Enemies of Peace and Prosperity

In an historic but remarkably unnoticed and under reported piece of legislation, the United States Senate voted 93-7 to pass the National Defense Authorization Act. As an American, I can only lament that it has now come to this.
This legislation is perhaps the single most anti-Constitutional law to ever be brought up in the halls of the U.S. Congress. Essentially, the law suspends the right of an American to:

• A fair trial.
• To be secure from illegal search and seizure.
• To know one's accuser and charges.
• To have an attorney, and to be able to defend against such charges.
• Free speech.
  

Congress is essentially using the fear of terror as an excuse to ride roughshod over American liberties. President Obama has already said he will veto this legislation, and it has yet to pass the House, but if the bill passed with 93 votes, a veto can almost certainly be overridden.
Imagine that you are a fairly vocal American. Imagine that this vocal tendency gets you labeled as a "terrorist" by a few people. That would be enough to allow the United States military to come sweep you up, whisk you away to Guantanamo, and torture you until you confess to your terrorist activities, and give up anyone who may be "conspiring" with you.
This act would abrogate:

• The First Amendment, which guarantees free speech, the right to assembly, and freedom to information.
• The Fourth Amendment, which guarantees freedom from illegal search and seizure.
• Posse Comitatus, which bars the use of federal troops from policing and enforcing the laws of the land.

I, as an American, will fight this legislation to the best of my abilities, and my last breath. ALL Americans should be appalled at what a few well-heeled, well connected power-mongers are trying to do. This act will not make us safer.
Republican Lindsey Graham, of course, doesn't see it that way. What the measure does, Graham said, is “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield. It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next,” Graham said. “And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer.’”
Americans unable to get a lawyer? If you want to make a citizen of the United States account for an act they have done, bring them to trial. Get a judge to sign off on a warrant. Most of all, follow due process. During the Clinton administration, the World Trace Center was attacked. ALL of the perpetrators were captured, tried, and convicted, without any recourse to such extra-Constitutional powers. They were unnecessary then. They are unnecessary now.
America was attacked from without on September 11, 2001. Let us not use that as an excuse to allow ourselves to be attacked from within. Please, help fight against this legislation. It is the duty of every American citizen.

Queens for a Day

I'm happy to report that I am now available for treatments out in Queens! Queens Acupuncture, run by my friend and colleague Samina Quraishi, is having me over on Sundays from 10 am until 2 pm. The clinic itself is a wonderfully inviting place, with good qi going for it. Best of all, it's a community acupuncture clinic, so rates are from $20 to $40 ($30 to $50 for initial visits). Come one, come all!

Proliferative Thinking

A few days ago, I was listening to a dharma talk on my iPod while riding the subway. I love downloading dharma talk via podcast, and Zencast has a ton of them. Anyway, this particular dharma talk addressed thinking.
I won't try to break down the entire podcast, as it was rather lengthy, but I want to single out one idea that Ajahn Amaro brought up, and that is the idea of "papancha."
Papancha, translated as mental proliferating, is what happens when your mind comes into contact with a sense object, via the portal of one of the senses. A smell, a taste, a glimpse of something; all of which leaves an impression on what is considered the sixth sense in Buddhist psychology, the mind.
As human beings, with minds trained to think symbolically, coming into contact with a sense object doesn't merely end with acknowledging that object. The mind starts to weave at first a simple tale, and then a complex one, until finally the mind has constructed the most elaborate tale it can tell itself, all from contact with the object in question.
Take, for example, a coffee mug. Let's say it's a pink ceramic mug that you happen to see in a window while walking along the street. It's a rather nice mug. In fact, it looks very much like the mug your girlfriend used to use. Well, ex-girlfriend. She used to have a mug like that. She always used to drink Folgers in it. I'm a bustelo man myself, you think. Could never stand Folgers. But, she always used to brew it. Then she would always have a second cup in the afternoon. I wonder whatever happened to her? She was kind of nice, although some of her habits drove me crazy. Leaving her dirty mug on the table was one of them. With the Folgers in it; ghastly stuff. You know, if not for that coffee, we might still be together now...
Just like that, the mind is off and running. And it happens all the time. We do it constantly. We never just simply come into contact with a sense object, and leave it at that. Now, maybe in some cases that's good, as I'm sure a lot of great literature has been inspired by papancha. Mark Twain once quipped, "My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened." In his case, it was definitely good that he could commiserate with such miseries, and then go on to write about them.
For most of us, we could make creative use of papancha also, and we do. Our minds spin whole tales about future events, based on an object important (or not so important) to us. This in itself is okay, so long as we realize that we're doing it, and make use of it. It's when papancha sweeps our minds along without our realizing it, or being in control of it, that it becomes a symptom of ego grasping, and a component of suffering. Twain, at least, had the sense to know that most of his misfortunes never happened, but many of us act as if the stories we tell ourselves are happening. Consequently, we suffer.
So what do we do? Close ourselves off to sense objects? Be boring and pedantic regarding the everyday? My personal take is that so long as we are aware of mental proliferating we need not fear it. It's just a function of the mind. Eido roshi has said that the function of the mind is to think, and this function has served human beings well over the span of our existence on Earth. Artificially arresting thoughts, therefore, isn't the answer. As Ajahn Amaro has said in the course of his talk, you can come to a state of no-thinking, yet still find that you're suffering. Not-thinking isn't necessarily Nirvana. The purpose of this entry isn't to explain what Nirvana is. I would like to say that papancha isn't something we need be on guard about. Not being aware of it, is something we must definitely be on guard about.

