You Know All the TCM Principles — Why Is Your Health Still a Mess? The Finale of the Zhang Xichun Series: Knowledge in Action Is the Real Path to Health

What patients search for: knowing the right thing but not doing it / my body still isn’t better / how do I treat a chronic condition / tonics make me heaty / what does body-conditioning really depend on / always wanting to lie down, no energy Corresponding medical terms: functional disorder · chronic-condition management · wellness and health preservation · qi rushing to the lesion

The opening: the Zhang Xichun series ends today

Dear friends, good morning. Today, the medical cases of Doctor Zhang Xichun — are complete. Doctor Luo Dalun says this is the finale of the entire series.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: About Zhang Xichun, I have said a great deal — his use of individual herbs, his classic formulas, his hospital. The thread of it all went like this: start from single herbs, combine them into formulas, then watch how those formulas are applied flexibly. I have essentially walked through Zhang Xichun’s whole scholarly legacy, over a very long time. Thank you all for your support.

A series that ran this long — why stop today to talk about something else? Because Doctor Luo says that after all this knowledge, what everyone most needs to hear is something different: you’ve learned it — now how do you actually use it?

How this series of recordings began — a beach in Sanya, and an old iPhone

Before the summary, Doctor Luo told a small story — how this whole lecture series got started.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: To be honest, I never planned to record this much. At first I just wanted to share a little knowledge with people. I was in Sanya then, right by the sea, with the sound of the waves, using an old Apple iPhone, and I started recording these talks. And once I started, there was no stopping. On my public account “Da Lun Academy” (DaLun Shuyuan), at its peak around ten thousand people listened every day. One teacher lecturing to over ten thousand people — you can hardly imagine it, right? But through voice recordings, we did it. Later the talks moved to the Ximalaya platform — my lectures on the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) have now been played more than 100 million times. That number was beyond anything I imagined at the start.

From the Dao De Jing to the Di Zi Gui (Standards for Being a Good Student), then to Ji Xiaolan’s Yuewei Cottage Notes (Yuewei Caotang Biji) — and in the middle of it all, the most complete and systematic of everything, was this body of Zhang Xichun’s scholarly thought.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: There were times when I truly couldn’t hold on — why lecture every single day? But everyone’s encouragement mattered enormously. The moment I saw your encouragement, I wanted to keep going. This is a good thing, and it deserves to continue, so I kept at it.

What is learning Chinese medicine really for? — To protect yourself, not to treat disease

So now that the Zhang Xichun cases are finished, how should everyone study these lessons?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: For the general wellness enthusiast, understanding some theory and some everyday practical knowledge — how to use shan yao (Chinese yam), how to use lotus seeds, how Zhang Xichun thought about things — yes, you should learn that. But the most important thing is this: after you learn, you can protect yourself. This is not about treating disease; it’s about not making the same mistakes. You know how complicated this disease is to treat — so how do you keep yourself safe? That is the crucial part.

What does protecting yourself depend on? Doctor Luo says: first, self-discipline.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: By now most of us know the principles: don’t eat cold things, don’t let cold-pathogen harm you, keep your qi and blood adequate, add a little qi-and-blood nourishing food therapy every day — we know all of it. So why do so many people still get poor results? It’s a matter of willpower. Our brains, our reason, cannot fully control our desires. The moment temptation appears, we abandon rational control: we indulge — one more plate of braised pork; we crave cold — it’s so hot out, gulp gulp, down goes the iced drink. It feels wonderful in the moment, but we forget the principle behind it: comfort now can mean harm later.

This is what Zhu Xi meant by “preserve Heavenly principle, extinguish human desire” — Heavenly principle is the principle of what you ought to do; human desire is your appetite. You should let the principle of what ought to be done govern your desire as much as possible.

Jiang Wen on Eddie Peng: a man whose soul and body are separated

At this point, Doctor Luo remembered something — director Jiang Wen’s comments on the actor Eddie Peng (Peng Yuyan).

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Jiang Wen said Eddie Peng’s physique is the kind of godlike body you see on ancient Roman sculptures. Why is this young man famous, why is his career going so well? He said it’s because Peng is absolutely a man whose soul is separated from his body. What do I take that to mean? His reason absolutely can defeat his desire — the desires of his flesh. Most people don’t enjoy working out; it’s tiring, right? Eddie Peng believes he should do it, so he does it. He should diet, he shouldn’t eat so much fatty meat — reason tells him not to, and he can control his desire. His reason absolutely governs his appetites, so a person like that ends up perfect.

