Truthfully, this project has always been about having our community create a cumulative mass in the terms of a small monthly payment – which when taken alone doesn’t count towards much – (for example what does $15.00 buy us these days?), but when taken together by a group of dedicated people, means a body of revenue to fund not just small projects, but large projects. There are many many documents which we likely will never see translated in our life time, simply because they will take too long for one person to do. None of us can afford to not be paid while we are dedicated to translating a large document. The revenue from the Database, when over a certain number of subscribers (that just allows us to pay the basic day to day operations), is used to fund this kind of translation. Think of us as a “think tank” or an Institution based around Asian medical texts, except we are privately funded by people like you, in the way of subscriptions.
We began this project in 2006 and since then we have translated a number of small, but important documents. In some sense, we believe, that our community hasn’t fully grasped the idea of investing in the future of Chinese medicine. It is very very costly to be in our profession, and really all of our extra income really could go towards paying our student loans, but as some have recently noted, who we have do our translation of classical material matters. Translations of the core texts, and their often lengthy commentaries give us insight and deeper access to our medicine. Many of the repetitive conversations that happen on our community forums regarding the medicine have often been solved in the classics.
I am not saying the classics are perfect by any means, but the level of understanding that the authors, whom I have read in Chinese (from different dynasties) makes my own understanding of the medicine – pale in comparison. Like all rigorous learning – this material needs to be read through and studied. What works – we can extract, what doesn’t work- we can discard. But until all of us have access to the material in our own language, it is gong to leave a gap in the audience of those who have advanced understanding. Currently, in our profession, only access to advanced knowledge is through the route of oral presentation. The triangle that medicine is based on is research/ observation (clinical)/ and lineage sharing (in my eyes). When we have access to the majority of the medical cannon, and we can critically think the material therein, then we will open up a vast tool box that future generations of practitioners will forever be indebted to us for.
And that is the main reason why the Database exists, to fulfill what is lacking, and build the bridge one stone at a time.
