On Depression & Anxiety/Japan Acupuncture （日本鍼灸）

On Depression & Anxiety

When Prozac is the most prescribed drug in this country, there is definitely something wrong with this country!  One thing I was surprised after opening up my acupuncture clinic was that the number of clients coming in for depression and anxiety.  Most amazingly, there is no gender difference, and also, younger people are affected by them.  I believe there is no other country like ours today.

Why is this the trend?  I blame everything on American diet and drug culture.  Fast and frozen food industries and pharmaceutical companies are basically destroying our foundation of health.  They offer chemicals and  preservatives very unnatural to our body and drugs that have many side effects so that they are no longer cure.   For example, I do not call cheese made in this country cheese anymore.  It is basically an “imitation” with lots of chemical preservatives (not to mention its salt content).  Try this for yourself:  buy a Big Mac and place it in a car’s trunk for months and forget about it.  Then open the trunk to see if it has been decomposed or not*1.  Well, it does not decompose.  Do you really want this kind of foods?

What We Need To Do:

1)            Stop giving yourself a false excuse saying, “I don’t have time.”  Yes, you do.  It is a matter of how much you honor yourself.  If your health or issues with depression and anxiety are your priority, you will do something better.  Do not eat fast and junk foods or anything unhealthy.

2)            Do not excessively intake inflammatory and acidic foods (hopefully none), such as:  cheeses, white sugar, white flour, red meats, coffee, sodas, alcohol, etc.  Study online what foods are acidic and alkalizing.  On drugs, remember this:  all drugs have side effects, therefore they are not cure.

3)            Discipline yourself to do at least minimum exercises, such as daily 30 min walking, yoga, stretching, etc.  Get out of your room and breathe fresh air (it is totally free).

4)            If you are deeply into depression, you need to tell yourself that you need help.  Call someone and start talking:  asking for help is a beginning of friendship – do not hesitate.  If you cannot, then do the #5).

5)            Know what depression and anxiety are.  What are they to you if someone asks “depression is equal to what”?  Can you answer?  Become aware what they are and do not pay attention to depression/anxiety itself.  Not knowing what they are is ignorance.  You will forever in a depressive state, and that’s where suffering is (being ignorant).  For example, my definition of depression is:  creating a false statement and projecting it into the future.  Everyone has a different definition.  You must find it for yourself.  Know what is in your mind only and what is a true reality.  Depression and anxiety are 100% creations of the mind and nothing to do with reality that you are experiencing.  However, the sensation and symptoms you feel are real:  queasiness in the stomach, diarrhea or constipation, fatigue, heaviness, pain, etc.

6)            Seek out help.  Do not hesitate.  Acupuncture is great medium but there are others. 

7)            Be more spiritual.  Increase your awareness, and for the first time, find out who you truly are and more importantly what you are.  Good luck.

Namaste.

*1:  Did you know that Crest toothpaste would melt asphalt?  Try cleaning your drive way with the paste and a brush and see for yourself. 

Japan Acupuncture （日本鍼灸）

Many of my clients know that I often talk about spirituality. This is because the mind often leads us to unbalance of our body. Mind and body are not enough. There has to be spirituality to sustain the balance of the former two. As St John Perse, a French poet who won the Nobel Prize, said that in our modern time that the space between the finite and the infinity was getting far apart. Modern people are less capable today to be creative within our world of finite. We talk about conquering nature, for example, with drugs and surgeries as if they are cures.  This is the work of the mind. As long as we are limited in our mind, we will suffer forever mentally and physically. Next time you see a stone, don't break it to build a skyscraper but leave it as is and imagine upon the stone what it could be. Yes, it is the realm of poetry that leads us to the infinite possibilities and not limited in anything. Everything is possible, even getting rid of cancer, if we can imagine with the total freedom without constricts. As you know that I don't belong to any religion or church, but I can tell you that the realization of a poem is a religion, and for me it is religiously spiritual. 

Namaste.

On Transcendence

We often misunderstand the difference between transformation and transcendence.  We think transcendence is something that transforms, for example, the movie, Transcendence (incidentally, it is made by the same director, Christopher Nolan, who made Interstellar:  he was off the mark on Transcendence, and he nailed it on Interstellar).  In the movie, Johnny Depp character’s consciousness is transferred to computer.  This is a transformation and not the transcendence.  True transcendence is experiencing and realizing the True Nature of our Self and becoming THAT.  At the End (I mean really the End with a capital E) of all physics, mathematics, and sciences, there IS something that cannot be known by formulations and knowledge.  I suppose we can know everything in the universe up to 99.9%.  But there is always, 0.1% that cannot be explained.  As long as the 0.1% remains, then we are not knowing and experiencing the true fact.  Same with our existence.  If I say that we don’t exist, do you deny it and say it is not true?  It is ok to deny it, but can you really prove that you are right?  It is always that 0.1% needs to be answered.  The only way to reach the answer is by transcendence.  Namaste.