Kinestheitcs in Spirit

I'll be teaching taiji classes starting November 3rd at Kinespirit over at their East Side location. Of course, I'll be teaching Yang style taijiquan. Come one, come all, learn some taiji and have a ball!

Hofstra University

This last Wednesday, I was given the opportunity to speak at Hofstra University. It came about because one of the members of my zen sangha is chair of the Religious Studies department out there, and she's teaching a course entitled, "Religion and Medicine." Knowing I'm a practitioner of TCM, she asked me to come by and talk a little about the concepts of Chinese medicine.
Meeting and interacting with these young minds was a wonderful experience. There were some wallflowers in the class, but for the most part, they seemed like an engaging bunch. This got me to thinking about something one of my teachers from PCOM once noted; that the future of TCM is here in the United States, not in China.
Why here? Because this is fertile ground for ideas that are actually very old, but which are new to these youngsters. Plus, their minds are open to these ideas; ideas of holism vs. reductionism, ways of looking at patterns rather than causal relationships. Chinese medicine is a whole other way of looking at the world; it's not necessarily hostile or antagonistic to biomedicine, but can be complementary to it.
It seems to me that the big sin of many people who espoused Chinese medicine to the West are guilty of is a simple, innocent one: They tried to translate it. My mother, who made her living as a translator, used to say to me, "You can't translate literally, otherwise, it makes no sense." Yet, this is what many exponents of TCM have tried to do, in their efforts to win over people in the West. Perhaps no concept has been mangled more than the concept of "qi." So often, in the literature, people have tried to equate "qi" with electricity, bio-electricity, energy, spirit, etc. Yet, none of these are really correct, and do violence to the concept of "qi" as a whole to boot. As is often the case with Chinese characters and ideas, there is no one English word that can adequately capture the concept of "qi" in its entirety, and to try to do so is to lose the utility of the idea. "Qi" is the quality of and suchness of a thing that you cannot see with the naked eye (that last part is crucial), yet you know is there because of the effect that it has. Coming from a time where microscopes and other such tools were absent, "qi" is a unique work-around for people who needed an idea for their minds, and consequently their hands, to work with. "I know there's something in this that aids digestion. I can't see it directly, but it's there; that must be this herb's qi." Microscopes be damned!
Which brings me back to these young people; their minds haven't become entirely encrusted with cultural detritus yet, to the point where they can't conceive of another way of looking at the world. This, really, is the key to being able to grasp and to expound Chinese medicine; by elucidating that this is a way of looking at things, and not one-to-one bad translations of Western medical concepts.
When I was an undergraduate, I studied anthropology, so I understand that perspective and view are the keys to another cultures ideas. Perhaps with more exposure to ideas presented in this way, others will realize this also. Then we may really see a flourishing of Chinese medicine here in the States.

