Healing Virtue-Power: Medical Ethics and the Doctor's Dao
Healing Virtue-Power: Medical Ethics and the Doctor’s Dao is a conversation across time and space, between the seventh-century hermit Sūn Sīmiǎo 孫思邈 and the contemporary translator Sabine Wilms, to address two sets of questions at the heart of the most ancient and precious texts in Chinese medicine:
How do we find the DÀO 道 OF MEDICINE? How do we walk the PATH OF THE HEALER?
How do we cultivate DÉ 德 “VIRTUE-POWER”? How do we learn and teach, recognize and transmit, replenish and nurture our HEALING SUPERPOWER?
To explore these questions and potential answers from the 7th-century Chinese and modern Western perspective, this book includes:
Literal, line-by-line translations of Sūn Sīmiǎo’s two essays “On the Professional Practice of the Great Doctor” and “On the Sublime Sincerity of the Great Doctor,” which constitute the first two chapters of his Bèijí qiānjīn yàofāng 《備急千金要方》 from 652 CE, in Dr. Wilms’ trademark lucid style and elegant layout with the original Chinese text plus Pinyin transcription on the opposite page.
A critical edition of the original Chinese source text.
Over a hundred pages of detailed notes and discussions that provide historical, religious, philosophical, and medical context for Sūn Sīmiǎo’s writings.
A preface by Dr. Wilms on “Honoring those Whose Shoulders We Stand On” and a conclusion on “Acting by Non-Action: The Last Word?”
Forewords by Michael Max and Z’ev Rosenberg.
To get a better sense of the book, here are three linked pdf files for you to explore. Just click on the title to view them:
A sample of the very first section of the translation and discussion.
