Ideas, Practice, Values: Towards an East-West Spirituality

 

Humans have experienced the religious urge for a long time, likely for as long as we have been human.  Throughout most of history, this urge was shaped and funneled through the religious traditions that were available to people in their geographical and cultural ranges.  However, with the spread of culture groups and contact between groups, customs and beliefs having to do with the spirit increasingly became available to people beyond their ethnic and tribal boundaries.  Here in the West, curious people have, since the colonial era and up to the present day, been fascinated by – and to lesser and greater degrees adopted – spiritual beliefs and practices from other parts of the world.  This has been especially true since the “death of God” heralded by Nietzsche and the meaning vacuum created in its wake, as organized religion waned in influence while secular modes – particularly science and a global interconnected economy – began to dominate the human mindset.

This essay is not a scholarly history of the Asian influence on Western spirituality or a learned discourse on Asian spiritual traditions and methodologies.  Neither is it meant to be a manifesto, or an advertisement for or polemic against religion, or any particular religious tradition.  Rather, it is the personal ruminations – a meditation, if you will – of one biracial and bicultural individual who has spent a lifetime reconciling East and West in his own person. 

I was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and a Swiss father, was raised in Japan through most of my childhood, and finished high school in the United States.  Aside from a stint in the Swiss Army as a young adult, I have lived in the United States ever since.  At about the age of thirteen, I became consumed with the notion of the mystical experience: the thought that one could merge with the Absolute in some kind of ecstatic union was very appealing to me.  A nerd from the very start, I read the Upanishads, books on Zen, and whatever works I could find in the school library about Eastern religion.  I was born a little late (1966) for the explosion of cross-cultural spiritual ferment in the 1960s, but eagerly read what I could about yoga and meditation.  In high school I enthusiastically experimented with marijuana and other psychoactive drugs, and, though I had interesting experiences, was disappointed that the drugs did not precipitate what I thought I would recognize as bona fide mystical experiences.

In my continuing quest to understand human beings and our mystical urges, I attended the University of California, Berkeley, and studied anthropology.  I had the wonderful experience of studying with world-renowned professors, and was able to expand my studies beyond anthropology per se, to courses on East Asian religion, the history of Buddhism, linguistic approaches to South Asian ritual, and West African music.  Although my major was in cultural anthropology, in hindsight it is physical anthropology with its Darwinian perspective that made the biggest impact on me intellectually.  The idea of natural selection and adaptation to changing physical and social environments provided an explanatory power that I had previously lacked.  I began to think differently about the issue of mysticism and religious experience.  What if the mystical union that I craved was not the validation of a super-reality that was more real than the reality I experienced day-to-day, but simply one kind of experience among many others, that had some adaptive value for human beings?

This way of thinking about spiritual experiences has stayed with me, and I think it is a valuable lens through which to view religion.  I think we need to abandon the notion that there is a Truth that can be got at, and replace it with an acceptance of the fact that the human experience has generated all kinds of ways of perceiving and thinking about things, and that none is inherently more right than the others.  A scientist might critique this statement, and say that well, yes, we can think about things however we want but science tells us objectively how they actually are.  My response is that the interior world of religious experience is maximally subjective, while the world of science is (ideally) maximally objective, and that neither has much bearing on the other.  In other words, whether or not there is such a thing as “enlightenment,” or “God,” or “reincarnation,” it would appear that human beings have experiences of such things, so it is worth investigating them since they are part of our experience. It is a Western prejudice that there is such a thing as absolute Truth, and it is a prejudice that underlies both Western science and Western religion (it is not uncommon for scientists and monotheists to suffer from the conviction that they are right while everyone else is wrong).  The Westerner, having lost faith in the religion of his or her childhood, seeks a replacement: perhaps Buddhism or Vedanta, or quantum physics or Scientology, holds the Truth, where Catholicism or Judaism failed them.

I think this way of thinking is all wrong.  Instead of operating on the faith that somebody got it right and we just have to find out who so we can follow them, I think we should instead just agree that the search for meaning, and for a connection to something greater than us, are universal human urges, and that it is only natural that different people fulfill these urges in different ways.  It is from this perspective that I think we should approach the question of how to best integrate Eastern and Western spirituality. Generally speaking, I am in favor of a create-your-own-religion approach to questions of the spirit.  While such an approach may smack of cultural appropriation, I think that what you think or do privately in the service of your spiritual wellbeing can and should be a highly personal affair, and there is no harm in borrowing from other cultures as long as you are not portraying yourself as an emissary or representative of those cultures, and are not charging money for the teaching and sharing of whatever it is you are borrowing.  The various cultural and spiritual traditions of East and South Asia offer much to the Westerner trying to forge his or her own spiritual path.  I will discuss these next, under the rubric of Ideas, Practices, and Values.

IDEAS:

Here in the West, religion is largely thought of in terms of what we believe (in most of the rest of the world, religion has much more to do with what we do – more on that in the upcoming sections on practice and values).  I would like to get away from this focus on belief because it supports the outdated notion referred to above, that there is such a thing as absolute Truth, and therefore correct beliefs and incorrect beliefs.  Instead, let us focus on the power and beauty of ideas.  What are some of the ideas coming from the East that can inform one’s spiritual life?  Here are just a few that I have found useful in my own life:

 The idea of self-cultivation: whether one is trying to cultivate moral virtues (Confucianism), alchemical “substances” that transform and circulate within the body (Daoism), or calm non-attachment to the myriad thoughts and distractions caused by the mind (Buddhism), the idea of self-cultivation is central to all Asian spiritual traditions.  The idea that one must rely on one’s own consistent and prolonged effort to achieve any kind of spiritual benefit is so intrinsic to Asian spirituality, and so important, that I devote the entire middle section of this essay to it, the section on Practice.

The idea that nature is sacred: as a child growing up in Japan, I was constantly reminded of the sanctity of nature.  Shinto, the indigenous Japanese religion, is very much a “nature religion,” a religion of place, of mountains and rivers and natural forces.  Whether hiking in the forest or exploring the alleyways of a large city, it was not unusual to stumble upon shrines and temples built around things and places of unusual natural beauty and power: extraordinary trees, strangely-shaped boulders, springs and waterfalls gushing with pure sweet water were often demarcated as holy sites where we would stop, clap our hands together, and offer a prayer.  Another aspect of this exaltation of nature is the attention paid to the seasons.  Traditional East Asian culture is keenly tuned to the changing seasons, and this level of attention to the ever-fluctuating beauty of the natural world elevates nature itself (ziran in Chinese, shizen in Japanese, meaning the “self-so,” the thing that generates itself of itself continually) to be the object of veneration.

