6: Balancing Health with Tibetan Medicine in .NET

Creation QR Code in .NET 6: Balancing Health with Tibetan Medicine

in Europe Various Tibetan physicians are now resident and practising in different countries in Europe and also the US In the UK, the Tibet Foundation (Tel: 0207 930 6001; wwwtibet-foundation org) in London organises visits from highly experienced, qualified, and insured Tibetan physicians several times a year They also sometimes have details of visits by Tibetan physicians to other countries

7

Discovering the origins of Japanese medicine Understanding disease according to Japanese medicine Analysing your type Exploring Japanese therapies and how they work Finding a practitioner

ou may be a bit surprised to find a whole chapter devoted to Japanese medicine Unlike its counterparts Chinese, Ayurvedic, and Tibetan medicine it is less well known; in fact many people think of Japanese medicine as a copy of Chinese medicine Yet this notion is far from the truth The Japanese excel at amalgamating and refining ideas and in the field of traditional medicine they absorbed ideas from China, Korea, India, Persia, and Europe, added some authentic ideas and influences of their own, and came up with some genuinely original therapies that are now popular all over the world Ever heard of shiatsu, macrobiotics, Zen, or kanpo These therapies all originated in Japan and in this chapter I introduce them to you and show you how they may be relevant to your health I must admit to some bias here, though I had the pleasure of living, studying, and practising Asian medicine in Japan for five years and got to experience these Japanese therapies first hand and discovered just how beneficial they can be

Japanese medicine has its roots in the early native religion Shintoism, which is essentially a form of nature- and ancestor-worship that sees the world as inhabited by a myriad of deities and spirits Neglect of these deities, or the influence of malevolent ones, was thought to be the root cause of disease and misfortune

In Japanese mythology, two deities, Izanagi and Izanami, are said to have given birth to the physical world and all natural phenomena, including water, wind, and plant life They represent the male and female principles (like the yin and yang of traditional Chinese medicine we discuss in 4) According to legend, the deities gave birth to the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu Amaterasu came to be regarded as the supreme Shinto deity and protector for the Japanese race and was revered by ordinary people who prayed to her for sun and rain for their crops and for their general health and well-being

Ancient treatments therefore involved offerings and appeasement rituals to important deities, exorcism of malevolent spirits, and ritual cleansing and bathing to atone for misdeeds and to purify the body Herbs also played a part in rituals and healing and were used for cleansing the body inside and out Even the earliest texts mention plants and fruits such as kuzu (arrowroot) and momo (peach) that could be used for healing Fast forward to the fifth and sixth centuries AD when physicians and monks from Korea and China first visited Japan They brought new medical ideas and practices, including acupuncture and moxibustion, and introduced Buddhism Later, in the 16th and 17th centuries, European missionaries arrived bringing knowledge of surgical techniques and Western medical practices For a while all these approaches existed side by side and institutes of medicine and divination were established that taught European medicine alongside traditional practices such as acupuncture and moxibustion (for more on these check out 9), herbal medicine (find more in 11), and rituals for exorcism a set-up that would be quite remarkable even today! But the warlords of Japan were jumpy about foreigners getting too much influence so, at several times in Japan s history, they closed the doors to all outsiders It is during these periods that Japanese medicine really came into its own as practitioners dived deep into their own resources and developed uniquely Japanese therapies Over the centuries these therapies have undergone constant development and innovation and now flourish in modern-day Japan, where traditional Japanese medicine and orthodox Western medicine exist quite comfortably side by side