CONVENTIONAL WESTERN MEDICINE, TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE AND SO-CALLED INCURABLE DISEASES
Good health is natural. It means that if all the body systems of a person are working naturally, he or she will be healthy. From left: Dr Roseline, Dr Damian, Grandmaster Wong and Sifu Mark Bholm.
Question
You told us, and wrote it many times in articles and in your books that Western medicine should learn from traditional Chinese medicine or at least try to work under some aspects of the traditional Chinese medicine to cure so called incurable diseases.
Dimitri, Austria
Answer
I have tried to impress upon the public this concept that Western medicine, which most people accept nowadays, can benefit much from traditional Chinese medicine without any financial loss. Indeed, with the technological advance of Western medicine today, the world will benefit much and Western medical practitioners will gain a lot of prestige if they study and apply the empirical knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine without forgoing their training and practice.
A major difference between Western medicine and Chinese medicine is their approach to restoring a person's health. Western medicine is reductionist, finding out from the environment the factors that cause illness. Chinese medicine is holistic, finding out from within the patient himself what has gone wrong that causes him not to be normal.
It is a shame that today many diseases are considered incurable in Western medicine, like cancer, heart problems, asthma, diabetes, depression, phobia and many others. This can be traced to the basic paradigm in Western medicine. As there are countless factors in the environment, and they are constantly changing, it is near impossible to pin-point at the factors that cause diseases. Doctors trained in Chinese medicine do not have this problem. As human systems are limited and have been carefully studied, they only need to find out what has gone wrong and rectify it. After rectification, the patient regains his good health, which is natural.
I wish to emphasize a very important and beautiful point. Good health is natural. When all the human systems operate the way they are meant to operate, illness can never occur. This is made so much easier with the empirical knowledge gained in Chinese medicine, which can be reduced to the principle of yin-yang harmony.
Very briefly, yin-yang disharmony, which means illness in this case, can be caused by insufficient yin, insufficient yang, excessive yin or excessive yang. If a patient suffers from insufficient yin, like being easily fatigued in Western medicine, a suitable treatment is to increase yin, like giving him nutrients to improve his body functions. If a patient suffers from excessive yang, like a viral attack in Western medicine, a suitable treatment is to reduce yang, like giving him cooling medication in Chinese herbal medicine.
It is even easier in chi kung therapy, which is a part of traditional Chinese medicine. In chi kung philosophy all illness or yin-yang disharmony is caused by energy blockage. When a chi kung healer succeeds in helping a patient clear his energy blockage, the patient regains his good health, which is natural.
Western trained doctors can make good use of this empirical knowledge in Chinese medicine, without having to discard their Western training and practice. To restore yin-yang harmony, i.e. to restore a sick person to good health, a Western trained doctor can use Western medical practice. If a patient suffers from insufficient yin, instead of using herbs to nourish yin, a Western trained doctor can use Western nutrients. If a patient suffers from excessive yang, instead of using herbs to cool the system, a Western trained doctor can use Western methods to restore the patient's defence system, which Western trained doctors are successfully using now.
The above is taken from Question 1 of December 2018 Part 3 of the Selection of Questions and Answers.
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