Health and Healing
More than any other theme I have written about in this column, the theme of health and healing immediately challenged me. I think this is because the Teaching of the Buddha in regard to sickness and health, like so many other aspects of His teaching is unique. In many ways, the teaching of the Buddha runs counter to the popular and common beliefs and aspirations of ordinary people. While it is natural for people to want to be healthy and to seek relief from sickness when it occurs, it is surely too much to expect to be healthy all the time. Expecting to be healthy all the time is like expecting to be always young or to live for ever.
Today, we are encouraged to aspire to such impossible goals, but the Buddha’s teaching is quite different. Coming face to face with old age, sickness and death prompted Prince Siddhartha to give up the household life in order to search for a solution to the suffering of the world. The nature of this suffering is also very clear. The Buddha taught that there are four forms of physical suffering which are more or less inevitable: birth, sickness, old age and death. So according to the Buddha, we are all liable to be ill some time or other. The actual goal of the Buddhas Teaching is to overcome the suffering of old age, sickness and death, but not by staying for ever young and healthy and avoiding death. The Buddha was known as the King of physicians, but the treatment he prescribed was for a deeper and more persistent illness than mere physical suffering.
Indeed, sickness and death were common place occurrences during the life of the Buddha just as they are today. We only need to look through the early Buddhist texts to see that ordinary and extra ordinary lay men and women often became ill. Not only that, but monks and even Arhats fell ill. The Buddha also experienced physical pain and illness. So what does this mean? Did the Buddha have nothing to say about coping with illness, restoring health and prolonging life? Not exactly; the Buddha described many means for coping with sickness. They begin with the most basic and proceed to the most sublime.
The Buddha frequently talked about the care and treatment of the sick. He set an example by personally caring for the sick. He described the characteristics - good and bad - of a patient and a care giver. He encouraged the use of appropriate medicines and even allowed for the use of magical incantations. Above all, the Buddha emphasised the importance of kindness and compassion in caring for the sick. But these instructions were not the best of the Buddha’s advice regarding the healing of the sick.
When we take a closer look at the instances of sickness, and subsequent cure or death found in the Buddhist texts, we find that the best of medicines is the Dharma itself. The Buddha and other senior monks often treated the sick with discourses on the Dharma. They taught the importance of mindfulness. They reminded the sick of the truth of impermanence and encouraged the recollection of the thirty-seven factors conducive to Enlightenment. The effects of these instructions were remarkable. Sometimes, they lead to the complete cure of the patient, but even when they did not, and the patient succumbed, he or she was reborn in more fortunate circumstances.
Whatever the outcome of the treatment, one thing is clear, the patients mind was calmed, his anxieties were eased, and his virtues were strengthened. In fact, the whole point of the Buddha’s therapeutic method was the healing of the mind and not the body. While the physical sufferings of old age sickness and death which are the result of past karma are inevitable, the mental sufferings of attachment, aversion, remorse and grief are entirely avoidable. All that is required is that the mind be directed to the Dharma and that the truth be understood.
The Buddha said that the suffering of a person whose mind is not free is doubled like the suffering of a man struck by two arrows. The first arrow - the physical suffering of sickness - is redoubled by the mental suffering of clinging and confusion about the real state of things. If we can face the suffering of sickness with a calm and clear mind inclined to the Dharma, then the suffering of sickness can be halved. The arrow of mental suffering can be avoided. The Buddha provided a superb example of coping with the pain of illness. The Buddha experienced agonising pain when wounded in the foot by the bolder cast by Devadatta and he suffered severe illness late in His life, but He bore the pain mindfully, His mind clear and calm. In our desire to be healthy, let us not forget the reality of the human condition. Let us look for the real answers; let us free our minds from impurities, the real cure prescribed by the Buddha, the King of Physicians.