Whispering of Willows 53

By Dr. Anna Zhao

We Just returned from Taiwan, where we studied an intensive course in DNPD held by Dr. Lin Shengqin, its founder. DNPD is an innovative technique based in traditional Chinese medicine utilizing deep negative pressure drainage to help patients recover from serious illness. We studied with Dr. Lin and his master for two weeks.

DNPD technology sounds complicated, but it is actually very simple, so simple that it can be introduced in one word, that is, "subtraction" - removing unnecessary waste from the body.

The device, invented by Dr. Lin, releases blood stasis, phlegm and toxins from the body through deep negative pressure drainage. Through Dr. Lin’s many clinical cases over the years, it has been proven that DNPD is beneficial in many ways, such as by relaxing muscles, promoting blood circulation, increasing metabolism, and reducing inflammation and pain. It also regulates the balance of yin and yang in the human body, strengthening the body's immunity against pathogens and diseases.

Our training centre was in Tainan, in a neat and quiet suburb. Those low hanging old buildings may make you feel drawn back a few decades in time.

Dr. Lin smiled and said: “This place is ideal for us to experience what subtraction is before our training even starts.”

Dr. Lin constantly emphasized to us: To have a healthy life, we must learn how to subtract things from our physical body and life. Subtraction is a wisdom, a high-level health preservation. He said that many diseases are caused by not reducing what should be reduced, not giving up what should be given up. According to him, only when we remove those unnecessary burdens in our life can we have a relaxed and sound body and mind. Subtracting the unnecessary “necessities” we fill our lives with, to add to life.

We stayed in a tranquil temple for the first few nights. There was almost nothing in the room except a bed. Compared to a luxurious hotel, is this a subtraction?

We got up at 3:30 in the morning to do morning lessons and went to bed as early as 9 o'clock in the evening. Compared with the noisy metropolises we are familiar with, is this a subtraction?

Sorry, no wifi in the temple. In the morning, all you can hear are the sounds of bells and the chirping of birds. No computers, no mobile phones, and no TVs were seen anywhere. When Dr. Daniel went out shopping, no online maps, he had to take a paper map for his navigation. Is this a subtraction?

Two meals a day, only eating organic vegetables and fruit, plus lots of herbal tea. Is this also a subtraction?

Besides training, we also had another purpose for going to Taiwan, which was to pay homage to the tomb of Mr. Peter Faun. Peter was a reputable Buddhist layman. He was my first spiritual teacher and the one who predicted that I would become a Chinese Medicine doctor someday. When he lived in Vancouver, he and I were close friends. From the time he passed away in Taiwan, almost 20 years had slipped by. For years, I have wanted to pay homage at his tomb to express my gratitude to him, but for various reasons, I have never had the opportunity to do so.

Dr. Lin personally drove us to a remote temple in Tainan where we went to pay our respects at Peter’s tomb. Not only did Dr. Lin get a lot of fresh fruit for us to take, he even accompanied us to a lotus villa where we picked some newly bloomed lotus flowers for Peter. How did Dr. Lin know that Peter's favorite flower was the lotus?

"The reason why modern people are so unhappy is because they have too many distracting thoughts.” Said Peter to me on various occasions, “You know: 'If a single thought is pure, even a lotus flower blooms'."

Having fewer distracting thoughts, is this also a subtraction?

In his life, Peter made great achievements in literature, art, religion and other fields, while living a low-key, solitary and humble life. Is this also a kind of subtraction?

When we returned to Vancouver, the first thing I did was to visit our clinic’s garden. After only two weeks of absence, I was stunned to see the roses in the yard were almost all in full blossom, red, yellow, purple and orange blooming in a lively manner. Dr. Ali was busy in the garden, he didn't know I was standing in the distance watching him quietly. Dr. Ali seemed to have a special eye for the plants. Many times, I watched him kneeling on the ground watering, fertilizing, turning the soil, changing pots, busy and happy like a bee. It is as if he had forgotten everything else in the world except these darling flowers and plants under his care.

Mahatma Gandhi once said: "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves."

So, when a person is completely immersed in his gardening and oblivious about worldly affairs, is this also a kind of subtraction, and perhaps even – a blessing?

While counter-intuitive, we add to our lives by subtraction – who would have thought this?