Talks on the Malibu Pier

"When you ride the tiger, be sure to hold on tight." Old Chinese saying

The girls were running up and down the wooden planking of the Malibu Pier, already tired of not catching any fish. Dr. Rosenblatt and I were leaning on the wooden railing, watching our bait soaking in the blue/green waves rolling endlessly against the wooden pilings on their way to the beach.

"What's the most important thing about acupuncture?" I asked, taking my role as Scribe seriously. The time had come. We were off and running on the book. This was the first of several million questions that I was prepared to ask.

"The central idea of acupuncture," Dr. Rosenblatt answered without hesitation, "is the study of energy in the human body. If even one-tenth of the people in this country could grasp the concept of Energetics, everything would be different. Everything."

"You mean medicine ...?" I inquired, supposing that's what he meant. "All kinds of things, including health and medicine. We wouldn't buy food with additives and pesticides. Farming and commerce would have to stop using lethal poisons. As we started feeling better, we'd relate to each other differently. It would be a very healthy change.

"For instance, take the idea that the physical body wants to be in a state of perfect health, and is trying all the time to promote this perfect state for itself. Medicine should assist this effort of the body. It's becoming more and more evident to me that the secret of effective medical treatment is through a study of the energy that courses through all of us. Energy, actually, is the life force that animates all living beings."

"That's fairly evident," I said, twiddling my pen in the air.

"Perhaps evident to you," he said, "but not to many people."

"You mean I've been hanging around with you so long that thinking of flowing energy seems normal to me?"

He laughed. "I guess so. All living things are energy beings, formed on an energetic pattern. Bio-electric energy flowing along pathways (acupuncture meridians) in the body creates a bio-magnetic life-force. This energy animates all the functions of the body. Alterations in the energy produce a condition known as disease. Evenly flowing, balanced energy produces health. The Chinese call this energy Chi, the Japanese call it Ki.

"Energetic medicine seeks to understand and manipulate this flow of energy. While Western medicine deals mostly with diseased organisms, energetic medicine focuses on the underlying energy that fills the body with life.

"Let me give you a simple example of energy. Take a magnet, the kind that everybody knows about — the kind stuck on the door of your refrigerator holding the grocery list. Every magnet has an energy field around it. This energy field exerts its force through the air. It doesn't have wires — but held a few inches from an iron object, it will attract the iron."

"Almost like magic," I said.

"This magnetic field can be made visible by using of a handful of iron dust. The magnet attracts the dust and reveals the energy field."

"Magnetism is one kind of energy — and we are discovering that magnetic energy has healing properties. It also is a model for the body's energy.

"In the same way that the magnet has fields of energy, the body has the same kind of energy lines — we call them the acupuncture meridians. However, if we drop our refrigerator magnet on the sidewalk a few times, its energy field gets damaged and the lines become tangled or jumbled."

"This same condition of tangling happens to the energy lines in our bodies due to daily stress, toxins in modern cities and the unhealthy fast food we eat."

"Sounds perfectly reasonable to me," I said. "Sometimes I feel tangled and jangled. Why didn't I learn this stuff about magnets and human energetic in high school?"

"Hopefully our grandchildren will." He smiled, ruefully.

* * *

Dr. Ju's Journal — 1 — Autumn, 1968

For many years I had been doing a daily walking meditation in the large park near my apartment in Chinatown. Suddenly several Anglo boys joined the t'ai chi class in my park — a thing that had never happened before, not ever in recorded history that I knew of. I watched them occasionally from afar, even stopping my walking to watch. It piqued my curiosity — and more than that, an echo formed in my mind — something forgotten was nagging at me — a task still to be accomplished. Many years ago, the old Taoist monks at my monastery in Canton Province had suggested that I should bring acupuncture to America. And I had agreed to follow their suggestion by migrating — but as I observed the t'ai chi practice, a cloudy memory of what they really meant began reemerging.

After riding over on the ocean liner ship with my few belongings, I had set up medical practice in a stucco flat on a side street of Chinatown, Los Angeles, within walking distance of my favorite restaurants, my men's club and this park. I treated many people with traditional Taoist medicine — acupuncture and Chinese herbs. But only Chinese people came for cures, not white barbarians — in such a hurry with their penicillin, pills and surgery.

Four times a week, these young medical fellows from the Brain Research Department at UCLA were practicing t'ai chi chuan with Marshall Ho'o's class. Had the monks meant that I was preordained to disseminate the curing arts using these America boys? It seemed that my friend, Marshall Ho'o had rounded them up for just this purpose. Hmmm. That thought had some teeth in it.

