How to Become a Competent TCM Practitioner
Some now start TCM with interest; over time, they become numb, indifferent — a frightening thing. In truth TCM is a deeply interesting subject, a living one, not stiff and tedious. The question is whether what you've learned is real TCM. What you've found stiff and tedious is not real TCM. If you truly want to study, there is only one road: follow the traditional method. By that I mean the method by which TCM has been transmitted for millennia. We must still study so today.
Every body of learning has its own laws. You may, in a new time, change forms with the conditions of the time; but the spiritual content cannot be changed. Change the spirit, the learning changes substance. We may use computer and network for TCM education, may use all modern means for research and teaching — but no matter how it develops, the root law of TCM cannot be broken.
First, the definition of TCM: Chinese medicine is the discipline that, guided by ancient Daoist Heaven-and-the-human-as-one and Heaven-and-the-human-same-build, uses the image-number theory of yin-yang and the five phases to study the laws of human life-motion.
"Guided by ancient Daoist Heaven-and-the-human-as-one and Heaven-and-the-human-same-build" — Heaven and human are one body, not divisible. The human is a small cosmos; the cosmos is a great human body; the two are fully connected, an inseparable whole.
What TCM names yin-yang and five-phase is image-number theory; the thinking it uses is image-number thinking. This learning probes the affairs of Heaven and human — very deep.
TCM is in fact easy to learn — a little study can resolve big problems. Issues Western medicine finds intractable, a little real TCM can solve.
What is the right road to study TCM? What methods are right?
First, a precondition: cultivate a traditional thinking-mode — image-number thinking, not logical thinking. What is image-number thinking? Study the Yijing and you will know. Only by a traditional thinking-mode can TCM be learned well. With modern logical thinking, TCM cannot be understood. Image-number thinking is not stuffed in by force — it grows naturally in long immersion in traditional culture.
Four essentials for the study of TCM:
1. Good teachers and friends — consult widely. Find a clear-seeing teacher, not a famous one. Master-and-apprentice is essential to TCM. Western disciplines may be studied in collegiate fashion without a master; traditional learning is best learned by taking a master — and one with real transmission.
2. Diligently seek the ancient teachings; widely gather many formulas. Where are the ancient teachings? In the four great classics. After the Tang there is little ancient teaching; that belongs to many formulas. First diligently seek the ancient teachings, then widely gather the formulas — else one lacks discernment.
3. Think deeply, judge clearly; aim high. To pile up learning without thinking, without sifting, only turns one into a bookcase.
4. Study and apply often. Apply has two senses: review and practice. The four great classics must be reviewed often. To truly succeed in medicine, practice is necessary. Detached from clinic, no real achievement. Apply what one learns to actual case-work; see patients often.
For these traditional books, use traditional method. The right method is Zhu Xi's reading method: abide in reverence and hold to will; advance step by step; read deeply and think with care; humbly steep oneself; observe with one's own person; press on with intent and effort.
From Modern Education News, 10 August 2001.