The idea that humans are part of a trinity with, and therefore are constantly mutually affecting, Heaven and Earth: this idea is one of the foundations of the classical Chinese worldview, which properly should not be lumped with Daoism or Confucianism or Buddhism, as it precedes any such -isms.  I should point out here that Heaven in the Chinese view is not a place where people go when they die, but another word for the immensity of the Universe, or Nature.

The idea that ritual matters: most of Asian religion is primarily liturgical; the meditative aspects of Buddhism and Hinduism seized on by the West are generally left to the “pros” (monks, nuns, priests) living in monasteries, while most people are content to “go through the motions” of daily or seasonal rituals.  But to say that what they are doing is “just ritual” is to miss the point!  There is a beauty to enacting with one’s activity the movements of the universe and the key ideas and values of your tradition.  It is satisfying and meaning-making.

The idea that everything is made of the same stuff in varying modes of being, and that proper function – of anything: a body, a landscape, a planet – consists of establishing a healthy flow of that stuff, of freeing it where it is stuck and strengthening it where it is weak: this is another foundational part of the ancient Chinese worldview, and is the main idea behind arts such as fengshui, qigong, and acupuncture (I went on to study traditional Chinese medicine some years after college, and it is the source of my livelihood today).  This universal stuff/non-stuff is usually referred to as qi.  I think it is important to retain this universalistic understanding of qi, rather than narrowing it down to an invisible vital energy, as it is usually defined.  The concept of qi is certainly broad enough to contain a sensory aspect, as in the sensations one feels in the body during qigong or acupuncture, and even a metaphysical aspect like the emanations one might perceive radiating from a relic or other holy object, but to reduce it to “vital energy” is to miss the grand sense of qi as the unifying principle that connects all things whether they are physical, energetic, spiritual, psychological, or even imaginary.

The idea that we are literally and infinitely interconnected: in addition to the Chinese view of qi as the connector of all things, another version of this idea comes from Buddhism, where it is called pratityasamutpada or “dependent origination.” If we conceive of things not in terms of individual causes and effects but rather as ONE THING in which every part is intimately connected to and “caused” by every other part, it’s hard not to care, not only about our fellow humans but about other beings and all things.

The idea that non-ordinary states such as dream, deep contemplation, possession, and revelation are as real as the “real world,” and are a source of wisdom and useful information: I suspect that this idea was common in the Western world before the modern era, but in more recent times such states are generally dismissed as neurological aberrations when they are considered at all (“neurotheology” notwithstanding).

The idea that travel is a mode of religious exploration: Yu (travel, or perhaps more properly, “wandering”) is a key idea from Daoism.  Whether one wanders through the forest, or explores a new city, or traverses a foreign land, travel – and especially aimless wandering! - is considered an exemplary mode of embracing the Dao.  I love this idea, because personal experience has shown me that indeed, the spontaneity of the open road and the unanticipated encounter exposes us to what is good about life, about nature, about human nature.

 The idea that one’s body is a locus of divinity, and that what one does in the body, through breath and movement, affects one’s spirit: this idea, which underlies many forms of meditation as well as disciplines such as yoga and martial arts, is not unique to Eastern disciplines, but is certainly a foundational feature of many of them.

 The idea that it is possible to “wake up”: whether one embraces the Hindu idea of moksa (“liberation”) or the Buddhist idea of enlightenment, there is great hope in the thought that one can reach a state in which the distinctions of the conditioned world are transcended.  I think that the popularity of the “Matrix” movies in recent years, and the notion that it is possible to “wake up from the matrix,” is a sign of the appeal of this idea.

The idea that sexual pleasure can be a path to liberation: a natural extension of the previous two ideas, this idea reached its fruition in various schools of South Asian tantra and Chinese Daoism.  Although a bit problematical because sex often brings with it issues of power, control, shame, and attachment, and because there was and is certainly much sexual repression in the East as in the West, nonetheless it is a revolutionary idea when looked at vis-à-vis the Church in European history, which was thoroughly anti-pleasure for centuries (and still is) and would not and could not produce a religious path based on sexual pleasure.

The idea that there is no such thing as a self or soul: the truly radical Buddhist concept of anatman or “non-self” goes so against human nature that I marvel over its being the basis of a world religion.  For those who are so inclined, this powerful idea allows one to view human experience and cognition as a kind of mathematical or biological process rather than as a function of a nonmaterial entity that is running the show (the “ego,” the “self,” the “soul”).

 This is just a short list of some interesting ideas that come from Asian culture and religion.  It is worth doing a deep dive into ideas that are appealing to you, to read and study beyond the Wikipedia entry or Youtube video, to do them justice in their cultural and historical context and give them your full consideration.  Also, it should be obvious that good ideas aren’t the exclusive provenance of Asians, and the world’s literature and the vast living encyclopedias of all the world’s people and cultures should be investigated for their wisdom too (this is why it’s good to read, and to hang out with people who are unlike yourself).  But, ultimately, all ideas are just ideas.  In my opinion, we should not elevate any one idea to the level of unquestioned holy writ.  By insisting that our good ideas are the Truth, we set ourselves up as people who are right, and others as people who are wrong, and this is the start of bigotry and proselytization, both of which should be avoided. Instead, we should shift our focus to what we do.

PRACTICE:

One of the great advantages of Asian spiritual systems is that they tend to come with clearly prescribed practices: things that you do with your mind and body.  Whether you are learning meditation, yoga, swordfighting, or the tea ceremony, part and parcel of the tradition is learning how to be in your body.  When the practice in question is part of a religious tradition, the practice will supplement and encourage your exploration of one or more of the key ideas that inform the tradition.  For instance, Buddhist meditation may help you see that there is no such thing as a self, and in so doing, may lift you out of self-absorption and onto the path towards awakening, or at the very least to calm equanimity.

I would add that a practice is valuable in and of itself, even if it is not specifically tied to a religious tradition.  I once heard an acupuncture teacher say, “In Japan, there is family learning, school learning, and dojo learning.”  The dojo (literally “Place of the Way”) is most often thought of as a martial arts training hall, but it is actually a more general term for a school where one goes to learn a traditional art, whether that art is judo, archery, calligraphy, or flower arranging.  To this day in Japan there is the recognition that dojo learning is distinct from family- and school- learning, and equally important.  In any traditional discipline, dojo learning has to do not only with specific cultural knowledge, but with instruction on inhabiting one’s body with integrity: how to stand, how to sit, how to breathe, how to move.

In Chinese, there is a character, zheng.  Zheng is usually translated as “right,” “upright,” “righteous,” “correct,” “authentic,” “straight.”  It is not a specifically religious term, but has a close association with Confucianism.  Zheng is the enactment of one of the ideas mentioned earlier, that humans are the connector between Heaven and Earth.  What does this mean?  For me it means that when one “is zheng,” when one is upright in posture and attitude, one’s own integrity facilitates the integrity of the cosmos.  Holding your body with integrity affects not only your physical ability to maintain balance and composure, but your ethics, your health, and ultimately your surroundings and the entire universe itself. This is something I learned through judo as a child, and continue to learn via kung fu practice more recently.  But one could learn it through seated meditation or tea ceremony just as well.