Reversal of Fortune

I still keep my hat in the harm reduction arena, even though I've left St. Ann's Corner of Harm Reduction. These days, I work at the Washington Heights Corner Project. We had a bit of excitement there this last Tuesday when one of the participants overdosed. Fortunately, staff there were on hand, and well-trained. Narcan was administered, and the overdose reversed. I did get a chance to throw in some well known acupoints for revival, like Heart 9 and Du 26, but clearly, without the Narcan, that wouldn't have helped too much. During the time Narcan was being administered, another staffer called 911. Medics came, the participant revived, and he was taken to the hospital to be checked out.
I relate this not because I want to report the sordid details of an almost drug overdose, but because of the state of mind of the person after. Perhaps an hour later, the participant returned to the Corner Project to thank staff for saving his life. However, as we talked, he remarked that his life, "...was fucked anyway..." and that the only reason he was staying alive was for, "...my mom, and my schizophrenic twin." He wondered aloud why he ought stay alive, as he has three felony trials coming up, and that he's probably "going away" (i.e. upstate prison) anyway.
So, there's the crux of it. Some people out there get hooked on heroin (or other drugs) perhaps to party, but there's a large percentage of the population that's looking to run away from their lives; whose lives are marked by real suffering, and a percentage of the population that's looking for any kind of surcease from their suffering, even to the point of not being careful about how many bags of dope they're shooting.
Which brings us to a very pertinent question: Does a war on drugs that emphasizes punishment really do anything positive? Not as far as I can see. These people are already punished far, far more than any judicial system can mete out. Really, there has to be a better way.
And, in Europe, perhaps there is. In 2000, tiny Portugal took the radical step of decriminalizing ALL drugs; dope, blow, weed, smack, speed. You name it, they decriminalized it. Drugs are still illegal, but users are not punished with jail time. To quote an article in Time, "The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground, and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment - so why not give drug addicts health services instead?"
Ten years on and the addiction rate in Portugal has been halved. New HIV infections fell by 17%, and, with the money saved from punishment, more treatment has been offered.
Compare with the United States, which has long championed a no-tolerance enforcement oriented policy. $74 billion dollars will be spent this year on drug enforcement, yet we lead the world in drug consumption. Part of why there's such ungodly violence in Mexico just to the south is because of America's voracious drug appetite.
This may be changing. In various municipalities and jurisdictions in the U.S., treatment, rather than jail time is starting to be offered, with much the same results as in Portugal.
During the age of exploration, Portugal led the way, sailing into then uncharted waters. Now, in the 21st century, Portugal has again set sail where few others were willing to. They may again show the world the way to a more prosperous future.

Fat of the Land

Dr. Mercola nails it. Pretty sobering stuff.

Gateway to Heroin

People who know me know that I'm a big fan of Vanguard, Current T.V.'s awesome investigative journalism program. In 2009, correspondent Mariana van Zeller filed a report from Florida, called "The OxyContin Express." This report detailed everything that can possibly go wrong when big pharma is allowed to run amok, with no regulation. The long and the short of it is this: Oxycodone, which is chemically indistinct from heroin, is flooding the U.S. and getting people hooked. Since there is no prescription drug-tracking in Florida, people "doctor shop," or go to "pain-clinics" where these opioid pain killers are liberally dispensed. The result? Prescription drug abuse now eclipses the abuse of cocaine, meth, and ecstasy combined. On average, eleven people per day in Florida die from oxy overdose. But, on paper, it's all perfectly legal.
That's bad enough, but the problem has spread beyond Florida's borders. Ms. van Zeller has just filed a follow-up report, "Gateway to Heroin," which shows how the illegal trade in pills is hitting the state of Massachusetts hard. Although MA is the state profiled, the problem is also in other states. People flock to Florida to get pills, mule them to MA or another state, and then sell them on the street where one pill can go for as much as $80.
Sadly, it's children who are mostly getting hooked on these big pharma painkillers. Teens turn to pills first because they're easy to get. They may even have them prescribed for them to treat an injury. The result is almost always the same: addiction to the pain killers, and then the realization that they can get heroin from the street, which is cheaper, and provides a better high.
There is no question that these drugs do vastly more harm than good, which begs the question, why aren't they scheduled the same as heroin or marijuana, both Schedule 1 drugs. The answer probably is that with this much demand, Oxycodone is far, far too much of a money maker for its manufacturer to ever be pull it from the market. Since pharma companies have big lobbies, they can advocate for themselves, and their drugs, in congress to keep them on the market. That's not going to change anytime soon.
Acupuncture is an effective way to combat pain without the use of opioid pain killers. I did it all the time at St. Ann's Corner of Harm Reduction, and I do it for patients at the no-fault clinic where I am employed, treating car accident patients. Alternatives like acupuncture are going to be very, very needed in future to help combat the rising tide of opiate addiction, by treating people effectively so that they never need such drugs, and by treating people who are hooked and want to get off of them. Many clients at St. Ann's were recovering, but experiencing pain, and were deathly, and rightfully, afraid of prescription pain killers.
Analgesics have their place in medicine, but with a rising personal toll happening across the country, it's time that we start looking for alternative therapies for treating pain, before we're all hooked.

