為人 The Min Jie School 為人
Becoming Human, Serving Humanity

Searching for Truth in Traditional Medicine

What does it take to heal us?

The traditional medicine world is full of lies and liars. This is one feature it has in common with technomedicine.

Of course deception isn’t all there is in these systems. There are also profound truths, incredible insights and radical and unique healings that occur. Things that we may never explain, frequently all bound together in ways that frustrate and confound us to the point of rage, disgust and madness.

Maybe that’s what it takes to heal us.

Intricate layers of stories

There are many good people who practice traditional medicine. Still, many of them lie about things, things we deem important. Different cultures and individuals have varying degrees of flexibility around what truth is.

Truth is often complex and paradoxical. Sometimes it may contain lies.

These lies can come at specific moments to derail your sense of self and safety. They may trick you into healing, because your mind and personality structure won’t allow you to heal without this destabilization.

Other times the lies in traditional medicine are just part of a strange fabric of reality that is made of intricate layers of stories upon stories. Occasionally, you’ll find something that you were sure was a lie turns out to be true. Or maybe it was true for a while and then it wasn’t, or vice versa.

Maybe the structure of reality in some places is not as fixed as we believe it is.

Maybe some people are just crooks.

Layers of deception

Underneath it all is our sense of trust. Can we trust people who are lying to us? Is there any way to get through their web of lies unscathed? Do we need to be scathed to heal? And what is the intention behind the lies? What are we trusting in and how far does that trust extend? What is trust?

Is our world any different from the worlds of the traditional healers? A primary issue of technological culture has become the one of trust. Verification. Check your sources. Layers of deception, exhausting masks after charades after frauds without end. It’s getting to the point where we can’t and don’t trust anything or anyone anymore.

Taking truth for granted

If there is a quest folded into this journey of lies, it’s to find truth. There must be something, anything that we can agree on, isn’t there?

Is there?

On a personal level, finding and staying with our deepest sense of truth, whatever it is, may be our best way through this treacherous tangle of guile.

Have we ever really taken a step back and asked ourselves seriously anything about truth and what it really means? Many of us take the definition of truth for granted, but this is something we may want to investigate precisely because of its unquestioned nature.

Truth may be the core issue of our time.

Discovering and revealing truth

I am humbled and astonished that my Greek ancestors placed such a powerful emphasis on the exploration and contemplation of truth, ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ. For them, this word meant to unravel, reveal, disconceal. There is truth underneath all of this deception. Our job is to discover and reveal it.

It could be that truth has been the core issue of all times all along.

More and more, I’m convinced that the ancients embedded the answers that we need today in what they created at the very beginnings of what we call civilization. All we need to do is observe, pay serious attention to what they’re telling us and get to work.

ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