To tie this in with another of the ideas mentioned above – that dreams are important and meaningful – about a year ago I had a dream that I now believe is about zheng.  In the dream, I woke up in my bed, and saw a coil of thick copper wire suspended from the ceiling by a string.  The coil began swinging around erratically, as if by some kind of poltergeist activity.  I looked on in alarm, and suddenly the copper wire went from being coiled to being perfectly straight and vertical.  It was held in this position by what I sensed to be an immensely powerful force field.  I felt as if I would die if I would reach for the copper.  I have wondered many times since that dream, about what it signified.  Though I still can’t say with any certainty, I now believe that the coil represents me, and that in its straightening, it embodies zheng and the power that results when one joins Heaven and Earth.

Art is another way to approach spiritual practice.  Although it is certainly possible, and quite common, to produce secular art, all of the world’s religions have traditions of art-making as a form of religious practice.  Christian illuminated manuscripts, Tibetan thangka paintings, Zen calligraphy, and Islamic rugs and textiles are just a few examples. In my experience, the creative process and the physical act of art-making is itself spiritual.  When I am woodworking or metalworking, I find that my perception of time is altered; many hours pass but it feels like no time has passed at all.  My social mind shuts down and I am absorbed by the work and the material; the rasping and polishing of wood or metal becomes a metaphorical polishing of my own soul.  The production of the artwork in its final form is less creation than it is revelation.

Finally, another aspect of practice is what you do, in the world, as an expression of your spiritual ideas and practices.  In my case, in my work as an acupuncturist and herbalist, I try to embody and apply the ideas of ren (kindness, compassion, love), of moving the qi to affect health, of maintaining zheng as I mediate the inner worlds of my patients with the outer worlds of society and nature. A teacher, a nun, a hedge fund manager, and a chef will each approach their work and life differently, and of course every individual does so with a flavor unique to each. I would argue that this approach to life is a direct outcome of one’s spirituality, however one defines the term.  This brings me to the question of values.

VALUES:

Ultimately, spiritual ideas and practices cannot be separated from human values.  Why do you do what you do?  Why work?  Why meditate?  Why pray?  Why feed the poor?  Why have kids?  I think it makes a difference whether one does things because one is trying to avoid going to hell, or trying to spread love and kindness, or just trying to stay alive.  Increasingly, we are immersed in a consumerist culture that values acquisition of material goods over most else; we use technologies that promote discord and hate between us and those who might think differently from us; we are overwhelmed by what looks and feels like our planet collapsing around us.  In the midst of all this, we scramble to put food on the table and a roof over our heads, and hardly have time to think about our core values and their bearing on the world.

In this context, I think it behooves us to think deeply about why we do what we do – what our values are.  Whether or not we point our fingers at the West and its history of colonialism and its legacy of capitalism as the reason for everything going to hell in a hand-basket, the spiritual and cultural traditions of the East are largely based on values that promote kindness, clarity, appreciation, tolerance, ecological balance, and hope, and can offer a much-needed corrective or supplement to what I consider our current crisis of values. 

While maintaining a Western love of reason and critical thinking, in my own life I try to live in a way that is congruent with the ideas, practices, and values that I have absorbed over the years from my parents, my studies, my curiosity, and my life experience.  If I had to summarize, I would say that what I have distilled out of these various influences is an ethic of appreciation and caring. It’s hard to say how much of this ethic comes from my mother, who is a teacher of ikebana and talks to birds; or my father, who is a scientist and loves to tinker, and nibbles on herbs and mushrooms while hiking; or from my wife and children, who surround me with love and laughter; or from martial arts training; or my work as an acupuncturist; or meditation; or study; or travel; or art; or inspiration; or my own character and predilections. I do not insist that everyone do as I do, or adopt for themselves the things that were useful for me, or embrace my particular values.  But I do believe that a process of honest self-inquiry, deep thinking, cultural critique, and cross-cultural study and practice can be an antidote to the anomie that many feel in our increasingly splintered world. 

Religion is about our relationship to the unknown; ultimately it boils down to how we contend with the fact that one day we will die.  Religion offers us different approaches to this uncomfortable knowledge: it can soften its edges with the promise of an afterlife or reincarnation; it can provoke moments of transcendence that make it all worthwhile; it offers us community and fellowship; it gives us the accumulated wisdom and traditions of many generations of people who came before us and wondered about the same things.

I understand the desire for certainty, and I accept that faith is one well-worn route to making sense of the world and our place in it.  But I prefer a spirituality that is comfortable with the mystery.  I am an innately anti-authoritarian and individualistic person.  I do not accept that any one religion has figured out the nuts and bolts of what happens when we die, what it’s all about, what the rules are, who you’re supposed to pray to or burn incense for.  But I do appreciate the history of humankind as a millennia-old natural selection of sorts, countless experiments yielding a million results, with the world’s religions and spiritual traditions a kind of repository of ideas, practices and values that have proven effective for helping us make sense of our existence.  In the end my stance is thoroughly existentialist and postmodern: there is no such thing as divinely-ordered meaning, so create your own meaning!  An East-West approach like the one outlined here is one way to go about doing that.

Kaz's Rules for Good Health

I'm not the type of practitioner who likes to give people strict rules to follow ("No gluten!" "No red meat!" "No sugar!") and then makes them feel guilty when they break the rules.  But so much of staying healthy is simple common sense that I thought it would be good to put it in the form of this little list:


1. Play.

2. Eat real food.

3. Drink plenty of water.

4. Move your body.

5. Get a good night's sleep every night.

6. Be in a loving relationship or have other satisfying social connections.

7. Laugh a lot (hold on to your sense of humor because without it, nothing's funny anymore!)

8. Don't let work dominate your life.

9. Spend as much time as possible outdoors in nature, preferably naked.

10. Immerse yourself in wild water (ocean, lakes, rivers, hot springs) as often as possible.

11. Have at least one animal friend (human friends are good too).

12. Give and get some hands-on healing on a regular basis.

13. Practice appreciation as a way of life.

I Made My Own Acupuncture Needle!

For many years now, I had the idea that I would make my own acupuncture needle out of a meteorite.  In ancient times, before the technology of smelting had been discovered, meteorites were one of the only sources of high-purity iron that, through firing and pounding, could be made into steel.  In ancient China, swords that were forged out of meteorite iron were considered to be not just functionally exceptional - harder, sharper, less apt to break in combat - but endowed with celestial powers as well.  It is hard to believe that acupuncture needles, associated from the very beginning with stars and the cosmos, would not have been made from meteorites.  The acupuncture points on the human body were regarded as a microcosm of the stars in the heavens.  What better instrument to illuminate our corporeal stars than a sliver of condensed heavenly yang qi?

