the
test with scientific reasoning thinking but allowed her to
use a kind of mimic thinking. Such mimic thinking can not
allow people to reach 100% but 80% to 90% of perfect. But in
choosing a lifelong study, I cannot let her choose the
life-long mimic thinking, but encourage her with her own way
of thinking. This is because, for the people who come to the
peak achievement in their profession, no one did not use
their own way of thinking.
I read an article by Mr. Gao Gong. He said in
his article: in history, yellow nations (such as Mongolia)
were melted in the Chinese culture, even though they are a
winner of the war. However, the non-yellow nations, such as
the nations in the Xinjiang territory, though they have been
under control by the Chinese for two thousands of years,
adopt the Chinese culture to a very low level. It is even
lower than the yellow nations in countries around China.
Even now, there was no one non-yellow nation accept Chinese
culture. Is this only by chance? This makes me think whether
the Chinese way of thinking is hard to be accepted by
western nations?
Some people believe that one without a
mind of mathematics, physics and chemistry and without
strong logical thinking, would have no ability to do
scientific research work, or what the one did is not
science, but a “Pseudo-science”, that should be killed by
those who support the science and is the fan of the science.
I admit that science is marked and evaluated by the concept,
standard, logic, and rule. From this point of view, Chinese
medicine is not a science. I do not oppose. From this point
of view, it is also correct that many people cannot learn
well the science. However, if someone uses these parameters
to separate the high or low wisdom, the reasoning or not
reasoning, even to determine who should be further developed
and who should be stopped, block or be destroyed, I would
strongly disagree with him. I would struggle against the
“science”, since such struggle is for the right to survive,
to hold territory for my mind, for not be a slave of a
spiritual colony.
I never said that we should ban western
medicine, but the proposal is raised to ban Chinese
medicine. Would my mind is not a mind? Does Someone want to
force me with the strong ship and a sharp gun (to kill me)?
Not to speak of that mathematician Qiu Tongchen believes
that mathematics is closely linked with the art, of that a
surgical doctor feels the same kind of happiness of creation
as an artist, of that art feeling is the creating power of
every scientific research areas, how can we say that the
development of science only depends on its own efforts?
Check the records of science development, it fills with a lot
of by-pass ways, unexpected, unwilled achievements. The
history of the science tells us, the road that the science
went is never a straight way. For how many days the science
has started to concern about the standard, the logic, the
concept, and the rule? If great Chinese scientist in
agriculture, Mr. Yuan Longpin, went a “standard” scientific
research road, can he have the achievement in the current
hybrid rice? How many were great scientists not criticized
in the beginning for their research works?
I cannot understand why some people want to make the
science look beauty and pure?
Can science not accept the social position of
Cinderella? I believe that science today is still going on a
"trying-wrong" road.
I believe that science is still going in the way
of trying-to-going even now. I thought, with the aim of my
daughter not being scared by the pure and lofty science,
when I explained the history of science to her in previous
years, did I implant in her mind the real truth for the
science development? The unexpected harvest that I got for
the three years of explaining to her the << The History of
Science Development >> is that my daughter is not
superstition to the science. It might be that what road she
is going is the original road of science development?
The science is so holy and pure, that scientist
Yuan Longpin is so hard to be elected as an academician of
Science Institute of China. It is said that he will no
longer apply for the position in the
future.
Science becomes pure under the defense by some scientists.
Does it also lose some vitality? The authority of science
makes some scientists hardly have any more achievement in
their research work rather than defense for the purity of
science. They hold the right of invention and finding.
Whatever does not meet their requirement will be marked as
pseudo-science. They, in fact, block the development of
science.
For this reason, the color of Chinese medicine is
always gray. By this way, the science is high at the peak of
the mountain, does not connect with the products of other
kinds of human mind working, loses a strong living basis and
source of nutrition. The disease of the science in China is
the deficiency in both Blood and Qi. I have cultured bean
spring at home. I added one pound of the bean into a basin,
added water, left it in a warm place. No longer than two
days, the bean spring came out all together. I picked out
the spring to cook. There is always some bean left in the
bottom of the basin. I call them a metal bean. I put them in
my hands, look at them. It is wrong if you think they are
dead. They are against the standard rule of water,
temperature… the rule of the process of bean spring culture.
When I was a teacher in a middle school, there
were always some students in the class, who are not good at
the lectures. They are not a scientific mind, nor imaging
mind. Other teachers call them as a stone mind. I tapped
their head sometimes, sighed that they are the metal bean of
a human being. They accept the domination of more
significant rule than the culture of bean spring. I feel
lucky that my daughter’s mind is not science mind. She knows
the power to put the science to develop is not necessarily
the great specialist, but those who have a particular skill,
has strong acting ability, tends to have more feeling mind,
pays more attention to practical results, not easily bound
by science theory.
My daughter stopped her current
preparation for the exam and decided to visit an old man who
is more than 80 years of old. The old man works to pick up
herbs in the mountains. I said it will affect her exam. She
said, yes, but the old man is already more than 80 years of
old. If there is not one who accepts his knowledge and
experience, do you think he can wait for us later? Between
the exam and the visiting to him, which one do you think
more important? I think, of course, the later is more
important. Her friends believe the former is more important.
They think that the old man has only perceptual experience.
He uses some herbs that are not in use for a long time by
current people, applies the herbs is not the standard way as
the current people. Though he can have some surprising
healing effects, his way cannot be explained by science.
My daughter said, though she cannot understand
it at this time, it is needed to inherit as soon as possible
to save it first, then we can study it later, not to let it
disappear in China. In China, indeed it can happen
some mysterious things. I have a friend. His daughter got a
kidney disease when she was 5 years of old. He has brought
his daughter to the local hospital, to the provincial
hospital, then lived in Beijing for year-long treatment. The
treatment aims to release the symptoms for the girl, to keep
her alive until her 12 years of old. Then she may accept
kidney transplantation surgery. There was no other choice
besides this. For the treatment for his daughter, he used up
almost all that the family has, with terrible massive debt.
To release his stress, whenever I could find him, I invited
him out to a restaurant or to drink something. He always
started crying, bending on the table, after drinking a cup
of wine. We all donated to him. He has the skill of
decorating paintings, so we find such contract job for him,
to let him have more income. We all believed that he would
be destroyed by such situation, he should try to plan in a
different way. They recommended me to talk to him. I, with
very careful way, talked to him, he has tried very best to
save the child, if he can plan to have another child… He
stops me urgently without I finishing my words, and
expressed that he would not give up at all for his daughter.
What I can do is just a sigh. I can do nothing
but wait for the worst thing to come. However, at that time,
a mysterious thing happened. There is an old man in our
local area, who has a inherit herbal formula that only
treats one kind of kidney disease. Since there were no other
ways to try, he used this herb formula to his daughter. The
result is, for such a significant disease, it was cured as
easy as a common cold. She recovered so good that we all
feel hard to believe. She had no side effects or sequela!
Later when I saw this child, she is not only healthy but
also naughty. I asked why she is more naughty. Her father
said, What she got for education in her young life is a
"medical" education, which should be called an "exceptional"
education. The old man who cured this girl is not at all a
doctor, knows nothing about the medical theory or rule, has
nothing to do with the mystery.
Recently there are two people whom I
know about, died. One is 42 years of old, and another is
less than 40. Both are overweight and had high blood
pressure, brain bleeding. Seeing their loved ones grieve, I
feel that human life is very fragile. At my youth age, there
were no so many overweight people. There was also very rare
to see people with hypertension. Once I saw a patient with
hypertension, my mother would be very interested. The
hospital also paid much attention to the patient with
hypertension. The patient would be given a break certificate
after their blood pressure was measured high. If there is
someone who wants to have a break from work, they will try
to make their blood pressure higher. What they did, as I
remembered, was to run for 800 meters, drunk a cup of hot
water. Hold tight the hands when the doctor was measuring
their blood pressure… the blood pressure by thus being
higher. So they could get one day rest. In 1978, students
needed to have their body re-examed physically. There was a
female classmate, who would be very nervous upon the
sphygmomanometer. When it was her turn to measure, the blood
pressure is high. Doctor asked her stood aside for a while
then to repeat. Her face turned pale. I went to comforted
her, massaging her Quchi acupuncture points. When the doctor
asked her to measure again, the blood pressure was normal.
Later she gave me a big apple for thanks.
According to the statistics from 1979 to 1980 in
China, the incidence of hypertension in human over 20 years
of old is 5.8%. Borderline hypertension is 3.3%. Now, the
incidence of hypertension over 18 years of old is 18.8%. It
is even 29.2% in Shanghai city and surrounding countryside.
Vice-president of the education committee, Beijing, Mr. Du
Songpen declared the data for national student body
constitution research for the year 2005. It indicated that
more than half of the students at that year got their blood
pressure in a high level. The statistic shows that half
death reasons are due to hypertension or the
hypertension-related myocardial infarction and stroke. For
this, the October 8th every year is decided to be the day of
hypertension in China.
I felt very strange, why there are so many
people with hypertension? Generally speaking, such modern,
group-appearing disease in history is usually infectious
diseases. Is hypertension passed among people by
“hypertension bacteria”? According to an earlier standard,
the half of students and one-third of the Shanghai people
should have a break for rest. Right? The reason for
hypertension remains unclear for the medical society. Some
specialist said 95% of the patients are due to heredity. I
thought it is impossible since these family with
hypertension also follows the same birth control policy in
China, how can they have some much patients in their family?
Again, I do not think that these more than 160 million
people with hypertension are all having hypertension family
history. Such a doubled number of patients makes me have to
think that it is a lifestyle disease of modern time. Why the
incidence of hypertension increases so sharply? My daughter
said it is due to the modern lifestyle of the current
people, of course.
The statistic shows that the incidence of
hypertension is higher in the city than in the countryside,
higher in brain-working people than labor workers and it is
higher now than before. It is a common disease in the world.
The more developed country, the higher the incidence. It,
also, indicates the association of the industrialized
lifestyle with the incidence.
See that I am confused, my daughter said, as a non-doctor, I
can understand it in a simple way. She said, we can look at
the blood vessels as water vessels. Why the blood pressure
increases? It is due to either with too much blood supply or
to less blood supply. If the blood supply is too much, of
course the blood pressure will increase. If the blood supply
is less, what would the body do? The compensative mechanism
of the body is to increase the blood pressure. It is the
high blood pressure. The commonly used medication is to
expand the vessel. The water vessel becomes bigger, so when
you measure the blood pressure, it of course is not high.
However, the reason for the increase in the blood pressure
did not get solved. The burden of the heart does not get
released, the blood vessel is unnaturally dilated, the heart
has to work more hard to meet the need for more blood supply
due to the dilation of the blood vessel. By this way, the
hypertension was not solved but created more potential and
possible problem for the heart and brain. I asked my
daughter, current hypertension needs life long medication.
What about the hypertension patients in old time? Is it no
way to cure? Daughter told me, the
sphygmomanometer was invented by Italian doctor in year
1896. Blood test came in about 1910. Therefore there is no
concept of hypertension in Chinese medicine in history. The
hypertension belongs to the dizziness and headache in
Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine believes that there are
many reasons for hypertension. If people have high fat in
the blood (hyperlipidemia), have high viscosity in blood,
both can cause hypertension. If one has anemia, with Qi and
Blood deficiency, can also have hypertension. Therefore,
overweight body can be high blood pressure, and slim person
can also have hypertension. But the treatment by Chinese
medicine is absolutely different for each of them.
Chinese medicine believes the reason for
hypertension is associated with body constitution, emotional
disorders, life disorders and so on. The most important
factors are the body constitution and the emotional
disorder. The person with a slim body, easy to get upset,
with Yin deficiency but Yang overwhelming conditions, tends
to have hypertension. Overweight body, with Spleen
deficiency and more Phlegm in the body, the Wind and the
Phlegm mixed and enhanced each other, can also get higher
blood pressure..... When people are in highly upset and
angry, his liver Qi reverse up, the blood goes up too with
the reversed Qi, will also have increased blood pressure.
With a strong happy or strong sad, scared feeling, nervous
emotion, the heart, and the liver were disturbed. The person
in such a condition can also have high blood pressure. If
one eats too much fat and heavy taste food, the food damages
the Spleen system and blocks the function of the Stomach to
cause accumulation of Phlegm in the body, to cause
hypertension. Overeat spicy food, which exhausts the Yin
part of the body, causing Fire going up, can also result in
hypertension. Especially if a person eats more salty food,
the blood becomes sticky, damaging the function of the
kidney, the person can also have hypertension. All of such
factors are enhanced in the current modern lifestyle.
The vice president of the Ministry of Public
Health in China, Mr. Wang Delong said statistic indicated
that the overweight rate in China in the adult is 22.8%, the
Obesity rate is 7.1%. It is estimated that the number of
people with overweight and obesity is 2 billion and 0.6
billion, respectively. That number in a big city is 30% and
12.3%, respectively. Professor Jing Haibing stated that the
incidence of mental diseases was about 2% in the last 1950s.
In the year 2000, it came to 14%. This figure suggests that
emotional nervousness is another character of our current
time. My daughter said, there are so many people with
overweight and obesity, together with so many people with
emotional distress, how could we have less incidence of
hypertension? It is not hard to treat hypertension. Only
change the lifestyle could reduce the blood pressure
dramatically. Is it a clear fact? However, people would like
to take blood pressure reducing drugs that have a high rate
of side effects, pays high cost and risk, rather than to
change lifestyle. Under such emotion in mind, it is hard for
them to accept Chinese medicine.
My friend came to my home to visit me.
She brought a bag with her. She took out several boxes of
“Guiling Gao” to me to eat. She said it works for beauty.
She opened one and started to eat first. She said she ate
three boxes every day. I took up one bottle and read its
ingredients. I told her: “It is not suited for you to eat.”
She answered: “Look at the function. It works for
detoxification, improves face beauty. “ I was stunned.
Talking with current people is hard. I remembered that my
daughter’s Great master would stop to explain when he met a
similar situation. When people use herbs as the same way as
using western medicine drugs, when people regard the
function of the herb fixed, and no change, he would feel
that it would be useless to read the texts of the
ingredients. This friend is weak in body. She needs to eat
several doses of “Shenmai Yin” every year. If you did not
monitor her for a while, she would start to eat something as
“Zhenzhu Feng”, or “Kuding Cha”. Now, she started to eat the
“Guiling Gao”. You cannot prevent her always. I said: “You
always want to remove toxic. What toxic in your body? What
do you mean the toxic? What it is? When ordinary people talk
about the toxic, they mean the toxic fire, do you have such
toxic fire?”
How many Chinese is Yang Excess? Your
body shows all a Cold condition. You need a condition as in
summer to nourish your Yang Qi. Now, however, you eat such a
cold thing that suppress your body Yang Qi down, making a
chill condition for your Spleen and Stomach. It is strange
that you do not feel pain in your stomach when you eat such
a chill thing?” She held her stomach and said: “I need to go
to washroom now.” This makes me cannot cry or laugh: “You
are too sensitive to the suggestibility. When I did not tell
you, you eat three boxes without stomach pain. Once I asked
you, you feel stomach pain right away.” She said: “Not as
you said. I do have stomach pain at home, but I did not link
it to the herbs. After you told me, I cannot hold up any
longer.”
I have mentioned the toxic nature of herbs. I
oppose the saying that every drug/herb is with 30% of toxic.
If this is true, the treatment procedure would be 30% harm.
Arsenic is strong toxic, which is a poison to the public. A
healthy person will die after eating it. But when using it
in medical treatment, the patient does not die, but rather
is alive away from the edge of death. From this point, there
is a precondition, to say that the arsenic is toxic. For
ordinary food, who of course would believe that it is toxic?
However, I always remind this or that of my
friends, do not eat this, or do not eat that. Why? For
example for this friend, I recommended her not to drink
green tea or cold tea. She refused to follow me. She said
that green tea is good for face beauty. I said that if your
Yang Qi cannot arise, you have a dark face, how can you have
face look? I opposed her to use air conditioning, eat ice
cream, even asked her not to eat bitter melon. From this
point, did you find that I regarded some food as toxic? This
is true. If something is not used correctly, no matter it is
a drug, herb, or a portion of food, would be harmful. From
this point of view, everything comes into the mouth would be
either good or bad to our health. Chinese medicine
emphasizes that “Disease comes from the mouth”. The disease
does not mean a bacteria or virus but means the cold or hot
nature of the things that come into the mouth.
I am not only opposing the food that we are
eating every day, but also the lifestyle. When the
refrigerator was showing in the market, I bought one. I
would like it since I like to cook. However, I used it for
only several years, I throw it away. I did not use a
refrigerator any longer after that. Now, I would instead to
go to the market to buy vegetables, not to buy them to store
in the refrigerator. I would instead to serve my family with
warm food, not the cold ones, such as iced watermelon. Air
conditioning and refrigerator makes the body Yang Qi
sediment down. They make the stomach and spleen system is a
weak and cold condition, and make the summer hard to nourish
the Yang Qi in our body.
Empress Dowager Cixi(1835-1908) of China, the
concubine to the Xianfeng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty and
later Empress Dowager, was the power behind the throne in
China from 1860 to 1908. Her court physician prepared her
diet according to Chinese medicine, but not to the nutrition
value. From her diet recipe, it is not hard to find out the
aim of the physician. For the food that needs to be warm, he
prescribed to use a casserole. If it needs to be cold, he
asked to use a thin bowl, etc. For my requirements, such as
the balance between the rice, millet, bread, and the
seasonal fruits and vegetables…, people feel hard to follow.
