Yakudō: The Way of Medicine.
"Medicine isn’t something that I have. It’s a path that I walk…”
My teacher Ashley casually dropped this incredible banger in one of our recent integration circles.
Something has been stirring deep inside me lately...
The singularity between martial arts, medicine work, and self-mastery is revealing itself. The grand unifying equation is slowly surfacing.
薬道 Yakudō: The Way of Medicine.
A neologism I created last week, combining the Japanese word for ‘medicine’ with the classic suffix ‘-dō’ meaning Way, from the ancient Taoist Dao.
You’ve seen this combination before in more popular terms like: budo (The Martial Way), bushido (The Way of the Warrior), kendo (The Way of the Sword), judo (The Gentle Way), cha dao (The Way of Tea).
The Great Way.
Translated literally, the -dō suffix refers to a way, path, course, or road in a literal sense.
But true to its Taoist roots, -dō/Dao refers to the Great Way, the ordering principle underlying all things. It’s not a thing, it’s an unfolding pattern. The flow of Life. The ordering of Reality. It is a verb. A process.
The term touches two levels simultaneously: the cosmic (ground of being), and the practical (how to walk, talk, act, cultivate yourself).
When you add -dō onto something, you’re saying, “this isn’t just a thing, this is a path of self-cultivation that brings you into deeper alignment with the Great Way.”
"Once you know the Way broadly, you can see it in all things." — Miyamoto Musashi
The Way of Medicine.
I’ve written previously on Medicine as Sacred Practice. You are an evolving, dynamic being. Health, wholeness, and self-mastery are not static milestones to be reached and then discarded.
Eric Brown
We can get esoteric and say that The Way of Medicine is the art and discipline of becoming medicinal.
Through disciplined practice and technical study, you become a medicinal force in people’s lives. You refine your ethical standards, increase your technical skills, reinforce your commitment, master your passions, and become someone whose mere presence is healing.
You radiate joy, equanimity, courage, passion, and sacred purpose—and people regulate themselves into deeper alignment with the Great Way through you.
Master Plant Diets & Traditional Healers.
This is the part where we get extremely literal about Medicine as Mastery Path...
Eric Brown
I wrote an introduction to master plant diets in my Marosa recap. Master plant diets are the highest healing art of the Shipibo-Conibo people:
"A master plant diet is a complex and rigorous discipline in which a connection between the dieter and plant spirit is made and nurtured. The master plant transmits guidance, healing, teachings, and energy (medicinal or otherwise) to the dieter.”
When you diet a master plant, you attain and maintain an energetic imprint of the medicinal energy of that plant. That connection—the medicinal force—lives inside of you.
You become a living steward of medicinal energy.
When you sit down in front of a curandero and they sing their icaro to you, they are accessing the medicinal energy of the plant(s) they have dieted that are most appropriate to treat the problem you have, and together—healer and plant—they begin a surgical process of cleaning you out.
To give you a snapshot, here's what we've helped people work on over just the last month here:
- Process of individuation
- Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) repair and recovery
- Chronic fatigue syndrome
- Treatment-resistant depression
- Ritualistic childhood sexual abuse
- Every flavour of sadness, grief, anger, jealousy, rage, despair, lack of confidence
Curanderos are quite literally living, walking, breathing apothecaries of master plant medicines.
This is one of the most sophisticated and incredible technologies humans have ever discovered and refined in the history of this planet.
There is a challenge, however. This energy is delicate.
It must be maintained, nurtured, cultivated, and, like all plants, kept in an environment that is conducive to its growth.
But what then, if the environment this energy lives in is inside your own mind-body-spirit complex?
Recreational drugs, alcohol, junk food, toxic emotions, unaligned behaviours, addictions, pornography. All of these are harmful to the medicinal energy of the plants, and you can damage or lose the connection you have established by engaging in them.
The deeper you go into the Way of Medicine, the greater the degree of Self-Mastery it demands of you.
The Way of Medicine is a fierce undertaking. It is—very literally—a martial art. An ancient discipline and healing practice. A complete path. It is responsibility and stewardship. Ethics and integrity. Health and wholeness.
薬道場 Yakudōjō: Place of the Medicine Way.
Here's the best part...
There is one other famous Japanese suffix we can riff with: '-jo' (place/field/ground).
You recognize this from the classic ‘dōjō’ – literally ‘Place of the Way’. The dojo is the hall, the building, the temple, the training ground for disciples of the Way.
Academies, schools, arenas, monasteries, and temples—places in the world singularly focused on cultivating certain skillsets or attitudes are extremely helpful, and oftentimes necessary for the discipline to thrive and survive.
So from our Way of Medicine we get the Yakudojo: Place of the Medicine Way.
As I’ve pointed out before, Kumankaya comes close to this. Part university, part hospital, part monastery, part temple.
Eric Brown
The place of the way of medicine.
I feel a fierce calling to explore this idea in greater depth. I hope these early off-the-cuff notes landed. More to come.
YAKUDŌ: THE WAY OF MEDICINE.
With love,
EB. 🐉