My wise taoist master

My wise taoist master and the change of my perception

During my time at college, firstly in the UK and then at the 'Beijing College of Traditional Chinese medicine' (now 'Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine'), I had been fascinated by the fact that Chinese medicine seemed to have a holistic vision of the person and, therefore, of healing. Yet, learning to see people as a 'whole' proved to be a complex and not easy 'training'. Even before embarking in the study of Chinese medicine, I was aware that I saw people as 'parts' and that others saw me as 'parts' too.   Even when I had tried to see people as 'wholes', sooner or later I had always gone back to the fragmentary label I had attached to each one of them (and I know that others did the same with me).  Someone's “true self, xing 性" in Chinese, seemed to be forever 'jailed' in the grips of one's glance as crystallised flickers, fragments reflecting one's shortsightedness. Whilst studying in Beijing, I met Pang Yiwu, a 90 years old Daoist doctor, who had been expelled from the official medical system of China for not bending to the demands of the new Chinese Medicine (TCM).   I am still very moved by the fact that synchronicity arranged our meeting. I am also very honoured that he chose me as one of his few students (3 in all).  

Pang Yiwu's teachings

For days and days on end, Pang Yiwu, my wise taoist master, would gather the three of us in his tiny studio filled with the smoke of moxa and talk to us, in a simple matter of fact manner, about the  universal 'centre zhong 中' common to all earthly forms, stressing how nothing can exist in isolation.     This was the beginning of the 'rebirth' of my perception and consciousness.   He taught me that people had a very limited view of nature because, although they could contemplate its beauty, they could not understand the deep meanings of its rhythms and their impact on all forms of life.   He taught me that on earth the seasons change in accord with the directions of the tail of the Great Dipper as it seems to revolve around the Polar Star.   He showed me the link between the world at large and human beings.   He challenged me to discover the inner core of each phenomenon and to realise that this is nothing else but 'one source', 'one origin'.   He helped me to deconstruct my selective and divisive glaze that tended to capture bits and pieces of a complex, but single whole and to go straight for it.   Pang Yiwu, my wise taoist master, also my mentor and friend, managed to change my understanding of the world by encouraging me to observe the same phenomenon from different perspectives, and to find something new each time. This is how I learned to stay focused and observe, observe, observe.... Observe what?  Myself!   He taught me how to do it from different perspectives and to always stay focused on the 'universal centre, zhong 中', the 'alignment between Dao and the Heart Void'.   He taught me how to stay detached  from whatever I met in my inner world (simpler said than done!)  by observing without judgement my daily  thoughts, emotions, and actions.   He taught me that  absolute 'truth'  does not exist and that different observers have different vision of a reality, depending on their vantage point. To illustrate this, he talked to us about Zhuangzi's philosophy and his parables.   The three years I spend with my taoist master were truly formative and set me off on an adventurous (and perilous!) inner journey, that pushed me to change my king Media's touch i.e. my tendency to evaluate everything on the grounds of my subjective 'like' and 'dislike', and  that made me turn an animated reality into a static, unchangeable landscape.   Practically, he asked me not to stop observing my reaction to a person or a situation until I found in them the perception of their oneness. Nothing in the world gives anyone the permission to 'label', 'define' any person including our patients.  

My wise taoist master and the clinic

Patients  already come to us with many fragmented definitions of themselves,  and  the last thing they need is to land in a place where the practitioner adds more definitions, fragmented perceptions coloured by the shade of glasses sitting on our noses, and made up of our biases and cultural constructs. In the treatment room, he taught me to look for and enhance everyone's  "Dao-Heart, centre, core'  and help  it to bloom: only the emphasis on 'healthy qi, zheng qi 正氣 and Xing 性' could transform one's negative perception by giving birth to a new 'gaze', a fresh vantage point. "Disease", he told me, "is not the target. The target is health!" Then, and only then, I understood what the "Huangdi Neijing - Suwen, 皇帝內經-素問" Ch.1 meant when it explained the various categories of human beings in relation to their degree of resonance with Dao.   Only then I understood the implications of this understanding on human health. If, as a child, my natural father had helped me to develop my mind and social skills, as an adult, Pang Yiwu helped me to develop my inner pulse and made me understand that when my 'heart Void' is peaceful, my deeds are in line with Dao and my body does not produce dis-eases.