Theory versus practice

I have just spent a morning listening in admiration to Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée talking about the points I love, the Windows of the Sky.  She said that these could also be called Windows of Heaven, since the character is really that of heaven, and this added another layer of meaning to the use of these points.   Her knowledge of Chinese and of the ancient texts, both medical and philosophical, is very profound, probably the most profound of anybody in the world at the moment.  At a theoretical, abstract level, what I learnt is fascinating, but, as always, I find that I have difficulty applying to my practice what I have been told about the symptomatic application of the various acupuncture points discussed.  So much of what I learned today therefore interested me from a theoretical rather than a practical point of view.

And this is how I have tended to view what I learn from those books which list points in terms of their symptomatic importance.  I always like to ask myself whether those whose texts we are referring to, both those coming from the far-distant past as well as those recently published, were or are experienced acupuncturists.  What has always been a sticking point for me is how far we are able to accept that what is told us can be shown to be soundly based on practice, rather than just being anecdotal.  Being the kind of person who needs to assess how far I trust the experience of those teaching me, and thus remaining sceptical until proven otherwise, I treat such recommendations with caution.  It is only once I feel that somebody is basing what they are saying upon deeply felt conviction and personal experience, and shows the kind of human empathy and kindness I expect of those helping their fellow human beings, that I can add what I am being told to my own practice. 

Of course, this means that there are not many people who can convince me of the validity of their level of practical experience.  I have, though, been fortunate in having met some few people with deep enough experience and understanding to illuminate my path, foremost among them, of course, my teacher, JR Worsley.

In the field of acupuncture, one area which Elisabeth Rochat represents at the highest level is that which relates to pure scholarship – the ability to study an ancient language and reveal what it is telling us as accurately as possible.  Quite another area is that which deals with our practice – the ability to translate what has been learnt based upon having treated a sufficiently large number of patients to pass this learning on to other practitioners.  These two areas demand quite different skills, and must not be confused.  A scholar steeped in ancient Chinese cannot teach me what I feel confident enough to incorporate into my daily practice, but can deepen a different level of my understanding of what I do.  An experienced acupuncturist who I respect can teach me much that will help me in my daily practice.

I think people often confuse the two.

 

 

Further thoughts on traditional acupuncture's legacy to the history of Chinese culture

I have recently written about the importance we should all give to the idea of a personal legacy which we pass on to others (see my blogs of 24 May 2015 The legacy we leave behind and of 27 August 2015 Transmission of a lineage).  I have been made particularly aware of this after reading a few books in the excellent series about China published by a very enterprising publishing house, Zed Books (www.zedbooks.co.uk), whose books I would recommend for those interested in understanding China's position in world history today, not only for people like me who visit China, but also for those concerned with world politics in general, as we all should be.   

For obvious reason I have concentrated my reading on steeping myself in things Chinese, and the Zed books I list below have given me much food for thought.  Each has changed my perspective on what my trips to China are teaching me (I am embarking on my 9^th visit in April), and each has made me re-evaluate my own role in re-introducing five element acupuncture to China.  I see more clearly now how this fits into the general thrust of China’s renewed interest in connecting with its past, as well as helping me understand more how it wishes to extend its connections with the world outside its borders.

The books on China that I have recently read are:
Wade Shepard: Ghost Cities of China
Michael Barr: Who’s afraid of China?
Leta Hong-Fincher:  Leftover Women
Tom Miller:  China’s Urban Billions

And then there is a further book which is not solely related to China, but addresses the global financial world, and has taught me more than any other book I have read about the historical reasons which led to the 2008 financial collapse, and the possible trouble now looming over us yet again.  It has made me understand the sheer selfishness of politics now, which contrasts sadly with what I see was what could be viewed as a golden age in British life in which I grew up, the post-World War years before Margaret Thatcher’s arrival on the political scene.  In those years  there really was a feeling that the whole country was trying to work towards a more egalitarian country, and the state itself  looked after the weakest as a matter of course, and not, as now, stigmatizing them for being weak.

