As one of the series of National Planned University Textbooks for International Traditional Chinese Medicine Education organized by the Higher Education Press, A Guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine Culture is compiled to adapt to the development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in the 21st century and to meet the need of international TCM education.
     
TCM culture is a subject that studies the mutual relations between TCM and traditional Chinese culture (TCC). A Guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine Culture is a textbook that introduced the background, soil of theories, the mode of thinking, idea of value and aesthetic interest of TCM.
    
"The super stratum of phenomena is Tao (Rule) while the substrata the matters." All kinds of things in the world exhibit with phenomena to human beings. They will study and explore it. The substrate of phenomena is structures, matters and apparatus, while the super stratum of it is philosophy and aesthetics. That is to say: science is knowledge of studying the matter while the culture is of the spirit. As a subject taking the culture as its soul, TCM emphasizes the unification of the truth, goodness and beauty, stresses on recognition, valuation and aesthetic abilities. So without the rich background of TCC, it is difficult to enter the core of the TCM system.
      
Studying TCM culture is as a kind of edification of students' diathesis and training of culture. It will give the students a guide to optimize the clinical techniques, so it is the only way for grasping the core of TCM. Including 13 chapters, this textbook introduced the source of TCM culture, the relation between TCM and TCC, the spiritual core of TCM, the main elements of TCM culture, recognizing methods of TCM and so on, The latest version of Standardization of Traditional Chinese Medicine Terms and English Translation of Common Terms In Traditional Chinese Medicine issued by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine are taken as the standard for the TCM terms and phrases in this book. This book is also a breakthrough in the editing mode and formalistic content, and includes both vivid pictures and language with intuitionistic charts and tables.
      
This textbook absorbed many relevant knowledge, thoughts and ideas of TCC, such as philosophy, aesthetics, methodology, literature, military and ancient science and technology, etc. So the teachers are expected to be familiar with those backgrounds of relevant knowledge to explain their mutual relation, value of their application with TCM for students to grasping the core of traditional culture more and understand the essence of TCM.