Author: agcm
Last saved by: Flavio PAPADIA

WRITINGS ON THE THERAPEUTIC ART
(IV)
Haruchika Noguchi
There is the kind of body that dies from a cold, and the kind of body that passes smoothly through pneumonia. It is not a matter of a cold being a light or pneumonia a grave illness. It is a question of the body. You should look first at the body. Observe the body and come to know the inner workings that maintain it. In addition, sense what is in the other's heart, see what moves within what is not moving, and come to know what is changing within a state of illness that does not change.
It is only with the sensing of ki that therapy can begin. When one comes to be able to discern, by means of ki , invisible ki, there may be therapeutic treatment. When ki has withered (ki-gare) or is fled (ki-saru), there is no recovery, which is why the ancients spoke punningly of becoming filthy (kegare) and rotten (kusaru). When ki is waxing, there is recovery. If one senses ki, one can know for oneself the body''s inner workings.
Again, one understands for oneself the things of the psyche. If one observes only the surface activity of the psyche, one will not understand these things. One looks at the workings of latent ideas. One reads the underlying activity of suppressed feelings. Even the slightest outward expression of an emotion is a reflection of this activity. With someone who grows angry, the cause of his anger is already there within him. The cause of tears coming to someone's eye when he sees the moon is there within him before he sees the moon. Behind emotion that is excessive, there is sexual desire. Entertaining a terrible fear of sickness or overwhelming rage at what someone has done is an activity that gives vent to this repressed desire. It is needless to say that if one seizes only on the outward expression of things, the fear will not go away, the anger will not abate, however many sermons you address to the conscious intellect of the person in question.
The therapist observes the body and senses ki ; through sensing ki, he comes to be acquainted with the psyche ; through his knowledge of the psyche, he senses the living activity of human beings ; and he is able to sense things that pertain to the body and things that pertain to the psyche as manifestations of this living activity. Only in this way is he able, from observing someone's posture, to know the inner workings that maintain the body' s balance, to sense within a single complaint all the various emotions, from observing that are being suppressed, and to recognise changes in physiological condition from the response of someone's body to a single application of pressure.
Someone who is able to see the whole person simply by looking at one of that person's fingers is someone who is able to practice the therapeutic art aright. Therefore, when he observes what can be seen, he sees what cannot be seen. Someone who sees only what can be seen when he looks at what is visible is not able to provide therapy.
In following the path of healing, the therapist observes everything from manners and customs, climate and weather, to changes in air pressure and the elements - rain, wind, sun and snow. Everything is the object of his observation, from the humidity and temperature of the air to the way someone wears clothes, shaves his beard and combs his hair. He does not stop at the observation of these things, but sees moving within them the inner activity of human beings.
He does not see as one and the same a retired person's stomach problem and a working person' s stomach problem, or a greengrocer' s diarrhoea and a civil servant' s diarrhoea, or a stomach–ache on a rainy day and a stomach–ache on a fine day. Nor will he see as one and the same indigestion in an old person and indigestion in an infant, but equally he will not see a racing heart and stomach cramps as separate phenomena, or the complaints of an old man and the actions of the wife who waits on him with filthy hands as unrelated, or differentiate between the nervous prostration of a student and the make-up plastered on a woman's face. He will distinguish between someone' s not sleeping and someone's thinking that he is not sleeping, as well as between being in pain and complaining of being in pain. He knows from the beginning that there is a difference in people' s sensitivity to sòhò (seitai therapy) on a rainy day and on a fine day, that the sensitivity of response differs in people who believe in the treatment and those who don't, and that people from the south and people from the north differ in their ways of feeling.
Human beings are such that there are people who will forget their insomnia simply as a result of a Cabinet reshuffle, people for whom food loses its savour when stock-prices decline, men whose toothache grows worse because their wives don't give them an answer about something, people who get diarrhoea when it rains or who grow spirited when there is a festival, people who suffer and lose their spirits when there is inflation or deflation, and people whose spirits rise in such situations. It does not need to be said that simply focussing one' s attention on the malfunctioning of one part of someone' s body is not what providing therapy is. Nevertheless, there are people who think they are able to provide treatment by seizing on only one part of the body. They drive people to ruin and suicide by making them drink expensive ginseng, and increase the incidence of gonorrhoea by making medicines for it. One should not be without the determination to look calmly at living human beings as they are.
Observation for the sake of healing entails not observing for observation' s sake, but observing for the sake of providing therapeutic treatment. If you observe with an end other than this in mind, the contents of your observations will be different. There is no ending when for the sake of observation you pile up all sorts of observations, or when you become engrossed in details. When you indulge only in this kind of thing, the ends of therapy are not served. When you hear the sound of the wind, do not hear it as the sound of the wind ; when you hear the sound of rain, do not hear it as the sound of rain ; when the sun is shining, when it is warm or when it is cold, when it is a holiday or a Sunday, or when there has been a Cabinet reshuffle - only when you observe and sense all these things as they pertain to therapeutic treatment can you provide such treatment.
One always practices the therapeutic art in order to give guidance to people and to make them strong. One' s purpose is to awaken vitality in living. It is not to suppress sickness, but to make the best use of it so that even sickness can contribute to people' s living in a vital way. It is to this end that one observes. Observation is for the sake of giving guidance so that people come to see those things that necessarily enhance the vitality of human beings.
(to be continued)