TCM Philosophy Sharing Time

Today was literally Chinese class, lunch, break for homework, TCM class, back to the dorm. Nothing particularly unique or exciting happened today, but I will elaborate on TCM class because that's the unique and exciting thing about this session.

We continued talking about Yin-Yang Theory and talked about the 5 Phases/Elements. The conclusion to the Yin-Yang discussion was classifying ailments and behaviors as excesses or deficiencies of Yin and Yang. The five we discussed were staying up very late, indulgence in sex, addiction to hot foods, sitting doing nothing and eating too much, and drinking too many cold beverages. Basically, the inactive and cold things were related to Yin Excess/Yang Deficiency and the active and hot things were Yang Excess/Yin Deficiency. There are slight differences between the primary cause of illness, but since the two aspects wax and wane together, they are both the correct answer.

The five phases are related to the five directions (north, south, east, west, center) and five seasons (winter, spring, summer, late summer, autumn). The elements are wood, earth, water, metal, and fire. They are all interrelated with each other as well as Yin and Yang. The elements both promote and check each other to keep things in balance.

We also talked about the five major organs: heart, lungs, spleen, liver, and kidneys. Their functions in TCM are partly the same as in biomedicine, but there is a strong philosophical/experiential component to how they are classified. The entire body is connected through qi and jing, energy and fuel, and the flow of these essential components of the universe distinguishes each organ.

I really like this class. It is very interesting because a lot of the time this type of approach to the body and health is regarded as far out mumbo jumbo, but it is a very productive philosophy to think about how things are interrelated and see the body as a whole rather than organ by organ. I love the philosophical aspect to it because there is the constant reminder of humanity and that behavior is as important as putting a chemical into your system to alleviate symptoms. I'm really excited for class next week: we have two lectures and two field trips, one of which is to learn about herbs at the Great Wall.

It was overall a really relaxed day, which I needed because I'm still recovering from being tired during the intersession trip. We had normal bedtimes but consistently woke up at least three hours earlier than normal, so I've been pretty wiped. It's good to have relaxed today because I am afraid that if I take a whole day to stay in the dorm, I will miss out on getting to see something truly spectacular about this city.

Today is awesome because of our hilarious moment in TCM today. Our professor was trying to demonstrate how the heart and mind are connected, so he suddenly slammed his hand onto the desk, which startled all of us and raised our heart rates, demonstrating his point very clearly. It was really funny, particularly because we all jumped at the same time.