Bigger Waistlines Through Modern Living

Okay, I couldn't just let this go without some comment. The New York Times recently published an article linking obesity rates in the U.S. to modern sedentary jobs. Apparently, the less you move, the more you're likely to store excess calories as fat.
Well, duh! Of course the more you're sedentary, the more likely you're going to sport a muffin top! I could have told you that. So, I'm sure, could thousands of other people around the world. It's not exactly rocket science.
Here's an anecdotal story: From 1988 until about 2006 or so, I worked as a bicycle messenger. I had always been a chubby (read: fat) child growing up, and was a bit paunchy in high school. When I became a messenger, the fat magically disappeared. I dropped to 155 lbs., the lightest I have ever been. My wife was able to wrap her arms about my middle and nearly have them come back around.
And I was always hungry. Constantly. I'd eat breakfast and already be thinking about lunch. I'd eat lunch and already be looking forward to dinner. My wife commented that it was like living with a vulture: She'd be finished with her plate when we went out to eat, and then I'd swoop in (she has a small appetite, and serving sizes are, well, enormous).
Now, bicycle messenger is about as un-sedentary a job as you can think of. I was in the saddle for eight, sometimes more, hours a day, covering perhaps on average 20 miles per day. My wife and I calculated that I was burning about 5000 calories per day (exercise plus my basal metabolic rate together). Naturally, however, this isn't feasible for most Americans.
While there are still physical jobs in the U.S., for the most part they are seen as undesirable, and low-paying. As a result, not a lot of people are going to look at a job like bicycle messenger as the ideal position. Office work is the rule of the day, and that means less calories burned.
Or does it? According to the International Health, Racquet, and Sports Club Association (IHRSA), in April of 2010 there were 45.3 million gym memberships around the country. Many more Americans exercise in non-gym settings. Clearly, one does not have to have a physical job in order to get moving. So what else is going on here?
One thing that has been getting some play in the media but also a lot of obfuscation is high-fructose corn syrup. One can argue the dangers of using this sweetener as opposed to sugar, but one thing about it that cannot be argued is its ubiquitousness. The damn stuff is everywhere. Look on almost any food label, and you'll see HFCS. People are ingesting it in every increasing amounts, and with ever more alarming results.
On my last visit to Puerto Rico, I saw something I had never quite seen before. People in the supermarkets buying entire cases of 64 ounce bottles of soft drinks. The brand is irrelevant; what is important is the fact that that is a ton of HFCS being consumed (if it had been sugar, it would have been just as alarming). I also saw something else that is relevant, in my last trip to P.R. A lot of fast food joints that I never saw when I was a small boy visiting La Isla.
This tide of cheap, fast food is having an effect that is incredibly far-reaching, on both our health and our environment. The old adage of "you get what you pay for" seems to apply here in spades. Sure, the Popeye's meal was cheap, but what did you get for it? Not much apparently, except, perhaps, an expanding waistline. Devoid of actual nutrients, the empty calories serve to satisfy in the short run, but it's not long before your body, feeling gipped at not having gotten the nutrients it needs, starts feeling hungry again. So, you eat again, maybe ice cream, or something, and the vicious cycle continues.
Diabetes has been called, "starvation in the midst of plenty." Modern food practices seem to have taken that model of ill health and turned it into a way of life. We have something peculiar to the modern world; people who are obese yet at the same time they're starving.
In essence, what we have is the perfect storm of unhealthy vectors all colliding at the same time. More sedentary lifestyles; plentiful, cheap, yet unhealthy food; and advertising that encourages less work for more payoff, in the form of diet pills, and energy boost drinks. Like karma, the bill for that kind of laziness will come due in the long run. Nobody is going to want to pay it.