Meteorite chunk

Last year I turned fifty, and as part of the year-long celebration, went on a camping trip with my old friend Andy McKenzie.  I drove from Santa Cruz and he drove from Fort Worth, Texas, and we met up at Zion National Park in Utah. On a day trip to Bryce Canyon, we pulled into one of the many rock and mineral stores that dot the Southwest.  Inside, I found small chunks of meteorite on sale, and thought, "Aha! Finally, the raw material for my needle!" and bought a couple.

The Micro-Forge

Over the course of the year, I designed and built a little outdoor workshop and smithy where I could try to transform my meteorite into a needle.  I figured that, since everything was on such a small scale, I could make a forge out of a blow torch and a fire brick or two.  All that was left to do was to actually make the needle!  So, the other day, I took advantage of the break in rain and got to work.

It took a day of firing and pounding, and another day of straightening and polishing, heat-treating and oil-quenching, and now I have my very own hand-made meteorite needle!

Slowly taking shape

NOTE: you may be thinking, that needle looks awfully fat to be sticking into people!  Well, this type of needle, called teishin in Japanese, is not meant for insertion.  It functions as a detector and modulator of qi, and achieves its effects by touching the skin rather than piercing it.  This is the style of acupuncture that I practice, as taught by my teacher Anryu Iwashina ("Dr. Bear").




TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS:

Final version, with manzanita carrying case.

Composition: This needle is made from a fragment of the Campo del Cielo meteorite that landed in Argentina between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago, and is 93% iron, 6% nickel, with trace amounts of cobalt, iridium, gallium, and germanium.  The cobalt is responsible for the bluing oxidation that occurs at around 900 degrees C; you can see a hint of it on the thicker end of the needle, where I left a cerulean sheen as a reminder of the needle's heavenly origins.

Dimensions: At 2 grams and 6.7 centimeters, my needle is a little lighter and shorter than my gold and silver teishin.  It handles very nicely and gets an instant qi sensation when touched to the skin.

Polarity: Acupuncturists who use teishin may wonder how I determined which end should be the pokey sedating end and which the rounded tonifying end. Unlike the gold and silver of the traditional teishin pair, iron, nickel, and cobalt are all strongly ferromagnetic. These metals lose their magnetism at high heat (called the Curie temperature; about 770 degrees C for iron) and then remagnetize as they cool if they are subjected to an external magnetic field. Since I was heating and cooling the needle in the earth's magnetic field, I made a point of aligning the needle as it cooled on a north-south axis so that the rounded end faces north and is thus  more tonifying. Please note there is some controversy about what the poles of a magnet do, therapeutically speaking, and even about how they are named.  Because I admire his experimental and clinical approach, I am adopting Yoshio Manaka's method and deem the north-facing end (+) to be tonifying.  Personally, I think that needling technique is the more important determinant of what happens in a patient's body during a treatment.  I am not a practitioner of magnet therapy per se, but figured that since my needle will be magnetic by nature, its polarity should be theoretically consistent with the use of magnets in acupuncture.

Appreciate

Stop.
Situate

Receive.
Consolidate
Circulate
Elevate

Breathe.
Give and take
Love and hate
Radiate

Open.
Contemplate
Consecrate
Evaporate

                     Wait.
                     Appreciate
                     the condensate
                     the distillate
                     so delicate

The elixir is abundant here
Elixir is abundant here
Elixir abundant here

(He licks her abundant hair)

Everything is the Ass

There are only two diseases:
One is riding an ass to search for the ass;
The other is riding an ass and being unwilling to dismount.

You say that riding an ass to search for the ass is silly
and that he who does it should be punished.
This is a very serious disease.

But, I tell you, do not search for the ass at all.
The intelligent man, understanding my meaning,
stops searching for the ass,
and thus the deluded state of his mind ceases to exist.

But if, having found the ass, one is unwilling to dismount,
this disease is most difficult to cure.

I say to you, do not ride the ass at all.
You yourself are the ass.
Everything is the ass.
Why do you ride on it?
If you ride, you cannot cure your disease.

But if you do not ride,
the universe is as a great expanse open to your view.

       - Shu Chou, quoted in Fung Yu-Lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy

Introduction to Way of the Caveman Healer

When I was a boy growing up in western Japan, I liked to explore the hills behind my house.  One of my favorite places, past the junior high school and the bamboo forest, was an archeological site where I would play in the reconstructed prehistoric dwellings of the people who lived in my area a long time ago.  What was life like for them?  I imagined myself as a caveman, making fires, pretending to hunt game and gather greens.  There was a river not too far away, and I would make excursions to wash myself in a small waterfall, to drink the sweet water.  When it got dark I would head home, and as my eyes took in the setting sun I wondered what the cavemen [1] thought and felt when they gazed at the sun or contemplated the starry sky.

Many years later, I studied anthropology as a university student.  I wanted to understand the phenomenon of human beings, why we do the things we do, how we got to be the way that we are.  I would say that the single best thing that came out of my anthropological education is the evolutionary perspective – the idea that we, along with the rest of life on our planet, are constantly evolving: not evolving towards some kind of physical or spiritual perfection (that would be the outdated medieval view, which places humans at the pinnacle of earthly creation and closer to God at every step, as well as the current New Age view, both of which I reject), but simply adapting as a species to our changing environment.  Based on the evidence, I came to the conclusion that the cavemen were basically just like us, minus the cars and supermarkets and iPods.  They were smart, they almost certainly used language, they solved their problems using their large brains and opposable thumbs, just like we do.  I’m convinced that cavemen loved their children just like we love ours.

Growing up in Japan, and through the practice of martial arts, I was exposed at an early age to some of the ideas behind East Asian healing arts – ideas like qi, the universal matter/energy, and tsubo, or places on the body where one could access the qi flowing through the body to affect health.  After college, I became a high school teacher and spent a couple years teaching in a school district that was about to go under, and subsequently (as one of the younger untenured teachers) lost my job.  The pressures of teaching in a moribund school in an intense urban setting, and the trauma of losing my job, left me with the conviction that I should switch careers and help people one-on-one in some capacity.  Encouraged by my taiji teacher, who was an acupuncturist, I ended up getting my master’s degree in traditional Chinese medicine, and became a licensed acupuncturist in the state of California.