So for most people, the problem with their health is not “I didn’t know,” it’s “I couldn’t do it.”

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: People listen and think: the teacher is interesting, what he says makes sense, this is indeed the big picture. Then they laugh and go right back to their old ways: staying up late, eating rich and greasy food, drinking, eating frozen things. As for exercise — do a round of Ba Duan Jin (Eight Pieces of Brocade) every day? They do it for two days and stop. Do you see it? Knowing and doing are not united — desire always beats reason, and that is the problem.

For people whose bodies are already troubled: first, get the checkups you should get

For people who already have health problems — and there are quite a lot among Doctor Luo’s followers — his first piece of advice is one many wouldn’t expect: go get examined first.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: First of all, get checkups, all the checkups you should. You might say, you’re teaching Chinese medicine — what should I get checked? Whatever Western medicine would check, check it too; relevant examinations don’t belong to Western medicine exclusively. Take a blood test — why should a blood test be “Western”? It’s a product of modern technology, right? Chinese medicine can also use all kinds of imaging. In ancient times, Bian Que and Hua Tuo both wanted to see inside the body — they wanted to see what was going on in there. Now the equipment exists — why wouldn’t you use it? Exactly. This is the fruit of scientific progress.

Once the checkups are done, you know clearly whether you have an organic disease or a functional disorder. Then what do you regulate?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Remember, first regulate your emotions. Don’t panic. Don’t scare yourself into a frenzy the moment you see a Western diagnosis and think, oh my god, my illness is terrible. I’ve watched many old Chinese medicine doctors treat patients — what matters most is a kind of presence: a warm, gentle manner that settles the heart, a tone of voice that makes people feel safe. They hand you a dose of peace of mind first. They often say: build your confidence, keep up the treatment, go home and adjust slowly, rest assured it will get better. That’s a wonderful thing to say.

Trust your body’s repair power — cut your finger, and in a couple of days it heals on its own

Confidence — confidence in what?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Confidence in your own body’s power to repair itself. Say you take a small blade, something sharp, and cut your finger — a little blood. Do you know what happens? Nothing. In a couple of days it’s fine. That is trust in your body: my body has a powerful repair capacity, this little wound will heal fast. But when it comes to other problems, you stop believing it. There’s no need for that.

Our bodies are astonishingly precise instruments — so precise that even now we don’t fully understand them.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: So trust it. It has immense capacity to repair and regenerate. The reason it hasn’t repaired itself yet is that there are obstacles — qi and blood a little weak, some blood stasis, damp phlegm, and so on. What to do? If my mood is bad, I help the body remove these obstacles. You say to your body: rest assured, I will clear away these obstacles, and then I’ll leave the work to you, let you travel light — you can repair this. And the body will slowly repair itself.

Second: persist with treatment — getting heaty is actually a good sign

After building confidence, the second key word is persistence.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: First analyze where the problem came from, then find a nearby doctor to help you analyze it. Actually, you know best how your own problem arose. You’ve listened to me this long — analyze it yourself: it’s more or less this — qi and blood, yin and yang, phlegm-damp, blood stasis, constrained liver qi. That’s roughly the whole list. Once you’ve analyzed it, persist with slow, gentle regulation. I especially recommend food therapy — use a little at a time, regulate slowly, and if you keep at it, things will gradually change. For example, tonifying your spleen and stomach can never be wrong. Regulate slowly — food therapy in particular, slow and steady — and eventually your body’s upright qi will be lifted up.

What state are many people in now? Their hearts are flustered: two doses in, something feels off, and they start panicking. For example, they tonic up a little and get heaty (shang huo) — and immediately panic. That is definitely wrong.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Let me tell you, getting heaty is a good thing — I’m actually afraid when you don’t. What does heaty mean? It means the tonic has real strength. If your body hasn’t metabolized it, stop for two days and take something to help digestion — hawthorn pills, or Jiangzhong Jianwei Xiaoshi tablets, anything like that will do; clear it first, or take Bao He Wan (Harmony-Preserving Pill), and once it’s cleared, resume tonifying. Many people can’t bear the slightest change and fall apart. That won’t do.

