Cause and Effect in Health

I have a unique take on the Chinese concepts of yin and yang, which came from a dream I had. In the dream, I was standing at a chalkboard, giving a lecture about universal energetics, and when I woke up in the early morning hours, I went to my office and wrote down a bunch of notes from this dream lecture. As weird as it felt, the ideas that came to me make a lot of sense.

TCM suggests that everything arises from an energy they call qi, which expresses itself as two opposing forces: yin and yang. Yang is expressed in active processes, energy, movement, activity, and yin is expressed in substances and form. Yang is associated with fire and heat, while yin is associated with water and cold. Yang is also considered the masculine force, while the feminine force is yin.

Here’s how I came to understand this from my dream. Quantum physics has proposed that what we think of as particles—electrons, protons, neutrons, and subatomic particles—are actually standing waveforms. Basically, this means that literally everything we see is a manifestation of energy. Remember the famous Einstein equation, E=mc² (energy = mass times the speed of light squared). The implication of this equation is that matter (mass) can be converted into energy and that energy can also be condensed into matter.

Energy and Waves

So, if everything is ultimately composed of energy, what are the properties of energy? Well, energy travels in waves. The signals we use to transmit audio and video information via radio, TV, cell phone signals, WiFi, and every other electronic wonder that we encounter can all be represented as waveforms.

These waveforms are also called cycles, which means they can also be represented as circles, including the Chinese yin/yang circle. I’m suggesting that this cyclic energetic nature of things is the root source of what we perceive as duality, or in Chinese philosophy, yin and yang.

If you watch waves on the beach, you’ll see they rise, crest, collapse, and then rise again. This idea can be expressed another way. In the illustration below, the forces of yin and yang are shown as expansion and contraction. The yin force is the force of attraction, which draws energy in and expands. (the rising part of the wave). As expansion leads to fullness, the energy shifts. The wave collapses as the yang force of contraction takes over. Contraction causes expulsion or emptying out. At this point the yin force again takes over, and a new cycle begins.

Waves in the Body

We can observe this happening in our bodies. As the heart attracts (or draws in) blood, it swells or expands. When it reaches fullness, it contracts and repels (or pushes away) the blood. Each cycle of expansion and contraction of the heart creates an oscillation we call the heartbeat. When these cycles are plotted on a monitor we can see the waveform that they creates.

The same thing happens with the lungs. As the lungs draw in (attract) air, they expand. When they push out (expel) air, they contract. Each cycle of expansion and contraction creates one cycle of the breath.

These expanding and contracting forces occurring everywhere in our bodies. The nerves build up electrical charges and then discharge or fire electrical pulses. These charges and discharges occur in cycles we call brain waves, which can also be measured and displayed with instruments.

Muscles contract to create force and relax so we can move and perform tasks. The stomach and intestines expand and contract to churn and digest food and move it forward through the intestinal tract. Even our lives expand and contract as we rest at night to build up our strength, then expend energy during the day.

The Cycles of Nature

These cyclical patterns seen in the body are also seen in nature. The Earth is rotating, and one turn of the Earth in a circle constitutes a cycle we call a day. The Earth also revolves around the Sun. Each time the Earth completes one circle around the Sun, another cycle we call a year has occurred.

The moon also creates lunar cycles. The moon's movement around the Earth creates a tidal cycle. The moon also goes through a cycle of phases (new, waxing, full, and waning), which gave rise to a cycle we call a month.

The cycles in our environments influence our health. What the body needs to stay balanced in the summer is different from what it needs to stay balanced in the winter. Thus, learning to live in balance with the cycles of nature is important to health.

The Yin/Yang Symbol

Here is a brief summary of some of the ideas expressed in this yin/yang philosophy. The Chinese symbol of yin and yang shows yin and yang as a cycle. Yin transforms into yang and yang transforms back into yin. Nothing is completely yin or yang; every yin thing has some yang in it, every yang thing has some yin. The symbol represents this as a black dot (yin) inside the white part of the symbol (yang) and a white dot (yang) in the yin black (yin) part. As I see it, things are only yin or yang in their relationship to something else, as in day and night, summer and winter, cold and hot.

Also, yin and yang are not two separate things; they are two parts of the same whole. No matter how much you dissect a thing, the same duality is present in the part. For example, you cannot cut something so thin that it will have a top but no bottom.

In the same manner, every action we take (cause) has a built-in consequence (effect). The cause or action is the yang part of the cycle. The yin part is what that action will draw (or attract) into our lives as the consequence. So, you cannot accumulate in one place without discharging in another. For everything you gain there is something that is lost, and for everything that you lose there is something that is gained. Thus, you cannot separate cause from effect; cause is the seed, effect the plant that grows from it. You can choose the action you take, that is, the seeds you sow, but the moment you choose that action, the outcome, the crop you reap, is predetermined.

Understanding Cause and Effect in Health

Working on root causes, rather than treating effects, has been a core message of mine for the entire time I’ve been involved in natural healing. To understand the importance of this, I think of Emerson and how he conveys the relation of cause and effect in his essay, Compensation:

The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly. For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something.

This goes back to the idea of moderation and balance. Everything that is good for the body also has the potential to be bad for the body when done in excess. We must eat, but not too much. We need exercise, but overexertion can damage the body. Losing sleep can affect health, but sleeping too much isn’t good for us either.

The Problem with Symptomatic Relief

This is where people’s desire for a quick fix arises. We want health, but we often don’t want to pay the price for it. We want to indulge in sweets and take a medication, supplement, or herb to balance our blood sugar and try to absolve us of the consequences. We overeat and don’t exercise, but we want a medication or some other intervention that will help us lose weight without having to change our behavior.

Emerson expresses this desire to have the good without the bad as follows:

The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the solution of one problem ... to contrive to cut clean off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a one end, without an other end.

Allopathic medicine gives people what they seek. It treats the symptoms (effects) without trying to fix the cause. The side effects that occur are simply the body striving to maintain homeostasis (healthy balance) in the wake of this artificial shift in the body’s biochemical balance. If we want real health, we must see symptoms as signs that the body is out of balance in some way, and our search must involve figuring out what we can do to restore balance. We must change the cause (our actions, habits, and behaviors) to obtain the positive effects we desire (health, happiness, energy, and overall wellbeing).

This is a lesson that the concept of yin and yang can help us learn. Yin and yang cannot be divided; they flow into each other. If there is an excess in one area, there is a deficiency in another. If you try to get rid of the excess without correcting the deficiency, the problem will simply manifest as a different problem.

This is the third in my series of articles about how the philosophy expressed in traditional Chinese medicine has influenced my own thought processes and approach to healing. In my next article, I'll share some specific practical applications of the philosophy of yin and yang in health.

If you're interested in learning more about traditional Chinese medicine, take look at my course on Traditional Chinese Medicine for Western Herbalists.