Cutting and Pasting School

[Guest guest]

Stephen, Fran,

I agree that most of the fun I've had with Chinese medicine has been from

learning one-on-one

with doctors past and present and then applying that learning for patients

in a way that is still respectful to your teachers,

but inevitably different.

Which reminds me of a simple and profound Jewish saying I heard somewhere...

" You hear a story and then the story becomes your own. "

 

Funny thing was that Chogyam Trungpa was a cut and paster himself... a very

radical teacher who broke from tradition.

You're right that you've got to learn how to play other people's music

first, before you compose something delicious and original.

That is a problem with the instant enlightenment movement and belief that we

are greater than our predecessors without even bowing down at their feet

first. Humbly, I wonder if I can create even one thing original and useful

after a lifetime of struggle and even then, it's probably already been done

centuries ago, just not written or not read. Today, integration is

innovation, but:

" What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there

is *nothing new under the sun* " Ecclesiastes 1:9

 

Tradition is important in the West and the East. I think that the Confucian

idea is that family lines and intellectual lineages are crucial to the

fabric of society's sanity and survival. Without the respect given to the

past masters, we can not recognize mastery in ourselves. In a sense, we are

our ancestors (material-DNA) and in spirit - through teachings. How amazing

is this medicine !

and all of the basics we learned in 3 hours on our first day of TCM school I

almost slept through (which took thousands of years to discover and

develop). A hundred years ago, we wouldn't have had the privilege, but now

we can learn medicine that was kept to only initiates by just enrolling,

buying $50 books and all on federal loans. Wow, we are so fortunate just

to learn the medicine, let alone create anything " new " .

 

I applaud those who wear robes and also those who wear long hair.

Cutting and pasting is like chopping wood and building a house.

Not cutting and pasting is like chopping wood just to find an uncarved

block.

 

Like doing the same thing someone did centuries ago,

Like drinking tea or walking down the same pebbled path.

In a way, you revisit your steps.

 

K