Auntie Dong’s story: knee pain for 20 years, and san qi made it hurt more — qi rushing to the lesion

Doctor Luo once talked about a patient he especially admired — an auntie surnamed Dong from Shijingshan, Beijing.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This lady’s knee had hurt for 20 years, and no treatment could fix it. She heard my lectures on san qi (notoginseng) powder — blood stasis in the bone. She took it, and her knee pain got worse. Twenty years of pain, never cured, and taking san qi made it worse — good news or bad news? Many people would scream: oh my god, this must be wrong! Doctor Luo’s recommendation is definitely a mistake — no more, I quit. But this auntie was very clever. She reasoned: this must be qi rushing to the lesion — the qi and blood have begun to attack the lesion, so the pain intensifies. She immediately went to a Chinese medicine hospital, had cupping and pricking done — they pricked with a needle, cupped it, and out came black blood, purple stasis blood. Then she kept taking the san qi powder. In four weeks, a twenty-year knee pain was cured.

Why does Doctor Luo admire this auntie? Because she understood that “it hurts more as I take it” is not bad — it means qi and blood are attacking the lesion.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What would many people do? No more, I give up, this must be making it worse, no one can ever cure me — they start to fall apart. That is wrong. I’ve met people who tonic up the spleen and stomach and immediately get a little heaty, and say: my spleen and stomach are too weak, I can’t handle it — no, that’s not it, it’s their spirit that is too fragile. Sometimes I even hope you get a bit of fire. A little extra fire does no real harm; sometimes the body is pushing things out — some people get skin eruptions, some people’s skin starts to break out — and when all of that is expelled, the cold-damp inside the body is truly resolved.

Bad emotions are the biggest obstacle on the road to recovery

Many people who are chronically ill have very poor emotional states — and that bad emotional state puts a huge obstacle in the way of their recovery.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: When your emotions are bad, the body’s qi and blood get more chaotic, and things get worse; the worse things get, the worse the emotions — a vicious cycle. So remember: regulate your emotions, build confidence, then get out and walk, exercise — adjusting your mood is absolutely key. I see plenty of comments on Weibo that say: please, save me, my specialists have given up, I have a terminal disease, I’m done for. Anyone who writes in that tone has an emotional problem themselves — their spirit is scattered, their mind is wandering, they have stopped trusting their own body. In truth there is no such severe illness — unless you have a tumor. Most people have functional problems; nothing has reached the point of despair.

The real doorway to health: good mood + proper exercise

What else should you pay attention to? Exercise.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You must understand: all the formulas we’ve discussed are not the road to final health — they are only tools. What is the true road to health? Good emotions and proper exercise. Be sure to exercise appropriately, get out in the sun, walk in the sunlight.

To make clear how important movement is, Doctor Luo brought out an elder he deeply admires — Doctor Zhao Shaoqin, the febrile-disease master of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, who specialized in kidney disease and uremia.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Doctor Zhao’s way of treating patients was fascinating. First, he asked: can you eat vegetarian? Because kidney patients who take in too much protein put pressure on their kidneys — bad for the kidneys. If you can eat vegetarian, I’ll treat you. If you say no, I crave it, I can’t control my mouth — then sorry, please find someone else, find a better doctor. Second: can you exercise? If you can, I’ll treat you. If you can’t do that, don’t come to me, it won’t work. Doctor Zhao was very strict — his words were scripture to his patients. Once patients heard him say that, they made sure to do it.

Why did Doctor Zhao value movement so much? Because he had observed a counterintuitive phenomenon.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: He said kidney patients who stayed in bed all day — none of them recovered. On the contrary, those who exercised daily, who persisted in movement — they all recovered. Western medicine used to say kidney disease demands absolute bed rest. Doctor Zhao said no, definitely no — I’ve observed that patients who can move recover extremely well. He practiced martial arts himself, Ba Gua Zhang (Eight Trigram Palms) circle-walking, circling round and round. What was he doing? Balancing yin and yang — left and right represent yin and yang; both legs moving circulates qi and blood, driving circulation through the whole body, and that dissolves blood stasis.

