Ayurveda

On Monday there were cham dances at Sechen monastery. They were a lot longer and more intense than the glimpse we had the other day, and many more dancers were involved, from men in their late twenties to boys who were probably twelve or so. One of the interesting things about going to the dances was seeing who the audience was--foreigners, students, and a lot of local residents, and even some Nepalis. I took some pictures, but I took many more, and about 40 minutes of video, at the lama dancing yesterday at the Shedra (another monastery and the only accredited school here for Buddhism study, where Tais takes classes). The dancers at Shedra were really impressive. The atmosphere around each of them was completely different from the other dances. Their faces were concentrated, and their movements were more subtle and graceful. All of them were really impressive.

Last night we ate thukpa, which is a kind of soup/noodle stew that all Tibetans eat for dinner on the second to last day of the year. It traditionally has nine ingredients that are supposed to say something about the person whose stew has a predominance of one or another, including meat, but since there's bird flu around and Popo-la doesn't eat meat and neither do I, Ama-la used mushrooms instead. Black beans are supposed to mean a cold heart, and chili is a habit to nag, but I don't know the rest. I hope they're not all bad!

I doubt it was the thukpa, but something made me violently sick for almost all of last night, and I hardly slept. Today I'm really out of it. It's the weirdest kind of sickness--fever, gas in the stomach that won't move, nausea, everything imaginable. It really stinks, I can't do much of anything but sit around and fight the blech.

On a much more positive note, Ayurveda lessons started on Monday, and they're awesome. I'm studying with Dr. Kopila...she's 31 and works at the clinic of the doctor Passage usually works with (Dr. Koirala). I've learned so much from her in the few lessons we've had already! It's much easier to understand Ayurveda with some background in Tibetan medicine, but to be honest, it's also just a much clearer system, at least in translation. Maybe it's because Dr. Kopila's English is better than Amchi-la's, though he's very good at explaining things, but she has clarified quite a few things that are essentially the same in Tibetan medicine that I didn't really understand before. Mentioning the most obvious little things, like fire's nature of always moving upward and water's nature of always flowing downward, makes a whole wealth of information make more sense. I guess it's my own obliviousness, or just not knowing what to look at, because I probably wouldn't have noticed that on my own without already being in a practical setting. Still, I'm slowly learning to see things differently and to consider the elements from a new perspective. I suppose Western medicine has the same effect--really any field, if there's a professional level of knowledge. It's basically choosing and then building a worldview, a framework through which it's possible to assimilate information and make sense of it. What I find so appealing about alternative medicine is that while it's equally rigorous and serious, it is less of a "secular dogma".

I also appreciate the relationship of medicine to philosophy and practice here. By taking into account the natural necessity for man to take personal responsibility for his health, Ayurveda (or Tibetan medicine) removes much of the onus put on external solutions--"MY DOCTOR will fix this for me," or worse, "THIS PILL will fix this for me." Medicine is bound up with education, since the primary goal of it is to increase the patient's awareness of how he or she can better his or own health. It is not to impose any restriction on people, because a forced restriction only fosters craving, which is harmful for the body and the mind.

In Ayurveda, there are four kinds of life, and there are four aspects of health. The four kinds of life are a happy life, sad life, good life, and bad life. A happy life is one in which a person is individually fulfilled and has balanced all of their personal needs, internal and external, but is for the most part unconcerned with the well being of the rest of humanity, and the suffering of other people is not something they are deeply bothered by. A sad life is one in which a person is ill and/or depressed, and despondent. Still, they are concerned only with their own negativity, and don't generally impose their misery on the world around them; they are content to remain with their unhappiness. A good life, then, is one in which the person is not only concerned with their own fulfillment, but with that of others; and their main happiness comes from giving health, awareness, and happiness to other people. A bad life, as one can guess by now, is one in which a person feeds their own state--whether it's "happy" or "sad"--with the reactions and suffering of other people. Feelings of possession, vengefulness, hate, contempt, resentment, etc. and all their behavioral manifestations are characteristic of such a life.

The four aspects of health are physical, sensorial, mental, and spiritual. What we've been studying primarily for the last day or so is the sensorial aspect. This is the proper use of the five sense organs and their powers, and each is related to one of the five elements. Space corresponds to sound, auditory knowledge, and the ear. Air corresponds to touch, tactile knowledge, and the skin. Fire corresponds to sight, visionary knowledge, and the eye. Water corresponds to taste, gustatory knowledge, and the tongue. Earth corresponds to smell, olfactory knowledge, and the nose. The misuse, overuse, or underuse of our senses leads to disease. As the second frontier of our health as human beings, this makes perfect sense--our physical bodies in general grow to a certain size and remain fairly stable for our adult lives; fluctuations in weight and so forth aside, we will not grow to be the size of a house. The next step is then to perfect the development of our sense capacities. Our sense organs are the only medium we have for receiving information from the outside world, so they are the connection between our mental health and our physical health.

The intimate relationship of the senses to our mental and spiritual health is inherent in their role as a bridge between the inner subjective experience we have and the outer material reality of the world. The easiest way to illustrate this is relating it to the good/bad happy/sad life...if a person has perfect 20/20 vision, they should be able to to walk the streets with full visual awareness of the road and their surroundings. Naturally, the sight of a beautiful thing should cause pleasure and ugly things should cause disturbance (using "beautiful" and "ugly" not superficially). If they see flowers blooming, this should inspire a pleasant feeling of peace; if they see people dying of starvation and poverty, this should inspire a feeling of compassion and grief. We live in a world of extremes; we have this problem, closing our senses unconsciously as a defense against the confusion of being caught between the joy of natural beauty and pain of human suffering. So for most us, who have managed to grow up undeformed, our task is to open our senses (without becoming overly sentimental). Many of our diseases come from the repression of the spontaneous feelings we have.

