Daoist Reflections from Scholar Sage by Damo Mitchell

Author:Damo Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857012746
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2016-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

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FOOD ENERGETICS

Damo Mitchell

When teaching internal arts there is one particular question that arises time and time again. This is the question of: ‘What should a person eat in order to be healthy and assist in their practice?’

The subject of food and healthy eating is a very large one. There are countless books written on different diets, the correct way to balance your nutritional intake and, of course, how to make sure you don’t gain excess weight. If you have ever taken the time to look at the nutrition section of any bookshop you will have seen that there are countless views that generally seem to contradict each other. Each week a new diet comes out based on the latest research – a situation that does not make the subject of healthy eating any easier to tackle.

Chinese medicine also has very clear teachings on how a person should eat in order to stay healthy; these teachings are a part of the wider subject of Yang Sheng Fa or ‘life-nourishing methods’. If we look at what ‘life-nourishing methods’ means, it is simply ‘healthy living’. The medical viewpoint of the ancient Chinese was greatly influenced by the Daoist tradition and in particular the energetic/Tantric theories of the alchemical practitioners. Almost identical theories underpin Chinese herbal medicine and, as such, the idea is that ‘food is fuel or medicine’. For myself, that is the first idea that I try to teach my students. Whilst there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying the taste of your food, do not make this the most important factor when deciding what you will eat. Taste is simply one of our senses and, essentially, we should not be allowing the temporary pleasure of our senses to dictate what we do. Too many people decide their diet by what they ‘like to eat’, and consequently we have a generation of people addicted to sugary and processed foods. On top of this we have created countless chemical formulas that aim to make our flavours stronger and stronger until often you cannot even remember what a particular item of food was supposed to taste like in the first place! The simple rule is that ‘what you put in you get out’. The body runs on the food we eat, and if we really wish to be healthy and get the most out of our internal practices we must eat in a healthy and balanced manner.

With particular regards to practitioners of the internal arts there is also another aspect of healthy eating we should keep in mind. When a person begins to practise an art such as Qi Gong, Nei Gong, meditation or Yoga they are essentially strengthening the relationship that exists between body and mind. Through repeatedly bringing our awareness into either our body or the processes taking place within it, we are increasing the efficiency of our own personal interface. According to Daoist thought, the medium through which this interface is experienced is our Qi. The bond between mind and physicality

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