Quest Magazine

Therapeutic Touch: The Healing Journey

By Sue Wright

Originally printed in the July - August 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Wright, Sue. "Therapeutic Touch: The Healing Journey'." Quest  94.4 (JULY-AUGUST 2006):133-137.

Plato taught by his example that man possesses within himself the power to cure the diseases of his body, that in the end, every man is his own priest, and every man is his own physician. Wisdom is a universal medicine and is the only remedy for ignorance, the great sickness of mankind. This is the doctrine of the mystics, the doctrine which they learned in the old temples, the doctrine which someday must be the foundation of all enlightened therapy.

--Healing: The Divine Art by Manly Palmer Hall

The Journey on the Path Begins

Theosophical Society - Susan Wright was a nurse, a doctor, a teacher and a healer. She was an artist, a designer and a multimedia producer Therapeutic Touch

Who steps onto the path of healing? Do you undertake the journey as a healer or as one who seeks healing? Most often, the answer is both for healers who learn how to help others learn about themselves in the process of healing. Are there still others who wished to be healers, yet have had no opportunity to fulfill that desire? What does it mean to be a healer? Where does the urge to take up this journey come from?

From the early to mid-twentieth century, prevailing conditions in the modern technologically-based Western countries did not offer much support for those who wished to practice healing. The dominant paradigm for health, disease, pain, and suffering was one in which the mind and body were considered separate entities. Science and the physical world were highly valued over the realms of the emotional and mental.

In a very real way, we were stepping away from ourselves. With health care relying increasingly on technology, in many cases we spent more time interacting with machines rather than with the living and the breathing. The balance had shifted too much in one direction, and when scales are tipped too far in one direction, they can move no further.

Western medicine's development over the past couple of centuries has placed greater emphasis on curing than on healing. To cure is to eradicate the disease process. Most physicians consider death the enemy, to be avoided at all costs. This seems a demoralizing position to take; for if physicians view death as failure they must fail a hundred percent of the time.

This attitude contrasts sharply with that encountered in both modern and ancient Eastern societies. Ayurevedic, Chinese, and Tibetan views about health, disease, and healing, for the living and the dying, are based on a framework we would consider more holistic, in which the duality of mind and body, of matter and energy do not exist. In these systems, healing is valued over curing. And birth, life, and death are seen as part of the universal cycle.

The most universal definition for healing is a move toward wholeness and order. This may mean something as simple as relief of pain; it might mean a moment of insight that leads to a greater understanding of one's self. Today, many seek to reexamine those ancient systems, to move toward learning, or perhaps relearning, a more holistic point of view that extends across disciplines, from physics to biology to health care.

Given that these systems were developed over thousands of years through empirical observation, including the study of anatomy, observation of the influence of emotions, thoughts, the cycles of nature, diet and many other factors, there is a vast amount of valuable knowledge to be gained. Incorporating this complex reality into a viable means of scientific inquiry has proved daunting

The Energetic Perspective

In the West, we most readily understand energy that can be measured objectively; primarily electrical, magnetic, and thermal energy. For example, we measure patterns of electrical energy in the heart and brain as EKGs and EEGs, and thermograms are scans of subtle temperature changes over areas of the body. We have used pulsed electromagnetic fields for decades to speed bone healing in cases of complex or slow-healing fractures.

Most of the ancient systems of health care—and, increasingly, modern holistic systems—view life as energetically based, and the physical body, emotions, thoughts, and the inner self (also known as higher self, soul, or spirit) as forms of subtle energy.

A National Institutes of Health (NIH) study found at least fifty-two names for this energy in various cultures and other languages. The Chinese call it chi, the Indians prana, while other names include mana, ether, orgone, biomagnetic, and zeropoint.

Perhaps because these subtle energy forms can neither be perceived with normal eyesight nor measured by a machine (as there are none), but only measured subjectively, many in the West have been slow to accept their reality. Critics say, "if this (subtle) energy exists, why isn't there a machine to measure it?" The answer lies in the human perceptual system itself. In Beyond Biofeedback, researcher Dr. Elmer Green of the Menninger Foundation states,

[some energies] have not been detected with scientific instruments because these instruments have no parts above the [physical] level. Humans have all the parts and can therefore detect a greater spectrum of energies. Instruments are made of minerals and lack the transducer components needed for detection. In other words, living beings are coupled to the cosmos better than scientific devices, which are, after all, quite limited tools.

 

All living things-people, animals, plants, and others-are bioenergetic entities existing in the physical world as systems of energy fields, constantly interacting with each other and the environment. These energetic fields permeate space. The physical body can be seen as the densest localization of energy. Other types of energy making up these systems include intuition, emotional, mental, and vital or etheric energy. In humans, localized concentration of these energies creates the complex human energy field (HEF), a whole, dynamic, and interdependent system.

Consciousness inhabits this energy, adding form, motion, and order. This energy is dynamic and governed by order and compassion. There is also a higher level of energy—the inner self-that exists and sees the order and the unity in this universe. The inner self can be defined as the highest representation of Self. All forms of energy, all levels of consciousness—physical, etheric, emotional, and mental—and the inner self are all aspects of the human energy field. Visually, this energy radiates out of us like ripples on a pond.

When a person is healthy, there is order and a continual exchange of energy within the environment; when there is disorder in the energy, the result is disease. Over time, energy patterns develop that affect health in both positive and negative ways. These patterns are complex and result from the interaction of too many variables to name, but they include DNA, environmental factors, one's experiences, and the conditioning one adopts throughout a lifetime. These habitual patterns are associated with changes in the order and flow within the energy system.

It is also important to remember that the organs, glands, nervous and lymph systems are part of the energetic system. When the energy that supplies one of these systems is disordered or disrupted, the body's organs and systems are less able to defend against disease and injury. In the same way, if our emotional and mental energy is disrupted, we are less able to cope and feel stressed, which in turn has a negative impact on our physical systems and a negative cycle ensues. When our energy systems are clear and balanced, we are in a better position to deal with stressors we encounter on all levels. Understanding the nature of these relationships and connections helps us understand the nature of disease, guiding us toward more effective treatment.

By the time a disease can be diagnosed medically, the energy in these interrelated systems has ceased flowing harmoniously, indicating that something is not working in our lives. If we don't pay attention to these initial, subtle energetic messages, the warnings will become more severe until we do take notice. Once we become aware of this, we can regard illness in a more positive light, as long as we act upon these warning signs and make the appropriate changes necessary to heal.

