I love Chinese Medicine.  I am Chinese.  My spirit is Chinese.  I am American born.  My national loyalty and cultural upbringing is purely mainstream American.  I find that my challenge in life to try to find my place in a largely racially dichotomous country mirrors TCMs movement towards acceptance as a viable contributor to the health of the general Western populace.  In this way, Chinese Medicine is very personal to me.  As I discover Chinese Medicine, I discover myself.  I am learning that within myself lies a unique perspective that keys my potential to contribute to the evolution of ancient Chinese Medicine in modern days.

The guiding principles of Chinese Medicine are as much based on perspective as they are based on concrete algorithms of pattern differentiation.  One is left to decide on which level a disease lurks at and in turn how to best allow it to move on in its quest for actualization.  Disease is, after all, not all that unlike human beings.  We seek self-actualization for the purpose of transcendence.  Although we may lose our way in the journey, or stop to sight-see, the human story is ultimately one of overcoming.  We, as beings are on the path to overcoming our imperfect human state and reuniting with the Dao. There are many paths to any destination, just as there are many ways to “see” and describe any disease state.  If we honor disease as much as we honor ourselves by acknowledging its existence with grace and gratitude, we can simply allow it to move on.  How to accomplish this is the art that we seek to master.  We cannot work on the level of the Dao because it is simply too great (for me anyhow).  If we use numbers as guides, we move from one to two—yin and yang.  This is the first level at which we can treat people and help them to understand the journey that they are on.  Three represents the San Bao, or Three Treasures (Jing, Qi, Shen); four—the four seasons; five—the five elements; six-the six qi, and so on.  In TCM, although all levels are acknowledged, the weight is heavily on the fifth and sixth levels.  One can spend a lifetime (or many lifetimes) in the exploration of just one level.  Chinese Medicine is large enough for all of us (practitioners of TCM) to undertake separate paths which can be linked together to create a fabric of understanding of what it is to be alive. 

My studies in Chinese Medicine has facilitated and lighted my path towards self actualization.  I have had the unique opportunity to take Doctoral classes while I was still in the MSTOM program at Pacific College and am continuing along in classes with the current Doctoral cohort.  I am very grateful for this opportunity as it has been a wonderfully humbling and empowering gift.  

I believe that we are at a very important health care crossroads in history.  Technological advancements have shown us and mapped out human evolution throughout the ages.  This evolution is a natural process.  Recent history is marked by an accelerated boom of technological and industrial advancements which have both benefited and harmed us in our relationship with the earth and our own bodies.  Chinese medicine tells us that the holistic being “knows” how to maintain homeostasis and remain in the healthy dynamic state.  If this is true, then why have illnesses outpaced our ability to deal with them?  Perhaps it is merely our inability to keep up.  We have been shown that human evolutionary change is a relatively slow process.  This has perpetuated a need for a holistic medicine which best supports the task of finding a way to adapt. I am setting out to touch as many lives and help as many people as I can with this as my focus.

My goals are simply to make a positive change in this world. I hope to lead the way in educating people in how to better live their lives so that they can keep their eyes on their purpose.  We have learned that this is both a simple and daunting task.  These days there are so many distractions—health maintenance becoming one of the most confusing and influential. 

Day by day. Person by person.  Remembering that under the heavens, we are all children...children with dreams...dreams that keep life in perpetual motion with purpose and integrity.  Beautiful.