They feel that it means not to enjoy the current
civilization by following such requirements. They eat
heavily, stick to cold and ice, enjoy the air conditioning
to a high level. They feel it is high enjoyment of life if
they could let them not feel hot in summer or cold in
winter.
Furthermore, they eat the fruits that are not the
harvest at that time of the year… the body that has been in
harmony with nature for thousands of year becomes no longer
harmony with nature. The inner body becomes in disorder, so
the modern disease come out.
Some people opposed me with the
lifestyle of the western people. They said that western
people live in a very modern style, but they are healthy.
How do they solve the weakness and coldness of spleen and
stomach that bring to them with the modern lifestyle? I
noticed the physical exercise of them. For example, their
physical exercise is nationwide. They have heavy physical
activities such as running every day, not looks like the
running, but really running and heavy breath running. Such
running is a way to raise the Yang Qi. It makes the Yin and
Yang in the body has a chance to balance each other. It can
adjust the side effect of the modern lifestyle, becomes the
crucial means for the people there to balance the Yin and
Yang. Therefore, they are addictive to physical exercise.
Once they stop the exercise, they would feel not good, not
comfort.
A while ago, there is a debate about
whether life depends on the moving or the quiet (such as
meditation). Each side has its own reasons. To me, life
depends on the balance of Yin and Yang. If the exercise
could balance the Yin and Yang, life depends on the
exercise; if the quiet helps to balance the Yin and Yang, it
depends on the quiet. It is such simple.
The mother-in-law of my friend, who heard about my daughter,
came to ask her to feel her pulse. On the feeling, I noticed
that the face feeling of my daughter was strange… After
everyone left, my daughter said, with rubbing her hands:
“What pulse she has, no root?!” I laughed after heard: “This
is right. Her life was bought from the King of Hell. How
could her pulse have root?” I told my daughter, she was very
sick three years ago, bleeding in the whole body, in the
urine, stool, eyes, everywhere. Western medicine failed to
make any diagnosis nor to treat.
Chinese medicine believed she got depletion of
her kidney energy. It is hard to supply more energy to her,
and she might die. My friend then waked with her conscience,
remembered all the goodness from her mother-in-law, swear to
save her, but no way to go. So she came to me expressed her
worry, that makes me annoyed very much. So, I send her to a
female sorcerer, since at that time, only this sorcerer “has
the way”. To my surprise, the sorcerer said, she has already
died. What can I do? I said you can go to another side, to
see if she has already filled her position there or not yet.
If she has not reached her position, try to see if you can
find a way to buy life spasm for her again. So, the sorcerer
guided my friend, “bought the life” with some kind of magic.
By this way, the friend had something to do, so not come to
bother me anymore. Her mother-in-law in this way kept alive.
I laugh to my daughter: “She belongs to another side. Her
life is bought back. She is here in alive, just as a release
on parole. Is it correct that her pulse has no root?” My
daughter sighed with hopeless: “You can really make fun. A
no-root pulse can be explained by your way”. I stopped laugh
and told her: “Of course it should not be explained by this
way”. I continued: “But we need to understand the meaning of
life further deeper.”
I remembered Mr. Lu Xun (A famous novelist in
Chinese, 1881-1936) said, his German doctor said to him, if
his disease happened in people in European, he would die
five years ago. So Mr. Lu Xun said he cannot depend on this
German doctor to treat the patient who has died five years
ago. If Mr. Lu Xun met the female witch in Europe at that
time, would he accept that he has “gone”? The mother-in-law
of my that friend is a mother who cares others very much but
not herself. She cared for the family in her heart, but not
herself. It is not her wish to live for herself that keep
her alive, but her extreme worry for the family. She,
therefore, endured much discomfort in life. If it were other
people, she would have died five years ago.
People who grow flowers know that some
flower has a personality to keep their flower rather than
their life, and some other flowers want to keep life rather
than their flower. The personality of chrysanthemum is the
former. Several children jumped into my garden and picked up
a chrysanthemum that is to bloom. Next day on the road, I
found this flower that was so withered to die. I took it
back, planted it in the soil, watered it. The flower started
to blooming again. It was as fresh as nothing happened to
it. After blooming, it died. Facing this flower, I stood
there for a long time. All sorts of feelings well up in my
heart. The color of this died plant is not in wither yellow.
I have been for a long time believed that the wither yellow
is the color of death. But instead, its whole stem, its
branch, leaves were in dark brown, as the color of the
sauce. It made me know what is trying the best and what the
real life is. In autumn, when I come to the field,
everywhere is in yellow. I know it is not the death. It is
the stop, harvest, and storage. The life is continuing… The
mother-in-law of my friend is showing such dark brown life.
It is her real body energy; her kidney spirit hat prolongs
her life.
Hormone works very fantastically. No
matter what disease, its use could create a miracle.
Therefore, upon coming of SARS, no one knows how to treat.
What should be used then? It is the steroid hormone. What is
the steroid doing in our body? It stimulates the coming out
of our kidney libido. It starts the consumption of the
kidney libido; our inherit life power. The phenomenon of
brief revival before the death is due to the spark of the
kidney libido. It is the burning of the last drop of oil in
an oil lamp. The therapeutic effect of steroid hormone is
not due to its supply of more libido to the body, but to
disturb the original libido out to work. This is similar to
the use of steroid hormone by athletes in the competition.
It could largely increase the achievement of the athletes,
but it is due to the exhausting of the kidney libido. Is the
sudden death of the athletes not due to the peak exhaust of
the libido? If the person not died, the person would get
bone necrosis, since, in Chinese medicine, the kidney is
associated with the bone marrow and dominate the storage of
libido in the body. Exhausting of kidney libido makes the
bone hard to store the libido and to grow the bone, so the
necrosis happens. Such “removal of the east wall to repair
the west wall” and such urgent to achieve, is against the
principle of Chinese medicine to enhance the kidney libido.
Health maintenance, how to do and what to do, we should not
unknown.
In explanation of the kidney essence in a
scientific way, I think that it is the “Super energy” saved
by Nature (God) for us. When we meet great disasters, such
as meet a tiger or wolf, we may run much fast than ever,
crib much higher than ever. Science terms it latent energy
or potential energy. If we have used it too much for the
ordinary condition, we would have it “damaged”. My daughter
is good at Taijiquan (Taijiquan, a kind of traditional
Chinese shadow boxing), so she is chosen to attend a
national competition. She got four months of training before
the competition by a professional gym teacher. The training
damaged my daughter, however. She feels scared upon mention
of the gym. She asked her teacher: “ We are competing
Taijiquan, why should we get training in physical energy?”
Her teacher told her: “This is a scientific training manner,
we must do this way.” So, she had to run 5000 meters, do
push-ups for 200, do sit-ups 200, lift 75 kg solid box for
100 times… Her original body condition was pretty good
before. She plays basketball, play football. The football
team in the senior high school is the mixture of the boys
and girls, chosen based on personal skill. She was the only
girl in the class team. However, she lost interest to the
gymnastic by later training.
The Olympic slogan is “Higher, faster and
stronger”. To me, it exceeds the common concept of training
for health. It is to explore the extreme level of physical
ability of human being, to challenge the extreme point of
human ability. However, it makes most athletes lose their
health through the training. As a statistic from an
insurance company for 6000 athletes who have died, the
average lifespan is only 50 years of old, far less than the
average lifespan of 70 for the overall public. There are
about 1000 German died during play tennis, or practice
clambering. Based on the data of Russian Health and Sport
central institute, there is only 12% of athletes who gained
excellent mark in competition is healthy. Watching the World
Football Match, the question of why Chinese football team is
not good arises again. Exclude other factors, simply
consider the body constitution, the Asia people is different
from the western people. To let the Chinese team play
football with the Italian team is almost as to let women
play football with a man. Compared with the body
constitution of Europe, I believe that the body constitution
of our Chinese belongs to the “Yin”.
Statistic data showed that the length of the
intestine of the white people, with 1.8 meters high, is
about 5.4 meters. The ratio of the length of the intestine
to the body height is 3. For Asian yellow nation, body
height of 1.7 meters, the length of intestine is 8.5 meters.
That ratio is 5. The length of the intestine separates the
grass animal and the meat animal. The protein from an animal
is similar to the human body. It is easier to be absorbed
and used by the human body, becomes the nutrition to the
body. The protein in the plants is more different from the
protein of our human body. It is hard to be absorbed and
used by the human body, so human needs longer intestine to
digest and to absorb it. Therefore, no matter it is a human
being or animal, whichever eat grass and plants would have
longer intestine than those which eat meat.
Furthermore, we know that meat-eating animal and
the plant-eating animal is very different in personality
too. Meat-eating animal obtained more nutrition and hormones
from the meat, so it has a stronger body and more aggressive
personality; while the plant-eating animal has a smaller
body and more kind and less aggressive personality. For the
same reason Europe people eat more meat, they are stronger
in the body shape and also has a stronger attack tendency in
nature. Asia
people mostly eat plants, e.g., carbohydrate, they have a
shorter body, and kind personality as well. The hunting life
of the Europe nation needs them have a stronger body, and
therefore their body is Yang Excess. To digest and absorb
animal meat protein, their intestine would secrete a hormone
called “norepinephrine”. If one eat meat for a long time,
there would be more of this hormone in the body. This is a
hormone that could stimulate the increase in blood pressure,
stimulate brain surface layer, reduce the control ability to
the feeling zone, so makes the meat-eating people easy to
excite, easy to develop spark feelings, tend to creation,
risk challenge, wish to be excellent and stand out. All are
needed for an animal that needs a hunt for food.
For thousands of years, Asia people most eat
plants as food. Their personality, generally speaking, is
kind and meek, introverted and deep in mind. The football
match is a strong antagonism match. It is natural that the
Europe people are good at such a match. It is an original
ability. On a comparison, yellow people, though they started
tennis very late, and no nice or excellent training
conditions, but has an excellent player, such as Zhang Peide
(He is a yellow nation in USA), Sha Shaai, Silichapan. In
China, there are also some player, who have no good
environmental conditions for their training, no nice or warm
atmosphere for tennis in China, but beat the seeded players
again and again. This is because the tennis also needs very
quick reactions. In other words, Chinese has talent ability
in tennis.
It is known that China is best in acrobatics. In
China, it is also known that Wuqiao city is best in
acrobatics. It means, the acrobatic performers are not
chosen from the whole of China, but a small county, Wuqiao.
The player in one small county is already excellent in the
world.
People said Chinese athletic Liu Xiang is not an
except either. He is not good at short-distance running, but
his skill in running over the obstacles and in keeping
rhythm. The 110-meter obstacle is an exchange course of
kinetic energy and potential energy. Every time he runs over
the obstacle, he could transfer his kinetic energy to
potential energy, since he is good at the running over the
obstacle. Over every obstacle, he could save little
potential energy. After several obstacles, his potential
energy shows the advantage in the later course. So, we see
that his most achievement is in the later process of the
competition. He exceeds his competing runners during the
last several obstacles. This means, if we want him to
compete in short-distance running, he will not win. He is
good at more in his technique advantage.
I thought, should we have more scientific
considerations in the development of sports?
To explore the secret of human life, it is
needed such as anatomy. But can this branch of science reach
the core of the life secret directly? Life is like music.
When we explore the mystery of music, can we study the
string, open the piano body with physics? Is the study of
the mechanism of sound equal to the study of music? Did we
find the goal of our study, when we study life? The study of
music should no limit to the study of musical instruments.
Chinese medicine theory studies life over the human physical
body. It looks the nature as the out layer of the human
body. It pays attention to the harmony between the outside
body and the inner body. In such a life study, is Chinese
medicine not mastering the core and truth of life? Besides
the concept to unite the nature as the outside of the human
body into the whole theory of the Chinese medicine, another
characteristic of Chinese medicine is dynamically dealing
the relationship between the technique and the medicine.
Medical technique may avert from the direction
of medicine. This is as the swimming technique may bring the
swimmer to death. When I was young, I do not agree that
“Those who die during the swimming is those who know how to
swim”. I felt it is not logical. If the one really knows how
to swim, how could he die during the swim? Since he dies
during the swim, it means that he does not know how to swim
yet. So, once he dies during the swim, I would allocate him
as not knowing swim. He is dead during swim since he did not
master the technique of swim. I believe this is solid truth.
However, later, I find the truth: many swimmers died just
because they had nice swimming technique, proving the saying
that “Those who die during the swimming is those who know
how to swim”. I studied the photo records for those who died
during a swim. I found that their skill of swim is perfectly
well, no error in the body position, no problem in the
strength of actions. The reason for their death is not due
to their poor skill but in their mind. Most pity thing is,
the dead man, upon to their death, never realize that it is
wrong for their mind in the swim. If they could realize this
in the last minutes, they should be able to save themselves.
They are the victim of their mind.
For a long time, human being walks to the
opposite side of nature, based on their technique. Technique
becomes the weapon of human to combat nature. We not only
developed a dependence on the technique but also created a
technique dominating thinking. This results in when in risk,
it is better without technique than with technique. It is
idiotic to swim across a big river, according to technique,
especially swim in a status of competition. If the swimmer
stops the use of technique upon the critical time, following
the nature of water, stop to struggle against the wind and
wave, regarding himself as part of the water, you would find
that, the water is not against you, not wants to make you to
death. When you do not want to master the control of your
body, you would find that you did not lose this power.
It is really a pity that so many people did not die
from their technique, but their mind. It is not easy to let
a man who has a high technique to give up the use of his
technique. It is the most people’s way to struggle again and
again until the last minutes without trying any other ways.
Watching the video records for Chairman Mao in
swimming in the Yangzi river, I am surprised. The old man
has no standard position for the swim, he is just rolling in
the water, no technique to show. It can be said from this
point that he does not know swim. But you have to admit that
he knows the nature of water. Why did he ask for a swim in a
river, lake, and sea? It is because there is no water nature
in the swimming pool to learn. Learn swim, the technique is
not the only thing. Many things are outside of the
techniques. Without knowing this, even if a person knows the
technique, it does not mean he knows the nature of the
water. If one does not know the nature of water, there would
be a risk to die in the swim.
Chinese medicine looks, sometimes, not so
advanced in technique, is not so rich in technique to use or
to depend. If there is some technique, it is melted
naturally, not so apparent, not so stand out. This makes the
people who practice Chinese medicine shame, in such a time
when the technique dominates. However, as a current people
coming into a forest, his confidence and brave does not come
from the heart, but the gun in his hands. Once he loses this
gun, he will become nothing. Western medicine makes all
values in outside. It cannot see human being from the inner
nature of it. Chinese medicine looks falling behind.
However, should we have a look if Chinese medicine has some
unique characters in the uniting of the medical technique
and medicine theory?
My mother did not teach me any technique, did
not show me any unique skill in the treatment. She forced
and pushed me to explore my own potential ability. If a
person has already had gained something inside, then learn
the technique, the technique is for him to use, rather than
to become a slave of the technique, even hurt by the
technique.
Currently, a hospital cannot be without
instruments. Doctors cannot do anything without instruments.
The hospital and the doctors melt into a tightly close big
machine. The heart and the body of the medical staff closely
depend on the technique, on the hospital. Out of the
hospital, the doctor is nothing. They are not individual
human being, healthy human being, not to speak of the
release and freedom in the heart or spirit… Why the graduate
from university chase for a big city? Why they apply for a
job? The reason is: the textbook “technique” educated from
school acts as a “body-selling indenture” for them. It makes
them adhere to common technique groups of machine nature.
Such adhering relationship is so torturing, that people
commonly develop discomfort feeling, creating lots of
emotional trouble. For this, people analyzed more from
social aspects, less from the scientific technique point of
view. What they searched is a simple reason, not complex and
comprehensive reasons.
From the technical point of view, if
one has a disease, it should be treated. If it is not
treated, it would be a wrong thing. Any cure without
technique would be laughed at, blamed and criticized. The
mark of social advance is expressed on the disease
treatment. That is: if there is a disease, it should be
treated; if it is a small disease, it should be treated with
significant efforts; if it is a severe disease, the medical
facility of the whole hospital or even whole country should
be tried. The dead swimmer never knows the reason for his
death, until he died. Those of us who remain alive can use a
single word of “not good technique” to put the
responsibility to the dead. This is just as the Beijing
University that uses “depression” to blame the dead student.
This makes this university that has produced a lot of “crazy
man” or “crazy genius” before but now depletes crazy and
genius. What a spell the “Those who die during the swimming
is those who know how to swim” is?
I am not a Chinese medicine doctor. If
allow me to talk about Chinese medicine, there would be two
negative results to the Chinese medicine. First, I would be
laughed at being an “expert”. People would feel that I like
to put on airs in front of others most, and I win popularity
by cheating the public. Second, it reduces the Chinese to a
level at which everyone can talk about Chinese medicine,
making the Chinese medicine look like not a particular
academic department. Here comes out a topic, the department
separation. It is well known that western medicine has a
very detailed department separation. There is a specialist
who primarily studies the brain. There is a specialist who
especially studies heart. Some specialist only studies
hands, nothing else. So, a specialist who studies hands
could have a high title in the profession but may have no
ability to solve a small disease like a common cold. If a
Chinese farmer comes to a big hospital, he may not
understand why a chief physician of a department cannot
solve his disease. Why the smaller the disease location, the
more mysterious it is for a doctor to cure.
