Harmony

The essence of Chinese medical practice is base on harmonizing the Sky-Man-Earth, in some way; it is rather similar to the Western Philosophy, the Existentialism.  The universe is meaningful to human because of the existence of human, through the human consciousness.  Universe in Chinese philosophy is like primordial soup condensed into a singularity, in Chinese more or less known as 混沌, or Chaos, proposed by Fu Xi approximately 7,000 years ago, from Chaos it began the Taiji. Tai-ji, in Chinese “太極” is combined of two words, Tai – means grand, boundless, immeasurable.  And “Ji – 極 “ means endless, extreme, opposite.

And according to Confucius, the word “Tai - 太” is from “大” (large, grand, huge) added with a small dot that signifies that it is immeasurably large yet immeasurably small – much like the Western believes that universe is composed of tiny atoms that is so small to be seen and yet it is the building block of the universe – except – Western philosophy always try to materialize everything so they found atom, and Chinese always spiritualize everything so they found “Tai - 太”

Anyway, this is a post about harmony – and it came from the Chinese understanding on the universe, and to Chinese people, the human body is a universe.  Therefore if one gets sick, it is regarded as the universe became unbalanced, and they use herb (from nature – a part of universe) to try to balance it, to reach harmony.

The image is also taken at Shangli, a small clinic behind a Chinese herb shop. The doctor is writing scrip for the patient – usually a combination of varies herbs. (For those who interests on Chinese Medicine)