Taoist health methods
Sun Simiao (541 or 581-682) was a famous Taoist priest and medical expert in the Tang Dynasty.
A native of Jingzhao Huayuan (now Yaoxian County, Shaanxi Province). Young and smart, eager to learn. He said that he "succumbed to the cold when he was young, and he repeatedly built a medical school. He spent all his money on decoctions and medicines and all his family property." As he grows older, he understands the teachings of elders, villagers and hundreds of schools of thought, and is also familiar with Buddhist scriptures. At the age of 18, he determined to study medicine. "I have realized that I can help my neighbors who are suffering from diseases, both at home and abroad," he said. In the first year of Dacheng in the Northern Zhou Dynasty (579), due to the royal family's many reasons, he lived in seclusion in Taibai Mountain (in today's Yi County, Shaanxi Province) to study Taoism, refine Qi, nourish the body, and study the techniques of maintaining health and longevity. When Emperor Jing of Zhou came to the throne and Yang Jian assisted in the administration, he was appointed Doctor of the Imperial Academy, but he could not do it despite his illness. During the Sui Dynasty (605-618), he traveled to Emei in the middle of Shu. After the death of the Sui Dynasty, he hid in Zhongnan Mountain and became friendly with the eminent monk Daoxuan. When Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, came to the throne, he was summoned to the capital and awarded a title because of his "righteousness". However, he refused and went to Emei to refine the "Taiyi Shenjing Dan". In the third year of Xianqing (658), Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty summoned him to Beijing again and lived in Princess Poyang's ruined mansion. The next year, Emperor Gaozong summoned him to give advice to the officials, but he still refused. In the fourth year of Xianheng (673), Emperor Gaozong fell ill and ordered him to accompany him. In the first year of the Shangyuan Dynasty (674), he resigned from illness and returned to the mountain. Emperor Gaozong gave him a good horse and made him the Poyang princess. Yongchun died in the first year of his life, and he was ordered to be buried sparsely, without hiding any visible objects, and to sacrifice animals to the prison. In the second year of Chongning, Huizong of Song Dynasty (1103), he was posthumously named Miaoying Zhenren.
It is said that Sun Simiao was good at yin and yang, pushing steps, and had wonderful calculation skills. He stayed out of office all his life and lived in seclusion in the mountains and forests. He personally collects and prepares medicines to treat people's illnesses. He collected folk prescriptions and secret recipes, summarized clinical experience and previous medical theories, and made important contributions to medicine and pharmacology. Later generations respected him as the "King of Medicine". He drew on the theory of internal organs from the "Huangdi Nei Jing", and for the first time in "Qian Jin Yao Prescription", he completely proposed the classification and treatment of miscellaneous diseases centered on the deficiency and excess of cold and heat in the internal organs; after sorting and studying Zhang Zhongjing's "Treatise on Febrile Diseases", He classified typhoid fever into twelve treatises and put forward 15 taboos about typhoid fever, which attracted considerable attention from later generations of typhoid fever experts.
He collected many medical treatises, medical prescriptions, and experience in medication, acupuncture, etc. from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, as well as health methods such as taking food, diet therapy, guidance, and massage, and wrote "Qian Jin Yao Prescription" for thirty years. Volume, divided into 232 subjects, is close to the classification method of modern clinical medicine. The book contains 5,300 prescriptions and treatises, with a wide range of prescriptions and rich content. It is a representative masterpiece in the development of medicine in the Tang Dynasty in my country. It has obvious influence and contribution to the development of later generations of medicine, especially prescription science; The development of Japanese and Korean medicine also played a positive role. The thirty-volume "Qianjin Yifang" is a work in his later years and is a comprehensive supplement to "Qianjin Yaofang". The book is divided into one hundred and eighty-nine categories, with more than 2,900 combined prescriptions, treatises, and methods. It records more than 800 kinds of medicines, especially those that are most effective in treating typhoid fever, stroke, miscellaneous diseases, and abscesses.
He insisted on the method of syndrome differentiation and treatment, believing that if people take good care of their health, they should be able to avoid diseases.
As long as "good doctors can guide them with medicine and stones, and save them with injections", "there are diseases that can be cured in the body, and there are disasters in the world that can be eliminated." He attaches great importance to medical ethics and treats everyone equally regardless of "rich or poor, rich or poor, old or young, ignorant or ignorant, resentful or close friends, Chinese or foreigners, ignorant or wise". It is said that "human life is of the utmost importance, and a thousand pieces of gold are valuable." He attached great importance to maternal and child health care and wrote three volumes of "Prescriptions for Women" and two volumes of "Prescriptions for Young Infants and Children", placing them at the top of "Qian Jin Yao Prescriptions".
Sun Simiao combined Taoist internal cultivation theory with medicine and hygiene, and included health preservation as a medical content. It is believed that in old age, body characteristics, physiology, and pathology will change. If you want to live a long life, you must pay attention to your diet, daily life and other health-preserving methods. In "Qian Jin Yao Prescription: No. 1 Preface for Nourishing Nature", he particularly emphasized that the elderly "cannot spit far away, walk fast, have ears that cannot hear, and eyes that cannot see. They cannot sit for long periods of time, cannot stand until they are tired, and cannot lie down until they are tired." "Wear clothes when it's cold first, and relieve it when it's hot. Don't eat when you're extremely hungry, don't eat too much; don't drink when you're extremely thirsty, don't drink too much", and "also use it to guide and circulate qi" and "fang". The technique of "medium benefit".
He has comprehensive observations and in-depth analysis of human aging process and manifestations, psychological characteristics and changes, as well as geriatric diseases, health care, and medical treatment.
It is believed that the elderly should engage in activities suitable for the characteristics of the elderly, such as regulating Qi, massaging, guiding, moving Qi, and walking, thus enriching the content and methods of Taoist internal cultivation, and taking alchemy to seek benefits. The Taoist method of immortality was explored.
It is believed that taking the golden elixir to become an immortal is "the divine way is far away, the clouds are sparse, and you can only look at the blue sky, but you don't know how to rise."
But he used alchemy as a means of medicine, and its purpose was to relieve emergencies. The "Taiyi Shen Jing Dan" he refined is "cholera in host and guest, abdominal distension and fullness, corpses and evil winds, crazy ghosts talking, poisonous demons in cups, and febrile diseases".
Historical records include more than thirty kinds of works by him, but most of them have been lost. The existing "Qianjin Yaofang" and "Qianjin Yifang" each have thirty volumes, which are famous medical works in my country. Others, such as "Lun on Adoption", "Essentials of Taiqing Alchemy Classic", "Zhongzhong Fang", etc., some of them are still missing.