It is hard for Chinese medicine to
separate into various departments. It is hard for Chinese
medicine to only treat a headache if the patient has a
headache, or only to treat the pain in feet if the patient
has a problem only in the feet. So, according to the western
mind, Chinese medicine is not super, not specialized.
Chinese medicine, if it can be talked about or discussed by
ordinary people, to some peoples, it means Chinese medicine
has less technique value. To them, the public knowing of
Chinese medicine suggests it low level and less value. Is
this not a fooling-people mind that is secreted out by the
scientific separation? This is a contradiction. We feel that
simple thing is a lower level thing, so we go to elaborate
and specialized. The so-called specialization means what is
in the specialized area is unknown or hardly known by the
public. “The non-professionals” has no right to question,
except paying respect or fear to it. Many scholars feel
pleased with themselves in their own specialized castle. If
what they know can be understood by the public, it would be
their shame, since the higher the specialization, the lower
its popularity. Therefore, the separation between each
specialist is like the separation between the two mountains.
People feel hard and hard to understand each other. There is
no right to criticize the other side. What I want to ask is:
as human society, can we allow our society to continue to
specialize further and further again? If yes, then once we
solve the contradiction from the social aspect among
countries and nations, would we have separations again due
to such scientific specializations?
Why there is so much stress relationship between patients and
doctors and have so many conflicts in medical services? Why
we hate the police and government officers? Why the up-visit
cases increase sharply? For these, people are more to find a
reason from the social system, less from the point of
professional separations. The reason is that the
non-professional people do not listen to the explanation by
the specialized staff. Hospital in our city set a “Grievance
award” especially for those of doctors who explained to the
patients but not realized or understood by the patients. If
the explanation can be understood, why no longer has an
overall law education campaign to the public? People have
willing to understand the special issue. They would not give
up the willing due to the denial of their ability to
understand, or to the limitation to the particular area. The
logic of doctor blocks the patients, patient’s logic would
regard the doctor as a killer. The logic of the law blocks
the ordinary residents; the ordinary residents would regard
the law-enforcer as a robber. The things that are hard to
understand can not only create respect but also rejection,
refuse, oppose and hate. That Chairman Mao did not allow the
law being too specialized, is also be due to such
considerations.
Chinese medicine is similar to the game
of go. Chinese medicine is simple. The doctor can pull up a
bundle of grass that grows in front of the door to treat
disease; can use a needle to treat disease. It can be
popularized to the whole country by the model of “Barefoot
Doctor”. But is the Chinese medicine really very simple? Do
you want to have a study to try it? Go seems the simplest
game among all the games. There is no king, no general,
almost no rule. Almost everyone can play it. But the go is
really simple? Do you believe that human can invent the
computer that is master in go? Many people are playing go,
only a few people can play it well. We do not deny the go
for the fact that there are too many ordinary players. There
are a few people who practice Chinese medicine. The number
of these people who are in the master level is much less.
The public indeed denies Chinese medicine for the less
number of masters in it. People believe that there is a
difference in the level of talent among the go players. They
do not deny the Master Nie Weiping or Ma Xiaocun for the low
talent of themselves in the go. However, they commented Mr.
Zhang Zhongjing and Li Shizheng as swindlers for the aim to
deny Chinese medicine. This is because they can not deny the
Chinese medicine if they have to admit there are masters in
Chinese medicine.
In the current concept, the physical body is as
a machine. I use my body but I do not need to understand the
mechanism by which it works, nor to repair it if there is
something wrong with it, since it is the job of specialists.
If there is something really wrong, hand it to a doctor to
repair. When the doctor is working, I do not know how good
they are, what I can do is to look at them with uneasy eyes.
I can only deduce their skill from their attitude. If their
attitude is careless, and my disease becomes worse, I will
think that they must have made things wrong. Since life and
dead is the matter of doctor and hospital, and if I cannot
accept the fact of death, is it natural that I will transfer
my angry to the doctor and hospital?
I am talking about medicine since I
have a body. As a human with a body, I need to understand my
body in medicine point of view. I want to be the first
doctor of my body. The same as I play go and love philosophy
since I am living. I want to be my Go player myself and
philosopher. I cannot stop playing go and studying
philosophy for the fact that there has already been Mr. Ma
Xiaochun and Mr. Li Zehou. I do not want to give up my own
life with go and philosophy and only cheer for go master and
a great philosopher. I want my own life. At the beginning of
Chinese medicine, it did not want to be specialized to an
only small group of people to understand it. Why did Chinese
medicine need to be consistency with the Chinese culture?
Why has it been tried to unify the way of Chinese medicine,
the government of a state, and the law of nature?
Why it is said, if a man has no chance to be a
good government officer, he could be a good doctor? Only
understand the reasoning of nature and human society
altogether in the same way, could the reasoning of medicine
be to understand and accepted. The unity and the same system
of the Chinese characters, and the consistency in the
expressing manner of the characters make the dialogue even
between the king and the ordinary people no misunderstand.
Nowadays, Chinese medicine is hardly understood by the
public. The reason is that western culture has broken our
original common understanding system. The Chinese culture
that is depended on by Chinese medicine is hardly
understandable by the public. However, the diversity in the
understanding, if it lasted for a too long time, will
request for a merge again.
After the “Deep Blue” beats the
International chess master, a human being develops a scare,
self-abased and confused feeling in the heart in front of
the computer that he created. Along with the more and more
powerful and higher and higher ability of the machine, the
human being becomes more and more admires the machine. I do
not know how many people are willing to bend down in front
of the machine? They wanted themselves to be the “Deep Blue”
but cannot. It seems that the machine will dominate the
world. The question is where the position of the human being
is? How could the international chess master find his value
in front of the “Deep Blue”?
Will human being be the slave of the
machine that he created, lose dignity in front of the
machine in not far future? One day, if robots wholly beat
us, would we only masturbate ourselves by blasting that we
create the robots? The same as the God masturbates himself
that he creates the human being? In the area of logic and
wisdom, this would be the reality in not far future. How
would the science solve this problem?
Many evidences show that, our human being want
to combat with the robots by making ourselves as machine. At
least we want to struggle for an even position as the
robots. When human being is lead by the robots by the nose,
towards a direction that human being is also a machine,
should we feel cheer for the wisdom of the machine, or feel
sad for the wisdom of the human being? That I said that
Chinese medicine would die, is due to the development of the
science that cannot be stop.
When a human being makes the weather
warmer and makes the weather periods in disorder, the
Five-yun-six-qi in the body will also lose its regular
order. When the weather becomes disturbed, the environment
becomes contaminated; plants lose normal growing conditions,
the nature of the plants changed, the Chinese medicine herbs
would no longer the herbs. When the surgical operations are
more and more frequently applied, the Qi and Blood systems
in the body would also be disturbed. The acupuncture and
other Chinese medicine therapies will also lose its
functions. When the silica gel, plastic, metal, and other
human-made material are implanted into the body, the Yin and
Yang would no longer show… Chinese medicine loses the soil
it depends on before, loses the target it works before.
Without the original herbs, and the adjustable Qi and Blood,
the Yin and the Yang, the Chinese medicine, of course, will
die. The degenerating of current Chinese medicine has been
contributed in some ways by such factors. The day at which
the human being comes to a machine is the day the Chinese
medicine dies. This is because Chinese medicine is a
medicine based on human being, a living thing. The
restriction of desire in Chinese medicine is to save desire,
but the indulgence in sensual pleasures in the current
lifestyle is to destroy the desire. If the body desire is
destroyed, what’s the use of the body? If a human has no
body, what’s the use of Chinese medicine?
Therefore, to delete Chinese medicine
is the beginning of our human to delete our body. I do not
feel pity if Chinese medicine disappears. I, as the all of
you, believe that there will be a time of high technology.
When a human being is no longer a human but a machine,
what’s the need for Chinese medicine to exist? The human
being will accept calmly the fact that we become a machine.
We have already been impatience to our body now, felt that
the body is cumbersome. We have already had a kind of urgent
desire to become the machine, to solve our living fear. If
being a machine can allow you to live for 150 years, would
you refuse to be a machine? Our body makes us have less and
less reluctant to leave. Even the little desire for food has
been depleted for the aim to lose weight. The psychology
feelings that our body allows us to feel, such as love, art,
are more and more looked down. What our body can still
supply to us? When all of the living things on the earth
have been contaminated into toxic things, and when the
living environment becomes worse and worse, our body cannot
endure the outside environment at all, what you are going to
do without choosing to be a machine? At that time, Is it not
a relief and liberation to break free from the body? Current
education is computer education, to make the human brain
into a computer. The difference among people becomes the
difference in the function of computers. Human brain becomes
the target of logic analysis, classification, and leveling.
Comparing the reasoning of
“Deep Blue” and human chess masters, it is natural to
question the dignity of human wisdom. Our brain educated by
this way is beaten by the same way? International chess is
the logic wisdom of the western people. The “Deep Blue” of
logic search beats the logic wisdom of human being,
declaring that a machine can beat human logic wisdom.
Does human have any wisdom that has not been
beaten by the machine? Our eyes then fall on the go, the
only kind of chess in which a computer has not beaten human
wisdom. On the combat of computer against go, the first
thing analyzed is the difference between the international
go and chess. It is interesting that the difference between
go and chess is gusted that between the eastern and the
western culture. They are hard to be linked or connected
with logic wisdom. The go that looks simple, contains image
wisdom that cannot be beaten by logic wisdom. There is many
pseudo positions in the game of go. The player has to also
be very big in imagination in his mind, so to handle all of
the positions in his mind.
The pseudo position is space. It is the combined
reasoning exist of time and positional structure. It is not
within the logic wisdom area. In the go, once put in a
point, the potential the whole game changes. The value of
each point cannot be analyzed by itself but from its
relationship with other points.
The group of people who support to keep the
herbs but delete the medicine theory and rules, suggesting
to keep the function, the nature of the herb, believe that
they picked up the most valuable things from the Chinese
medicine. They do not know that the function of every herb
in the different herbal formulas is different. The nature of
the herb could change according to the formulation. A herb,
due to its supporting-combating-depressing-facilitating
relationship with other herbs, shows complete different
function compared with that analyzed in the research lab.
This is the same as the function of an individual in a
society. His function is associated with and limited by his
environment and his relationship with other people. Chinese
medicine is a container. It saved an original seed of human
wisdom.
People will eventually find that silica gel,
plastic, and metal material, such filling stuff is
cumbersome of our body, will eventually throw away the body
that brings to us by gene project. People will also throw
away the body that is brought by the gene project, though
the gene project has not been well developed yet. The gene
project will also be thrown away like a human throw away
Chinese medicine. The human being will exist in a pseudo
form, e.g., the form of energy, completely goes to the
opposite of materialism. At that time, will humans who exist
in illusion think of the real thinking of Chinese medicine?
My daughter told me that newborn baby dislikes
Caesarean section. I laughed. My daughter said, yes, it is
true. The baby who was taken out from the surgical opening
looked sad, very unhappy. I said the babies with the
ordinary birth course are also crying to the world. No one
comes with a smile. She said, well if you go to the ward to
visit them, the babies with the natural birth look calm in
the face. But babies with surgical operation still look
upset. I have no experience in watching them. Of course, I
cannot oppose her. However, according to my stupid thinking,
the natural course should be better than the surgical
operation. Not
to speak of the disadvantage of the Caesarean section, the
baby birth course is a co-action process between the mother
and the baby. Mother chooses this Caesarean section, but the
baby does not know it. He tries his best way to come out
following the thousands years rule for birth. Surgical
operation disturbed his first life plan. No wonder he does
not feel happy when he is taken out from the mother’s
abdomen. The happy that nature gives to the mother is
through the first bitter then happy. Without the bitter
process, there would have no such happy. When the mother is
in the process of the baby delivery, it makes her escaped
from a chance to test her brave, through the Caesarean
section, then escaped the responsibility of breastfeeding
with reason. The statistic data from women healthcare
institute, Shanghai city, China, suggests that the rate of
Caesarean section has come up to 60%. In some hospital, it
is even up to 80%. Non-breast feeding rate also comes up to
50%. The mother who escapes from above responsibilities
later can also escape from the responsibility of education.
Some mother would like to stay with a pet, rather than stay
with her child. She is willing to send her child to hosting
house or hosting school in years of the child. Facing my
question, they said: “ I paid money to them. How do you
think that I escaped from my responsibility?”
I know that the Caesarean section saved the lives of
many women, but taking the path of life-saving as a big
road, just as using hormones as a common medicine, it is
extreme.
To give birth, to have breastfed, and to bring
up the kid, all are the key to open the maternity. If the
key has been thrown away, how the maternity can be explored
out? That a woman has no maternity in heart, and that the
baby has not been nourished in the maternity, have not been
calculated into the loss of life by people in modern life.
The most poisons thing is the article << If no
breastfeeding, why big breast? >>. The author, with the
answer she known, but still asked, the big breast is not for
the baby, but the baby’s father.
I thought, from what time the Chinese
men started to like big breast? In history, Chinese men have
no such hobby. This is learned from western people. Love
breasts look elegant, and the trend it has triggered is
already morbid. This hobby of Western men reflects their
Oedipus complex. The reason for this is the lack of a
mother’s love when they were young. Look at Prince Charles’s
Oedipus complex.
The book << Parenting encyclopedia >> written by
western people that I bought twenty years ago, is good
enough to produce a man with Oedipus complex, if we look
back now, consider it and bring up baby according to what it
asked. To feed the baby once every four hours, leave him
alone in a room, to allow him crying, and not to hold him…
are what introduced in that book. Nowadays, 80% of Caesarean
section and 50% non-breast feeding, will allow future
Chinese men really stick to abreast. But the breast is not
his mother’s but his child mother’s. His son has to robber
his son’s. How many psychological variants will this
generate?
Currently, there are some experts, such
as Mr. Li Yinhe, struggling for the rights of some group of
people with particular psychologic emotion. The experts also
tried to confirm the existence of such a group of people in
society. To me, it needs no confirmation. Even if they are
small, they will become a lot in the future. Only at that
time, people will think that such groups of people are there
and they are a lot originally.
Not to speak of the next generation, even our
generation is affected by the western thinking
unconsciously. For example, we do not want our son to enjoy
the breasts of his mother completely. We connect the breast
with the sex, thinking that the breasts might bring to the
son some improper sex stimulation. One day, an old lady talk
to me. She said, her son, whom she did not see for ten
years, brought his wife and his son home. Her son asked to
feel her breasts. The son held her breasts and said: “I see
my mother!” I was astonished after heard this story, so did
his wife and his son. The son laughed at his father on the
spot.
Breast belongs to the child originally.
It should be the pronoun of the mother. Modern people turned
things upside down and became sexual organs. When it is not
occupied when a man was young, the man will rob it from his
son when he grows in an adult. So, the natural function of
the breast gives way to modern psychological needs.I really
don't understand the current things from a moral point of
view, but think that the production of morality is done in
harmony with nature. There are many rationalities in it, and
it is easy to break, and it will pay a price. Current women
refuse to have natural birth delivery for fear of loss in
the vagina; refuse to have breastfed for fear of breast
prolapse; refuse to bring the child up for fear of affecting
the wife-husband feelings. The contemporary woman’s love for
men cannot be said to be exhaustive, but it is reversed and
violates nature.
If we really love a man, let do
something from when they are a fetus. Give him whatever the
world could give to him without any conservation. The side
effects of Caesarean section are a lot. It has been realized
even by the western medicine per se. The side effect of the
Caesarean section is just the loss of vagina, prolapse of
the breast, reduced sex desire (frigidity) and early
menopause syndrome.
My daughter’s teacher in western
medicine advised again and again to her students: don’t do
the Caesarean section unless it is really needed. Love, in
the aspect of philosophy, is the psychology space. With a
big space, it can hold and can contain. Now, we do not give
it channel but forces it to a narrow and twisty road. The
psychologist marked it as abnormal first, then asked people
to adjust emotion, and to look at things with a normal
heart. Many unusual phenomena described in psychology books
twenty years ago are now a normal phenomenon. Western people
are really good at a joke!
I do not support to delete Chinese medicine,
because I do not want to lose “heart”. Specifically
speaking, that I do not want to lose my Chinese heart.
There is a Chinese scholar. His name is Wen
Huaisha. He is 97 years of old this year. He has been the
professor in the Beijing Chinese medical university. He
said, he accepts western medicine with a brain and accepts
Chinese medicine with a heart. I feel that he said to the
point. One lives not only with a brain, but also has to live
with heart and spirit. Those who lift the western flag,
regards himself as the representative of western, has their
brain as western, but how many of them have western heart
and western spirit? Human not only lives in the brain. When
Chinese advice others, it is said that the advisor should
let the one knows the reasoning, but also the feelings. Even
the best reasoning, it is not readily accepted if it is not
in consistency with the human feeling. This is the same as
many reasoning does not work for people in love.
Compared with western medicine, the focus of
Chinese medicine is on the heart. Many people do not admit
the “heart”, thinking that it is enough to have the brain,
with the same reason as if there is the reason for feeling
happy, there should be feeling of happy. Chinese medicine
emphasizes the “heart”, the intuition, the creative nature
and ideological state in its learning course. This is
laughed at by those of people who are the fan of science. It
is not easy to promote or popularize Chinese medicine since
it is not easy to master and understand.