Doctor Zhao required kidney patients to walk more than one hour a day — and he walked himself, going out very early each morning and covering great distances. Even at an advanced age he would go out to the suburbs, and his students couldn’t keep up with him.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: He said: if you can walk 100 meters at first, walk 100 meters today, 110 tomorrow, 120 the day after — keep at it, and you will walk farther and farther and get better and better. Many people think, my illness is severe, I’m done for, I need to rest — but that kind of “rest” is wrong. Resting is not lying down. Resting means resting through movement, resting through food therapy, resting through good mood. If you lie in bed every day, piled there like a heap of rotten meat, that’s not rest — that’s wasting yourself.

Medicine is not the key: Emperor Guangxu drank herbal medicine every day and died in his thirties

Many people feel that once you have medicine, the medicine is what matters. Doctor Luo says: remember — medicine is not the key.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Good mood, proper exercise, and a sound lifestyle — that is the doorway to health. What is medicine? It’s a force that helps you turn things around when something goes wrong. You can’t live your whole life on medicine. Look at Emperor Guangxu of the Qing dynasty: imperial physicians took his pulse daily, wrote prescriptions daily, and he drank herbal medicine every single day of his life. What happened? He died in his thirties — poor health. If you can keep a good mood and exercise every day, I believe your body will be in good shape even without medicine.

So persistent exercise is absolutely key — whether it’s standing meditation (zhan zhuang), tai chi, walking, or ball games — you must have some form of movement.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: And here come your other desires: exercise is tiring. Today the wind is too strong, I won’t walk. Tomorrow the sun is too strong, I won’t walk. The day after it’s overcast and ugly, I won’t walk. You find an excuse every day, and then it can never be sustained. What I’m talking about here is not simply how to use herbs — it’s a way of life. That is the truly crucial part.

Food therapy before formulas: huai shan yao paste, Zi Sheng Tang, and ya dan zi

Once the lifestyle is in place, add food therapy. Zhang Xichun himself placed great weight on food therapy.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: After curing a patient, Zhang Xichun often had huai shan yao (Huai Chinese yam) ground into powder, cooked into a paste, sweetened with a little sugar, and taken as a snack — he used it constantly. So we too should learn to nourish ourselves with food therapy. Moxibustion, gua sha (scraping) — all these methods can be learned. And as for taking formulas — everyone must be careful about that on their own.

How to be careful? Doctor Luo gave several very practical principles.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Although plenty of followers have told me “I used one of Zhang Xichun’s formulas and got better,” I also believe some people took them and saw no effect — they just didn’t leave a comment. So in practice these formulas can work well or poorly. I don’t advocate wellness enthusiasts treating themselves with formulas. The best course is to see a Chinese medicine practitioner and work under their guidance. TCM adjustment is a process of communication — discuss whatever problems come up with your doctor and adjust. If you do want to try something yourself, Zhang Xichun’s formulas include many very gentle ones — for example Zi Sheng Tang (Nourish Life Decoction) is very gentle, generally no side effects; if you’ve confirmed it truly matches your pattern, you may cautiously try it. But some are quite fierce — for example ya dan zi (Brucea javanica seeds). Those really are fierce. Zhang Xichun considered them safe, but that doesn’t mean they’re safe for us today — some herbs change, and some people’s constitutions change. Never, ever swallow those on your own.

Even with a gentle formula, go step by step.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Food therapy first, formulas second. When you use a formula, don’t brew a full pot and gulp down the whole bowl. Be cautious: drink a small cup first — say a third of a dose — feel how it goes, then a third more, slowly increasing. Or start with a foot soak; if you feel fine, brew the full medicine the next day. Step by step, a little at a time.

The ending: the Zhang Xichun series officially concludes — the next famous physician is up to you

Finally, Doctor Luo repeated the meaning of the entire series.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Everything I’ve shared about Zhang Xichun was not so you could write prescriptions — not “from now on I know how to prescribe.” No. What I taught is principles — the theory of Chinese medicine. Once you learn the principles and ponder them again and again, you will have a deeper understanding of your own health.

And with that, the Zhang Xichun series officially ends — it really has been a long time.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Next I will talk about a new physician. Dear friends, which doctor would you like? I’ve told stories about so many ancient physicians — which one do you follow most closely? Please leave a comment, and I’ll see who everyone likes best. After May Day, we’ll begin a new series of medical cases from a famous ancient physician. I believe you’ll gain new insights. Thank you all for your support. Today’s talk ends here — see you next time.

Who will it be? — Leave a comment and find out.

This article is compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s lecture series on Doctor Zhang Xichun (series finale and summary).