Daoism and Medicine

[Guest guest]

My capacity for actual scholarship in the field of

and Taoism is entirely passive, i.e.,

if my reading in English leads me to suspect something

interesting, I can go back to original texts and kind

of piece together an explanation or corroboration.

 

In his wonderful book " The Wisdom of Laotse " --

wonderful because he uses Chuang Zi to illustrate and

commont on Lao Zi -- Lin Yutang says, " In the

centuries before Christ, Taoism was known as " The

science of the Yellow Emperor and Laotse. (p.7) " It

is of course difficult to say just what the science of

the Yellow Emperor at that early date entailed, but it

suggests a strong correlation between medicine and

studies of the Way.

 

From the western tradition there is an interesting

paradigm for discussions of the way in the writings of

Celsus De Medicina. He begins his three volume study

of medicine with the question what should basically

healthy people do to retain their health. His

answer, and the answer of most doctors to this kind of

question, sounds very much like the basic

philosophical stance of Taoism, esp. the advice to

avoid excess. Does this apply at all to Chinese

cultural history?

 

Carl Ploss

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

His answer, and the answer of most doctors to this kind of

> question, sounds very much like the basic

> philosophical stance of Taoism, esp. the advice to

> avoid excess.

 

Is the avoidance of excess truly a main part and defining aspect of

Daoism? I'm not a Chinese philosophy scholar, but I thought the

avoidance of excess was the cornerstone of the Confucian doctrine of

Zhong Yong, moderation in all things. In my ignorance, I thought that

Daoism is mainly characterized more by its emphasis on naturalness and

wei wu wei or doing by not doing.

 

Bob