Mr. Wen was tortured during the
Cultural Revolution in China. He felt sad, depression,
bloating and continuous pain in the abdomen. He is diagnosed
as the late state of hepatic cancer. When declared this
result to him by the Rebel group who gloated at his
misfortune, he stunned for the beginning; then he laughed
loudly. He said, there should have no traitor inside of the
body. Do not let the traitor cooperate with the disaster in
the outside of the body to harm the body. In the following
three months, he lied down on the bed, reciting a poem and
classical prose (prose written in the classical literary
style). Three months later, his hepatic ascites disappeared.
Cancer also disappeared. To this, he explained: the medicine
is the intention. At this time, the poem and the classic
prose, all are medicinal herbs. He said, what I used is the
heart therapy. It is calm in my heart inside though it is a
storm outside of the body (e.g., the political torture).
In China, many scholars know Chinese
medicine. For example, Mr. Ju Qiubai wrote prescriptions to
the warders. He might not cheat these warders. I read an
article. It said there is a man. He had his bone broken. His
friend recommended an expert to solve the fracture. He asked
how good the recommended expert. The answer was he is very
famous. So they went there. What he saw is famous author
Xiao Jun. His famous is the reputation in literature. Mr.
Xao Jun helped the re-connection and adjustment of his bone.
Then all sat down and talked about the literature. Be able
to make cancer disappear and able to solve bone fracture, is
it the ability of excellent doctors? However, it is a minor
ability for these scholars.
In China, there are no less such people with
“excellent talent”. My the fourth grandaunt was often
invited out to see patients. In seeing how she saw the
patient, even mother was stunned. For a patient with high
fever and spasm, she asked to open the anus of the patient.
There was a white color hard lesion. She picked open the
lesion with a small knife and picked out strings of thin
white string. After finishing the pick, the disease was
cured. The fever after infection is regarded as septicemia
by us, but the old lady tried to “stop red line”. She found
the “red line” along the wound, picked broken the “red line”
at the end, release the “toxic”… There was another emergency
condition. She used a needle to press a small white spot on
the throat.
Compared with her, my mother appeared more like a western
medicine doctor, since when my mother treated such a
condition, she treated them as a severe illness. My mother
thought that the way of my grandaunt for the treatment has
no “reasoning”. Later, she concluded that that was not a
professional way of treatment, it worked for these diseases
of the local area. However, my grandaunt felt very happy
herself. She said it would be a big thing to deal with if
the patients went to the hospital to my mother. To her, it
is a small thing for the treatment of such diseases. She,
however, could not solve her arthritis. From time to time,
she had to come to my mother, to have acupuncture or herbs
from my mother. Many diseases, if they are big and severe
diseases, would be a small thing, or an easily solved
disease to Chinese medicine. The same thing, some diseases
are a small thing, and easily solved diseases for western
medicine might be a big task to Chinese medicine. If some
clinic conditions are difficult for both western medicine
and Chinese medicine, it might be a small thing to the
indigenous therapies.
For this reason, it would be a good cat if it
can catch a mouse, no matter it is a white cat or a black
cat. It is natural that human can solve his own disease, no
need to depend on a doctor. If the leg of a red-crowned
crane was broken, it could paste grass-mud to the broken
leg, as the human using plaster. If a wolf gets sick, it can
also find a herb for itself to eat.
There is an old saying that “man could be a doctor after
having a disease for a long time”. It means that if a person
can pay attention to the summery and experience in the
treatment and reaction, he would also understand some
healthcare knowledge. Not to speak of the Chinese medicine,
it has kept made the summery and the experience for
thousands of years!
Such ponder needs not only the brain but also the
heart. The man has to use the heart to feel, to experience
and to ponder. The feeling is a strong necessity in Chinese
medicine. My daughter now watching people is from the
doctor’s point of view. She deduces the conditions of
several body organs from the face. She even deduces the
health condition from a person’s breath, and body odor and
so on. Though I know, it is very primitive, but I admired
her: “Good, my daughter is good. She can look the lab test
report, but also the face of the patients. She is still a
doctor out of a hospital!” Now the analytic chemistry is so
advanced, but to tell the level of the goodness of wines and
tea, it still needs the master of person to taste them. We
have to still depend on smell to tell the quality of the
perfume. It means that the quality of a thing is not only
recognized with the instrument measurement. It cannot be
omitted the human feeling organs.
As a man, do you want a woman as a man? If not,
what do you want a woman is? Has the current woman female
nature? Before I gave birth to my daughter, I am the same as
a man, regarding language, thinking and do things, through
work, education, read, coming into society and working with
men. At that time, I did not realize that this society is
set up by the male. The so-called standard that the society
required is actually for the male. I thought that this
standard is common for everyone, no sex difference.
The society is set up by the male. In science and
culture and other aspects of the society, a woman seems no
unique contributions. Man denies a woman in reasoning area.
A philosopher said: if a woman said 2+3=8, what mistake she
got is a mathematics error. However, a woman quite often
said it is equal to a candle. My father believed that a
woman could not be reasoning with. If a woman has dignity,
how would she face such social reality? So, many women tried
to meet the requirements of the society, to approve that
woman is as the same as a man.
I felt that I am as the same as a man
in society, and one time when I wrote a document to a women
association, the leader of that association told me that
what I wrote was the same as a man did, having no “women”
taste. I felt stranger, what is woman taste? Is it fussy and
sissy? Is it sticking and adhering to love feelings? If not,
then what it is. How could it be 2+3=candle? When I was
young, my worldview is what I called it a triangle with
equal edges: materialism, objectiveness, and science, the
same as a male’s worldview. For this, I felt satisfied. It
seems that I should have no change in quantity. Or you may
hardly believe that I may change. If such change does not
happen to me, I would not believe either. If there were no
such change, today, I would have been a man. It is very
simple when speaking. My change comes from baby delivery. To
give birth to my daughter, I tossed and turned for one day
and two nights. At the time I exhausted my body energy, and
I was in a condition almost to die, I heard a cry of a baby.
Open my eyes, I saw my daughter.
Just this glance, along with dizziness, the
reverse of the universe, I feel that my equilateral triangle
has fallen over. The triangle is still a triangle, but the
sequence of concept in it is completely different. In the
new sequence, I found, with astonishment, that 2+3=candle!
Suddenly, I understand what birth is and what is death! The
fear of death that around me and bothered me for a long time
went away! I knew from that time I could face the death
bravely and I would happy to accept death. If there were no
such birth process, my life would be one generation. I might
be good-for-something (promising) in something, be excellent
in something. But I would be obstinate, and too sure for
myself. I would be a pupa crawling on the ground, cannot go
over a ditch without a stone under feet, cannot go over a
river without a reasoning tree branch. I would have no the
second generation of my life – becomes a butterfly. A woman
can have two generations in one life, as the life of a
butterfly.
Research has found, Caesarean section prevents
the production of oxytocin and reduces the level of
happiness feeling during the birth delivery and affects the
feelings between the mother and the baby. I believe this
research report. Both father and mother love child, but the
way of loving is different. Father loves child, but his
triangle will not fall over. He would not change his
worldview after having a baby. We all heard the story that a
stepmother is vicious, and I also know that there is a
saying that there is a stepmother there will be a
stepfather. In fact, many stepmothers do not do anything
wrong but are realistic to the child. The birth father, who
is initially realistic, indeed accepts the realistic manner
of the stepmother, trusting more the stepmother. When a
family is overwhelming the “reasoning”, there would be
something wrong soon. A child who is looked at by reality
and by objective manner would be withered as a young grass
without sunshine and rain. This fact, in turn, reflects the
objectivity of the stepmother.
Current people feel that children do
not need special love. General love and like to them is
enough. So they believe that it is not a mistreat to the
child to find a stepmother to him. Nowadays, some mothers’
love for their children remains at the level of a like. When
they talk about their children, their spoken manner is as a
teacher, a nanny, but not a mother. They often assess their
children with social standards. They do not know what the
unique role of a mother is. It might be a reason for a
university student who is catching suicide, that he was
treated objectively at home and in society.
Whoever wants the wife to look at him
objectively? Would don’t you think that women look men more
and more objectively nowadays? The bitter feeling during the
baby delivery peels the layers of social shells that covered
on the body of the woman. It digs out the primitive basement
of human nature. It sets the relationship between the child
and the mother on the most primitive base. There is no
reverse of the universe, there would have no the coming of
true mother love. The heart of the child would have no full
sunshine. It is said what a mother beggar could give to the
child cannot be given by the father who is an officer. It is
this reason. Why is stepmother cruel? It is because her
mother love has no broad road to go. She is forced to go on
a narrow and a twisty mountain road.
Man can also become “butterfly”. I noticed that such Thinking
leap of man is “awakened”. An “awakened” man can also
overcome the social reasoning as an “awakened” woman. The
course of the “awakening” is usually accompanied by the
bitter life and painful body, such as a Penance. I thought,
there could be a kind of force in the painful process of the
awakening, which has not been understood fully by current
people. We did not make it clear the relationship between
pain and happiness.
In an earlier chapter, I said, there was a
couple with infertility. The husband beat the wife broken
her ribs. I felt very angry at that time. My mother,
however, said, okay, they will have a child. I could not
understand what my mother meant. Later, I understand. It is
well known that emotional factors have a powerful impact on
the course of infertility. What we do not know is how it
impacts.
There were a wife and a husband, both of which
are my friends. There came red light for their marriage
life. They had no friends except me. Their relatives were
also far away in other cities. I did not support their
friendly divorce. I closed them in a small dark room,
letting them communicate. It was a tough course. Not to
speaking of they did not eat or drink, no more the blood or
tears, no more violence or suicide, they finally felt
exhausted. Now, they met the most primitive, and the move
nature love. They fell into love again. If they are a couple
of infertility, they will get pregnancy at that time. In the
animal world, there is commonly an exhausting stage during
the heat period (oestrus). Does it mean that such an
exhausting condition is helpful for conceiving? In the
torture-love in some of the western people, do these people
are trying to find the primitive nature of love by such
twisting manner?
There are three time periods for women in which
their body and emotion are nourished: adolescence,
pregnancy, and menopause. Cesarean birth does not nourish
woman. Menopause syndrome bothers many women. Medicine does
not work for them. Some people asked me what drug or herbs
they can try. I said nothing needs to be eaten. Once you
have a grandson, your problem will go away. The current
young couple refuses to have a baby even if they are over
30, which makes their mother fall into menopause trouble
that is the seasonal disorder of human life.
In nature, there is much bigger wisdom than that
in the human brain.
Yesterday, I had a party with one of my friends, to celebrate
the five years after she left the “Aseptic bin”. She had
stem cell transplantation. According to current medicine
theory, after five years of transplantation, the patient’s
survival rate will be higher. So we celebrated.
There have been nine patients including her out of the Aseptic
bin at the same time. Now there are only they two alive. I
saw her doctor when I accompanied her to have a check of her
body condition after out of the hospital. I admired him.
When we thanked him for saving her life, he said: there are
three reasons that she could be helped: a good doctor met a
good patient, plus a good fortune. I agreed with him with a
nod. This doctor is the authority in this professional area
in China. however, he marked the role of a doctor so low. It
appears that Great doctor commented thing to the point. This
makes me remember another authority doctor who specifically
treats late-stage diseases. He said what he is doing in the
treatment is trying and trying.“ I know how my patient died,
but I do not know how my patient survived.”
For the patients who survived by his efforts, he
never believed that he saved them. He always tried to know
why the patient did not die. From this point, is the western
medicine also tries to find the way of treatment from
nature? Just because western medicine can tell out clear how
the patient dies, it creates over-fear among the public.
Because it becomes popular to ask for the right of knowing,
a patient needs to sign on a contract or information sheet.
On the documents, list many possible results this surgical
operation might cause. Even if it is a mild surgical
operation, there will also be several pages. Its scaring
nature is enough to destroy the patient’s spirit. Following
the eyes of western medicine, people turn their eyes to the
death reasons that it can tell out clearly. Once a patient
gets the diagnosis report for cancer, he is just like
receiving a death sentence. 50% of people are scared to
death first. I always advise people: in fact western
medicine does not know how patient survives, why to give you
up to western medicine. The advance of western medicine in
clear explanation of the death reason is well documented in
forensic medicine. So there is an example in which criminal
invents new toxic stuff to kill people, but escapes the
penalty of the law since the forensic medicine fails to
explain its mechanism. I thought Chinese medicine can kill
people with the use of the Yin-Yang and Five-element,
forensic medicine cannot explain it either.
Chinese medicine usually knows how the person
survives, but not knows how he dies. So, western medicine
studies medicine from the alive person, but Chinese medicine
studies medicine from a dead person and makes corrections.
Chinese medicine never emphasizes the significant role of
medicine. This is different from western medicine, and it
appears that Chinese medicine, therefore, is without strong
confidence. When in work, the Chinese medicine doctor has a
kind of attitude that he may treat the disease but not life.
The disease in a young of twenty years of old is easier to
treat. For disease in an old man of eighty years of old
would be hard for any Chinese medicine doctor, since his
body is already in autumn, not in spring. Chinese medicine
emphasizes more the role of patients, not the doctors, since
it is the patient who solves the disease, and it is his body
Qi that works. The doctor only helps the body Qi. It is a
helpful role, not a determining role.
The public does not now pay much attention to
Chinese medicine. This is also because of some reasons from
the Chinese medicine side. Chinese medicine does not want
people to develop addictive to the doctor. The risk of the
dependence of the public on western medicine is that the
public asks the western medicine take the responsibility in
healthcare, for people with over-load enjoyment of life. The
western medicine not only not refuses such requirement but
happy to take the responsibility of protection. So, human,
under the support of science, diverts far and far away from
nature. What I worry is whether science can support all the
way to the end. In other words, if the speeds of the science
development could match the speed of the desired expansion
of human being. With the support of “Viagra”, indulging in
sexual pleasures is no longer an abnormal lifestyle.
“Viagra” can cause sudden death of people, will the western
medicine also cause sudden death of human being? How
couldn’t I know that the most important is the development?
I admit in fact that science is an elixir of life and
believes that eating the elixir the person will become an
immortal. However, it is not that everyone can eat the
elixir. With dirty body, with the non-settled desire, the
elixir would cause sudden death!
Science is the gift given by God (Nature).
However, it has its own “proper time”. If it is not properly
used in the proper time, it is poison! Some patients were
pleased after listened to my daughter’s explanation for
their diseases: “What you said is correct. Write your
prescription now. I want to try it as soon as possible.” My
daughter refuses to write any herbal formula to them: “If
you cannot change your lifestyle and your disposition,
drinking herbal tea is not to help but harm you. If you
drink liquor while you drink herbal tea, what the herbal tea
will work for you? If you get upset or angry when you are
drinking the herbal tea, what meridian the herbs would
travel in? What’s the difference like to kill you?”
During the diagnosis by Chinese medicine, the
role of “I” is significant. Chinese medicine emphasizes not
only the doctor’s “I”, but also the patient’s “I”. This is
hard to be accepted by western medicine. There is almost no
any “I” in the western medicine CT film. The difference
between the instruments and the doctors in western medicine
is not clear. It is very obscure the personal color in the
medicine. I saw a medical lawsuit. The responsibility falls
on the quality of a medical instrument, in the final
determination. I
noticed that the number of psychologists and the patient is
one to one during psychotherapy. Even so, there is no “I” in
the doctor’s side, neither an “I” in the patient’s side. So
the therapeutic result of the western psychotherapy is not
satisfied. The personal role is so substantial in Chinese
medicine, that once a senior Chinese medicine doctor dies,
his medicine loses forever too.
In Chinese culture, everywhere there is such
“I”, so that Chinese feel that there is no more significance
for a description of a purely objective. For example, if a
teacher teaches the essay << My mother >>, he would think
that with a too much objective description of the mother,
making the mother as the same as other’s mother, would be an
artistic defect. The title of the essay is only to tell you
that you need to write something about your mother. But if
you did not imply yourself in the relationship with your
mother, did not tell out how you love her through your
description, your essay would be a meaningless one.
My grandmother died when she was thirty years old. She died of
withered, very weak in physical body energy. She had even no
power to breathe. The night she died, she said to her two
daughters: “You can go to sleep. I would be ok in the first
half of the night, it would be an something happen in the
following half night.” Her death triggered my mother to
learn medicine. My mother told me, she was only little more
than ten years old when my grandmother died. She knew
nothing to help her. If she had given her some supplementary
and nourishing medications, my grandmother would not have
died. After my mother died, I realized that my grandmother
might also die from heart disease. My mother’s heart was
always in a weak condition for all of her life. She dared
not to walk crossroad when she was 17 years old, since she
may fall in loss of consciousness any time. How could the
later-life nourishing medication help such inherit weakness?
In my family for continuous three generations, there was
only one child in the family in each generation. My
grandmother strongly insisted my mother have four children.
My young brother is only one year younger than I. It was the
time in China, in which there was “three years of natural
disaster” and also the “Cultural Revolution” period. The
poor life condition made my mother fall down after giving
birth to my young brother. She fell down on the bed for
three years. Now I can consider that she might catch
rheumatism. She felt pain all over the body, hard to move.
It was in the Culture Revolution, my father escaped away, no
one knew if he was dead or alive. No one could help my
mother.
