Daoist Celestial Medicine: Community, Cultivation, and Compassion

Summary

Daoist practitioners have long integrated medical care into their spiritual cultivation as an act of compassion and community service, dating back to early movements like the Celestial Masters and the Way of Great Peace in the Later Han dynasty (2nd century CE). Daoist celestial medicine differs from Chinese medicine by relying on religious ideals and cultivation skills, not solely natural sciences like the five phases or qi. The paper draws on the author's personal experience as a Daoist priest and practitioner of celestial medicine, arguing that practicing medicine fulfills the Daoist mandate of compassion, as outlined in Laozi's three treasures.

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Abstract

Daoist Celestial MedicineCommunity, Cultivation, and Compassion Jack Schaefer (bio) What is the connection between Daoist practitioners and medicine? At first glance, people may see Daoism only as a path of self-cultivation. While this is certainly true, there are many aspects to Daoist cultivation that go beyond the study of philosophy and meditation. Medical care is actually an important cultivation method that works to serve the community as an act of service. The actual process of learning and practicing Daoist ritual medicine is a useful cultivation and transformational process for both the practitioner and the patient. In terms of this service, there has been a connection between Daoists and medicine as long as there have been organized communities, and Daoist practitioners have practiced celestial medicine in a multitude of ways. The Celestial Masters and the Way of Great Peace, for example, movements of the Later Han dynasty (2nd c. CE), both had specific ways of addressing the medical needs of their members, keeping their community healthy. However, these early religious societies also chose to heal their members spiritually through various ritual religious practices. Simply put, for Daoists, the practice of medicine comes from a mandate to help others and act with compassion. This is prescribed in the teachings and goes back far in history. For example, Laozi's Daode jing outlines three treasures: I have three treasures, cherish them and hold onto them.The first one is called compassion.The second is called frugality.The third is called not daring to be the foremost in the world. (ch. 67; Assandri 2021, 319-20) [End Page 162] These three treasures are generally considered some of the earliest Daoist precepts governing behavior. Practitioners are instructed to approach the world with compassion and not make their own desires and needs primary to anyone else's. Therefore, when Daoists approach other beings in the world, they endeavor to aid the suffering and engage in compassion. Through this standard, the practice of medicine has become one of many natural results. Daoist ritual medicine continues to be practiced because it addresses people using methods and ideals that are outside of the body form alone, and produces efficacious results. This paper is based on this author's personal education and experience as a priest, translator, and practitioner of Daoist celestial medicine. Daoist Medicine There are many practice methods that fall into the larger realm of what can be called Daoist medicine (daoyi 道醫), a term not commonly used either in history or by Chinese practitioners today. Rather, the term is mostly applied in modern communities outside of China. Traditionally medical methods applied by Daoists go by other names, such as talismans and incantations (fuzhou 符咒), celestial medicine (tianyi 天醫), and invocations of origins (zhuyou 祝由). Still, there is Daoist medicine, similar but not the same as Chinese medicine, which is based on historically evolving natural sciences. They include ideas and concepts like the five phases (wuxing 五行), yin and yang, the six environmental pathogens (liuyin 六淫), the cosmic vital energy of qi 氣, seasonal influences, weather patterns, and the like. They also include a particular view of the body, its functions, and its various responses to disease processes. Although close to Daoist cosmology, these concepts and perspectives are not inherently or particularly Daoist or medical. Rather, they were and are used by all educated Chinese and practitioners of all kinds of medical and inspirational, religious and spiritual traditions. The latter include shamans (wu 巫), masters of methods (fangshi 方士), Confucian scholars (rujia 儒家), and so on. All of them had access to and applied this view of the world. Additionally, other professions would also use these natural sciences in their work as well. [End Page 163] That said, Daoists may practice medicine based on the natural sciences alone, as Chinese physicians would, but to activate Daoist medicine they would have to be ordained clergy. Daoist celestial medicine may include yet not always rely on the natural sciences, but it always relies on religious ideals and cultivation skills. With natural sciences in mind, the Chinese medicine practitioners often see the cause of diseases as externally contracted through environmental qi and/or an internally generated pattern of imbalance—possibly the result of lifestyle choices such as poor...

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