Japanese
Acupuncture Newsletter, Phoenix, Arizona
Volume 3, No. 2,
December 2012
Happy
Holidays!
Oriental Medicine
& On Human Conditions
Chapter Four
Lung: Sadness, Courage, and Dissolution No. 2
In
Asia, there is a proverb that if a person is drowned, check the anal sphincter
muscle. If it is loose and open,
he does not survive. If it is
closed and tight, he will. Ancient
Chinese named the anus as the Gate of Po (魄門): the gate of the corporeal soul
(substantive soul that remains with the corpse when we die, the Yin part of the
soul, as oppose to the Hun (魂), the
Yang soul that departs the body).
The Chinese character of the Po has
two parts. One is the right side
of the character, 鬼(gui). It means Devil or Ghost. It is a hieroglyph of a skull that
still have a few white hairs. The
left side of the character means white (白: bai). Together the character symbolizes the white skeletal remains
and signifies the appearance of the body, the skeletal system, and the
inherited personal characters.
Importance is that the Po
belongs to the Lung. Since the Po
represents the inherent personal character, when we face a life and death
situation, to live or to die really depends on our character, and the lung
function provides the power to choose:
thus the prana is equated with breathing.
The perineum area (between the anus and the sexual
organ) is one of the most sensitive area in our body. First thing we learn in any marshal art is to protect the
area (you can kill a man by hitting the area). Since the pelvic girdle is a sensitive area, it is protected
by strong muscles and ligaments.
Evolutionary, it makes sense to know that the anus to mouth connection
is the most ancient of our body system (did you know that the heart emerged
from the intestine?) Other parts
such as the eyes came much later.
The anal sphincter does not have antagonistic muscle (i.e., the hams and
the quads of the leg), and can be greatly controlled by the will. As many of you know that tantric and
kundalini yoga exercise is based on the contraction of the perineum
muscles. The amount of orgasmic
feeling, therefore, can be controlled by exercise. The prana moves upward along the spine to the front of the
body. It is exactly the same in
acupuncture energy movement.
The first chakra is called muladhara, and it is the area
connected with the limbic system of the brain, especially to the amygdala
(processes emotions). The limbic
system is primordial and highly interconnected with the pleasure center of the
brain. The amygdala relates to the pleasure but interestingly relates also to
fear. The connection brings back
to the Gate of Po. We know that we cannot control defecation and urination when
we are scared to death, and at the moment of fear, it is the lung function that
chooses life or death.
The Lung meridian starts from the stomach and moves down
the arm. It ends on the tip of the
thumb. As you know, our brain
allocates a large space for the motor cortex especially for hands and fingers
and they have highly concentrated sensory nerves. Hands are used for all kinds of healing and spiritual
modalities. The energy emanates
from hands and fingers. Hands are
the giver of energy and they are Yang.
Exact counter part of the hands are the feet. They are Yin and are the receivers of energy. The Earth energy goes up from the feet,
meet with the muladhara chakra.
Once the chakra energy is brought upward, the energy in the hands is
intensified. Hands become healing
tools. When the connection with
the hands and the feet is established, a whole body is in balance. It is therefore the essence of tai
chi. The dissolution of sadness (or any other emotion)
depends on the awareness of the balance. When the awareness comes in, we become more compassionate
rather than judgmental.
Namaste.
© 2012 Dr. Y.
Frank Aoi (NM State)/Japanese Acupuncture, LLC
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