Human Life: It’s NOT Just Physical

By Steve | Published: September 16, 2009

Each person is an embodied spirit, who lives through interacting with the world. Those interactions are polar, as individuals take in various influences from the world and release byproducts of their life process back out to the world. Breathing is one such interaction; it provides the source of Being. Each individual’s Quest for food and drink motivate the other key physical interaction. [For more on the Chinese medical framework for understanding the vital transactions of life, see my essay "Managing the Internal Economy."]

In addition to these physical interactions, individuals internalize and digest their experiences in life. Classical Chinese medical theory suggests that these experiential interactions are even more fundamental than physical ones in the development of each individual’s eventual challenges with disease.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, Except When it Comes to Human Health.

Modern medical technologies are truly amazing! MRIs and CT scans generate accurate and detailed visual images of the inside of an individual patient’s body. What could be better for helping a medical practitioner diagnose a patient’s ailment and discern what treatment(s) are necessary? It’s SO obvious; it must be true. Mustn’t it?

During the past twenty years, medical researchers have done several research studies using MRIs or CT scans on the relationship between physical lesions around the spine and clinical back pain, including pains that “radiate” from the spine into the extremities. That research has uniformly shown there is AMAZINGLY poor correlation between those “obviously” related issues. That is:

  • A fairly large portion of people with apparently serious lesions (including disc bulges or herniations) had mild back pain or dysfunction.
  • Another fairly large portion of people with small lesions had severe pain, which was sometimes debilitating.
  • It’s also fairly common that people have physical lesions in one location, and pain in another. That might be on the other side, or even a different level of the spine.

What’s up with that? I don’t believe modern (western) medicine has an explanation, yet my work with classical Chinese medicine is not affected by such anomalies. Indeed, CCM theory provides a simple explanation, which involves the embodied spirit’s ability (and willingness) to adapt to various individual physical challenges. My job as a practitioner is to find ways to stimulate and facilitate that natural process. Surgeons change the physical “picture,” and they have an irresolvable problem when that physical picture doesn’t match the patient’s experience.

Please note: I’m NOT denying that physical “reality” has SOME impact on human health, I’m just saying it’s not the ENTIRE story. We can’t predict the nature of a patient’s experience, nor can we determine what therapies will prove necessary, from a physical picture alone.

I’ve used acupuncture and Chinese herbs to help LOTS of individuals avoid surgeries that their medical doctors had thought necessary. Many of my patients try Chinese medicine BEFORE submitting to various modern medical treatments, because the ancient therapies seek to stimulate the patient’s own healing process rather than controlling its expression of distress. It turns out that physical pictures are just that, and the embodied spirit has its own potential for healing. Perhaps medical scientists should research optimizing THAT, rather than demeaning it as placebo.

Share
Posted in Personal Health, The Philosopher's Stone | Tagged | Leave a comment

Is it a Fairy Tale?

By Steve | Published: September 8, 2009

The conceptual model of physical “reality” articulated by modern scientific medicine is powerful and compelling. It appeals to our naïve experience of living in, and learning to manipulate, a mechanistic physical world that submits to our control according to fixed “laws of nature.” The ideas of scientific medicine are deeply satisfying to many, especially relative to their fear of suffering and/or untimely demise. Yet, we KNOW from our experience that the universe is not entirely physical and mechanistic, especially the universe of human experience. [My essay on the Sengai Scroll discusses the limitations of physical models of "reality" relative to the clinical practice of Chinese medicine.]

Each individual is a complex transducer between physical and spiritual “realities.” Physical and spiritual factors influence each other in myriad ways. The study of that relationship lay at the core of the classic text Lingshu (The Spiritual Pivot); the title refers to the deepest link between an individuated spirit and its physical embodiment. Lingshu and Suwen (Simple Questions) together comprise the fundamental Chinese medical classic Neijing (Inner Classic). My practice of Chinese medicine and the story of healing discussed on this site are primarily based on Neijing, as I’ve learned the key principles from Jeffrey Yuen.

I find the story inspired by my practice of classical Chinese medicine compelling, even when it differs dramatically from the more widely held scientific story about the “physical realities” of life. Yet, I’m also clear that it’s just my STORY.