Pursuing cautiously, I got myself invited to the public t'ai chi demonstration that Marshall was presenting as part of the Chinese New Year's celebration. Oddly, it was the American boys that were demonstrating t'ai chi up on stage under the pagoda while the Chinese students performed some type of baton twirling — what a strange mixing of cultures.

I approached cautiously, but boldly, for the signs and portents that I had forgotten were suddenly very present. These UCLA students were somewhat serious. They practiced. I could tell by watching. But were they the ones in my dream vision or not?

Then, on the very first introduction, after the fine demonstration, Marshall somehow garbled my proud family name. The UCLA boys thought he said Kim instead of Gim, so they jubilantly named me Dr. Kim and began treating me like their new best buddy. A Chinese doctor as a buddy? That was not a correct way to treat a teacher, at all.

And in spite of this, I found myself inviting them to visit my home. Fate was singing very strongly in my left ear. Correctness was everywhere. Inviting white strangers to my house. Unheard of ...! Barbarian college boys? Well, did it matter, really, that they weren't aware enough to call me by my real name? One can't expect much from Lo-fan? These were the ones that I was going to teach, with their inflated egos and happy smiles. The omens were very clear.

* * *

"Have you ever thought about the Earth?" Dr. Rosenblatt asked, gazing at the coastline, which stretched all the way around the Santa Monica Bay from Malibu south to Palos Verdes like a Chinese landscape under a very cloudy sky.

"What about the Earth?" I asked.

"Well, it's like a big ball-magnet with invisible lines similar to magnetic field lines — also similar to the body's acupuncture meridians."

"Lines of energy," I said, picking up on his thought.

"Not quite," the Doc said. "More like fields of energy. A line only has one dimension; but the Earth is very three dimensional — so we must get used to viewing energy as force rather than as a line. We're like a fish in water — we swim through the Earth's magnetic field, just like a fish swims along a current of warm water."

"Interesting," I said, somewhat astonished that such a simple concept could have eluded me my whole life.

"Yes. They're starting to think that migratory birds orient themselves with this grid of magnetic energy."

"I thought nobody knew how homing pigeons could find their way home."

"Well, they don't know exactly, but researchers are fixing magnets to a bird, and it seems to confuse their sense of direction."

"Hmmm," I said, noticing that a ragged blue/gray rain cloud was blowing across the sky right at us. It was definitely going to rain. "Maybe we should buy a fish at the market to take home."

"Fresh fish make happy face," he quoted. "That's what Dr. Ju used to say every time we went out for fish — and every time a fish dish arrived at the table." The Doc smiled, evidently remembering the fish he'd eaten with Dr. Ju. "Fresh fish make happy face," he repeated.

* * *

Dr. Ju's Journal — 2 — Winter, 1968

One morning, the UCLA boys came over and knocked on my apartment door. What could I do? I had invited them. They came. Now I had to teach them. So my second life mission could finally start, now that I had remembered it. I was so happy inside that I said a little prayer of thanksgiving to Lao Tsu, something I had never done before.

It's no fun to be a cultured person stuck in a foreign country where all your skills and subtleties are discounted. Well, I have had some fun here; but it is very fine that the mission is finally starting, so I can go home someday to find peace and serenity.

Really, I couldn't get over my good luck. They were just like the vision that Ancestor Lu showed me in the dream so long ago back in China. The Politico, Bill, bright and dedicated, wearing steel-rimmed glasses. Louie, the unhappy Mystic, lost in dreams. And Steve, the Man of Action, the Chairman, undeterred by hardships. The Chairman's dark-haired Anglo wife was missing. The vision clearly showed her with him; but evidently she would be along later. My heart was beating with happiness and awe.

My little group, knocking on my door. So adventuresome, so brash. Nice boys. I was well pleased. And just in the nick of time to meet Tymowski, the Frenchman, who was arriving next month to spread the gospel of the International Association of Acupuncture. An International Association, well why not? I was sure that my new students were very credible, and credentialed. Brain students from UCLA. Marshall Ho'o had said so.

And then I heard another odd circumstance. The son of old Master Tung, Fu Ling, Marshall Ho'o's T'ai Chi teacher, was coming to Los Angeles to set up a T'ai Chi studio. Everyone said that young Tung was extraordinary. This was very synchronous. Very surprising. These smiling young UCLA fellows were going to be very fortunate at their Five Excellences.

But they all need a haircut. How can I be seen around town with them looking like that?

* * *

"So if we're swimming in a sea of magnetic energy, inside and outside," I said, after making sure that the girls were still in sight, "you'd think that nobody would get sick. Isn't magnetic energy supposed to be good for people?"

"Yes, but it's a little more complicated than that," Dr. R said, pulling a pen out of his pocket. "Thanks to the layer of organic life on the Earth's surface (trees, the soil, birds, humans) we're living in a bio-energetic hot-house. Bio-magnetic energy is the stuff of life.

