A Camel Through the Eye of a Needle

When I was a sophomore at Pitzer College, before I transferred to Evergreen, I was in a course called, "Analysis of Human Motor Skills," in which we looked through a neuroscientific and biochemical lens and used some very elementary principles of physics to deconstruct and understand human movement. At the end of the semester, we were assigned a group research and experimental project. In our research on the effect of intention on physical ability, we came across a researcher in California doing quantitative experiments in measuring Qi. The methods of his research indicated that this group was measuring Qi through correlates of blood flow, nerve conduction and very specific and sensitive measurements of temperature. Qi was being redefined in terms of the measurable, physical reality in which Western science excels.

Last week, I received a monthly email newsletter from Kripalu (the "mothership" for yoga and traditional healing therapies on the East coast of the US). In this edition of the newsletter, Kripalu was promoting a new program on "Evidence-Based TaiChi." Intrigued, I read the detailed description of the program which states, "in scientific trials, Dr. Yang and his colleagues have shown that the program improves strength, balance, immune function, and cognition." While the Kripalu website has no link or further information on Dr. Yang's studies or published papers, with some effort, I uncovered his research: five controlled, longitudinal studies, two of which were fully randomized control trials. The Randomized Controlled Trial (RTC) is the pinnacle of modern scientific experimental design- the gold standard.

In my last post, I wrote about Western scientists "and their little atoms." I received two different responses: one was a prompt to investigate why so many people and organizations are so keen to "put East and West into conversation," or why there is this trend to use one's standard to measure the other; the other response was a defense from the Western scientific perspective. Let me first address the language I used in the last post, quoted above. My intention was not to disrespect science or scientists, though I realize now that my word choice was a bit uncivil, and for that I apologize. My intention was instead to call into question the dogmatic belief in the primacy of matter, in the denial of other paradigms of thinking and knowing in favor of the singular Absolute, the analytical-- at the expense of holistic systems thinking, and the ability to hold two or more ideas at once, recognizing the validity of both. To quote my father, "It is the experimental method that defines western science, not atoms or Newton. Science is neither the worship of given wisdom nor even a body of knowledge. Science is a virtue. At least when it is at its best. It is a humble and self critical exploration on the edge of uncertainty. Science is common sense with publication of interesting results."

Science as a virtue, that is as an abstract quality of thinking, is something I admire very much. It amazes me daily how much we have come to know and understand about our world, the brain and the human body, but what frightens me- what leaves me skeptical and perhaps a bit cynical, is what I see in the application of this virtue. As I said, I aim to challenge the dogma that has grown around the current (and not so current) knowledge in science. A detailed discussion on this is beyond the scope of what I will write here, but let me give an example of what I am referring to. Half a century ago, the prevailing view of the brain was of neural circuits that were, for all intents and purposes, "hard-wired" and inalterable. This left thousands suffering with various forms of dementia and Alzheimer's with no hope, and implied that adults simply couldn't learn anything of significance. Ultimately, this neuroscience paradigm held that people cannot change their minds, and since the prevailing belief is that every behavior has a neural correlate, people cannot change, period. In the last fifty years, a huge mass of research has proven this perspective incomplete; it is now a widely accepted notion in the field of neuroscience and psychology that the brain is, in fact, highly plastic, flexible and continually renewing. This is where the BUT comes in. BUT, as neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran states in his book, The Tell-Tale Brain, "generations of medical students were told that the brain's trillions of neural connections are laid down in the fetus and during early infancy and that adult brains lose their ability to make new neural connections." Many neuroscience and medical textbooks still make this claim, despite heaps of evidence to the contrary. Other scientists like Bruce Lipton (The Biology of Belief), Dr. Candace Pert (The Molecules of Emotion), Lynn McTaggart (The Field) and others who have challenged prevailing and persistent theories with new (and decades-old) research leading to radically different understandings of our world have been tacitly ignored or outright denied by the scientific and medical community at large while their research has been, for the most part withheld from public knowledge or general education.