From my classical Chinese perspective, modern (western) medicine focuses on:

  • descriptions of the physical nature of disease
  • the search for the proximal and precipitating cause
  • dramatic rescues through (externally) controlling a “broken” body

In contrast, classical Chinese medicine focuses on:

  • descriptions of the individual’s experience of disease
  • the search for multiple contributing causes, both external and internal
  • finding ways to stimulate and facilitate the embodied spirit to realize its natural potential to heal

The CCM Story, based on the Neijing (Inner Classic), Consists of a Few Key Principles:

  • The apparent decline of aging is due to accumulations that block the free expression of an individual’s vitality.
  • Those accumulations primarily consist of external and internal pathogenic factors, which have been suspended and stored in the body:
    • External pathogenic factors arise from the individual’s failure to adapt and effectively respond to changes presented by the environment. Neijing refers to this as “perverse wind.”
    • Internal pathogenic factors consist of the individual’s failure to resolve emotional conflicts.
  • Unresolved pathogenic factors stagnate, and thereby impede the free flow of vital physiological function (qi) and blood.
  • When the embodied spirit is no longer willing or able to suspend unresolved pathogenic factors, they are overtly expressed in symptoms or signs of disease.
  • True healing comes from the inside, and is available to ANYONE (regardless of disease manifestation) who resolves previously suspended pathogenic factors. That resolution generally involves both transformation and release or expulsion of previously accumulated pathogenic factors.
  • Suppressing or controlling the embodied spirit’s expression of distress doesn’t facilitate healing; those efforts simply displace distress from one place to another.

Which story is true and which is a fairy tale, intended to keep one’s inner child from being frightened in the middle of the night? Who among us knows for sure? While we’re discerning the truth among these stories, I’ll keep sharing mine on this site — its different and hopeful, by asking individuals to take responsibility (physiologically) for their lives. I believe that a free exchange of ideas will help us find truth.

Share
Posted in Personal, Personal Health, The Philosopher's Stone | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

When is a “Cold” not Just a Cold?

By Steve | Published: September 6, 2009

Ms. C. is a thirty-seven year old woman, who called me about four months ago seeking relief from persistent pain and dysfunction of her right hand, which made her work difficult. She came for an appointment, and reported having received treatment for neck pain and nerve root impingement causing pain and dysfunction of the arm (radiculopathy). Her neck and arm symptoms had improved after three months of physical therapy and chiropractic treatments, yet her hand stiffness and pain remained. Ms. C. worked as an R.N., and said that she considered her hand symptoms residual from her neck ailment because they had started at the same time.

I examined Ms. C’s hand and neck, and inquired about other pains. I learned that she had knee and hip pain — especially on the left, which had grown rather severe during the past several months. I read her pulses and palpated some points. I looked up at her from where I sat at her feet, and told her that I didn’t think her current hand pain came from her recent history of neck pain. My diagnostic efforts led me to suspect arthritis of inflammatory cause, such as rheumatoid arthritis. Ms. C. finally allowed that her physician had done a special blood test (rheumatoid factor) that showed a mild positive. Was this a test?

The tests practitioners get from the Dao are much larger than any we may get from people!

What were her embodied spirit’s blocks that had allowed the accumulation of pathogenic factors, which had eventually emerged in this condition? Practitioners of classical Chinese medicine ask this question of the Dao as it works within the microcosm of an individual’s physiology, and probe the embodied spirit to stimulate transformation. After more examination, I discerned accumulation in the yangming zone channel divergence, and devised an acupuncture treatment to address that blockage.

Two weeks later Ms. C. returned for a follow-up session, and reported only mild “nuisance” pain in her right hand. Indeed, she noted that all of her joint pains were much improved. I questioned her more carefully, and learned that she’d had what she considered a “bad flu” a couple days after her first treatment. She noted, “It was strange because my joints didn’t hurt at all when I was sick.”

Strange, indeed. Ms. C. received a total of five treatments during a period of slightly more than two months. Each treatment was conceived to probe and stimulate her embodied spirit to address a slightly different aspect of her physiological blocks, and I suggested she make some changes in her relationship with food based on my evaluation. To her credit, Ms. C. recognized the exacerbating influence of certain foods after I pointed out what to look out for, and she made the necessary changes. By the time of her last treatment nearly two months ago, Ms. C. felt no pain.

We discussed her indicator symptoms, how they could help her maintain this degree of wellness, and she discontinued coming for acupuncture treatments. Easy as I’ve grown with the familiarity of such results, even I found the following synchronicity a little surprising:

The day after I started writing this posting, and completely out of the blue other than my  curiosity about how she was doing, Ms. C. called me to report on her good fortune. She reported being completely pain-free without taking any anti-inflammatory medicines or pain relievers. She even rejoiced in being able to run around playing soccer with her children. We briefly discussed her indicator symptoms, and she reported have no difficulty maintaining the lifestyle (dietary) changes she had made while she was receiving treatments.

