J.D. van Buren was born in November 1921 in Java to Dutch parents and lived in Jakarta for a few years before being sent to boarding school to the Netherlands. During his childhood, he lived and moved several times between the Netherlands, and England before moving to India aged 14, where he attended High School.
J.D. van Buren’s parents were Theosophists, and they lived near the Theosophical Society’s headquarters near Madras. From a young age, J.D. van Buren was immersed in Eastern Philosophy and was taught its practical application like yoga.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, J.D. van Buren was called to join the Dutch Forces in Java. After the Japanese Invasion in 1941, only a few of his battalion survived and they were held as prisoners of war for almost 4 years.
During this time, many fell ill with dysentery and died. J.D. van Buren got cured and survived the illness with the help of natural medicine made up from local plants. Not only did he learn a lot about the healing power of herbs and plants during his captivity, but also about the immense innate healing power of the body.
After his release, J.D. van Buren returned to England, where he first studied and worked in nursing and later on continued to study naturopathy, osteopathy and homeopathy.
After receiving and reading “Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine” he suddenly realised what had been missing so far: Medicine that was based on philosophy. Acupuncture and its philosophy brought everything he had learned together into one, giving him tools to understand human nature and illness.
This was the beginning of his life-long passion and dedication to study and practice Acupuncture. For many years, he learned only by carefully observing patients in his osteopathic clinic, before starting a more formal training with his first teacher Jacques Lavier in 1966, followed by studies in Taiwan under Wu Wei Ping in 1968, where he also received his doctorate.
It was in 1971 that he was asked to teach a group of students in England and soon after, another group in the Netherlands followed. This led to the establishment of ICOM, the International College of Oriental Medicine, and teaching engagements in several Scandinavian countries and countries as far as Australia. J.D. van Buren was one of the leading figures in his time to advance and spread the education and practice of Acupuncture and its philosophy.
In 1974, J.D. van Buren visited the Oriental Medicine Faculty of Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea to further his education. He received the book “System of A New Philosophy by Dualistic Monism” by Chang Bin Lee, director of the medical school, which introduced him to the traditional teachings of Stems and Branches.
Again, it was the reception of a book that inspired him, and he made it his life-long mission to make this very theoretical philosophical material applicable in Acupuncture practice. His core believes were that Acupuncture theory and practice must be based on and linked in with philosophy and that we all carry Heaven within us, so we have a responsibility to take care of the quality of Heaven through our own conduct and development.
Acupuncture, when practiced in this spirit, becomes more than a method of treating illness. It transforms into a profound pathway for aligning Heaven Earth Human, aligning spirit, mind and body with the natural order of Heaven and Earth. In this way, it supports the healing of physical and emotional imbalances and nurtures the unfolding of human potential. It guides the cultivation of the self in harmony with the universal principles that sustain life.