Jan 31, 2019
Dao Yin or “Guiding and Pulling” has a long history in China stretching back thousands of years to the occult shamanic traditions of ancient times, and its influence is still very much present in modern Qigong practices. The Zhu Bing Yuan Hou Lun, or the “Treatise on the Origins and Symptoms of Medical Disorders” was a Sui dynasty Chinese medical text that was innovative due to it being the first textual attempt at a comprehensive classification of different diseases and well as the first text to prescribe Dao Yin exercises for specific diseases. Our fascinating conversation today with Dolly Yang, who has just finished her PhD thesis focused on this text, addresses how and why the innovations in this text developed as well as delving into some of the specific details of this captivating text.