I loved school and I continue to love Chinese medicine!  I was fascinated with herbal medicine, with how leaves and flowers and bark and insect parts could affect the human body.  It boggled my mind that over thousands of years, the ancient Chinese healers figured out the properties of these hundreds of substances, and that what I was learning was a body of knowledge that had been passed on uninterrupted for so many generations.  When I first pierced the skin of a hapless classmate with a metal needle I experienced an intense initiatory rush, like I had just stepped into an ancient tradition with roots planted firmly in Paleolithic times.  In fact, as I immersed myself in this healing system whose medical terminology consisted of words like wind, dampness, fire, and earth, I found myself transported back to an earlier time when humans related to their bodies and their environment in a direct way.  By considering themselves to be an integral part of nature, rather than separate from and above nature, the ancient Chinese doctors created a superior system of healing that to this day helps millions of people with their pain, their menstrual cramps, their indigestion, their insomnia, and many other ills.  I am convinced that one reason for its success and survival is that Chinese medicine retains a connection to its prehistoric heritage, that it incorporates the awareness that early humans had for their bodies and their environment, an awareness that many of us have since lost.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Chinese medicine is a sophisticated rational medical system that has been through continuous refinement since its earliest days.  I’m sure there are practitioners and scholars of Chinese medicine who would take offense at having the word “caveman” associated with this jewel of Chinese civilization.  But I would remind them that from its earliest days, Chinese medicine has looked back to a golden age in which people were healthier and wiser.  Earlier in my career I dismissed this veneration of ancient times as a Chinese cultural trait that only existed to legitimize the present by linking it to a glorious and more perfect past.  Now, I wonder if in fact this backward-looking is a yearning for a time prior to war, prior to agriculture, prior to civilization itself: a distant memory of the time of the caveman.

And, at a fundamental level, it’s hard to deny that the logic and methods of Chinese medicine hark back to the medicine men of old.  In fact, according to Richard Grossinger in his far-ranging Planet Medicine, “It is no exaggeration to think of the Yellow Emperor as one of our only guides to late Stone Age medicine [2].”  Cold stomach? Warm it up!  Hot blood?  Lance the skin to let it out!  Wind and dampness penetrating the hip?  Burn a pile of dried mugwort over it and drive out the evil influences!  When I treat and advise patients, it is easy to find myself channeling some Central Asian shaman, scraping the skin with a water buffalo horn or patiently waiting for the qi to arrive between my fingertips as I hold a gold needle to their skin.

From an anthropological standpoint, traditional Chinese medicine and the other nonconventional healing methods that are so popular today present a cultural critique of our modern world and its healthcare.  So many of our health problems stem from the strains placed on us by modernization.  From the epidemic of metabolic syndrome and diabetes that has resulted from our inability to adjust to the massive influx of sugar and processed foods in our diet, to the host of stress-related illnesses that afflict us because we have to work so hard in highly artificial environments just so we can place a roof over our heads and food on the table, to the disruptions to our delicate endocrine systems due to minute amounts of hormone-like chemicals in our plastic food containers and in the water we drink, we suffer from the consequences of our rapid industrialization and modernization.  When a healer - or a patient - embraces Chinese medicine, he or she admits on some level that there is something wrong with conventional healthcare.  Often, this admission leads to a realization that there is also something wrong with the modern society that produced it, and that produced our bad habits and bad health.

So the common sense health advice of the Chinese medicine practitioner can be taken as a gentle reminder that we should get back to our caveman roots and live more balanced lives.  Simply stated, the Way of the Caveman Healer is an approach to managing the ill effects of civilization to regain your health and sanity.  My hope is that, regardless of your current state of health, the Way of the Caveman Healer will provide you with ideas and tools to cope with the stresses and strains of modern living and help to increase your appreciation and enjoyment of life.

---

[1] When I write “cavemen,” of course what I mean is prehistoric humans of both sexes.  But “cavemen and cavewomen” is quite a mouthful, and “cavepeople” just doesn’t sound right, so I have it as “cavemen” and “caveman” for the sake of convenience and easy reading.  I am not writing specifically about the Cro-Magnon or the Neanderthals or any other single type of early humans, preferring instead to use the term “cavemen” to refer to prehistoric humans generally.

[2] Richard Grossinger, Planet Medicine: From Stone-Age Shamanism to Post-Industrial Healing, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, 1980. Grossinger is referring to the Huangdi Neijing, or The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, one of the oldest preserved books of traditional Chinese medicine, dating back some 3,000 years.  It still forms the basis of the Chinese medical theory that acupuncturists use today.

Simple Horse

My people are a simple people.  We are strict, but we laugh a lot.  We have tender hearts and cry easily.  We are quick to anger and have a righteous streak.  We are opinionated and stubborn.  We are more about raising children and vegetables than building empires.  We like to work with our hands.  More than a hint of OCD.  A bit on the nerdy side.  Though I am a Horse by birth, I am of the Bear Clan on all sides: the Bernese bear on the Swiss, the ancient waguma totem on the Japanese, and of course the NorCal grizzly through and through.  My wife says I walk like a bear.  Since she is also a bear (a mighty Mama Polar Bear) perhaps she knows it when she sees other bears.

(I am also a Monkey, but for today let's focus on just one of my Multiple Animal Personalities).

I was born in 1966, which makes me a Horse.  A Fire Horse: dangerous yang.  Lucky for me, my wonderful wife is a Water Tiger, which balances my recklessness.  I like to think that the Fire fuels my imagination, keeps me going, and warms those I love.

As a Simple Horse I do not like being corralled.  It is hard for me to get with the program, unless it’s my program.  When I am doing what I want to do, I am enthusiastic and fun to be around, and, I like to think, good at what I do.  When I’m not doing what I want to do I get grumpy and people around me start to complain.

Simple Horse likes to wander the margin, the hinterlands, the zone where society and family and work on the one side lap up against the vast wilds of Nature and Mind on the other.  Maybe I am an Edgetarian.  I believe that this in-between world is a source of great healing power, and that while being healthy has a lot to do with genetics, personal awareness and good habits, it also has to do with resonance and flow and ease.  When I am in the zone, those around me flow easier too, with an overall positive impact on their health and well-being.  At least, that is part of my narrative about being a Stone Age healer in the 21^st century.

As a Simple Horse, my attitude towards medicine is very straightforward.  I do not hide behind esoteric theories and white coat attitude. Where there is Stagnation, break it up!  If there is Cold, warm it up!  If there is Heat, cool it down! Drain what is Full and nourish what is Empty.  If you are stuck in your head I will get you in your body.  If you are stuck in your body I will get things moving again.  I’ll probably tell you to take a hike or roll around on the ground.  If you are eating crap I will tell you to stop it, and maybe share some recipes. If you are running around like crazy I will tell you to take a break.  For most people, slowing down is the important thing.  That’s why my clinic is more like an inn than a clinic – a place where you can take a break, enjoy a cup of tea or some herbal liqueur, lie down and relax.  Tell me what is bothering you and I will roll up my sleeves and do my best to help you feel better.  Once you have rested, and feel better, you are better equipped to be on your Way.  And so, you leave the inn and continue on your journey.

