Chinese Western Medicinal Herbs and Their Benefits: From the Classification of Chinese Medicinal Herbs

Classifying Western herbs into the Chinese medical system is no easy task, and I offer this book as a stepping-stone toward a more complete understanding of how Western herbs can be classified according to the Chinese medical paradigm. Chinese medicine’s way of looking at plants is very different from ours and is, as it would be with any culture in the world, largely based on the Chinese cultural worldview, which is simply different from the Western paradigm.
The basic concepts of qм and yīn-yбng are the building blocks used to construct an entire system of medicine. These building blocks contain the fundamental ideas that govern how Chinese herbalists understand medic- inal plants. I have attempted to cultivate the understanding within myself so that I could do a work such as this justice. Thanks for joining me on this path.
I was motivated to take on the challenge of creating such a work because I felt a need for it in my own practice. I started writing things down to help organize the material for myself, and it wasn’t long before I realized that a book was forming. Of course, I also had significant influ- ence from my teachers, one of whom is Michael Tierra, author of Plan- etary Herbology and the first to attempt this type of work. Thus, what I am trying to do in writing this book is not new; Chinese medicine has absorbed many herbs from around the world into its own system. Plants are created equally in the eyes of nature. It is this understanding that