Steve Gagne's book "
Food Energetics" was the final trigger for me to go back to the roots of the ancient traditional Chinese medicine in search for the meaning of being healthy and the ways to go about it. For people who can't understand Chinese, I can only recommend Gagne's book. Many his concepts are based on Chinese medicine.It is an extraordinary book that I don't think anyone would regret buying.
Through thousands of years of "evolution" and "development", general Chinese people lost their knowledge about health along with their understanding of words through simplified writings and modern day speech. I was lucky to find many works of
Dr. Xu, perhaps one of the best Chinese medicine practitioners in this generation, and an outstanding Taoism philosopher. Going over just a few paragraphs of the ancient scrip "Huang Di Nei Jing"(黄帝内经)in his programs, it took him 10 episodes!! He thoroughly amazed me by his word understanding and dazzled me with his knowledge. I have one of his books in possession, and I am devouring the publications on his blog...I wish I could share more, maybe I will just be able to do that one day. Today I'm going to begin with just two words; since each Chinese character already contains profound knowledge of where it came from, and how it is achieved and built. Hopefully this will give whoever is reading a vague idea about the ancient knowledge behind simple words.
Health, in modern Chinese translation, is 健康, Jian Kang. They are spoken everyday by people; almost none of them have a slightest idea of what it really means. Because, we have forgotten that each of these characters means something.
健, Jian. With the 建(jian, also) on the right, and a "person"人 block on the left, it originally means having power, able to have force and speed. 建is used in words like to build something, meaning build. So put it simply, as a creature in the universe,健in health means well built, have a good amount of power, with abundant energy.
康, Kang, was used in many combined words in relation to roads. A infrastructure with roads that covers 5 directions is called Kang. Many ancient poems and scrips used Kang to describe good infrastructure and great connections. It is also believed in the traditional Chinese governing, that with a good infrastructure that allows the people and the officials to communicate with each other and among each other, peace and happiness in people's hearts are achieved. Therefore, Kang means no blockage, fluent. In the word "health", one could easily identify that this is referring to the roads within our bodies: our nervous system, digestive system, blood circulation system, and one traditional Chinese system"jing luo". Jing Luo is where "Chi" runs about. It is also where the acupuncture points lies on. Its a complicated idea to explain, people who are interested can search on youtube "Dr. Pete Peterson" for his interview with Project Camelot. He mentioned his scientific experiments with Jing Luo.
Now we see health, "健康" really means the total wellness of both inside and outside. Well built muscles are not indications of health, most people already know that. Having Chi, information, nutrition and blood being able to go through the entire body fluently is the other crucial point to achieve health.
Chinese has an old saying "生命在于运动" meaning, life is based on "yun dong". When you ask a Chinese what does "yun dong" means, he'll be happy to tell you it means exercise, sports, working out. Few could recognize that this is another typical lost of knowledge through what I call "illiterate by modernization". Yun Dong again, each has its own meanings.
Dong, "动", means what your Chinese friend would tell you. It means movement, practicing sport, move the legs, hands, and body. It iss always used in words that indicate action. Everyone knows how to do that.
Yun "运", when it is put in this context, not many people know what it means.
This word is typically used in transport of goods and things. It is also often used in words with meaning of luck. As a verb it also means to move something, A Qi Gong master would say "yun chi" to indicate his mastering of his Chi.In regards of our bodies, this word means letting our organs and internal functions to also exercise, allowing our internals to move well, and function in optimum state. So how is it achieved? Ancient script explained that when Dong, one can NOT Yun. Using a runner as an analogy, he is very unlikely to have any appetite to eat meals after his marathon. When he does, he'll very likely to feel ill. Dr. Xu pointed out that modern people could rarely stay still, even when they are sitting down, they'll be scratching here and there, shaking legs and moving hands; one reason is that people have no peace at heart anymore. (and that is also health related..)
So we see, life is based on both yun and dong! not just exercise. People who don't know how to go along with Nature's natural flow, the rhythms of our universe, eating the wrong food to make Yun very hard or constantly stressing their bodies without rest, will suffer health complications.
When I first started reading about nutrition, a question always bothered me deeply. That is, why is it that in the westernized system, nutrition, psychology and medicine are separated?! Not only do they have direct influences on one another, they often cause problems in each other's areas. Another question that puzzled me a lot is, why do the doctors in the westernized system have to look at my body as separate parts? Does my lung and heart and stomach function separately independently within each chambers under my skin?! A lot of Chinese people are very unhappy with the modern medicine system. Because, when they feel ill or in pain, a westernized doctor will take their blood, scan them, and if they see no lump for example, they just tell you you are not sick! You are not sick until you have symptoms that is. But a traditional Chinese doctor is able to ask you about your habit, look at your face, eyes, palms, tongue, take your pulse, and smell your smell... to tell you what you have been eating wrong, which organ might be having a little problem, or even certain problem is caused by certain extreme emotions that you have. He looks at us as an entire organism, not as a machine that is being assembled by parts.
Chinese medicine is a profound practice of philosophy that is based on the rhythms of nature. The weather, times of day, seasonal change all plays an important role of how people should go about their lives in many aspects. It is a complete understanding in psychology, nutrition, and clinical practice that brings the immune system to an optimal level instead of merely getting rid of the symptoms. It is about the cause of health problems, and adjustment to maintain and re-achieve health.