The impact of CM philosophy

[Carole Rogers]

This is something I have been wondering about for a while now; and trying to work out the best way to frame the question to the forum.

How has acupuncture philosophy changed your outlook on life in general?

I agree, it is a pretty clumsy way of getting to the point, but over 35 years of practice and teaching I’ve seen some interesting reactions from students studying CM. More than one has turned away from it because it is not “Christian� – others have felt that it involved magic, and yet others saw a connection between acupuncture and spirituality. Certainly Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism have all had an influence on CM thinking as well as other lesser known schools of philosophy. Having taught students who have mostly come from a Judaic/Christian background it would be interesting to explore the impact of these differing philosophies on current practitioners.

[mark]

I thought I would throw in a students perspective.

I guess I would have been termed slightly spiritual before starting uni. When I began learning about Daoism in class I thought it was excellent that we would have the opportunity to learn and do the Daoist way. Unfortunately for me the Daoist romance didn't last for too long and I replaced present moment awareness with planning/stressing for the next assignment/exam.

I also feel I was more open minded to different types of healing (eg reiki) before studying acupuncture.

I don't know if you would class it as acupuncture philosophy or uni life but my outlook has changed in that I now worry about the future more and rarely stop to smell the flowers

Please note that I am not blaming the universities for this and this post was written tongue in cheek. My finger is pointed squarely at me.

[dragonmonk]

For me, the philosophical background of chinese medicine (daoism/buddhism) has not changed me since I started studying as I have been a philosophical buddhist (not a religious buddhist)/taoist for some time.

However, the theories of chinese medicine have influenced me greatly. Before studying, I would never have warned someone to put on a jumper in cold weather. I was of the belief that a cold could only be caught if there were pathogens in the air (the microbial type), and that the immune system would either fight them off or not.

The concept of keeping warm was an old wives tale, completely unscientific and not worth my time thinking about.

Now I annoy my friends by being grandpa Jason, telling them to rug up, eat their chicken soup and keep out of the wind.

[journeytothewest]

The way it influenced me the most (and is still doing so) is that before I studied I knew about one-ness in the Universe and the laws of cause and effect, and was familiar with seasonal fluctuations from a Western metaphysical perspective, but I never thought of applying it to my body and my health. The greatest gift Chinese Medical philosophy has offered me is the knowledge that I - not just Spirit "I", but mind "I" and, most important of all, body "I" - have the microcosm within me in the form of the bodily landscape. Much of the time when I was younger, escapism was prevalent in some way, shape or form - reading books as a kid, watching movies, playing videogames, later drugs and alcohol. I lacked solid grounding because i was always trying to get away from something. So I never really paid much attention to my body until one day it fell over and didn't get back up for about three months. That was the realisation that started the journey for me and i feel now that i'm on the right path practicing TCM with that knowledge and philosophy behind me.

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[Michael Broer]

Such a large question! Its taken me a few days of thinking about it to come up with a sort of answer. Although I spent my very early years in a fundamentalist christian cult (till I was 5), after we got out of there I was always brought up to be open minded and respectful regarding people's differing philosophical and religious views with my mother's catch-cry "If you believe in it, then it's real" ringing in my ears to this day.

So when I was introduced to CM theory/philosophy by a very interesting and inspiring lady ( ), I was not so entrenched in a religious dogma that it was difficult to accept. In fact, as soon as the sheng and ke cycles were made known to me, I was pretty much in love with TCM from that point on.

The biggest impact that the CM philosophies had on my way of thinking was not just the peaceful, wonderful feeling I got from reading the dao de jing. It was the way it broadened my understanding of the term "health". I used to think of health as limited to the microcosm and regarded it mostly as the absence of disease within the cellular boundaries of an organism. It was the CM way of thinking (as well as the writings of Herman Hesse, who was himself highly influenced by the Yi Jing and traditional Chinese belief systems) that helped me to understand health as the ability of an organism to survive in an environment that is perpetually changing ie, the relationship between heaven, earth and (hu)man.

Sorry bout all that hot air and thanks Carole!

[Luke Rickards]

What a fascinating topic, Carole! I hope you are going to answer your own question here, too.

When I started studying CM I was already steeped in a very vitalistic and metaphysical life philosophy, so with a little translation of terminology, I took to it like a duck to water. Perhaps I even studied CM because of my outlook at the time.

My early clinical experiences drove me to start asking different types of questions than the ones I had been in the habit of asking, and ultimately a threshold of intellectual dissatisfaction with much of CM philosophy -beyond the historical and symbolic- initiated a new journey that was as exciting as it was surprising (considering my strongly held beliefs at the time). I can now say that CM philosophy led me to an outlook of scientific skepticism and agnostic atheism.