I’m in the process of grading papers for a 6 wk., 36 hr. course on Chinese Medicine (CM). The students are a cross section of ages all training to be massage therapists. Every time I teach this course, I’m reminded of the drastic difference in Western and Eastern thinking. We cover the basics of CM: The main Channels/Meridians, Qi, Yin, Yang, Blood, the organs, Shen, 5 Elements/Phases, etc. They also have to learn a small handful of points on the body and their indications. In this sense, this class is just like their anatomy and physiology, just a different system of medicine. However, the most difficult lesson and perhaps the most important, is simply the difference in thinking. Long after they forget the exact location of Stomach 40 or Lung 5, they’ll (hopefully) remember that there’s a different way to make sense of the world and come to conclusions. In this paradigm, there are few, if any absolutes. Definitions are contingent upon interrelationships.
Traditionally in Western thinking, thing A–let’s say the desk on which your computer is probably sitting, is different than thing B–your computer on which you’re reading this blog. Within the paradigm used in CM, the characteristics of thing A, your desk, are less important than the way thing A interacts with thing B, your computer, and maybe thing C–you. In this sense, the RAM, processor speed, and brand of your computer are taken into account, but it is just as important, if not more important, to understand the way the computer sits on the desk and interacts with you. In fact, the very nature of thing A is somewhat contingent on the relationships it has with things B and C. There is a computerness to your desk, and there’s a deskness to your computer. Yin has its own set of characteristics one can list and memorize, but it is really only useful if taken into context with Yang. Your desk is Yin because it’s solid and your computer is Yang because it lights up. However, your desk could also be considered Yang because it’s up off the floor and holds your computer up. Your computer could also be considered Yin because it’s black, stationary, and accepts your input.
For the student accustomed to rigid definitions of what is and what isn’t, this is very difficult to grasp. In anatomy and physiology they learn about the stomach and the brain in two distinct chapters. The brain is not your stomach and your stomach is not your brain. You go to the podiatrist if you have foot problems and the neurologist if you have chronic migraines. In CM, your leg bone is connected to your …. hip bone, your hip bone’s connected to your… back bone… The Stomach is intimately connected to the Spleen, and the Spleen is intimately connected to mental clarity and focus. To treat migraine headaches, it’s sometimes useful to treat a point on the foot.
Interestingly, this paradigm of interrelatedness is slowly making headway into mainstream Western Biomedicine by means of recent advances in what people call Mind-Body Medicine, Functional Medicine, or Holistic Medicine. “Attention Deficit Disorder,” “ADD,” or what can easily be considered a mental thing, is often successfully managed with diet–a gut thing. Chronic physical pain (body) is often managed with meditation (mind). Menopause and hypothyroid conditions are no longer just seen as inadequacies in estrogen, progesterone, or thyroid hormone, they are seen as imbalances in complex interactions between estrogen, progesterone, thyroid hormone, TSH, iodine, cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine, testosterone, stress, diet, exercise, etc. The whole of our organs, hormones, and Meridians is greater than the sum of its parts.
Oscar Sierra, L.Ac.
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