Issue 49 - Tse Qigong Centre

Healing, Health and Medicineare all quite different things. How wesee our health and the healing processtoday, is quite different from the viewstaken in the past. This in itself affectsthe way we treat our illnesses and seeour healers.Healing& MedicineIn the Wu Hsing (Five Element) system of Buddhist healingthe state of illness (byada) is represented as being atotality of conditions in which various characteristicelements (laksanadhatu) of the body (rupakaya) havebecome unbalanced and disharmonious (asama). Suchimbalance has ramifications in all the activities of the psycho/physiological organism (namarupa) and at many levels. Usuallyone or more of these ramifications demands our attention bymeans of pain or impairment, in other words we experience itssymptoms. Illness can be addressed via its three aspects namely,its symptoms (byadalaksana), its causes (byadahetu) or acombination of these. For most of us the symptoms of an illnessconstitute the actual illness itself. Due to this we often see itscure as being the blotting out, or putting away, of its symptoms.We thus endeavour to suppress such symptoms by all meansat our disposal. With such suppression, illness and its resultantpains and discomforts become ’manageable’. If we cannotsucceed in such endeavours we usually go and see our doctorwho, more often than not, does the same thing using morepowerful medicines than we can obtain ourselves. Hismotivation for doing so lies in his or her sworn duty to relievea patient’s suffering.Symptoms are not difficult to recognise but causes oftenare. The art of healing itself must always revolve around thedevelopment of skill in the art of diagnosis for such diagnosisdetermines what and how all subsequent treatments will be.The method employed in this diagnosis usually determines justwhat art or aspect of healing we are involved in.Qi Magazine 26