Rumi and Sun Si Miao

Sun Si Miao (581-682) was the most famous Chinese medical doctor of the Tang Dynasty. He developed the “Sun Si Miao’s ghost points” which were the subject of our class today. The idea is such that we, the humans, are prone to developing demons and ghosts within us. The “demons” and “ghosts” may be whatever is negative in us, negative feelings, emotions and deeds. And there are different stages of “possession”, from a mild one of feeling off or feeling “something is just not right” and we are loosing a sense of direction in life, to severe which would be the cases of epilepsy, withdrawal, depression, schizophrenia, mania, paranoia, etc. or all that would make us separate from the surrounding environment and going against our Selves, and causing us to be self-destructive. So the acupuncture ghost points treat all these disorders. They are disorders from the Chinese medical point of view because whatever is causing us not to be responsible for our life and making us unable to cultivate our compassion and the feeling of oneness with all beings and worldly phenomena, is a pathology. Great stress is provided in the self-cultivation, predominantly the self-cultivation of the healers which means looking into what we popularly call the skeletons in the closet or, as Sun Si Miao would say: the demons and ghosts within us. Skeletons/ghosts may be necessary obstacles for us to overcome them in order to grow but the problem starts when we lock them inside instead of dealing with them as they come. The first step to self-cultivation, in doctors and patients, is acknowledgement of our own suffering, areas of difficulty and struggle, our own negativities and shortcomings and the blame we put on others, and acknowledgement of the same negativities in others. So to acknowledge is the first step to work on these shortcomings. As long as we put the blame on others for our condition, the ghosts will hunt us. They will hunt us and dwell in us and eventually they will take over our Self and so we will see the world through their eyes and we will become delusioned. Sun Si Miao ghost points help us retain our clear vision which comes from our own Self, and they help us cultivate our compassion and our understanding that we should allow the change to enter and go with the flow, however, not being without control but not being victims either. That’s Chinese medicine psychiatry. Of course, it’s working on the energetic level so there’s help from the energetic power of the Universe – which to a Western doctor would seem a talk of the lunatic but to us, Eastern doctors this makes perfect sense and brings good results. It requires work on the part of the patient. It’s not about popping a drug a few times a day. The work is hard but it eventually brings patients to a different level of understanding themselves and the reality. The work requires us to look into ourselves and realize all the answers to our questions regarding the maze of life, and the solutions to our problems are inside us. Here's what the Persian poet Rumi says about this:

Why should I seek? I am the same as
He. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!

In class today our teacher Libby, the master Witch-Wu, also gave us the wonderful poem by Rumi which goes along with Sun Si Miao’s philosophy on acknowleding of the ghosts:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival

A joy, a depression, a meanness
Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture.

Still, treat each guest honorably
It may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice -
Meet them all at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each one has
been sent as a guide from beyond.