Tradition and innovation in Chinese medicine
As I was working on one of my upcoming reviews, MORE books came to review - one of these being the masterful volume on Pulse Diagnosis by Dr. Leon Hammer
In Dr. Hammer’s book, he discusses the Mai Jing
Last night I was in a meeting of a group I am privileged to be part of called the Presidential Ambassador Leadership Society or PALS. It is currently based at NCNM but has a larger vision of being replicated at other natural medicine schools. The purpose of PALS is manyfold, but last night it was most definitely focused on developing our own capacities in various areas of personal development including leadership, vision and most importantly - openness to new ideas. While listening to the talk, I wondered about Chinese medicine and the tension that seems to be there between the need to adhere to tradition and the inevitable human urge to innovate. My school and particularly certain professors in the school tend to privilege tradition over innovation, though several professors are extremely innovative and I consider them to be on the bleeding edge of Chinese medicine development. So this tension, so present at the AAAOM conference, so present in academic journals, so present in online interactions between practitioners is fully displayed in the hallowed halls of NCNM as well.
I am not, by nature, a conservative person. I thrive in an environment of near constant change, particularly internal change. I have always been the first in my peer group and my family to try new things, to reach towards new vistas and to adapt to new technology. In my undergraduate studies in both biology and philosophy and later in my graduate studies in ethics, I sought out new theories and methodologies and looked to the future as the answer to many of our most perplexing questions in the present. But my study of Chinese medicine has changed me a little. In some ways, I see moving back towards the Classics and the Classical way of perceiving the world as the most significant advance we can make today. I find myself EXCEEDINGLY reluctant to adopt new systems of diagnosis and treatment, even if they are purported to be clinically viable.
But these last few weeks have found me discovering a middle ground between the futurism and love of innovation of my past and the canonical conservatism of recent years. For every branch and leaf you see on a tree there is a long root and many rootlets to support it. The tree doesn’t ignore its roots, and there is no favoring of upward growth over deep nourishment from the Earth for a healthy specimen. My roots lie in the Classical texts and in the methods of reasoning and understanding that I can extract from them. But my leaves and branches rise to the sun. I think this is a healthy approach. But I would like to talk more about what it means.
What kind of balance are you striking between adherence to tradition and respect for innovation? Where do your tensions lie?
Eric
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Tags: balance, changing-the-world, chinese-medicine, Classical Texts (general), Personal Development, philosophy, professional-development, TheoryRelated posts
10 Things you can do to strengthen Chinese medicine as a profession
As a Chinese medicine student, my primary focus is learning the medicine. I spend most of my time reading the Classics, memorizing herbs and points, practicing my clinical skills and taking care of my self-cultivation. However, I also believe that I would be silly not to do what I can now to make sure that the profession I am entering remains viable. By viable I mean that the scope of practice remains sufficient for me to do what I am learning to do, that there are no government intrusions on my ability to obtain and use the tools of my trade and that it is able to generate for me an income that will support me and my family. These are all complex issues, depending on a variety of factors. However, I do believe that I am capable of supporting the continued viability of the profession as well as increasing its standing in the eyes of the public so as to increase the potential for growth and development of Chinese medicine as a business.
Here are ten things I have done, as a patient and as a student, to strengthen Chinese medicine as a practice and profession - and they are all things you can probably do as well. If you have other ideas - share them with all of us in the comments.
For everyone
1. Educate yourself about the prevailing issues in natural medicine in general and Chinese medicine in particular.
As the field of natural medicine grows, the issues that arise around it will grow. Research reports, news about use of the medicine, changing governmental policies and a variety of pop culture references are easily available and will all add to your knowledge of how health care is changing. I use Google Reader to keep up with most of this information, adding RSS feeds of my favorite blogs, frequently updated websites, and Google News feeds (you can follow the link and then click on RSS on the left side to add it to your Reader). I read this information daily. Sometimes I get multiple notifications of the same news story, or hear several different angles about one issue - but this all adds to the richness of my understanding. I also keep up with the latest journals in the field, and do literature searches using web tools like PubMed to find out about the latest research. You can acquire the information that is of interest to you… just remember that knowledge is power!
2. When an issue needs attention - write to your elected officials and other people in power who may be of assistance, encourage friends and family to do the same.
Sometimes your research is going to uncover an issue that needs attention. Perhaps your state legislature is about to enact laws that infringe on Chinese medicine practitioner’s ability to practice their medicine. Perhaps the FDA is removing another Chinese herb with little or no reason for doing so. Perhaps there is an Internet campaign to help obtain loan forgiveness for Chinese medicine school graduates through a federal program. Regardless of the issue or platform, you can take simple actions that will tell the appropriate people that you support natural alternatives to standard Western medicine. Email, phone and send “snail mail” letters to your elected officials, attend relevant rallies, and make sure to support candidates that support natural medicine. You can multiply your force by informing family and friends through conversation, email or even your own blog or website. Read more
Tags: aaaom, Acupuncture, Blogging, changing-the-world, chinese-herb, chinese-herbs, chinese-medicine, erics-habits, Learning, Personal Development, professional-development, revolutionRelated posts
7 Ways Chinese medicine is changing the world (for the better)
I’m on vacation - soaking in the five elements on the Oregon coast. Here’s something quick to tide my loyal readers over. No pun intended.
