Putting on the Lens of Traditional Chinese Medicine to See the World

I recently saw a book on Kevin’s public account called “An Introduction to Classical Chinese Medicine” (by Li Xin). Kevin used an example from the book about seeing the whole from a part to explain the significance of multi-disciplinary perspectives. I was immediately attracted, and after reading it, everything started to make sense.

Each discipline is a perspective for viewing the world; multiple perspectives mean you can piece together a three-dimensional image that’s closer to reality.

The Wisdom of “Center” and “Stillness”

Reading this book gave me a new understanding of some concepts. For example, life force in daily life needs to be maintained through “stillness.” And concepts we often talk about, like going with the flow, seizing the moment, and moderation, can actually all be combined into one word: “center.”

As they say, “balance exists among all things.”

Three Attitudes Toward the Unknown

There’s a phrase in the book that left a deep impression: “When a superior person hears the Tao, they practice it diligently; when a middling person hears the Tao, they half-believe it; when an inferior person hears the Tao, they laugh loudly—if they didn’t laugh, it wouldn’t be the Tao.”

In plain language, when seeing something you don’t understand, a capable person will humbly learn and understand it; while fools either half-believe but don’t verify, or simply start mocking with their limited knowledge.

Identifying Similarities and Tracing to the Source

Another very enlightening viewpoint is “the wise observe similarities, the foolish observe differences,” which makes me think that we can’t just focus on the branches and leaves—we still need to grasp the trunk of things.

The book also mentions tracing back to the source of academic classics. For example, to study evolution and natural selection, you should first read Darwin, then look at subsequent scholars’ research.

Beyond Stereotypes

This book introduces the differences between classical Chinese medicine and modern Chinese medicine from a cognitive level, not a conceptual level, covering three aspects: body, ability, and spirit.

After reading it, my understanding of traditional culture is no longer “Western medicine treats symptoms, Chinese medicine treats the root cause,” or “Chinese medicine is just an accumulation of a lot of experience,” nor do I still think “the transmission of traditional culture is mandated.”

I found this quite interesting, so I’m sharing it with everyone.

Echoes and Extensions

Kevin Feng:

“While fools either half-believe but don’t verify, or simply start mocking with their limited knowledge.”

I’ve had strong feelings about this lately. Video haters often deny the entire video’s content because of one point, or attack because the video’s viewpoint differs from their own. But actually, the haters are the ones who lose out, because they miss a different perspective. A 10-minute or 20-minute video’s meaning isn’t to explain everything clearly, but to provide a perspective. If it’s one you don’t have, you can fill in your blind spot and study it further; if it conflicts, you can check whether your understanding has problems; if it’s exactly the same as what you thought, that should actually make you more vigilant, because a fixed, singular viewpoint is the most dangerous.

“‘The wise observe similarities, the foolish observe differences’ makes me think that we can’t just focus on the tributaries—we still need to grasp the trunk.”

I just finished reading “Influence” tonight and thought of this too. There’s so much information, technology is advancing so fast, our cognition can’t keep up at all. So reading shouldn’t be additive—it should be subtractive. If after finishing a book I can clearly know: ha, this book is fundamentally about these few source points, from this angle—the mental burden becomes smaller, because reading is no longer about accumulating information, but about verifying those few source points that the book discusses. The more books you read, it’s not that information accumulates more, but that your understanding of the source points gradually deepens.