Atopic problems, convulsions, bed-wetting, underarm tumors, headaches, or asthma. Lots of infants and children are brought to my acupuncture clinic for these complaints and many others. The patients themselves seem to be quite willing to see us and get the treatment, for which the so-called “contact needles,” which do not pierce the skin, are used. The kids look happy to extend their head or back, showing their innocent “cooperation” and changing the atmosphere of the clinic all of a sudden. How pure-hearted and unadulterated they are! They have powers to extract the innate goodness of human nature. The absence of malice is a literal counterpart of the Japanese expression “Mujaki (lack of malice).” What a marvelous virtue “Mujaki” is! There is no “pretentiousness” or “aggressiveness.” These infants and children just take everything as it is and as it comes to them.
Not long ago, a baby girl of about several months was brought to me with an atopic problem. She kept gazing at me without blinking her eyes. Then she smiled at me. She judged me OK, I thought. “How lucky I am!” I felt relieved and happy to touch her skin with respect. She seemed to know everything. In her, I was made to feel the depth of the great universe itself. The greatness of children. That is what I learn from them. They teach us lots of things, indeed.
Clean Bills of Health vs. Patient’s Persistent Complaints:
Recently I received a call from a friend, who was one of my patients asking me to come over to her home in a hurry. Upon arrival I saw her 81-year-old father lying in bed. He seemed too exhausted to talk. Moreover, he was hard of hearing and using a pair of hearing aids. This made it impossible for me to talk with him directly.
This is what his daughter told me. A couple of weeks before, her father lost appetite and began to feel so tired that he became unable to take a bath by himself and to sleep well, losing weight day after day. She took him to several hospitals where he had blood tests, ultrasonic scans, electrocardiograms, CT scans, all of which found nothing unusual in his body. At the hospital he visited last, pulmonary emphysema was suspected and oxygen inhalations were tried. Trachea expanding drugs and sleeping pills were prescribed. But he kept calling her at her workplace, complaining of persistent exhaustion.
Hearing my friend talking like this, I directly asked him where the problem was coming from. He stroked the left side of his chest, which made me suspect a problem in the heart. I examined his facial expression, pulse, the tongue and touched the heart-related “point.” These checkups indicated a high possibility of a myocardial infarction. The medical instrument I use is my five senses. In any case, I treated him carefully and helped him lie in bed.
My friend later showed me many different test results from hospitals. What I saw was far from the “nothing is wrong” diagnosis that I had been told about. The CPK value was unusually high, which meant the excessive enzyme contained in the skeletal and smooth muscles and the heart might cause damage to muscles. The enzyme is called “creatine phosphokinase.” A high numerical value of this substance could mean a strong possibility of a myocardial infarction. But the problem is that it is not evident in the electrocardiogram, and makes it hard for a doctor to suspect anything wrong. But why was such a painful symptom of the patient ignored? According to my friend, her father’s most favorite diet were oily foods and alcoholic drinks. Smoking had been his half-century long habit. He had been taking care of his wife and moved to his current house a few months before. He was living in a rather stressful environment.
The Smiling Face of the Patient:
When I came home from the patient’s home, my friend called me. She reported that her father was feeling much better and even hungry and was eating. This was a surprise to me, because when I met him first he was able to eat only a couple of mouthfuls of rice. Although optimism at this point was not permitted yet, the effect of the acupuncture treatment I’d given him was nonetheless remarkable.
The next day when I paid him another visit, he sat up seeing me. His behavior and the color of his face indicated that his power was back. Intuitively did I feel that he was in a much better condition. The complexion, pulse, tongue and condition of points appeared much better than on the day before.
He also was more talkative and interested in telling about many aspects of his physical trouble. For instance, after subjecting himself to more than six checkups, he was able to tell what the doctor would say next. He had been a valuable asset at his workplace at 70 and was not let go even after. He seemed to enjoy such small talk with me. His happy smile made me feel happy, too, that I was helping him so much in this way and this manner. As I was leaving, he sat up again and waved at me with a smile.
Checkups Based on Four Approaches (Observing, Listening, Questioning, Touching):
I explained these four approaches in my column 35. When I visited this patient for the third time, he had recovered his power to such an extent that he was enjoying both drinks and games of “Gate-Ball” (a favorite sport among aged Japanese men and women). Observing him getting so well and so quickly I felt no doubt about the excellence of the acupuncture-moxibustion treatment offered by the Hokushin-Kai (See Column 35).
Observing the color of the face, the pulse, the tongue and the condition of the relevant points take only a few minutes. I want to emphasize how important it is to touch and feel the body of the patient. The astounding effect of this acupuncture-moxibustion treatment comes from the instructions provided by my mentor Mr. Rempu Fujimoto, the head of the Hokushin-kai, to whom I owe so much for the system of my treatment which is the product of his long years of helping hundreds of thousands of patients and the tremendous amount of medical knowledge he has acquired through his clinical experiences. I have written this to advise against depending solely on the results of mechanical medical checkups.
