The following is an article that I wrote several years ago, when I was beginning my TCM education at Emperor's College of Traditional Oriental Medicine. While I have since graduated from Emperor's, I consider this article among my favorites, and asked that it be published in Acupuncture Today to share with the profession.
For all those upperclassmen (and women) who find this concept beyond simple, please excuse my second-year theory regarding the relationship between the liver and lung. I am intrigued by the spiritual component of these two organs, and am focusing on the outer back shu points of the Urinary Bladder channel (foot tai yang channel).
"Lung Spirit," UB 42, the "door of corporeal soul" (po), is level with lung point UB 13 (fei shu), which is beneath T3. The corporeal soul ends when the spirit leaves the body. Our lungs breathe life, and breath is the primary focus in most yogic practices. Yoga means to unite or yoke with the divine, and the practitioner's focus (hopefully) is to become a peace-making person. We perform various asanas (meaning "seat," referring to the physical postures of hatha yoga) to realize how the mind moves through various stretches of the body and bends of life.
"Hun men," the liver outer back shu point, UB 47, is known as the "door of the ethereal soul" and is level with liver point UB 18 (gan shu), which is beneath T9. The ethereal soul does not die when the individual passes, but instead transfers into new life. It is important to be aware how and when the liver rises or experiences other disharmonies, for the individual then loses sight of his or her true nature. Since the spiritual nature of this organ goes beyond the body, understanding and working through our anger, depression and anxiety has a direct relationship on our future karma and rebirths.
As such, one first uses the breath to focus the mind and to be still through the ebb and flow of life. Yet alone, this is not enough for liberation, for the slate is washed clear when we pass. Therefore, the peace of mind realized from the breath must carry over to the liver and be seen in our outer emotions, which relate to ourselves and others, in order that the merits of well-being have any effect on the undying soul.
Try it on your patients, and keep in mind, oh nobly born: Do not forget your true nature.
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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