Energy is within and around us all the time, but our consciousness enables us to activate it and make it vital. In reference to the energetic framework, Dora Kunz said, 

The application of such a perspective may have outcomes that change our perception of human relationships, since every thought or emotion is an energy that may affect the energy field of others. Every thought, action, and emotion can thus be seen as an energetic pattern with distinct characteristics-a pattern that we may unconsciously radiate or deliberately direct at another person. In fact, illness and health have characteristic patterns of energy flow within each individual. Such dynamic patterns of energy may be likened to the ripple formation caused when a pebble is dropped into water. (213-261)

 

As this knowledge is disseminated more broadly and interventions based on a holistic, energetic perspective become more readily available, people in need have more options available to them. This alternative path offers many more choices for healing to those seeking help, especially those dissatisfied with traditional allopathic medicine.

In the middle of last century, alternative paths for those who felt compassion and a desire to help others were not as clear. At that time, the people who designated themselves as "healers" were mostly religious leaders, their beliefs based in Christianity. Their desire to help and heal was primarily expressed through prayer; their ability to heal seen as a rare gift from God, one that could not readily be taught to others.

In the 1960s, Dora Kunz, past president of the Theosophical Society in America and a clairvoyant, observed many of these religious healers. Based on her observations, Dora felt that it was possible for virtually anyone to learn to be a healer provided they had a desire to help others, an ability to quiet the mind, and compassion. Based on these beliefs, she and Dolores Krieger developed Therapeutic Touch (TT), which they defined as a modern interpretation of several ancient healing modalities, including the laying on of hands. It is the use of consciously directed energy towards the purpose of healing.

Developed in 1972, TT was a new idea for its day. Kunz and Krieger decided to teach nurses. Dora would say about herself "I am a practical girl," and teaching TT to nurses was practical. Most nurses already possessed compassion and a desire to help, and the patients they cared for were people who could most benefit from TT.

Today, more than thirty years since its inception, it is clear that TT has struck a chord and its practitioners now come from all walks of life. Many people who were looking for a way to be of service—a way to heal and be healed—found the right path for themselves when they found TT.

This is poignantly illustrated in an example of Dora's work. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, this country was in the early grip of the AIDS crisis. Dora began holding a weekly TT practice group that included many AIDS patients. To that point, AIDS' mortality was considered a hundred percent, but more significantly, many of those living with AIDS had witnessed their friends and lovers die agonizing deaths. They carried those pictures with them, along with fear of their own deaths. What Dora and TT gave them was not necessarily extended life, but rather new pictures of a peaceful death for themselves and those they helped. This provided a truly a healing experience on many levels for all concerned.

Challenges and Rewards on the Healing Path

The intrepid healer will face many challenges along the path. This is true whether one chooses to practice TT, as this author has, or to practice other forms of healing.

Therapeutic Touch has been described as both "a technique for healing and an inner journey" for the healer. Through the discipline of "ping" in TT practice and through meditation, the healer strengthens the connection with our highest level of consciousness, the inner self. The path to the inner self becomes clearer, engendering a stronger sense of peace, a deeper realization of the order and compassion of the universe, and greater certainty in one's intuitive insights. While some healers describe the strengthening of the inner self-connection as "going deeper," Krieger has referred to the process as going "inth."

Healers have the privilege of being with others in the most significant, often vulnerable, parts of their lives: birth, serious illness, and death. For some, the challenge is staying ped in the presence of another's pain and suffering. The difficulty is multiplied when the healer feels connected to the patient on a deeper emotional level. The healer's strong identification with a patient's pain is often accompanied by a stronger desire to help. Yet, this increased desire to help often results in the opposite effect if the healer is no longer engaged in the healing interaction from a ped place. Instead, the healer can get hooked into responding to the patient's pain, lose connection with the inner self, and thus lose focus on the intention of bringing order and compassion to the healing.

For many healers, the tendency to get hooked into a patient's pain and suffering stems from a pattern that started in their own childhood; a pattern that Dora referred to as the "sensitive child." The sensitive child seems to have blurred boundaries between their own emotions and emotions they pick up from others around them. For example, the sensitive child may start to cry in a room with arguing adults, but not know why they feel upset. Typically the sensitive child is sympathetic to others; often at the expense of their own well-being. But because they have an understanding of the pain others experience, they frequently become adult healers.

The other end of the continuum from the sensitive child is not an insensitive child, but rather a child who naturally possesses a "rejection principle," that allows them to be in the midst of the same chaos as the sensitive child, but without internalizing the emotional disturbance.

It is important for every healer to learn where emotional boundaries lie between themselves and others, but this is especially true for the sensitive child. The challenge is to learn to reach out to others from a ped place, offering compassion and understanding, but without incurring the personal cost. The ping process helps healers learn to make this distinction.

Most people will experience a degree of pain and suffering in their lives, some much more so than others. Some people create strong attachments to their pain, which can become habitual over time. Psychologists will often say, "Such people do not want to get well, they are comfortable in an uncomfortable pattern," meaning that to break the pattern would frighten them more than living with the pain they know.

A healer who has broken these patterns and learned from the experience can use the insight gained from personal understanding of pain and illness to help others. The time of suffering can serve as a process of initiation and metamorphosis. Eventually, the healer comes to understand suffering as an opportunity to dissolve old ways of being, and through a connection with the higher consciousness of the inner self, to emerge as someone new.

Not everyone who withdraws into the cocoon of personal suffering is able to awaken and be transformed by it, but the healer who has been able to do this comes away with a greater understanding of the process and the patterns. Then, in a healing interaction, the healer who can stay ped, see the patient's patterns clearly and avoid getting hooked into the patient's emotions can be tremendously helpful. Walking next to the patient through the healing process, the healer can share with them the potential paths to wholeness. With greater understanding of this process, the ped healer can help the patient learn more about themselves and can encourage the individual to follow their own trail in the healing experience, directed by their own inner resources.

Intention and Focus

In the course of a beginning Therapeutic Touch workshop, most people can quiet their minds enough to focus on treating a patient for a few minutes, at which point most patients will feel at least a mild sense of relaxation. A much greater challenge for the healer is treating someone who has severe pain, has suffered through a long illness, or is dealing with issues stemming from childhood abuse. The energetic patterns associated with such complex and severe problems are far more difficult to treat.

