TCM book recommendation for beginner/intermediate?

[Guest guest]

I would like to ask the board about some good TCM books to read.

The books I have read that I can remember off the top of my head are

Chinese Herbal Medicine by Daniel Reid, The Web That Has No Weaver

by Ted Kaptchuk, and another on by Henry C Lu, all of which have

been fantastic reads and taught me a lot about Chinese medicine. I

think it would help me to read a book that had some more practical

or clinical information, because it would help me learn the material

instead of trying to memorize theories that seem to tend to the

arbitrary side. Like for example when they say that wood (or the

liver) is mother to fire because it generates it. That makes

complete sense, but to me it would be more useful if I understood

how or why that was the case in a specific person or type of people,

or something like that. Like something for an example of this is

someone with a liver problem (usually heat I think) usually has some

sort of temper or short fuse. I understand that is not in all

cases, but it's a general idea that helps put the pieces together to

figure out how things really do interact with each other. A good

example of this for me is in math. I hardly ever memorized a

formula in math because I always learned how to derive them myself

so I wouldn't have to remember it, but I would always be able to get

it whenever I wanted. I focused on the process of how things were

done, and looked at the several ways I could get there. The other

side of this to me was physics. My teacher never showed me how

formulas were derived or why they were true, so it was just

memorizing formulas, and then plugging the appropriate variable in

each place. I never really had an understanding of how it worked or

why, but I passed the class fine because on every test he let us

write down the formula's on an index card. This really wouldn't

work as well in TCM because, not having an understanding of how

things really work (what I call learning) when you get to a trouble

that is not a " memorized formula " then I'd be lost and have no clue

what to do.

 

So I guess what would be good are some simple fairly straightforward

examples that are explained in detail according to TCM. A good

example of this I read somewhere is it was talking about yin and

yang. Overall water is yin and mountain is yang, generally

speaking. If a person's overall being was personified in a

portrait, and say the picture was a mountain-scape with a river

running in the background. Overall this would follow the pattern.

On the other hand if the portrait was a seascape with a mountain in

the distance, the water would be mostly yang in the picture compared

to the yin mountain in the background. A book that had many

examples like this in it would be very helpful for me. Has anyone

read or know of a book like this?

 

Thanks