Additionally, I see a denial of humanity in science that is not only offensive, but dangerous. On the one hand, the attempt to "control" for certain biases or influences is admirable in the light of seeking Truth. However, we must also recognize that scientists (as human beings) have biases; humans are story-tellers- it is how we create our identities and our perception of the world, but the Truth-seeking scientific method has no room for the multiple stories that are True for different individuals. The notion of one ultimate Truth (perhaps related to the West's preference for monotheism?), denies the possibility of coinciding, opposing/complementary and equally valid stories/truths/hypotheses. we have such a hard time accepting, understanding, and applying the knowledge that atoms behave both as particles and as waves because we have this illusion that there is One Absolute Truth (or God?). Perhaps this is the same reason that Dr. Huang claims the impossibility of integrating Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Western medicine.

It is typically encouraged before designing and conducting scientific experiments to make a list of assumptions or biases. The list is meant to make a scientists aware of his or her blind spots, but the problem comes when the scientist or peer reviewers have the same blind spots and thus, as the term implies, cannot SEE them, cannot become aware of them. In designing experiments to prove or disprove or measure Qi, there are enormous blind spots in the Western scientist's field of vision and so these experiments end up collapsing things they cannot see into things they can: Qi turns into blood-flow and heat, TaiChi turns into physical movement, and the Ayurvedic doshas are collapsed into elements of constitution or causes of disease.

Truth-seeking is a natural human drive, and an important and a good one at that, but we  have narrowed our vision (perhaps Dr. Huang has as well), and it is understandable that we attempt to make sense of things using the tools most readily available to us: current and comfortable definitions that map our reality. 

**This next bit may seem like an irrelevant tangent, but bear with  me**

There is a story of a rich man asking Jesus what he needed to do in order to secure his place in the kingdom of God. When Jesus told him to give up his worldly possessions and aid the poor, the man was frustrated and a bit ambivalent about following these instructions. Jesus then turned towards his disciples and proclaimed, "it is easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into the kingdom of God.”

Michael Mervosh writes, "Stories have been told as far back as the 15th century about a gate used to enter into the walled city of ancient Jerusalem, after the main gate was closed for the day.  This gate was very narrow. Thus, a fully loaded camel had to have its baggage removed so it could pass through the gate and proceed to its desired destination." (source, http://www.herosjourneyfoundation.org/blog/) Thus, the image of a camel passing through the eye of a needle can be interpreted as the seemingly impossible journey to a desired destination, or perhaps more abstractly, to Truth. Just as the camel at the gate to Jerusalem, we must shed our "baggage," our preconceived notions, or ego in order to pass through the eye of the needle and attain a more holistic understanding, a more complete Truth. 

When we approach Truth with genuine science, we find immense value, as Jacob Brownowski put it, "By the worldly standards of public life, all scholars in their work are of course oddly virtuous. They do not make wild claims, they do not cheat, they do not try to persuade at any cost, they appeal neither to prejudice nor to authority, they are often frank about their ignorance, their disputes are fairly decorous, they do not confuse what is being argued with race, politics, sex or age, they listen patiently to the young and to the old who both know everything. These are the general virtues of scholarship, and they are peculiarly the virtues of science." 

However, we must also realize that for as objective as we may attempt to be, subjectivity is inescapable to the human mind, whether scientist or psychoanalyst. From the book, "Biology Under The Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture and Health" by Richard Lewontins and Richard Levins:

"One the one hand, science is the generic development of human knowledge over the millennia, but on the other it is the increasingly commodified specific product of a capitalist knowledge industry. The result is a peculiarly uneven development, with increasing sophistication at the level of the laboratory and research project, along with a growing irrationality of the scientific enterprise as a whole. This gives us a pattern of insight and blindness, of knowledge and ignorance, that is not dictated by nature, leaving us helpless in the big problems facing our species. This dual nature gives us a science impelled both by its internal development and the very mixed outcomes of its applications to understand complexity as the central intellectual problem of out time. But it is held back by the philosophical traditions of reductionism, the institutional fragmentation of research, and the political economy of knowledge as commodity."

Science, like Truth, is a virtue to strive for. Scientists are human, doctors make mistakes, and brains rewire. We must not hold too tightly to the maps science has drawn for us for they are not the territory. In order for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle, it must be stripped of all it wishes to carry in with it. What would happen if we were to approach every scientific inquiry with what is termed in Zen Buddhism as "the beginners mind?" Perhaps we would find that "pure science" described by Brownowski.