In the presence of such problems, the patient will likely lose their sense of self, the sense of "I," and identify more with the pain than with themselves. The physical, emotional, and mental factors that were present when the pattern began can be very disordered and deeply engrained. The healer's challenge in treating someone in this situation is to focus on the clear intention of sending energy through that pattern. The more the healer is ped, the stronger the intention and thus, the stronger the energetic flow transmitted to the patient.

Several common factors can detract from the healer's focus and ability to remain ped. We mentioned identifying with the patient's pain rather than the inner self earlier, but the healer must also stay nonjudgmental, unattached to an outcome, and aware of what might trigger an emotional reaction within themselves as the healer.

Another practice TT healers learn is to assess imbalances and changes in the energy fields. This assessment is key when it comes to intention. Energy flows where intention goes, so when a healer assesses the patient's energy and finds areas of disorder, intention can be focused specifically in that area.

When a healer sends energy to the patient in a general way, the patient will take in some of that energy, but in an assessment, the healer sees where the greatest need for energy is and focuses on sending energy directly through that particular area. In the former situation, the patient would definitely be helped; a positive thing and sufficient reason to administer TT. In the latter, by focusing intention, the healer sends energy through the specific area of disorder. All other factors being equal, the patient in the second instance receives more energy and more positive change in their pattern from the healer's assessment and clear focus.

So the healer's ability to assess imbalance and disorder in the patient's energy—as well as have confidence in this assessment—is a key factor. By quieting the mind and ping themselves, healers put aside distractions and create peace within that allows them to access and interpret their intuitive flashes.

While a healer's hands are important in assessment, the real key to the healing process is intuition. Healers learn to use their hands as sensors, gathering information to foster intuition.

Very often, less experienced healers have lower confidence in their abilities. A healer must understand the impact of internal dialogue and learn to recognize and trust the way their own intuition manifests itself. Repetitive practice is the way to build confidence. It is important for the healer to learn the difference between an intuitive flash and a busy mind. The healer must also put aside fears about "getting it wrong" and any prejudgments based on how a patient looks or acts.

Dora always suggested that beginners assess the patient without prior knowledge of their symptoms. The healer is then able to assess and get feedback from the patient, comparing how and what the patient feels with imbalances the healer might have intuited. Through feedback and practice, healers learn to trust their intuition. (One cautionary note: The purpose of this process is NOT to make a medical diagnosis, but rather to assess energy patterns.)

Conclusion

Why choose the path of the healer? Why choose to seek? Certainly it's not required. It may be difficult to find a teacher. Often it involves going against the beliefs of those around you such as your spouse, children, relatives and friends. Why deal with the looks and giggles from people who think what you're doing is crazy?

To pursue the path despite these factors, you must have a strong internal desire to learn; to explore life in a more meaningful way. By choosing this pain, we create the opportunity to touch our inner self and to make its peace and order a bigger part of daily life. In consciously connecting with our "self," we tap that essence that allows us to release our negative patterns and to connect consciously with everything. As more and more people make this choice together—which begins when each person makes the choice individually—it can change the patterns of conflict in the world. Healing then becomes a shared, lifelong journey of self-discovery, self-empowerment, and transformation for both healer and patient.

References

Green, Elmer. Beyond Biofeedback. New York, NY: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1977.

Kunz, D., and Eric Fields Peper. Spiritual Aspects of the Healing Arts. Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1985.

Confessions of a Zen Jew

By Max Roth

Death is a visit wasted upon the living. The wisdom and the depth it should impart to our lives are innocently swept aside by our mourning for the departed, who on other shores mourn neither for themselves nor for those left behind because the soul is as it is, being wise in its suchness.

Standing on a grassy, sloped Los Angeles hillside, I feel my ankles strain as the morning sun covers us in its warm blanket. For a Jewish funeral, women are separated from men, and today they sit in a small group while we men stand slowly baking under our yarmulkes, managing a smile now and again and shaking hands with family members unseen, never telephoned, and usually forgotten.

The nomadic blind passing of one another in the steel-beamed, high-rise desert after this funeral will continue because we're self-involved in our interests and material goals. This is what our ancient history of war, cultural exclusivity, and death has been reduced to.

While I watch my grandmother being interred on the grounds of Hillside Memorial Park, I wonder if I'm also witnessing the end of a prideful, questionable history. We are not so exclusive after all. We're part of creation, a result of the universe's original statement: an allowance for the space-time to become. We use what the living universe possesses--virtue, the propensity to evolve along certain bioscapes, as a single raindrop contains the virtue to become a magnificent rain forest.

As I ruminate and study the backs of all these covered heads, another soul, my grandmother's, is freed, and I believe I am looking at the result of a violent, beautiful, profane history of which we are all a part and product.

* * *

I am a Jew. I'm proud. Though I question where my pride comes from. Perhaps it isn't pride, but the fear of knowing that in a Christian nation I'm an outsider who must stand resolute. I have also some small degree of discomfort, knowing that although the Zen community makes no distinctions and asks no man to leave his tribe, by my own race I'm considered a deserter because I choose to practice zazen instead of davening, and take my sustenance from Philosophical Taoism rather than the Torah. It has been asked of me why I deserted my religion to practice Zen and Philosophical Taoism, and why I write—the assumption being that I have deserted and have the chutzpah to advertise this infidelity to my Jewish god.

I don't perceive myself as born again into Philosophical Taoism or Zen--especially when that is stated as an accusation--but simply as a man who has well used the better part of a wondrous life's journey searching for that truth which binds me to the living universe. My search was spawned into perpetual motion by an intuitive, vague assumption connected, I'm certain, to a monotheistic upbringing; the universe, known and unknown, must be nourished by a single principle.

Meaning? President Clinton, the drug dealers on Hollywood Boulevard, L. A. Police on bicycle patrol, the suburban housewife in Encino, prostitutes and coochy dancers on Western Avenue, you, and myself are all driven and thrive by one and the same principle: creative process. We are shadows of that process. The President, the hookers, and I are all works in progress.

Abraham and Moses failed to sell me their vision of God: a powerful, vengeful male entity, a real estate magnate hurling the universe at humankind with grave contractual obligations attached.

