Insights and Updates

Chinese Buddhists often use 'the world' (shi jian) and 'leaving the world' (chu shi jian) to describe the worldly realm and the realm beyond it. 'The world' actually means society and family; so-called 'leaving the world' or leaving the mortal dust means keeping a certain…

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Professor Jeffrey I. Gordon of Washington University in St. Louis, for his long and meticulous research on the gut microbiota, which discovered that gut dysbiosis is closely linked to malnutrition, obesity, diabetes, and other…

People often ask me, since you studied TCM, tell me what I should eat for health preservation. This question annoys me greatly. As far as I know, many people in history who tried to preserve health through herbs died off while taking them; many emperors…

This is an old piece of mine, written on a whim long ago; it still suits my temperament today, so I pick it up, lightly revise it, and amuse myself. In recent years I have passed through several partings of life and death; while trading…

After my son caught a cold, his tonsils and epiglottis suddenly became inflamed and swollen with a fierce onset; swallowing food and water was difficult. This is what TCM calls 'throat moth' (hou e) or 'throat bi' (hou bi). The throat is a critical pass…

Cancer and late-stage liver cirrhosis often produce complications such as ascites. This condition, in ancient TCM, belongs to tympanites (gu zhang), one of the four major TCM miscellaneous-disease patterns (wind, consumption, tympanites, and diaphragm). It was listed among the four because the prognosis of tympanites…

When cancer patients enter the terminal stage, some experience cachexia, cancer fever, cancer pain, and similar conditions; the hospital gives up treatment, but the family does not give up and keeps seeking ways to salvage the situation. In fact, for terminal stage-IV cancer patients, excessive…

Many tumor patients eventually come to Beijing to try their luck. In fact, Beijing doctors are also helpless against tumors; some Beijing physicians talk grandly, with brilliance on the surface and rubbish underneath, yet many patients come to Beijing precisely for these 'famous doctors.' I…

Advanced cancer patients, in TNM staging, generally have distant-organ metastasis—that is, M-positive—and clinical stage IV. Such patients have already passed the best treatment window; neither TCM nor Western medicine can do much. For these patients, the hope of cure is already slim. Adjusting psychological expectations—pursuing…

Buddhism summarizes the sufferings of life as eight: birth, old age, illness, death, parting from what one loves, meeting what one hates, not obtaining what one seeks, and the flourishing of the five skandhas. The Six Paramitas (liu du) are six methods of Buddhist practice;…