She lied on the bed, performed acupuncture and cupping for
herself. It is interesting that she also injected some
vitamins to herself with a syringe. Three years later, she
could get up, but the bone in the whole body had changed
form. Ten years later, she died from heart failure. After
giving birth to me, my mother has no breast milk. Also due
to it was the “three years of natural disaster period”, my
body is very weak in both inherit and later life nourish. I
have had experienced many times of the close to death
feeling. Whenever there is an infectious disease, my mother
looked at me and felt worried. Mother let my three brothers
catch measles and chickenpox to get lifelong immunity. She
however dared to let me catch such diseases. She said I
would die if I catch such diseases. Mother let me eat a
spoon of placenta hominis
(e.g. dried human placenta) and I escaped from the
infectious diseases. But my mother has been worried about my
lack of immunity.
When I came into middle age and felt my
heart weaker and weaker, I realized that the same quality of
the hearts of mine, my mother’s and my grandmother’s. Later,
I got the same symptoms as my grandmother. I felt weaker and
weaker. I could hardly get up for a movement. My heart was
exhausted with a burden, extreme fatigue. No medication
works. I know it is not that the medication is not right and
it is not that the therapy per se is wrong either. It is due
to the too weakness of my heart that was too weak to hold
any medication. For such condition, the author of the book
<< Thinking about TCM >>, Mr. Liu Lihong compared it with
the soil that is too dry to absorb any water. The water
poured on the soil is not only not absorbed, but also flows
away. The weakness of heart resulted in many other problems,
such as the failure of other organs, and the growth of bone
spurs. My walk is not only weak but very difficult. Clearly,
the road of my mother and my grandmother is in front of me.
Nourish and treatment is not an escaping way for
life. Wouldn’t the doctor who treated my grandmother give
her nourishing medications? My mother drunk her own herbs,
expanded her life to as long as possible. But the weak heart
finally made her leave the world too early. When I lied down
on the bed and felt hard to move and felt very tired, I knew
that I could not escape from the fate of my mother and my
grandmother. My grandmother who did not know any medicine
and my mother who knew medicine went the same way. Is there
any third way for me to go?
I chose the third way. I bought a land in the
countryside. I sat on the ground, sometimes lay face down to
the soil, from spring to summer, to autumn, to winter. I had
a house built. The house was ready, and my heart was no
longer weak. The bone spur disappeared. The weakness
stopped.
When I was young, I could not
understand why old people like to have sunbathing. Now I
know, the sun, the soil, and the spring wind have something
that nourishes the human body, and that could improve the
life energy of human being. Returning to nature should be
the more prominent therapy than the nourishing and
treatment. It is a pity that my mother and my grandmother
diverted away from nature for a too long time. They did not
realize or experience it. For this, I doubt that the disease
of my mother and my grandmother might be a disorder of
lifestyle. Is it due to a long time of isolation from
nature, artificial living and work conditions that evoked
the resist of the heart? The heart opposes the burden
through not working hard. We, however, use drugs, heart
pacemaker, bypass operations to maintain the heart, but not
follow nature. Sometimes, only the sunshine can help people
with depression. The lack of sunshine alone can cause
depression. The patients with depression are more convincing
for the harm of escaping nature than the patients with heart
disease. For those poor but healthy people, psychologist
gives various explanations from the psychological aspects.
To me, the poorness makes them more close to nature. This
should be the main reason for their happiness and health. If
there is no energy source from nature, even Chinese
medicine, and Chinese herbs are hard to supply more body
energy to the patients. So, don’t have superstition to
western medicine, nor Chinese medicine. The best herb cannot
replace the role of nature in health maintenance.
In nature, many kinds of diseases can
cure naturally. Many diseases should not be regarded as a
disease. I told my daughter. If I would get dementia, she
could perform peace-death (euthanasia) to me, since this
disease could bring many troubles to others. My daughter
smiled and said she will have me wear a body of animal fur,
and leave me in the mountains. She said: you can wander
around there. What trouble you can bring to us? I will send
a shepherd dog to watch you. I feel her idea is excellent.
Patient with dementia would damage things in the room. What
they can damage in the mountains? If the patient returns to
wildlife, it might be useful for their recovery. Have a look
at the nursing home in the US, the patients with dementia
sit in wheelchair line by line. How terrible the picture is.
I thought if there would have some dogs or cats around them,
have children playing around them, would the mind of these
patients better? The importance of the human relationship
and human feelings and the natural lifestyle are all more
important than we believe now. Even if we do not realize
this importance of the harmony of the nature and human, of
the Yin-Yang and Five-element theory from the Chinese
medicine point of view, only from the consideration that
human is birth from the nature, and human needs the
re-relation with the nature to maintain the health, it would
be enough for us to establish a theory much similar to
Chinese medicine. If someone wants to suppress this
realization, they appear not close to human nature. It would
evoke our suspect for their intention.
If it is correct that our health needs
us not to throw away the primitive life completely, should
we return to the primitive lifestyle from time to time? We
admit that many current diseases belong to rich diseases, to
lifestyle disorders, but we can do nothing to correct it.
I remembered something that my
grandmother said before. When we feel hard to understand how
can those of people who are lack of life care, are not
living according to the modern lifestyle, but survive, she
said Nature feeds them. At that time, I felt that my
grandmother is very superstition. We always believe that
nature is cruel to the human being to live. If we exposure
to nature completely, we would not be able to live. Those
who were said by my grandmother to be fed by Nature, are
just living in a primitive lifestyle! Now we realize, it is
not at all strange or mysterious that Nature feeds people.
Are our lives indeed fed through the modern lifestyle? Do we
not regard the secondary factor as the main factor in the
way of putting the cart before the horse? The most healthy
things are in nature. It is the best way to get health by
returning to and living by nature.
My mother told me before that her
senior fellow apprentice got tuberculosis. Sixty years ago,
tuberculosis implied death. The man set a shack under the
mountain and said that he was going to mourn for his mother.
He started to live in a primitive manner. Three years later,
his tuberculosis got cured without any treatment. I thought
that her senior fellow apprentice understood the meaning of
nature more than my mother.
A survey for the university students in Beijing
showed: there are 100,000 students with depression. It was
one-quarter of the all students at that year in Beijing. It
is also indicated from the results of the study of Beijing
university student psychology conditions, more than 60% of
university students have above the middle level of disorders
in the psychology. This number is creasing. Recently, the
data from Xi’an psychology health institute suggested that
in this province, half of the 720,000 patients with
depression are students. Junior school students were 16%,
senior school students were 18%, and university students
were 24%. We cannot understand these data. What happened to
our children?
According to the national health minister: there
are 287,000 suicide cases every year in China. It is about
3.6% of all death cases in the country. Among the death
reasons between 1995 and 2000, this is the fifth big death
reason. 80% of suicide cases were with depression. Two-third
of the patients with depression have an intention of
suicide. Ten percent to fifteen percent of them successfully
got suicide. From the year 2000, there was 22.2 persons
suicide among every 100,000 population. There is one suicide
every two minutes, eight of them not succeed. The ones with
suicide intention are six to seven folds of those who
already tried suicide. Besides the death due to suicide,
there are ten to twenty folds of people who did not succeed
in the suicide got functional disability. Among the 15 to 34
years of old, suicide is the most critical reason for death.
There was a young boy whom I have
helped him to decide the desired university to go. He told
me, the first day when he went to the university, the
psychologist doctor in the university declared to all of
them new students: “There would be 20 of your guys get
suicide. My job is to reduce the number to ten…” I felt hard
to understand. Is it an infectious disease or epidemic
disease? Even for a famous university as the Beijing
University and Qinghua University become careless about the
jumping building suicide. A “depression” becomes the full
reason for these students’ suicide. If we accept this
reason, we should carelessly look at the one-quarter student
death? How scary it is! (The reason to develop such thinking
is just from the western medicine, its definition thinking
manner. The Yin-Yang and Five-element thinking would be able
to correct it.)
I also checked the conditions in the US. In the
USA, 5,000,000 people are taking anti-depression drugs.
There are 300,000 people died of suicide. One-fifth of
children and youth in the US have emotional disorders.
Experts induced: there are about 6,000,000 children in the
US who have severe emotional disorders. It appears that the
condition in the US is much worse than in China. They have
only 2 billion populations. The World Health Organization
now lists the depression as one of the five diseases that
harm human life. It predicted, up to the year 2020, the
emotional disorders, including depression and epilepsy,
would be the second primary reason for human death.
Experts estimate, in the future 20 years, the
number of people with emotional disorders will increase
sharply. The depression causes stress in the family and
social relationship and reduced labor ability. It is
estimated, one suicide could affect at least six persons
around the dead one. The person with depression and their
family all stick in the deep pain.
Fear of death, how difficult is it to overcome
human weakness? The traitor is afraid of death and should be
hated, but can also be understood, because this is a human
weakness. To not die, how many people would instead crawl
out of a dog hole? Does to want to die not to oppose against
the human nature? If the suicide is due to too poor, it can
be understood somehow. However, from the statistic data, the
territory with a high rate of suicide is usually where there
is advanced in social and economy. Does that mean: the more
developed, the richer, the more cultured, the less willing
for people to live?
Is it true that richness and education could kill
people? Professor Boris Birmaher, a psychologist in the
Pittsburg University found, the children from a family with
a history of severe depression have abnormal reactions to a
substance that stimulates the production of growth hormone
in the body. Though the study does not imply that the
children with depression would have retarded growth, it
supplied data for the reasons and deep mechanism of the
depression syndrome. It also supports that the depression is
a kind of inherent disorder. The experts said it is a
biological disease, not a mental disorder. They said that it
is a mistake to believe that the suicide person is in a
condition at which they “did not have a clear mind for the
time being", if to encourage or convince them, they would
not go to suicide. The experts also said the suicide is a
disease. The patients must go through professional
treatment, with drugs and electric shocks, as well as mental
directions. There are 80% of patients who can get cure
through the treatment. However, this way, it appears that if
some relatives or friends got depression, we, as
non-professional, would have no help to them, since the
experts said it is no use to have ideological efforts to
them.
We did not hear any depression syndrome before.
Is the depression syndrome “found” in the same way as the
homosexuality? Statistic data indicated that the number of
homosexuality is about 4% in populations. The number for
depression is however as high as 20%! It would be scared to
think this. If there are just 100 stuff in our company, we
stay every day together, know each other, and have a good
relationship with each other. Now, let me think that there
are four homosexuality and 20 depression syndrome. How
scared it is! Experts said the best treatment for the
depression is electric shocking. Use it to beat the patient,
to let him lose consciousness, so let him shacking without
consciousness, though it is needed to prevent his suffocated
due to nausea during the coma. I thought if my co-worker is
just under the critical time of his work and he tells me: “I
get sick, I need to go for an electric shock”. I need to
stop my work and accompany him. Otherwise, what about he
cannot walk after the electric shock? Does he need some help
to take a car home? If I said: “Insist for a while, wait for
me to stop my work first”, but he jumps off the building
after turns his body? As for the homosexuality, experts
said, it should be changed the traditional idea about the
suicide being disrepute. The suicide is a social phenomenon,
not the dark side of the society, nor a
“disrepute” thing. The public should understand the
suicide person. As the ratio, there should be one depression
out of every five persons. Among those who are my best
friends, there would be several depression persons. I should
follow the advice of the experts, look at them in normal
emotion. They depress themselves and I enjoy my own
happiness since the expert said it is no use to make any
ideological effort to them. The suggestion of “look at them
with a normal manner”, to me, sounds that I should ignore
what is happing to the depressive person – see as not seen.
If he is to jump off the building, I said “ok” to him? If I
try my best to stop him or ask more of my colleagues to stop
him, would these depressive persons, as the homosexual
people in the US, go to the street and cry loudly: “We want
suicide! Give us the freedom to suicide”?
It is lucky that we have no, according
to the ratio, four homosexuality or 20 depressive persons in
our company. The question arises: “Why we do not have many
such sufferers in our company, according to the ratio?” In
fact, in our company, according to my observation, there are
no persons with a similar personality. In other words, we
have corresponding people, but such a possibility was not
changed into reality. I believe that it is the group living
that corrected them. Currently, many people think that group
suppresses individual, so they oppose the grouping work. I
think, however, the too loss connection between the
individual and the collective, could be one of the reasons
causing emotional disorder of individual. There is a clinic
doctor in the US. I think he found the core of the reason
for the depression. He thought that depression is due to the
result of a wrong way of thinking things.
My colleague, who got leukemia, did not
follow the advice of the doctor. She started work after
surgical operation. Many people regarded her survive as a
mystery. Journalists also came to visit her. Later, one of
the upper leaders studied her case carefully and declared to
her: “You are lucky to live in a good collective. You would
not be able to survive today if you change your environment
to a different one.” Some journalist feels hard to
understand. They asked again and again: “How cruel your
leader is, to allow a patient to start work. The patient has
just finished the transplantation operation. Does he not
know that the patient with leukemia needs sterile
environment?” Such a question is hard for us to answer right
away. It is risky to allow this colleague to start work so
soon. In fact, she indeed got the infection, again and
again, every week for some days. She was again and again in
an emergency. If she really died in such way, and if there
is someone really checks the responsibility, it would be a
very tough case, since our way does not follow the doctor’s
advice, or follow science. It is also tough to explain our
intention. If we, however, allow her lying down on the bed
for rehabilitation, like many other people who had the
surgical operation as her, I thought, she would mostly die
as them a quite long time ago.
Coming to the work, at the collective efforts of
all the stuff and friends here, she, as said by herself, had
no time during the whole of the day to remember her disease.
I do not know what else an environment would be better to
reach such a result. She had the most suitable chance to
develop depression. In fact, among her wardmate in hospital,
some persons did suicide by jumping off the high building.
She said two days ago, that one of her wardmates, during the
time her family discussed whether her disease got returned
she jumped from the ninth level of a building. Her family
did not find that. After returned to the ward, he was not
there on his bed, but the windows were open… If people
cannot think about his disease, and enjoy the happiness of
the living, people would have no depression. In this way,
how a person would think about suicide? To reach this point,
however, it is not enough to depend on the efforts of the
individual, but the joint efforts of a collective.
When I was young, I could not understand many of
the thinking of my grandmother. My grandmother emphasized a
lot on the affection among family members, on the selfless,
responsibility and contribution. In all, all are the old
thinking of old generations. When someone emphasized that he
is living for himself, my grandmother would show contempt
with a smile: “If one lives for himself, he might live very
well, but might also have no desire to live.” When I was
young, I could not understand the first half what she said,
since she worked very hard for her grandchildren, but she
also suffered a lot. Everyone knew this fact. But why if one
lives for himself and he may not live? Only after I come
into the adult, stated I understand her later half sentence.
I told the wardmate with leukemia: “You
should not think about to die. Think about it, if you die,
how many disasters of life would happen: Your son loses
mother when he is very young; your husband loses a wife in
middle age; your parents lose daughter when they are old.
For us, we lose money only. All of us donate the money paid
for your operation. If you die, does that not mean our money
was wasted as a water bubble?” Therefore, she endured
massive pain due to the rejection reaction. The spiritual
energy is not only for herself. If it is only for oneself,
one may lose life many times in one life. One life is not
enough for so many times of suicide.
Current people overemphasize the importance of
self — no others in his heart. Everything can be
concentrated entirely to himself, but he gives up life so
ready. This means, once the life is concentrated to the
self, the “I” is not expanded but shrunk. “I” is an army
group. There is “you” in the body of your children. There is
“you” in the body of your parents. There is “you” in the
body of your brothers and sisters. There is also “you” in
the body of your friends and relatives. “You” are in
everywhere you are something to do with now and before. If
you lose part of “I”, you will feel that you lose part of
your own life. If you lose too much “I”, though you do not
realize, your “I”, cannot be cheated. He will be unhappy,
gloomy, even depressed. The thinking of contracting all the
“I” back the self is a way of suicide. It is imbalance for
the development of the human brain or heart. Over emphasize
both the social nature or individual nature is harmful. The
human brain and heart are seeking a balance between the
human individual and the social nature.
Some experts said, the reason for the US
Children to feel depression is due to the frequent change of
living and working environment of the parents. Many children
have their teenage time spend over the traveling of the
family. It causes them to have no fixed play friends. Also,
the divorce rate in the US is very high. The children need
time to adapt the family stress in a psychologic aspect. The
nature of this question, to me, is due to the difficult to
set up a concrete or solid social relationship.
Confucianism culture, as sociology, has a
relatively better way to deal with. Real sociology is not
set up on a so-called correct theory that is independent of
and isolated from the human heart but set up to harmony
various social relationships. There is always someone who
comes to seek my help and wants my idea or suggestion. After
a long time of observation by my daughter, she said: “The
suggestion you gave to people is not always the best or the
most correct. It is neither your idea. You tell people what
they want to do most in their own hearts. You are not
helping them to find a suggestion, but to help them confirm
their own idea.” I said, correct. You found it. What I
believe the best or correct idea might not bear significant
meaning for them. An idea that opposes the inner feeling of
the individual, is not a good idea.
Why do the university students feel depression?
Did they not follow the parents to pass the exam to
university? Do they not succeed? Why they still feel
depressed and jump off the building to suicide? When an idea
is obvious, our mind (brain) can realize it. But it does not
mean that our heart can accept it.