Share
Posted in Stories of Healing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Passive Health Care Breeds Dependence

By Steve | Published: September 3, 2009

Passive care is ANY form of health care where the patient is a passive consumer of a good or service. That might be a pharmaceutical medicine, surgery, joint or other physical manipulation, dietary supplement, or any other consumption-based attempt to improve your health. Let me be very clear: I don’t consider this a problem with any particular therapy, but a failure in how many use the technologies that humankind has developed.

Modern clinical theory teaches acupuncturists to practice according to the passive care model. It match the commonly held standards of modern medicine, and treat their patients to manage the intensity of symptoms. While this allows patients to maintain their diseases without having to expose themselves to the potentially toxic “side-effects” of pharmaceuticals, it’s not the highest use of acupuncture. That’s why many acupuncturists seek other training — to increase the long-term value of their work.

Within the current health care arena, many patients comply with the passive care agenda, and grow dependent on their therapies. However, when you buy into that:

You’re not a Patient, You’re an Annuity!

While passive care (regardless of the specific modality) is a great economic model for the people and especially the corporations that provide it, it has much less value for patients. Passive health care reinforces the idea that the patient’s body is “broken” and needs to be fixed. Yet, the human body is made to heal! That is its NATURAL tendency. When the embodied spirit fails to restore health, we can conclude that SOMETHING is blocking its natural and intrinsic movement.

When used incisively, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine stimulate the embodied spirit to release its blocks to facilitate healing. When an individual’s entire being is focused on the healing process, when both the personality’s conscious choices and the embodied spirit’s automatic function are aligned, the possibilities are limitless. We’ve all heard of people that have healed themselves of cancer; those aren’t random events, but the natural result of the embodied spirit unblocking its natural potential.

Take the initiative; find ways to heal your life. Don’t just be a passive consumer of health care!

Share
Posted in Health Care Policy, Personal Health | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Indicator Symptoms: A Patient’s Best Friend

By Steve | Published: September 3, 2009

Don’t Shoot the Messenger

Symptoms are the embodied spirit’s gesture to communicate its distress. They are intended to get the individual to focus his or her conscious awareness toward discerning the nature and causes of that distress. Though symptoms seem to be afflictions (to the personality), they are NOT themselves the problem. They are only the “finger pointing at the moon.”

In this case, the “moon” is the blockage (to the natural and intrinsic flow of physiological function) that is causing the distress in the first place. Sometimes this is an acute blockage (as from an injury), but much more frequently these blockages accumulate over time — in the “closets” of one’s life. The incipient accumulation of unresolved pathogenic factors leads to the wide array of progressive and degenerative diseases that generally emerge as people age.

By the time many people seek help, their embodied spirits are typically screaming so loudly with unbearable symptoms that individuals simply feel the need to control their discomfort. However, telling the embodied spirit to “SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP” doesn’t change the underlying blockage in any way!

Instead of directly quieting the messenger, classical Chinese medicine teaches us to stimulate the embodied spirit to release its attachment to (and entanglement with) the pathogenic factors that have been causing distress. As the natural and intrinsic flow of vital process (which we call “qi” in Chinese medicine) improves, the intensity of symptoms automatically decreases. Treatments that suppress symptoms serve the personality, and ones that stimulate or facilitate the (underlying) flow of vital physiological process serve the embodied spirit!

What are Indicator Symptoms?

The symptoms that come from chronic, progressive, or degenerative diseases are rooted in the (previous) accumulation of unresolved pathogenic factors. While the embodied spirit is willing and able to simply suspend those unresolved stagnations in a “closet,” the individual accumulates it in “dormancy.” In psychological terms, this process is called either suppression or repression, depending on the specifics of the individual’s avoidance strategy.

When the embodied spirit is no long willing or able to suspend the individual’s unresolved pathogenic process, it emerges in overt expression. The symptoms that people experience in such cases signal the blockages that had long been accumulating, but had also been held “dormant” to allow the person to “go on” with life. When the symptoms emerge, the embodied spirit is announcing that the person must tend to the vital issues supporting the blockages causing those symptoms.

