What is Shen (or Spirit) in Chinese Medicine?
We hear this saying all the time, but what does it really mean?
Most people use this phrase to describe the three parts of human health that shape and balance the whole. Mind is pretty clear; and so is body; but what exactly do we mean when we include spirit as a part of the trifecta of human health?
The term “spirit” is a bit more ambiguous than “mind” and “body.” It’s intangible, it’s energetic, and it can mean different things to different people.
Plus, when it comes to Western views on health, it’s only recently that we’ve started including mental and emotional health in the bigger picture of physical health. Spiritual health, or the role of spirit, is certainly on the cutting-edge of how we understand whole body health.
By contrast, Eastern medicine includes spirit or, roughly translated, “shen” in ancient Chinese medical texts that date back 3,000 years or more. This notion of “spirit” is understood to play as much of a role in overall health as our mental, physical, and emotional components. In fact, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has such an advanced understanding of these energetic levels of health, that it has 3 different terms for the 3 “treasures” of human life–– shen, is just one of them.
