Traditional Chinese Medicine is an ancient discipline of research of health and harmony through the energy rebalancing of the body-mind. It is a medicine of the Puffs, the art of restoring the functional harmony of the exchanges between the different Puffs (energy, IQ). The object of this energetic medicine is the regulation of the constitutive and animating breaths of man within the Constitutive and animating breaths of the Universe. What has come down to us is the result of the integration and arrangement, in the course of its evolution, of the different philosophies with which it has come into contact and in particular with Taoist thought, the Confucian School and the Theory of the five elements.

This tradition considers the universe as an energy field, the result of the perfect interaction of the two fundamental cosmic principles: Yin/Yang. There is a holistic, analogical vision of the human being, according to which health and well-being are the consequence of the psychological, energetic, physiological and spiritual balance of man.

The observation and cataloguing of correspondences has led man over the millennia to hypothesize an exhaustive knowledge of reality where what happens in the Macrocosm (Cosmos) happens in small – by analogy – in the Microcosm (Man).

Through the understanding of the cosmos, the universe and nature one arrives, for Taoism, at the understanding of oneself, at one’s own individual growth. There is no dichotomy between good / evil, right / wrong, etc.., opposites become equivalent aspects of the same reality / phenomenon, which includes them within it. The change in the observer’s point of view changes the ethical-moral value of the interpretation of each event. There are no absolute values, but only values related to the system/model taken as a reference measure.

The concentration of attention must instead be directed towards the observation of nature and its manifestations, which alone allows us to recognize the characteristics of the Tao.

And it is nature that suggests the idea of Yin/Yang, the constituent polarities of the Tao symbol, which represents the most important and characteristic concept of Taoism.

The observation of the cyclic alternation of day and night is symbolically related to the shadowy and sunny sides of a hill, a single reality that carries both shadow and light, the universally conjoined opposites that eternally chase and alternate each other.

Any physical or psychic symptom, therefore, is not a sign of a localized condition, but is a telltale sign of an imbalance in the organism as a whole.

It does not follow, therefore, the tendency to dismember the individual components, in search of the ever smaller, losing sight of the purpose, the unity: Man and his psychophysical balance, immersed in the surrounding environment.

Inserted in the Macrocosm, Man is also powered by the same flow of vital energy, the Qi (Breaths), which flows inside the body along the meridian network, the invisible channels that constitute the system of connection between the organs and vital functions.

Qi is the product of Yin/Yang interaction and forms the basis of the world of phenomena.

In the human body, Qi is the agent of movement and transformation, the principle that moves, warms and protects against external influences.

On a psychological level, its free flow allows us to change state, to alternate different emotions passing from work to pleasure, from activity to rest.

Health and physical well-being are therefore only the natural consequence of the harmonious circulation of Qi, while its imbalances favor the onset of diseases.

Here the originality of Taoist thought is manifested: there is opposition, as nature teaches, but it is relative: darkness exists only when compared with light, and every reality is never absolute.

Form is generated from formlessness, just as then form will lead to formlessness. This existence before existence, this “formless”, this unexpressed potentiality is indicated by the term Tao, literally “the Way”, the matrix of the Universe.

From the dark mystery emerges something that is called “WuJi”, the “non-pole”, the embryo of an existence with still polarized and therefore not yet differentiated.

That is why the symbol is an empty circle. This empty circle is filled into the TaiJi symbol, “The Great Pole.” Taiji is the differentiation present in potency, but not yet in place. It is still unity, but it contains within itself the seed of division and therefore of birth. The symbol gives the idea of a rising and falling tide, the fusion of white into black and black into white, of union in opposition and, of course, of movement.

At the center of the black zone (Yin) there is a white dot, as well as in the center of the white zone (Yang) there is a black dot, to highlight how in each of the two components the germ of the other is contained, just as in the winter solstice, under the snow, the seed of the luxuriance of summer is already alive. The inscription of the two halves in a circle communicates the idea of the intimate fusion of the two aspects, which together constitute the totality of life.

The Tao rotates and, by rotating, is configured in perpetual and inevitable transformation.

Bibliography:
Il libro della Medicina Tradizionale Cinese – Carlo Moiraghi – Fabbri Editore
Elementi di Medicina Tradizionale Cinese – J. Schatz C. Larre E. Rochat De La Vallèe Edizioni Jaca Book
Elementi di Medicina Tradizionale Cinese – F.Bottalo Rosa Brotzu – Edizioni Xenia
Medicina Cinese – Ted J. Kaptchuk – Red Edizioni
Medicina Tradizionale Cinese – M. Corradin C. Di Stanislao M. Parini Casa Editrice Ambrosiana
Teoria e pratica Shiatsu – Carola Beresford Cooke – ed. UTET