Cancer and Ayurveda

Has it really been four days since I wrote? Life gets very busy. Caitlin arrived here a day or two ago, so now it's really a full house, and a lot of women for one home! It's amazing how three really is a crowd, because each day feels significantly busier and someone is always coming or going, whether it's one of us or a teacher.

Yesterday I visited the Ayurveda Health Home for the first time after the morning lesson with Kopila, and got a whole body treatment. The place itself is beautiful and far cleaner than most places in the city--they even maintain the road leading up to the buildings--but I noticed that expansion and construction is changing the atmosphere of the area, which Kopila confirmed. The center has been in existence for more than ten years already, but it's only been in its current location since 2001; already the constant development in Kathmandu is forcing them to consider moving again so their patients can be closer to nature, out of the urban environment.

The treatment was of course relaxing, but also an interesting experience. I faced the continuous difficulty of intentionally relaxing my body, which is surprisingly hard, as anyone who's tried will attest to. It also reminded me of all the overlooked places in the body where stress accumulates--the fingertips, eyelids, hips, clavicle. Mentally, I found myself thinking about remembering everything in order to practice it and learn to do it on other people...but eventually I focused enough to just experience the treatment, which was certainly more informative about the human body in general and my own in particular. Before and after the treatment they gave me tulasi (holy basil--not the powder spice) tea. Tulasi is worshipped as the Vishnu plant (legend claims that he was cursed to exist as grass, herb, stone, and river--tulasi is his herb) and has many beneficial effects, including boosting immunity and helping to purify the blood.

Our classes for the past few days have focused on menstruation and menopause, but now we are moving into specific diseases. Today we reviewed general management of cancer cases. We discussed a lot of things, but I found one passage from a book called The Wisdom of Healing, by David Simon, particularly shareable. First, I will mention that Ayurveda holds the view that we must know ourselves physically on a micro level. As a part of the Ayurvedic/yogic life, a person should get to know and sense every cell of their body, and be able to sense the change and flux of energy in each one, particularly if something is unbalanced.

Simon claims that cancer cells are the cells in the body that have lost their memory of wholeness. They no longer recognize their place and capacity in the whole of the body, and their ability to sense other cells is diminished. In their quest to expand their sphere of influence, i.e. cellular egotism, they feel no compassion for other cells and destroy them and themselves. Thus cancer results from a breakdown in self-referral. Having lost their connection and forgotten their purpose for existence, they mutate into cancer cells. This emphasizes the importance of knowing every cell of our own bodies--only with such sensitivity can we then seek to expand our awareness of the world around us.

Because of this, we wound up talking about yogic life for a while, and particularly the four stages of life according to yoga, which I was recently reading about in Kundalini Yoga for the West (by Swami Sivananda Radha). This was expounded when men typically lived to 100 years in India. The first 25 years of life are called the Brahmacharya stage, and are focused on education. A man (and now woman I suppose) is responsible only for himself and his learning. At this point, he has nothing. The second 25 years of his life are called Grinsthasrama, and it is the period in which he works, marries, and raises a family. He becomes responsible for these people, and focuses on collecting the resources and so forth that he needs. The third stage of life, also 25 years, is the Samyasrama, and it is called the period of "effortless job". The book said it is when a man is free of his family, which is grown, and goes to devote himself to a teacher. At this time he focuses on no longer collecting--he does not give, but he is no longer seeking to receive. In the final quarter of his life, the Vanaprasthasana, he "goes to the jungle". The book says it is when the man becomes a teacher himself. At this point he is able to discern to whom he should give away what he has learned and acquired in his life, in order that it may be used properly.

There are also eight ways of the yogi, which we talked about. The first two go together--understanding what we should DO, and understanding what we should NOT DO. The third is posture, or yoga asanas, fourth is breathing practices, fifth is the ability to sense the rhythm and vibration of every cell in the body, sixth is to extend this sensitivity to the mind, seventh is meditation, and eighth is Nirvana. It's a bit funny to note that learning to DO and NOT DO is a mighty challenge that can easily humble someone who has achieved a great deal as far as postures or breathing. Besides, mastery is a whole different level from practice, and as we are reminded many times, many try, but few attain.

Today I went back to the clinic in the afternoon and had another lesson, this time with Dr. Koirala, who runs the clinic and is Kopila's senior doctor. The lesson was short and sweet, and I found myself in a profoundly calm state of mind throughout the time I was with him, no doubt partly because he is a man with a very strong ability to concentrate and a deeply intuitive connection to what he does. I got the feeling that academic study of medicine was more like finishing school for him--a refinement of manner and technique, while his practice was the source of most true understanding. We reviewed basics about Ayurveda, which he explained clearly and with care--he told me that after giving a lecture at a Western medical school, one student asked him to sum up in a sentence the difference between "his" medical system and "theirs". He said, "You believe in death--we believe in transformation." All of life is not static, it is a dynamic process.

He said that life is not only always moving, but is also uniting; that there is always movement towards cohesiveness in time and space. If we can learn to modify the elements of a process, we can change what is happening, i.e. illnesses. But how many people, including medical professionals Western or Eastern, can claim to have such an intimate knowledge of the elements? Knowing chemical properties doesn't give anyone the power to heal themselves. If something is wrong in the body, the flow of all things in the body is interrupted and naturally gravitates toward the disturbance in an effort to restore balance. This is part of why it is considered so important to introduce remedies that are taken wholly and not in part (active elements)--so the body can assimilate them naturally, without reacting to the healing agent.

The dynamism of life and health is the principle that emerged as most important to understand from this lesson. As in Tibetan medicine, the three doshas (representative of the five elements) are the basis of all wellness and illness. Vata is all movement and activity, pitta is all transformation, and kapha is cohesion. These three, in the nature of the elements--space and air, fire, and water and earth respectively--are mostly always in subjective process. Occasionally they manifest in an objective entity, and this is where we go wrong, in perceiving always an objective entity instead of a subjective process.

Dr. Koirala also spoke about vibration and the effects it can have on health. For example, he said that living in a place where there is excessive vibration from traffic--where the vibrations are incoherent and of different densities--can cause great neurological distress to the body. And most of all, he emphasized what sounds like a giant cliche to most Westerners--that love is the most powerful healing agent. His own observation of this came from working with rats, animal subjects, when he did work with brain modalities during his 12 years of medical education.

I'm looking forward to studying more with him. He and Kopila both have such (very different) lovely demeanors, so pleasant to study with, and such positive inclinations to help people. And I can't get tired of saying how impressed I am with the extent and depth of their knowledge. I aspire to develop that level of professionalism one day.

In other news, the petrol situation here is deadly. The lines have gotten staggeringly long and Rupesh and Kopila both had to cancel classes this week because they weren't able to travel due to the shortage. Taxi prices have shot up from Rs150 to Rs500, so I've finally check out public transportation--the teeny white vans with twenty people crammed inside (maximum capacity supposedly fifteen) and men hanging out the doors. They're not so bad and much cheaper (Rs15), but they don't run regularly and are often too crowded to fit. Tais said some litres just came into the country, so hopefully it will get better soon.

On a more positive note, we took a walk ("hike" is more accurate) up to Kopan Gompa. It was an unexpectedly long and steep climb--up a mountain--but the view of the city was so beautiful, and the monastery itself was too, that it hardly mattered. The best part was seeing the relics of Geshe-la, who must have led the monastery at one time. It was incredible to see these pearls, gold, and crystal-like pebbles from the remains of his cremation.

Today was exhausting, so it's bedtime. Goodnight.