Japanese Acupuncture Newsletter, Phoenix, Arizona
Volume 3, No. 2: February, 2011
Japanese Acupuncture (480) 246-0624
600 N. 4th Street, Unit 147, Phoenix, AZ 85004
Dear Friends,
Please do not forget to tell people suffering from cancer that I am having a special session on each Sunday in March, 2011, from noon to 6 pm. I know I can help them. Let them know.
Thank you. Frank
Oriental Medicine & On Human Conditions
Chapter Three
Spleen: Worry, Harmony, and Illumination #2
"Every thought creates a story."* Our identity is determined by thoughts of the past arising in the present moment. We are incessant about the psychological identification to be “I or Me.” Therefore “I or Me” has full of stories to tell. What we think as a person is made up with a concept of endless thoughts. As everyone knows that Rene Descartes’ famous words were: “I think, therefore I am.” (Cogito ergo sum). If we discard all five senses, what we are left with is an identification of one’s self that is thinking. Nobody can take away our thoughts and ideals even we are in jail.
However, unfortunately thing about thought is that it is an illusion.*1 It comes and goes constantly. It is ever changing and intangible. Thought is also dualistic, for example love and hate, anger and happiness. Tragedy is that since we are so dwelled on thoughts, we forget that it is the thought doing the interpretation of “I or Me.” Most of us, most of the time, we do not realize the illusionary cycle and we suffer by attaching “I or Me” to thoughts, not knowing who we really are. When we are calm, we know that past and future are simply presently-arising thoughts, then we know that the awareness of being is here and now regardless of thoughts. Take away all your thoughts, (Remember, Descartes took away all five senses but thought) what you are left with is the undeniable awareness that you exist at the moment of now. *2 When we become aware of the Awareness, we can replace the Descartes words with “I Being, therefore Being.” No thoughts necessary. Thought does not see, only awareness does. When we become aware of true being, we can liberate ourselves from endless interpretation of “I or Me,” and see the true self in the real light, which is endless (universal) love and compassion, and freedom from pain and suffering.
We often mistakenly believe that the end of our suffering comes from further thinking. However, what we are really seeking is the end of seeking itself. Whys, hows, and what-to-dos are all ego driven way of resolving conflicts arising in the chain of thoughts. By doing so, we are deceiving and lying to ourselves by creating stories that are not true. The process creates suffering within ourselves and with the others. Many relationships go down this road and many times we repeat the same process over and over. Enlightenment is knowing what we already are. Away from endless story telling, but accepting and knowing that no “I or Me” is doing the seeking. There is no us to be enlightened: we simply already are. Awareness sees thought and emotion rising, but not attached to them. Awareness is free of thought, time, and dualism. Awareness is simply Is. Take away all our senses and even thoughts, and we know this is to be true.
People come to see me for pain and attachment to pain. May it be lower back pain or anxiety depression, there are many people who are suffering. How do we make them to reach the other shore of non-suffering? It is a very difficult task, but as I mentioned in my last newsletter, that a proper function of the digestive system must be attained to bring the self in the body (remember, the Earth Element function is to bring the body into harmony). In order to bring out the strong self- awareness, I have recently started to think that the PC (pericardium), the Heart, and the Lungs are effective. My readers would know that the combination of the PC and the Liver or the PC and the Spleen are great pairs. The combination of the Lungs and the Liver would give more energy.
I would like to end this page with a customary Chinese poem. Chen Zi Ang was a soldier. I believe he was in the moment when he came across a vast and barren landscape which overwhelmed him with the awareness of being rather than sad about a circumstance. It is, to me, a very bold poem to be alive and free, in the moment, as you can read the first two lines.
No one from the past in front of me
No one from the future in back of me
In the vast landscape, understanding the grief (his
circumstance) of the heaven and the earth (nature)
I, alone, indistinct, …tears dropping
前不見古人
後不見来者
念天地之愁愁
独蒼然而涕下
陳子昂（Chen Zi Ang)
*1: Time is thought, an illusion: we cannot touch past or future except through thinking. A Buddhist monk will always tell you to go beyond time and space.
*2: Baruch Spinoza: “By substance, I understand that which exists in itself, and is conceived by itself, that which does not need the conception of any other thing in order to be conceived.”
*: from the book, "Reflections of the One Life" by Scott Kiloby
© 2011 Dr. Y. Frank Aoi (NM State)/Japanese Acupuncture, LLC
