Taoism & What Does it Mean to be a Healer
“The essential art of Chinese medicine is the foretelling and prevention of disease rather than the treatment of illness after it has manifested as painful or distressing physical and mental symptoms.” Tao — The Subtle Universal Law, Lao Tzu
Healing is an art of love, an act of universal benevolence. Studying Traditional Chinese Medicine at Yo San University, you will deepen and expand your spiritual growth. As you begin to live the Tao – a truthful, natural way of life – you will learn to heal the whole person, not just the symptom or the disease. This is what makes the Yo San educational experience unique.
One may wonder how it is possible to foresee and treat an illness before it happens. Because TCM is rooted deep within ancient Taoist philosophy, an answer can be found in Taoist classics such as the Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Classic). The ancient Taoists, keen observers of nature and human beings within nature, recognized universal laws underlying the existence of all things. One of these laws is the “universal law of energy response:” energies respond to and attract energies of corresponding frequencies. The physical, emotional, and mental energies of a person in harmony with universal laws will be harmonious. Those who violate the laws of nature manifest disorder, disharmony and disease.
We benefit from these practical, simple teachings. By applying the guiding principles of this living art to ourselves first, we become examples of whole and healthy living for others. From a place of centered wholeness we are able to more clearly perceive patterns of imbalance in others and to help guide them toward a healthy, radiant life—life in harmony and balance with nature.
Lineage Based Learning
Yo San is a Lineage-based School of Chinese Medicine that teaches both the standardized curriculum required for California and national TCM accreditation plus the ancient teachings and healing techniques that require a spiritual dimension to understand and practice.
To give you a better sense of our Lineage Based Learning the following is excerpted from a talk given to new students during the opening of Yo San University of Traditional Chinese Medicine on April 22, 1989, by Hua Ching Ni.
“People lived in China for centuries without any means of communication such as we have today. For a long time, they had to survive physically, mentally, and spiritually, without external help. The people who lived in that enclosed environment became spiritually aware, however, by learning to recognize and develop universal positive life energy. That became, in a sense, their religion. They worshiped the respect, protection and love of the nature-giving positive life energy in themselves, thus what eventually came to be called Taoism was never an external religion.
What constitutes a spiritual awareness of human life? [A] healer firsts needs to affirm positive life energy by learning about the positive energy of the universe and his or her own positive energy. Each person is active and does things right, because of positive life energy. Occasionally, this positive life energy becomes blocked or obstructed. Someone who has developed a spiritual awareness and capability can help restore the normal flow of positive life energy. Basically, the development of integral healing is the result of the experience and understanding of spiritually developed men and women. It is the accumulation of their external discoveries and the self-discoveries and the solutions they applied to different problems.
God is just a name for the universal positive life energy in each of us. By manifesting that energy in our lives, we bring out the beauty of life and also some great achievements. Without that energy, nothing can be accomplished in the world.
There was a popular philosophy in China that divided the universe into four stages: Birth, growth, decline, and emptiness or death. These philosophers stopped at the stage of emptiness, however, without realizing the subtle power of regeneration is the powerful force that we call Tao. It is positive life energy. When a person supports that energy, that is called virtue or morality or holiness. If someone does something that harms it, their actions are wrong and can be called sinful.The second principle my father taught us was kindness. Protecting and developing positive life energy is kind. Cruelty, violence, or brutality is harmful to positive life energy. No evil violent force can last for long. No extreme can bring true progress. Only gentle, kind progress can bring true maturity.
So you need to be objective about what you are doing and being, about the company you keep, about the schools you go to, about the church you attend: do they support your life energy or do they feed your swollen emotions? This is important to consider.
My father always liked to compare Taoist or integral medicine to a pot of boiling water: you do not stop water from boiling by blowing on it, you have to take the pot off the fire or take away the fuel that makes the fire. This fundamentally describes the basic principle of all treatment. Once you discover the trouble, you treat the cause of it, not just the symptoms. Treating the toothache or headache alone is not enough. You need to discover the source of the problem. Once the real problem is solved, the symptom will not come back again.”