Promotion, Advertising, and Shameless Hucksterism

I recently found a new home for my practice, at Thai Spirit. Thai Spirit is the brain child of fellow acupuncturist and martial artist Paul Kemawikasit, a colleague from Pacific College, and a really great practitioner. What I like most about Thai Spirit is the fusion it offers. They hold classes of Chinese martial arts, grappling, MMA techniques, and yoga. In short, there's something for everybody there.
Aside from offering acupuncture there, I also am teaching two classes in taijiquan. I am teaching there on Tuesdays from 4:30 pm until 5:30 pm, and on Fridays from 5 pm until 6 pm. The class I'm teaching is in traditional Yang family taijiquan, as taught by Yang Jun and Yang Zhenduo; a simple to understand, yet highly effective method for body opening and qi flow.
To find out more, you can always e-mail me, or click my service link on Thumbtack: Acupuncture and Taijiquan (T'ai Chi) instruction.
So come to Thai Spirit, get your qi on, and get learned! You'll be glad you did.

True Magnificence

Back in 2006, my wife and I were evicted from our apartment on Saint Mark's Place. Scrambling to find another domicile, we settled in Washington Heights. As lousy as the whole eviction process was, the compensation is that we get to live near Fort Tryon Park, one of the jewels of the city.
Today I took advantage of my day off from St. Ann's to practice Yang style taijiquan in the park. Notwithstanding that the weather isn't very Spring-like (darn you, Punxsutawney Phil!) it is a gorgeous day to practice.
Which brings me to the title of this little article. Just after finishing my form, a bird of prey (what kind, I'm not exactly sure. Could have been a hawk or juvenile eagle) landed on the volleyball net, glared balefully at me for a few moments, and then took off into the trees again. I could still see him (her?) since the leaves haven't sprouted yet. The stateliness of its bearing, its beauty, were just indescribable. At that moment, I had a bit of a realization: All the works of mankind, the monuments, the structures, the cities, cannot equal the magnificence that nature was able to exemplify in this one bird. Knowing this, people kill such creatures out of envy, fear, and all sorts of negative emotions.
I am reminded of a passage from the Bodhisattva's Vow, regarding such creatures:

"When I, a student of the Way, look at the real form of the Universe, all is the never-failing manifestation of the mysterious truth of the Awakened Life.
In any event, in any moment, and in any place, none can be other than the marvelous Revelation of its Glorious Light.
This realization made our ancestors and teachers extend tender care, with respectful hearts, even to such beings as birds and beasts."

I studied acupuncture in part to help ease suffering for my fellow sentient beings. But such creatures as this amazing raptor are also sentient beings. They too are deserving of compassion. Magnificence should be honored.

Needles in the Heights

Well, interesting day at the Washington Heights Corner Project. Not that there were scads of patients or tons of addicts clamoring to get their ears needled, but there was a delegation of Russians visiting to check us out. It seems that the group is rather skeptical about the harm reduction approach (they share this much in common with American conservatives), but were willing enough to keep an open mind to see how it works and what it is we do (totally not in common with American conservatives!). Jamie, our fearless leader, gave them the tour. I was able to answer questions they had when they got to my humble acupuncture room (which, the rest of the time, is a conference room), and had the opportunity to educate them regarding acupuncture and NADA protocol. They were very curious as to how acupuncture fits in with harm reduction, and were surprised, I think, to find that it wasn't solely about throwing clean needles at some guy jonesing for a fix. They may also be surprised to find that, in fact, these are people also. Not criminals who have a hard-on to break the law, but actual people who are suffering, and who might do themselves even more harm. Here's hoping they come around to adopting the model.