Resonance and Dr. Huang

(FYI, the first section of this post was written two weeks ago and I apologize for not submitting it sooner! The second half of the post was written after spending a couple of weeks at the clinic, therefore the first section is much more theory based and includes more references, while the second half is more subjective and reflects my experience in the application of the theory.)

I have drawn dots all over my body in pen. They all seem fairly understandable when I draw them during class when learning the Meridians with my teacher, but when class is over, the spots only mock my efforts to connect the dots. Slowly, as I keep trying to put the points in order, it begins to seem like any random spot on my body could be the next point and I start to look to myself like a painting of the pointillist school (or if you're unfamiliar with the art term, think of the body as made up of tiny pixels) and I open the text book to keep from getting more confused.

Acupuncture points lie on the Meridians, the pathways of Qi in the body. Acupuncture works by stimulating or calming the Qi at a particular point on a Meridian or, through a particular point, exerting some effect on the Qi of the whole Meridian. The Meridians flow through different layers of the body and through different organ regions and thus can have an affect on a part of the body not being needled. By using distal points on my feet, ankles, and lower legs, I can influence my digestion, headaches, or breathing because the point that I stimulate connects, via Qi flowing in the Meridian to another part of the body. In fact, in many cases, acupuncturists consider the distal points (from the elbow down and from the knee down) to be most effective.

So, let's backtrack for a moment; let's talk about Qi.

Qi is often translated as energy or life-force, but it is much more comprehensive than what those words communicate. Qi is the raw material of the universe with the properties of energy and resonance. The ancient Taoist philosophers had a grasp on the idea of resonance long before Western scientists were surprised to find it in their little atoms, and they elucidated how the resonating quality of things influence healing. In his famous book, "The Web That Has No Weaver," Ted Kaptchuck writes,

"The Qi of the sun, rain, and soil resonate with the Qi of the seed to bring forth a plant that already contains the germ of the plant and qualities that the sun, rain, and soil touch. The Qi of an illness can be transformed into healthy Qi by a medicine that resonates between the two particular states. Illness contains the seed of health. Resonance is the process "by which a thing, when stimulated, spontaneously responds according to the natural guidelines of the particular phases of vital energy engendered in itself and active in the situation." The Qi does not "cause" change; the Qi is present before, during, and after the transformation. One Qi elicits the propensity of another Qi that shares a similar kind of "frequency..." Through resonance, one Qi evokes another."

This concept is not unfamiliar to me, and is quite similar to the "prana" in the yogic tradition, but using the concepts of Qi or prana in diagnosis is fundamentally different from the mainstream western process of diagnosis. In fact, the word "diagnosis," can be split into the prefix dia, meaning "through" and the root gnosis, meaning "knowing, or knowledge," (and more accurately, referring to esoteric knowledge of a spiritual truth held my the Greek Gnostics). However, in Eastern traditions, there are a number of different kinds of knowing; one kind of knowledge is epitomized in labeling; naming and thereby creating and externalizing a separate entity, the other type of knowledge is outlined in Raja yoga (the "Royal Path" to wisdom and enlightenment). This second kind of knowing achieves a direct, empathic and subjective connection with or experience of something; it is the union of self and object achieved in meditation. However, the protocol of western knowledge and diagnosis is focused on labels and names and thus "is a refusal to know (in the sense of being one with); in fact, it is a way of not knowing by putting the cause outside of ourselves. Maybe instead of diagnosis, "through knowing," it should be called diaschizis, "through splitting"... For in this case we deal with out suffering by splitting off the cause- projecting it outside, making it something separate and distinct that we are not responsible for and cannot control" (Ballentine, 134.)

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and acupuncture practice, the understanding is fundamentally different. Yes, external pernicious influences can and do invade the body, but only when the body's defensive Qi (Wei Qi) is weak. Yes, germs can be harmful and may create a diseased state of the body and so we protect against them by sanitizing acupuncture needles and taking precautions in preparing herbs, but not all germs are harmful and their effect will be different depending on the body they enter, and so no absolute statements can be made. 

