The Mad Monk Manifesto. Yun Rou

a series of townhouses that looked like they belonged in Beverly Hills. Because we were honored foreign guests, the mayor gave us one of these townhouses to use during our stay. I was astonished by the marble floors, the Western toilets, the chandeliers, granite countertops, and modern appliances.

      On the second day of our visit, while having wonderful Bamboo County Clean Scent Green Tea served to us in traditional fashion, a sixteen-year-old boy was ushered into the clinic. He had just suffered from a motorbike accident. He was sweating and pale, and his arm was dangling at his side. Bones protruded from his arm, clear evidence of compound fractures. The bonesetter immediately inserted a few acupuncture needles. The moment they were in, the boy stopped trembling, and his breathing slowed. Relaxed, he thanked the bonesetter for stopping his pain. At that point, the bonesetter sat with the boy’s arm in his lap and began to play his fingertips up and down along the boy’s arm as if it were a musical instrument. I asked my master what he was doing.

      “Feeling the bones, of course.”

      “I’d like to see an x-ray,” interrupted another of my master’s students, a medical doctor from Florida.

      The bonesetter smiled, said an x-ray wasn’t necessary, but agreed to do one anyway.

      The picture showed not only compound fractures but a myriad of other smaller cracks, with numerous bits of bone floating about. The boy hadn’t merely fallen off his bike; a car or truck had run over his arm, crushing it.

      “Big surgery,” my doctor friend said. “Lots of pins. Long recovery. That arm will never be the same.”

      The bonesetter jiggled the acupuncture needles and returned to work. He continued working the boy’s flesh, pressing here, pulling there, his eyes closed, his concentration trancelike. We all watched silently as the protruding bones, lightly swabbed with antiseptic, slipped back into place. After half an hour, the arm appeared normal. A lot of the initial puffiness was gone and the patient was obviously far more comfortable. The bonesetter wrapped the arm in gauze and then applied a mustard-colored plaster. He then gave the boy extensive instructions, which my master translated.

      “This plaster cast will not dry but will seep into the bones through the skin and help them heal. After three days, the boy is to take it off and rewrap it with fresh bandages and the second bag of herbs, which will dry harder and keep everything in place as it heals. There is a third bag of plaster for him to use in a final cast for an additional two weeks.”

      “A wet cast,” the Florida doctor muttered. “How can that work? I’d like to see another x-ray.”

      Again, the bonesetter willingly led the boy to the x-ray machine. When we examined the images of his work, we were all stunned. The bones were so perfectly aligned that only the faintest lines revealed the breaks. We compared the before and after films. Even the small fragments of bone had been eased back into place.

      “This puts anything we can do to shame,” my doctor friend declared. “We’d have used pins, general anesthesia, antibiotics, sutures, and more. And to think, this is a vanishing art.”

      “One of many,” my master said sadly.

      Greed rather than compassion has become the primary motivator in our health care system. Physicians and other healthcare providers must remember they are in service, not in business. They deserve our respect, and often our gratitude, but not mansions and yachts. They are primarily mechanics whom we pay to fix what is broken, and in most countries, are treated as such. How were they crowned the High Priests of American Society and who thinks they should be? Their own lobby, that’s who. Adversarial, lordly, and condescending phrases such as “against medical advice,” “patient compliance,” and “take as directed” have no place in the cooperative dance that medical care must become. Commanding rather than convincing patients, physicians who use such words appear more interested in power and profit than healing, more driven by ego than humanity. Medical care is a right. It must be a mandate of government and community. Assuming the leading role in fostering our own good health, rather than relying primarily on others to do so for us, is a key step in rectifying our body/mind. A healthy lifestyle and a self-reliant attitude are our best hedges against the degenerative diseases associated with aging. We have the right for our physician’s undivided attention during an office visit, and to leave that visit with our questions answered. Let’s remind our insurance agents and healthcare providers—kindly but firmly—that we are the customers, and the customer is king.

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