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1. History Has Caused the Loss of Chinese Medicine

Everyone knows that history should be candid, fair, and without concealment, presenting every fact that should be known to people. However, the history known by any individual is not entirely the true history; and the history known by most people is completely not the true history.

Due to differences in personal life experiences, knowledge backgrounds, beliefs, mindsets, and even courage, people lack the sufficient understanding, acceptance, and imagination to fully embrace history. Therefore, everyone tailors history according to their own capacity to accept it, making a pair of shoes, a hat, and a suit of clothes for history. Such history is a history of painful groans, a history that has been strangled.

Let's take modern Chinese medicine as an example! In fact, Chinese medicine in the past was not just about taking herbal medicine and acupuncture as people think today. Chinese medicine had even more miraculous treatments! But these have gradually been forgotten in the long river of history.

For example, when Sima Qian wrote the biography of Bian Que in the Shiji, he encountered the problem of how to handle the historical material about the challenge posed by the Zhongshuzi to Bian Que. Zhongshuzi invoked the two ancient miraculous doctors, Miaofu and Yufu, to block Bian Que's way, preventing him from entering the palace to treat the crown prince who was in a corpse-like syncope. Among them, Miaofu was a "doctor from ancient times," a physician before the time of Huangdi, who used only a straw dog, faced north, and chanted incantations, whereupon any patient, whether they came supported or carried, would immediately recover. Yufu was a doctor from the time of Huangdi and Qibo, who seemed to treat diseases only with surgical methods. His diagnostic methods were certainly not inferior to Bian Que's, and in surgery, he definitely surpassed Hua Tuo. People said he could bring the dead back to life, turning the dead into the living.

Sima Qian could not accept the authenticity of Miaofu, so he cut out the part about Miaofu and only retained the information about Yufu. Unfortunately, even Sima Qian, the most famous historian in Chinese history, could not avoid "cutting the feet to fit the shoes" when it came to history.

By the Song Dynasty, even the famous physician Pang An-shi no longer believed in the healing abilities of ancient doctors. When someone asked him about Hua Tuo's use of Mafeisan for surgical procedures, he actually said, "If medical skills have reached this level, then it is not something humans can do. It is probably an unreliable statement from historical records." If he couldn't even believe in the anesthetic effect of Mafeisan, then if he were to write medical history, he would not only "cut the feet to fit the shoes" but might also "cut off the head to fit the hat." From this, one can also guess that the process of people cutting down medical history has gone further and further step by step.

2. The Loss of Chinese Medicine Due to the Decline of Ancient Virtues

The most direct and obvious manifestation of the "commonization of Chinese medicine" process is the divergence of Confucian and Taoist Chinese medicine. Everyone who has considerable contact with Chinese medicine has this feeling: "Chinese medicine is no longer miraculous." That is to say, it has lost the extraordinary diagnostic and therapeutic abilities of original Chinese medicine. Although miraculous Taoist medicine still exists, it is very rare, like phoenix feathers and unicorn horns, and is overshadowed by numerous Confucian physicians, making it hard for people to see. The scarcity of Taoist medicine is not because Taoist doctors are "conservative" and unwilling to pass on their knowledge, but because the cultivation content contained in Taoist medicine is not something that ordinary people can accept and practice, making it difficult for Taoist doctors to find someone who can inherit their medical path.

There is another type of folk doctor similar to Taoist medicine, who often has unique miraculous skills in treating a particular special disease, making those who witness it marvel at the extraordinary nature of Chinese medicine. Such cases are even recorded in the classics of Falun Dafa today, which shows their due place in the history of Chinese medicine.

The author knows an amateur herbalist who is skilled in bone-setting. He once demonstrated his special skill at a "Barefoot Doctors Exchange Meeting": he grabbed a large rooster to play the role of a patient, and in front of everyone, he fractured one of its legs with a "snap" sound. Everyone felt it to confirm it was a comminuted fracture (they could feel the bone fragments). After that, he chewed some herbs in his mouth into a paste, applied it to the rooster's broken leg, wrapped it with a piece of cloth, and tied it with cotton thread. A few days later, the rooster could walk freely. It is said that the method and effect of treating humans are exactly the same, and there are people who have been cured by him to testify! Although this kind of doctor generally has a low social status, they do not easily pass on their skills, because when they received this gift, they swore to only pass it on to people with "exceptionally good hearts." Otherwise, they would rather take it to the grave than pass it on indiscriminately. It is already difficult for this kind of doctor to find successors, let alone Taoist doctors with even stricter cultivation requirements?

III. A Unique Treatment Method by an American Professor

Among the traditional skills of Chinese medicine, there is a special diagnostic method called "Mountain Shadow Diagnosis," where a practitioner can accurately diagnose a patient's illness without seeing them. All the practitioner needs is any item the patient has touched after falling ill. This skill is, of course, far superior to merely "taking a glance at the patient."

