Joining with Friends in Embracing 德
by Nikola Zunic on Suwen 1-3 (January 17, 2023)
To start, our project is challenging me to engage with reciprocity in the study and practice of Chinese medicine. In the past, my relation with the knowledge and technical skill taught to me has been to take and apply with my intention directed at producing the desired effect of the idea or technique. I was and still am mirroring my teachers which seems to be a first step in learning this technology. However, as I have drifted a bit recently, somewhat isolating myself, I am reminded of 兌, hexagram 58, which encourages joining with friends in discussion, study, and practice. Lucky me to have found my way to the Peach Blossoms and learn from these remarkable folks who enrich the soil, not merely taking what is there. This depth of reciprocity will encourage all involved to embrace our 德.
I am going to take a brief detour and explain how the practice of the theory and epistemology found within YinYang and WuXing is a technology. Sometimes I think the medicine ought to be called WuYunLiuQi, but what is in a name, and it is a little funny that I think I can even begin to formulate something insightful when I am merely at the scratch and sniff stage. I heard a student and practitioner of Traditional practices of Kaua’i speak of the teachings and practice as a technology. At the time this appeared to be an inversion of my understanding and perspective. Surely, technology is a product, something tangible, a tool, not as they proposed the keystone of forgiveness. Forgiveness as a technology? A movement of the mind as technology? And the mind moves and compares and contrasts, for example, the Space Shuttle and NASA Space Program, or this collection processed minerals and metals, and even gasses on which I am recording these ideas. Is it even comparable? I am recognizing my own struggle with materialism as internalized by consumerism separating awareness and consciousness with the highest value placed on gratification of manicured experience, disregarding actual circumstances, obsessed with the surface of things. This creates confusion and a cutting off from one's own 德. As I muse here, passages from the three chapters are coloring my reflection. Is this the doom of modernity, or merely an aspect of human nature, as freedom is a constant struggle? Struggle not from external oppression, but internal suffering born from not recognizing 德 and therefore an inability to adapt, acclimate, accept, and even act. There is a fascinating discussion within Greek philosophy between techne and episteme, relevant especially in my translation work as these are the ghosts and spirits of my education. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/episteme-techne/)
These three chapters of the Suwen reminded me of the elephant in the room. Health is the expression of one’s 德, of the individual, which hinges on the socio-economic conditions within which they live. These are hinted at throughout. As evidenced in Chapter 1, the Suwen opens with the movement from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic, emphasizing the location, rhythm of movement through divisions of space and time. Though left to interpretation, in Line 1, 其氣九州, roughly “their Qi nine districts,” reminded me of hexagram 48, 井 the well, which represented the superstructure of society, meeting the most fundamental needs and nourishment, creating nine spaces with the well in the center. To me it is the elephant, as today there seems to be a period of advanced technology agriculture and medicine, yet these fundamental needs are being denied. What role do healthcare practitioners play in society?
Even this reflection has been a rewarding experience if not just for the fact that I recognize the need to do this kind of writing daily. Though our second round of sessions is already nearly here, I am creating the space and acceptance that this is an ongoing process, and enjoy the contradictions.
