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Seven Forms of Superior Medicine

According to ancient Chinese thought, it was held that the most superior forms of medicine to least were as follows:

1) Right Thinking
2) Qi Gong
3) Nutrition
4) Tai Q/movement arts
5) Herbalism
6) Acupuncture
7) Surgery

In other words, according to ancient Chinese medical thinking, if the doctor wanted to do surgery for the patient, he first asked,"Have you tried acupuncture?" and if the doctor wanted to do acupuncture, she first asked, ' Have you tried herbs?" and so forth until even if the doctor wanted to perform qi gong, he first asked, "Have you tried correct thinking?"

What does all this mean? Translated into meldern terms, they would be:

The Eight Forms of Superior Medicine for Modern Times

1) Meditation/Prayer/Contempalative Life/ Good (ie:proper) Attitude, right thinking
2) Subtle Energy Cultivation
3) Nutrition based on local organically grown fresh vital food prepared with love and eaten peaceably
4) Excercise done wisely and sustainabley/subtle energy medical arts
5) Botanical medicine
6) Alternative, complimentary, natural therapies
7) Pharmaceuticals
8) Surgery

So why does modern medicine get this hierarchy so skewed?
Well, what do you think............?

Michele Salinas LAc, Dipl CH RN-BSN MSOM

The Driving Cost of Health Care

Here is an excellent article about the driving cost of health care, a good angle to the health care debate. I of course think that a part of the consumer driven health care should be alternative and complimentary care, obviously Oriental Medicine too. I think all my patients would like to see this, as well as the many thousands of Americans who use Acupuncture and Oriental medicine in some aspect of their lives.

--Michele Salinas

The Real Health Care Reform

I think it is "high time" that your local acupuncturist and practitioner of Oriental medicine weigh in on the whole health care reform debate.

This complicated issue keeps taking more and different turns every week. But I guess when it's all said and done with, the core issues are still the same.

I think the biggest call to health care reform has to begin with the mind. And no big pharm nor any hospital I know--except in the extreme cases of mental illness--can do this. For the sake of argument and brevity here, I'm not even going to talk about extreme exceptions. I'm going to talk about the culture at large. An ancient Chinese adage states "When the mind is serene the pain is negligible". Know I accept this to be true without consciously being able to live it because there are so many examples of spiritually adept or advanced or if your vocabulary is better suited to it, humanly wise individuals around the globe and throughout history to show this to be true. True suffering has really not much to do with the majority of what is diagnosed and treated for in the doctor's office and the hospital. I know; it is what ultimately turned me off to being a nurse.

Real suffering has much more to do with wars, anger, greed, selfishness. The individual vs "other". Groups vs other groups. Me vs you. As long as there is a versus, we--all of humanity-- are in trouble. And we all will suffer. When we work to eliminate these big four diseases, we find there really is enough food, sanitation, resources, to go around, and much of the diseases afflicting humanity get resolved. Let natural therapies take care of 75% of the other ailments (chronic disease, health promotion, wellness) and you find what is left over is a limited amount of catastrophic health problems, the very thing hospitals are good at. Most health care doesn't need much of a sterile environment after all, does it? Neither does it require insurance mandates nor diagnostic and treatment codes.

The remedy is compassion. I believe this to be the serene mind quoted about. Compassion for those needing good basic healing and denied it. What a sad state of affairs if we have to shout at each other to communicate, see each other as the enemy, bring guns to "dialogue" with each other. Why deny each other of much needed compassion? Why be afraid of each other? We can and must work together. We need to recognize that most of the media is not here to unite us but to highlight those aspects of our society that pull us apart. (I recommend that you kill your television. I did 30 years ago, and my life has been better ever since.)

Can we take a long spell and stop working against each other and instead work together to create a solution? Can we move away from fear of each other and instead rise above selfishness to care about and for each other?

Which brings me to greed. Yes, this will be easy for me to discuss because I am no longer hungry in my life (but yes I do know what that feel like in a chronic way), and can talk about it from the comfort of a nice home. I've had a good healthy supper. I recognize that any time a few people have access to too much $ money $ at the cost of many then suffering will follow. This is the true disease. It's really not so much about health plans is it? It's that certain affluent lifestlyles are connected to certain mega corporations in the "health care industry". which is no accident that it "happens" to be among the top four wealthy industries in this country. Yet generosity belongs to no industry. If there needs to be an equitable distribution of basic medicine, why begrudge it? So what if we delegate it to our government? A healthy society would be glad to do such for their own. We should find it a joy.