Broadly speaking, Simple Horse does not believe in Riders.  Why would I let someone ride me around?  How undignified! Some say the Animal somehow creates the Rider, and that when the Animal dies the Rider vanishes.  Others say the Rider sneaks onto the Animal at conception, when the Animal is still a little jellyroll.  Some believe that when the Animal dies the Rider flies away to a special beautiful place where Riders go to live forever.  I am a Simple Horse.  All I can say is that here I am, it’s pretty great much of the time and not as great other times, and no sign of a Rider anywhere, or of the vast shining retirement home where they all go when we die.

(Some would point out, is it the Animal or the Rider who is writing these words?  Touché.  I would respond that a Brain may equal a Mind, but that a Mind does not necessarily equal a Soul much less a Spirit or even a Self.)

But I do not like to spend too much time pondering existential or theological questions.  My approach is entirely postmodern and phenomenological.  You don’t have to believe anything!  God, qi, the five elements, the authority of doctors or states, it’s all irrelevant.  You just have to embrace the responsibility and experience of having a body, of being an Animal on this amazing Earth with its self-renewing creatures of green and red that eat each other, constantly becoming each other in this ever-transforming thin film of life.  Sometimes I am in awe.  Mostly I just try to appreciate.

My ancestors were awesome!  They were civil servants, newspapermen, tinkers, and farmers. In the last few centuries it seems there was a lake involved.  My Japanese side are Ikeda and Ikeshita, the “Rice Paddy by the Lake” and “Below the Lake,” respectively, and the Swiss side has long resided on the shores of Lake Zurich, wandering there over several generations from Walkringen in the Bernese mountains.  They foraged for mushrooms, they picked and dried flowers and berries, they made liquor out of hardy alpine roots and crisp apples, traded with the folk who came by river from the lowlands.  My Japanese ancestors traveled to the city, they paid in gold and silver for precious powders made by priests who had learned the medicine in China.  My ancestors were bathhouse tenders, preachers, innkeepers.  At some point they were millers.  But mostly farmers and herders.  And before that, for a long, long time, my ancestors – and your ancestors too! - were tracking and hunting other Animals and digging in the dirt for tubers.  They were warming themselves around the fire, they were snuggled together in furs, they washed and reveled in the cold water of the stream, they looked up at the starry sky and wondered.  We are still basically them, plus a bunch of technology and brainwashing.

My ancestors were awesome.  Yours were awesome too; all their adventures and love affairs resulted in you. 

So, I say, learn what we can from our awesome ancestors!  Don’t take so seriously the trappings of status and society.  They’re not what make you happy, and they’re certainly not what make you healthy.

Fortunately, there’s no need to turn into an obsessed and fanatical extremist.  This is not paleo-nonsense, it is not juicing and colonics and 100% organic grass-fed buffalo meat.  It’s just common sense.  One could say, Horse Sense.  Eat real food.  Move your body.  Play.  Love.  Stuff like that.

I am Simple Horse.  I invite you to join me on the Way of the Caveman Healer.

Happy New Year 2014, Year of the Wood Horse!  May you gallop free and strong!  May the rains fall and the plants grow!  Blessings blessing blessings to all!

Prayer for Ingrid

Thank you sun

Thank you earth

Thank you universe

For creating Ingrid

That she could experience your wonders


So sweet, so bright

Such light!

Flower in the summertime


Return to root

Till the new spring

Become the flame

The rain

The wind


Such light, so bright

So sweet

Thank you

For being

Ingrid

How to Make We Qi Fermented Pickles

A fun thing to do in the summer is to make your own fermented pickles.  These are the directions we attach whenever we give away a jar.

To give credit where credit is due, We Qi is very much like the Korean national pickle known as kimchi.  But We Qi (pronounced “Wee Chee”) is a process, not a product!  Most importantly, you shouldn’t make it all by yourself.  Make it with your partner, with family, with friends, and your Qi (“breath” or “energy”) will alchemically merge with the Qi of the ingredients, and create a remarkable living food: We Qi. 

Make some, eat some, give some away!  Join the We Qi Revolution!

Ingredients:

            2 medium to large heads nappa cabbage

            2 daikon, peeled and cubed

            ½ cup sea salt

            5 - 10 cloves garlic

            10 green onions

            powdered red pepper or chopped fresh red peppers (adjust to your desired level of heat)

            juice from previous batch of We Qi (optional)

            2 large buckets

            plate

            big rock

Procedure:

1. Set aside several large outer leaves of cabbage
2. Chop up rest of cabbage, coarsely, and divide into two buckets for easy mixing
3. Add half the salt to each bucket, mix well by hand
4. If you have juice from your previous batch of We Qi, add it to the mix to hasten fermentation
5. Combine into one bucket
6. Cover with large whole cabbage leaves
7. Place upside-down plate over the top
8. Place large clean rock on top of plate
9. Cover bucket with moist cloth, bungee-cord it closed so critters can’t get in
10. Set aside in a cool place for three days, mixing occasionally
11. Add crushed fresh garlic, coarsely chopped green onions, red pepper, daikon cubes
12. Cover with moist cloth and set aside another three days – let it get good and bubbly
13. Transfer to clean jars and keep in refrigerator until ready to enjoy
14. Adjust for over-saltiness (if necessary) by adding more daikon; adjust for under-saltiness by adding salt
15. Give away some jars along with these directions so that others can experience the Way of We Qi!

Variations:

Add other vegetables, like carrots, kale, turnips, radish, etc., or other interesting things like kombu seaweed slices or watercress

Add fresh herbs like ashitaba leaves or gotu kola and let them ferment along with the cabbage.

If you are the adventurous type, add anchovy paste, fish stomachs, or other funky matter.

Instead of starting anew each time, just keep adding fresh vegetables, sea salt, garlic to your bucket of We Qi.

Om We Qi Yum!

Incarnation

Incarnation
Here we are
  on the cross of space and time
Contemplating the miracle
This precious pause

Saviour
Heaven
Future lives
Enlightenment, even
Comforting speculations
In the face of a single undeniable fact:
Here we are.

Wanting to be off the hook
Wanting to be somewhere else
Easier to dream of a sunnier place
Than to enjoy the rainy here and now

Meat-bodies run amok
In this once-great land
Run by corporations for the corporations
Work work
Buy buy
We are the herds
We follow the songs
  of an invisible shepherd
  who seduces us with things we want
And we don't even notice
The browning of the pines
The dying of the squid
Everything surreal, unreal
When viewed on a tiny screen

When I go
I will be grateful for those I have loved
And who have loved me
And that will be enough.

Incarnation
Here we are
Let's make the best of it



Merry Christmas 2012 Happy New Year 2013!