All in all, we are not only living by the brain,
but also by the heart. No matter how clear reasoning is, if
the brain suppresses the heart to accept, it can work one
day or two days. After a long time, the heart will feel
tired and exhausted. The person will get sick. To study the
suicide, it is not enough to have medical stuff attended,
but also a sociologist, philosopher, and psychologist as
well. It is not enough to have scientists only from the
western. For the product of their thinking manner, they may
not help themselves, such as a knife cannot cut its handle.
Currently, the healthcare expenses of China can
only cover about 20% of the population. Under this real
condition, to ban Chinese medicine is as to allow Chinese
only eat one meal with fine grain, rather than three meals
of coarse grain. There are half of the patients who should
come to medical help, but they do not. One officer said:
“The financial ability of China cannot meet the needs of
healthcare for all population.” All in all, one word for
China: “poor”. If my grandmother lived, she would have said:
poor people have a poor way to live in poor. Can we not live
since we are poor? Can we let the half of Chinese not have
healthcare due to our poor? From what time we can only live
in a luxurious life but not a poor life? I do not think that
there is a significant meaning to discuss whether Chinese
medicine or western medicine is good.
Even if western medicine is 100% good,
it occupies 100% of the expense for the healthcare but only
serves the 20% of Chinese. Is it not an aristocrat medicine?
The hospital always builds up a more prominent building,
imports more advanced instruments, and serves more
aristocrat people. Science is under continuous development,
to catch the speed of the science, the hospital can only
input more and more high technology, and goes far and far on
the road of aristocrat style. If the treatment needs only
ten dollars, the cost of the examination and of “seeing a
doctor” may need ninety dollars. If you have money, you have
all the examinations done, you would see your disease, even
if you are not a doctor. If after the complete examinations,
you cannot see your disease, I would be sorry to say that
your doctor can not see it either.
I remembered when the MRI just came, a doctor
asked me to have a test. The price is two folds of my
monthly salary. I asked, can this machine treat the disease?
The answer is no. It only allows the doctor to see my
“disease”. The doctor wants to see my “disease” but wants I
to pay the cost. Does that mean that I need to buy glasses
for him if he is short-signed? During the course in
hospital, I feel that I need to pay money for the doctor for
X-ray glasses, later, Ultrasound glasses, again CT glasses,
or MRI glasses. If I do not pay money to buy such glasses
for the doctor, he cannot work.
I feel that my disease has much value of
enjoyment, so I had better leave it to myself. I asked the
doctor if you see the “disease”, how are you going to treat?
The doctor said, there is no way to treat currently. I
asked, then what’s the meaning to have this test? The doctor
said it allows us to make it clear what it is. This makes me
remember the biopsy after death. It bears meaning to the
doctor and medicine, but not to the dead. I am not going to
pay to dissect myself.
In the earlier year of the last century, some
Chinese felt happy for able to see their “disease”. They
feel clearly sure in heart even if the disease cannot be
cured. Now, people spend much money, they can see the
“disease”, but not get cured. They feel not happy. They wish
to spend money on the most critical point, e.g., on the
cure. The costs of detection and tests in a hospital are
scared high. The nature of the aristocrat nature of western
medicine expresses the fact that, without a big hospital,
without instruments, it is hard for a doctor to be a doctor.
Many doctors in the hospital with high titles are only the
technician knowing how to manipulate a machine. If we let
them go to the county hospital, town hospital, village
clinic, they are no longer a doctor. They can do nothing.
It is commonly said that doctors want to work in
a big hospital. If there are no instruments, the doctor
without the instruments can still be called a doctor? It is
commonly said that ordinary people want to go to a big
hospital for treatment. The term of doctor is no longer for
an individual, but a collective. It is the overall term for
the sum of the medical instruments and medical stuff. This
big “doctor” occupies the whole healthcare expenses of the
whole country but only serves the 20% of the population.
This 20 % of Chinese must also be rich people or those who
can find money to pay to it. The metabolic function of the
big “doctor” is powerful. It consumes a lot. So, the things
turn worse and worse: there is no doctor outside the big
hospital. If the ordinary people can not come to the big
hospital for the medicine, he would only stay to die.
One of my colleagues returned recently
from a hospital. He had a surgical operation for stomach
cancer. He spends nearly 300,000 RMB. He said the patients
can be separated into three groups. The first one-third
group, the patients spend about 30, to 50,000 RMB, no more
money, so they stop treatment. Second one-third cannot
endure the painful treatment or do not want to continue the
treatment or are treated to die. Only one-third of them can
finish the whole treatment. He wants me to write an article
to admire his wife. Seeing me feeling strange, he told me,
he feels thanks to his wife since he saw that many patients
had been deserted by another partner. He commented very hard
on going to a doctor. It is “so hard as to go to the sky”.
He anyway belongs to those of 20% Chinese.
I said that my mother had a nickname of “Yu Big
Head”. “Big heat” in our local language means foolish. This
nickname comes due to the fact that my mother paid for the
patients, the money or herbs. Now I think, why my mother did
so? She did so by inheritance from her Great master.
I was her herbal technician. I know she earned or
lost. Chinese medicine doctors can be a role of “kill the
cruel rich to help those poor” in society. Why Chinese
medicine cared about the rich and the poor the same way, not
refuse the rich? This is because the rich go to the doctor
even if it is a minor disease and they care about their
health condition very much. Why there are many nourishing
and adjusting herbs? It is the serves of Chinese medicine
for the aristocrat. There are always some relatively rich
people who need prevention and healthcare services. My
mother used the money from the rich and pay for the poor to
save their life. By this way, there would have no situation
such as not to save those close to dying, refuse treatment
or stop treatment for those they really needed.
I saw an advertisement in a city. It
said, do not give anything to the beggar. If you feel
sympathy for them, please call the following number, the
relief provider station would come to help. I thought this
Relief station would supply the meal and hosting, primarily
for everyone. How a high degree hotel to hosting the
beggars? If the beggars come to the hotel, they would be
beaten out. If every hotel is the high degree hotel, would
we let the beggars live in the street? Therefore, my mother
served the poor to save their life and served the rich with
aristocrat help. I never saw my mother refused patients for
their having no money to pay. If the patients had a disease
that is hard to treat, my mother always gave them either the
medicine or herbs for free. It should be known that my
mother did so with her private effort. It does not mean she
is dignity. I said, my mother, is a very pure person. She
has no that high level of think. It is the nature of Chinese
medicine that determined her action since her Great master
did the same way. Therefore, Chinese medicine has never been
reviled. It is after western medicine comes to China, that
the Chinese medicine was reviled.
My daughter said that she will work in a
hospital in a small town, which serves about tens of
thousands of residents. She is to serve people with Chinese
medicine thinking, combined with Chinese medicine and
western medicine. She is to aim for less input of money on
healthcare but better healing efficiency and pay much
attention to the prevention. Based on the meet for the
requirement for all the residents for primary healthcare,
try to meet the need for more people’s need for a higher
requirement. As the democracy of the US style that we can
not afford somehow, the big “doctor” should not be
established too much in number. She is to use two-thirds of
the money to run big “doctor” and use the remaining
one-third money to help doctors such as Chinese medicine
doctors who are more flexibility in treatment and more close
to the ordinary residents.
Chinese medicine is developed in the history of
the poor. We have no bread yet, how can we throw away
cornbread now. Without bread would rather die. What logic is
it? My daughter said, 80% of the disease can be solved with
ordinary treatments. The big hospital monopolized talented
people, the instruments, techniques, price, but has low
efficiency. If one has a common disease but goes to the big
hospital, it would be said to be cheated to pay money,
rather than to be treated. This is one of the reasons that
people now feel unhappy. Though the medicine tends to go for
higher level service, people want to find the best doctor,
use the best medications. What people need is the best
suggestion. People need a doctor whom they can trust. My
daughter learn western medicine, has friends in western
medicine, is to understand the most advanced development in
western medicine, so be able to give the best suggestion to
her patients.
Under such condition, it is a very significant
thing to train a doctor with both Chinese medicine and
western medicine.
Though I am a Chinese, I am still very
interested in the study Chinese. The foolish of Chinese, in
the eyes of others, is the living fossil in my eyes. Many
people said that the Chinese have no religion believing and
they feel sad about this. I feel that it is a good thing for
the world, If the Chinese would have believed in Allah or
Jesus, whole nation has one heart, one believing, they may
also launch a what “Holy war (Jihad)” again and again, for
so-called truth, it would not be as simple as the Second
World War. The Chairman Mao time was the time in which the
Chinese turned a body during a dream. This work is very
interesting. The US has high technology, but less
population. It feels a bit hard to occupy the whole of the
world. China has
a large population, but as sand. It does not destroy the
world. Thanks that the Chinese have no religion believing,
so the world is in peace.
The reason that the Chinese have no
religion believing is that the current believing systems do
not meet the needs of the Chinese. Water in the bowl can
believe the bowl; water in the river can believe the river
bed. What would the water in a sea believe? Allah and Jesus,
to Chinese, are the bowl, the river bed. It can be used to
drink, or to have a bath, but cannot be used to travel to
the Atlantic (Ocean).
Foreigners admit that individual Chinese is very
clever, but believe that as a group, Chinese become weak due
to inside conflicts with each other. This is as the
foreigners are good to study the individual, but weak to
study the union. They cannot find that thanks for such inner
conflicts, that makes the Chinese not stick to the bowl or
pool. After drinking, they left the bowl, and after a bath,
they left the pool. The things as the bowl or pool do not
meet the need of our Chinese. We need much bigger things. To
study individual Chinese people, you cannot understand the
whole Chinese as a nation. So, I do not care very much about
the comments on Chinese. The person who can make a correct
comment on the Chinese has not been birth out yet.
Individual Chinese is a drop of water.
This has been realized by Mr. Lei Feng, who was only 21 year
of old. Why he tried to integrate himself into the masses?
What’s the real nature of his spirit?
Study the H2O is to study the water nature but
is this the whole of the water nature? Is there wind and
wave in a bowl of water? Is there any hidden stream and
whirlpool in a pool of water? Is there any typhoon and
seismic sea wave in a river?
Someone may say that the typhoon and sea wave
cannot be regarded as the nature of the water. However, they
know that, without water, much water, how comes the typhoon
and sea wave? How could people build the ship to travel in
the sea without understanding the ocean stream and sea
waves?
China is not a bowl of water. The study on a
bowl of water has no big meaning to deduce the things happen
in China. China is neither a pool of water. A pool of water
cannot hold a boat or turn over the boat. Much water of Lei
Feng style, though each is only a drop of water, makes the
Chinese into a group, to potential, to accumulate into a
deep pool and to hold a dragon. This is why Chinese tend to
chase for big, for size, and space. They do not care the
small stream but river; not care the river, but the ocean.
It is not little math, but great mathematics.
Egyptian used pyramid and obelisk to express
forever. Chinese culture used another way to build the
pyramid and obelisk. The material for the pyramid is human.
The building structure is human social relationships.
Chinese study the water nature, not only through
the fish, the ship to feel and to express, but also use
dragon to express the nature of water in an extraordinary
manner. Therefore, Chinese do not believe bowl, not river
bed. If they believe, they would rather believe dragon.
The nature of a dragon makes the Chinese have
willing to believe but hard to have superstition. Let ask
the question: how many Chinese not believe science? No one.
However, how many Chinese have superstition to the science?
This makes the Chinese go to western medicine hospital for a
check but also goes to Chinese medicine for pulse feeling
diagnosis. There is a kind of reasoning factor for such a
bland and no-aim manner in the medical care of Chinese. Such
action and behavior of ordinary Chinese are actually to
combine the study on H2O on the wind and wave. So, believing
both western medicine and Chinese medicine, among ordinary
Chinese, it not at all a conflict. It has nothing to do with
the foolish. Therefore, the opinion would fall into failure,
that if a person becomes rich, and if it is no longer
expensive to see a doctor,
Chinese medicine would have no its market. These
people think that through the education to the ordinary
Chinese, the Chinese would sublate Chinese medicine after
their understanding to the science become better. I think
such opinions all will fall failure. Many scientific
predictions and so termed reasoning thinking come to failure
again and again.
No matter how deep the study to the H2O, it
cannot replace the study to the flood and sea wave. In
sociology, the study to the individual cannot replace that
to the group. In medicine, the study on the local cannot
replace that on the whole body, and study on the still part
cannot replace that of dynamic action.
Deep understanding of Chinese to the relationship between the
local individual and the collective, the whole, help them to
understand the relationship between western medicine and
Chinese medicine. Why should human life in a collective and
society? Why would a Chinese consider and care the whole
society or the whole nation, even if he stays alone in a
single room? That the Chinese chase for a group is to chase
for the potential of a group or of a collective. The
“potential” does not exist with the individual. Study on the
individual would never reach this “potential”.
The “Qi” and the “potential” (imposing manner)
is the commonly used terms in the Chinese mathematics and
physics.
Einstein eventually pursued a large unified
field. And Chinese culture is always the pursuit of a large
unified field. The universe, the Dao, etc. represents this
large unified field. The study of individual thing must be
compared and adjusted from time to time to the large unified
field. Chinese medicine theory is established in such
continuous comparison and adjustment with the large unified
field. How could we say it is not science or not reasoning?
To have a systematic observation to propose a theory; to use
the theory to explain the phenomenon to predict and change
the future, which of steps commonly used in scientific
research has been lost in the Chinese medicine? If the
Yin-Yang and Five-element model in Chinese medicine can bear
the examination and test for a long time of history, if it
is excellent in the prediction and treatment of disease, and
if it allows us to find a clear view of the body, emotion
and spirit, find a way to dominate the healthcare and
disease treatment, how could we say it is not a science or
not reasoning? To study the water nature through H2O and the
water in a sea, though they seem no common aspects, which
one is more close to the nature of water from the water
nature point of view?
The daughter walked through a garden and saw one
of them practiced Taiji Quan. After watching for a while,
she went to talk to that man. Sure enough, this person's
Taiji Quan is a family biography (handed down from the older
generations of the family). She consulted with him and
showed what the style she was practicing. The man said, what
you are practicing is a Taiji gym, not Taiji Quan. My
daughter disagreed. The man said, practicing as your way,
you would have an illness, feel cold in hands and feet…I was
stunned when she told me this. For the late two years, she
was indeed, cold in hands and feet. She tended to pose her
feet to my chest to warm when she went to bed at night. We
have discussed several times for the reason.
During my pregnancy with her, I did not
get cold. When she was young, her small hands and feet are
commonly warm. So where comes the cold? We never thought
that it is due to the practice of Taiji for a competitive
match. I felt awkward to understand. Even if what she
practiced is not Taiji Quan, but a gym, how could it cause
sick? Could we get sick when we do exercise with radio
music? My daughter said she asked so. The man said the Taiji
Quan is using the mind to control the action. It asks the
unity of the mind and the action. If we only do action but
not its mind part, it would be harmful to health. After
heard this, I opposed: action is a form, it is empty. What’s
a matter if we practice an empty? My daughter, who appeared
understood, said that: is the form in the Taiji Quan the
same in the gym? Why is it such form but not the form in the
gym? How could we say that the form in the Taiji Quan is
empty? What about the sequence of the actions? How could we
say that the sequence of the action has no meaning? Once we
start the action of Taiji Quan, our body meridians would
have the corresponding reaction. The uncontrolled reaction
would not cause harm to the body?
My daughter wanted to adjust the body condition
to normal, so expressed willingness to learn from him. The
man said, he would teach a person who has never learned
Taiji Quan, than teach a person as my daughter who has gone
a reverse road. My daughter said, why not give me a chance
to try a while? Later, the man sighed to other students:
“Your guys, no one has higher realization ability as this
girl to learn fast.”
From this story, I thought, not to speak of
Chinese medicine, even if for a Taiji Quan, which looks as
simple as a gym, how could it be so mysterious in Chinese
mind? Since my daughter followed the guidance of a gym
master, practiced Taiji as a match, she got hurt, according
to her own words.
This made her think if the sudden death during
exercise also the result of a kind of “hurt”? Currently, it
is so common that people doing exercise being damaged.
Including the author of the book << The Complete Book of
Running>>, he died from sudden death during the exercise. Is
this not against the original aim of the physical exercise?
Western style of Taiji Quan could hurt people. Deducing it
to more, would the practice of Chinese medicine by the
western medicine manner also hurt the Chinese medicine and
make it withered?
My daughter learned the Taiji Quan very hard,
and she learned it with her heart. I said, do you need to
learn in that way? She answered Gongfu, Gongfu, what it
needs is the Gongfu (practice hard). She said, understating
the Chinese culture during the practice of Taiji Quan, many
things in the Chinese culture can be linked and melted each
other. Not only the Chinese medicine, the military, the 36
tricks… I asked, what is the relationship between the
exercise with the 36 tricks? She said this is boxing. Boxing
is march art. It is a force. Is the force not factor in a
military? Taiji Quan focuses on cotton-soft. Cotton, there
would be able to hide a needle. Soft, there would be a
solid-hard in it. Taiji Quan can also be used for a
body-to-body fight in a war. It has mind law but no action
law. She said, from the Taiji Quan, she realized the use of
herbs. For example, the herb Gancao is used in 93 classical
formulas. Every of the herbal formula has the herb Gancao.
What’s the role of the herb Gancao in each herb formula? The
current text-book said it is to consciliate the natures of
other herbs in it. In fact, its role varies in each formula,
depending on its couple with different other herbs. I asked:
“By this way, the herb Gancao works like me. My function
varies in different person groups?” She said: “En, somehow
yes. Therefore, Chinese medicine work is not boring You
would always have a new experience, have your own findings.
