Enveloped, protected and cocooned by the Pericardium wrapping of the heart , this space is infinite potential, interconnection and unconditional love. It is a very difficult place to keep open. But you can — with intention, practice, determination and by habitually letting go. This is why acupuncture can be so transformative.
We access your Heart-Mind Spirit where it resides in your body. The ancient Chinese relate it to the north star, Polaris — the still point around which the entire galaxy pivots. Just as in the Northern hemisphere they look to Polaris to discover true north, so we can look to the Yang light, space and impulse of the Heart-Mind to discover our direction in life.
I practice Chinese Medicine because of its logical, flexible, relevant and effective methods to improve health and wellbeing. I've seen that people gain a lot from their treatments, much more than alleviating symptoms.
It's exciting for me to draw upon not only the deep wisdom of the ancients but also the latest in cutting-edge mind-body science. There is no life that is not an unceasing transformation.
It is also the beginning of suffering. The Taoists see our Shen or Heart-Mind journey as a path of self-awareness. Cultivating Shen is not as esoteric as it sounds. Once this realisation occurs, you actively cultivate Spirit. Shen or Heart-Mind and Acupuncture On the acupuncture table, I ask you to listen and become receptive to your Heart-Mind because it knows what you need. How Acupuncture Heals the Shen or Heart-Mind When you are settled on the acupuncture table, you start breathing into your lower belly and come into the experience of how your body feels in that moment.
You breathe out and let go — of your day, the busy-ness, your stuff. A verse of the Nei Ye seems to confirm this:. By concentrating your vital breath [Qi] as if numinous [Shen], The myriad things will all be contained within you. Here the text speaks not of some internal numen or spirit but, rather, of a spirit-like or numinous power than can foreknow.
It details how the practice of concentrating and refining Qi into Jing leads to the ability to divine the future without tortoise shells or milfoil stalks. This foreknowledge also occurs without relying on ghostly [gui] or numinous [shen] powers outside or within oneself but, rather, because of the utmost refinement of Qi and Jing.
But if the taste and desires give way to excess, then the eyes will no longer see and the ears no longer hear. It is the Mind that must be trained.
It is also the monarch of the body in the Confucian view of the State. In the Nei Ye, Shen is a numinous power that can even apply to mountains, rivers, etc. It is a psychic state that, typically for Chinese medicine and philosophy, can be developed by developing and nurturing Jing.
Its old pictograph represents the head of a dead person without a body and the swirling movement of this ghost after death. The Hun enters the body 3 days after birth and is imparted by the father. Ethereal in nature, after death it survives the body in the realm of the dead. The Shen and Hun and inseparably linked and together they form our consciousness, mind and spirit. Excessive movement of the Hun may cause manic behaviour while complete movement of the psyche out of itself may result in mental illness.
The fact that the Hun has the nature of gui means that it has an independent existence from the Shen. Unlike the Hun, the other two mental-spiritual aspects of Yi of the Spleen and Zhi of the Kidneys do not have an independent existence but could be said to be part of the Shen of the Heart.
Like the Hun, the Po also has its own independent existence although on a physical level. The Hun assists the Shen in its mental activities. The Hun provides the Shen which is responsible for rational thinking , with intuition, vision and inspiration.
This capacity for movement and outward projection is closely related to the Liver-Qi quality of quick and free movement. The free flow of Liver-Qi helps the Heart and the Shen.
Note that Liver also has a physiological ascending movement. That movement is towards the Heart; on a psychic level, it is the role that subconscious thinking, intuition and inspiration play in cognition. The Shen can only cope with one idea at a time originating from the Hun and it must therefore exercise some form of control over the material coming from the Hun.
It must also integrate the material deriving from the Hun in the general psychic life. Thus, the Hun brings movement to the Shen, and the Shen provides some control and integration.
If the Shen is weak and fails to restrain the Hun or if the Hun is overactive , this may be too restless and only bring confusion and chaos to the Shen, making the person scattered and unsettled. This can be observed in some people who are always full of ideas, dreams and projects none of which ever comes to fruition because of the chaotic state of the Shen which is therefore unable to restrain the Hun. If the movement of the Hun is lacking which could be due to over-control of the Hun by the Shen , the person lacks vision, imagination, creativity and will be depressed.
The left part of the diagram below illustrates the situation when the movement of the Hun is deficient; the right part of the diagram below illustrates the situation when the Shen is over-controlling the Hun thereby restraining its movement. The relationship between Shen and Hun is all about expansion stimulation of coming and going of the Hun and contraction restraint of coming and going of Hun in our psychic life.
To be an earthly gui means to return…to be a heavenly shen means to expand. When the expansion reaches its limit, it ends and begins again. A person is born of gui and at death returns to them. Yin and Yang are called gui-shen. The following diagrams illustrate this concept of cycles of expansion and contraction in our psyche.
In the first diagram we have an illustration of normal cycles of expansion and contraction in the psyche. In the diagram below, on the top we have a state of more or less permanent expansion, i. The part below illustrates the opposite, i. Artistic inspiration comes from the Hun, not the Shen at least in Western art, not Chinese art.