So my last recommendation is for another Zed Book is The Global Minotaur by Yanis Varoufakis.  He was the Greek Minister of Finance at a time when it looked possible that Greece might be able to defy the almighty power of the IMF and the German government and refuse to cripple its citizens with further austerity, a hope unfortunately not realized.

 

 

 

 

 

The transmission of a five element lineage

I give below the text of an article I have just submitted for publication in the British Acupuncture Council's journal Acu:

“We are not good at lineages in this country, and we appear to have surprisingly little respect for others’ expertise.  In fact, most of our education system appears to be built, not so much on the idea of learning from those of greater experience than us, but more of teaching students to discover things for themselves, almost as if the hard-won knowledge of those preceding them should be discarded as somehow not so relevant.

I have spent many weeks since 2011 in China, introducing five element acupuncture to what must now be many hundreds of Chinese acupuncturists, and have learnt from these visits how much respect they show the lineage of five element acupuncture which they view me as representing.  This is why, there on the wall of the Tong You San He Centre in Nanning where I teach, I am greeted - each time with a slight sense of surprise - by a large panel of photographs, the first showing my teacher, J R Worsley, the second me and the last showing Mei Long, a student of mine, who initiated my first contacts with China through Liu Lihong, the Centre’s director.  Through his writing he is the person who has done most to stimulate Chinese traditional medicine’s search for its past roots.

For the Chinese, the line of transmission extending back to the Nei Jing, and on through the centuries to reach J R Worsley, then me and beyond,  represents what they feel they have lost, a direct connection to the past.  In the West, on the other hand, we seem to be, if not indifferent to this, then somewhat disinterested in the routes of transmission, as though we are not ourselves quite clear what lineage we are heir to.  This probably stems from the fact that generally both in this country and in China there is little clarity about how to integrate the precepts of traditional medicine with modern attempts to draw acupuncture closer to Western medicine.

The display of photographs which confronts me each time I return to China has made me re-evaluate my own thoughts about the transmission of a lineage, and led me to a new appreciation of what has been transmitted to me.  The way the Chinese view what I bring to them makes me more aware than before of the precious inheritance which has been passed down to me, and which the Chinese now clamour for me to pass on to them.  Here I am, coming from a far-off land, the bearer of an unknown treasure, my knowledge of an acupuncture discipline which fascinates them.  And, most importantly, somebody with thirty or more years’ clinical experience, which is something they value particularly highly.  I bring them a precious gift, the transmission of what they regard as the esoteric knowledge contained within the lineage of a particular branch of five element acupuncture handed down over the centuries from master to pupil.  This has found its way through devious routes to the West and is now finding its way back to its country of origin through me, an inheritor of this lineage.  It is useful to read Peter Eckman’s In the Footsteps of the Yellow Emperor, Long River Press 2007, as the best, and in my view, so far the only, in-depth study to trace these routes of transmission.

In this country we often forget how precious the legacy of the past can be, tending to take this past for granted.  To the modern Chinese, deprived for so many years as they have been of much of the history of traditional medicine through the traumas of the Cultural Revolution, anything which helps them trace this past is a gift to be nurtured.  Even though all practitioners are brought up on rote learning the Nei Jing, they are aware that they have lost many of the connections between what is in these old texts and their practice of today.  In their eyes, the branch of five element acupuncture I represent makes these connections clear to them.

To the Chinese acupuncturists that I teach, therefore, five element acupuncture embodies a spiritual tradition which they regard as lacking in much of the acupuncture now taught in China, and connects them to a past which they feel they have lost.  Its emphasis on ensuring that so much attention is paid to the spirit is something they respond warmly to.  It echoes what they have learnt from the Nei Jing, but is something which is ignored by the TCM they are taught in their acupuncture colleges.   

