The following is an excerpt of the speech I gave at the Yo San University graduation ceremony on March 15, 2009. Although this was written for a graduating class of future Traditional Chinese Medicine healers, the experience of love applies to all of us. Enjoy!

Love. Love is what binds us together. Love inspires, empowers and heals. In our medicine, love is core to why we do what we do. It is what brings us together here to this moment, to this place. It is what makes our medicine seem so miraculous. Love energizes the human spirit and taps into its infinite capacity to heal and be healed.

Without love, we acupuncturists are simply technicians that stick cold, sharp needles into people. There is a difference between a needle inserted with love and one without care. The needles alone are just objects. It is our spirit and our love that makes our needles sing.

Without love, everything that we do has no meaning. It becomes mundane, routine and directionless. It doesn’t matter what we are doing. But when we are doing it with love, it adds that extra sparkle. That extra pizazz. Like how David Cohen passionately talks about the Shen in our principles and theories class. Or how Wing puts that extra Shablam! into his needles.

Love is a matter of intention. It is present everywhere we are – in every single moment of every single day in the darkest of shadows and in the brightest of light. It is accessible to us simply when we become open to it. We all have experienced it in moments when we are fully present and open with the world around us. This is because love is a natural part of who we are

One of the biggest challenges in our lives is how we can maintain that openness to love from moment to moment. It is a daily practice that, at the deepest level, is about living with an open heart. It requires us not just to be fully present and open when we are in the treatment room. It requires us to be fully present and open in all areas of our lives – from when we wake up in the morning to how we eat and from how we tie our shoes to how we relate to everyone and everything. It is all in the small details of life and how we choose to live it.

To love is a beautiful, miraculous gift we can readily give to anyone at anytime. It is also an incredible gift to receive. Our practice starts with us — by loving ourselves and caring for what we are doing and how we are doing it.

Keep your heart open and keep allowing the love of your heart to flow and permeate into everything you do. Starting with each and every one of us, this is how we can change the world.