Koutei Daikei, the most ancient Chinese medical text, mentions something interesting on the relationship between the “Seven Emotions” and the movement of the “Ki.” The seven emotions mean the seven emotional states of joy, anger, distress, thought, grief, fear and surprise. All of them exist in each one of us and under normal conditions none develops into anything troublesome. However, if an unexpected shocking event should occur, or one’s worry should last for an excessively long time beyond his/her natural biological power of control, unwelcome physical problems might follow. Especially those who are not able to handle these problems properly, the situation may deteriorate and end up with serious physical symptoms.
The Movement of the “Ki”:
As long as the “Ki” flows evenly through the body, one feels well and fine. But once this flow is disrupted and the seven emotions lose balance the “Ki” gets lopsided and causes
disorder in the bodily functions. Excessive anger makes the “Ki” rise high as shown by the bristling hair of a cat mentioned in Part I. There is a literal phrase in Japanese to describe the symptom: “Gyakujou” meaning the “Ki” rising to the head. Since anger is related with tension, being excessively busy and tight may lead to anger. Excessive fear makes the “Ki” fall and settle lopsidedly at the bottom. Frightened at an earthquake, for instance, one may lose the ability to keep standing, as the “Ki” has left one’s system. Excessive astonishment makes the “Ki” lose its order. We say in Japanese in such a case that the “Ki” is “tumbling.” Excessive grief makes the “Ki” disappear, as we say in Japanese “My grief is so great that I have lost the will to live (lost the “Ki”). Thus grief reduces our power of resistance and render us susceptible to colds. Excess of thought makes the “Ki” get hard or stiff, settling around the abdomen. In Japanese we describe it by saying the “Ki” is closed off due to excessive thought (Ki ga fusagu). Worrying too much makes the “Ki” shrink up, as we say “Ki wo momu” in Japanese.
Excessive Anger Makes the “Ki” rise:
Here, I will give some clinical instances of these emotional symptoms giving rise to physical problems based on my own experiences of treating many clients.
Not long ago, I went to see one of my patients who had had a slipped disk and was not able to walk. Her husband was helping her use the bathroom, but it took as long as two hours both ways. Her trouble was triggered when she had tried to lift a large desk. But how did it happen? I wondered why it had developed into such a serious case. Asking the patient about her personal lifestyle prior to the unfortunate happening, I came to know that she had been leading an extremely busy life and had to cope with lots of irritating problems. In other words, she had been in an incorrigible state of anger for some time. In fact, this patient had weakness in the kidneys (there is a close relationship between the kidneys and the waist) and had had chronic pain in the back for a long time. Moreover, the chilly northwest wind of June kept her feet very cold. An overall description of her condition can be that her “anger” raised the “Ki” higher and her cold feet pushed the heat upward, thus disrupting the balance of the distribution of the “Ki” in her system. As a consequence, her waist was in a very vulnerable condition and the pain was triggered by an outside impact.
Not a few patients who come to me complaining of pain in the waist mention excessive “anger” and “tension” in their recent past. To put it simply, this process fits into an equation in which the pain in the back equals extreme anger/tension plus weak kidneys/waist.
The treatment of this patient was aimed at lowering her “Ki” and warming up the lower part of her system. Just one session improved her condition and she became able to travel to the bathroom all by herself taking only 15 minutes .
In Japanese, there are numerable phrases that carry the word “Ki.” This word is written in kanji or Chinese character “気.” Let me give a few examples: “Genki” meaning good health, “Byouki” meaning sickness, “Kiraku” meaning being relaxed, “Kibun” meaning the mood, “Ki ga mijikai” meaning short-tempered, “Kiga nagai” meaning patient, “Yuuki” meaning courage, “Ki ga meiru” meaning depressed, “Ki ga hareru” meaning
refreshed, “Tsuyoki” meaning confidence, “Yowaki” meaning lacking in courage, “Yaruki” meaning enthusiasm, “Uchiki” meaning diffident, “Konki” meaning perseverance, and so forth. As you can see, all these expressions are related to the state of one’s mind and spirit. In Oriental medicine, this word “Ki” carries great significance and is used as a matter of course every day.
The “Ki” Refers to the State of the Mind:
Byouki, which means sickness, carries the Ki in it but it does not mean a problem only of the mind. Oriental medicine attaches much importance to the relationship between the state of the mind resulting from the character and lifestyle of a person and his/her physical problems. Thus, in Oriental medicine the two cannot be considered separately, detached from each other. For instance, a spiritual shock often causes an ulcer in the stomach; an unpleasant happening may cause diarrhea; tension may cause coughing, as proven by different people in different cases.
