In prior articles, I discussed the function of the Small Intestine, known as, "The Official Who Separates the Pure from the Impure," (Acupuncture Today, July 2004) and several specific points on this meridian (Acupuncture Today, August 2004). In the first part of this two-part series, I will review the three levels of the Small Intestine, and discuss how to diagnose a Fire Imbalance.

A Brief Review

The Heart, also known as the Supreme Controller, is the blood sibling to the Small Intestine Official. The early Chinese considered their sovereign to be an expression of the Divine on earth – a truly inspired and enlightened leader. As such, this Official is best equipped to rule over the Kingdom of the body/mind/spirit. He or she must rule with love, compassion, fairness, and wisdom, lest self-interest and desire for personal gain be placed before the needs of the people.

Only that which is pure and good must be allowed to enter the inner sanctum of the Heart. Thus, the Small Intestine, acting like a good and able secretary, sifts through the multiplicity of impressions, demands, questions, complaints, and negativity aimed at the Supreme Controller, and passes on only that which is truly important and essential, discarding the rest. Then, the utterances, proclamations, and leadership of the sovereign are truly aligned with the good. In the Kingdom of the body/mind/spirit, the welfare of all of the Officials, considered to be metaphorical ministers of an imperial court, depends, in large part, on the Supreme Controller's purity, health, and well being.

Three Levels of the Small Intestine

Physical

This Official is the also called the "transformer of qi" and is also known as the "Alchemist." Its physical job is to separate what is pure from that which is impure from the food and drink we consume. It allows the good to be absorbed while sending the bad (or impure) to the Colon to be eliminated. To be sure, the state of the Small Intestine has a profound effect on every other Official, for if its function is failing, every Official will become riddled with pollution.

Mental

If we were to absorb sufficient ne-gativity at the mental level, our mind would become dirty as well, cynical and pessimistic, seeing the "bad side" of any situation. A sick Small Intestine can make us naïve and gullible, mistaking bad ideas for good ones. The mind loses its agility and cleverness if it is unable to sort. It becomes dark, confused, overwhelmed and muddled, unable to figure things out, or prioritize. A healthy Small Intestine, even in the midst of an impure environment, will still find a way to extract what is good and discard the rest.

Spiritual

The spirit level, if polluted, would lose its ability to feel love and compassion, towards oneself and others. Instead, we would tend to feel hatred for others, shame, disconnection, and isolation. Spiritually, with a sick Small Intestine, we might be attracted to toxic spiritual practices, accept dogma blindly, even revel in impurity. If we had a spiritual or religious practice, we might abandon it, seeing no light ahead; there would seem to be no purpose. We would tend to see only the flaws and imperfection in everything and everyone, including ourselves.

In the spiritual realm, this Official, when healthy, allows us to see the essential good in everything and everyone – to see our good and proper spiritual path in life and to know when we are, in fact, on that path. It allows us also to see the good in the spiritual paths of others – to see where we are essentially alike, as well as where we are different in our practices. Good, in this context, means what is right, appropriate, and oriented to the health and well-being of ourselves and others.

At an even deeper level, this Official helps us to separate that part of us that is pure and untainted – consciousness itself – from the processes of the body, mind and emotions, which are always in flux and change, arising and disappearing. Discovery of that part of us that is unchanging is discovering Spirit within us and in everything.

Diagnosing a Fire Imbalance

In Classical Five-Element acupuncture, we find that points used for their spiritual connotation have the greatest impact if chosen from the meridians of the patient's primary elemental imbalance, which we call the Causative Factor (AKA CF). Every person is born with, or develops early in life, a primary imbalance in one of the 5 Elements.

This is diagnosed by assessing the odor, facial color, sound of the voice, and emotion expressed by the patient. As the Small Intestine belongs to the element Fire, the Fire imbalanced patient will exhibit a scorched odor, a red or ashen gray color (best seen on the skin lateral to the eyes), the sound of either excess or lack of laughter, and emotionally either an excess or lack of joy. As the Fire element has 4 Officials within it, it must be further determined which side of Fire is in greatest need of support - the "organ side" (HT and SI) or the "function side" (PC and SJ). This is determined during the comprehensive initial examination by interacting with the patient.  

Editor's Note: Part 2 of this article will be published next month, and will dicuss the points in detail.

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