I have discovered a principal source which borrows the feminine and whose universe is given freely as a gift with no strings, no morality save nature's. The universe teems with a ceaseless yielding quality--the "allowance" for evolution, the fact of transformation. This allowance, called Tao, is the quantum gesture of the universe. It is our first principle, our original statement. Tao manifests and functions in the material world, not through a man-made moral code, but with natural virtue, the virtue of an event developing along its intended path. Lao Tzu, that old Taoist, describes Tao as the "Valley" or the "Great Mother," the "Womb of the Ten Thousand Things." I am a man, and what man in his right mind will keep loyalties to a burning bush when he can keep company with a mysterious, amoral womb bearing gifts?

Philosophical Taoism explains this creative source, and Zen provides the philosophical and physical discipline to know the source concretely through body and mind. In Judaism I could never know God, I could only know about God.

The best way to understand Tao is witnessing it everywhere, but especially reflected in one's self; a clean mirror presents the truest reflection. The less one's mind is cluttered with preconceived notions of right and wrong, positive and negative, this and that and the other, the more clearly one reflects Tao. At age forty-five, I don't know if my understanding of Tao and Zen koan should be spoken of as correct or wrong; however, it works for me.

Unlike other inaccessible higher truths, my Zen is not to be studied; it is to be lived. Zen forms are not merely a learning system, they are an expression of the Tao, a dynamic, thriving principle to be used. Talking, writing, and thinking are all expressions of intellect, a human virtue, and certainly part of living--thus this essay--but analytical activities are overrated, and that is another reason I instinctively cringe, pulling away from practicing Judaism. A large portion of a Jew's life is expected to be spent in the sedentary pursuit of Torah study and analysis. Climbing the mountain and shouting at God directly, for me, is more rewarding than arguing over the word of God in a book. I've always been a troublemaker.

The Zen of life is in the living of it. To write it in Zen vernacular is to tell the story of the student who repeatedly implored a monk to clue him in on the secret of Zen.

Have you eaten breakfast?" the monk inquires.

"Yes," answers the student.

"Then wash your bowl."

Zen is the practice of realizing what we are about at this moment, how important our actions are. I value the practice because our "destiny stream" originates from this moment. In this way we realize the Tao of an event, yet do not sacrifice our journey to fate. Zen commands that I jump into the stream now, as a happy--though sometimes confused and frustrated--city dweller, becoming an active participant today in the future.

The need to sequester oneself behind the walls of a temple is in no way compelling. In the light of "engaged" Zen practice, to separate from the balance of humankind is even undesirable. Nothing metaphysical or esoteric is waiting here to confuse us. Philosophical Taoism is practical hands-on stuff. Zen practice is hands-on practice whether it is zazen posture and meditation or koan Zen, a mental and emotional changing of perception through working a mental puzzle.

The Zen koan is a dynamic exercise in polishing our mirror, forcing us to leave behind our convoluted thinking about reality and to confront reality directly. None of the habitual ideas we view the universe through can aid in answering a koan. Every moment is an original one, therefore, every action, reaction, thought, impulse, and notion cannot come before its time but must be fresh and original to meet the moment.

Torah is not met with genuine, spontaneous enthusiasm, but is venerated as an aged study entombed by an environment and with an attitude duly respectful of an ancient artifact. The Torah is interpreted, but it is not open to interpretation. It is analyzed, but only by the exclusionary light of its own Noachian code. In the eye of Zen, using a preconceived or old idea to meet an original moment is ludicrous. A koan, like the one below, is an original moment.

Upon meeting his master, a Zen adept tapped his staff on the ground and circled the master three times.

"Correct!" shouted the master.

The same Zen adept, later meeting a different master, tapped his staff on the ground and circled his new master three times.

"Wrong!" shouted the master.

"Why?" asked the adept.

The new master struck the adept in the face three times, and the adept was enlightened.

Some may think of Zen as nonaggressive, but on the contrary Zen demands to know "What now?" and the only answer is to summon all of one's forces and live. The above koan is understood in terms of an original action needed to partake in a genuine life. Three slaps in the face add the exclamation point to the question "What now!" That is only the understanding, not the answer. The answer is a change within the student who contemplates the koan. For this reason, a koan is not studied in the traditional sense of the word, but rather serves as a point of focus while one lives one's life. The student approaches the roshi with a perfect understanding of his koan. However, he's turned away as only half-baked because the roshi knows his student's change has not yet taken hold.

* * *

The Rabbi tears my mother's scarf and my uncle's lapel. Opening his small black book he reads: "The Lord is my shepherd...He restores my soul...."

A group of men have rolled up their white sleeves, loosened their neckties, and perspire under their yarmulkes, shoveling dirt into the grave. It is not a dark event, but a highly energized tribal ritual under the new day's sun. The shoveling picks up speed. Dirt flies. Men cast off shovels to other men waiting in line, a line of energy sending Grandma on the next leg of a journey I know not where, though I'm culturally inundated with theories. Armani sport coats are tossed into the air, on the lawn, wherever--they don't matter. It is the kiss of death, the send-off, the journey to the Promised Land or the Pure Land. It is almost a congratulation.

Grandma experienced eighty-odd years of finite life before she earned her infinite reward. Life, when lived fully, exacts an extended, supreme effort. Life is damned important! I must hand it to Our People; we know how to live. Our living gives rise to a recognition of the spirit through the bioscape, our propensity to express our spirits via politics, art, religion, philosophy, healing, and justice. The Tao gives rise to the spirit.

Lao Tzu's little book, the Tao Te Ching, is not an end in itself, but it is a finger pointing. It's a fine place to begin. Today, having gone to my grandmother's funeral, having touched base with my Jewish roots, it is a good day to pause momentarily, consider the Tao, and move along.

The Tao is perfect yet indefinable.

Only the Tao is at the beginning and knows how to complete.

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, ch. 41

The last shovel rests. We walk in small groups down the hill to our waiting cars, talking small talk, ignoring our own pressing feelings of mortality.

* * *

A triangular relationship exists between the Tao, Zen koan, and everyday life. For as many years as we live, we build our castles, fill our moats, and train our guards. Only that point of view allowed past the guard enters our kingdom, and that point of view dictates everyday choices and patterns. Because of this defense, the ideas presented in Philosophical Taoism may not sound applicable to our own lives. However, through working koans we force a changing of the guard. Life will still be as it is, though we will view it differently.

