Decades of medical research and philosophical research have made Dr. Li Yintao highly accomplished in traditional Chinese medicine and philosophy. Not only that, after a long period of study and research, through objective, rational and dialectical observation and thinking, he gradually excavated the relationship between the two. ...
He believes that Chinese medicine is the best example of China's philosophical thought. China medical classics, represented by Huangdi Neijing and Shennong Materia Medica, retain a large number of detailed observations and opinions of ancient China people on nature and the universe, and on people's physical and mental understanding, as well as a summary of medical practical experience. These records, based on field trips and practical activities, are the most convincing living specimens of ancient people's ideas about nature and the world in China. Through them, it embodies the understanding of the relationship between human body and mind, nature and the universe. Compared with many literary works and many highly abstract and too neat philosophical systems, the ancient people in China showed the rich commercial flying world more faithfully, and also showed the all-encompassing world that the human mind could reach more vividly inadvertently.
The medical practice of TCM is the practical application of China's philosophy in the medical field, and it is also the concrete embodiment of the spirit of "educating people and preaching" in this philosophical tradition. Therefore, the study of TCM from a broad perspective will help the study of China's philosophy (and the history of China's philosophy) to get out of the narrow pattern of pure theoretical research and discipline, and make China's philosophy reconnect with the "local spirit" in the contemporary era and re-recognize the real face of the ancient world in China.
More importantly, as a medical knowledge system that has been verified by thousands of years of practice and proved to be effective, Chinese medicine provides a living choice, not a way to die, the talk of a few cultural people and the confession of professional researchers. This is a possibility to inspire this generation to see another world and explore another relationship between nature and people. This choice does not mean retro, nor does it mean that rescue excavation will lead to the quintessence of poverty, but it means that it is not necessary to ignore the inherent characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine as an inevitable price for learning the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine after western medicine. This choice should open a new road from China's own Puboyuan Spring. What TCM provides is a possible middle way.
Li Shizhen worked hard to complete Compendium of Materia Medica for nearly 30 years, and inherited the herbal tradition since Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica. But it is not only another peak of ancient Chinese medicine, but also its academic value has gone far beyond the scope of materia medica.
The brilliance of Compendium of Materia Medica lies not in how grand a system it has put forward, but in always adhering to the original intention of working as a doctor and taking precision and practicality as the purpose of rebuilding Materia Medica. The new drug classification system established in Compendium of Materia Medica makes many of its contents fall into a more reasonable, rigorous and practical classification of fifteen parts and sixty categories. Drug classification is not a simple listing or sorting, it can determine the coordinates of many things in nature, not only can reflect people's understanding of nature and everything in the universe, but also can reflect the world concept and even philosophical views in the minds of catalogers. In this sense, the new classification proposed in Compendium of Materia Medica is an extraordinary pen that focuses on the overall situation and starts from the ordinary. It is a seemingly ordinary, actually extremely important innovation, both in the field of natural history research and from a philosophical point of view, it is a remarkable achievement and a beneficial enlightenment, and its significance needs further discussion by future generations.
As the facts reflected in the works represented by Compendium of Materia Medica prove, only the research based on the correct position and Zhuang Jing's attitude can achieve the results passed down to future generations; This academic style is exactly what needs to be cultivated in the research of Chinese medicine, including the study of Li Shizhen's academic thoughts, and it is also the ethos that needs to be advocated in the wider research of medical philosophy and China's philosophy. This upright spirit, expert attitude and open academic vision inherited from ancient scholars in China, especially the basic spirit and style that researchers of traditional Chinese medicine and China philosophy should have.