Monday, April 4, 2011

20110404 - To Unite

Yoga means to unite, so what do we unite?  The nature and selves. At the personal level, unite body, mind and soul.  I am going to wirte in universal manner rather than from personal level perspective today.

Dosha, new Sanskrit I learned last Saturday. A dosha is one of three bodily humors that make up one's constitution according to ayurvedic medicine, it is a system of traditional medicine native to India. It is fascinating coming from my background as Chinese finding the similarities among the old intelligence.

The traditional wisdom from our accentors pass on to us generation after generation has always amazed me. For example, The “Shennong Ben Cao Jing”, which was the first written Chinese volume on agriculture and medicinal plants. It was compiled in 2800BC and contained 365 entries on herbal medicines. Licorice was listed as a top herb, and was commonly used to balance a variety of herbal medicine formulas. WU created licorice + frankincense in our Imperial Collection, this is one of my favorites, really fine for babies.

My point is, the similarity among the old intelligence was: we are connected to NATURE, nature is indeed within us. Our health conditions are completely related to the change of the season and moving of the time. (I have prepared my theme base on this for my next class. ) We used to be so close to nature and our ancestors knew very well of the connection between nature and human, for some reason the connection has begun to break over time. I like to remind ourselves that we are only handful of soil from nature with human soul – if that make sense.

A “common” sense that we all know as child, I did it because my grandma said so. Not knowing why I did, I did it. That is, to sleep around by 9pm if can’t 10pm “every night”, then wake up between 5-7am. It seems to be an easy task, but it really isn’t for the modern lifestyle. Now is 10:05pm and I am still in front of the computer. I am going to explain quickly as to why we have to sleep by 9pm base on Chinese Medicine:

In nature, except nocturnal creatures and special time zones(even in these time zones, all livings will adjust to the environment according to the Yin & Yang), all living creatures rest by sun set, which is 9pm. *The Arm Shao Yang Triple Burner Meridian (sanjiao) circulation starts at this time, sending chi or prana through hundreds of arteries and veins as self-restoration. Next, gallbladder and liver meridian circulation start to open up from 11pm – 3am and during the same period restoration begins for both organs. Gallbladder takes care of the immunity, central nerve system, & metabolism. Liver manipulates the success of repair for the spleen/stomach, lungs, and kidney.

This is just a simplified version and a tiny part from the ancient knowledge that we all benefited from time after time. When and how to sleep is the basic of our traditional regimen in maintaining good physical and mental health. And again, it is connected to sun rise and sun set, the nature. It gets really complicated, so I will stop for tonight.

W.H.Y.

*The line starts from outside the ring finger-tip end and up along the back of the hand, passing wrist, arm and shoulder. Then from shoulders, there are divided into two branches. One branch enters the body in the chest, after pericardial diaphragm, it connects to upper, middle, and lower sanjiao. Another branch goes up through the line to the lateral side of the neck, bypassing the ears and face, finally reach outside the eyebrow, and gallbladder meridian.

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