Does this changing of the guard mean a Zen Jew can become a Buddhist? Ostensibly, yes! The Los Angeles Buddhist sangha swells with Jews who now refer to themselves as Buddhists. But as a Jew, I feel deeply, knowing what all Jews know: being Jewish is a history, a culture, an ethnicity more than a religion. Once a Jew, always a Jew. A Zen Jew will view life differently, though life will be what it is, and life is historical. The Zen canon says, break with the past, now is now. But it continues by tempering itself, saying Zen is a transmission beyond words, even its own words. The spirit of the matter for me, this feeling I have for Our People, is beyond words.

I was raised a Jew. And as my wife has mentioned, while nothing else in my life appears to reflect that upbringing, my writing often takes on a distinctly L. A. Jewish voice. It should. It is not my virtue to be a Zen Buddhist, but to be a Zen Jew. Buddha is not my god, though his words are eternally wise and have furthered my understanding of life and duhkha. Buddha never openly proclaimed the existence or non-existence of God. His concern was this life, here and now. Neither did Lao Tzu speak of God in the Tao Te Ching.

However, these men did speak of living a life engaged in accepting responsibility for our actions and helping others to rise above suffering--two principles also heavily practiced in Judaism. I have experienced a changing of the guard, and for me no conflict exists between being an ethnic Jew and practicing Zen or Philosophical Taoism as an aid to spiritual sustenance. All life in the universe is born linked and nourished by Tao--the way and its virtue.

No Jew is allowed to mention God by his true name, such is God's omnipotent power. Lao Tzu says, "That which can be named is not the eternal Tao." Spiritually the lines of exclusivity tend to dissipate; differences become cosmetic or approachs from different directions to the same end--to become wise in our suchness, to know our souls.

A Zen Jewish Glossary

Yarmulke: The traditional Jewish soft cap worn by males on the back of the head.

Torah: The Jewish canon.

Zazen: Zen style meditation, literally "sitting Zen."

Davening: The Jewish style of praying in which prayer becomes a meditational liturgy.

Nirvana: Final death of limitations and suffering, literally "extinguishing (the flame)."

Chutzpah: Audacity.

Roshi: A trained Zen master or teacher.

Duhkha: The suffering that is a part of life.

Sangha: The Buddhist community or congregation.

Max Roth is a free-lance writer and literary editor who has practiced Zen meditation for more than twenty-five years. He has received three awards from the National Writers Association for fiction, most recently for his novel manuscript "Promises from the Garden."

Lines and Circles: West and East

Originally printed in the July - August 2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Biao, Zuo. "Lines and Circles: West and East." Quest  90.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2002):140-145.

By Zuo Biao

Theosophical Society - Professor Zuo Biao teaches at Shanghai Maritime University, where he is Dean of the Foreign Languages Department. He has been honored as Shanghai Model Worker and National Excellent Teacher of China and is listed in Outstanding People of the 21st Century? by the Cambridge International Biographical Center. This article is slightly abridged and edited from English Today: The International Review of the English Language NOTHING IN THE WORLD IS ABSOLUTE. Everything is relative, cultural difference being no exception.Culture, as the total pattern of human behavior and its products, oversteps geographical limits and historical conditions in many ways, and it is characterized by its strong penetrativeness and fusibility.

The advancement of the globalized economy and the rapidity and ease of modern communication, transportation, and mass media have resulted in an ever increasing exchange between cultures,unprecedented in scale, scope, and speed. Consequently, an increase in universality and a reduction in difference between cultures is an inevitable trend. It is no surprise to see phenomena characteristic of one culture existing in another. As a result, some people even fear that the world will become a dull place when all the different nationalities behave exactly alike.

Nevertheless, the "cultural sediment" formed through long-range accumulation is not to be easily removed, and the cultural tradition handed down from generation to generation shows great consistency and continuity. The cultures of different regions and nations still have their own distinctive peculiarities, and therefore significance still needs to be attached to the study of the individualities of different cultures against the background of their universality.

By and large, linearity and circularity can be used to indicate the major difference between Western and Chinese cultures. "Western culture" here is a general term, putting aside its interior regional diversities in order to contrast it with Chinese culture. A circle is a round enclosure. Aline is a narrow continuous mark. The contrast between the linearity of Western culture and the circularity of Chinese culture embodies itself in such aspects as worldview, core value, outlook on time, and mode of thinking.

Worldview: Linear Division and Circular Enclosure

A line divides an area while a circle encloses one. As far as worldviews are concerned, Western linearity is displayed in the general belief that the Universe is divided into two opposites with a clear-cut demarcation line drawn between the two: man and nature, subject and object, mind and matter, the divine and the secular. Chinese circularity manifests itself in the prevailing viewpoint of combining the two opposites and enclosing them. Although opposites are acknowledged in both cultures, Western culture emphasizes their coexistence and opposition, whereas Chinese culture stresses their interdependence and integration.

The linear nature of the Western worldview can be traced back to such ancient Greek philosophers as Thales, Heracleitus, Plato, and Aristotle. They all advocate dividing the world into two opposing parts: element and soul, reality and reason, matter and form. Their theories laid the foundation for the further development of the one-dividing-into-two view adopted by Western culture. Archimedes said more than two thousand years ago, "Give me but one firm spot on which to stand, and I will move the earth." A proverb says, "Nature is conquered by obeying her." Conquering or obeying, human beings in the West consider Nature as their opposite.

Christianity holds that God creates human beings and human beings sin against God. Throughout the Bible the theme of the redemption of mankind is developed. There exists a clear division between God and humanity. Later hypotheses like those of Descartes and Hegel consolidated the theoretical basis though they introduced different notions, such as matter and mind and real object and absolute spirit. The dividing worldview is the starting point of Western culture's exploring and transforming Nature and explains the rapid development of science and technology in the West.

The circular Chinese worldview originates from the notion of Tao in the proposition "Tao consists ofYin and Yang" in the Book of Changes (about 600 BC). Lao-tzu, who lived about 500 years before Christ, further enunciated the concept of Tao in chapter 42 of his Tao Te Ching: "Tao gave birth to the One; the One gave birth successively to two things, three things, up to ten thousand. These ten thousand creatures cannot turn their backs to the shade (Yin) without having the sun (Yang) on their bellies, and it is on this blending of the breaths (both Yin and Yang) that their harmony depends" (Arthur Maley's translation). It is obviously the One, the blending, and the harmony that are emphasized in the explanation of Tao.

