How can a difficult situation be good for me?

Posted on April 13, 2011 | 2 Comments

Question: If you find yourself in a life situation that makes you really tired or even makes you sick at times, and you can’t leave it right away, how can you deal with it in a positive way? I have heard you say that everything happens to us is for good. Please help me to understand how a difficult situation can be good for me.

Answer: You have to change. You cannot just say, “I believe everything that happens to me is for good.” No! It is good, but can you see the good? You cannot just lie to yourself: “It’s good.” That’s not good. Every day, every night, you work late, you are unhappy . . . it’s for good. Your boyfriend gives you a hard time . . . it’s for good. It’s not for good! You might want to quit your job; you might want to punch your boyfriend’s face! How can it be for good? Unless you truly understand what’s happening.

What is good? What does this really mean? The good is you have to change. It’s not just good. Good is how can I change so “life situations” won’t bother me anymore. Your boss will understand you; now, he wants to give you a hard time. You start to think, “Maybe when I change he wouldn’t give me a hard time, he will help me.” See, that’s more positive instead of just “Oh yeah, he gives me a hard time instead of helping me.” Can you change for your own benefit, for good? Good means you wouldn’t get angry, good means you are so happy, good is he is going to help you. That’s called “good.” You walk out of the office, he helps you carry something; you go there, he opens the door. That’s good. Can you do that? You have to really look at it this way and not just say an empty line that it’s good. It’s absolutely, a hundred percent understanding what is called good.

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What can I do to build my health in spring?

Posted on March 31, 2011 | 1 Comment

Question: What can I do to build my health in spring?

Answer: Every year, spring is the most important season of the whole year. Take this special opportunity. Practice hard to change your level in spring. Look at nature—everything is growing and flowing in spring. If you plant a seed too late, the plant won’t grow; if you plant it too early, it won’t grow—it will wither. Nature is not unbalanced. If you haven’t cleaned up all your garbage from the last year by spring, the coming year will be difficult.

Eat well. Eat more good food. Use the essence of food to help you. If you eat well, you won’t have to take herbs. This way is best because food is more basic. Try and eat something that will help you in terms of your diet. There are many foods that benefit the Liver, the organ associated with spring. Scallions, bitter greens like dandelions and broccoli rabe, bamboo shoots, fennel, garlic, ginger, and lemon have an energy essence that helps heal the Liver.

If you practice really well in spring you shouldn’t get sick during the other seasons. In my experience, when a person has a health problem, if you trace it back you can find that something happened back in the spring—be it physical, emotional or spiritual. Go with the flow to stay in harmony with the season.

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How can traditional Chinese medicine help relieve anxiety?

Posted on March 24, 2011 | 1 Comment

Question: I feel a great deal of anxiety all the time lately. How does TCM view anxiety, and can it relieve this kind of condition? I don’t want to take prescription medication.

Answer: TCM sees anxiety as the mind creating the “wrong” thinking. Your mind receives information from the outside and then you “cook” it, based on what you know from your past. You try to analyze what will happen in the future and your limited knowledge and narrowed vision cause you to see something you don’t want to see. You create this anxiety because your vision of the future doesn’t match your wish. That’s the whole idea. There’s a difference between how you want to see things and what actually is. In essence, all religions try to teach you how to see things differently. It is difficult because we cannot understand the new; our understanding is based on the old, the past, what we already know—the old databanks. So we always rely on the old databanks, which are limited, to analyze the new information. That’s the concept of what causes anxiety. Read more

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Posted in conditions, emotions

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Is Fitness All in the Genes?

Posted on March 16, 2011 | 1 Comment

Today’s New York Times Well post focuses on a new study on the genetics of fitness. Here’s an excerpt from the post:

But what, beyond the fundamental unfairness of life, makes one person’s body receptive to exercise and another’s resistant? According to the new study, which will soon be published in The Journal of Applied Physiology, part of the answer may depend on the state of specific genes.

We asked Dr. Lu for his take on the question. Click here to listen to his response.

Note: This is a seven-minute audio interview in which Dr. Lu unpacks key aspects of the Eastern perspective on genes and energy. Hang in there to the end for his answer to the question: if you had to suggest one exercise to do everyday, what would it be?

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Posted in energy, exercise, genetics

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Another look at this winter’s snow

Posted on March 9, 2011 | 4 Comments

Question: This winter was very wet. Does that say anything about the weather for the upcoming spring?

Answer: The weather this winter is very unusual: very cold and lots of snow. We can’t change the weather but we can use it for a positive purpose. Snow is water, but it’s very different than water in the earth; it has changed from a water state to something solid. Snow is water from Heaven, and therefore, it represents transformation. Snow is called the “poor man’s fertilizer.” It actually pulls nitrogen (a key ingredient of fertilizer) from the air down toward the earth. Because it carries Heaven’s energy snow can transform plants. If there is a plant that is not doing well, snow can help it. In ancient times great attention was paid to snow, the transformative energy of snow. Even frost had great significance if it appeared on certain days, in certain seasons. People would take great care to “harvest” the frost and use it purposefully. With all this natural fertilizer on the ground for the past two months, it might be a rich spring with a lot of growth.

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Winter’s Lessons for Self-Healing

Posted on January 20, 2011 | 1 Comment

We interrupt our regular Q & A format to bring you this video message from Dr. Lu on following nature’s lead during the winter season.

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TCM and tinnitus

Posted on January 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Question: In the past month I have started to get ringing in my ears. Is there something TCM can do to help this condition? I am a musician who is in my mid-fifties.

Answer: If your physical ear does not have a problem—tests show that there is no actual damage to the ear—tinnitus or ringing sounds in the ears is related to what TCM calls a function disorder. This is an “energy” problem. In TCM’s Five-Element theory the ear is considered the “gateway” or opening of the Kidney. Another way of putting this concept is that the ear is a sort of Kidney “energy detector.” If your Kidney energy (called “Qi” in Chinese) is deficient, much like a home smoke detector when there’s smoke or fire, your ears (either one or both) will have a sound. Read more

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