My advice to you is that if you are ill, visit your General Practitioner (GP) or Medical Doctor (MD) and never leave ailments or injuries to drag on and get worse without treatment. I am aware that in other parts of the world (unlike the UK, Northern Europe, Japan, Cuba, North Korea or China, etc.), many people do not have access to regular or affordable healthcare. This is an unfortunate situation and issue of broader political development and democratic processes. In other words, things can be changed overtime through political effort, but what should a person do ‘here and now’? The internet is a great resource for basic self-healing and further research into herbal remedies and other treatments. There is a plethora of online videos, for instance, offering ‘free’ physiotherapy advice. The local Pharmacy is a good place to gain basic advice on treatment and pain relief, etc. As intelligent human beings, we must use our intellects to overcome our material hardships. Herbology is a good start, as herbology is the basis of the pharmaceutical industry, but can often offer alternative methods of treatment and rehabilitation.
Daoist methodology is its greater part, is a system of preventative medicine. This means that we train our bodies and minds in methods that prevent illness through a continuous purification process. The problem with this approach is that we remain ‘unaware’ of how may illnesses we could have contracted, but which we avoided through this wise behaviour. Modern, Western medicine, however, tends to treat definite symptoms as and when they appear. TCM does this as well, but there is a greater tendency toward preventative than there is in Western hospitals (particularly with regard to the use of acupuncture which attempts to ‘undermine’ the illness whilst treating it as an ‘imbalance’ which needs to be rectified). TCM still uses freshly gathered herbs and plants which are viewable in the medicine shop, and which are prepared in front of the patient once a prescription is written. TCM treatment is a much organic experience than its more industrialized Western counterpart. Master Zhao Ming Wang, whilst meeting disciples in his home in Beijing, assesses their wellbeing through their posture, voice, skin-tone, eye colour and behaviour, and usually starts Qianfeng Daoist training by him personally ‘unblocking’ the qi energy channels and putting the disciple on the right psychological and physical path.
There are levels, however, below and beyond the physical application of recuperative Daoist medicine, which involve the generation of universal love and compassion for the entirety of creation! Master Zhao Bichen (1860-1942) exercised this when he abolished the old Daoist tradition of one master to one disciple per generation, and threw open the gates for all to train! Daoist methodology is the practice of exact physical methods of discipline which are applied to the mind and body. Although some people have associated superstition and myth with Daoist methodology, Qianfeng Daoism rejects this approach and only focuses upon the physical Daoist techniques that have been proven to work, albeit applied with a sense of love and respect. Belief in miracles or of divine beings is not used to ‘cure’ the mind or body (although this approach does exist in other Daoist lineages, which is fine). We do not rely upon ‘faith’ just as a Western doctor does not rely upon faith. This does not mean that no one should have faith – as this is a matter of personal choice – but it is not within the methodology of the Qianfeng School. It was not part of the Qianfeng School during the latter Qing Dynasty, the Nationalist period, or the ‘New China’ era. It is not a new approach, but a matter of ancient Chinese science which understood thousands of years ago, that effective methods must be premised upon observation of material (physical) process and repeatability of results. This explains in-part why Zhao Bichen was interested in Western biology and science, and incorporated some of this terminology into his numerous Daoist instructional manuals.
ACW - 釋大道 (2.9.2019) UK Qianfeng Sub-Branch of the 千峰先天派 (Qian Feng Xian Tian Pai) - Thousand Peaks Prenatal School (Beijing)