Insights and Updates

Once a junior fellow apprentice of mine contacted me, saying he had insomnia because of work pressure. I asked him how he was having insomnia, and he said that after waking at five in the morning he could not get back to sleep, whereas he…

After a year of growing vegetables, my rusty farming skills have gradually come back a little. Because of my inexperience, each time I simply broadcast the seeds and let the vegetables in the plot grow on their own, rarely doing transplanting or thinning. So many…

What TCM calls “xiere li” (concurrent-heat diarrhea) refers to a condition in which an exterior pattern (fever and aversion to cold) coexists with diarrhea. The Shanghan Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage) contains this passage: “In a taiyang disease of the guizhi presentation, if the doctor…

On the morning of June 7, 2021, Su Yiran, former member of the Central Advisory Commission of the Communist Party of China and former Party Secretary of Shandong Province, passed away at the age of 103. According to local Shandong media, his memorial service would…

In Volume 2 of the Revised Yan’s Formulas to Aid the Living (Chongding Yan’s Jisheng Fang) there is a formula called “Simo Tang” (Four-Ground Decoction), the representative TCM formula for treating qi stagnation with abdominal distension. It is composed of equal parts of Renshen (Ginseng),…

Mr. Wang, a 67-year-old farmer from Shanxi province, was a patient with early gastric cancer. On May 28, 2021, the patient’s daughter first sought my help via video, telling me that her father had suffered from painful swallowing and fatigue for more than three months.

On June 15, 2020, I rented a small vegetable plot at the foot of Xiangshan (Fragrant Hills) in Beijing. From then until now, I have been growing vegetables for nearly a year. Riding my bicycle back and forth between Zizhuqiao and Xiangshan, plus doing farm…

The patient, a woman surnamed Sun, was 41 years old, a permanent resident of Tianjin working in international trade, with no history of exposure to pollutants or radioactive substances. She had advanced breast cancer with lung and bone metastases. In 2010 she was treated for…

Stillness within stillness is not true stillness; stillness found amid motion reveals the true state of innate nature. Joy within pleasure is not true joy; joy found amid sorrow reveals the true workings of the mind. — Cai Gen Tan (Conversations from the Cabbage Root)…

Shashen Maidong Tang comes from the Wenbing Tiaobian; it generates fluids, nourishes the stomach, moistens dryness, and stops cough. Original: Shashen three qian (15 g), Yuzhu (Polygonatum odoratum) two qian (10 g), raw Gancao (licorice) one qian (5 g), winter Sangye (mullein) one qian five…