As I interview my patients, these things clearly come to light in each case. Not a few people are suffering from such psychological problems as protracted stress, a sudden occurrence of a shocking event, exhausting work schedule, or stress-caused overeating, giving rise to various physical problems.
What Is “Ki”? Does It Really Exist? Can It Be Seen?
It is an intangible entity. The interactive principles of yin and yang put it in the yang category, which means it is something light in weight and is likely to “rise high,” as the case may be, when some abnormality occurs. Feeling cold in the feet, or feeling hot in the head means that the cold falls down and heat goes up in the body together with the “Ki” under abnormal circumstances. To give some familiar example, an angry cat’s back rises mountain-shaped with bristling hair. The “Ki” of the cat is up, as described in Japanese. The point of the body, which is called “Hyakue” in oriental medicine, is on the top of the head of a human, but its comparable point in a quadruped animal exists in the middle of its back. Unlike in the case of a cat, the anger in a human is not so apparent in “bristling hair,” but a close look may detect some baby hairs actually bristling. Also, we see people whose eyes undergo conspicuous changes of expression in anger such as turning up or getting bloodshot, or people who complain of smarting or itchiness in the scalp. These symptoms prove that the “Ki” has risen to the head together with the heat.
As I say, the “Ki” really exists as a motivating factor behind all our conduct and emotions. In our daily lives, we make rough observations of ourselves or others psychologically and use such expressions as “one is tensed up, depressed, or relaxed, etc.” All these expressions, as it happens, carry the kanji “Ki” in them in Japanese as I said at the beginning of this column. Oriental medicine bases its diagnosis and treatment on the observation of our body surface in terms of the presence, absence or lopsidedness of the “Ki” in our body. More to follow in Part II.
I’m often told by my clients that my way of treatment differs a lot from what they receive at other clinics. For instance, I mostly use one single needle and, moreover, do not apply it to the point which they complain about. This is some surprise to them, but they recognize the effect of the treatment. I respond by saying, “This treatment is based on the system used by the Hokushin-kai, an association represented by my mentor Mr. Rempu Fujimoto. I have written about him in these columns many times before, but this time I would like to introduce a little more of his personality and philosophy that underlie this treatment system and its orientation.
First, a few words on Mr. Fujimoto himself again. This great teacher is filled with strong faith, passion and confidence when it comes to acupuncture-moxibustion treatment. He observes each patient with warm and sharp eyes. His Napoleonic catchword “Ever Forward!” propels him in the way of medicine, always full of life force and free and open-minded like a young warrior. The more intractable the problem he faces, the stronger his fighting spirit grows. The polarity of his character also impresses us; impetuosity on one hand and remarkable patience on the other. I could go on and on like this about him.
The Hokushin-kai which he represents was started in 1979. And the Hokushin-kai treatment system is based on the logic born from extensive studies of as many as six hundred thousand clinical cases It became an incorporated organization in February 2009.
The organization’s principle is based on the stand that Oriental medicine is nothing but true medical science and is targeted at each case in two ways, one scientific and the other technical. Its ultimate objective is to treat the body, mind, and soul. The principle is based on the belief that medical treatment should not be focused on the body alone but should equally be aimed at the body and the mind. The oneness of body and mind assures the balance of bodily functions. If this balance is perturbed, something goes wrong with the functions of the mind and deeper in the soul as well. Thus, oriental medicine firmly believes in its capability of treating the body, mind and soul all together.
The treatment given by the Hokushin-kai is founded on the basic theories of the Modern Chinese Medical Science which excels in logic. Its multilateral diagnoses cover the four aspects of medical problems:
1) Observing (movement of the body, the appearance of the skin, face and tongue),
2) Listening (interviews checking the voice and the way of talking, while sensing the mouth and body odor,
3) Questioning (asking about patient’s lifestyle, subjective symptoms, appetite, sleep patterns, patient’s medical history, etc.),
4) Touching (pulse checking, palpation of the abdomen and body surface points, etc.) On the basis of these four examinations, the real cause of the complaint is traced and judged.
Furthermore, the Hokushin-kai has its own diagnostic system in addition to the above four, which is called space examination (kuukan-shin), which aims at determining where the imbalance of the power source has occurred. In this system, the traditional acupuncture treatment (hammer acupuncture technique) is applied in an updated manner. Condensed application of only a single or a small number of needles serves to bring about the effect aimed at. Especially for children, excessively sensitive or totally exhausted patients, we use “contact needles” called the Ancient Needle. These needles do not impale the skin.
I myself visit Mr. Rempu Fujimoto’s clinic in Nara once or twice a week and research further into the acupuncture treatment, and always feel grateful for my mentor’s guidance, and I’m always trying to substantiate the merit of this treatment by helping a number of patients. This, I believe, is nothing but my sole mission and the way to repay the indebtedness to my mentor.
