{"id":3219,"date":"2011-06-14T01:01:50","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T05:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yang-sheng.com\/?p=3219"},"modified":"2012-02-08T14:50:02","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T19:50:02","slug":"healing-through-pleasure-what-is-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yang-sheng.com\/?p=3219","title":{"rendered":"What Is Love? An exploration of culture and truth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Healing Through Pleasure<\/em><\/p>\n

What Is Love?
\n<\/strong>An exploration of culture and truth<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

by Felice Dunas, Ph.D.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"<\/a>While reading a Harvard Business Review article on Authentic Leadership (as in leadership that includes the wholeness of self rather than just ambition based endeavors), I was intrigued by research addressing the importance of a strong support network for leaders.\u00a0 By loving and being loved, by leaning and being leaned upon, leaders fly higher, bringing more goodness and transformation into the world.\u00a0 Without people with whom a leader can completely feel love and let down, their wings are clipped and their power to positively influence the world is limited.\u00a0 This inspired me to think that we are leaders and need to feel loved to optimize our effectiveness.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the energetic dynamic that expresses as human loving in the medicine we practice? What is happening to qi and blood and organs and shen and po and all the energetic components of the \u201cbeingness\u201d that we are:\u00a0 body, intellect, emotions and spirit? My life and career, like yours, has a high level of commitment to generating love happiness, self awareness, kindness and authenticity, pleasure, truth and the use of these wonderful experiences in creating health.\u00a0 Do you believe that our professional ancestors did the same thing?\u00a0 Did they understand love as we did?\u00a0 Where their treatments goals in alignment with ours?<\/span><\/p>\n

Our patients live in heart-starved cultures. Their behaviors and yearnings reflect that there isn\u2019t enough love expressed in their small, arbitrary encounters. They go through extended periods surrounded by people without having anyone smile at them. They pay to go to \u201cpersonal growth\u201d seminars and are told to hug and be hugged more often. They consume bitter, fire element tonics, like chocolate and coffee, to warm their hearts from the inside.\u00a0 They take medications to ameliorate their despair and take more medications if the ones they already take aren\u2019t strong enough to make the despair go away. Where is the love?<\/span><\/p>\n

We take our concept of love for granted yet the cultures from which our medicine evolved thinks quite differently than we do about it.\u00a0 This is important for you to understand because the texts you read may use words that you know, like love, but meanings that you don\u2019t.\u00a0 As a result, it is easy to misdiagnose a patient or misinterpret the necessary treatment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zhuang Zi <\/span>\u838a<\/span><\/a>\u5b50<\/span><\/a>was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived during the 4th<\/sup> century BCE during the Warring States Period.\u00a0 When his wife died, initially he felt sadness. Then he sat on a rock and meditated on the changes of Qi and realized that death is nothing but a transformation (a dispersal) of Qi the same way that birth is a transformation (aggregation) of Qi.\u00a0 At that, he said, his sadness dissipated and he felt joy.\u00a0 Some people might find this story philosophically uplifting and the source of great wisdom.\u00a0 This has been true for many of Zhuang Zi\u2019s students and his students\u2019 students for over two millennia.\u00a0 But we would say he is being incredibly callous and insensitive, that he has a big problem in not acknowledging his grief and that he is going to get cancer as a result of his emotional emptiness\/stagnation in a decade or two.\u00a0 Same patient, different prognosis from the eastern and western acupuncturist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Love, as we know it, is the result of a Western concept of self developed over 2500 years starting from Plato down to through Aristotle, the Stoics, St Paul and the continuing evolution of biblical translation including St Augustine, St Thomas, and St Francis.\u00a0 European philosophers such as Locke, Hume, Descartes, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Jung, Nietzsche, Sartre have tremendously influenced our view. Currently, the loud voices of psychologists, neuroscientists, gurus and \u201chuman potential\u201d movement authors define consciousness and selfhood for us.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the Chinese philosophies do not envisage an individual, inward-looking, autonomous self as we have in the West.\u00a0 They do not perceive themselves as unique, emotional people needing time or room or opportunity for support of cultivation of the \u201cself\u201d.\u00a0 There is no “self”, as we know it, to fall in love or need love or get needs fulfilled!<\/span><\/p>\n