Frequently such symptoms (and even clinical signs like hypertension, which are not usually felt by patients) respond to lifestyle choices. When the individual makes choices that support his or her vital process to flow more smoothly, the symptoms and signs diminish; when those choices challenge flow the symptoms increase. Thus, the person’s symptoms become “teachers” concerning the wisdom of various lifestyle choices. Rather than suppressing (and even demonizing) symptoms, patients can use them to learn how to grow healthier.

I first wrote about using indicator symptoms in treating people with chronic degenerative diseases more than three years ago.

Share
Posted in Personal Health, The Philosopher's Stone | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Are they Divergent Channels or Channel Divergences?

By Steve | Published: September 1, 2009

I say potāto and you say potäto… Does any of it really matter?

I talked with Andy Ellis a few days ago, who brought to me the question posed in the title of this posting. He mentioned that according to Chinese syntax and usage, the translated name should be “channel divergences,” rather than the commonly used “divergent channels.” Initially, I didn’t see the significance of that distinction, but within a few days decided to change the translation I use to reflect more closely the original Chinese syntax.

Does this change of syntax have any significance on how we understand and use these terms? I think it does, and understanding how leads into considering of the roles of the “primary” and “secondary” vessels of acupuncture. The primary channels regulate the moment-to-moment physiological process of the embodied spirit, and the “secondary” vessels (as they are sometimes called) work in various ways that support the primary channels in doing that. They are NOT LESS IMPORTANT than the “primary channels,” but “secondary” because they support the primary channels in maintaining life.

The channels distinctions and divergences facilitate the primary channels in two important and related ways:

As “distinctions,” they contain the individual’s learned interpretations and automatic patterns of activation and reaction that allow individuals to engage an increasing number and complexity of interactions. They project those interpretations and “pre-dispositions” onto all experience, which facilitates the person’s movement as an individual through life. The channel distinctions (along with the sanjiao mechanism) individuate the person’s implementations of the universal movements of the primary channels. They also make what Zen Buddhist practitioners call “beginner’s mind” so difficult to achieve!

As “divergences,” they absorb unresolved pathogenic factors, and provide the embodied spirit a place to suspend them in “dormancy.” This process allows individuals to “go on” to engage new experiences and opportunities in life, even when previous experiences have not been processed to resolution. However, these unresolved pathogenic factors accumulate and may fester; eventually, they exceed the embodied spirit’s capacity to contain them and they emerge as progressive or degenerative disease.

Indeed. some consider these “secondary” vessels MORE IMPORTANT than the primary channels . At the beginning of Book II of his Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (Jiayijing), Huang Fumi (215-82) asserted:

The twelve channels are responsible for life in humans and the development of illness. They concern the origins and treatment of a person’s illness. They must be studied by the beginner and yet provide the skilled (practitioner) with limitations (they cannot exceed). The mediocre (practitioner) finds them easy, while the superior one finds them difficult.
The Yellow Emperor asked: What are the separations (bie — divergences and distinctions) and anastomoses, the exits and entrances (of the channels)?
Qi Bo responded: These (topics) are neglected by the mediocre, while the superior practitioner is familiar with them. Please allow me to inform you about them: [He then delineates the Six Confluences of the channel divergences and distinctions (jingbie)!]

Translation by Charles Chase and Yang Shouzhong (pg. 95-6)

The channels distinctions and divergences are centrally important in how they serve and support the primary channels. Their name in Chinese (jingbie) indicates that relationship; perhaps we should use a translation into English that conveys that meaning.

Share
Posted in Channel Divergences and Distinctions | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Philosopher’s Stone Hasn’t Disappeared…

By Steve | Published: August 28, 2009

It has simply changed venue. Steven wrote a regular column called “The Philosopher’s Stone” for Acupuncture Today from April, 2006 through April 2009. That opportunity allowed me to work on the challenging process of articulating the nature of classical Chinese medicine, by sharing my thoughts regularly with the profession. Those short essays include many concepts from classical and historical Chinese medicine that didn’t fit into the modern clinical doctrine. Like its mythological namesake, that series of essays was intended to transform the narrow “physical” perspective of modern TCM into a richer and more profound version of Chinese medicine inspired by classical and historical wisdom.

While my relationship with AT eventually ended over editorial differences, the work to articulate important classical and historical approaches to Chinese medicine continues to grow. During the past two years, I’ve taught seminars on Waike (External Medicine) and Digestion through the Professional Education Program of Golden Flower Chinese Herbs. I’ll be teaching a weekend seminar on the channel divergences and distinctions (commonly called the “divergent channels”) in Albuquerque, NM on Sept. 12 & 13.

