Part 1 and Part II of this series focused on the physical aspect of the Heart and mental emotional aspects of the Heart respectively. Now, I would like to focus on the spiritual aspect of the Heart. It is important to recognize that body, mind and spirit can be separated only in theory, for in experience they are different dimensions of the same human consciousness.
In Chinese medicine, the Heart's spiritual aspect is the Shen. The Heart is said to house the Shen. There are enormous differences in reference to Shen in the Chinese Medical classics depending on the time period that it was written as well as the perspective of the author. One interpretation of Shen is as the Heart's connection to the mind. Another interpretation is as the Heart's connection to our individual spirit, as well as our connection to a consciousness greater than ourselves. Still from another perspective, each yin organ contains spiritual attributes that reside in the body as Shen, Hun, Po, Yi and Zhi. In this article, we will primarily focus on the Shen as the Heart-Mind connection and the Heart-Spirit connection. Regardless of the interpretation, as clinicians we must have tools to help our patients navigate this territory that Chinese Medicine calls the Shen. Medical Qigong practices are meant to supplement the treatment work for our patients in between sessions, as well as to help them take responsibility for their own healing. The Ling Shu, one of the classics of Chinese Medicine, tells us all diseases have their origin in Shen. One of the more famous definitions of Shen comes from Chapter 54 of the Ling Shu, when Huang Di questions his master, Qi Bo about Shen. Huang Di: "What Shen?" Qi Bo: "When blood and qi are complete and harmonious When wei qi and ying qi flow unimpeded, when five zang are complete then Shen resides in heart and mind Hun and Po contain themselves within zang and humanity is complete."
When we feel complete we will not be under the sway of our emotions and our qi will flow harmoniously. Like the Heart as the sovereign ruler of the body, completeness also represents a form of sovereignty, a form of mastery.
Shen Of The Heart As Mind
This interpretation of Shen relies on feelings of harmoniousness and completeness. I have found the following two meditations to be of great assistance in helping our patients come to a place of completeness. Both of the following meditations are from Jerry Alan Johnson, author of five textbooks on Medical Qigong. Both of these meditations should be done only after the anger and grief have been fully processed and some time has passed from the original wounding. These meditations would be inappropriate in some situations such as with children or with persons suffering from severe psychological trauma or mental illness. The patient must also understand that forgiveness does not mean condoning the offense. Additionally, in both meditations, the patients must be ready to let go.
Forgiveness Meditation
The first meditation is adapted from Jerry Alan's Johnson forgiveness meditation. There are three stages of forgiveness: Forgiving Oneself, Accepting the Situation and Forgiving the Perpetrator. The clinician will need to be able to guide and individualize the meditation based on their knowledge of the patient trauma.
According to a study in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine, as cited in Redbook, spikes in blood pressure that are experienced during stressful situations fell back to normal faster in people who were more forgiving of a betrayal. They also had lower blood pressure. Research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison showed that people holding a grudge had more heart problems than those who forgave. Even imagining the act of forgiveness can help.
Pulling Out The Pain Meditation
The second meditation, "Pulling Out the Pain," is based on the clinician helping the patient to find the gifts from a painful situation. Like the prior meditation, care should be taken that the patient is an appropriate candidate for this type of mediation.
Emily Smith of The Atlantic Weekly noted that similar to forgiveness, finding the silver lining of a painful situation can provide positive physical and emotional benefits. Research shows that people who are able to find meaning from their most painful experiences are healthier and more well adjusted than people who do not. Christina Pulchalski, in her article The Role of Spirituality in Health Care, illustrated this concept when she cited Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist who wrote of his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp: "Man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning."
Shen Of The Heart As Spirit
I vividly remember a patient facing the imminent death of her young niece who was dying from leukemia. Naturally, she grappled with the morality of such a tragedy. Such tragedies bring to the forefront all of our beliefs about life, purpose and fate. I was listening to her and being with her in this incredibly grief-stricken space. I was aware of how heavy and dark the energy in the room was. I was aware of how I struggled with what to say and what would be the best treatment protocol. I had an idea to just light a candle with her and sit in silence and ask her to turn this situation over to a higher power. I asked her to invoke whatever spiritual leader, deity or tradition she felt most akin to. After just a few moments, the change in the energy of the room was palpable. Additionally, this enormous burden of grief had lifted and she even remarked she felt so much lighter, even relieved. This was also discernible in her face which looked as if she had already received a treatment. One of the beauties of Medical Qigong is that we offer our patients exercises and meditations to continue the effects of our treatment. This meditation to light a candle and connect to her spiritual tradition became her daily Medical Qigong prescription.
The other interpretation of Shen mentioned earlier comes from the idea that Shen is our heart spirit connection and is something that exists prior to our physicality. Jeffrey Yuen, an 88th generation Daoist priest and revered teacher of Chinese Medicine, calls this cosmic influence the Big Shen. The Big Shen is stored in the brain. It is able to resonate with the higher part of ourselves, the part of us that is more than this physical form in this lifetime. The Big Shen is also able to resonate with other spiritual forces. According to Jeffrey Yuen, conception occurs when the vibration of the parents' intercourse attracts a spirit from the cosmos. This spirit decides to incarnate as this gender, in this particular family, time period and culture. During pregnancy, the heart of the fetus is imprinted with the spirit's curriculum for this lifetime. This aspect stored in the heart is called the Little Shen. The Shen attributes of the Kidneys is the Zhi or the will. The fetus, choosing this life experience and this set of parents, has the will and wisdom from the parents and ancestry to fulfill this chosen curriculum. From a meridian perspective, The Chong also stores the blueprint and reflects this same idea via kidney-heart communication that occurs via its main trajectory.
Connecting To Our Source Meditation
The next meditation is based on the original Chong and is based on my own meditative practices. The original Chong is the central axis that travels through the center of the body and connects us to heaven and earth. This practice also involves the three elixir fields known in qigong as Dantians. The Lower Dantian is in the abdominal area below the navel and houses the kidneys. The Middle Dantian is in the area of the chest and houses the heart. The Upper Dantian is in area of the 3rd eye or the space between the eyebrows and houses the brain. The three Dantians are connected to each through the original Chong axis. Gathering and cultivating the energy inherent in each Dantian is a form of inner alchemy. Inner alchemy is practiced for the purpose of improving physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. Inner alchemy is ultimately about uniting our physical self with our original true nature as spirit.
As previously stated, the Ling Shu tells us that all diseases are rooted in Shen. Whether we define Shen as the Heart-Mind connection or the Heart-Spirit connection, the importance of addressing this dimension of our patients cannot be underestimated. This could mean letting go of old hurts and learning to forgive. It could mean that the patient's experiences are a lesson to look at what they may need to be learned. This lesson, according to Daoism, is not to be interpreted in a punitive way. It may simply be that we need to slow down, do what we really love, change our lifestyles or even to surrender to what is. Or perhaps it is to understand life as a continuous ebb and flow of different experiences. It could mean it is an opportunity to reconnect to this dimensions of ourselves that according to Daoism is where we originally come from and where we must go when we die. It is also an opportunity to perhaps find that completion.
References:
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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