Outpost of Health

Today, I was fortunate to be able to give a talk about acupuncture at the Wellness Center of Port Morris. The center does a lot that St. Ann's does, but they also have a focus on hepatitis, and give interferon treatments for people who couldn't otherwise afford or get them.
Harm reduction has always been about getting addicts access to clean needles, and the Wellness Center exemplifies exactly why that is: the diseases that can come along with I.V. drug abuse can be devastating. Normally (and for good reason), people talk about HIV. However, viral hepatitis is another consequence of prolonged drug abuse without access to safe kits. A great many of the people that I see at St. Ann's have had hepatitis (A, B, C, or combinations thereof) at some point.
A conservative pundit might say, well, those are the consequences of their actions, and why should my tax dollars go to help any of those scum? The truth is that these people are going to be a burden on the taxpayer at some point anyway; either incarcerated, or in hospital emergency rooms. That being the case, we might as well try and deal with it as cheaply as possible, and syringe exchange is easily much less money than the previous two options. An ounce of prevention.
While there, I talked at length about Chinese medicine and the Liver as it's seen from the TCM viewpoint. Dubbed, "The indomitable zang," a healthy Liver is essential for life. Interestingly, the Liver is one area where TCM and Western medicine come close. Not precisely the same, but close. A workhorse organ, and a master of multitasking (with a little Mad Scientist thrown in), the Liver aids in digestion by secreting bile, has roles in regulating blood sugar (by either glycogenolysis or gluconeogenesis), protein metabolism, cholesterol formation, and even coagulation (by producing coagulation factors I and II).
Chinese medicine, of course, never talks about any of these chemical factors, but it does recognize that the Liver is responsible for smoothly spreading energy throughout the body. Look at all the sayings wherein the Liver is likened to a "general," sending Blood to wherever it's needed for energy whenever the body is at work, and storing the Blood whenever the body is at rest. The Nei Jing says, "When the Liver Blood is full, the feet can walk, the hands can grasp, and the eye can see."
One interesting convergence between East and West. The Nei Jing says that the emotion of the Liver is anger, and that its associated sound is shouting. During my presentation, Irene Soloway, a physicians assistant and one of the Wellness Center's incredible workers, noted about one participant that when he began interferon treatment for his hep C, he was incredibly angry. With his treatments near finished, and presumably with his Liver somewhat ameliorated, he's a pussycat.
In this conservative era, when every government from the Fed down to the municipality seems to be screaming that they're broke, programs like the Wellness Center's are easy targets, especially for conservative pundits. However, the work that these places do is vitally important. Aside from the public health costs, it's also the ameliorating of suffering. And that you can't put a price on.

Harm Reduction in the Heights

This last Tuesday, I worked for the first time at the Washington Heights Corner Project. A syringe exchange/harm reduction center much like St. Ann's, WHCP is small but is doing crucial work in my neck of the woods. I'll be working there two Tuesdays per month. The best part is that I can walk there. Take that, MTA!
The initial day there was slow, with only eight people total receiving NADA protocol. Still, the eight seemed to get benefit from it, and from slow starts come good finishes. Here's hoping I can continue to help save all sentient beings from suffering in the Heights.

Stupid Technology!

So, I was all proud of myself this morning, because I got up early and on time to get to a faculty meeting at Pacific College or Oriental Medicine. My iCal application had chimed the day before, reminding me that the meeting was scheduled for Super Bowl Sunday, from 10am to 1pm. Naturally, when I got there, I found that there was no meeting. I'm going on the assumption that I might have stepped into an alternate reality. It sounds better than my having scheduled a phantom appointment that I didn't have to rush down for.