Your own heart feels it. If you want to teach others, their
hearts are different from yours, so it is not easy to pass
to them since it is not replaceable. Therefore the Chinese
medicine teaching needs inducing, inspiring, and needs a
different way for different students…”
Mr. Zhang Gongyao read the Chinese medicine
books for 33 years. He cured his grandfather’s disease with
Chinese herbs. His wife is also a Chinese medicine doctor,
but he opposed the Chinese medicine crazily. His story makes
me remember my father. I grew up in the voice of my father’s
opposing against Chinese medicine. The current opposing
voice against Chinese medicine, to me, sounds like the same
voice from my father. When I was young, I stood at the side
of my father, since science meets the taste of young
generations. It is easy to attack others. It is funny to do
so. I thought if there were no young generations, and no the
western thinking, would the “Culture Revolution” really
happen? My father regards the not counteract and not argue
of my mother as the reasonless of Chinese medicine. He
therefore always gave a lesson to my mother, wishing to
change her with his truth. My mother always listened
smiling. Many years later, my father admitted to me his
failure in his correction project, since my mother changed
nothing. He summarized it is due to woman’s unreasonable..
He thought a woman could not accept the truth.
Now I think, my father’s attitude against
Chinese medicine, and just denying the women, all in all, is
due to his eyes towards outside not inside. Man needs to
feel no anything he does not know, no anything he cannot do.
He needs to feel he has the truth, has dignity, is very
strong and fears nothing. He needs to feel he is powerful;
nothing can beat him. As to her son, my mother protected my
father’s such feeling and needs. It is needed for a family,
a clan and a country since what we face the universe is so
broad to measure. We need the man who feels very strong and
has a brave to open a survive road for the human being upon
disaster.
For this reason, when I grow up, and when I
stand on the side of my mother, I also, as a mother,
protected the dignity feeling of my father, as a man.
I thought, the wife of Mr. Zhang Gongyao did not
refute him, most probably with the similar psychology. After
33 years of reading Chinese medicine, fail to really
understand Chinese medicine, then turn to attack the Chinese
medicine, I understand such feelings. I also feel sympathy
for him. It is not his own error or mistake. Just like the
detour I took, it is the historical error. It is the penalty
of history.
My daughter said: “My grandmother did not allow
you to learn Chinese medicine. She was right. If you do not
learn it with your heart, but with your brain, it is not
good for both you and
Chinese medicine”.
I guess if I have had learned Chinese
medicine at that time, I would also have learned it from the
science point of view. Most possibly I would not be able to
change my mind, the result of which is not better than Mr.
Zhang Gongyao. The example of Mr. Zhang Gongyao can only
happen in China. Watching him, I feel a kind feeling. It is
the mistake of Chinese style. One Chinese medicine doctor
told Mr. Zhang Gongyao: “You said the herb Renshen (ginseng)
has no herbal effect. It is simply a piece of a turnip. It
is not as nutritious as the turnip. Now, I invite you to eat
it. Dare you?” I think, if Mr. Zhang is a western people, he
will follow. Now, don’t see that he is so opposed to the
Chinese medicine, he dares not to eat the Renshen (ginseng).
This is really the humor of Chinese. Being a Chinese means
living in a comic dialogue. Very interesting.
All in all, people said they do not
oppose Chinese medicine, but it is hard to understand the
Yin-Yang and Five-element theory in Chinese Medicine. In
fact, anyone who has had modern education is hard to accept
the Yin-Yang and Five-element theory. I felt difficult too.
If one wears a suit, he needs to wear leather shoes. No one
will wear Beijing cotton shoes. I did not think that I would
accept Chinese medicine either. However, I accepted it very
natural and very simple. For example, during the years in
which I worked for women benefit, I needed to study the
direction of women movement. According to western theory,
women are lack of spiritual value. Besides multiplying human
generations biologically, women had almost no significant
role in human history. Therefore women are the second, who
follow and adhere to men. In modern times, the arising women
movement in the western world made the women standing in the
opposite position of men, causing conflict, resulting in a
difficult task for a human being. In the studying of the
comparison for the women movement between the western and
the Chinese women, it was found that the western style women
movement has never grown up in China. The reason for it is
the function of the Chinese Yin-Yang theory. In a thinking
that man dominates outside, woman dominates inside (home);
that the Yin and Yang help and nourishes each other; that
men govern the public, and women govern the home issue; all
things in the public are like in a single family, women have
much role to play in the field of the land (man is sky). The
dignity and the self-confidence of women were not hurt or
damaged. In the Yin-Yang theory, we can find many “new”
clues to solve the confusions that occur in the western
women’s movement.
In a study of criminal psychology, it was found
that similar results. According to the western theory, and
according to the body constitution classifications based on
psychology, any people would have both merit or defect
sides. The defect ones would be classified into
psychological disorders. This makes the prevention of the
crime into the correction of the human “defect”, resulting
in a very poor effect in the correction of human psychologic
diversion. However, the harvest is poor though we have
worked hard on it. Under such case, if we care the specific
body constitution, separate the person according to the
Five-element theory, it can create much more methods for the
prevention works, than the simple body constitution
according to the western psychology. It can be said that my
understanding and accept Chinese medicine is due to my
return from the western world.
Chinese care the “root”. The root is
the history, is the tradition. The history buried in the
soil is without branch or leaves. It needs the current
sunshine and rain, to have its new branch and leaves. When
its leaves and branches become rich, we could then
understand its relationship with the current time, but not
with root. Only when this generation of branch and leaves
got withered, we then found the meaning of the root through
the falling of the leaves.
Chinese Yin-Yang is regarded as the two sides of
the conflict, in the view of the western theory. The
transfer of the Yin and Yang is also regarded as the
conflict-reunite. However, the western thinking does not
consider five-element as the power to push the Yin-Yang
transfer. It terms the Yin and Yang into the “Water” and
“Fire” two elements only. The ‘water” and the “fire”
has no “wood” to conduct each other. So, in their
mind, there would have only “combat”, no “nourish”; only
“struggle against”, no “reconcile” or “compromise”; only
deny the deny, no confirm the confirm. Only paying attention
to the two elements but not five elements, the water, and
the fire would only come to fight, to conflict, to struggle
against each other. Without the help by the wood, without
the expanding and suppress by the metal and soil, there
would have no circle running of the five elements, no
“long-running machine” mechanism for the universe, there
would have neither the “water-fire co-assistance”.
If we
allocated the people with the Fire constitution into the
western gallbladder type, then the fast reaction, strong
action, and active is the merit of people of this group, and
pushing, irritable, easy to get upset would be their defect.
However, in reality, how could we separate the merit and the
defect of a person apart? Is there any necessary to separate
them? If we remove the risk of the fire off, is there any
function of the fire? To separate one thing into two, it can
be done in theory, but cannot succeed in reality. To it is
separated with great effort, it would create confusion.
Either the western or eastern, both
make the thing that can be seen easily as the starting point
of thinking. Both start the study by exploring the nature of
the things. The difference is: Chinese believe that the
nature of thing belongs to a “hidden”. We should follow its
“hidden”. Western believes that the not-showing things
should be shown out. I said, the human usually has no
choice. What he chooses is his nature. During the solution
of mathematics by mathematicians, it does not mean that they
cannot solve the math, but that they want to find a way to
solve it, which he believes the most beautiful. From this
point of view, the solution has already in his mind. He is
not seeking an outside solution but seeking from his inner
side.
Yin-Yang and Five-element are also such
inner nature, inner own. So, when we are seeking an
explanation to the world, we seek not only the correct one
but also a happy one. Otherwise, even if all agree it is
correct, we still feel not a beauty, not satisfied. I agree
that the western things are advanced, the scientific. I
agree on it no matter how all of you admire it. However, I
disagree as a woman the theory in which a woman is looked
down to no use, or no dignity, or the theory in which women
bring to the opposite side of man. I neither agree, once
there is some crime or jumping down a building (to suicide),
to kick off the question by saying “he is sick”. In fact, if
we apply the Yin-Yang theory to cover the Contradiction
theory, separate the two conflict sides as two elements, add
additional three elements, make the theory more complete,
nothing is to waste time. Why not can we not do this way?
I feel the Yin-Yang theory can also be used in
the internet discussion. It is common on the internet that
there occur conflict and abuse due to hard to understand
each other. It is actually a small obstacle set by Nature by
propose. It asks us to turn a small curve to connect. For
example, if we connect the fire and water directly, they
would be a conflict with each other. If we allow the wood to
connect the fire and water, it works well. Chinese chase the
personal relations, just because the nature set up the
person relation there. If we regard the western thinking as
Yang, the Chinese thinking would be the Yin. People can be
separated into five major groups, according to the five
elements. Though the fire person is hard to co-operate with
the water person, with the presence of the wood person,
harmony by the soil person and metal person, the conflict
relations can be changed into power for the group. Such as
the connection of material with different conduct ability
could produce the “electric potential”. The Five-element
“electric potential” is the “Forever running machine” of the
Yin-Yang running. If we build up the five element
association in the internet society with this propose, the
internet would be full of growing power, not crisis.
There will have a new turn of medical reform in
China. From the plan for the reform this time, it is to
re-build the medical net that has been broken before.
However, the designer of the new reform said: “ The new
reform plan is the truck of the England, arm, and leg of
German, Head of the United States, a combination of the
three plans.” We, ordinary people, have not forgotten the
healthcare system in the year 1970s’. We will see what may
happen, see if this new one would be better than the
Chairman Mao’s model.
No matter how you say, we need to see the nature
and the result. The designer said: “The direction of future
is: the government pays the treatment of small illness;
general severe disease depends on the social insurance
system; very severe disease depends on the commercial
medical insurance.” “The practical procedure is: in the
city, in the community healthcare system, such as in the
community clinic, it is free. In the countryside, such as in
the town clinic, the treatment is also free.”
I shook my head while I read this
plan/proposal. “According to the preliminary calculation
from the healthcare reform, the Ministry of Health, China,
to reach the goal of the free healthcare coverage for the
whole nation, there needs 2000 billion RMB. The Ministry of
Finance doubts the figure.” The money, I wonder it may go
for vain. It seems that we are not poor. To be able to spend
2000 billion means poor? The point is that we cannot live a
poor life. “Eating would not make you poor, wearing would
not make you poor, but if it would not calculate carefully
for spending, you would get poor.” Old Chinese said so. I
worry would this 2000 billion be spent on a proper place?
With a very little consideration, you would be
able to know if this plan works or not. To leave the mild
disease in the community clinic to treat is a nice idea.
However, what disease, to which level the disease would be
mild? Appendicitis, hypertension, birth delivery is mild
disease or not? I think it is not a severe disease. But a
surgical operation as appendicitis can be performed in town
clinic? If yes, they can. But they need a B ultrasound.
Should we buy it for them? If not, the patient needs to go
the city, then turns back for surgery? For birth delivery,
right now, each family has only one child. Who dares to have
the birth-giving in the small town clinic? If on the halfway
to the delivery, do the Cesarean section in the small town
clinic? Should we have a surgical operation room in the
small town clinic too? For high blood pressure, sometimes
the patient needs to have CT to see the blood vessel block
condition in the brain. Deduced from this, who dares to take
the responsibility to determine which is small and which is
a severe disease? Would it be more conflict between the
doctor and the patient?
For the real severe disease, such as
cancer, some patients are waiting to die. They only need
little bit maintenance treatment. The community clinic can
well deal with such a case. However, current people live so
close and crowded; people feel not good to leave the patient
die at home, so the patient is left in the hospital to wait
for death, at least with the aim to use mortuary in the
hospital. Should the community clinic prepare a mortuary?
Also, if the community clinic is set as a final place for
life, is it good for the emotion of other patients? The
defects caused by many of such problems would not make 2000
billion as a new warm tent for corrupt?
Invest for 2000 billion, but no care
the severe disease. Small and mild disease can be endured or
can be treated, but severe disease can cause disaster and
total loss for a family. Since it is said that 2000 billion
is to express the concern of the government as “send fire in
snow weather”, it would be better to invest the money to
severe diseases, to those of diseases that can be cured, but
ordinary people cannot afford. That is the way to save a
life.
Think about why ordinary people try to
save money but dare not to spend money. It is because they
worry possible big need during life. What’s the biggest
worry of them? Is a mild disease? No. They do not save for
mild disease, but a severe disease. If the government helps
them in the treatment of severe diseases, it will remove the
burden in the mind of the ordinary people. Good metal should
be used on the edge of a knife. It would be better to think
as such, rather than spend 2000 billion for nothing. Think,
if the government takes the responsibility to pay for the
treatment of severe disease, the expenses of scientific
research, training, development on the medicine, would not
fall into the ordinary people. The cost for such as bypass
surgery on the heart will reduce dramatically.
My daughter and I went to the hospital to see
her grandmother, who is to have bypass surgery in the heart.
The old lady was not in the ward. She went to a general ward
for visiting. I brought her back and asked: “What are you
doing there?” She said I let them see how success my
operation is. I said: “You are stimulating them. How do they
not know that their disease also needs such bypass surgery?
How do they not want to do this surgery? But can they afford
the operation? They cannot afford the operation that costs
60,000 RMB for a bypass branch. They, therefore, have to
endure the short of breath and palpitation, and move to an
ordinary ward, bearing not only physical pain but also the
emotional suffering for possible death anytime. You go to
them to show your success. Is that stimulating their
suffering?”
Later I got know that the reason for the high
cost of heart bypass branch surgery is the result of
monopoly and control. The force behind it is the market
economy. Generally, marketing competition makes the price
goes down; it is however not so. When the market becomes a
monopoly, the price goes up. If the government inserts into
the treatment of severe disease, the whole room of the
patients who look at my stepmother with painful, desperate
and envy eyes, would have a chance to survive (to have such
a surgical operation). Should the government first save
these patients? If the government supports 100 patients who
need the bypass surgery, would the cost come to 6,000,000
RMB? Not. It might even not be as half. Because the state's
intervention, the price of the virtual high will be greatly
reduced, and the effect of getting twice the result with
half the effort will also enable a large number of doctors
to get the opportunity to refine so that the surgical
technique is no longer monopolized by a few people.
Of course, for the long run, it is needed to set
up a medical network. The western style healthcare system,
big and whole, makes this idea hardly work even if in the
western developed countries. The combined western and
Chinese medicine healthcare network is proposed to be
considered.
We have had such a healthcare network before,
but we stop it as a backward thing. We thought the way of
life by the old generation is not right. We do not want to
live in a poor life, but rich life. Once the amount of money
is limited, there would be a question about how to calculate
and how to plan the spending. In rich life, the planning is
critical. We admit its usefulness of Chinese medicine. It
can be used and is helpful in the living. Since it looks
primitive and straightforward, it is therefore refused by
those of people who wish to live in a rich life. It appears
that they would rather die than use Chinese medicine. It
makes us doubt what our aim of life is.
The summer this year, a couple retired
doctors came to visit us and to escape the hot summer. The
man is an expert in brain surgery. Many years ago, he was
sent to one of town clinic here as a hospital president. He
had an excellent relationship with the ordinary people here.
For 30 years when he worked here, the ordinary people from
the area in which he was in charge before had severe
diseases, still went to the provincial hospital to visit him
for help. He was a channel of medicine for them.
My daughter went to the home of her grandmother
to see this couple. They chatted for a long time. I knew
them as well since they came here once every one to two
years. Though they went abroad quite often, they still kept
contact with the ordinary people here closely. That is the
doctor-patient relationship of thirty years!
Anyway, it is for the benefit of
ordinary people that the government pays much attention to
primary healthcare. I feel happy for my daughter. In this
way, her idea to go to the countryside to open clinic can
get help through the government authority. She can spend
more time on medical skill improvement. I think, in the town
clinic, the combination of western medicine and Chinese
medicine, that is her objective, would be better than only
Chinese medicine or only western medicine. In the medicine,
there need someone for study DNA, some for surgery, also
someone for dealing with various need in healthcare by many
families, with flexible manner. Western medicine is needed,
so is Chinese medicine. How can we develop one end but throw
off another end?
The reason for the existence and continuation of
Chinese medicine is as for the existing of a General who
usurps the throne of a kind king (Chinese medicine likes the
king). The God would not hold the justice. The forcing power
of the science is so strong that bring the human being to a
no-return road. Look at the behavior of Mr. Zhang Gongyao,
you would know that the cruel act of the science and the
“Cultural Revolution” is the same. But I look such cruel act
as the youth anxiety of the human being. It follows the
growth of the human being. No one wants the youth stop to
grow up for their anxiety that bears kind of risks.
I support Chinese medicine, but I do not deny
western medicine, or to stop western medicine. However, I do
not want to improve Chinese medicine to a too high level. I
want to use Chinese medicine to brake the speed of the
history, don’t want it to go too fast to turn off. Whenever
one day, the science turns the human body nearly all as
metal or plastic material, there would have no use for the
Chinese medicine to work.
My daughter might feel sometimes
confused when she felt a pulse. Found her confusing feeling,
her Great master would come to check. He asked the patient:
“Did you have a surgical operation before?” “Have you had a
car accident?” He told my daughter, surgical operation or
car accident can change the body’s original circulation
pattern of the Qi and Blood. In these cases, it causes
difficulties in the pulse feeling. Nowadays, the use of
surgical operations is so widespread. It would eventually
make the Yunqi theory not work in the human body. When there
are many organs cut or removed off, and when there are many
transplantations, insert of plastics or metal, how Chinese
medicine could diagnose, and how it can treat a disease? At
that time, why will the Chinese medicine not die?