Thank you for joining me on this new site, and enjoy uncovering the wonders of classical and historical Chinese medicine.

Share
Posted in The Philosopher's Stone | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Hello world!

By Steve | Published: July 24, 2009

Let’s Hope Three is Indeed a Charm!

Late in 1995, I was one of the early acupuncturists intrigued by the endless potential of the Web for communicating to a broad audience. Indeed, since that time there has been a stupendous growth in the internet. Yet, my attempts to use it have come to naught. During those years, I’ve written several long (and VERY PONDEROUS) essays, which helped me understand the subtle nature of Chinese medicine. For now, I’m not posting those, because they need A LOT of work, which I plan to engage in conjunction with teaching a series of seminars on the five systems of channels and vessel. More recently, I shifted my focus to shorter and more accessible essays, and wrote a regular column for Acupuncture Today. Writing those essays has helped me find my voice for discussing the wondrous nature of classical Chinese medicine, and I believe this site will be my next step.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see! My previous two attempts were too early:

The first website was short-lived

I was so completely absorbed in my early work to understand and learn to use Jeffrey Yuen’s inspiring teachings of classical Chinese medicine that I couldn’t be bothered to focus on the technology for developing a site. It quickly proved to be a challenging and expensive process, and I wasn’t clear on my message beyond projecting a clarion call that we needed to study the philosophical core of clinical Chinese medicine. So, I let go of my first attempt to use the Web relatively easily, and focused entirely on the internal work of transcending the clinical doctrine of modern TCM to develop a working knowledge of classical (Neijing style) and historical ideas and methods of Chinese medicine.

My second attempt with a website was more tragic

By the middle of 2003, I had worked nearly ten years learning to practice classical Chinese medicine through the teachings of Jeffrey Yuen. I had written some long essays on topics I considered important, and wanted to engage a conversation about the nature and practice of Chinese medicine. I got a URL that I liked, started with blog software, and posted those large essays. Yet, I was not really ready to blog. I had not developed a voice for articulating how I thought about Chinese medicine, and found sitting down to blog very difficult. I switched servers (and services) a couple times, and settled with an acquaintance who believed in my work and allowed me to use some open resource content management software he already had on his server.

My subsequent history with that site is FAR too convoluted to recount here. Suffice it to say that it included to hacked content management software, an FBI order to immediately shut down the site, and my inability to contact its host. It took me two years to find out exactly what had happened, and in the meantime I allowed the registration to lapse. I now realize that was extremely STUPID on my part, yet at the time I had no site and didn’t know why not. I couldn’t even reach the person that had previously helped me, and didn’t know how to redirect my URL to another server, so I could make another try. I had been writing my regular column for Acupuncture Today for two years, and thought they were supporting me in sharing my ideas about Chinese medicine.

The ancient Chinese clearly told us — all things change! The staff at AT was not terribly helpful in supporting my efforts, and my association with that publication eventually ended in April of 2009 over an editing disagreement. A few months ago, I was left without a venue for sharing my ideas and building support for my nascent seminar teaching. I realized that I needed to work on my own site again. I liked the old URL (which I’d allowed to lapse), and tried to get it back. That was when I learned that nearly ALL of the money we spend to register URLs is straight profit, and that at least one of the businesses that registers them and helps maintain the databases that directs page calls to the appropriate server has a practice of maintaining URLs that have expired and turning them into smarmy commerce sites. So, in short, if you are interested in my work, DON’T VISIT DAOISTMEDICINE.COM

Anyway, thanks for visiting me here. CCM is for healing! It opens up the potential of the embodied spirit and stimulates it to realize its potential, rather than condemning it to being artificially controlled. Yet, it also depends on one’s willingness to engage the process and allow life to change. Enjoy having your worldview shaken up, and expended to accommodate the mysteries of classical (Neijing style) Chinese medicine. Learning CCM is a wondrous process; it is filled with benefits for both practitioners and their patients.

Share
Posted in Personal | Tagged | 1 Comment

  • About Steven

    Steven Alpern, L.Ac., practices acupuncture and Chinese medicine as applied clinical philosophy. He is also a teacher, author and speaker. His efforts to discern the nature of individual health draw upon the classics of Chinese medicine and several historical traditions and specialties. Learn more...

  • Subscribe by Email