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I’ll admit it, I’m concerned about the state of our planet and our people. I’m not a fatalist, I’m not a Doomsday prophecist. I don’t want to recommend that everyone move out into the woods and start tanning hides. I don’t think buying a shirt at Nordstrom rack is the pinnacle of evil. But, I do worry about global warming. I do wonder what kind of natural environment my daughter will be experiencing when she’s my age. I do think commercialization of our society has gone too far. When I decided to get involved in Chinese medicine I did so because I believed and still believe that it is a vital piece of the solution for many of the problems facing our world today. Here’s 7 reasons why I believe this and why you should, too.
1. Low-tech medicine reduces the impact on the planet. Chinese medicine requires few machines in most of its forms. It uses only simple medicines gleaned from the bounty of the Earth, stainless steel needles and the body of the practitioner. No elaborate high-tech production facilities dumping chemical laden sludge into the rivers and streams. No radioactive materials used in diagnostics. This is important given the rapidly deteriorating nature of our planet’s vital life-support systems. To be sure, there are also environmental challenges in the medicine - mostly related to the harvesting and processing of sensitive plants and animals. Further, the increasing popularity of our medicine has created a “race to the bottom” when it comes to the production of all herbs. This is beginning to be addressed and all practitioners must do everything in their power to put pressure on producers to create an ethical commercial environment.
2. Heals the whole person. Because CM theory regards the person as an integrated whole it inevitably treats the whole. So even though you may be coming in with a complaint of stomach pain, your doctor is likely to be treating a diverse range of imbalances with the aim of relieving your acute symptoms but also preventing their eventual return. If you maintain a relationship with your practitioner, you will inevitably uncover symptoms that you had forgotten about or simply learned to live with - these will be compassionately revealed and dealt with. Eventually, you will emerge as a healthy being on all levels - body, mind and spirit. A whole person interacts with the world in an integral way - and we need integral beings interacting with one another authentically if we hope to continue our evolution as a species.
3. Not involved in a race for progress. Classical Chinese medicine is rooted in ancient soil. It grows and thrives in this soil. To a large extent, progress in our medicine only means delving as far back as we can - absorbing all the wisdom from those amazing human beings who, for whatever reason, had a unique and incredibly accurate understanding of people and their ailments. We do learn from what is going on today, and various practitioners have learned to integrate the understandings of modern medical traditions into the body of the medicine. But there is no obsession with the Next Big Thing. There is no delving too quickly and with too little information into areas of understanding that have potentially disastrous consequences. I count this as a good thing, I believe you can see why.
4. Lends itself well to service for disadvantaged people. The gap between rich and poor is as large now as it has ever been. In the United States, many people live without insurance. The working poor have no recourse either from government programs that won’t help them because they are working or from the world of commerce that won’t help them because they are not affluent enough. People all over the Earth suffer in numbers that cry out in urgent need of assistance. Because Chinese medicine is highly portable and doesn’t require inordinate amounts of time for basic treatment - programs like Acupuncturists Without Borders and Working Class Acupuncture find fertile ground from which to grow. My school, National College of Natural Medicine runs clinics for disadvantaged people and many other schools do the same. I believe this is a field that will only grow as time goes on.
5. As an integral part of the healing process - patient as active participant. Many people have complained that contemporary Western medicine leaves them feeling disenfranchised in their own healing process. People who do not feel in control of their bodies and their fates are inevitably going to act like victims. People who act like victims are unlikely to be working for change, even if they believe it is important for things to change. Chinese medicine creates a space in which people can get to know their bodies and their bodies’ reactions to the environment. A good CM practitioner will encourage the person to be an active participant in their own healing process, extending the therapy at home and simply becoming more aware of their whole self.
6. The philosophical underpinnings of the medicine are what the world needs today. If I had to boil Chinese medical philosophy down to one word it would be “respect.” Respect for your body and mind, respect for balance, respect for nature, respect for other people. As a student, as I delve deeper into the Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist roots of my medicine my feeling of deep gratitude for others and the Universe at large grows exponentially. I believe I pass this on to others as I teach them about the medicine. Given what I said in #5 about patients being, essentially, students as they walk their healing path - each patient is going to learn something about the deep philosophical roots of the medicine they are using. So, practitioners and patients will both be impacted and hopefully deeply affected by the tradition of respect and balance that lies behind everything we do. Hopefully this will have a fractal effect throughout the world.
7. Increased international awareness an important by-product of its dissemination into the West. Particularly in the United States, awareness of other people is not a strong point of the culture. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the terrible studies where US citizens, young and old, couldn’t even say where some of the largest countries in the world are located. This isolationism and lack of interest in places outside of the US is having a range of negative effects on our culture. It’s hard to have compassion for people you don’t even know exist. When a person has a positive treatment from a CM doctor, they tend to have an interest in the philosophy behind the medicine. Sometimes this leads to a broader interest in Chinese culture in general. I know it did for me. I think just this simple process can have a profound impact on people - opening their eyes to the diversity of cultures on our planet. Surely a good thing.
Eric
Tags: Acupuncture, changing-the-world, lists, philosophy, revolution, TheoryRelated posts
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