To witness the joy with which they greet all the five element teaching I offer them is to raise an echo within me of a similar joy that I experienced sitting on my first day in the classroom at Leamington more than 30 years ago, and learning about the Fire element with the Heart at its centre.  It seemed to me then, as it still does, and does, too, to all my Chinese students, that to base an acupuncture practice upon treatment of the elements was to state a natural truth about life.  Learning from the Chinese approach to their past, I can now see more clearly than ever that I, and every other five element acupuncturist, form one link in the unending chain stretching from the earliest days of the Nei Jing down the years.  This path of transmission passed to the West in the 20^th century and is now coming full circle on its return to its birthplace, China, in the 21^st century.  This is indeed an inheritance to treasure."

 

Returning the spirit to acupuncture in China

(Article submitted to the Acupuncturist, the newsletter of the British Acupuncture Council)


We are used to thinking of the transmission of traditional Chinese medicine as being a form of one-way traffic passing from East to West, but somewhat to my initial surprise, I have become a key factor in its journey in the opposite direction, from West to East.  Specifically, it has become my task to take the first steps in helping five element acupuncture build a bridge back to its land of birth, China.


Over the years China has made many different, often contradictory attempts to try to integrate its traditional form of medicine within the framework of Western medicine or to find ways of making Western medicine fit within it.  It has never been quite clear whether it should view it as a powerful indigenous medical system on a par with, or even superior to, Western medicine, or as a more primitive branch of medicine which Western medicine had in many ways superseded.  This uncertainty has hovered over China’s at times almost schizophrenic approach to its traditional medicine, and is one of the reasons for the confusion which this still causes, not only in China but to practitioners of Chinese medicine round the world.   In other words, can Chinese traditional medicine be viewed as a stand-alone, intellectually coherent form of medicine based on more than 2000 years of continuous practice, or has the appearance of Western medicine in the past 100 years or so demoted it to an inferior, ancillary role?


It will be obvious from my writings and my teachings that I am utterly convinced of the former, but sadly I am not sure how far my view is shared by many of its practitioners either in China or the rest of the world.


Through a series of what could seem to have been coincidences, but I regard now as clearly defined steps along a path which has guided me throughout my long association with acupuncture, I was led to meet Professor Liu Lihong at the Rothenburg conference in Germany a few years ago, together with his very good friend and translator, Heiner Fruehauf.  Liu Lihong is described as being “arguably the most important Chinese medicine scholar of the younger generation in present-day China.  His controversial book Sikao zhongyi (Contemplating Chinese Medicine) became an instant bestseller when it was first published in 2003.  Since then, it has attracted a larger and wider circle of readers than any other Chinese medicine book in modern times.  His book represents the first treatise written in the People’s Republic of China that dares to openly discuss the shortcomings of the government-sponsored system of TCM education in China, which informed the evolution of TCM around the globe.”


I was then invited by him to give a seminar on five element acupuncture to acupuncturists at his research institute in Nanning in South China in November 2011, the first of five seminars I have given there to a growing number of acupuncturists.  At my last visit in April, Professor Liu, who is himself a scholar of the classics, when introducing me to the class of 70 acupuncturists, said, “The seed of five element acupuncture is a very pure seed.  I think it originates directly from our original classic Lingshu, “Rooted in Spirit” (Chapter 8 of Lingshu), or “Discourse on the law of needling” (Chapter 72 of Suwen). That is to say it fits easily within the Neijing. It is therefore not created from nothing.  It has its origin in the far-distant past and has a long history.  The seed which underlies its practice is very pure.  For many good reasons, this seed has now returned to its homeland and started to germinate.  In Nora’s words, its roots have started to penetrate downwards.”


I have been invited to give a keynote lecture on “Returning the spirit to acupuncture in China” at the BAcC conference on 26 September 2014, when I will be describing in greater detail the process by which the roots of five element acupuncture are being encouraged to grow steadily stronger in China.

 

 

A talk for the British Acupuncture Council's Annual Conference in September 2014

I have been asked to give the keynote address at the British Acupuncture Council’s Annual Conference at the end of September 2014.  I hesitated a little before accepting, since giving public talks is not what I wish to do now (except in China!), but then I decided to accept because what I have been asked to talk about is my role in the return of five element acupuncture to China.  And that is something I feel very passionate about.