Meditation, Wind-Cold, and Susceptibility

A friend of mine sent me a link recently to an interesting article. In it, the author states that people who meditate (henceforth, "practice") are more susceptible to colds and flu then people who don't.
I have two issues with this article. Firstly, it presents the argument that people who practice get sick more frequently as a truism, but provides no evidence for it. Is this an anecdotal observation, or have there been studies showing that meditators get sick more frequently? Are the meditators in question in a sick building, or are they sitting in tight quarters, breathing in each other's germs?
Second, although it states what a cold is accurately in terms of Chinese medicine (TCM), the stated reason as to why this increase in frequency occurs doesn't really seem to fit very well with TCM as I know it.
"Wind-Cold" in TCM is exactly that: environmental coldness being blown along on the wind. In a person who may be debilitated, or who ventures out with scant protection from winter, the wind and cold admixture strike against the unprotected channels of the body. According to Six-Stage Theory, as spelled out in Zhang Zhong-Jing's classic "On Cold Damage" (Shang Han Lun), this wind-cold will strike against the most exterior of all channels, the Taiyang channels, which are the Urinary Bladder and Small Intestine channels. It's when the pathogenic cold penetrates into these channels, which run over the head, down the neck and back, and down to the feet, and lodges there that you feel the characteristics of a cold: stiff neck, constrained breathing, headache, stuffed nose, etc.
It's important to remember also, that the wind-cold strikes the skin, and it's within the skin that the body's defensive qi resides (not, as one might expect, the channels). This is the "Qi shield" that is active in the interstices between the skin and fascia, and as it resides in the skin this qi is ruled by the Lungs. Once the wei (or defensive) qi is constrained by the wind-cold, the Lung qi mechanism is obstructed and wheezing is the result. It naturally follows that if there is a weakness in the wei qi or in the Taiyang channels, the cold, being borne along by the wind, will penetrate the body, muck up the body's normal qi mechanisms, and cause a cold.
What the author of the article is proposing is that because a meditator is "cleaning out" his channels via the practice of meditation, he or she is more susceptible to a wind-cold invasion because the channels are now more "empty." Since they are in a more "empty" state, pathogenic influences have more of a chance of entering the body.
This is the assertion that I take issue with. Although he talks about wind-cold and wind conditions vis-a-vis one's qi, he seems to be conflating the process of cleaning one's channels with the mechanisms of a wind invasion. In my view, having cleaned the channels doesn't necessarily make them, as the author states, "little empty tubes." They may become more empty of gunk, but unless the person follows an unhealthy lifestyle, or is already unhealthy to begin with, the channels become full of healthy qi. For instance, the author states that as people advance in meditation, that they wear more layers and report that they "feel cold." However, I've known people for whom the opposite is true, and that as they meditate they "feel warmer." I'm sure that people have seen footage of monks drying cold, wet sheets as they sit in meditation. This is the power of unfettered qi flowing strongly through the channels. I somehow doubt that the monks get cold frequently.
That people get more sensitive with their qi as they advance in practice I don't doubt, but I don't think we can equate this with deficient conditions such as emptiness of the channels (severe emptiness of the channels can result in conditions like stroke, a type of "internal wind"). The author's advice to dress warmly during meditation if the room is cold is advice well taken, but a person who has wei qi deficiency is likely to get sick regardless of whether they meditate or not, and should wear extra clothing anyway. Now, someone who is deficient and sickly who then takes to meditation, and who then mistakenly feels that this will confer some magic protection, and who then proceeds to meditate in a cold environ without adequate protection probably will, I'm sure, catch wind-cold. This isn't necessarily meditation's fault, nor has it to do with making the practitioner more sensitive, but has to do with the constitution of the practitioner.
There is an odd assertion also that, "...people with light bones get more readily get sick than others...," and that, "...these are the individuals that you should actively encourage to cultivate (i.e. practice meditation)." This is excellent advice, but I think I would also encourage them to exercise and take better physical care of themselves, the lightness of bone pointing to the fact that they don't move nearly enough, and need exercise. Moderate exercise would boost their bodies and help ward off disease.
As an aside of my own, it has been shown that high-performance endurance athletes, such as marathoners and triathletes, do get colds more frequently and are more susceptible. Why? After strenuous training, killer cells and IgA and other defensive cells are reduced in the body, leaving an open window of from three to 72 hours of weakened immunity. So yes, there are seemingly paradoxical situations wherein someone who is performing activities to increase their health may find instead that they are more frequently sick. But again, proper nutrition and rest, and proper clothing, can easily compensate.
One member of my sangha, in responding to my general query, noted that she hasn't noticed being sick more frequently since taking up practice. If anything, she says, she's been sick less frequently, since starting meditation, and this has to do with other changes that come along with starting the "contemplative life." These are dietary changes, less stress, more mindfulness about environment, food, conditions, etc. As she says (and I think this sums it all up), "It seems to be a package deal."

