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Japanese Acupuncture
Newsletter, Phoenix, Arizona
Volume 3, No. 8,
February 2012
Oriental Medicine
& On Human Conditions
Chapter Three
Spleen:
Worry, Harmony, and Illumination #8
I used these words in my
last newsletter: 昏 昏 (by Lao Zi:
“as if asleep”). It is also
seen in some acupuncture writings:
得之者、身体軽健、容衰返壮、
昏 昏黙々、如醉如癡、 張紫陽 (Zhang Zi Yang: 984-1082)
Basically
it reads: “When one masters (Qi
Gong, etc), the body becomes light and healthy, the form may decline but it
becomes more active, it is as if asleep and silent, being drunk (dazed) and
ignorant (nonjudgmental).”
Neither
Lao Zi nor Zhang Zi Yang promoted drunkenness or ignorance. What they meant was, after years of
training and mastering, that it was the letting-go of ego that brought harmony
in the mind and the body. As Lao
Zi said: 我独昏昏、我独悶悶 = “I am as if asleep,
fuzzy and disinterested.”
Detachment, from emotions, what has already taught as norms and mores,
psychological factors such as Oedipus and Electra complexes, and physiological
sufferings such as pain, is very difficult. Brain function is to memorize. All past and current emotions, knowledge, and experiences
are processed and stored. However,
it does not discern facts from illusions.
Discernment, which is a perception, takes little bit more conscious and
conscientious processing (as opposed to just “seeing.”). Most of us fall to a trap of brain’s
thinking pattern, automatically following commands of the brain: “I’m hungry and I eat whatever is
available (vs. I eat healthy foods).
I just had an accident, but I don’t feel much pain, so I am ok (don’t
need help).” Ego blocks communication between the brain and the heart, and
readers who read my past newsletters know that thinking is an illusion. Thinking only creates more thinking, it
is illusionary, and therefore, it is not a solution. Yet, we think and think, creating a delusion of fear even
for future. Future is unknown, yet
for some, it is an impending disaster or failure. Where we fail is in lack of acknowledgement that we are
already fine and successful and in failure to address a right question that is
what it is we need to let go of.
Heart
desire, however, is different.
Heart communicates with the subconscious and it already knows the answer
to our question because a decision for right course of action has been already
made for us a long time: as Joseph
Campbell said, “follow your bliss.” Many choose the ego instead, and we suffer.
The
Spleen Element is in the center of the Five Elements. It harmonizes all the others. It pairs with the Stomach. The beginning of the acupuncture meridians starts from the
center of the Stomach, then, the Lung Element, which is the first meridian, is
stimulated. The Stomach is the
beginning of the Qi and the Blood.
They must flow. All
diseases are due to stagnation.
The emotion attached to the Element is worry and it stagnates. When the digestive and elimination
systems are in harmony, we worry less (remember from my last newsletter that
prolonged constipation is a holding pattern and prolonged diarrhea is a
rejection pattern?) and we judge less.
This is one of the reasons why a Spleen type person is likeable to
many. Less ego, more harmonized we
are. It is a road toward
illumination (a self discovery) and toward compassion. Lao Zi and countless others followed
the road, so can we.
Namaste.
© 2012 Dr. Y.
Frank Aoi (NM State)/Japanese Acupuncture, LLC
