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.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
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.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
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 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.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
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.
Monday, January 31, 2011
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."
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."
Thursday, January 27, 2011
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.
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.
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