atheists in foxholes...
i was listening to that thing i like to listen to - on the media... you know.. the podcast of it... and they had a bit about atheism that got me thinking about spirituality and non-theistic beliefs..
i think i've said on here that what goes on in the body physically is not all there is to health... traditional medicine in China refers to the health of the body, the mind AND the spirit, which are different but interconnected and interdependent. these relationships can be seen in our understandings of patterns that surround behavioral symptoms that correlate to physical symptoms and vice versa, and what is less easy to see is the "spiritual" bit as it relates to behavioral/mental or physical health.. i think i should define what i would consider a spiritual problem and differentiate it from the mind and mental realm of problems because i think in our culture we lump the two together.
in CM there are 5 (and occasionally 6, but really 5) spirits and they correspond to organs in the body: the Shen, the Po, the Hun, the Zhi, and the Yi. They are each different aspects of what makes you alive instead of just a sack of meat... starting with the most basic, the Po, is the spirit that comes into your lungs with your first breath and leaves with your last. it doesn't last forever like other ones.. i'm not familiar with writing about what consistutes treatable disease of the Po, so i'll move on. the Hun is the ethereal soul, it comes from "heaven"- the divine if you want. It wanders around at night while you sleep doing things that souls do.. like a ghost.. it is in fact left behind when you die and becomes your ghost, should you need one. diseases of the Hun can manifest as terrible nightmares or the feelings you get after you wake up from them.. some of the symptoms of PTSD remind me of disease of the Hun... next is the Yi, which is the intellect... disease of this spirit manifests like anxiety disorder or obsessive thinking that you can't let go of. the Zhi is the spirit that is your will to live. when it gets out of balance you wind up with no drive, or unrelenting drive... maybe manic behavior or suicidal tendencies.. the last one is the Shen, it is the spirit that connects you with the divine.. kind of like the Jiminy Cricket that tells you right from wrong.... when your heart is telling you what to do, that's your Shen. a messed up Shen could manifest like sociopathy i suppose..
let me say at this point that i am not an expert by any means on spiritual medicine in the Chinese system. i guess i'm thinking in public here..
so where was i going here?... oh yeah.. so i think much of what we consider mental/behavioral health would be classified in the CM system as spritual, because the human psyche is not a single entity, but several aspects working in concert.
i think people need some amount of spirituality to keep these parts of their non-physical being in balance... if you defy the voice in your heart, your Shen, you will cause yourself conflict. if you do what it says is right, you'll feel good.. we all kind of know that and I think it's part of what makes us human, and whatever name you have to put on it is fine by me.. however, at the point where someone decides there's nothing out there but molecules floating in soup i have to suspect there will be some dissonance between these aspects of thier health... and their spiritual deficits will manifest in the physical realm....
sometimes i talk about religions arising from peoples' needs for spiritual health.. to cope with the environmental and social stresses they encounter... if you look at all religions and what they do for the people they ..um... i don't know the right word here.. but i'll say interact with - it seems like they outcomes are very similar.. either they perpetuate customs and rituals to calm people about the unknown or they make people less afraid of the unknown itself with ideas like divine plans or fate and so on.. so yeah. i should really go to sleep..
i think i've said on here that what goes on in the body physically is not all there is to health... traditional medicine in China refers to the health of the body, the mind AND the spirit, which are different but interconnected and interdependent. these relationships can be seen in our understandings of patterns that surround behavioral symptoms that correlate to physical symptoms and vice versa, and what is less easy to see is the "spiritual" bit as it relates to behavioral/mental or physical health.. i think i should define what i would consider a spiritual problem and differentiate it from the mind and mental realm of problems because i think in our culture we lump the two together.
in CM there are 5 (and occasionally 6, but really 5) spirits and they correspond to organs in the body: the Shen, the Po, the Hun, the Zhi, and the Yi. They are each different aspects of what makes you alive instead of just a sack of meat... starting with the most basic, the Po, is the spirit that comes into your lungs with your first breath and leaves with your last. it doesn't last forever like other ones.. i'm not familiar with writing about what consistutes treatable disease of the Po, so i'll move on. the Hun is the ethereal soul, it comes from "heaven"- the divine if you want. It wanders around at night while you sleep doing things that souls do.. like a ghost.. it is in fact left behind when you die and becomes your ghost, should you need one. diseases of the Hun can manifest as terrible nightmares or the feelings you get after you wake up from them.. some of the symptoms of PTSD remind me of disease of the Hun... next is the Yi, which is the intellect... disease of this spirit manifests like anxiety disorder or obsessive thinking that you can't let go of. the Zhi is the spirit that is your will to live. when it gets out of balance you wind up with no drive, or unrelenting drive... maybe manic behavior or suicidal tendencies.. the last one is the Shen, it is the spirit that connects you with the divine.. kind of like the Jiminy Cricket that tells you right from wrong.... when your heart is telling you what to do, that's your Shen. a messed up Shen could manifest like sociopathy i suppose..
let me say at this point that i am not an expert by any means on spiritual medicine in the Chinese system. i guess i'm thinking in public here..
so where was i going here?... oh yeah.. so i think much of what we consider mental/behavioral health would be classified in the CM system as spritual, because the human psyche is not a single entity, but several aspects working in concert.
i think people need some amount of spirituality to keep these parts of their non-physical being in balance... if you defy the voice in your heart, your Shen, you will cause yourself conflict. if you do what it says is right, you'll feel good.. we all kind of know that and I think it's part of what makes us human, and whatever name you have to put on it is fine by me.. however, at the point where someone decides there's nothing out there but molecules floating in soup i have to suspect there will be some dissonance between these aspects of thier health... and their spiritual deficits will manifest in the physical realm....
sometimes i talk about religions arising from peoples' needs for spiritual health.. to cope with the environmental and social stresses they encounter... if you look at all religions and what they do for the people they ..um... i don't know the right word here.. but i'll say interact with - it seems like they outcomes are very similar.. either they perpetuate customs and rituals to calm people about the unknown or they make people less afraid of the unknown itself with ideas like divine plans or fate and so on.. so yeah. i should really go to sleep..
4 Comments:
i missed you
What's this??? A new post?
Hey nice post. When people ask about my spiritual/religious life, I usually stumble over explaining something like this hear. I suppose on one end of the spectrum, people would classify it as merely psychological, and on the other they'd say it was God without giving proper credit.
To me it's just how I understand the world, and that's good enough for me.
on a slightly related note, Megan and I were watching "What Not To Wear" last night, and I commented how the show impresses me in its ability to connect how a person dresses with their spiritual health and how they present themselves in the world. And how with that, most of the people on the show have a pretty emotional reaction to how it is the really dress. It's a show about fashion, but for most of the people on it it's a show about spiritual health.
Do you ever think that it's possible that doing what our hearts tells us is NOT the right thing...in the big scheme of things...like, as it relates to the other people in our lives? For instance, in marriage and with our children...that sacrificing what we may desire or dream at the time is a good thing, even if it is really, REALLY hard?
I like the dot dot dot...;)
tricky question.. really good question. I think tantalizing and fantastic dreams of picking up and dramatically changing course don't really come from the shen. Sometimes they could, or parts of them could, but the shen connects you to what is right. and if what is right is to oblige your responsibilities then it tells you when you're failing to do so with that nagging guilt. anyway. very provocative. good!
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