Shanna Last

[Guest guest]

Hi Lonny

 

 

From your previous posts I guess I assumed you were a lot more

 

radical than you seem to purport here. I find your ideas interesting

 

and refreshing although I'd still really like to learn to read

 

Chinese and study both the classics and current journals.

 

Lon: Seems reasonable to me. As to what's " radical " I'd suggest that the

perspective afforded when we truly drop history in its entirety is, indeed,

radical. But it's one thing to discuss it and another to do it.

 

 

Shanna: Not knowing much at all about 5 element except the exchanges I've

 

seen here, I can't really comment. It does appear to be " new " and

 

therefore not as tried and true as Classical . But

 

then how many of us are practicing that?

 

Lon: Five-element is new? Really? What is Classical ? Who

knows in an embodied way what the experience or understanding was of those who

wrote the texts? No one. Li Zhi Zhen spent a lot of time talking about women who

gave birth to foxes and their medical significance. The past is, at best, a

metaphor for the unborn. Its an important perspective but, one that's only ever

relevent to the degree it manifests something positive.

 

 

 

Shanna: TCM is probably around the

 

same age as 5 element isn't it?

 

Lon: Five elements and yin/yang theory are found in the ancient texts side by

side. Are you taking TCM as Chinese Communist Medicine and Worsley's

tradition as 5E? If so, yes they both dat to 1948.

 

 

Shanna: As to Wilbur and Cohen, I d to What Is Enlightenment for a

 

couple of years but couldn't really relate to their tone and found

 

them a bit arrogant and therefore quite un-Buddhist--believing

 

themselves to have discovered a " new Buddhism " it seems.

 

Lon: I'd suggest you give the magazine a second look. I know for a fact that

no one there considers whhat they are doing to be a form of Buddhism perse. At

any rate, I consider the new issue " Is God a Pacifist " to be groundbraking. I

really loved the article " Women Who Sleep With Their Guru's and Why They Love

it " . Great to see women renounce the victim role and take responsibility for

their decisions. It could really be the third wave of feminism. Really mind

blowing.

 

 

I guess I'm

 

just more of an armchair Shambhala Sun kind of person. Simplicity,

 

no diagrams, just inner experience. Less talk, more experience, no

 

plan. Now I'm sounding like you. Again, the paradoxes!!

 

 

Lon: Actually, that doesn't sound like me at all. It sounds very " ground of

being-ish " kind of flat- " go into your feelings " . Inner experience isn't worth a

thing until it explodes into the world in becomming. I'm interested in the

impulse that initiates and guides that becomming-right here, right now-Not as a

theory of an idea but as a living impulse fully expressed and liberated

within. Not the circular Hell of the Daoists and Buddhists but the straight

ahead

vertical lift off of the evolutionary impulse itself.

 

 

Thanks again for your patient sharing. I come away more illuminated

 

as to your methods and beliefs. Good luck.

 

Lon: I enjoyed the discussion too Shanna. Warm regards, Lon

 

>>

[Guest guest]

>

> Lon: Five-element is new? Really? What is Classical Chinese

Medicine? Who

> knows in an embodied way what the experience or understanding was of

those who

> wrote the texts? No one. Li Zhi Zhen spent a lot of time talking

about women who

> gave birth to foxes and their medical significance. The past is, at

best, a

> metaphor for the unborn. Its an important perspective but, one

that's only ever

> relevent to the degree it manifests something positive.

>

>

 

Without history one can only start from scratch. ONe can reinvent the

wheel, miss the wheel completely, or go for the 1 and million shot to

surpass the wheel…

IMO, One must read the past to see if it is even relevant. Qin Bo Wei

writes that the best way to understand the medicine is through case

studies, he especially like ye tian shi. Not only is 99% of ye tian

shi's case studies not in English, but we have almost nothing in this

realm (case studies in general)… This is where language comes in. One

can't even evaluate how positive or negative the past is, if one

hasn't accessed it. Every TCM master I have met was not-surprisingly

extremely versed in the past and many of them were also versed in

western medicine and modern TCM (the NOW)… This idea of throwing out

the past, just makes me laugh. But that might be one's way and that

is fine, but I argue this is not TCM or could lead to any greater TCM

understanding.

 

I have recently spent much time with wenbing theory (the past) and I

can guarantee that it has produced incredible amount of positive

healing in very difficult cases. I think it is arrogant to believe

that I could come up with this stuff (or something equally good) on my

own… wow… No wonder why they still teach it in Chinese Universities

(and some western one's)…

 

 

-