"eastern and Western Healing"

by Dr. Larry Morris

Western science and Western medicine derive from the 17th Cartesian dualism between mind and body, and spirit and matter. This dualism goes back much further in the West to Biblical origins. In the Garden of Eden story, man was created to have dominion over his world. Likewise, in Western thought, man is to be dominant over his environment, including the body. Western medicine attempts to determine the physical or biochemical cause of illness. Western scientific thought bases itself on the concept that there is one cause for an effect; the cause may be genetic, or bacterial or auto-immune or even psychological trauma. Conversely, Eastern healing traditions formulate a multi-causal or holistic analysis of illness.

The Eastern approaches to healing are fundamentally different from both Western medicine and Western science because they are based on a differing perception of man's place in the scheme of the universe. In the Eastern viewpoint, man, rather than dominating, is created as an integral part or component of nature. For instance, in Chinese landscape painting, we are presented with a vast natural and supernatural background in which we see little, tiny figures. These figures represent humanity's place in the scheme of things. Man exists in an incredibly vast natural and cosmic landscape. We are a part of the interwovenness of all life. 

In Taoism the idea of restoration and balance, a reconnecting to the way of all life, is paramount to the healing process itself. Hinduism and Buddhism are noteworthy because healing originally in these traditions was concerned with spiritual rather than physical illness. In Buddhism, the Buddha was called the Great Physician. His role was to heal the suffering of humanity. Humanity suffers not because of sin but because of ignorance, and ignorance itself is the illness. Ignorance comes from the sense of separation from all life. So the cure for suffering is Nirvana, the blowing out or extinction of the sense of separation.

In Hinduism, also, healing was originally concerned with re-establishing spiritual wholeness. In Sanskrit, the word 'maya' means to measure. When we measure our life from a center within ourselves, we experience duality and division and we are caught in the coils of maya. Liberation (healing) occurs when we attain measurelessness, Nirvakalpa Samadhi, and are reconnected to the oneness of all life.

Note that in all three traditions, a sense of separation or disharmony occurs, be it physical or otherwise, and the goal is to bring the individual back into harmony, to restore the basic order and interrelatedness of all things; the individual, nature, the cosmos and God. 

Today, when so many areas of life have been impacted by a planetary consciousness and a world ecological perspective, perhaps it's time for Western medicine's healing tradition to avail itself of other world healing traditions. Why shouldn't our Western medical practitioners be aware of at least the basic principles of Auravedic medicine of India, Chinese medicine and Buddhist healing traditions? It would seem that in widening its healing perspective, Western medicine could only increase its healing capability to the world.