Birth, Life, and Death
Birthdays are usually seen as a time of celebration, but for me, birthdays have often accompanied a need for introversion. In some Asian cultures, it is said that one’s vitality is strongest on the day of conception but weakest on the day of birth. Seasonal transitions are another time when the life-force around and within us is in transition, and imbalances tend to arise. As a moment of transition, I’ve also observed that birthdays are a sensitive time for many people.
Why is our life-force relatively stronger at conception than at birth? At conception, the seed of life germinates and new growth erupts with fervor. The expanding, waxing, and overall yang nature of this process connotes strength and vitality. In contrast, physically being born is a vulnerable and bewildering experience. We are expelled out of the dark aqueous atmosphere of physical oneness with the mother to the sudden light and air of the world, dramatically initiating the process of human individuation. Adi Da Samraj describes how the incident of birth gives rise to the experience of “vital shock”, the reactive recoil that is the egoic shape and energetic root of all disease:
Life is its own shock. The event of Consciousness Itself becoming aware of Its apparent identification with a physical form is that shock. Birth is that shock—not merely the original physical event (the memory of which may, in some cases, be recovered), but every moment’s awareness of being alive. The events within the course of life are nothing but extensions of that primal life-shock.
In The Knee Of Listening, I describe the experience in which I remembered—even relived—My prenatal state, the awakening of conscious awareness as the body. There was a kind of gloriousness about it, a fantastic form of Energy—shaped, as I described it then, “like a seahorse”. It was the original Yogic Arousal of the Kundalini, if you will. But, in the same instant, there was intense sorrow. The shock was the shock of life itself, the shock of embodiment.
The “seahorse” (or the bodily form) is already contraction. The spinal form is already this curve. The ordinary life is already this tendency, this compulsive qualification of Consciousness Itself, this compulsive un-consciousness. After the event of birth, each human being develops a characteristic drama in response to this shock. Distinctive experiences occur in the course of every human life, and each individual develops a characteristic pattern of reaction to such experiences. Thus, each person is living the drama and strategy of suffering in a unique manner—a peculiarly complex, individual manner. But, in every case, there is one fundamental activity, one thing that is the suffering. It is an activity—this activity, this contraction, this avoidance of relationship, this differentiation, this separation. Wherever it occurs, that is suffering.
All ordinary suffering is only a cramp. It is the self-contraction. Wherever there is self-contraction, there is obstruction to the flow of the life-force. And, wherever there is self-contraction, there is also the sense of separate existence.
Astrologically, the Sun represents life and Saturn represents death. The Sun is a planet of fire and Saturn is a planet of ice. Together, Sun and Saturn are the spectrum of life and we cannot truly appreciate one without the other. The Saturn return is a transit that is often emphasized by astrologers because of its associations with difficulty and change, not to mention its 2.5 year span. It is interesting to consider these transits through the opposite connotations. The Saturn return is about maturity and therefore change and death, but it is equally a doorway to new life and opportunity. In contrast to the 30-year increments of the Saturn return, the solar return occurs every year. It bears the more obvious connotations of life and creation, but it is also an entry into death on one level or another.
We are physically born only once in a lifetime, but if we truly mature through the natural stages of human development, we are continually reborn on other levels, throughout our lives. In astrological terms, the birthday is not just the calendar date of one’s birth, but the return of the Sun to its position in relationship to the Earth as at the time of birth. On birthdays, the force of “vital shock” can surface with more prominence, as we find ourselves again in resonance with the solar position under which we physically emerged into the world. Thus, every birthday functions as an energetic “rebirth”. At the same time, every birth accompanies the basis for death. So, birthdays also bring forward an opportunity for conscious release, or a shedding of what was in the past. The solar return can be a powerful yearly retrospective of one’s life, a transformative juncture between past and future, wherein new possibilities are born.
Paradoxically, my sentiments turn somewhat morbid as my birthday comes around. From one perspective, I am still “young”, but with every passing year, I feel more convicted of my own mortality. In life and work, I confront the apparently dualistic play between life and death all the time, as I see the profound growth as well as the sufferings and losses of my loved ones and patients on a regular basis. Our private healing arts practice The clinic is a place where the human condition reveals itself in an intimate plethora of angles and depths.
In English, “morbid” is a strong word that suggests an unhealthy focus on death. However, the Latin root morbus actually means “disease”. As a medical practitioner, I find my sense of the “morbid” to be natural and even useful. In the past few years, I have grown to appreciate that an acceptance of death is essential for the profound healing of body, mind, and spirit.
Life is the indefinable event that happens between birth and death. As we age, we move closer to death, yet the more we accept death, the more deeply we move into life. With age comes a natural ripening and fruition. If we observe nature, we glimpse just how volatile a state of actualized potential really is. It takes great energy for a tree to fruit and then for fruit to ripen. But once ripe, fruit is quickly consumed or decays, rotting and feeding the Earth again. In our society, we are motivated by the idea of progress and achievement, of getting somewhere, but it does well to be sober in the sight of how short-lived such actualizations are, and how much of life is missed along the way of our seeking There is a natural cycle to life that has its own laws, meaning, and process. There is a time to grow, to ripen, to release, and to disappear again.
