莊子 (Zhuangzi) was an ancient Chinese Daoist philosopher from the 4th century BCE. Here's some reflections from two of his stories.
蝴蝶夢 Butterfly Dream
Zhuangzi
dreamed that he was a butterfly. Upon waking, he couldn’t tell if he had
dreamed of the butterfly, or if the butterfly had dreamed of him! The indistinguishability
of dreamer and dream highlights the undefinable nature of reality, and the
interconnectedness of all things. The microcosm dances infinitely within the
macrocosm. Anything is possible. Keep an open mind.
All is
in motion. The only constant is change. I could be the dreamer one moment, the
dream the next. I am an herbalist now, but I am also a client. I am alive
today, but one day I’ll be dead. I’m a sleeping human in one moment’s realm of
reality, and a flying butterfly in another. In my everyday life and clinical
practice, I seek to treat all people with equal respect and appreciation for
them in that moment, however they are. It’s important to maintain humbleness, a
respect and appreciation for all things in their current manifestations, past
evolutions, and future possibilities. Butterfly today, human being tomorrow. Anything
can happen.
How do I
perceive the world? Am I perceiving myself as the dreamer, or the dream? What’s
real, anyhow? Is there such a thing? Stay humble, open, and curious. Question everything,
yet hold it all loosely, like a flower that just keeps changing from seed to
sprout to plant to flower to fruit to seed again and again, in your hands,
breath, body, and heart.
I once
dreamed of a Passiflora plant growing
and blossoming, then gathering the flower and making tea, which I drank into my
body, where the plant continued to grow and blossom into me and my life, while
informing my existence with its past history of growing and blossoming, me
evolving and growing as a flower as well, getting picked, processed, and drank
back into my body, and into the body of the world. I am the flower. The flower
is me. The answer is both, and neither. There are no clear lines or delineations,
but there is clearly “me” and “the flower” and how we mutually inform and
inspire each other.
We walk a
fine line between healer and healee. We too are neither, and both. As healthcare
practitioners, we can shape-shift, establishing rapport with clear
communication, clean boundaries, a loving heart, open mind, and deep
compassion. We can see things from the perspective of our patients and be
supportive and understanding, while also holding space in a grounded
professional way, accessing the roots of the medicine in clear, deliberate,
poetic, intuitive ways that birth innovation through tradition, embrace the universal,
and address the individual.
屠夫 The Butcher
When the
butcher first started his work, he was clunky and awkward, carefully figuring
out how to cut the ox just right by looking carefully, cutting slowly, and sometimes
still making mistakes. Now, after much practice, instead of thinking about what
he does, he approaches his work via his spirit, and doesn’t look with his eyes,
resulting in smooth, effortless, and even graceful butchering that is efficient
and effective. He cuts by following the form of the ox, instead of trying to
impose himself onto the ox.
Michael McMahon
shared this story during one of our first Palpation and Perception classes, where
we learn a different myofascial line in the body each week, and palpate it on
each other. “Touch as many bodies as you can,” says Michael, “then eventually
you can stop thinking, and be like the butcher in Zhuangzi’s story.” I’m
currently like the butcher when he first started his work. I keep referencing
my notes to find the points, bony landmarks, and other elements, slowly
repeating their names and qualities to myself, and still not remembering, while
inelegantly manhandling my fellow students. One day, after much practical
experience, I can internalize what I do so that it becomes second nature, I move
with the body with knowledge and poetry, and I no longer need to think about
it.
Non-action
is poetry in motion, being in the zone, and being the wave, when all things
move through us, and we don’t have to work hard or struggle wildly to create eloquent
perfection. Practicing yoga and dancing, there’s a dynamic balance between maintaining
relaxation and having control over the movements and postures. Non-action isn’t
controlling everything with tightly contracted muscles and stiff joints, nor is
it holding myself so loosely that I have no form or structure at all, and am
just slumping around all over the place. There’s a balance between those two
extremes which also encompasses both, in which I am completely relaxed, while simultaneously
in complete control, able to accomplish the most with the least amount of
effort, and the utmost grace and efficiency. It’s not just being in the flow,
but it’s being the flow. The law of least resistance requires practice and life
experience to attain, but is also a moment by moment practice of awareness,
surrender, adjustment, and breath to access and attune one’s still, silent,
center, radiating outwards with grounded elegance.
We have
to memorize a lot, as Chinese medicine practitioners. There’s 361 acupuncture
points, 400+ herbs and formulas, and a whole new language of medicine, and way
of observing and analyzing the world. In the USA, we can gnash our teeth as we
labor long hours to memorize all these things, but in Taiwan or China, there’s
even more to memorize: the entire Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine (黃帝内經 Huáng Dì Neì Jīng), the song-lines (歌訣) associated with each
channel, and more. “Dead memorization, live usage” (死記活用 sĭ jì huó yòng) describes
this way of learning, where we invest so much sweat and tears memorizing this
information that by the time we work clinically, it’s effortless, like second
nature. When we memorize it, it still feels dead to us; we don’t yet have a
true understanding of it. Personal, clinical, and all other life experiences
literally breathe life into our memorized dead chunky information. But the
memorized information forms the backbone, from which life practice can spring
out from, and refer back to. Both are necessary.
Studying
most modalities is like this: during yoga teacher training, we focused most of
our training on learning one basic sequence. Once we could all confidently
teach that basic sequence, we learned modifications. Once we internalized the
basic form, then we could root down from that place of grounding, and rise up
with powerful elegance. My Thai massage training was similar: we went over the
same sequence over and over, until it was internalized, then could start diversifying
from that still, silent, solid yet mutable center. My qigong teacher in Taiwan
would not allow us to learn more of the form, until we had first achieved a
certain level of mastery with the basic Universe stance, or 站樁 (zhàn zhuāng) daily for months. I’m still working on it. A simple
movement held, for nine minutes a day, can make me shake and sweat, and sore
the next day. During the nine minutes of stillness, I pay constant attention to
my body, making micro-adjustments to my hips, shoulders, feet, head, neck… entire
body. These miniscule nine minutes affect the rest of my day, and all add
together over the years, to impact the rest of my life: my posture, approach to movement, innate
response to change, etc. An underlying form, or deeply internalized understanding
of one discipline, can create a solid Earthen foundation for infinite flowers
and possibilities to freely blossom forth. Complete immersion into any one
thing creates a portal to the Universe. We immerse ourselves so completely that
we lose all sense of self, and merge with all else.
To stop
leaving tracks is easy, but to walk upon the ground is difficult.
References
Philip Ivanhoe and Bryan Van
Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese
Philosophy
Bryan Van Norden, Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy
Luna moth, guardian of dreams. Pictured on the northeastern tip of the USA in Maine, from last summer's journey-woman botano-adventures.