Winter Would Like to Hear You Cry Uncle Now

As everyone out here in Gotham knows, we've been pummeled mercilessly by winter this January. Just last night, we got 15 inches (19 I hear in some areas), and the MTA suspended bus service at around midnight, presumably so they don't get stuck in the streets thereby making it impossible to plow.
The snow was so bad that I had to postpone my presentation to the Wellness Center of Port Morris of Xing Yi Nei Gong (see last post). The Wellness Center is much like St. Ann's, in that it caters (if "cater" is the right word) to a disadvantaged population. It's different from St. Ann's in that it focuses a lot on Liver health, and many there are infected with hepatitis.
What's worrisome is that if it's difficult for someone as able-bodied as I am to move around the city, it must be very hard for some of the clients of places like St. Ann's and the Wellness Center. Moreover, many of them have inadequate coats, or no coats at all.
Seeing as how we've entered the Snowpocalypse, this is a Very Bad Thing. So, I urge people out there, if they have any coats that they're no longer using, please donate them. You and I may cry uncle, and silently curse under our breaths about the umpteenth time we have to dig our car out, but for others, it's literally life and death.

Xing Yi Nei Gong

It's been my good fortune recently to be given the opportunity to teach qigong at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. The form I've chosen to teach the students is Xing Yi Nei Gong, sometimes also called the Sixteen Exercises.
My good friend Don Arrup calls these exercises, "Thorough, balancing, and complete." He's right; for an extremely simple set of exercises, Xing Yi Nei Gong is incredibly rejuvenating. A quote from the book, also called Xing Yi Nei Gong, by Wang Ji Wu and translated by Cartmell and Miller perfectly captures the feeling, "One feels as refreshed as if one has taken a bath."
Of course, America is a culture wherein if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. Xing Yi Nei Gong takes the complete opposite track from that, advising not to force anything, not to push anything, but simply to accord oneself with what is natural to begin with. One isn't trying to push the qi through the channels by force, or straining overly much, yet the qi flows strongly and naturally. The reason is simple; exercises where you push hard, go into oxygen debt, build lactic acid, etc. all create their own types of stagnation and can deplete qi. Xing Yi Nei Gong seeks only to gently open the meridians and channels, thus allowing the energy to move naturally. Now, as an avid cyclist, I'm not advocating abandoning your cardio training or stopping spinning classes. A certain amount of fitness is important. However, training in a qigong form like Xing Yi Nei Gong can serve as a perfect complement to the hard training, enabling the body to heal and recover faster than simply lying back.
The benefits of qigong may also extend to treatment of chronic diseases. One example: in one 30-year follow-up study, hypertensive patients were divided into two groups: a control group that didn't practice qigong, and one that did. Both groups took medication for treatment of hypertension. However, the rate of mortality in the qigong group due to stroke or complications of stroke were half that of the control group. Moreover, participants in the qigong group were able to either reduce the medications they needed, or eliminate them. The control group needed more medication as time went on (Sancier, Kenneth M. "Medical Applications of Qigong," 1996).
This winter, when training outdoors is more difficult if not unfeasible, why not try some simple, gentle qigong forms? There are no downsides, plenty of upsides, and hey, who doesn't want to feel as refreshed as if having taken a bath?

Snow Day in the Bronx

In a totally unmedical post, I have to say that this month's snowstorm wasn't anything all that bad. Okay, it wasn't anywhere near the snowpocalypse we had back in December, but still, nine inches isn't anything to sneeze at. St. Ann's still had a full complement of patients today. In fact, I was pretty darn busy. Partly because the other person who works the Sanctuary with me wasn't there. Still, I was surprised by how many people did show up. I think perhaps the city learned from the December debacle.