Kaptchuck writes, "learning a [symptom,] A, for instance, is not worth much until the full circle of Chinese medicine has been traveled, at which time A will show itself to be rich and useful. The part can only be known when the whole is apparent...a pattern or a diagnosis is mainly an emblematic category that allow for an exchange of words. It is not meant as a label for people. It has no existence as an abstract "truth" that exists independent of the patient... [they] "function as allegorical resources for clinical thinking." The pattern descriptions... are a limited attempt to capture what is necessarily intangible" (176).

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The first time I went to Huang Laoshi's house for what is usually just a one-time, one-hour Q+A session, I asked about the relationship of Qi to the physical body and how acupuncture affects mental illness, depression, compulsions, etc. Dr. Huang paused, and then (it was translated to me) he discussed how the stimulation of the physical human body stimulates the Qi in a particular direction. He used the nervous system as the groundwork for his response and stated that imbalance or disharmony of the nervous system (i.e. mental illness) can be corrected by stimulating the Qi properly because Qi regulates the system. He continued, saying that mental disorder is less physical, less external, and more akin to "a knot in your heart." Acupuncture can loosen the knot by creating more open and smoother flow of Qi. Central to his response is the notion that the mind and the emotions live in the physical, in the Organs and in the Blood. It is written in some of the first books outlining TCM that the Shen, (mind-spirit, translations vary) lives in the Blood, and if a person is deficient in Body Fluids, Yin, or Blood, the Shen will not have a home, will be ungrounded and will float, causing a restless mind, difficulty sleeping or dream-disturbed sleep.

On my second visit to Dr. Huang's home, I asked him if he believes it is possible to integrate TCM and Western medicine. I asked him what he thought of the western-scientific studies attempting to measure and "prove" (or disprove) the existence of Qi. He leaned back on the couch, sighed lightly, and responded, "zhe shi yi ge hen da wenti," "This is a very big question."

Many acupuncturists, herbal and homeopathic doctors in the States also take advantage of Western medicine to a certain degree, even if only to use the western-scientific terminology to explain a remedy (as Dr. Huang did in discussing the nervous system- though he could have also been referring to an idea that is absent in the English language, like Qi or Shen, and the term, "nervous system" may have only been used in translation for my benefit. I shall never know.) Nearly every time I ask this question about the possibility of integrating western-analytic medicine with holistic approaches, my questionee responds at least somewhat optimistic, if only out of wishfulness. Dr. Huang, however, told me about the Chinese government's attempts in recent years (I suspect as a part of the ruthless desire for a "modern China"- See "This American Life's podcast on "Mr. Daisy and the Apple Factory") to combine TCM and Western medicine. There is a new department at the Yunnan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (in Kunming) where students spend 2 years studying each medical approach, but in the end, the students must choose a field of medicine. Dr. Huang believes the government's attempt at integration has been a failure, he says they are two completely different paths, different ways of perceiving and understanding the body and the universe; they are incompatible. Regarding the many studies on Qi and the possible therapeutic affects of Taichi (and attempting to explain them), Dr. Huang replied, "you can't use an analytical standard to measure or validate a holistic framework and thought; you will destroy the center, or the soul of it."

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Sitting in the corner of the small office of Yang Laoshi, nearly a week and a half after I started coming to the herbal clinic, it dawns on me: all the patients bring their own charts. I am reminded of my work shadowing a homeopathic doctor in Olympia, Wa. I spent much of my time there organizing patient files and preparing the charts for the doctor. This was the first time I really recognized the huge gap of knowledge between patient and doctor; these charts are nearly impossible to make sense of unless you know exactly what you are looking for (or are an M.D.). The information about the patient's own health might as well be in a foreign language (usually latin..); the patients are effectively illiterate about their health, about their bodies, about whatever a doctor may deem significant to determining their quality of life or quantity of years. This stands in stark contrast to what I see at the Acu/Herbal clinic. Patients carry their own little booklets in which the doctor will scribble the date, symptoms, pattern descriptions, and recommendations, and main acupuncture points used if applicable (the herbal prescription is separate). The patient takes this home with them; keeps his/her own records. The patient is the primary subject, the owner of their own story, literally written in a small book. As I just learned that my grandmother, in New Jersey, was recently admitted into the hospital, I am reminded of the frustration of having to deal with hospital record-keeping, paperwork and bureaucracy. What if we truly were recognized as being the owners of our own stories, respected for our unique subjective experience and validated for our own truths? 

