What is traditional healing and how does Tao Calligraphy fit in?

Master Sha is a spiritual healer, teacher, bestselling author, Master of Eastern Arts, and expert on the benefits of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

“I have the power to heal myself. You have the power to heal yourself. Together we have the power to heal the world.” — Master Zhi Gang Sha

Traditional healing goes back to ancient times. We can think of it as a collective term for the skills, knowledge, and healing practices based on the lived experience, beliefs, and theories of indigenous people.

Some may hear traditional medicine referred to as indigenous healing or folk healing. It is the culmination of centuries of traditional knowledge built up through communities and passed down over the years. My experiences when I was young were the source of my interest in traditional and spiritual healing, which I then combined with formal study of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine.

The basics of traditional healing methods around the world
Within China and many African and Asian countries, traditional medicine is the primary form of health care for most people. In all forms of traditional healing, the approach is holistic and goes beyond the patient themselves. As healers, we help people heal themselves, and we create energy fields that can heal through all kinds of ceremonies, music, and exercises.

I have combined my spiritual and traditional healing experience and credentials and my knowledge and formal understanding of Western medicine to create Tao Calligraphy. But before I explain how this works, I want to talk about traditional healing in general.

Traditional healing that is accepted and adopted outside of its own country and culture is known as alternative medicine. And, of course, this is very popular in Western countries, with traditional Chinese medicine,, acupuncture, and variousforms of ancient Eastern arts commonly and easily available.

A few examples of traditional healing
This list provides a non-exhaustive idea of some of the traditional medicine approaches around the world, in addition to TCM.

· Nattuvaidyam in South India

This is a term used for a system of ancient medicine that pre-dates western medicine, based on a completely different set of ideas about how our bodies and minds work to form disease. Ayurveda is one kind of nattuvaidyam.

· Traditional Korean medicine, South Korea

In North Korea, traditional healing is called Koryo medicine and encompasses a belief system that classifies people into four types based on their dominant emotion. This then informs the treatment and medicine used to help them and includes herbal medicine, acupuncture, and moxibustion (where heat is applied to the body with a cone or stick.)

· Siddha medicine, South India

Another traditional medicine from South India, it’s one of the oldest in the world. In rural India, siddhars learn traditional methods of healing to become healers. It’s estimated there are currently around 400,000 traditional healers who routinely practice medicine and healing in India., which equals almost two-thirds of all rural health care. This form of medicine is based on the idea that five elements (water, earth, fire, sky and air) are present in food, bodily humors, and all kinds of other compounds. These are then used to treat illness.

· Unani, India via ancient Greece

Unani originated in ancient Greece but is now mostly practiced in India using dietary regulation, herbalism, and various alternative therapies. Similar to the ancient system of medicine that then evolved in Medieval European medicine, it is based on the idea of good health being predicated on the balance of the four bodily humors. These are black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Unani medicine is also based on the idea that air quality and water purity impact health.

· Ancient Iranian medicine, (Persia)

This form of Persian medicine goes back a long way, right back to centers of learning like the Gundeshapur University in the 3rd century BCE. The very first modern hospital system was established in Persia. Over the centuries, Persian medicine became highly sophisticated and encompassed all kinds of surgery and treatments we recognised today.

· Ayurveda medicine, India

Another well-established Indian traditional form of healing developed more than 3,000 years ago, Ayurveda is based on balancing the mind, body, and spirit. In this way, it is similar to my own practices and form of spiritual healing that focuses on a holistic balance of the mind, body, and soul. Familiar as a term to people in the West today, it has grown in popularity as a form of alternative medicine and includes the concept of doshas. These are energy flows that control how the body and mind work. They are Kapha for water and earth, Pitta for fire and water, and Vata for space and air.

My journey in traditional healing through to Tao Calligraphy
My journey into the Eastern arts and traditional Chinese medicine began in my early childhood. When I was just six years old, I saw a Tai Chi Master practising his art and immediately became a student. Over the years, I developed my study of the Eastern arts and became a Grand Master of the I Ching, feng shui, Dong Yi Gong qigong, and Wu Dong Tai Chi.

For 12 years, I studied Body Space Medicine under Dr. and Master Zhi Chen Guo, and I went on to teach this for many years in the West. It is based on Zhi Neng and traditional Chinese medicine. I then learned Yi Bi Zi calligraphy from Professor Li Qui Yun. After mastering Yi Bi Zi, a unique one-stroke form, I created the revolutionary healing form of Tao Calligraphy.

Based on traditional medicine, it incorporates my lifelong experience of and training in spiritual practices, ancient philosophies, and healing arts. Through Tao Calligraphy, I create an extremely powerful vibrational field of energy. Suffused with the Tao Source, which carries unconditional love, light, forgiveness, compassion, harmony, and more, this energy field allows us all to heal our minds, bodies, and souls.

For people who attend my classes or courses, or those taught by teachers I have trained and who have studied Tao Calligraphy, there is a profound opportunity to heal, transform physically, mentally, spiritually, and physically. Through tracing, writing and meditating with Tao Calligraphy, qi flows with messages of oneness and positivity.

Find out where you can learn more about Tao Calligraphy
You can read more about Tao Calligraphy here and discover where our Tao Calligraphy healing centers are located. Our Master Sha Tao Centers are located around the world, with the newest ones recently opened in Bordeaux, France, and Schwerin, Germany.

All of our centers offer teaching in self-healing, physical recovery, meditation, and life transformation.

I hope that many more people will be able to benefit from the compassion, love, and healing that Tao Calligraphy can manifest.