WUDANG FIVE IMMORTALS TEMPLE

 The Current Issues of Contemporary Taoist and Chinese Medicine

现代道医与中医存在的问题

The foundation of Chinese Medicine comes from Daoist Medicine. Daoist Medicine originates from the remote antiquity‘s Fu Xi, Shen Nong, the Three Sovereigns, as well as the Qin and Han Dynasties. To the cavemen, Daoist Medicine was known by the name of shamanism. The ancient character for shaman signifies communication with the upper heavenly realms and the lower earthly realms; it denotes reaching the will of the spirits, knowing the four seasons, comprehending cause and effect, esteeming the rules and laws. The shaman stands for the unification of Heaven and Human; Form and Spirit’s simultaneous healing (the form being of equal importance). However, China’s contemporary Daoist Medicine and Chinese Medicine move along with the currents of a transforming society. Using Western Medicine as basis, ignorant people reject, attack and pressure them. All influences from the environment of our modern society – devoted to financial gain – cause the greatest, most lasting and extensive damage. The majority is lost, having strayed far from the initial purpose of facilitating healing. Gradually, day by day, this influence vanishes on the horizon.

Medicine is divided into five categories:
Great Medicine, High Medicine, Intermediate Medicine, Low Medicine, Inferior Medicine.

Great Medicine eradicates karma.
High Medicine cures future diseases.
Intermediate Medicine cures present diseases.
Low Medicine applies static methods.
Inferior Medicine takes peoples’ lives.

Nowadays Great Medicine and High Medicine are very rare, Intermediate Medicine and Low Medicine are both widely witnessed.

Firstly, the doctors qualities:

1. Doctors must regard the Way and Virtue as their root, and Compassion as their mindset.
In the same way a mother loves her child. The Doctor must regard sickness as if suffered by one’s own body.
Nowadays, looking for financial advantage, people are able to write out prescriptions for patients and prescribe expensive drugs that are not crucial and ultimately insignificant for the patient’s disease. They look upon the sufferers of disease as trees that shed money when shaken – altogether a readily source of income and profit;
2. Doctors’ knowledge is not of concentrated effort and energy. They do not know how to achieve change, have no lineage of transmission, prescribe drugs disorderly, and use pharmaceuticals disorderly;
3. Doctors do not know the principles of the Yi Jing – The Book of Changes. They do not understand Yin-Yang and Five Elemental-phases’ true meaning. They do not grasp the unfathomable mysterious workings of spirits and ghosts.

Secondly, acupuncture, moxibustion and other methods do not accord with the order of time.

The number of needles determines how much it is charged by the doctor nowadays, up to the point where peoples’ entire bodies are covered in needles until they resemble hedgehogs.

Thirdly, medicinal herbs are not true to the original anymore:

1. The herb farmers, hoping to receive more money, applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides disorderly, to the point of making Chinese Medicine lose its naturalness and lack effectiveness;
2. Gatherers of herbs do not collect the herbs according to the right time and the 24 solar terms. Herbs are picked as dictated by the market’s current quotation on price and as a result the medicinal herbs lose their potency;
3. Salespeople of herbs use fake herbs as genuine ones for their own profit and economy. They serve out the substandard herbs as good standard herbs. They use one herb and split it into two, to the point of the medicinal herbs losing their properties.

It could be said that people profiting on herbs have already no honesty.

Fourthly, disease-sufferers’ own mistakes:

1. Patients do not abide by the doctor’s instructions. There are no prohibitions for etiquette and conduct. Ingestion of medicine does not fit in with the method, to the point of making it difficult to get rid of diseases;
2. Work and rest are inconsistent;
3. Desires and pleasure are immoderate;
4. Emotions are hard to control;
5. Diet is without constraints;
6. Living on grounds not meant for houses or that dwell from a Feng Shui perspective;
7. Interior arrangement without taboos;
8. Society’s partial and prejudiced understanding is hard to remove;
9. Family relationships are hard to resolve;
10. The stress and pressure in life is hard to disperse;
11. The old and everyday habits are hard to alter;
12. Lack of cultivation of the Way and Virtue, lack of reverence;
13. Self-profit comes first;
14. Disbelief in Cause-and-Effect; disobeying Heaven, going against the Dao, to the point of making Heaven lose its calculations for life. Herbs and minerals have difficulty to cure, spirits and ghosts do not agree to heal.
15. Seeking the doctor not genuinely. In emergency situations patients anxiously and blindly trust in the doctor. Under acute pain, patients seek medicine disorderly.
16. To sum it all up, one aspect cannot harmonize imbalances.
It is not that the medical treatment is not sufficient. In fact it is the heart of the people of modern times that is hard to fathom. People say Chinese Medicine dies because of Chinese Pharmacology. In fact it is hard to differentiate the genuine from the fake in Chinese pharmacology and it is even harder to control it. That is why Daoist Medicine states, that the human body is a holistic and integrated system. One cannot single out a certain item in order to heal, and yet overlook all kinds of factors that have an effect on the body. Daoist Medicine ought to teach people to revere Heaven and fear Earth, to establish routine in daily life, to have dietary moderation, to exercise restriction in addictive desires, to reside on specifically chosen grounds, act benevolently for the people, to be indifferent to gain and loss, to take honesty as one’s root. Daoist Medicine cures peoples’ cause and effect, dissolves peoples’ karma. It guides people to be inclined to charity and to the consideration of yin and yang duality, to give equal mindfulness to form and spirit. Moreover, medicines rely on the correct timing. Plant and harvest them by yourself. Do not go against nature. Combine medicines according to set methods and rules and apply medicine with skill. Heal the ones with destiny, save the virtuous ones. Grasp the theories of the Yi Jing numerals, depend on the revelations of the turtle of the oracle. Practice the Dao of Heaven and human unity. Via the implementation of Daoist Medicine’s mysterious gong-skill, regulate and adjust holistically.
That is why immortal masters point out; “In this world there is no disease that is incurable, there are only people that are incurable”.
And in regards to the Daoist healer: “The already crooked, how can he cure people?
How can he straighten out people? How can he transform people? Anyone studying the immortal masters ought to know medicine”, at the same time there is another saying:
“Virtuous and talented yet not entering the immortal masters’ way, one cannot act as doctor!”