Two centuries after Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu (369 –286 BC) used orderly philosophic discussion rather than poetic intuition to clarify the concept of Tao. He believed in "the One reality which is all men, gods, and things: complete, all-embracing, and the whole; it is an all-embracing unity from which nothing can be separate" (Gardener Murphy's translation). When it comes to the relationship between humanity and Nature, he proposes that "the perfect man has no self because he has transcended the finite and identified himself with the universe." Thus the concept that human beings are part of Nature is rooted in the minds of the Chinese people. Dong Zhongshu (179 –104 BC), a philosopher of the West Han dynasty, again developed the Oneness worldview. He assumed that "the energy of heaven and earth is a unified one. It consists of Yin and Yang and manifests itself in four seasons and five elements."

A number of Chinese expressions mirror the idea of identifying human beings with Nature rather than separating them. Here are some examples:

Nature affects human affairs and human behavior finds response in Nature (Tian ren ganying).
The law of Nature and the feelings of humanity are in unison (Tian li ren qing).
Nature accords with human wishes (Tian cong ren yuan).
Nature is angry and people are resentful (Tian nu ren yuan).
Nature's will brings about human affinity (Tian yi ren yuan).
Nature and humankind turn to one. (Tian yu ren gui).

The Chinese character "tian" is translated as "Nature" in the above expressions, although "tian" carries a wider sense than the English word. "Tian" (Nature) and "ren" (human) always react to and comply with each other. They can never be separated. The Oneness worldview also finds expression in Chinese poems:

Flowers smile on the happy occasion.
Birds sing with the joyful congregation.
(Wang Wei)

Trees sway in a mournful gale.
Waves surge like hill and dale.
(Cao Zhi)

Catkins scattered by wind, my motherland is being disintegrated.
Rain striking duckweed, I sink against the tide, broken-hearted.
(Wen Tianxiang)

As the above lines show, things in Nature like flowers, birds, trees, waves, wind, and rain all respond to such human feelings as happiness, sadness, anger, and sorrow. Humanity and Nature blend into a harmonious identity.

Core Value: Linear Individuality and Circular Integrity

A line is a point moving continuously onward, whereas a circle is a centripetal ring. In terms of core value, Western linearity is embodied in the priority given to developing individual potentialities, realizing individual objectives, and seeking individual interests; Chinese circularity is embodied in the importance attached to harmonizing community relationships, actualizing community objectives, and safeguarding community interests.

For most Westerners, individualism is undoubtedly a positive core value. In fact, the social systems of various Western nations, and especially the United States, are based on "rugged individualism," as described by Herbert Hoover in 1928. The pursuit of individual rights and interests is considered utterly legitimate. Self-actualization and the maximal realization of individual potential are supremeaims in life. It is fully justified for individuals to protect their private interests when they are in conflict with those of the community or the state. Weight is given to the individual rather than to the community, as Margaret Thatcher said in a speech in 1987: "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women." Westerners prefer to discipline themselves rather than be disciplined by others. They take pride in their independence and their right to make their own decisions. They go their own way, not caring much about what others might think about their doings.

In Western culture, an individual is like an independent point, moving forward continuously in aself-chosen direction, forming a line of self-fulfillment. If different people's lines run parallel, they will each smoothly attain their own aims in life. As one American professor put it: "You are selfish and I am selfish, but you don't stand in my way and I don't stand in your way. We are both selfish, and we are both happy."

However, if two lines intersect, the stronger line must cut off the other one in order to keep moving on itself, thus conforming to the law of the survival of the fittest. Guided by linear competition-oriented value, everyone seeks independence and self-reliance, and everyone feels insecure and makes unremitting efforts. The linear road of an individual's life is made and extended by the individual's own feet, and success is achieved through individual effort.

Chinese culture, on the other hand, takes circular integrity as the basis of its value. An individual is incorporated into the integrity of the whole. The center of the circle represents the community's interests and serves as the common objective of all its individual members. The individual exists in the community and finds the meaning of his existence through it. An individual in isolation has no meaningful existence.

More than two thousand years ago, Confucius advocated that "a public spirit should rule everything under the sun and a gentleman should put others' interests above his own." An ancient Chinese would consider it the primary aim in life "to cultivate his own moral character, put family affairs in order, administer state affairs well, and pacify the whole world." It is evident that the interests of the small circle (family), the intermediate circle (state), and the large circle (world) come above one's own, and one has to cultivate one's own moral character and to exert oneself in order to achieve the goal of serving the community's interests. A couplet from a Ming dynasty academy of classical learning says, "The sounds of wind, rain, and reading each come into my ears; the affairs of family, state, and world are all kept in my mind." Fan Zhongyan, a Song dynasty poet, expressed his desire "to show concern over state affairs before others and enjoy comforts after them."

It has been a widely accepted motto that "everyone has a share of responsibility for the fate of his country." In present-day China, prioritizing community interests remains the mainstream value, in spite of the importation of different values from other cultures. Jean Brick, as an outsider who has come inside for some time, has observed the circular group-oriented Chinese value with keen cross-cultural awareness. She says in her book China, "Private interests are vested in the group, that is in the family or in the community, and not in the individual. True self-fulfillment for the individual lies in fulfilling social responsibilities to the greatest extent possible. In fact, the establishment of harmonious social relations is seen as an absolute necessity, without which any development is impossible."

Outlook on Time: Linear Extension and Circular Rotation

A line extends and a circle rotates. Western culture looks upon time as the extension of a line going ceaselessly forward and never returning, and therefore holds the future in high regard and plans for it. In contrast Chinese culture thinks of time as the rotation of a circle, going repeatedly round and round, day in and day out, and thus cherishes and reveres the past.

The linear outlook on time finds reflection in many Western literary works. Men of letters compare time to "the devourer of everything" (Ovid, 15 AD), "the subtle thief of youth" (Milton, 1645), and a "winged chariot hurrying near" (Marvel, 1681). Shakespeare in 1601 described time as "most brisk and giddy-paced." As Jia Yuxin says, "Time is viewed in Western culture as an unceasing one-way movement. It means marching, flowing, and flying. It resembles the river, the waterfall, and the torrent." Edward T. Hall points out that nobody in the Western world can escape the iron-handed control of unidirectional time. The linear view of time is also evidenced in such proverbs as "Time lost is never found again" and "Time and tide wait for no man."