On Mushrooms

One morning not too long ago, I woke up early and, unable to go back to sleep, decided to head out for a hike in the pre-dawn chill. As I walked uphill towards one of my favorite dells, I savored the crisp morning air and basked in the light of the recently-full moon setting in the west. I felt myself slipping into that state of mind which only a rhythmic entrainment with nature induces in me: energized yet calm, introspective but wide open, happy and fully alive.

Call it a hunch, call it the effect of a few stray spores floating in the moist air and alerting the olfactory centers of my brain, call it what you will - but for whatever reason I veered off the path and followed a deer trail into a damp area of tan oak, bay, and poison oak. There, as the first rays of the sun hit the leaves on the forest floor, I found my first chanterelles of the season. With the combination of the recent rains and dropping nighttime temperatures, the forest had produced a beautiful little crop of golden-orange manna for me to gather. After picking enough for breakfast (I left the babies for another day, or perhaps for another mushroom-lover), I headed home and made a delicious buttery mushroom omelet for me and my family. What a way to start the day!

Here in Santa Cruz, many people share my passion for mushrooms. But in much of this country, indeed in much of the Western world, mushrooms are looked upon with great suspicion if not revulsion. The great mycologist G. Gordon Wasson divides the peoples of the world into two classes: the “mycophiles” and the “mycophobes.” Fortunately for me, my parents both come from strongly mycophilic cultures. Growing up in Japan, I grew to love the plentiful shiitake, the long and skinny enokidake, the rare and fragrant matsutake which evoked for us the joys within the sad beauty of autumn. My father, who is Swiss, is an avid mushroom-hunter who goes foraging in the hills of Binningen, where he lives outside the city of Basel. His father, a civil servant in the town of Thalwil on the shores of Lake Zurich, served as the mushroom inspector for the community. If people were unsure about the edibility of the mushrooms they had collected, they would bring their harvest to my grandfather to have it checked out.

Aside from a genetic propensity to dwell on mushrooms, to long for them when they aren’t around and to cook and eat them with great gusto when they are, I have maintained a longtime professional interest in fungi. As an herbalist, I prescribe them daily in my practice, usually in the form of the mildly tonifying fuling, sometimes as the more strongly diuretic zhuling, often as part of a formula containing the immune-strengthening, spirit-calming polypore known as reishi or lingzhi. From the Chinese point of view, mushrooms are a yin phenomenon, growing as they do in dark, moist places. The biggest part of the mushroom’s body is the mycelium, a fine network of thready matter that grows through the soil of the forest floor. But the above-ground sexual organ bursts out into the yang of daylight to spread its spores into the greater world. Thus the mushroom when eaten nurtures the dark wet places within us, but also animates our creative and libidinous energies – what Chinese medicine calls “tonifying yin and yang.”

Mushrooms are the great alchemists of the forest, transforming tons of dead and decaying matter into beautiful, edible, perhaps even spiritual morsels. From the delectable morel to the medicinal lingzhi to the psychedelic ‘shrooms that have spread like spores on the wind from the huts of obscure Mazatec medicine women to living rooms and raves around the world, mushrooms have shared with humans a symbiotic intimacy since the dawn of time. When we forage for fungi in the wild, cook them with a few simple ingredients and eat them, we get a taste of Eden. Something in us remembers a time before supermarkets, a time before we left the safety and abundance of the forest for the open plains, a time when a field was just a field and not a place where we planted stuff. When we eat mushrooms, we embrace the long lineage of hunter-gatherers from which we are descended. And, embracing what we truly are, we feel good, and we are healthy.


Note to mushroom lovers: PSYCH!  No, I did not find my first chanterelles this early!  I wrote this piece one October many years ago for my ACUPUNK column in the Good Times.  May the rains begin soon.

A Simple Treatment for Taxol Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy

About six years ago I started working at a cancer treatment center whose principal doctors, bless their hearts, were open to the idea of their patients utilizing acupuncture as part of their supportive care.  Before I started, I had to attend an interview with the doctors.  One of them asked me if acupuncture could treat peripheral neuropathy.  I wasn't even sure what that was, but automatically replied "Yes!" because I really wanted the job.  Then I went home and read up on neuropathy.  As it turns out, peripheral neuropathy is the medical term for the the numbness, tingling, and pain that can be caused by a number of things, including certain types of chemotherapy.

Sure enough, pretty soon I started seeing patients who complained of exactly these symptoms.  Some got it in the feet.  Most got it in the hands, particularly in the pads of their fingers.  A few got it in their fingernails, resulting in loose nails that seemed like they were on their way to falling out.  Most of these patients were being treated for breast cancer and were on a regimen of the chemotherapeutic agent called Taxol.  A few had other cancers and were on other drugs, such as cisplatin or oxaliplatin.  I tried all kinds of approaches to treat the neuropathy, from standard acupuncture to non-insertive Japanese acupuncture to cold laser to electrostim.  Nothing seemed to help very much.

One day I was inspired to bleed my next neuropathy patient.  In the style of Japanese acupuncture that I practice, we are taught to make a tiny incision and draw a small amount of blood wherever we find "blood stasis."  Typically, blood stasis is indicated by small purplish venules, which we then prick and squeeze to extract a few drops of blood.  But, it occurred to me, the numbness and tingling that characterize peripheral neuropathy could also be symptoms of blood stasis, even with no obvious venules.  So, using a lancet, I bled my next patient, making a small incision near the center of each fingerpad, three or four millimeters from the fingernail.  Quite miraculously, this seemed to work quite well!  In some cases, the neuropathy decreased right there on the table.  In most cases, several such treatments eliminated the symptoms.  Some took longer, and those who had had chemo months or years before and still suffered from neuropathy took the longest.  This technique seems to work well for Taxol but not for the other drugs.  And it works better on the hands than on the feet, though I have had success with foot neuropathy as well.  It is less effective for nailbed neuropathy, even when the causative agent is Taxol (I still do bleed for nailbed neuropathy, though at the corners of the nails rather than on the fingerpads).

I'm not sure why it works, scientifically speaking.  I doubt that it's due to the elimination of toxic chemo agents from the flesh of the fingertips, since the amount of extracted blood is so small.  My suspicion is that the healing is a hormetic effect, which is to say a very small negative impact makes the body respond with a positive effect.  I theorize that the body reacts to the incision by sending chemicals to repel any microbial invaders and heal the wound, and almost as a side effect the affected nerves are also healed.  Perhaps the small capillaries in the extremities are affected by the chemo and work less efficiently than they need to to draw the drug away from the nerves there.  Then, when the skin gets pricked, they perk up and do their job better.

