“Everything you have been taught is wrong…”
These words were the very first words my A’ level physics teacher said, as we began our first lesson at College. She continued, once she had grabbed our attention….
”Well maybe not entirely wrong but certainly not entirely right either, and definitely not the whole picture”.
It was quite a dramatic opening statement and it has stuck with me all these years. What she was referring to was the atom, and how it was depicted at GCSE level. Basically for something as complex as an atom to be understood, it first has to be simplified. In fact it has to be watered down to such an extent that it is essentially not true anymore. At secondary school we were taught that there is a nucleus of an atom and the electrons go round in these neat little circles. Then once this theoretical model was understood it could be disregarded, as in the case of my A’ levels, and a new more accurate model could take its place.
I later discovered that the A’ level model of the atom itself, was not completely accurate either. In fact, an atom is more like a vibrating pocket of energy that may not even exist, but now we are entering the world of quantum physics, where you realise indeed, EVERYTHING that you have been taught is wrong!
I have since realised that this way of learning is probably true for many subjects, and it is certainly true for acupuncture. Chinese medicine is so vast and complex and so alien to the Western mind, that to be properly understood, it first has to be simplified and broken down, and then, slowly over time, be put back together again.
Take Chi (or Qi, or Chee) for example. When you first start studying, it seems like this weird abstract concept used to explain various phenomena in the body. Then later on, if you practice the Chinese arts such as Tai Chi or Qi Gong, you start to feel this thing called Chi, as something real within your body and you call it Energy. However after time, when you go deeper in to the subject, you realise that this is also a very over simplified definition. Chi in actual fact is much more than this. It can be better described as ‘vibrating waves of information’, (sounds familiar!), but even this doesn’t give you the whole story. It is a noun and a verb at the same time and flows within and without the body in equal measure. It functions on both the micro and macro levels. It is the combination of Yin and Yang and it is the motive force that separates them in the first place. It is all these things and probably a lot more, and I’m sure that my current understanding, will one day be left behind like that of my GCSE level physics.
But these realisations you get over time should not detract from the stages you were at earlier on in your comprehension. These stepping stones, while possibly not the whole story, are essential to get to the level of understanding where it is possible to move on to the next. At acupuncture College, we studied how Chi moves within the meridians and organ systems to a great detail, but it is only when you reassemble these fragments of knowledge that they begin to make sense.
It is here, I guess where Western and Eastern medicine tends to differ. In the West we are excellent at reducing and dividing and looking at things on an ever more minute scale, sometimes neglecting the larger picture. In the East however, the details can only be seen through their relationships to the whole organism, and often the whole Universe itself.
These words were the very first words my A’ level physics teacher said, as we began our first lesson at College. She continued, once she had grabbed our attention….
”Well maybe not entirely wrong but certainly not entirely right either, and definitely not the whole picture”.
It was quite a dramatic opening statement and it has stuck with me all these years. What she was referring to was the atom, and how it was depicted at GCSE level. Basically for something as complex as an atom to be understood, it first has to be simplified. In fact it has to be watered down to such an extent that it is essentially not true anymore. At secondary school we were taught that there is a nucleus of an atom and the electrons go round in these neat little circles. Then once this theoretical model was understood it could be disregarded, as in the case of my A’ levels, and a new more accurate model could take its place.
I later discovered that the A’ level model of the atom itself, was not completely accurate either. In fact, an atom is more like a vibrating pocket of energy that may not even exist, but now we are entering the world of quantum physics, where you realise indeed, EVERYTHING that you have been taught is wrong!
I have since realised that this way of learning is probably true for many subjects, and it is certainly true for acupuncture. Chinese medicine is so vast and complex and so alien to the Western mind, that to be properly understood, it first has to be simplified and broken down, and then, slowly over time, be put back together again.
Take Chi (or Qi, or Chee) for example. When you first start studying, it seems like this weird abstract concept used to explain various phenomena in the body. Then later on, if you practice the Chinese arts such as Tai Chi or Qi Gong, you start to feel this thing called Chi, as something real within your body and you call it Energy. However after time, when you go deeper in to the subject, you realise that this is also a very over simplified definition. Chi in actual fact is much more than this. It can be better described as ‘vibrating waves of information’, (sounds familiar!), but even this doesn’t give you the whole story. It is a noun and a verb at the same time and flows within and without the body in equal measure. It functions on both the micro and macro levels. It is the combination of Yin and Yang and it is the motive force that separates them in the first place. It is all these things and probably a lot more, and I’m sure that my current understanding, will one day be left behind like that of my GCSE level physics.
But these realisations you get over time should not detract from the stages you were at earlier on in your comprehension. These stepping stones, while possibly not the whole story, are essential to get to the level of understanding where it is possible to move on to the next. At acupuncture College, we studied how Chi moves within the meridians and organ systems to a great detail, but it is only when you reassemble these fragments of knowledge that they begin to make sense.
It is here, I guess where Western and Eastern medicine tends to differ. In the West we are excellent at reducing and dividing and looking at things on an ever more minute scale, sometimes neglecting the larger picture. In the East however, the details can only be seen through their relationships to the whole organism, and often the whole Universe itself.