Assumptions v. belief

Traditional Chinese Medicine makes assumptions about the world that Western culture does not.

For example:

Everything is Qi.

Qi flows freely between each of our bodies and the outer world.

Types of climatic Qi - wind, damp, cold - can enter the body and cause disorders such as common cold or headache.

A headache can be relieved by puncturing points on the toes because the head and toes share a relationship through various Qi pathways and tissue correspondences.

Each medicinal herb has an affinity for specific Qi pathways and tissues which, in part, determines its therapeutic effect.

There are many more.

It's tempting to start with the question of belief (i.e. "Do I believe Qi is real?").

That might be fine when the goal is to uncover facts and mechanisms.

But it's not a very good place to start when the goal is learning. When we make belief a gatekeeper for learning, we prematurely close ourselves off from entire systems of accumulated human thought and new vantages from which to peer at the conundrum of the world.

The question in the back of my mind when I study or write about Chinese Medicine (or any alternative framework) is "What can I learn from this about how we can live better?"

I try to start with assumptions ("For the sake of exploration, I assume _________ to be true.") and give Belief room to explore on her own.