What is a tree, or disease, by any other name?




My last fellow, in retinal diseases, came up to me one day and asked me about a diagnosis. She was so excited. It was her second day on the service, and the first day with me staffing her in clinic. She couldn't wait to present me with a detailed, and clear description of the pathology at hand, "there is this punched out lesion involving the outer segments of the retina and choriocapillaris, with pigmented edges, free of infiltrates.I just don't know what it is?"

Well, what would you do? Would you give her the answer? 

"Look, I am going to tell you what it is, but before I do, I want you to be present with this moment, and really enjoy it for what it is."

It's that moment, of wonder, before you've labelled something, that you really see it for what it is. Once you give it a name, which is helpful for talking about it, and in medicine billing for seeing it, you never see it the same way again. You just glance over it. It's like the classic zen teaching when a child comes to her father about this lovely colorful creature she was captivated by singing a beautiful melody - once her father told her it was a bird, she never really saw that bird in the same wonder again - she only saw the symbol.  

It's the same in the practice of medicine, because medicine is life. Once we label something we never see it the same way again. As we get older, we live in a world of symbols - letter, numbers, images - all  maya (or illusion), one step away from what really is.

Well, the fellow came back to me a few months later, and being on the energetic side and I gave her a simple task. Today, I want you to go outside after clinic, leave your phone at home, and any other digital devices you have, and go find a tree. Then, I want you to sit underneath it for an hour and experience the tree. Not the symbol. but what the tree really is. Feel its bark, its cool shade, the smell of its leaves (the Japanese call this forest bathing) and then really experience it. Sit there long enough, and when you become part of the environment, the animals will see you as part of nature, which you really are, and they will come up close to you (like the butterfly in the image above when I was sitting under a tree), and the tree will no longer be a tree - there will be no more symbols, or labels, as you will have become life itself. 

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