Japan Acupuncture, Phoenix, AZ （日本鍼灸アリゾナ）

How/Why Acupuncture Works:
In case if anyone wonders about how and why acupuncture works, the simplest answer is that because each one of us, no matter how sick we are, has the healing power within our body. Western medicine treats sicknesses and diseases and oriental medicine treats a human being.

About A Cicada:
Summer is to swimming, sunshine, etc. In Japan, cicada represents summer. In America, we call it a bug, but in Japan, it is more revered. Cicada spends 7 years in underground and when they metamorphosed to a cicada, it only lives for a few days (For Japanese, it is like cherry blossoms: its beauty only last few days and petals fall.) Therefore, cicada is a symbol of perseverance and reminder of how short the life is. Here is my translation of a Basho's haiku＊: "Soon death awaits, Not knowingly, The voice of a cicada." Cicada does not care how short the life is. It always sings with full voice. It does not hesitate, does not complain, and does not doubt. It simply passes on to the next generation what it has always been. So, next summer when you hear a cicada, please don't think as a bug. It is there to remind you what your true purpose is in your spiritual quest.  Namaste.

＊芭蕉：　やがて死ぬ気色も見えず蝉の声

Japanese Acupuncture (日本鍼灸) Newsletters

Volume 3, No. 4, August, 2014

Oriental Medicine & On Human Conditions

Chapter Four

Lung:  Sadness, Courage, and Dissolution No. ４

樹葉凋落時如何

When leaves shrivel and fall, how do you feel?

大露金風

The Absolute Golden Wind

(Absolute:  purest, truest, clearest, none-other-than)

(Golden Wind:  autumn wind)

Perhaps, this simple conversation is one of the most famous of all Zen utterances made by Chinese masters.  A monk, obviously himself was old and an accomplished Zen-ist, asked his master Ummon (雲門), how he felt about looking at a tree in an autumn day.  Literal translation of the answer is:  totally naked (bare) golden wind (gold-metal/fall:  Five Element).  What Ummon said was that everything and everywhere was the Golden Wind.  There is no hesitation, no uncertainty, and confusion:  clear as the autumn sky and cool as the wind, for he is in the state of absolute “Nothingness.”

The monk who asked did not have any desire (the nakedness); void of a position, fame, and money.  Only thing he knew he had was his aliveness and livingness.  I believe that he wanted assurance from his master that his as-is-ness was as close as the master’s.  (In so doing, he tested his master’s awareness:  very gutsy thing to do).  His worry was answered by a spontaneous response by the master.  Their hearts met.  They understood each other, and they were one.  When we are ready to shed everything that we believe valuable and dear, even a god, and therefore, stand totally naked, the cool autumn wind permeates through us and makes us realize that it is the “Life” that “Is” everything and everywhere.

For most of us, fall is about the following.  Cool autumn air tightens our lungs.  Leaves fall and remind us of time passing, making us feel slightly sad.  It is the time to reflect and move inward.  Sensitivity comes back after summer of activities.  It is the time to defend ourselves from pathogens once again.  Yet, it is the time to be poetic and creative.  New ideas flourish.  Renewed desire once again burns within us. 

As my readers know that fall belongs to the Metal Element and it is represented by the Lung and Sadness.   In Oriental Medicine, the contraction of the lungs is the sadness (Chinese character 悲:  the upper portion of the word characterizes the protracted lungs and the lower characterizes the heart or feeling.)  When the lungs are protracted and contracted, we cannot breathe well.  Pathogens come in and make the matter worse.  It is very important for us to strengthen the function of the lungs by drink less alcohol, less sweating, resting and sleeping well, and intake more vitamin C and phytoagents.  Some spices and plants open up the lungs such as peppers and peppermint.  Apple cider vinegar increases the immune system.  Physiologically, rubbing the sternum while taking shower, gargling with salt, keeping the neck and the feet warm help to keep the lung functions.  Acupuncture greatly helps the lung function.  I can stop coughing and a progress of cold and flu (especially caught early).  Four major acupuncture  immune points in the body system are:  the base of the neck, the navel, at the elbow where the line of crease folds, and UB-13 (at both sides, about 1 ½ inches away from the third thoracic vertebra).

Fall is the time of emotions.  Sadness prevails as it gets darker earlier in the day; colors of flowers and trees fade; and the temperature drops.  It is the time for yearning and belonging, but at the same time, it is the time to be aware of self, physically and spiritually.  The dissolution of sadness is to become a friend with the emotion.  If you feel profound sadness, go ahead and go deeper into the emotion and experience it.  From the experience, you will know how to become a friend with sadness.  Once this happens, a sensation of sadness will last only a few seconds and you will be able to put it aside in a proper place in your mind.  The ultimate dissolution happens when you can truly “experience” and understand the following poem by the same Zen master, Ummon.

The Cool Wind gently blows through my mind,

No matter what happens!

No matter what happens,

The Cool Wind gently blows through my mind.

                                                                        雲門 (Ummon)

Epilogue:

When you let go everything in your life, totally, then you understand that it is “Love*” that gives the Life

*Compassion

© 2014 Dr. Y. Frank Aoi (NM State)/Japanese Acupuncture, LLC