Classical Chinese Medicine is based on the ancient Daoist medical texts of China: the Ling Shu, Su Wen, Nan Jing, Zhenjiu Dajing, Maijing, and Shang Han Lun. It relies equally on a synthesis of the laws of:

• yin and yang
• the wuxing: the five movements or phases
• the jingluo: the principal channels and their collaterals and their internal and external trajectories as well as the longitudinal, muscle, capillary channels
• the distinct channels
• the baqimai: the eight curious vessels
• the liuqi: the six energies (taiyang, shaoyang, yangming, taiyin, jueyin and shaoyin)
• the zangxiang (the organs and their associations)
• sanjiao energetics: the production of ying, wei, jing and jingshen; the production of blood and organic liquids; thermogenesis and hydrogenesis.

This medicine was not "invented" by the ancient Daoists, it was discovered. It is about the way the universe already works, undistorted and un"added-to" by human individuals, with their personal ideas and opinions. Unfortunately, like so many works of art handed down through the generations, Chinese medicine has undergone many personal interpretations, mistranslations, assumptions, and fragmentations, resulting in the current idea that there are different "schools of thought" of energetic medicine.

To further describe what has occurred in the field, we present an excerpt from an article written by the founder and president of Jung Tao School, Dr. Sean C. Marshall:

As in any field, many professionals gravitate to and employ techniques with which they personally resonate. Physicists, for instance, sometimes engage exclusively in work with particle accelerators. Some others may be deeply interested in fluid dynamics or astrophysics or purely theoretical physics. This does not change the laws of physics. This does not produce different universes with different physical laws based on differing "schools of thought".

I paraphrase Einstein: For laws of physics to be valid, they must be true for everyone in every part of the universe. The observations of individuals may vary depending on their point of view however, -- even though the observations are as valid as is their individual point of view -- this still does not change the laws of physics.

...The message that must be taken here is -- Chinese medicine is a complete coherent, integral, interdependent and independent system of health care that must be understood within its own context, in whole, not in part, if it is to be mastered. It was born out of Daoist philosophy, which is at the heart of Chinese medicine and contains the original, guiding ideas that nurtured it into existence. Anything else is merely a fragment, no matter how elegant or seductive it may seem, it is only a specialty that, when studied in a vacuum, is merely a facet that will not reveal the jewel that produced it.

And finally, as stated by our friend and mentor Dr. Tran Viet Dzung:

"If you want to develop acupuncture, if you want to make it grow and spread, you have to be very strict in the way that you learn things, rigorous or strict in the way that we learn the words. If we employ words which are not accurate, we are not going to learn anything. Because in Chinese medicine, every single word has a deep meaning, and if we don't use them correctly, we may end up making errors. And if there are errors in comprehension we cannot help our patients, we cannot get results. And a medical science where there are no results is a science that has no future. That is why we are very strict about the terminology. "

The material contained on these pages and in our classrooms and publications is our attempt at presenting this ancient form of health care with authenticity to the original observations made by the Daoists millennia ago - authenticity to principles that are still true today, with or without interpretations or understanding by humans. Classical Chinese Medicine is not a “school of thought”, meaning it does not separate or recognize in isolation any of the above integral components as a practicable system.

It places no special preponderance on emotions or mental states, specific methods of diagnosis, pattern fitting or stereotyping. It is the study of what causes health. Each individual is unique and specific pathological processes may only occur once in any given patient and may require that any or all of the above systems be examined and employed in order to arrive at a correct diagnosis and treatment.

• back to top •