Trust me, I’m traditional
Dec 22nd, 2007 by Michael Max
You hear this a lot with Chinese medicine:It has been around for thousands of years, they must know something. A thousand years is a long time.
Plenty of time to have lots of bad ideas, along with the good ones.
I always get concerned when I hear people deciding that Chinese medicine must be good simply because it is traditional. Tradition, all too easily can simply be a nostalgia coated wish, or blind faith in the face of a reality that demands open eyes, even as we wish to shut them tight.
There is a difference between tradition and traditionalism.Traditionalism is accepting on faith the teachings and ways of those who have come before. It is a quaint anachronism at best, and at its worst an unthinking regard for the present and our own place in it.
Tradition on the other hand, offers something different. It is not the tradition itself that is important. What matters is that spark of understanding, that comes from one generation to another, and kindles in the present moment that which also illuminated those in the past. It is not a worship of the past, nor a belief that we are fallen, and must hark back to a more golden time. It is the recognition that each generation must have lit in themselves that fire which is being passed along.
Tradition is only as alive as it flourishes anew in those who receive and carry it forward!