It is for this reason that there is a disproportionate incidence of bipolar disease in Western artists see Kay Redfield Jamison. The discovery that there are centres in the brain that are responsible for the personal, ethical and social dimensions of reasoning irrespective of cognition and language came about after the accident that occurred to Phineas Gage.
Phineas Gage was a railroad construction foreman in charge placing the dynamite charges that were necessary to blast rock.
On September 13, year-old Gage was foreman of a work gang blasting rock while preparing the roadbed for the railroad. Gage was tamping his iron rod when the iron struck a spark against the rock and the powder exploded.
The tamping iron entered on the side of his face passing back of the left eye, and out at the top of the head. This was the first time that neurologists realized there were centres in the brain responsible not for cognition but for ethical choices and planning.
Such centres are in the pre-frontal lobe. A report published in the Bulletin of the Massachusetts Medical Society:.
He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity which was not previously his custom , manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint of advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operation, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible.
Before the accident, Gage had a strong sense of personal and social responsibility, cared for the quality of his work, and attracted the admiration of his colleagues and superiors. He was adapted in social conventions and was ethical in his dealings.
After the accident, he no longer showed respect for social convention; ethics were violated; he was given to lying and inventing tales. The observance of previously acquired social conventions and ethical rules could be lost as a result of brain damage, even when neither cognition nor language were affected. From a Chinese perspective, this shows that there are centres in the brain that control the interaction between the Shen and Hun.
From a Western point of view, this is the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain, lying in front of the motor and premotor areas. This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, and modulating correct social behavior. The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals and social rules.
The most typical neurologic term for functions carried out by the pre-frontal cortex area is executive function. Skills of comparison and understanding of eventual outcomes are harbored in the prefrontal cortex but the prefrontal cortex when functioning correctly controls the mental option to delay immediate gratification for a better or more rewarding longer-term gratification result. This ability to wait for a reward is one of the key pieces that define optimal executive function of the human brain.
The prefrontal cortex PFC is responsible for the executive functions, which include mediating conflicting thoughts, making choices between right and wrong or good and bad, predicting future events, and governing social control — such as suppressing emotional or sexual urges.
From a Chinese perspective, many of the above-mentioned functions of the prefrontal cortex are functions of the Hun, e. This reflects the control of the Shen over the Hun. The pre-frontal cortex is responsible for planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, modulating correct social behavior; also orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals and social rules. When the pathways between the prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain are damaged due to head injury, massive personality changes can result.
One might say that the prefrontal cortex is the neurological basis of the conscience. Weak interconnections between the prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain have been observed in criminals, sociopaths, drug addicts, and schizophrenics.
The prefrontal cortex has expanded greatly in size throughout hominid evolution, culminating in Homo Sapiens, suggesting a strong selection pressure in favor of its continued growth. In the past five million years of human evolution, the size of the prefrontal cortex has increased six-fold. The size of the prefrontal cortex relative to the rest of the brain has also increased throughout these five million years since the brain itself has increased in size about three-fold.
The prefrontal cortex is fed information from all the senses, and combines this information to form useful judgments. It constantly contains active representations in working memory, as well as representations of goals and contexts. Pictures of physical assaults, war carnage, and abandoned children were included in the moral category; the non-moral images depicted body lesions and dangerous animals. Certain brain regions the amygdala, thalamus, and upper midbrain were consistently activated by both types of emotional stimulus.
But some areas, including the orbital prefrontal cortex and the superior temporal sulcus, at the furrow between the frontal and temporal lobes, fired specifically in response to moral content. Moreover, the researchers found that this activation was very fast. Thus, the prefrontal cortex is also involved in the so-called moral or social emotions, i. The emotion of disgust played an important evolutionary role in steering us away from toxic plants, poisons and spoiled food.
From a Chinese perspective, the prefrontal cortex is the arena of interplay between Shen and Hun. The Shen represents the executive function that needs to interact with but also somewhat control the desires of the Hun. The Shen also represents the moral and social dimension of our life, i. The location of certain acupuncture points on the forehead presents interesting observation as to the effect these points might have on the prefrontal cortex. The main point is Du Shenting which, in my opinion, has a profound influence on the regulation of Shen and Hun, finding the right balance between excitation and restraint of the Hun and the right balance of enough but not too much control of the Shen over the Hun and also enough movement but not too much of the Hun towards the Shen.
For this reason, this point helps both depression and anxiety as well as manic behaviour. Moreover, it helps memory and the prefrontal cortex is the location of working memory. Du is a very important and powerful point to calm the Mind.
It is frequently combined with G. An important feature of this point which makes it particularly useful is that it can both calm and lift the Mind: therefore it is used not only for anxiety and insomnia but also for depression and sadness. It is also used in psychiatric practice for schizophrenia and split thoughts. Manic behaviour. The name of this point refers to its strong influence on the Mind and Spirit.
Here, we propose that Shen-Jing is the CM term used to express the meaning of "origin and regeneration". This theoretical discovery has at least two applications.
First, the actions underlying causing Shen-Jing deficiency, such as excess sexual intercourse, chronic diseases, and aging, might damage the function of stem cells. Second, a large number of Chinese herbs with Shen-Jing-nourishing efficacy had been proven to affect stem cell proliferation and differentiation.
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