This has to be seen with reference to the three major philosophies of China, i.e. Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism.\u00a0 I believe Confucianism has been the dominant philosophy, at the very least, since the Song dynasty. The Confucianist view of love is not vital to them as it is to us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Their focus would be on duty, responsibility, care, kindness, and, crucially, obedience.\u00a0 The translation of the Confucian Ren<\/em> as “compassion” is misleading. Ren<\/em> is a state of family and social harmony that occurs when everybody behaves according to their duties and takes care of others.\u00a0 It is based on ethics, morality, duty, and respect.\u00a0 But not love.\u00a0 We must also remember that to the Confucians there was nothing worse than losing control, which passionate, romantic love can lead to.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Daoist does not “love” the Dao.\u00a0 Ideally, the Daoist witnesses and, with great dedication, experiences the Dao.\u00a0 But there is nothing personal about one\u2019s relationship to it.\u00a0 No silent communication.\u00a0 No self.<\/span><\/p>\n

Self esteem is paramount in American culture and you use your work to enhance a patient\u2019s self esteem.\u00a0 This would be unheard of in China.\u00a0 Your view of patients is based upon your culture of origin.\u00a0 Is it possible that by seeing through this lens you are missing something?\u00a0 If a patient is not of Western culture could you be misinterpreting their need for care, sending them in a direction that is not appropriate to them?<\/span><\/p>\n

I once worked with a middle aged Chinese woman who had come to the US as a child.\u00a0 She explained to me that in her home emotions were not expressed and that she never felt very high or very low.\u00a0 She lived in a comfortable world but was aware that other people were different.\u00a0 She was fond of her husband, cared deeply for him but felt minimal passion.\u00a0 She described the relationship as appropriate and good. Passion wasn\u2019t something she understood well.\u00a0 It was helpful to her when I explained that supporting yin qi in her would allow her to become more receptive to her husband.\u00a0 Cultivating this form of qi could grow the marriage and alleviate the menopausal problems, for which she sought treatment, at the same time.\u00a0 I told her that we could use the medicine to merge her culture of origin and Western culture by helping her feel more receptivity to everything, including love as it is defined in the west.\u00a0 She was very excited about this.\u00a0 But not all patients would be, and this is important for you to realize.<\/span><\/p>\n

As published in the Handbook of Emotions<\/em>, Shaver, Wu and Schwartz interviewed young people in the USA, Italy and the People\u2019s Republic of China about their emotional experiences. In all cultures, men and women identified the same emotions and they agreed completely except on one, love. The US and Italian subjects equated love with happiness; both passionate and compassionate love were assumed to be intensely positive experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chinese students, however, had a darker view of love.\u00a0 In China, passionate love tended to be associated with \u201cinfatuation\u201d, \u201cunrequited love\u201d, \u201cnostalgia\u201d and \u201csorrow-love\u201d.\u00a0 In short, love was viewed more as a negative experience, the result of obsessive thinking, jealousy and the like.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many Chinese books only talk about “love” (ai <\/em>\u7231) as a cause of disease without specifying what it actually is. The term could be referring to the dark aspects of personal affection reflected in the responses Chinese students gave in the study above.<\/span><\/p>\n