As Dr. Kopila says, most patients only come to the clinic once a physical symptom has manifested. They come with a pounding headache, but they don't come prepared to connect it with the mental and physical stress of their life circumstances. And unfortunately, most doctors aren't prepared to relate to the patient in a way that will address the problem fully. This is why I think the doctors I've met here have a sort of bafflement at the trend of specialization in Western medicine. How can a doctor be prepared to really explore a patient's state if they've forgotten half of what they learned, and are ready to hand the person off to another specialist if they can't find the problem? Maybe it's because the original problem is somewhere that can't be seen on an MRI.

But specialists are incredible. I wouldn't underestimates the value of knowing the parts and functions of the body down to the tiniest measure. In fact, it's clear that such detailed knowledge allows the professionals to develop technologies and treatments that are more immediately and specifically effective than ever before. The problem is when this material "wisdom" comes at the expense of a holistic attitude. Part of medicine's power should be to revive that awareness in people, but there's a sweeping cynicism that has permeated the scientific and medical worlds even more than society in general. The intangible aspects of ourselves are wasting away from negligence. Too bad the justice system doesn't allow for symbolic lawsuits, haha. That would be funny.

I remember when I was in a bus accident in seventh grade and had to spend a few weeks out of school, going from one doctor to another and doing physical therapy. The doctors were all very smart and skilled, from what I recall, but the general memory I have is one of being shuttled from office to office. It was all about treatment and not about healing, to use semantics. The only really distinct positive memory I have of the whole process is the massage therapy, which was just as physically uncomfortable as the other exercises but had a completely different element to it. There was the presence of relationship--between myself and the therapist, between my body and mind, between the different parts of my body. All the connectedness was what made it memorable. Being treated in fragments might be effective, but it's also exhausting.

Honestly, when I begin to consider all the pros and cons and pressures that doctors must be under, it becomes really overwhelming. The whole Western hemisphere is a different world. Individual views are subject to the influence of capitalism as much as the industries are. All I know is that essentially everything is about striking a balance...I think this point in history is opening up the possibility of really bringing together, as a favorite writer of mine said, "the knowledge of the West and the wisdom of the East." The fluency that Dr. Kopila has in both Western and Ayurvedic knowledge is so inspiring.

Anyway, we've also moved on to constitution, which is based on the three doshas of Ayurveda (much the same as Tibetan); vata (air/space, like lung), pitta (fire, like tiba), and kapha (water/earth, like peken). I've already determined my constitution, and as a result I have a much better idea of how to eat, and an increased understanding of how to manage certain aspects of my personality. The interplay of the elements and the way we actually see our mental constitution is much clearer in Ayurveda. There are many telling signs about each dosha, but I will only list a few of the more obvious and more emotional characteristics:

Vata people are jumpy and don't stick with things for very long, changing jobs for example. They make many friends, and while they don't end friendships, they also don't do much to maintain them. Their principal characteristic is instability, and reactiveness. They are usually detached after a relationship ends. Vata people spend money on whatever is in front of them, they are impetuous. They are talkative and speak erratically. They learn things quickly, but forget quickly also. When under stress, they are anxious. Their digestion and sleep is interrupted and variable. Their dreams are usually fearful or involve flying and jumping. Their sexuality is cold and variable.

Pitta people are orderly and quick. They are very clever and form relationships based on mental affinity; if that fades, they detach easily. They are are self-involved and confident, sometimes arrogant, and usually are leaders in their profession, preferring positions of control. They have difficulty controlling their own urges. They can eat anything and digest it well, and sleep soundly. Pitta people learn quickly and remember well, and are considered intelligent. They are decisive and speak articulately and forcefully. They spend on luxuries. Their dreams are usually violent or fiery, intense, and when under stress Pitta people are irritable. Their sexuality is hot and intense.

Kapha people are steady and stable, and go with the flow. They make commitments and are attached to them, and find it difficult to leave jobs or extricate themselves from relationships, even if they are unhappy. They are calm and stubborn, and sometimes greedy. They tend to save money rather than spend it. Kapha people learn slowly, but they remember very well. When they speak it is slow and cautious but resonant. Their digestion is steady. Their dreams tend to be nature-oriented or have water, or sensual imagery, and they dream in long sequences. Their sexuality is warm and enduring.


So, now everyone can debate about their nature. It's easier to figure out with all the information, including the physical and cycles and all the rest, but I think these characteristics give a pretty clear picture. What's really interesting is putting the "personality typing" system to a medical use, because from the examples and explanations Dr. Kopila gave me, using constitution can make treatments astonishingly safer and more comprehensive and individual. It's really impressive. The personality is just a manifestation of the proportion of the elements in the body, and the relative state of balance or imbalance of the doshas. It's the same as Tibetan medicine, but now makes much more sense.

On an unrelated note, I intended to do laundry today at the Hyatt. It turns out their laundry service charges per piece, and socks are 85Rs. That's about $1.50...for which I could do an entire load of laundry at home. Isn't that insane?! I would definitely rather spend two hours doing it by hand tomorrow.