The Yijing in Chinese Medicine Clinical Practice – Part 1

Editor’s Note : This is the first in a series of posts by Jonathan Edwards about the use of the Yijing (I Ching) in Chinese medicine clinical practice. A new topic for the site – it should be an interesting read! Part 1: The Clinician’s Golden Compass Welcome to the first in a series of articles on applying the Yijing in clinical practice. For those not familiar, the Yijing (or I Ching) is an ancient Chinese oracle, or system of divination, with close ties to Classical Chinese Medicine. Speaking as it does in very compressed symbols, the oracle has a reputation for being hard to understand. That’s one of the barriers this article series aims to bust. Because at heart, divination is as simple as it is thrilling: “It’s almost like talking to someone, only you can’t quite hear them, and you feel kind of stupid because they’re cleverer than you, only they don’t get cross or anything…And they know such a lot, Farder Coram! As if they knew everything, almost!” – Lyra Silvertongue, in Philip Pullman’s novel The Golden Compass Imagine being able to talk to someone who “knows everything, almost”—it would be like having a private line to the sages. Forget TCM clinic aid; with this instrument, you could hit up Sun Simiao to get his take on a point prescription, or check in with Zhang Zhongjing about a particularly gnarly case of cold damage. There’s no doubt a pocket oracle like the truth-telling aletheiometer in The Golden Compass would be ...
Source: Deepest Health: Exploring Classical Chinese Medicine - Category: Alternative Medicine Practitioners Authors: Tags: Acupuncture, Herbs & Other modalities Source Type: blogs