As time is regarded as something moving on in one direction and never coming back, Westerners have a strong sense of the shortage of time, which quickens their pace of life and makes them habitually look ahead, having their eyes on the future. People are used to writing in their calendars what is to be done in the future and focus much of their attention on planning for it. They tend to defy authorities and enjoy blazing new trails rather than following the beaten track. It might be said that the linear view encourages bold exploration and promotes scientific creation.

The Chinese circular outlook on time is also revealed in literary writings and proverbs. The flight of time is compared in classical writings to the movement of a shuttle (suo), which flits back and forth in a weaving loom. Qu Yuan (about 270 BC), a patriotic poet of the Warring States Period, writes in his masterpiece The Lament, "The sun alternates with the moon; autumn returns after spring soon." Time is looked upon not as a never returning, one-way movement, but as a back-and-forth rotation like the endless cycle of the seasons. It is true that time goes quickly, but it comes back soon as the sun and moon do. The circular view results in a sense of the abundance of time and thus doing things in an unhurried manner.

People believe that loss can be made up for as time rotates. This belief is expressed in a line fromThe Biography of Feng Yi written in the East Han dynasty, "What is lost at sunrise can be regained at sunset." Although people also sigh over "time waiting for no one" (Tao Yuanming, Jin dynasty) and feel "regret for the negligent loss of time" (Han Yu, Tang dynasty), yet they expect "the favor of the time cycle and the change from bad to good luck." The unhurried and leisurely manner is so appreciated that advice is given and farewell remarks are made by frequently using the phrases "go (eat, play, watch, discuss, do something) slowly" or "take your time." The road sign "slow down, look around, and then cross" can be found at crossroads everywhere in China.

The view of time as a cycle often directs people's attention to the past. People keep diaries to record what has been done in the past instead of listing what is to be done in the future. They tend to look back, value past experience, respect authorities, and follow established practice. Confucius advises people "to engage in introspection every day on three points." He means that everyone should constantly reflect on his own past behavior and try to find out whether he has done anything unfaithful and dishonest or has shunned his studies. It might be surmised that the circular view motivates self-examination and contributes to social stability.

Mode of Thinking: Linear Dissection and Circular Synthesis

With regard to modes of thinking, people nurtured in Western culture tend to dissect things into partsand analyze their relationships. On the other hand, people brought up in Chinese culture are likely to synthesize parts and examine the whole. Linear dissection contributes to the development of logical thinking by abstract reasoning, whereas circular synthesis helps a person to think in terms of images and to gain intuitive insight.

Analytical thinking prevails in Western culture. People are good at classifying things and arranging them systematically. Encyclopedic works appeared long ago and taxonomy was advanced early. Animals, plants, and objects are clearly divided, subdivided, and further divided according to their similarities, differences, and relationships. If you glance at the title, subtitles, and topic sentences of each paragraph of an article, you instantly know its content. When a speech is made, the audience can easily get the message by following the cohesive connectors signaling time relationships, like "first," "second," "next," and "finally" and so on, and words signaling logical relationships, such as "because," "however," "actually," and "supposing."

Experimental analysis has long been used as the major method of scientific research. Doctors of Western medicine treat their patients by examining parts of the body through tests and X rays before making a diagnosis. Linear dissection is related to abstraction. Qian Xuesen says, "Abstractive thinking seems to be linear or branch-like." Westerners are relatively stronger in making use of concepts for logical judgment and reasoning. Abstraction is synonymous with precision and clarity, and that may help to explain why more theoretical works on science and technology have been produced in the West.

The synthetic mode of thinking holds sway in Chinese culture. People are accustomed to observing and judging things as an enclosed whole. Analysis is not rejected, but synthesis predominates. There was no encyclopedia of the Western kind in ancient China. Leishu, a kind of reference book that comes closest to an encyclopedia, is a set of political, social, and ethical data dealt with in a circular way with "emperor" as the center. It does not take into account the essential nature of the included items and their fundamental differences. When writing an article, a classical writer would attach great importance to the unity and harmony of the whole piece, giving much attention to the correspondence between introduction and conclusion and the natural transition from one point to another, rather than the clear-cut division between different sections.

A doctor of Chinese medicine diagnoses a patient's disease by first looking at the patient's complexion and tongue for its coating, feeling the pulse and eliciting complaints, in order to form a correct judgment of the patient's general physical condition. The Chinese doctor tries to get at the root of the trouble and effect a permanent cure rather than apply a palliative remedy. Incidentally, Chinese people eat an apple by peeling it around and reserving the whole before biting, whereas Westerners tend to divide the apple into parts.

The synthetic mode of thinking is closely associated with intuition and thinking in terms of images, and it is synonymous with implicitness and fuzziness. As Rudolf Fleisch puts it, the Chinese "formed the habit of expressing ideas by metaphors, similes and allegories, in short, by every known device for making a thing plain by comparing it with something else." An apprentice learns cooking not by following recipes with precise quantitative descriptions, but by intuitively acquiring his master's technique after repeated imitations. A Chinese painter seeks close resemblance in spirit instead of accurate likeness in appearance. A Buddhist monk rarely makes or attends religious speeches with clear-cut viewpoints about virtues and vices, but he practices transcendental meditation and seeks intuitive insight. In fact, intuitive feeling and fuzzy beauty are held in great esteem in almost all forms of Chinese art, such as poetry, drama, and painting. As Shen Xiaolong says, "This is a circular dialectic mode of thinking with a strong plastic, flexible, and stochastic nature."

Conclusion

The linearity-versus-circularity difference in Western and Chinese cultures is merely a matter of degree. There is no absolute distinction between the two cultures. Exceptions are numerous and counter evidence exists. However, the observations above suggest the main historical trend in each culture. To compare them is not to judge which is superior but to promote understanding. A complete understanding of the individualities of the two cultures will clear the way for further cultural exchange and cultural fusion and accelerate the expansion of cultural universality. Different cultures can learn from each other's strengths to offset their own weaknesses. The moon of the West is not rounder and the Sun of the east has its spots as well. An extensive exchange between Western and Chinese cultures will certainly contribute to the creation of an even more splendid world civilization.

References

  • Brick, Jean. China: A Handbook in Intercultural Communication.Sydney: Macquarie University Press, 1991.

