http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhvBTy28VJM "I do not hit,
it hits all by itself"
I discovered TCM and Acupuncture the other way around. I discovered qi as a force that can be used to hurt and destroy. I dont necessarily suggest this is the same path everyone take for coming to the same sort of realization or awakening about the energies that flow through the Universe, but you wont be thinking qi is a "load of woo" if you receive some real internal injuries from it sometime. Itd be all the more convincing when the source of emission is something barely half your size and not old enough to drive a car. Many years later Im finding myself having the same abilities, the same abilities all humans have, and the concept of qi has become completely normalized to me. "It" - the knowing of ones self, ones energy, ones qi, is as normalized as a concept as paying taxes, general etiquette for a first date, going to the post office, or frying some vegetables. I think it helps to have as open a mind as possible when it comes to concepts behind TCM and Acupuncture, and understand that its as normal as pie for billions of people throughout thousands of years.
TCM and Acupuncture were first tools which healed my body from training injuries. Now theyre a Way of life. I know how to avoid getting sick altogether. I know how to be physically independent to the very last day of my life. I know how to heal injuries rapidly and in such a way that they dont compromise my body years down the road - better yet, they make me stronger. I know how to optimize my energy levels and how to harness the energies in the environment around me into my own body and my own energy. The greatest of all is the knowing of my place in the grand cosmic scheme, of not only knowing but of being the same life energy that exploded ~13.7 billion years ago into stars, planets, and orangutans. Its more than a pile o' facts. Its a state of being, of becoming the knowledge itself. The knowing that solid matter is really an illusion, and I am a being of pure energy, I am "it." TCM will likely be a lifelong fascination or me, and there is enough knowing to be had to fill a lifetime. Daoist food combining sciences have improved my life in ways I couldnt have previously imagined. Acupuncture has me convinced that all of the marvels of modern civilization pale in comparison to the power trapped within the human body, and I look at the modern medical industry as a bizarre, barbaric, and willfully ignorant system. The Way of sex has helped heal a lifetime of repression of sexual identity and behavior, and turned such things into additional systems of healing and wellness. Its helped me make sense of personal philosophies I had neither the courage to embrace nor the words to describe. Its now the underlying concept with which I see the whole world around me.
Ive already forgotten what the other side is like - what its like to think that this 2500 year old system is "folklore." I can say I never appreciated the sun until I understood the existence of my own qi. Over time, Ive forgotten what it feels like to be a completely separate object from the greater system at large, to view the Universe as mechanus and a fine tuned arrangement of gears and bits, and to accept modern technology and medicine at face value. Now I am reading half of the posts in this forum about prescription medicines, and Im having visceral, emotional, and very compassionate reactions. I forgot what its like to associate hospitals with healing. I forgot what its like to see mechanically arranged molecules of chemicals and binders and dyes and suspension agents and heavy metals and preservatives as sources of healing and wellness. I forgot what its like to be ignorant to a sense of debt as it pertains to health, and ignorant of a sense of balance and homeostasis. I forgot what its like to be convinced that the time and place of my existence is somehow the pinnacle of human achievement, and what its like to be so lost in my own sense of cultural ethnocentrism that my mind is unable to take something like TCM seriously.
Im ignorant now to what I used to be, in a way. So all I can say is dont knock it, its pretty badass. Give it an honest, committed try,
with an open mind.
I dont have much to add other than whats already been said. You could rattle on about the benefits of certain rules, or sub systems, or how this dietary adjustment will produce your desired effect, or about how a certain breathing pattern at a certain time of day will increase your ability to relieve some other stress, and so on. It doesnt help the uninitiated much to just observe these individual "rules" without the greater context. Its not very immerse to just receive some treatment, diagnosis, herbs to take home, and then to stare at the whole thing like its foreign, outdated, and irrelevant. The mind first has to become naive again, like a small child learning to learn, and then let one's self become fully immersed in these systems for a bit. Dont settle for learning a few little details, commit to learning everything, at least make it a goal for some time. It may take a year or so to grasp a good understanding of qi, if youve lived your life without any such concept. After a while, TCM starts becoming quite genius, especially in that nagging way of knowing the sort of changes, comforts, and familiarities that need to be sacrificed in order to be the best person you can be. Or at least, become the person you want most to be. We have to step outside our current cultural attachment to quick, easy, thoughtless, uncommitted solutions to everything. Understanding takes commitment and will.
Ive been very depressed recently, and just typing this out was the motivation I needed to go upstairs and meditate in the sun.
