Tobydaly1: February 23, 2020, 10:39pm
Latest post from Sabine Wilms on imperialtutor.com –
Question (by somebody who is also working on a contribution to Elisa Rossi’s forthcoming book on The
Therapeutic Encounter in Chinese Medicine):
“In a few articles I can find comments about the principle of QI follows intention. Yet I cannot find a decent quote
about the principle for example like quoting the ling shu or the su wen or quoting a work by Sun Simiao. And I
thought if anyone knows if such is existing it will be you…! So if possible let me know…! Thank you!”
Sabine’s answer:
Great question you asked! I of course know the saying but had never bothered looking for the origin. And usually
finding the source for sayings like that is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but…… I found it!!!
It is indeed from Sun Simiao, from his Appended Formulas Worth a Thousand in Gold ????. The full
quotation is:
????,????,????.
As for medicine, it means “heart-sounding.” Somebody who is skilled at heart-sounding thus makes an excellent
physician!
The beauty here is in the word that is usually translated as “intention.” The character is a combination of “sound”
? over “heart” ?. So the Chinese character here means a whole lot more and something potentially quite different
from what you may think of as “intention” in the context of medical practice. I’d think of it more as “listening with
the heart,” of developing the skill of the heart as a sensory organ that can “tune in” to the patient (as opposed to
working rationally with the brain).
KristinWisgirda: February 23, 2020, 11:16pm
At the end of the above post Sabine provides a link to a related post worth reading, also written by her:
Losing the Gift of Bafflement — Happy Goat Productions
“Speaking of fakery, one of the great temptations of being a writer is to absorb the
projections of readers who think you’re an expert on some subject just because you
have written a book about it… When my ego becomes bloated with the illusions of…30/01/2024, 11:45Medicine is Intention (Heart Sounding) – Sa’am Clinical Insights – Qiological Community
https://forum.qiological.com/t/medicine-is-intention-heart-sounding/905/print2/2
This will likely resonate with many of you who contribute to this forum with a wonderful combination of humility,
critical thinking and willingness to be baffled.
Daniel: February 24, 2020, 12:24pm
Twenty years in . . . and still, on a weekly and even daily basis, the intensity of alternating between experiencing
(a) the essentially unbelievable far-reaching power of a well-chosen and well-dispensed acupuncture treatment with
(b) a humility so deep I quite fundamentally to-my-core feel lost and that I know ‘nothing’ . . . . it’s a roller coaster
with an amplitude and intensity one really has to brace for and manage to sustain, perpetually. (just two weeks ago,
I had two patients I was ‘certain’ a Bladder supplementing treatment would prove to be just the ticket to something
spectacular – only to have them both return a week later deeply derailed into off-the-charts adversity territory!!)
michaelmax: February 25, 2020, 9:17pm
In our training it is hammered into us that we “have to get it right!!”
And I’m not saying we should be lax or unconcerned, that doesn’t fly either.
And there is something about being witness to transformation. To stay present in the moments of “this is great” and
“how awful” without either of those poles taking us from that quiet place of being and attending.
Perhaps this is why traditionally doctors had other aspects of life that they cultivated. To put all of our attention,
spirit and thought in just medicine can leave us with a kind of brittleness.
To do our work, the best we can, and not be attached to the results… this is practice.