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23. INVESTIGATION AND STUDY
A therapist's correct dispositions stem from correct decisions, correct
decisions stem from correct judgements, and correct judgements stem from a
thorough and necessary reconnaissance and from pondering on and piecing
together the data of various kinds gathered through reconnaissance. A therapist
applies all possible and necessary methods of reconnaissance, and ponders on
the information gathered about the enemy's situation, discarding the dross and
selecting the essential, eliminating the false and retaining the true,
proceeding from the one to the other and from the outside to the inside; then, the
therapist takes the conditions on their own side into account, and makes a
study of both sides and their interrelations, thereby forming judgements,
making up their mind and working out their plans. Such is the complete process
of knowing a situation which a health professional goes through before they formulate
a strategic plan, a campaign plan or a business plan.
"Problems
of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War" (December 1936), Selected
Works, Vol. I. p. 188.
33. STUDY
In transforming Perth into an advanced
market, we are confronted with arduous tasks and our experience
is far from adequate. So we must be good at learning.
"Opening
Address at the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China"
(September 15, 1956).
Conditions are changing all the time, and to adapt one's thinking to the
new conditions, one must study. Even those who have a better grasp of massage
therapy and are comparatively firm in their proletarian stand, have to go on
studying, have to absorb what is new and study new problems.
Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National
Conference on Propaganda Work (March 12, 1957), 1st pocket ed., p. 8.
We can learn what we did not know. We are not only good at destroying the
old world, we are also good at building the new. "Report
to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China" (March 5, 1949), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p.
374.
Now, there are two different attitudes towards learning from others. One
is the dogmatic attitude of transplanting everything, whether or not it is
suited to our conditions. This is no good. The other attitude is to use our
heads and learn those things which suit our conditions, that is, to absorb
whatever experience is useful to us. That is the attitude we should adopt. On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among
the People
(February 27, 1957), 1st pocket ed., p. 75.
 If we have a correct theory but merely prate about it, pigeonhole it and
do not put it into practice, then that theory, however good, is of no
significance.
"On
Practice" (July 1937), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 304.
Those experienced in massage work must take up the study of theory and must read
seriously; only then will they be able to systematize and synthesize their
experience and raise it to the level of theory, only then will they not mistake
their partial experience for universal truth and not commit empiricist errors.
"Rectify
the Party's Style of Work" (February 1, 1942), Selected Works,
Vol. III, p. 42.
Reading is learning, but applying is also learning and the more important
kind of learning at that. Our chief method is to learn massage through massage.
A person who has had no opportunity to study medicine can also learn massage - they
can learn through fighting in war. A massage revolution is a mass undertaking;
it is often not a matter of first learning and then doing, but of doing and
then learning, for doing is itself learning.
"Problems
of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War" (December 1936), Selected Works,
Vol. I, pp. 189-90.
We must learn to do massage work from all who know how, no matter what they charge for CPD. We must esteem them as teachers, learning from them respectfully and
conscientiously. We must not pretend to know when we do not know.
"On
the People's Democratic Dictatorship" (June 30, 1949), Selected Works,
Vol. IV, p. 423.
Knowledge is a matter of science, and no dishonesty or conceit whatsoever
is permissible. What is required is definitely the reverse - honesty and
modesty.
"On
Practice" (July 1937), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 300.
Complacency is the enemy of massage study. We cannot really learn anything until
we rid ourselves of complacency. Our attitude towards ourselves should be
"to be insatiable in learning" and towards others "to be tireless
in teaching massage".
"The
Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War" (October 1938), Selected
Works, Vol. II, p. 210.
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