I have to provide a title for my talk, and two have so far occurred to me:  “Five element acupuncture comes full circle” and “The return of five element acupuncture to its roots in China”.  Probably I will decide on a title which brings these two thoughts together.

The real impetus to my accepting the BAC’s invitation is my strong belief that everybody involved in acupuncture, particularly those practising what I call modern Chinese acupuncture, commonly known as TCM, should be aware of how little of the spirit is involved in its practice, whereas how much of the spirit is there in the classics which all Chinese acupuncturists still learn as though by rote.  This leads to a kind of subtle schizophrenia in relation to their practice, where, my Chinese students tell me, no attention at all is paid to the spirit, despite it being so heavily emphasized in classical texts.

I feel the return of five element acupuncture to China is an important step towards bridging this unnecessary divide.  And it is regarded as such by all I encounter in China.  As one very senior regional official told me as I treated him, “We have lost our soul in China.  We need you here.”

 

Some thoughts on the history of traditional Chinese medicine in China over the past 50 years or more

To understand the history of traditional Chinese medicine in its modern context better, I have been fortunate to have had recommended to me by a student at the Leamington Acupuncture Academy an excellent book which I have just finished reading with great interest, Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945-63:  A Medicine of Revolution by Kim Taylor (Routledge 2005). This is providing me with great insights into why my advent in China seems to be marking quite a turning-point in China’s own appreciation of its traditional medicine, specifically in relation to acupuncture.  It is certainly helping me understand a little better why what I bring represents a reconnection to an acupuncture tradition in great danger of being lost. 

I would recommend all acupuncturists to read this book.  It confirms many of my long-held beliefs about the problems surrounding modern Chinese acupuncture (TCM), and its insidious spread into the West under the illusion that it somehow represents traditional acupuncture, which it so clearly doesn’t.  Thank goodness that this is at last being recognised, not least in China.  But TCM’s invasion of the West has done much untold harm to the more traditionally based practices of acupuncture, such as five element acupuncture, one such instance being the fact that, for some reason I could never fathom, TCM practitioners always seem to want to undermine the validity of five element acupuncture.  Now, at least, I feel my own stance, staunchly defending the transmission of a long acupuncture lineage, has been vindicated by what is now being revealed about the extreme paucity of any true traditional sources in the acupuncture practised over the past 50 years or more in modern China.

My thoughts have been further strengthened by reading another important and well-researched book by Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine, 1626 -2006 (Eastland Press 2007).  Although concentrating almost entirely upon herbal acupuncture, with only a handful of references to acupuncture, the picture he paints is of the enormous pressures placed upon Chinese medicine over the past 50 years or more in what can be seen as a fight for its survival against the forces within China supporting the primacy of Western medicine.  Chinese medicine became a pawn in China’s attempts to work out the position it should take in relation to Western medicine, and continues to suffer from this uncertainty, whilst at the same trying to defend the importance of acknowledging its own long medical heritage.

Somehow acupuncture found its own escape route from the political turmoil within China, benefiting from the hounding and expulsion of many of its practitioners.  They took with them, often as the sole inheritors of long traditional medicine lineages, traditional practices frowned upon or misunderstood in mainland China, and were free in the West to pass on their knowledge to those eager to learn.  Amongst these, as we know, were the group in England which included JR Worsley and Dick van Buren.

Ironically, therefore, it is in the West that the precepts of traditional acupuncture found fertile ground upon which to allow its damaged roots to re-plant themselves and grow so prolifically.  It is therefore doubly ironic that it should fall to me, a Western trained five element acupuncturist, to hand the gifts which my practice has given me back to a birthplace which hardly recognises the acupuncture inheritance on which I base this practice.

