Just like Daniel Day-Lewis bellowed at Madeleine Stowe in the waterfall scene of ‘Last of the Mohicans’, my advice to prospective students at the NCoA would be:

 

“STAY ALIVE – WHATEVER HAPPENS, JUST STAY ALIVE”

 

Maybe that’s a bit extreme but, in a sense, this is about the most ‘alive’ situation you’ll experience.  As they will tell you, and believe me it’s true, “this course will change your life”.    In giving advice, good ol’ Desiderata seems particularly applicable, so I’ve sprinkled a bit of it here & there for you; but for guidance on ‘Change’, have a look at “Who Moved My Cheese”.

 

I’ve been asked (by Lottie – starts September – if you want someone to blame) if I have anything pithy to say to new students.  So here are my ‘Top 10’ tips:

 

1. You will need to think differently - you are entering a world where your current Aristotelian view of reality, itself takes a reality check.  In Western philosophy, reasoning is largely based on a deductive, causative and linear approach, with science and medicine relying on a reductionist, physical process; it’s Eastern counterpart is virtually opposite – you’ll start to see that opposites (Yin & Yang) do not conflict but are complementary, where there is a life-force (Qi) that drives the Universe, and where it is better to follow the natural world rather than trying to defeat it.  So I advise you to do some reading into Taoism; it may give you an insight into the direction from which much of this course comes – start with the “The Tao of Pooh” and follow it with “The Te of Piglet”.  If you want more, move onto “Handbook for the Urban Warrior” by the Barefoot Doctor. 

 

2. You will doubt whether the staff know what they are doing (especially around February of the second year) and be tempted to blame everyone else for the fact that you can’t seem to retain anything.  Believe me, although it may not be apparent at the time, the process is extremely well tuned to teaching what is more a way of thinking than an academic subject.

 

3. The old Zen saying (immortalised a long time ago in song, I believe, by someone called Donovan) ‘First there was a mountain, then there was no mountain, then there was’ sums it up.  You will start by thinking, this is straightforward (as they say, Western Medicine is hard to learn but easy to practice and Eastern Medicine is easy to learn but hard to practice – hmmmm, discuss…), then it turns to mush, and at the end it starts to become a little clearer.  Let go of preconceptions and expectations, and become one with it – you’ll save yourself a lot of heartache if you do.

 

4. Learn point actions and locations OFF BY HEART.  Those and the Syndromes (later in the course) will need to be 2^nd nature to you when you get into practice.  But remember that, maybe unlike what you’re used to, it’s wisdom that’s important not just knowledge – knowledge tells you that a tomato is a fruit, but it’s wisdom that tells you not to put it in a fruit salad. 

 

5. You will need support to get through this – lean on your colleagues and they will lean on you.  Strike a balance in your lifestyle.  Include your partner in as much of the social activities as possible – otherwise they will feel excluded from what becomes a very tight-knit group.  Become tolerant.

 

“Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others, even to the dull and ignorant;

they too have their story”.

 

6. This course costs.  With travel, accommodation and subsistence in York, books/DVDs, seminars and research etc, you can double the course fees and you’ll be somewhere near the full figure – and that’s without loss of earnings.  It will cost you time, relationships (you won’t see as much of your family, friends, etc) and possibly your health - be aware.  But the rewards are invaluable.  Understand that you’ll never make a fortune from this.  You’re doing it because you are motivated to do so.  It is a fringe activity and likely to remain so.

 

7. Stay healthy.  Protect your ‘Centre’.  Practice Qigong.  Meditate.

 

8. Be mindful and aware.  Follow where the teacher’s finger points – don’t hang onto it.  Avoid silly things, like burning moxa on the plastic handle of a Seirin needle, or asking a male patient if he’d had any Gynae problems.  It is the process that’s valuable, not the end (even if there were one) – the journey is, itself, the destination.

 

9. Maintain a balance – don’t get so anal that you forget there’s another world out there

 

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labours and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life,  keep peace with your soul.

 With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy

 

Be a human being as well as a human doing – ‘be gentle with yourself’. 

 

Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

 

10. For my final point, I really have to bow to someone far wiser than I.  Zengetsu, a Chinese master of the Tang dynasty, wrote the following advice for his pupils:

 

·        Living in the world yet not forming attachments to the dust of the world is the way of a true Zen student.

·        When witnessing the good action of another encourage yourself to follow his example.

·        Hearing of the mistaken action of another, advise yourself not to emulate it.

·        Even though alone in a dark room, be as if you were facing a noble guest. Express your feelings, but become no more expressive than your true nature.

·        Poverty is your treasure. Never exchange it for an easy life.

·        A person may appear a fool and yet not be one. He may only be guarding his wisdom carefully.

·        Virtues are the fruit of self-discipline and do not drop from heaven of themselves as does rain or snow.

·        Modesty is the foundation of all virtues. Let your neighbours discover you before you make yourself known to them.

·        A noble heart never forces itself forward. Its words are as, rare gems, seldom displayed and of great value.