  • Fleisch, Rudolf F. The Art of Plain Talk. New York: Harpers & Brothers Publishers, 1946.

  • Hall, Edward T. The Silent Language. New York: Doubleday, 1959.

  • Jia Yuxin. Cross-cultural Communication. Shanghai:Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1997.

  • Murphy, Gardner, and Lois B. Murphy, eds. Asian Psychology. New York: Basic Books, 1968.

  • Qian Xuesen. On the Science of Thinking. Shanghai: Shanghai People's Press, 1986.

  • Shen Xiaolong. On Chinese Humanistic Spirit. Shenyang: Liaoning People's Press, 1990.

  • Thatcher, Margaret. "Speech.” Woman's Own, October 31, 1987.

Professor Zuo Biao teaches at Shanghai Maritime University, where he is Dean of the Foreign Languages Department. He has been honored as Shanghai Model Worker and National Excellent Teacher of China and is listed in Outstanding People of the 21st Century? by the Cambridge International Biographical Center. This article is slightly abridged and edited from English Today: The International Review of the English Language (Cambridge University Press), reprinted by permission of the author and the editor, Tom McArthur. English Today is a quarterly surveying the use of the English language around the world http://uk.Cambridge.org/journals. 

The View from Adyar: Being in the World, But Not of It

Originally printed in the July - August 2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation:Burnier, Radha. "Being in the World, But Not of It." Quest  90.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2002): 122.

the view from Adyar

By Radha Burnier

[extracted from The Theosophist, February 2002]

Theosophical Society - Radha Burnier was born in Adyar, India. She was president of the Theosophical Society Adyar from 1980 until her death in 2013. She was General Secretary of the Indian Section of the Society between 1960 and 1978, and was previously an actress in Indian films and Jean Renoir's The River.Let us consider briefly what it is to be out of the world. Not in a physical sense of course, but free and in command of one's life and its course, not dragged into adopting attitudes, values, and beliefs by outer or inner compulsion. In the Yoga-vasishtha and the Bible, we find advice given by Vasishtha and Jesus respectively to become like little children. A child is by nature happy. Even an ill-treated child manages to be happy whenever given the opportunity. Children do not struggle with the world or engage in acquisitive activities or self-aggrandizement. They are just themselves.

By contrast, the essence of worldliness expresses itself in the adult in conscious or unconscious attitudes of struggle and confrontation. We do not expect the starving millions not to struggle to keep body and soul together. But with others who experience no such dire circumstances, at a subtler level and all the time, there is something which struggles. So there is a contest with surroundings, family, professional, and other obligations and with what one is. Even those who join philanthropic, well-intentioned bodies are unable to refrain from strife. Then, becoming weary of struggle, they strive to be free of struggle! We dare not be still, at peace, but want always to accomplish something, get somewhere.

Have we asked what we are struggling about? Why stress arises from deep within us? Is the physical struggle of our animal past still active in the brain? Why do people who have enough to eat and who enjoy all the necessities of life feel "poor"? Is the mind addicted to attaining a different condition? In modern society, children are trained to exert themselves and prepare for better and better positions, more skill, more achievement. Furthermore, there is a struggle to be loved. The more people crave love, admiration, or recognition, the more stressful their lives are. They crave and demand instead of being themselves loving, kind, and helpful; thus they spend their lives tussling.

Without trying to make a complete list, we can see that struggling is a destructive, psychological habit to prove one's merit, appear smart, obtain advantages, make quick progress, and do a thousand other things. At the Feet of the Master says we should not try to appear clever, but why should we appear to be anything at all? Why all this striving? Is it possible to act and live, do what is worthwhile, helpful, and good, without needing psychologically to struggle for it?

Struggling is an ego-habit, so even when people wish not to be part of the world and aspire to lead the spiritual life, their minds continue to be anxious to have the guru's attention, to quickly become enlightened, or to find the best method to overcome their defects. So it is not peaceful. "Do not let yourself be easily deceived by your own heart," says Light on the Path. It is easy to be worldly, while imagining one is spiritual. On the other hand, by learning to be aware that the egoistic self feeds itself on struggle and confrontation with people, ideas, circumstances, and its own defects, the tension is shed and there is calm.

Wholesome living, being natural and happy like children, means not demanding, not struggling, but being still and calm with whatever is. Taoism teaches nonresistance, implying deep inner contentment of the mind, in harmony with earth and heaven. The Bhagavadgita also advises one to act while "being established in Yoga." Yoga is realizing fully the harmony of earth and heaven of which we are part. When there is no feeling of struggle in whatever we do or think (a state the ancients called sama or "tranquility"), there is a remarkable change in all our relationships and in our very being.

So we must stop to realize how we are functioning—not what we are doing and how to find solutions for problems—but how we are functioning. Perhaps even a small deed done in the right state of mind does far more good than many things done by egocentric struggling. In the ocean, when a strong wind blows, at first there are little undulations; but as the wind keeps on blowing, the undulations become stronger and larger; then they turn into huge waves and breakers. Even sturdy sailing ships of old could not withstand such waves. We all struggle in small ways because of petty ambitions and imaginary needs. In the psychological realm, as in the ocean, there is a cumulative process, as we see when something happens in a crowd. A few people get frightened, then everybody panics resulting in a stampede. The whole world is like that. Our little struggles mount up and are magnified into large struggles and wars. People like Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama say, "You are responsible for the whole world!" When we do not live in serenity and peace, we create wars.

Being bodily in the world is not of importance, provided there is harmony and tranquility within. The Buddhas take birth in the world when there is degeneration, but they do not cease to be Buddhas. They are never of the world, they are free and karma-less, since they are embodiments of peace. Karma is not just physical action; it comprehends the kind of energy we put into outer action. The energy of the Buddhas is love and peace, while the energy ordinary people generate is selfish to a lesser or greater degree, and it is therefore the cause of violence. For peace to come to the suffering world, inside us there must be neither struggle nor the illusions of insecurity and ambition. When our illusions end, we shall be harbingers of peace.

Radha Burnier, the President of the international Theosophical Society since 1980, is the author of several books, including Human Regeneration; No Other Path to Go; and Truth, Beauty and Goodness. She is a tireless worker for animal welfare and the education of socially deprived children in India.

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  2. Thinking Aloud: The Power of the Word
  3. A Life of Exploring Religious Frontiers
  4. In Tune

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