What has happened at the essence of their being? This is the question you should internally ask yourself in order to treat at the level of spirit. You must have this information to treat the heart meridian. My Sensei once told me, “These people, who have Hearts that can’t bear the burdens of this life don’t stay very long. Ten years of gradual decline, then maybe they have five years left.”
Both adolescents and adults, who have had their spirit bruised and beaten, often feel like they can’t go on in their Hearts spiritually. The most classic case is someone losing the spouse they loved so deeply, and then losing the will to live. The actual heart pulse in acupuncture becomes pulled to a direction and is bi-furcated, when we feel this in the patient’s heart pulse it is a sign of great mental instability. The spirit and the will of Heaven are not in alignment with the personality.
A sacred text in Oriental Medicine is called The Ling Shu (the spiritual pivot), this text is very clear in explaining the concept of the Heart in Oriental Medicine. The Heart has greater meaning spiritually, for it is not used to treat the actual organ. Spiritually it is much more complicated to explain the philosophical and medical concept of the Heart as being The Emperor, your connection to Heaven, or what is called your Heart Shen. The term Heart Shen is drawn as a Chinese Character to represent an empty space to store the spiritual complications of the other 4 Elements of Metal, Water, Wood, and Earth. Imbalance between our spirit and personality reveals itself in the Heart pulse in acupuncture. The Heart is all about community and relationship, and to know our hearts in relation to the inspiration all around you. The Heart is the Divine spark of Joy, that spark of joy that is created from experiences and relationships built and fueled by how strong we are in relationship to our community.
“The Community you live in creates and sustains you.”
Spiritually our foundations (the 5 Elements) create our thoughts, thoughts project outwards, and in that projection we accrue experiences which develop our will, and the pain is often transformed into wisdom. Wisdom is what controls both the positive and negative aspects of the spiritual heartache. As acupuncturists, our needles must be rooted in spirit, to know which aspect of the spirit is out of alignment with Heaven, and how that hidden Element is causing heartache from bearing too many burdens in this life. The Heart is also the empty place where thoughts arise, if these thoughts are not aligned with Heaven, our heart pulse is troubled. The goal of the meditative practice of Ba Gua, was to attain the empty space within the Heart-Mind located in the center of the Ba Gua. Encoded within this experience, was a spiritual mystery of the I Ching and the many palms of Ba Gua.
Helping people with the label of mental illness, emotional fatigue, and those completely withdrawn into fear requires a talented acupuncturist and a skillful therapist working together. I believe through teaching and breaking through emotional barriers with a combination of acupuncture and internal Taoist Arts, the therapy can become twice as effective and fast in transformations. These techniques associated with Shi Li (test strength), can help to detect an underlying narcissism that often has occurred to protect a wound to the essence of the patient. To activate different energies of the body was a goal in Taoism. The results of these meditation practices would radically alter the nervous system of mentally ill patients. We would be actually giving patients the tangible internal and spiritual strength without medicating people into a stupor of numbness, and if the patient complied to go through the teachings we could understand how to hasten from recovery to self awareness.
So, how do we uncover what happened to the essence of their being?” How were they broken? When people were broken in living this life, the challenge in the healing of these kind of patients becomes how to help them find their purpose to keep going. The stronger our purpose gets, the more Will you have, and the easier it is to stand in the face of changes. People who don’t have enough Will have lots of great ideas but can’t get anything done. They are easily distracted or chronically changing their way to the follow the path of the least amount of resistance (whether it comes from outside or inside themselves). These people have lots of anxiety and emotionally problems, and the Heart experiences an incredible amount of stress from this. We can help them find their purpose to go on living with harmony in our Heart. Find your purpose, and then the Fire in your Heart will no longer burn out of control.
Of the 5 spirits Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth, we can see bifurcations that pull the acupuncture pulses out of alignment with Divine Will located in the Heart Meridian. These bifurcations show us which element is out of alignment with Heaven. We can go to the spirit in that element that carries the bifurcation inside the Heart pulse, and finally we can see which emotion is “stuck” in the Heart –Mind space. We can work through that emotion to re-establish mental clarity. If Metal then I look at lack of empathy, too much empathy and grief being stuck in an emotional pattern that has lodged itself in the Heart-Mind. If Wood is stuck then I look at anger, frustration, and always being too nice instead of properly expressing the emotions. If Water is unbalanced, then I know there is an element of fear driving the system to such an imbalanced state that only wisdom will contain it. If Earth is stagnant then I can truly see a human being who over-thinks and ruminates to an obsessive space. Knowing this at a psycho-spiritual level can allow us to help by further diagnosis through Internal Arts and the knowledge of Hsing Yi Quan and Tai Chi Quan working with the body.
Combining the meditations and postures would allow the patient to begin to put the mind fully inside the body to create a grounded and empowered personality. You would monitor the progress of the martial arts being practiced with certain spiritual 2 person exercises to practice Shi Li (otherwise known as test strength). These arts are to be practiced with the goal of teaching awareness of the mind body connection. The student can learn which emotion is out of balance with the Element being demonstrated through acupuncture, and spiritual kung fu practices. Beginning with learning San Ti and the 5 Elements, the Single Palm Change of Ba Gua, and finally reaching the stage of push hands in Taijiquan would be like putting the mind of the heartbroken patient back inside the body. You could go through all the 5 Elements and arrive at fully stabilized or Earth Constitution. At this stage people don’t really ask for help anymore, the challenge is only to maintain a known stability. Having experienced and created a Heart Mind connection that is connected to a stabilized Earth energy, will allow the patient a form of self-care to always connect with Heaven in a healthy way.
In no way is this gift easily attainable in a rapid manner, but the prize is worth the cost of practice indeed. The teachers of this wonderful art must be understood as having a very clear method. Teaching only for fighting is for angry people, while highly evolved older teachers will all know this is not the method of “attainment of the unknown”. These evolved teachers can clearly instruct the philosophic values equally when teaching forms. When someone gets benefit from the practice of Taoist Internal Arts, it tends to be a lifelong anchor for the Heart-Fire to be stabilized through. You have to experience great wisdom to appreciate the profound transformations that await you. The transfer of acupuncture theory, healing arts, meditation, and deliberate strengthening of the nervous system will evolve a person beyond the limitations they experienced when the shadow of their psyche was running the show. True growth with the combination of the appropriate form of psychotherapy that helps focus on healing the root imbalance of the unconscious emotional blockage, this combination will bring about a restoration in complex patients indeed. I strongly feel young people and old would benefit from this shift in consciousness away from external stimulus, and re-directed through an internal arts regimen to cultivate a stable and holistic perspective.
It would make a great addendum to any academic program as well, for students do actually thirst for these types of classes. They want to know how to handle the complications of life. It’s no longer just for monks in a monastery, these arts are available, but the real key is finding a clear teacher who has dedicated themselves to the real thing. Finding a teacher who is not just living in the world of positive self-image hallucinations, someone without delusion and spiritual ego…. finding that person is an interesting journey indeed.