If we look at health care basics, we see the solution actually is very simple. Safe homes and neighborhoods. Clean water. Sanitation. Food from the garden. Clean air. Nourishing relationships. A parent to be there. Education--food for the mind. Ample, biodiverse plants and animals. Stars and fertile soil. Quietude and laughter. And some healing tears.

If we look at rights, we need to see that there should be accessibility to all the care systems that humanity has to offer: Oriental Medicine, Ayuvedism, Homeopathy, as well as the science driven systems of Allopathy and Naturopathy. Let catastrophic care be covered by allopathic medicine,--it's so good at that!-- and open the doors of accessibility to all the other medicines. Let the people have access to them all, and let them choose.

If we honestly face the core issue of health care, we will see that all of the fear really has to do with our disconnect with life and death, and the real meaning of both. We would be able to make wise choices about our lives if we weren't so scared about dying --and thus about living. So many times I see radical actions and unwise decisions by patient and practitioner because nobody is really concerned about the quality of living. So many billions of dollars are thrown at keeping the body going at all cost without true caring for the mind (the spirit). So much is about adding up numbers to one"s life, without any question about whether that really constitutes living or not. So many decisions and actions are based upon a fear of death. But death is part of life just as life is part of death. There is no such thing as a deathless life just as there is no such thing as a lifeless death. It is all a big circle and cycle both.

So in my mind, the health care reform debate is really a symptom, and not an issue in and of itself. Once we get to the real issues, we find that life is worth living, health is worth sharing, societies are worth investing in, and at the so called end, death, is nothing but a blip in the advancing stream of consciousness. And this consciousness does go on.....

OUR PLANET OURSELVES

Natural and human powered environmental influences that can cause health problems:

Wind
"The wind brings a thousand diseases" (1) Health problems that are migratory are considered a "wind" problem in Chinese Medicine. Rapid onset of symptoms can be a"wind" condition. Initial onset of fever/chills and flu are considered "wind" too. Example: rheumatic and dermatologic complaints, headache, migraine, facial tics, flu, viruses and initial bacterial invasions, etc.

In health: invigoration and renewal

Heat
Any health problem that is red, gets better with cold, hot to touch, comes with fever, and worsens in hot weather is a heat type pathogenic influence. Human caused: overcrowded and public interior places in general create these kinds of health problems. Deforestation, suburban living and exurban and suburban commuting, carbon emission, inefficient homes and commercial, as well as industrial places are creating heat health problems on a global scale. Example: chronic fatigue syndrome, fever of unknown origins; hot arthritic conditions; hives and other hot skin conditions; bacterial invasions, migraines, etc. Of course burns and skin cancer

In health: brightness and expansion

Cold
The reverse of the above (heat) description. Human caused: air conditioning causes these kind of health influences. Example: chronic low back pain, chronic neck pain; infertility and menstrual problems; cold arthritic problems, etc. Frostbite is the obvious.

In health: refreshment and consolidation

Damp
Heavy, stiff, achy, sticky, stubborn, fuzzy thinking, worsens with damp. Combines with cold damp and damp heat, their own disease subcategories. Human influenced: pollutants in the air combine with damp to make a clingy, fetid bad air. Sticky foods like high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, fast food, artificial sweeteners, white over processed grains create dampness in the digestive system and wreak havoc, and can easily ooze into other body systems that become stubborn and difficult to treat. Example: sinus problems, weeping skin conditions, obesity, fibromyalgia, a whole host of digestive problems, local and systemic fungal problems; congealed dampness becomes phlegm: asthma, allergies, cholesterol problems, cataracts, complicated degenerative brain conditions, etc. "The nature of damp is difficult to rid"(2)
"All the strange and stubborn diseases belong to phlegm" (3)

In health: moisture and cohesion

Dry

If you observe a dry ecosystem, you know what a dry health problem looks and feels like.
Human caused: desertification and unnatural drought conditions caused by global warming and global wierdness; lack of sufficient water; artificial interior forced air environments, all help influence dry health problems. Example: psoriasis, sjogren's syndrom, asthma, withered conditions, etc. Drought causes hunger and malnutrition.

In health: distinction and definition

The point I am trying to make is that we are so influenced by the environment, natural and unnatural. To deny this is to think we can exist in a bubble (let alone the profound problem of nature deprivation syndrome). We need nature. And nature needs us.

Now is the time to be compassionate to all living things. Let us begin....

to health and longevity