However, I couldn't ignore the contrast of this system of medical literacy and individual access to health records and respect of an individual's story or experience of health or illness, juxtaposed to the denial of access to social/political information, disrespect of individual human rights, subjective story-telling and lack of social media literacy as evidenced by the "Great Firewall of China," (i.e. the reason I haven't been on facebook in nearly two months). 

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As a side-note, there have been fireworks nearly every night (beginning in the late afternoon and ending around 2am) for the past two weeks in anticipation for Chunjie, aka Chinese New Year (but literally translates to "Spring Festival"). I was awoken a week and a half ago on a Thursday night by a particularly loud and nearby barrage of fireworks that sounded loud and explosive enough to frighten me out of bed and to the window, shaking in fear for my life because I thought Kunming was under bomb attack. Yep, Happy Dragon Year!

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as another FYI, here's an overview of my new schedule!

Mon, Fri:

9:30-12:30: Acupuncture clinic with Dr. Huang (the director of the acupuncture clinic, but also a wonderful herbal doctor)

12:30-2ish: lunch break

2:30-5:30ish: Herbal clinic; rounds with a gynecology specialist, a Stomach specialist, a Liver specialist, and a pediatric specialist (note the capital letters!)

Tue, Thurs:

9:30-12: Taichi

12-2ish: lunch break

2:30-5:30ish: Herbal clinic - same rounds

Wed:

9:30-12:30: Acupuncture clinic with Dr. Huang

12:30-2ish: lunch break

2:30-4:30ish: Chinese language class.

Snakes, Circles and Fear

There are different kinds of fear. One kind of fear is useful; its the kind of fear you get when you're about to cross a street and suddenly jump back out of the way of a speeding car. This is the kind of fear we can thank our ancestors and our autonomic nervous system for. But then there's this other kind of fear; this socially taught, culturally biased fear like the fear of failure, or the fear of inadequacy or the fear of fat.

Studies have shown that young girls (as young as 6 years old) are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of war, cancer, or losing a parent, but there is a greater fear hidden behind the fear of fat. Disordered eating, from self-starvation to binge-purge cycles to compulsive overeating, has reached higher numbers than schizophrenia or Alzheimer's disease in the US, though research remains unfunded, treatment is routinely  not covered by insurance and the media continually distorts the image of both sickness and health. What could possibly be keeping our society from recognizing and confronting the issue? 

Author and clinical psychologist, Anita Johnston writes, "It is impossible to discuss the causes of disordered eating without questioning the experience of being female in our society today." It is interesting that on the spectrum of disordered eating, 95% of those struggling are female and it is almost* entirely ignored by healthcare providers, insurance companies and the government. The culture of the Western world has long devalued and undermined the role of the feminine. But let me clarify here. I am not only referring to women. On the contrary, as I've written previously, there is both a yin and a yang within all things including people, therefore it may be that issues of femininity affect those who identify with their yin side more readily. While the large majority of those struggling with disordered eating do identify as female, the 5% who do not are by no means insignificant. The phenomenon of disordered eating is indeed a denial of the feminine forces within and around us, but it is not only a women's issue.

The story we tell as a culture is based on a history of patriarchy, logic and domination. The masculine has been hoisted up on a pedestal, towering over the feminine aspect. We have disowned cyclical nature and emotional or intuitive knowing in favor of linear and analytical thinking, man-made inventions and structures have greater respect than the natural landscape and the goddess has been banished. We have, as a culture, continually denied and pushed the feminine out of our awareness. Thus, we have developed a cultural bias towards a naturally masculine shape of angular bodies and left-brain thinking over emotionality. Indeed, the parts of her body women most frequently cite as their "problem areas," are her belly, hips and thighs- precisely those parts of her body tied indissolubly to the feminine aspect of carrying and sustaining life. We hate our curves because we are taught to value only the linear. We are afraid of fat because we are afraid of the feminine. ("We" meaning ALL of us!)