 

                                                           

 

 

Preface to the Chinese edition of my Handbook of Five Element Practice

I give below Mei Long's translation of Liu Lihong's Preface to the Chinese edition of my Handbook which has now appeared in bookshops throughout China.  I am very honoured that he volunteered to write the preface, and am touched with what he has written.  I think this preface is an important document charting the first steps in the return of five element acupuncture to its birthplace.

"The Handbook of Five Element Acupuncture, written by Nora Franglen, will soon be available to Chinese readers. Whilst for the 4th time reading this book admiringly, I must admit that I regret somehow that I have offered myself too eagerly to write the introduction. Since being still learning five element acupuncture myself, I realize that I could hardly give any comment on her book. However, to keep my promise, I’ll manage to write something here.

I came across 5EA because of Dr. Long Mei, who graduated from Chengdu University of TCM in 1991 and has lived in the Netherlands since 1997. In the beginning of 2010, she wrote me a 10-page-long letter, telling me how she came across 5EA, her understanding and experience of practising this school of acupuncture. Deeply touched by Mei’s letter, I realized how wonderful this style of acupuncture is. How amazing that the lineage, rooted in China, is still passing on abroad! Hardly can I stop feeling guilty unless making any effort to welcome it coming home. So last summer I invited Long Mei to run a one-week seminar on 5EA in Nanning.

Originated in China, 5EA has already undergone a history of more than thousands of years. In the second half of last century, prof. J.R. Worsley, an English master of five element acupuncture, made great efforts to promote this school of acupuncture. And thanks to his contribution, the transmission of 5EA has been carried on in Europe and the United States, benefiting so many people. Whereas in her homeland, 5EA has become unknown to Chinese people, both laymen and professionals. As prof. Worsley mentioned, it was an oral tradition, which is very much like the Zen tradition in China – no written history.

In his preface of ShangHan Zha Bing Lun, Zhang Zhongjing wrote: “Heaven distributes 5 phases to create and move 10,000 kinds of species. Endowed with 5 elements, human beings thus have their 5 zangs (organs), Fus and meridians. The deep secrets and the meanings of the manifestations and the changes of Yin and yang, which are closely interrelated and connected to each other, are revealed in such a subtle and profound way that they are hardly understood except for those who are gifted with profound insight.” As to me, this can be a perfect description of 5 element acupuncture.

… It is in finding our guardian element that has made 5EA so difficult and fascinating. Also, this is where we, as practitioners, need to improve ourselves. And by so doing, we are getting more and more into our senses.

To find the right element, is to understand the profoundness of human nature. So we have to, just as prof. Worsley said, “Get out of our mind and into our senses.” Getting out of our mind, as I understand, is to get into our heart. Therefore, to be able to understand and deepen ourselves in this style of acupuncture, we need to let go many ideas and concepts of stereotypes. Whilst the engagement of our brains is so emphasised as to gain the knowledge in the modern time, the heart, however, was much more involved in the old time. In the book of Neijing, the heart was regarded as the emperor, the brains, however, only as one of the Fu organs. It is here that we see the difference between the old value and the new ones. And it must be worthwhile for us pondering over such difference. Understanding the difference between the brains and the heart is probably the key to deepen our understanding in Chinese Medicine. 5EA certainly offers the shortest access to gain the essence of Chinese medicine.

As for the practitioners, 5EA, based on the principles of the Classics, has a special focus on the Spirit. This has made 5EA so profound a form of healing which guides her practitioners following a path that of a supreme physician’s (Shang gong), who always goes beyond the physical level. Whereas for laymen, understanding the elements would bring more joys to their daily lives and help them to live their lives in a healthier way.

In June this year, whilst attending the international TCM congress in Rothenburg, I had chance to meet Nora and from whom I received my treatment. Metal is my guardian element according to Nora. After following a complete process, Nora selected Yuji (Lu, 10, fish region), the most spiritual point of the whole body, she told me, to end the treatment. The point, Lu 10, made me think. As I always enjoy doing: getting the meaning hidden deep within the Chinese characters. I then realized that there must be a connection between character “鱼” (yu), meaning ‘ fish’, and another character “宇” (yu), meaning ‘the universe’. The secret behind Yuji, “fish region” must be” the universe region”! In the book of Yellow Emperor’s Yin Fu Classic, it writes: “the universe lies in our hand, everything in the universe lies in our body.”