In the West, medicine is an intervention against all that is painful and uncomfortable, ultimately an intervention on death. There existmany means for merely staying alive amidst the threat of death. Today, medical technology is advanced enough to keep people alive under extraordinary circumstances that, in any other time, would have resulted in certain death. This is both a boon and a curse.
In contrast to modern biomedicine, traditional medicine emphasizes prevention and quality of life through working with, rather than against, nature. Practitioners of traditional medicine can fall victim to the “emergency” and interventionist orientation that pervades Western culture. From this point of view, medicine becomes a scientifically objective act exerted upon a patient by a doctor that manages to support biologically-defined “life” by chemically or surgically intervening in a predefined disease-process.
In contrast, traditional medicine is a multi-dimensional process, and healing is not narrowly defined but works through the circulation of universal life, of which maintains the natural integrity of body, mind, and spirit. Therefore, quality of life–physically, mentally, and spiritually–is placed at the forefront of diagnosis and treatment. In turn, this orientation leads to a number of clinical considerations–principally, how much to intervene, in what ways, and on what level?
For this reason, a practitioner’s orientation, motivation, and philosophy must always be carefully considered. Ideally, intervention should be minimum-optimum —minimally invasive or burdensome for the optimum outcome or efficacy, relative to the patient. J.R. Worsley described this principle as “the law of least action”. This applies to everything ranging from diet to herbs and lifestyle changes, to acupuncture and surgery. Even for natural and holistic practitioners, it is easy to make the presumption that natural and holistic methods of intervention are unobtrusive and harmless. In reality, traditional practitioners must confront two clinical pitfalls: over-treatment and symptomatic treatment. Symptomatic treatment is sometimes necessary in acute circumstances, but it is mostly born of a temptation to satisfy the expectations of the patient, rather than tending to the real need and the actual root of their imbalance. Aside from its superficial results, symptomatic treatment suppresses the healing process via mere palliation, despite the compassionate intentions of the practitioner. Overtreatment also undermines the therapeutic benefit of treatment by introducing change more quickly than it can be assimilated.
Healing is a more mysterious process than any school of knowledge can fully understand or appreciate. In Asian healing traditions, healing unfolds on the basis of resonance–resonance between the patient and the practitioner, the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of the body-mind, the inner world of psyche and the outer world of attention. Thus, healing is not something that originates from a practitioner or that occurs objectively to the patient. In truth, no one can heal an other, nor is healing something any one can do to themselves. Healing is a spontaneous enactment of natural law that we can do our best to observe and participate in. Therefore, the artful practice and purpose of medicine is not ultimately in the practitioner developing an ability to heal others or save them from death, but in the inherent ability of the system to resonate with the natural order and self-correct through an intrinsic process of purification, rebalancing, and rejuvenation. .
The Latin root physica means “things relating to nature”. A physician must therefore be one who recognizes the laws of nature and sensitively tends to the natural order within a patient. When the dynamic relationships of the natural order are in balance, then the intelligent flow of life moves spontaneously and self-correction occurs readily.
I am grateful to my patients for their vulnerability in sharing their inner worlds with me—the sorrows and joys, the struggles and triumphs. Every day in the treatment room, you bravely allow me to peer into the depths of our human condition through your eyes. I see in each the reflection of all that life and Spirit is. Healing is not something that truly happens in the merely cause-and-effect sense. Healing is an acceptance of the wisdom of nature and trust in existence of the natural order. It is discovering or Communing with the Transcendental Spirit amidst birth and death.
This is perhaps why medicine is traditionally seen as a life-path unto itself. Today, many people divide their lives into “jobs” vs. what one actually enjoys or prefers doing. But traditional medicine is a deep and sacrificial way of life, and encompasses much more than what occurs in the treatment room. A student once expressed to my teacher, Dr. Wangmo, that he felt called to an intensive spiritual path, questioning whether or not to continue the study of medicine. Free of concern or ambiguity, she responded with certainty, “you should study medicine”. She spoke to him directly, but she emphasized to all that the study and practice of medicine is a sacred life-path that comes with serious responsibility and obligations, comparable to that of a traditional monastic order. The Tibetan medical tradition is rich with examples of scholar-physicians, such as her teacher, Khen Rinpoche, a highly regarded scholar-physician and Buddhist monk, illustrating the maturity and spiritual development needed of a genuine medical practitioner. J.R. Worsley also echoed this traditional understanding, referring to the five-element acupuncture style he taught as a “way of life”, and calling his students to become “instruments of nature”.
I’ll bring my birthday musings to a close with the humble suggestion that there is a place always accessible here, even within us, where we are already fulfilled, already happy at heart, already connected to Heaven, already accomplished on Earth, and already healed. When we abandon our “self”-image, we are readily filled with Spirit. We do not have to wait to die or to live. Fulfillment is neither at the end or at the beginning. At every apex, the opposite creeps into view. If we go deeply into the night, we discover a new day dawning before us. This is the beginning of peace, no longer at war with life or death or any threat, but resilient in our vulnerability, we weather the storms and find strength of character.
Turning 32, I am humbled by a sober heart-awakeness, and feel the boundless hem of mindless ecstasy drawing me into a celebration all that is Given by Grace. I extend my gratitude to my teachers and patients, my friends and loved ones, in whom I see the reflection of all it means to be human, standing between Heaven and Earth.