"Regular magnetic energy and the electricity that lights a light bulb is bi-polar (two poles, North and South). Bio-energy, on the other hand, is tri-polar like the Yin/Yang diagram." With the ball-point pen, he drew a diagram on the railing. The next guy who fished from this spot would probably wonder about that. Maybe he'd think it was a diagram for a new fishing theory.

"Yin/Yang has North and South poles, and it also contains a very subtle 3 force, which Dr. Ju explained as the Tao. The S shaped line that defines the light and dark forces is an element in its own right. Look at it. It even looks energetic." He squiggled another diagram.

"The action of Yang (+) and Yin (-) creates this other force. Yang, which is a male force always thrusting ahead, acts upon Yin, a female force that seeks to contain. At their conjunction the irresistible force meets the immovable object. The pressure of the meeting creates a 3 force. An example is flint and steel used in fire making. Striking the flint (Yin) with the steel(Yang) causes a spark of energy. All three: Yin, Yang and spark, taken together form the Tao — the world we live in. The world of phenomena — sickness and health.

"The acupuncturist learns to harness this principle for the treatment of disease. He applies this idea to the energies flowing in the human body, which have been mapped by practitioners of Chinese medicine over thou- sands of years. By applying this Law of Energy and several other principles, the physician is able to treat disease — and help the patient to maintain health.

"Dr. Ju always said that the true healer has to function on three levels. Only by understanding the laws can he treat correctly. He must uderstand:

1. The underlying cause of disease

2. The current disease process

3. And he must limit future negative ramifications — all at the same time.

"It makes perfect sense, if we view a disease pattern as a triangle — we must repair the energy of all three legs at once, since they're obviously connected."

"Energy can't be seen or heard with a stethoscope," I said, "so how can you read my energy just by feeling my wrist?"

The Doc nodded judiciously. It was starting to rain.

I motioned for the girls, then I went on, "When I take my symptoms to a regular doctor and he says, 'Here, take these pills', it makes me nervous. I'm never sure that he knows what's wrong. I don't want to eat strong pills with a lot of side effects — not unless I'm half dead, then I might eat them. But when I see you, and you feel my wrist pulses, I always feel confident that you've really found out what is wrong with me. Then you fix it."

"You're basically pretty healthy," he said.

"Maybe I'm just responsive to this kind of medicine."

Looking disappointed at the rain, Dr. Rosenblatt put on his jacket and picked up the tackle box. No sense getting soaked just because we forgot to listen to the weather report. A large fish splashed into a school of anchovies straight out from where we were standing. "See, there are fish out there today," he observed.

"No doubt about it," I agreed. "It's a big ocean, full of currents."

* * *

Dr. Ju's Journal — 3 — Spring, 1969

Now I know how difficult it was for my teachers. Ha, ha. The grand pain for which there is no cure — taking on students. But nobody could be more enthusiastic than my UCLA boys.

Today I taught them the magic of casting the needle. The needle crosses an eternity of space, and then enters the precisely correct acupuncture point — because the healer's energy wills it to. Not because the doctor has only mental knowledge of the points — no, it is a question of chi, of life force.

I showed them how to move the energy with their needle hand, to manipulate the air; but naturally, I didn t give them the needle. Maybe I never will — certainly not until they get the casting technique correct. No sense rushing the mountain.

It is amusing to walk with them in Chinatown on the way to lunch. They practice casting as they walk — so enthusiastic and American; but so nuts. Nobody can do casting while walking. Casting the needle is casting — [walking to lunch is walking. At least, they eat dim sum with great enthusiasm, which is good.

And they got the haircut! In a brilliant insight, I said to the Chairman, "When you do the doctor, you must look the doctor." And the Chairman perceived my wisdom. I saw him understand, exactly like I had casted a needle of perception with total accuracy. It pierced his consciousness, which is not a bit slow. And today, no more unsightly hair. Of course, who cares about hair, really? My honored grandfather wore a thick braid down to his buttocks.

* * *

"There are six pulses in each wrist, and each one represents an organ" the Doc said. We were sitting in his car in the parking lot, watching it rain. "Each wrist holds three pulse positions, with a surface pulse and a deep pulse at each location. Each position relates to an internal organ. Placing my finger tips on the wrist, I move over all the pulses until I complete my picture of the relative strength beating from each organ.

"The pulses are a way of getting me into sync with the patient-physically and almost psychically. It's like I'm touching each organ through my finger tips." Dr. Rosenblatt placed his finger on my right wrist as he'd done many times in the office, but never before at the pier. "Is it hot or cold? How about your intestine," he said pressing with his index finger. "Yours is almost always hot because of all the coffee you drink.