Perception of Patient ID stability

[Kathryn Ellen Madono]

Hi all,

Just came back from a zazen retreat. The zen master says a different thing to the same question from different students. So take the following with a grain of salt. It is a reply to his perception of the preoccupations that I present to him as well as a general philosophical statement relevant to homeopathic prescription.

I am thinking of the second prescription. I was telling him that I want too much to be understood. (I want the patient to follow my directions for the right reasons, I want my questions to be understood, etc.) Too much ego involvement in that point. He often answers my self description with a reply such as "I don't know anything about that. It's your business." But this time he came back with a strong "That's basically not good. "

Behind this response, you should understand that according his teachings no one should be able to understand you including yourself. He says, ask yourself from moment to moment "who is this? If you don't know, you are getting somewhere." Those are not his word, but the jist of much discussion.

His reply to my question was a hint as to what I can do you do about this kind of obsession (the need to be understood and to understand). "You need to treat every person you meet as if they were a stranger you were meeting for the first time. So when you see your senile father-in-law (who can't remember what he said a half an hour ago but can remember details of his childhood and of course is not the same person from moment to moment because he is fading between now and 80 years ago) or your husband who you believe is a stable entity, you need to interact with them both as though you were meeting them for the first time, as strangers. You have no preconceptions based on your previous analysis.

(Note at the same time, the zen master remembers every detail from interchanges with students years ago. He forgets the analysis, but remembers to facts.)

What a challenge. Very upsetting for someone who is preoccupied with trying to come up with a remedy, an analysis, a treatment plan, a fixed image of the px. But also very useful.

This teaching is basic to how to meet the patient as well. From meeting to meeting assume that they are a totally different person. Of course, we homeopaths come to the second meeting armed with a pile of notes on the patient, so we think we are systematically checking off where they have changed (sx per sx). But buried underneath that appearance is the unspoken assumption that the patient's ID is the disease state (the remedy) that we have given or some version of it. This perception is especially dominant when the px is reacting to the remedy in a curative fashion. We subconsciously think "I am sure that I have "the right remedy" and therefore a grasp of "who this is"". This is where my big mistake arises. It may be a problem for others as well.

Actually, from moment to moment, I myself am a string of pearls. One different obsession to another set. One self to another. Of course, so is the patient. Is it a wonder that there are many different roads to a cure?

I am working on perceiving this string of pearls. Eventually it may totally vanish. I think it will extend to perception of the patient as well. Wish me well.

Blessings,
Ellen

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Rosemary C. Hyde, Ph.D.]

"The string of peearls." What a lovely image for the complexity that is all
of us. And what a great image to keep tucked away as a way of defining our
"totality." which so often reveals itself little bit by little bit, yet is
indeed a totality. Only when we see the string and not just an individual
pearl do we actually see the remedy picture that the person needs....

Thanks, Ellen

Rosemary

[Kathryn Ellen Madono]

Hi Rosemary,
Thanks for your reply.
The zen master says there is no string. And there are no pearls. I'm not there yet. Still looking for the remedy. But I have a feeling that if I could communicate to him what looking for a remedy means, he would also agree that for most of us there is a remedy, of the moment. Contradiction seems to be of the essence.
Blessings,
Ellen