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For Everyone: Chán Zhōng Shuō Chán Medicine 1

2008/8/31 12:09:32

Serious Announcement

Many thanks to everyone who has been concerned about this ID's sciatica. I had planned to discuss this tomorrow since this ID insists on rigor in experiments, but since so many people are concerned—and some are worried it might be metastasis—let me say it now. If there is any relapse tomorrow, I will provide an update.

Last night, the miracle healer came. I told him the situation, and he had this ID lie face-up. Then, in about 5 seconds, he pressed a few spots. The result? This ID flipped over and stood right up—not an ounce of discomfort. This is probably what they mean by "easy for one who knows how." Nothing happened all night, and I still feel perfectly comfortable now. I can jump up and down, and I am about to go on a big shopping spree. The reason I hadn't said anything was that two injections were administered yesterday morning, and those injections, at their most potent, could have a 24-hour efficacy window. So this ID cannot yet fully confirm that the credit goes to the miracle healer. I was hoping to wait until tonight for final confirmation. If things remain fine continuously, then the matter would be quite clear. You should know that for the past few days, this ID could not go a single day without injections—one night without them was pure torment. That is the situation. I will report the final result tomorrow.

Alright, let the lesson begin.

Birth, aging, sickness, and death—everyone must face them. No one can escape. A person who lacks a basic understanding of their own body can never be called a person of wisdom. To know yourself, you must of course begin with the body, with birth, aging, sickness, and death.

The earliest medicine undoubtedly originated from shamanism. In remote antiquity, shamans and doctors were one and the same. Back then, human understanding of the body was intuitive, naturally accompanied by countless fantasies and illusions. In the modern era, science broke through the fog of religion, and medicine developed independently, employing increasingly scientific and mechanized methods. Humans and machines began to walk side by side.

Yet ancient medicine was not entirely obliterated by science. The so-called special therapies found around the world are remnants of these traditions. Every system that has been passed down has its effective components, but in terms of overall comprehensiveness, the most representative is undoubtedly Chinese traditional medicine. However, one must note that the medical traditions of many ancient peoples have their own unique strengths—for instance, the medicine of India, Southeast Asia, and others are by no means inferior to Chinese medicine. There must be no blind nationalist sentiment here.

Western medicine and these non-Western traditions form the basic composition of the modern medical ecology. The dominance of the former has increasingly squeezed the living space of the latter, yet the former has drifted ever further from the true purpose of medicine itself. The connection between Western medicine and modern capitalist economic systems has made Western medicine an increasingly effective tool for capital's domination of humanity. The ideological foundation of Western medicine is based on the reduction of people to interchangeable parts and their homogenization. But people are always individuals. The fate of Western medicine is the fate of the capitalist ideology—seemingly at its zenith now, but what about later?

No matter how Western medicine develops, it remains at the technical level, just like capitalist society itself—merely a transitional form, destined to face extinction. And ultimately Western medicine will persist only as a technical component within a new medical paradigm. Likewise, non-Western medicine can only survive by becoming a part of this new medical paradigm.

But practitioners of non-Western medicine always harbor a blind self-confidence, unwilling to face the fact that their foundations are problematic. So-called technical things like Chinese herbal medicine can be entirely absorbed by Western medicine, thereby stripping Chinese medicine of most of its living space. The development of modern biology and related fields can perfectly well enable Chinese herbal medicine to achieve more effective development and application at a higher level.

Chinese medicine's resistance to this trend amounts to nothing more than similar excuses: Chinese herbal medicine combines different ingredients according to different individuals and conditions to harness the comprehensive power of prescriptions. But this is still a technical matter, and Western medicine can equally achieve similar effects through the same approach. In other words, Western medicine is perfectly capable of adopting the strengths of Chinese medicine and ultimately absorbing it entirely. Why? Because fundamentally, there is no essential difference between the two.

Ultimately, all existing forms of medicine are merely branches; the trunk is not among them, or rather, it has not yet been unearthed. And the medical theory of this ID, first and foremost, addresses this trunk problem. Once this trunk is established, all existing forms of medicine will simply find their proper positions as branches within it, from which more refined technical levels can be developed. From this perspective, all existing forms of medicine will ultimately be nothing more than expandable plugins of this ID's medicine.

Therefore, this ID's theory abandons no method. All existing medical forms have their rightful place, and all of them are technical reserves for the ultimate treatment. What is more critical is a higher, more comprehensive perspective to unleash their maximum effect.

The greatest flaw in all existing medicine is treating illness as illness, not realizing that illness is not what makes illness illness. There is no substantive illness constituting its illness. Everything is formed through the succession of causes and conditions. Originally there is no illness to be ill with, which is why illness can be ill; originally there is no illness to be cured, which is why illness can be cured.

Take cancer as an example: whether it is Western medicine believing in the real existence of so-called cancer cells, or Chinese medicine attributing it to stagnation of qi and blood, both treat illness as illness. They take the appearance of illness as a substance, not realizing that these are nothing but illusions born of causes and conditions. Being bound within them, one is entangled in perpetual succession, with no day of liberation in sight.

Where are these cancer cells, this stagnation of qi and blood? Chemotherapy and radiation to destroy cancer cells, eating this and that to dissolve stasis and break up masses—these can only treat the symptoms temporarily, never reaching the root. And the root itself has no root. Furthermore, there are those in Chinese medicine who believe that adjusting the human body to some standard state they deem correct will accomplish everything. But whether they call it internal environment harmony, yin-yang balance, or proper alignment of bones and sinews, these are all grounded in the logic of tedious concepts like "all dharmas return to one," "guarding the one," the ultimate, God, the Great Dao, and so on. These tricks are fine for bragging and for fooling a few people. Even when they work, they are merely means.

Internal environment harmony, yin-yang balance, proper alignment of bones and sinews, chemotherapy and radiation, dissolving stasis and breaking up masses—all are merely means. This ID's medicine abandons no method and will of course not discard these means. But means are means. To take the ultimate as the ultimate is already pitiable; to take means as the ultimate is simply laughable.