The old pictograph for “love” had “belching” at the top, a heart and \u201cgracious gait\u201d (as in one\u2019s walking gait.\u00a0 \u201cBelching\u201d was later replaced by a \u201chand\u201d and a \u201ccovering over the heart\u201d and \u201cgracious gait\u201d.\u00a0 The modern Chinese removed the “heart” from the character so that now it looks very much like the character for “friendship”, (i.e. are they more comfortable with friendship than love?).<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes of course, Chinese people (very few!) fall in love too and have passionate sexual desires.\u00a0 This happens more frequently now due to exposure to the Western world.\u00a0 But, going back to the philosophies of China, all three considered “desire” the root of most of our psychological and existential problems. Love is a form of desire. When we are in love we crave that person intensely.\u00a0 In Asian cultures there has always been an awareness of emotional preference and affection and inebriation (as in drunkenness for wanting) and need for sex and jealousy and despair over not having the person one wishes.\u00a0 But these are not considered positive experiences and are not to be cultivated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Does this mean that the rich, gooey, chocolaty goodness of snuggling with someone your entire being feels a \u201cconnection\u201d with, is not inherent to human nature?\u00a0 Can it not be found in our medical theory?<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, it can.\u00a0 One of the many areas of greatness in our medicine is its range and flexibility.\u00a0 Absolutely everything that any of our patients experience can be defined and understood within the theoretical constructs of TCM.\u00a0 This is how we know the universality of it, the inherent correctness of it.\u00a0 People whose belief systems and perceptions of life are utterly different can all find answers here.\u00a0 The inherent truth of this medicine allows us to find wisdom that reflects our beliefs even if they directly contradict those of our professional ancestors, the people through whom this medicine was brought to the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, the capacity to feel and express love comes from every aspect of who we are and is not limited to a particular \u201cplace\u201d in our beings. It isn\u2019t stored within the reserves of our Kidneys.\u00a0\u00a0 Infants and children, who radiate a compelling, pure, adorable and adoring love have inherently weak kidneys until their bodies age a bit.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t the result of an abundance of qi.\u00a0 The weakest among us, the wounded, handicapped, infirmed and dying, express heroism in their belief and experience of the extraordinary nature of ordinary love.\u00a0 It is not born of an organ.\u00a0 All organs lay the foundation for different experiences and expressions of love.\u00a0 The liver allows us to feel warmth and kindness, the lungs the bliss of bonding, the heart bursts forth enthusiasm and the gift of laughter, the spleen allows us to \u201cknow\u201d love and the kidneys are the fountain from which love blossoms into wisdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Things to consider.<\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. When practicing, think seriously about the culture of origin for each patient.\u00a0 Realize that the structure of their personality and relationship to the world may be foundationally different than yours.\u00a0 It is imperative to strive for results in alignment with the worldview that they hold, not the one you hold.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. We are all involved in a sociological experiment. We are the first generations of acupuncturists to integrate this medicine into American culture. We may not be accurate in all our interpretations and, as players in an ongoing medical expansion, mistakes and corrections are inevitable.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. When we are taught Five Element theory we are told that the locations, the directions, were originally presented to explain lifestyles and disease patterns in China.\u00a0 But this theory can be used to explain differences on a much larger scale.\u00a0 How might Five Element theory help you understand patients from the West, East, North and South worldwide?\u00a0\u00a0 If you use the entire world as your map, how might you view patients differently?<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Many use the love of an individual (romantic) as a microcosmic example of divine love that can be spread through all interactions and relationships of life. <\/em> Essential Being = Essential Loving. \u00a0\u00a0We see love as a force that pervades everything and our lives and actions are expressions of it.\u00a0 This is a Western view, not a Chinese one.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t make it wrong.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    As the Beatles once told us \u201cAll You Need Is Love.\u201d While that song was probably not a top selling hit in China, for us its truth is simple and profound. It is our gift to spread love to those we lead and heal.\u00a0 It is our gift to find love within this medicine and to use it to heal ourselves.\u00a0 It is our gift to grow this medicine in the soil of our thoughts and beliefs such that it nourishes western patients as it has so richly addressed the needs of those on the other side of the world and in centuries past whose beliefs have contradicted our own.\u00a0 And yet we bring a gift to the multi-millennium old medicine that we practice.\u00a0 We contribute a blessing and a new dimension to it.\u00a0 We bring our unique brand of love.<\/span><\/p>\n

    {First published in Acupuncture Today <\/em>2010}.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"sex<\/a>[Born in Los Angeles and raised in a medical family, Felice Dunas, Ph.D.,<\/strong> is an acupuncture industry founder, international lecturer, published author and executive coach. She earned her Bachelor\u2019s degree in Sociology\/International Health Care from UCLA, and her Doctorate degree in Clinical Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology from Samra University.\u00a0 She uses ancient principles of the body and human behavior to enhance the lives of individuals, couples and corporate executives. Having lectured in over 60 countries, she addresses health, vitality, interpersonal intimacy and sexuality. Dr. Dunas is the author of the best-selling book from Penguin-Putnam, “PASSION PLAY: Ancient Secrets for a Lifetime of Health and Happiness Through Sensational Sex\u201d.]<\/address>\n
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