Reading Nora’s Handbook, I’m inspired by her profound insights and wisdom; whilst getting her treatment, I’ve experienced the subtleness and sincerity. Being with her, feeling her faith and love for Chinese medicine, flowing out of the heart, I can imagine how delighted Nora feels that 5EA is coming back to the homeland, a journey which has been waiting so long. And I can’t stop admiring and respecting how she is, advanced in her age, yet childlike in spirit. But meanwhile, I feel awesomely sorry, and wonder: as being Chinese, what have we done and what can we do for passing on Chinese medicine?

Liu Lihong, in the midsummer of 2011, at the foot of Green Mountain, Nanning"

An illuminating article by Heiner Fruehauf all should read

I have just read Heiner’s article on Chinese Medicine In Crisis: Science, Politics, And The Making Of “TCM”, which appears in the August 2011 newsletter of his website http://www.classicalchinesemedicine.org./ .  This is an update of his 1999 article with the same title.

I give below his opening sentence and the quotation with which he heads his article:

The latter half of the 19th century and through the end of the 20th century has been a time of great political, economic, cultural, and scientific transformation in China. Chinese medicine, the shining gem of traditional science, has had to endure many assaults in this process, sinking the field into a quagmire where it had to fight bitterly for its own survival. This course of events can be called “The Century When Traditional Chinese Medicine Was Tied up in the Straightjacket of Utter Delusion.”
          –Li Zhichong, Director of Chinese TCM Association, 2002

Heiner writes that his article “is based on the conviction that the traditional art of Oriental medicine is dying – both in mainland China, home of the mother trunk of the field, and consequently overseas where branches of the tree are trying to grow.”

I think everybody who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the current state of traditional Chinese medicine throughout the world will find something to ponder about in this article.

Now China, here I come!

Everybody interested in the future of five element acupuncture will share my delight that it is now making its way back to China, carried first on the wings of the Chinese-language edition of my Handbook of Five Element Acupuncture, which will be in Chinese bookshops in a week or so, and then by my own presence in China. I have been invited over there at the end of October by Professor Liu Lihong of the Clinical Research Institute of Classical Chinese Medicine attached to the Guangxi College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He is a colleague of Heiner Fruehauf, who many of you will know as the author of the very important article Chinese Medicine in Crisis (Journal of Chinese Medicine No 61, October 1999). You can also see Professor Liu talking to Heiner on the website http://www.classicalchinesemedicine.org/. Professor Liu encouraged Mei Long, a Chinese postgraduate student of mine, now living in the Netherlands, to translate the Handbook.

I will be flying first to Chengdu, then to the Guanxi College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Nanning to teach a group of acupuncturists there for about a week. I will then fly on to Beijing to give a seminar at the large international conference which Professor Liu is organizing. He regards this as a very significant step in the important programme of re-introducing five element acupuncture to China and re-attaching Chinese acupuncture more firmly to its traditional roots. (Heiner’s article is a very good introduction to the background to this.)

It is a great honour to have been invited by him and to have been recognised by him as an important contributor to his work.

(You can also read a fuller background to this visit in my blogs of 1 June, 2 August & 8 November 2010 and 16 June & 7 July of this year.)

At the same time I am continuing my translation for Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée of her 101 Notions-Clés de la Médecine Chinoise (101 Key Concepts of Chinese Medicine), which brings together many of her teachings of the classics of Chinese medicine over the years. It forms a fascinating companion to my own recently-started studies of Mandarin. I feel it is important that I can at least greet and thank my hosts in China in their mother tongue! As a former linguist, I have always felt it was a pity that I did not have enough time to study Mandarin in depth, and am happy now to be able to remedy this, with the incentive of my China visit spurring me on.