·        To a sincere student, every day is a fortunate day. Time passes but he never lags behind. Neither glory nor shame can move him.

·        Censure yourself, never another. Do not discuss right and wrong.

·        Some things, though right, were considered wrong for generations. Since the value of righteousness may be recognized after centuries, there is no need to crave an immediate appreciation.

·        Live with cause and leave results to the great law of the universe. Pass each day in peaceful contemplation.

 

Metta

EXPECTATION

 

I’ve been thinking, of late, about how we are all subject to an enormous amount of expectation:  expectations that others have of us, we of them, and what we expect of ourselves.  And it is making us unwell.

 

As a fish is not aware of the water surrounding it, we seem unaware of the sea of expectation to which we are exposed.  The classic emotions that marketing reps use to sell their wares are ‘fear, doubt and uncertainty’.  Advertising tells us constantly that we’re too fat, our furniture is out of date, that our bowels need moving, we have the wrong sort of bacteria in our gut, we’re using the wrong type of towel etc. – all because “you’re worth it”.   And their masters, the huge conglomerates (including the pharmaceutical industry) lobby to increase their markets regardless of whether we, the punters, need it or not.

 

The media and politicians are two sides of the same coin – they couldn’t exist without each other: the media, which feed us stories that are seldom factual, dramatise everything with the single aim of selling their newspaper/channel: politicians constantly feed our fear, prejudices and xenophobia. 

 

‘Fear, Doubt and Uncertainty’ are all about giving them ‘Money, Power and Control’ – whilst they have us in this constant state of anxiety and imbalance, they can control us (witness current obsession with credit crunch, house prices, inflation, knife crime etc etc).  And the management gurus believe that you don’t manage people directly, you manage their expectations.  So, as a society, thanks to Fear, Doubt and Uncertainty, we live in a perpetual emotional state that stresses our Kidneys, Liver and Spleen (= overwork, frustration and anxiety); as practitioners, we see the emotional results of this troublesome triumvirate almost daily.

 

“PARANOID”, I hear you say.  Is this what acupuncture does to you?  Not a bit of it.  Read on and see if it makes sense……

 

I see it in my clinic all the time – people who are ill because of their own or others’ expectation of them. Stressed teachers, menopausal women, overworked service-desk operators, shift-workers and so on.  So many people trying their damndest to meet other people’s expectations of them, or trying to reach internally-generated and futile expectations because the media/church/advertising/etc have given them impossible targets to achieve.

 

Then there’s you – as a student or practitioner.  What expectations do you have?  You may have floated into the college on a cloud, or out of it expecting to cure the world.  Bill Gates said “The world won’t care about your self-esteem.  The world will expect you to accomplish BEFORE you feel good about yourself”; discuss………………….

 

We live in a world where society considers that most illnesses come from outside, so the expectation is that the cure (‘a pill will fix it’) is also administered from outside.  Dr Nick Reid (in ‘Sick and Tired’) opines:

“throughout the last three hundred years, Western societies have been conditioned by scientific discoveries to perceive illness as a distinct entity that attacks us from outside our 'selves' and produces definite pathological changes that need to be treated with specific medicines or surgery.”  In TCM we recognise the importance of internal aetiology and the need for the patient’s Zheng Qi to be used in effecting a cure.  It is this dichotomy in the patient’s expectation that is at the crux of our message.  AND their misplaced expectation, itself, causes them illness when, for instance, they need to take a second prescription to counter the side-effects of the first, and then a third to do the same for the second, and so on, worrying themselves sick in the process.

 

From the practitioner’s point of view, not only do we have their expectation to handle, but also our own.  There is the opinion that ‘if you expect the worst, you won’t be disappointed’, but that just leads to a stagnant state.   Likewise, as Claude Larre opined:  “To desire too strongly is, itself, stagnation”.  So expectation or desire, when taken to the extreme, is undesirable.   So is it possible to reduce one’s expectation?  A hero of mine thinks so…..

 

Pooh and Piglet  were in Hundred Acre Wood listening,

a little nervously,

to the roaring of the gale among the treetops.

“Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?”

“Supposing it didn’t,” said Pooh

after careful thought Piglet was comforted by this

 

(from the “Te of Piglet” (paraphrased))

 

You can’t change the future any more than you can change the past – BUT you can change how you react to it.  When I started at the NCoA, we were all told “you all have Liver Qi Stagnation – you wouldn’t have enrolled if you didn’t” - the paradox of needing to be unwell to join a course in healing!

 

So my advice is to draw up three lists of six items each – the major expectation others have of you, the ones you have of others, and the ones you have of yourself.  Then go through them and reduce them all by at least half.  And keep doing the process …….. it really helps. 

 

I leave you with a favourite quote of mine from “Awakening to the Tao” by the 18th c. Taoist sage Liu I-Ming:

 

Using events to control events,

organizing things according to what is there,

not looking forward to what has not come,

not dwelling on what has passed,

the spirit is not injured and the energy is not dissipated.

 

Metta

PS.  I didn’t expect you to read this - QED