TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods

Ⅸ-2Traditional MedicineZhuhai, GuangdongBatch 4 (2014)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

The name of Yizhichan Tuina derives from the Chan (Zen) school of Buddhism: it applies a single finger to reach through to the source of illness and uses stillness to control movement, essentially one with the meditative discipline cultivated by Chan practitioners. The Yizhichan Tuina seen today is the branch among the various Tuina lineages since the late Qing and early Republican period that combines medicine and Chan most closely. Its intellectual lineage can be traced back to the Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic) and the daoyin anqiao (guiding-pulling and pressing) methods attributed to Bodhidharma. During the Republican era, the Cihai dictionary included Yizhichan Tuina as the only Tuina school, testifying to its considerable influence at the time. In modern times, Zhu Chunting founded a Tuina specialty within the Huangqiang lineage of Jiading, Shanghai; only afterward did branches in Shanghai, Yangzhou, Urumqi and elsewhere pass it down separately, and the Zhuhai branch is one of them.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Yizhichan Tuina incorporates the Chan essence of “pointing with one finger to reveal the dharma and realize Buddhahood,” taking the Chan doctrine of “illuminating the mind and seeing one's true nature” as its tenet. The concepts of xing (nature), jue (awareness) and zheng (realization), together with meditative practice, constitute the xinfa (mind method) — the core of Yizhichan academic thought. Xinfa runs through the understanding of life and disease, diagnosis, treatment, Tuina exercises, Tuina manipulations, rehabilitation and health preservation, and has formed a unified system of mind method integrating Chan, medicine, method, prescription and technique. Its main contents include “meditation (chanding), self-awareness (jueji), awareness of others (jueta), treatment principles, Tuina exercises, and Tuina manipulations.” Meditation aims at realizing one's true nature; Yizhichan Tuina applies it to Tuina, regarding it as the basic skill for study and practice. Self-awareness takes one's own living body as the object of observation and understanding, thereby gaining an intuitive perception and knowledge of the living human body and disease. Awareness of others is the method of replicating in oneself the sensations and condition of another person; it is the diagnostic skill of Yizhichan Tuina. Treatment principles refer to the method by which Yizhichan Tuina determines therapeutic principles and approaches. Tuina exercises are conditioning methods aimed at improving the practitioner's physical qualities, mastering the basic principles of human movement, and raising manipulative skill and clinical efficacy. Tuina manipulations are the means by which Yizhichan Tuina treats disease; the commonly used manipulations number twelve, including tui (pushing), na (grasping), an (pressing), mo (rubbing), nian (holding-twisting), gun (rolling), chao (scooping), cuo (rubbing with both palms), chan (twining), rou (kneading), yao (rocking) and dou (shaking). Yizhichan Tuina integrates mind method, exercise method, manipulation technique, and pattern differentiation and treatment into one, producing manipulations characterized by unity of body and mind, holistic mobilization, responsive movement, smooth flowing motion, close fit to the condition, and direct action on the site of disease. Yizhichan Tuina combines Chan thought with traditional Chinese medical theory and clinical technique, inherits the traditional Chinese medical approach to understanding life and disease, and embodies the creativity of Chinese medicine culture.

Meditative stilling

Settling breath and attention before any movement of the thumb — regarded as basic training, not ritual.

Awareness of the self

Using one's own living body as the subject, learning to feel flow and obstruction directly.

Awareness of the other

Transferring one's own sensations to the patient in order to locate the illness — the diagnostic discipline of the method.

The training routines

Exercises that build the practitioner's own strength and knowledge of human movement, compulsory rather than optional.

Twelve standard techniques

Twelve techniques — pushing, grasping, pressing, rubbing, rolling, twisting and others — resting on the training routines and responsive to the patient's condition.

The dantian spinal method

A local development based on the inheritor's own dantian theory, pairing the nourishment of the lower dantian with spinal alignment.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Yizhichan Tuina is one of the traditional academic schools and therapeutic methods of traditional Chinese medical Tuina. It is transmitted in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, and also has important branches in Shanghai, Yangzhou (Jiangsu Province) and Urumqi (Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region).

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

This therapy carries forward the traditional Chinese understanding of life while applying Buddhist Chan culture to Tuina, emphasizing the improvement of medical skill through the practitioner's own cultivation, and fusing Chinese medical culture and Chan culture into one. It is transmitted mainly through master-disciple and family oral instruction and mental transmission. As a safe and effective medical means, it also plays a role in treatment, rehabilitation and health care, and possesses social and economic value. Han Jingsheng (per official records of associated inheritors): Male, Han ethnicity, born in July 1957, from Beijing. Using traditional Tuina methods to treat difficult conditions such as headache, insomnia, facial paralysis and stroke, his practice has the characteristics of replenishing the qi of the dantian, harmonizing the functions of the zang-fu organs and strengthening the body, and is warmly welcomed by the broad masses of patients. Over the years, on the basis of his self-devised “dantian theory,” he created the “dantian–spine therapy” for clinical application, and established a Yizhichan Tuina traditional Chinese medicine clinic in Zhuhai. He compiled the monograph Yiding Chan (One Finger Settled in Chan) among other works, published numerous academic papers, ran multiple training classes, taught more than one hundred apprentices, and continues to work directly in clinical Tuina practice. He is a representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage project “Therapeutic Methods of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Yizhichan Tuina).”

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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