Once the gene project breaks the
barrier between the living things, the human would say
goodby to the earth with which the human body has been in
good harmony for a long history. That time will be the time
the Chinese medicine dies. On that day, would human feel
regret? Of course, he will. But to regret the mistakes at a
young age is a law in human life. The curiosity of human
cannot make it slow the step of science exploration. An
individual is willing to pay his life for his adventure; the
whole human being will also need to pay for the loss of
valuable things including Chinese medicine. This might be
the money our human being has to pay for a pass?
From this point of view, the idea of
Mr. Zhang Gongyao is a pretty early prediction. Chinese
medicine indeed not follows the narrow science theory.
Chinese medicine should and will go to death later. Chinese
medicine is as the country level treasure panda in China. It
is of very valuable but does not match the current living
conditions for it. It is not suitable to teach in school,
not suitable to practice in the hospital, not suitable to
have an exam as the western medicine, even not match the
thinking and view of current people. We cannot prepare a
social environment for the survival of Chinese medicine in a
new place and with a new way, right? Chinese medicine wishes
to be protected as the panda, no wonder why the people as
Mr. Zhang Gongyao are so angry. I would say, however,
Chinese medicine should not be destroyed today since it is
needed in current time. China needs it, and western medicine
needs it too. The reason that the Chinese medicine should
not be thrown away now is apparent and known even by those
who oppose it.
Those who oppose
the Chinese medicine said, the reason that the Minister of
Heath of China stood out to support
Chinese medicine is due to the fact that there is no
proper condition in China to popularize the western medicine
yet. They said it is as the same as Chairman Mao did before.
He did not agree to delete Chinese medicine in China since
it would make the large population in the countryside have
no any medicine, no any healthcare; and the population in
the city cannot afford the healthcare either. Those people
cited the word of a western person:
“Herbal therapy is the base of poor medicine”. They said the reason that the
state healthcare authority cannot admit the Chinese medicine
is pseudo-science is that, once they admit it, they cannot
explain to those of people who cannot afford the western
medicine. It is the poor that supports the lie. They said
that to use the Chinese medicine to cheat the farmers,
ordinary people, and poor people is to make sure the rich
people and the officers can use the western medicine
facility for themselves so that they induce out a political
nature of the conflict between the two kinds of medical
systems.
I am not talking about politic, but I
admit that Chinese medicine is medicine for poor people. We
all know it is impossible to let the people in the whole of
the world live in the same way as those in the USA since the
USA that has only 0.3 billions of population occupies more
than half of the natural resources in the world. It does not
leave more space for other countries. The healthcare cost in
the US is 13000 billion per year. The GDP in China is only
about 35000 billion per year. If we use all of the GDP to
solve the need of drugs for the 1.3 billion Chinese, the
total sum of the drug would also be only one-fifth of that
in the US. How could the western medicine ensure the
healthcare need of all Chinese? How could we ban Chinese
medicine in this situation?
If my daughter blames me because I am
not rich, if she blamed me for the reason when she got
common cold, I did not bring her to hospital for intravenous
infusion, but let her drink ginger soup, if she believes
that I cheat her, thinks that it is a very pity thing for
her, how could I defense myself? Could I denounce her, as my
parents denounce me in my early years? If the ginger soup
can solve the common cold, I think it is not necessary to
bring her to a hospital for infusion.
I do not envy that rich people go to a
hospital for treatment. I know that the development of
western medicine also bases on the trying and experimenting
on a living body, again and again. Even within western
medicine, the traditional way of treatment is safe and
cheap. Why not let the rich people get the hospital as an
experiment volunteer, I myself chose the conservative way of
treatment? Chinese know that old formula can treat severe
diseases. They know that 500 gram of force may turn 1000 kg
stuff to turn. They know that the inner nature of a person
cannot be read from his face. They know that there is always
more clever people than this given smart people. They know
that under an ordinary grass there may hide a tiger or a
lion. They know that anything in the world there must have
another thing to beat it, to combat it, or to win it. They
know that there could be a power to let the sunshine again
by removing the cloud and that there could be mysterious in
the world in the disease treatment. Therefore, they do not
despise the herbs because the herbs are picked up from the
yard in front of the door. They do not think this is a cheat
so to feel sad, to look the whole world as a dark, so to get
depression inevitably. They do not blame China because China
is not as rich as the US, as you do not blame your parents
because they are not rich. To me, it is the slave of the US
spirit and it is a pity that someone refuses to drink ginger
soup since he cannot go to hospital for intravenous
infusion, refuses to eat cornbread since he cannot afford
fine bread, feels depression since there is no 13000
billions of healthcare money to us; or wants suicide since
not pass the exam for a famous university.
In Chinese
medicine, it does not mean that the Chinese medicine refuses
to use logic assessment but that the result is far away from
the aim of the assessment. For example in Chinese medicine
textbooks, in the chapter on the property of herbs, the
herbs that can be used to reduce body temperature are
grouped. Many herbs have such function, such as Shigao and
Dilong. The herbs in this group have only one common
property: reduce fever. What’s their difference? No explanation at all, since it is hard to be
classified with a logical way of thinking. This is why the
student will feel hard to use the knowledge in their later
clinic work, though they feel clear in mind during the class
learning and easy to pass the exam. Therefore, using the
teaching materials to learn the medicinal properties of
traditional Chinese medicine does not achieve the purpose of
using traditional Chinese medicine.
According to the express and understand
in Chinese medicine per se, there is a vast difference among
those herbs in the same group. If we regard the fever as a
Fire, there are many different ways to reduce the Fire. Some
herbs work to reduce the Fire as to pour water over the
Fire. Some as to remove the woods from under the pot; some
as to blow off the Fire or to blow over the boiling water
(if the heat is due to the mixture of the wet and the fire);
also some as to lift the water, then pour it down,
repeatedly. In different clinic condition, the herbs needed
are entirely different. If there are lots of woods with big
fire, would blowing not cause a stronger fire? If the Fire
is in the grass, how can we remove the woods under the fire?
So, it is a way of using herbs that determines the way of
expression in Chinese medicine. If we talk about the
function of chess, we can talk about the function of the
general, the cannon, the horse in the chess with logic
thinking. If we talk about go, how can we talk about the
function of each point or whole points with the logic
thinking? Only in the relationship with other points, the
function of the specific points can be talked.
I never say that Chinese medicine is
"esoteric", "big" and "magic". As there is no great
philosopher in China, Chinese medicine is also a Cinderella.
If it needs to be admired, it needs more outside conditions,
such as a castle, slaver, liege subjects, and a title of
queen consort. If Cinderella is shopping with a basket, I
praise her for being noble, beautiful, and elegant. How can
she not be laughed at by people?
Chinese medicine is
like the go match. It cannot be abstracted or objectified.
Its vitality lies in its replacement of objectivity with
reality. From the reality, from the relationship between the
top, bottom, left and right, from a situation, and stripped
out, it loses the certain meaning and value. To talk about
Chinese medicine from an objective point of view, like to
talk go out of the go plate. To do this way, there is no way
to talk or no meaning. Not everything can be clearly
defined. Not everything can be evaluated or analyzed with
the way of
“if not this, it would be that”, such substantial evidence. In
today's era, it is indeed tough to let people admit that a
theory cannot be objectified. It needs many efforts. In
fact, the purpose of my interpretation of Chinese medicine
is not to let people admit it, as long as people do not
believe logic absolutely.
Chinese medicine
does not objectify itself. It does not define objects or
define itself. It interprets itself in the process of
interpreting pathology. Chinese medicine interprets itself
in a modern environment; it is the realization of its modern
value, and also the expression of its modern existence.
Chinese medicine does not exist out of the human body. Human
body per se is medicine. Human and medicine is the same
body. Once the human body becomes stuff, Chinese medicine
will lose its condition to exist too. The theory of the
Yin-Yang and Five-elements might not be so perfect, but it
is the only theory to combine the human and the stuff,
rather than to separate them. The high value of Chinese
medicine is: it is the medicine of human, not medicine for
the human. It might be good to be able to objectify stuff,
but the pre-condition is that such objectification bears
meaning. The meaning means to the human being.
To explain the world from the human point of
view is better than from the material point of view. The
world becomes meaningful after explained. I have consulted
an expert in western medicine in Beijing: why a
straightforward question has no commonly suitable solution,
such as common cold, birth control… He told me, no any
medical method can be used for every person. There would
always some “fish that escapes of fishnet”. Therefore, it is
needed to develop a new method. By this way, the methods to
a single disease, used by western medicine, become more and
more. However, the current problem with western medicine is:
it is impossible to know which method works which not. It
needs to be tested one by one. It might be that, after
testing ten, then find one eventually. I said: Is it true
that we all are like an experimental guinea pig? Experts say
that in a sense it is like this. I asked, if I experimented
all of the methods, and failed, does that mean that I am a
victim of the experiment? The expert said in a smile: just
because there is the “victim”, the medicine can continue to
develop and invent new methods.
Western medicine has given us forever
hope in medicine. For example, the killing power of the
penicillin many years ago. However, very soon the bacteria
developed resistance to the biotic. The forever hope broken.
Currently, the difficulty for western medicine is that it
does not know which method works, among so many methods.
Next, would the western medicine learn to “treatment based
on an overall evaluation of the illness”? The use of the
various biotic drugs should also be classified into the
Chinese style: “watering”, “remove woods”, “blowing off” and
so on? One of my colleagues had a fever. She was tested tens
of kinds of antibiotic without any use. Now, western
medicine can do bacteria culture. Pick up little bacteria
sample from the body, try to test in the lab, not in the
body. Spray various antibiotic to the culture dishes, see
the bacteria in which dish would die. When the western
medicine takes the heavy responsibility of healthcare for
the whole human being, we found that it tends to use the
similar manner as the Chinese medicine, independent of
whether it wants or not, no matter if the current people
admit this or not openly. When western medicine faces ten
patients with ten methods in doctors' hands, the doctor does
not know how to avoid to use the ten methods in each patient
so to spend the costs for the hundred trying. In this case,
should the western medicine learn from Chinese medicine, to
try to find the specific co-relationship between each
patient (his condition) and each antibiotic (method), rather
than to force every patient being like an experimental
mouse, and waste a lot of healthcare facility (such as
bacterial culture)?
These days, I am helping some students to apply
for university. Some students do not know which subject is
good for them. Since it is hard for them to make a decision,
I left a form for them to sign: psychology test, to see what
subject suits for them. When my daughter studied psychology,
she brought back a thick of forms. It makes me sigh with
emotion, the development of psychology is so much and so
fast. However, when I choose the subject for these students,
I was refused again and again: “I am not going to learn
psychology, I do not want to deal with mad people.” “No
lawyer, I do not want to deal with criminals.” “I do not
want to learn medicine, I do not want to deal with
patients.”… I cannot understand, where comes so many taboos?
If exclude all of the “people with trouble”, are any there
any people left? We do not want to deal with a human?
Generally speaking, the major difference between ordinary
people and people with mental disorders might be the loss of
the reasoning in those patients. The value of reason may be
the most obvious when compared with mental patients?
However, a human can be indeed "reason", so "reason" can
allow people to escape from mental disorders?
Since my mother has many patients with
mental disorders, I have lots of chance to meet such
patients. Later, I also have met and had some friends who
are doctors in psychology, one of which is an expert. His
teacher is a researcher in “731” troop. He was not
“suppressed” for some academic reasons. When I first met
him, I asked him: “Excuse me, how could I feel that you are
the same as your patients, in any aspects?” He told me
frankly: he himself is a patient with a mental disorder
indeed. I know from him, the occupational disease for the
doctor in psychology is a mental disorder. He brought off a
lot of thick books from his bookshelves and pointed out one
to me the names of the authors. There were black frames
around each name. He said they are all his teachers and
great masters. “Know how they died?” He asked me. Of course,
I do not know. He told me: “All died from suicide.” This
made me hard to understand. Expert in mental disease died of
suicide. Their learning and theory cannot solve their own
problem? He told me, these people were very reasoning. They
brought the posthumous papers and work certificate and so on
and tried the best to prepare everything ready before they
died. They did not die due to mad or to the loss of
reasoning, but died very “reasoning”. This expert was also
very “reasoning”. He is knowledgeable, thoughtful and
logical.
During the
conversation with him, I found that he hardly endured human
language. Make a conclusion? Wrong. Description? Not
correct. No matter how you speak, you cannot meet his logic
need. It made my fear to talk. No way, I told him:
“I am not going to describe, I show
to you.”. He, however, was happy, believing
that was the best way to communicate since by this way, he
could conclude by himself through his observation and
finding. At that
time, there was a young doctor following him. The young
doctor is a nurse in an army. Later he was sent to the
Mental hospital to work. The young doctor wanted to learn
the real skill of the expert. He would like to serve the
expert, to see how the expert works. After twenty years,
this young doctor became an expert too, with his hair turned
gray.
There are a lot of anti-mental disorder
drugs in the table drawers in my office. With several
tablets, one would see God. That young doctor prescribes all
for several of my friends. I asked him to do so and kept the
drugs in my place. If you see that I hurried up walking or
running, morning or night, it is not that I am exercising
but to send the medicine to my friends. Many patients with
mental disease refused to go to the mental hospital. So,
sometimes, I need to invite that young doctor to my office
as a quest. Others may see that I am talking with two
friends, but in fact, I am covering the young doctor to
work. See this young doctor, I thought the expert before.
This young doctor is as same reasoning as that expert. I
admit that his current level has reached the level of an
expert.
My friends with mental disorder are all
sly and capricious. They regarded the young mental doctor
not as a doctor whom I invited to see their disease but an
enemy whom I found for them. They tried their best to make
thing difficult for him, but it did not beat him. When he
made the condition stable for my friends, my friends usually
invited him to a party. During the party, he did not eat or
drink at all. He even did not drink a mouth of water. From
the beginning to the end, he even did not lift the
chopsticks. What I needed to do is to make all of the things
appeared natural and normal. What he did was only one thing:
talk. That mouth could not stop for eating. My friends found
that I was so “natural”. They all appeared “sensible” too,
not suggesting the doctor stopping talk and having somehing
to eat. They did not disturb the doctor from talking. After
the party, they asked me: “Why I find that the doctor is
more severe for his own mental disorder than mine?” The
young doctor got the same professional disease as his expert
master.
Sometime, when I
passed through the mental hospital, I would come in to visit
the doctors there. One time, I knocked on the door. A young
man with a white coat came, stared me with a typical nervous
eye. He was testing my level of emotional normality. I said
hello to him, smiled… but he moved no one inch, did not open the door for me. I
thought that he was a patient, so take out the doctor's
posture on the patient, blinked of an eye, and he opened the
door to me. After coming in, I went into the office for
doctors and said:
“How could you let a patient watching the door, and allow him to
wear a white color working coat?” All doctors there laughed. They said: That is the new
undergraduate college student, who was new here. I felt
strange with hearing what they explained. How could he get
the occupational disease when he just started his
occupation?
During chatting,
doctors like to make thoughtful analysis for people. They
also assessed me sometimes. They conclude that I also have a
mental disease. I was not angry since, in their eyes, no one
is not a patient with a mental disease. I listened they said
that Hitler is slight mania syndrome. I nodded. They said
Lenin is also slight mania, and… I thought, Jesus, Devadatta, no one can escape the mental disease
in their eyes. Since no one is not a mental disease, how
about me?
Then, from Chinese
medicine, in fact from my mother, I do not feel that a
mental disorder is some disease that changes the nature of
human. From western medicine, there is neither a clear
definition for the mental disease either. Now, the western
world also changed its idea about mental disease. There is a
film with the name of << Beauty Heart >. It admired a
“beautiful brain”. The owner of the brain is Nobel Price owner Hohn Nash
– a patient with a lifelong mental
disease. When he came to China for an international
conference of the mathematician, the Chinese journalists
were told not to flashlight towards him. At the end of the
film, when showing that he accepted the Price, he saw his
fans were there too for the party. He looked at them… If the mad person is perceptual, then the mental doctor is very
reasoning. How could the doctors also have the disorder in
their minds? Often, a doctor does not worry about not being
able to cure the disease. He worries that these patients,
after cure, cannot live in a normal way in society. The
reality is the reason for many people to get a mental
disorder.
The reason for a person becomes mad, is
just that the body activates the self-protection mechanism.
Man is not a rational animal. I have a friend. When he drove
a car and tried to avoid another car that showed suddenly in
his front, he turned the wheel to the left subconsciously.
This resulted in the death of his mother, who sat beside
him. He saw by his eyes that his mother died in front of
him, but he lost memory. He only lost the memory for this
period, nothing else. He firmly believes that it was his
older brother who made his mother died. He so cared his
older brother from time to time, with the aim to reduce his
brother’s “guilty feeling”. I stayed with him every day. I
found that, apart from the memory loss for this period, he
had nothing else wrong. Just from this point, I feel a pity
very much that university student jumped from building for
suicide. I oppose that people do nothing about them, but say
that the student has “mental disorder”. The person with a
mental health condition can also have beauty brain. We
should not give up our care and love for them with the
excuse of some medical reasons.
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