ZEV evolution

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 7/22/04 2:02:58 AM,

Chinese Medicine writes:

 

<<

 

ZEV: I don't think you are giving the authors of the Nei Jing enough credit,

 

Lon.

 

Lon: I give them all the credit in the world. Well Done!-Ok, let's go.

 

Zev: I don't believe in a linear evolution with everyone becoming

 

smarter all the time. There was a great deal of sophisticated

 

knowledge back then, and we have a lot to learn from it.

 

Lon: Clearly most of us become stupider at least in the sense of our

distencing from reality. Its a question of time. Yes the Classics are great

monuments

to human inspiration and insight as it stood 2300 years ago. FOr my tastes,

you just place way too much emphasis on the amount of time a practitioner should

spend going into the past. What's enough? Fifty years on the classics? Fifty

years to study the language?. The essential principles and perspective of

those texts and the language, can be grasped by the interested practitioner now

rather quickly. Its not the technical detail that its important its the quality

of mind. Its just evolutionary that a child today can grasp details quickly

that would have taken my grandfather years-if ever. Consciousness evolves. The

part of ourselves that wants to take a lifetime in books isn't the part that's

interested in what's possible now. Another example is that, in the two year

classes that I teach I now literally beginn the first day with the class that I

used to end the two years with! And then I take off from there. Students

literally come inat a higher and higher level ready to go further, faster.

 

 

This doesn't mean that we cannot continue to develop and grow, but as a

 

field, we are still very immature and can't even have coherent

 

discussions or agree in principle on much. True innovation will happen

 

when we learn our own history and what the roots of our medicine truly

 

are. A tree grows as tall as its root grow deep. >>

[Guest guest]

Lon,

While clearly things are moving much faster than centuries ago, I

don't see where human consciousness is necessarily more evolved. Look

at the world around us. Both exciting creativity, and great danger.

If anything, we have greater technology with the potential for great

growth, and conversely, great destruction.

Your example below is extreme. One doesn't have to immerse in

books for fifty years to understand the classics. I find inspiration

in one line that lasts me for weeks. There is scholarship at different

levels, and we can draw inspiration at whatever level we choose to.

You can devote your life to small sections of one classic, such as the

Nan Jing, and find infinite variations in clinical application in your

own practice.

 

 

On Jul 22, 2004, at 8:03 AM, Spiritpathpress wrote:

 

> Lon: Clearly most of us become stupider at least in the sense of our

> distencing from reality. Its a question of time. Yes the Classics are

> great monuments

> to human inspiration and insight as it stood 2300 years ago. FOr my

> tastes,

> you just place way too much emphasis on the amount of time a

> practitioner should

> spend going into the past. What's enough? Fifty years on the classics?

> Fifty

> years to study the language?. The essential principles and perspective

> of

> those texts and the language, can be grasped by the interested

> practitioner now

> rather quickly. Its not the technical detail that its important its

> the quality

> of mind. Its just evolutionary that a child today can grasp details

> quickly

> that would have taken my grandfather years-if ever. Consciousness

> evolves. The

> part of ourselves that wants to take a lifetime in books isn't the

> part that's

> interested in what's possible now. Another example is that, in the two

> year

> classes that I teach I now literally beginn the first day with the

> class that I

> used to end the two years with! And then I take off from there.

> Students

> literally come inat a higher and higher level ready to go further,

> faster.