The words health and whole both stem from the same root. For true healing to occur, we must embrace all aspects of ourselves; the yin and the yang. But that in itself is not enough because we must also recognize that within every yin there is a yang and within every yang there is a yin. Thus, as Rudolph Ballentine writes, "there are four of us in here. Inside me, besides the more apparent phallic/assertive masculine, there is also the more yin testicular. But that's just my first foot forward, my obvious persona, as Jung called our more surface identity. There's also my anima, my feminine side, and it has two aspects, too, the yin passive and nurturing and the yang [feminine]. Somehow I have to coordinate all four. No wonder there is so much confusion about gender roles and sexual identities!"

While I would probably alter his terminology a bit for myself, I think he makes a poignant point. In tantric and yogic vocabulary, the kundalini shakti is the creative feminine force opposing and complementary to shiva. This energy is represented as a snake coiled at the base of the spine; Ballentine continues, "when uncoiled, she will force her way upward, bursting through barriers to stir up feelings, emotion, and creativity, and to give life. She shatters the established order with her thrust toward evolution... Individual fears, social forces, and economic interests converge in an unconscious conspiracy to keep this kundalini shakti pacified- plugged into intoxicating consumerism, drugs, and workaholism- undermining the ecstatic electricity of her unleashed power." This feminine aspect is largely ignored in our society, and when it is recognized, is usually seen as uncivilized or even demonic.

Take a second look at that kundalini image: the snake. What kind of symbolism does the snake image hold for you? If you're like most Westerners, you think of frightening boa constrictors and fatal venom, then you might look a bit deeper and think of the trickery of the snake in the Garden of Eden; and this particular snake's trickery is often paired with the weakness of Eve for giving in to temptation. So the snake's image in modern Western symbolism is a mixture of fear, trickery, and the weak feminine (leading to the idea of a Fall from Grace and initiating the unending quest for salvation).

But remember that our modern Western culture is traced back to the Greeks. In ancient Greek gnostic mythology, there are a couple of snakes worth noting here who have a slightly different story to tell. These snakes are found in the creation myth of gnosticism where the goddess Sophia created a snake named Laldaboath who in turn created Adam and Eve. However, Laldaboath was not nearly as Divine as Sophia and when Adam and Eve began worshipping her, Laldaboath got jealous and forbade them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Sophia then sent Ophis, another snake who's name means Divine Instructor, to instruct the two to eat of the fruit of the Tree.

I'm not much of a history buff so I don't know how exactly the Gnostic system of though evolved or was lost, but I know that there is little or no remains from this myth in modern Wester mainstream culture. And it's a pity. The trickery, temptation, and fear are only one side of the story; the yang masculine side, not bad in and of itself but unbalanced in the absence of the yin feminine/kundalini shakti. 

There is, however, one remnant of the Greek symbology of the snake in the modern day West: The rod of Asclepius. You would probably recognize this healing symbol, but perhaps don't know the name. This is the famous symbol of a snake winding up a staff; the symbol of medicine, still used ubiquitously in the healthcare industry. The image is strikingly similar to that of the Kundalini snake winding up the spine, and it is in this similarity that we can connect the Divine feminine to spiritual evolution and to healing.

This connection is particularly relevant to the healing process in disordered eating. To reconnect to the feminine force within and around us uniting with the internal masculine energy, allows for balance, growth, and healing. Johnston writes, "when there is balance and these two sides act in concert, we have what is called the "Divine Marriage," where the masculine honors and supports the feminine," and the feminine honors and nourishes the masculine, however, "we live in a society where the balance between the masculine and feminine has not been maintained... this imbalance has been internalized within our psyches... The epidemic of disordered eating... is clearly a consequence of the imbalance between the masculine and the feminine within society and within ourselves. Recovery from disordered eating calls for a deliberate, conscious attempt to reclaim our feminine side so we can bring the masculine side back in balance."

This is not a individual journey. May the growing numbers of people struggling with disordered eating be a call to all of society to bring back the goddess; Put the pieces of the Yin-Yang puzzle back together to integrate our whole selves and make society whole again.

Long Live Ophis!