On the domestic front, it is also good to have news of the phoenix rising from the ashes of CTA in the form of the Acupuncture Academy starting soon in Leamington, appropriately the birth-place of five element acupuncture training in the UK. I have visited their new premises, and wish the Academy every success as it launches its innovative new course. Dublin, too, is going to have its own five element college. It is good to be able to report good news of this kind for five element acupuncture, both here and in the wider world, at the end of a difficult year on the acupuncture front.

More blogs about my visit on my return from China.

Zaijian! (Goodbye!)

Update on the publishing of the Chinese edition of my Handbook of Five Element Practice

We are surprisingly close to reaching the final stage in publishing the Chinese edition of my Handbook in China, which is being done through the good offices of Liu Lihong. As I have written before (see my blog of 8 November 2010),I find it very comforting that at a time of such turmoil in the acupuncture world in this country a future has opened up, so unexpectedly, for a return of five element acupuncture to its country of origin, China.

I am also delighted to hear that Liu met Dr Peter Eckman when he visited the United States recently. Some of you, and I hope an increasing number of you, will know of Peter as the author of what I consider to be the only full account of the journey of traditional acupuncture from East to West, and specifically that part of it which relates to JR Worsley and the other early pioneers of acupuncture. His book In the Footsteps of the Yellow Emperor is a fascinating account of the many paths along which traditional acupuncture travelled on its way west. I was delighted to hear of the meeting between Liu Lihong and Peter, and the mutual exchange of their books. This is yet another connection in the serendipitous links which appear to be weaving themselves around me and five element acupuncture recently.

Peter and I have worked together on my translation of one of Jacques Lavier’s books, Histoire, doctrine et pratique de l’acupuncture chinoise, published in the 1960s; Peter helped me with both the classical and medical terminology, and has kindly offered to write an introduction when we find a publisher. As some of you will know, Lavier was one of JR Worsley’s teachers. Anybody familiar with what we all called JR’s Black Book, which he withdrew from circulation at one point, will be interested to know that many of the point selections which he listed there appear to have been taken almost word for word from the appendix of the Lavier book, yet another important link in the chain of transmission.

I am also now in the midst of translating Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallée’s 101 Notions-Clés de la Médecine Chinoise (101 Key Concepts of Chinese Medicine), for which she is hoping to find an American publisher. Pulled along in its wake, I hope that somebody will want to publish the Lavier, which I consider an important and valuable book.

Preface to the Chinese edition of my Handbook of Five Element Practice

The translation of my Handbook is now complete, and I have been asked to write a preface for it for Chinese readers.  I give it below:

"I am very happy that this Chinese translation of my Handbook of Five Element Practice will now be available to Chinese readers.

I am particularly honoured that Master Liu has encouraged this translation, and has given this book his special blessing by offering to write an introduction.

My own journey into five element acupuncture began when I met an acupuncturist at a party in London nearly 30 years ago. I experienced so many profound changes in myself as a result of my own treatment that I decided that I wanted to study it, and was fortunate to be able to study under a great master of acupuncture, J R Worsley. And now that I have studied it and practised it for all the years since then, I have great joy in offering what I have learnt to others through my teaching. For 12 years I was the Principal of the School of Five Element Acupuncture in London, and am now continuing my work in helping others to deepen their own practice. For me, the concepts underlying my practice represent a profound understanding of the soul within each of us, and recognise how that soul influences how we cope with life and what illnesses we allow to attack us.

This Handbook is intended as a working textbook for those wishing to study and practise five element acupuncture, and who want to understand the principles upon which it is based. These principles reflect all the traditional values set out in the great classical medical and philosophical texts such as the Neijing and the Lingshu. They recognise that each one of us is a microcosm of the great Dao, and that disease of body or soul only creeps in when we do not live in accordance with the natural order.

Traditional Chinese medicine made its way to the West through many different routes, and is now flourishing over here. It is lovely to think that its journey from East to West is now coming full circle, as it travels back to its homeland, China. I am proud that this Handbook is one further step on this journey home. Let us hope that what I have written finds its way into the hearts of all those dedicating their lives to helping their patients through a deep understanding of the elements which create all living things.