Although I had heard of this during my studies of Chinese medicine, I had never encountered such a master. However, by coincidence, when I came to the United States for further studies, I met an American professor who knew nothing about Chinese medicine but possessed this unique diagnostic ability.

During his university years, a Taiwanese taught him a simple meditation method: slightly close the eyes, sit cross-legged, form a mudra with the hands placed between the chest and abdomen, and try not to think. Six months later, he felt a strong force lifting his hands, found it interesting, and continued the practice long-term. Many extraordinary abilities emerged, including the ability to diagnose illnesses uniquely.

When I came to the United States, it was during a time when he enjoyed helping people with their illnesses. Upon seeing a sick person, he would say: you have a problem in a certain area, and he was always accurate. A distant friend of mine sent a photo, and based on that photo, he accurately diagnosed the recent symptoms of my friend. According to him, even a piece of paper sent by the person would work. Not only could he diagnose uniquely, but he could also treat uniquely. He would use his right hand to grab fiercely at the affected area outside the body, then close it with his left hand, holding the "illness" invisible to ordinary people, quickly walk to the window, and throw it out. The patient would immediately feel the previously painful area empty, as if there had never been any pain. However, sometimes when encountering more severe illnesses, it would take a long time to extract, and he would end up profusely sweating.

This incident greatly shocked me, forcing deep reflection: Is the conventional method of learning Chinese medicine, developed through the continuous efforts of many generations, truly necessary? That American friend knew nothing about Chinese medicine but gained better diagnostic and treatment abilities through years of simple meditation. Which path is better? Can the simple meditation method be popularized?

My original intention and some insights into the "popularization of Chinese medicine" process were born from repeated reflections on these questions.

IV. "Integration of Chinese and Western Medicine" Accelerated the Demise of Ancient Chinese Medicine

Starting from 1827, Western medicine began to spread into China. Later, hospitals were opened, schools were established, and Western medical books were translated, developing rapidly. Around the 20th century, the slogan "Chinese learning as the foundation, Western learning for practical use" led some Chinese medicine practitioners to engage in "Sino-Western integration": incorporating Western anatomical diagrams into the Huangdi Neijing, equating the "triple energizer" with the "oil membrane." In 1914, the Beijing Minister of Education advocated for the abolition of Chinese medicine, and in the 1930s, the proposal to "abolish medicine and preserve drugs" nearly eradicated Chinese medicine.

After the xx party seized power on the mainland, they claimed to develop Chinese medicine, establishing "Chinese medicine departments" in hospitals and incorporating freely practicing Chinese medicine practitioners into hospitals. After a decade of relative peace, the "Cultural Revolution" came to revolutionize culture. As Chinese medicine was rich in "feudal" connotations, it was naturally targeted for "revolution." If it weren't for the fact that many "revolutionary cadres" from top to bottom couldn't do without the special care of Chinese medicine, it might have been eradicated. Later, reportedly to give Chinese medicine a place to survive, the "Great Leader" personally called for the slogan "integration of Chinese and Western medicine." Regardless of its original intention, this slogan actually became the final straw that broke the back of Chinese medicine.

As soon as the slogan of "integration of Chinese and Western medicine" was announced, Western doctors rushed into the ancient and elegant gates of Chinese medicine with their "advanced weapons," eager to transform Chinese medicine into something as "advanced" as their own overnight. Thanks to their enthusiasm and hard work, Chinese medicine in hospitals has now completely upgraded from "bird guns" to "cannons": Chinese medicine practitioners wear stethoscopes around their necks, hold blood pressure monitors in their hands, and have various forms on their desks to check liver function, perform ultrasounds, take X-rays, and so on. Moreover, many typical symptoms and disease names in Chinese medicine have been replaced with "advanced" Western medical terms. Modern Chinese medicine has become fully modernized, lacking nothing—except for the miraculous healing effects of ancient Chinese medicine...

It is worth mentioning that Mainland China once vigorously promoted "computerized" Chinese medicine diagnosis, using computer simulations to allow computers to prescribe Chinese medicine for patients. It was claimed that this could evolve into "doctorless treatment": patients input their symptoms into the computer themselves, and the computer prescribes medicine for them! Even better, there was a fear that the old Chinese medicine practitioners would pass away, and their valuable methods would not be passed down, leaving no successors. Now, it's all good—their excellent methods are simulated and stored in computers, so there's no fear of them dying out! Because their methods are stored in computers, they can't die! It's been a long time since I've seen a mainland doctor, so I don't know how the "computer doctors" are doing these days.

Such Chinese medicine is not only thoroughly "commonized" but also "super-commonized," with even the remnants of the Confucian medical tradition gone. The number of Chinese medicine hospitals in Mainland China has increased, and there are more "physicians/doctors of Chinese medicine" in various hospitals than before. However, the "Chinese medicine" they talk about is completely different from what we know as Chinese medicine. This is the latest situation of the "commonization of Chinese medicine."