I am not a researcher and have done no true clinical studies on this method, though it would be easy enough to do with a large enough patient population.  But my own experience convinces me that this is a valuable and simple treatment method for Taxol-induced peripheral neuropathy, so I am putting it out there in the hope that it will help many more people.  If you are suffering from chemo-induced neuropathy, I encourage you to try it yourself, or have somebody else do it for you.  Just get a pack of lancets at the drugstore (the kind diabetics use to get a drop of blood), and disinfect before and after with rubbing alcohol to avoid any potential infection (especially if your white blood cell count is low).  Very quickly poke each affected fingerpad, then squeeze out 5-20 drops of blood and wipe with a cotton ball.  Do this a couple times a week for a couple weeks, to give it a fair shake.  Good luck!

Mangos and Pork

Mangos and pork

Who needs a fork?

Dive right in!

Life is for living

The Laboratory and the Real Work

Many years ago I started making herbal liqueurs and tinctures for fun.  Along the way I went back to school to learn more about herbs and healing, and ended up with a master’s degree in traditional Chinese medicine and state certification as a Licensed Acupuncturist.  For a couple of years I worked solely as a clinician, but then, to supplement my meager income and to get good benefits for my family, I  took a day job as a research administrator at the local university, and treated people in the evenings and on weekends.

I stayed at my university job for ten years.  It was a good job, with very little supervision and a lot of autonomy.  The scientists that I worked with came to trust and like me, and to rely on me to manage their grants.  We developed a ritual where, with every successful grant submission, we would share a glass of schnapps.  Over the months and years the drink would vary depending on what I had most recently produced: it could be a strong clear liquor made from the plums growing in my yard, or absinthe, or a mix of spring bitters.  Hanging out with my scientist friends, I came to admire them immensely for the work that they did as well as for the individuals that they were.  Many of them work in biomedical research, peering into the workings of cells and the molecular basis of life, and finding out things that are resulting in a deepened understanding of, and eventual cures for, diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease.  But the work they did was so different from my work.  Seized by a problem or a question, they devised experiments to test hypotheses, they ran labs that were devoted to figuring out stuff they were interested in.  I distinctly remember once overhearing a researcher in the hallway, remarking incredulously to a colleague, “I can’t believe we get paid to fuck around!”  I knew immediately that he meant “fuck around” in the best sense of the word, as in trying things out, playing, experimenting, figuring out the problem that occupies you.  I wished I had a job where I could get paid to fuck around!

My administration job changed quite a bit in the last year or so.  With the economy tanking, the trend was for fewer and fewer people to do more and more work.  Plus, I had a new boss who managed to turn my job into that of a glorified clerk.  I used to feel like a valued consultant, advising my PIs (Principal Investigators) on grant-related issues, but more and more I felt like an overheated machine, scrambling to stay on top of never-ending bureaucratic tasks that the University would have done better to hire a student helper for.  While I still enjoyed working and hanging out with my PIs, I came to resent the middle and upper management who were, in my view, making bad decisions, ruining my job for me and diminishing the research enterprise at our university.  So, two months ago, I quit my job.

For the first time in a while, I feel a tremendous sense of freedom.  I still treat patients, but now I have some free time to fuck around!  The place I do it is in my lab.  When I left my university job, my PIs gave me a beautiful apparatus for extracting the active constituents from medicinal herbs.  I set it up in my garage this summer, and have really been enjoying experimenting with it.  I should clarify right away that would I actually do in my lab is quite different from what my scientist friends do.  They seek to find out new things: the application of nanomaterials to the detection of cancer, for instance, or figuring out how tRNAs move on the ribosome during protein synthesis.  I am interested in very old things: medicinal herbs and fungi that were first described a couple thousand years ago. My PIs use very expensive cutting-edge technology to arrive at their results, whereas my equipment is very low-tech, consisting of glass columns, jars, grinder, recycled pressure cooker, and coils of copper tubing.  And, they are way smarter than me, have tons of education, and are eminent in their respective fields.  (I myself am something of a hermit and an unknown).  And, my lab is far dirtier than any of theirs (Environmental Health and Safety would probably frown at my spiders-to-wall-space ratio).

Nonetheless, the spirit of fucking around is the same.  Will the MAO inhibition caused by the beta-carbolines in passionflower increase the antidepressant or sleep-inducing effects of some of the other herbs in this formula?  Should I change the ratio of ethanol to water in the solvent to better extract the active polysaccharides from the ganoderma fungus I just harvested?  Or would it be better to do two separate extractions, one in boiling water and one in pure ethanol, and combine them later?  Should I add some fennel seed extract to the absinthe after distillation, to soften and sweeten the final product, or some fresh melissa? How will it affect the final product if I don’t first decarboxylate the herb with heat prior to extracting it?  These are the kinds of questions that occupy me, and that I can play around with on my equipment.  There is also a more sensual aspect to this fucking around.  Tasting my herbal extracts, combining them, mixing them until they taste right to me and make me feel good, this is also an essential part of the process.

There is a sign that hangs over the door that leads from my office to my lab.  The sign says LABOR.  On the one hand, “labor” is the German word for laboratory.  But there is a double and even a triple meaning.  Labor, of course, also means “work.”  And labor is also a special kind of work – the hard work that leads to birth.  I like to think of my laboratory as the place where I do my “real work.”  It’s not that I don’t consider treating patients to be real work, or unimportant work.  But it’s a very different kind of work, so much so that it doesn’t feel like work to me.  I am fortunate in that I have wonderful patients who are more like old friends.  When I see them, we get to catch up on each other’s lives, chat and hang out while I am cupping their backs, sticking them with needles, or what have you.  My work in the lab is different.  There is a certain rhythm that I get into when I am measuring out herbs, grinding them up, mixing them, packing them in the percolation column, mixing solvents, controlling levels of heat and rates of drip.  There is something ritualistic about it that speaks to me at a very deep level.  I am doing real, time-consuming, physical work, work that takes preparation and clarity and an unhurried sense of purpose.  Making a formula is an all-day, or even a multiple-day affair.  At the end there is a final product – an amber-colored or deep green elixir that, when imbibed, has some sort of predictable effect on one’s body and mind.  I think of myself as an essentially creative person, and when I have created a medicine, it feels like a kind of a birth to me.  The labor has produced something unique, and useful, which then goes out into the world, into my community, where it can do good.

All this talk of labor may seem odd for someone who professes to embrace an easygoing kiraku life philosophy.  But, in fact, I am not opposed to working hard.  It’s just that there has to be a balance.  The kind of work that many jobs entail – forty or more hours a week of brain-frying stress while sitting in front of a keyboard processing tasks with little or no relevance to your day-to-day life aside from the fact that they put a roof over your head and food on the table – is just not healthy.  But to do work that you enjoy is a good thing.  My goal is to work hard in the lab to produce herbal medicines for my patients and friends, continue treating patients in a leisurely and enjoyable way, and have time left over for gardening, hiking, and other fun things.