I would like to congratulate Mei Long on completing the task of translating this book so quickly and so competently. I would also like to acknowledge how much five element acupuncture owes to her enthusiasm in embracing it on her arrival in Europe, and then having the courage to approach Master Liu in her desire to encourage the practice of a true form of traditional Chinese medicine in China."

Meditation on Mastery: J R Worsley and Wang Fengyi

As part of things coming full circle (see my blog of June 1st), I am now in touch with Heiner Fruehauf, who has very kindly sent me a copy of his interesting article, All Disease comes from the Heart – The Pivotal Role of the Emotions in Classical Chinese Medicine. In our email correspondence, Heiner mentions Wang Fengyi, master of the lineage he studied under in China. Wang Fengyi practised in Manchuria during the 1930s, when the region was occupied by the Japanese, who, Heiner says, “imported some of this system to Japan”. Heiner describes JR Worsley as “a Western Wang Fengyi”, and wonders whether there could be a connection between what he calls “these two masters”. After all, JR received some of his training from Japanese masters.

Apart from offering a fascinating insight into the possible transmission of the five element system, his comment also set me thinking about what exactly we mean by the word master, and in particular upon what kind of person I myself bestow this accolade. (Mistress seems never to have been used in this context, as far as I can see, though somebody out there may correct me on this!) I am very clear in my own mind that JR is the only master of acupuncture I have so far encountered, and that I cannot at the moment attach this designation to any other acupuncturist. No doubt there are other living masters of acupuncture whom I have not met, or acupuncturists I have met who other people would call masters, but each of us must have our own concept of what mastery means. I must therefore draw on my own experience of just one acupuncture master to help me try and fathom what I personally see as the nature of mastery.

I do not regard mastery as being obtained through the acquisition of a particular skill or set of skills or the result of any kind of particular dexterity, nor as arising simply from a level of intelligence applied to a particular discipline. It is certainly not what is attained by gaining a prescribed qualification. It implies something far deeper and more complex than that. Buried within it is always the sense of something which connects this person to the deeper mysteries of life, and thus to the spiritual, and to what may well lie beyond the reach of those who are non-masters or not-yet-masters. When I think of the word, I have a picture before me of a disciple bowing humbly before his/her master. It is therefore associated with a level of reverence accorded by one person to another, implicit in the term “revered master”. And reverence can never be bestowed lightly; it always has to be earned.

I do not think you can work your way to mastery. You can work towards proficiency, so that you become increasingly competent at what you do, but mastery is not an acquired skill. It is, in my view, something in the nature of a gift, a God-given gift, I would like to add, from whatever God or power or force created the awesome powers which can reside within one human being, a gift which is only vouchsafed a very rare few. And such people touch those they encounter in very special ways, opening doors that without them would remain forever shut.

I was fortunate to be one of the many whom the mastery of JR in the field of acupuncture touched with its inspiring touch. And there was no better illustration of this for me than the time when I heard him going through a list of all the points from his Point Reference Guide, one of the five element bibles without which, even now, I could not practise. He talked the class through each point on each official, thus the whole mythical 365, and addressed each point as though offering a greeting to them in hushed tones of love. Hearing this I felt I was being allowed a glimpse of a world in which he wandered at will, but which I could only venture into with his help. I understood then that points spoke to him and communicated with him in ways I could myself only dimly perceive, and which bore little relation to the lists of point functions in the many books now vying with each other to offer often dubious insights into point selection.

I certainly do not think that I can aspire, or will ever want to aspire, to the title of master, nor am I sad about this, having a good appreciation of my own limitations as acupuncturist. A good, competent, hardworking acupuncturist I may be, but the magic of mastery will always elude me. It makes it all the more precious that I have encountered mastery once in my life.

For details of videos and lectures given by Heiner Fruehauf, particularly in relation to Wang Fengyi, see his website www.ClassicalChineseMedicine.org.