A Buddhist Perspective
on Health and Happiness
Today there is enormous interest in all issues relating to health. There has been an explosion of health clubs, gyms and alternative therapies because people know how important health is to their experience of happiness. Everyone understands that to be effective at work and at home, to enjoy our leisure and our spiritual life we must be healthy.
All of us experience pain and discomfort all the time to varying degrees. Even when we are sitting in a chair we have discomfort after a while. Maybe our home or office is not air-conditioned. That will certainly make us uncomfortable. We have back and neck problems because of hours spent at a computer. Maybe a sporting activity has caused some imbalance in the body bringing pain.
Even though we have more clinics, hospitals, therapies and specialists to help us there has not been a corresponding decrease in our physical suffering or problems. In fact people seem to be getting more ill, more often. More and more people take sick days from work. There are new diseases that were unheard of years ago- Aids, Chronic Fatigue syndrome, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, Mad Cow Disease and many others.
Although new treatments have been devised for old and new illnesses their effects are uncertain. Sometimes the side effects of drugs can be worse that the original symptoms. Kava Kava was withdrawn from the shelves in Health Food stores because of uncertainty over the side effects. Yet people are willing to take any medicine or use any treatment because they are desperate to get well.
There are many people now who understand that only the symptoms of disease are being treated. We get better for a while and then sickness returns. For example we can take aspirin for a pain. That pain might disappear for a while but often returns. Aspirin does not cure pain permanently because it does not destroy the root or cause of the pain. If the root cause of a sickness is not destroyed then we will continue to get sick.
Buddha said the root of all sickness is in the mind. If we have poisonous roots in our mind they will eventually produce mental and physical illness; stress, depression, anxiety etc. Aches, pains, stomach disorders, skin diseases and cancer all arise from poison in our mind. Buddha encourages us to look at the relationship between our mental activity and our health.
What is it that makes our minds unbalanced and that leads to imbalance in our bodies, resulting in sickness? It is what Buddha called our delusions; negative states of mind such as anger, attachment and jealousy.
We can see how attachment can harm us with respect to food. Because for us food is a real source of happiness we eat too much and eat the wrong things. We eat because the food looks, smells and tastes good, not because it is good for our bodies. Sometimes a craving sets in that cannot be satisfied no matter how much we eat. Our attachment leads us to seek different , stronger and more exotic foods all the time. We pile on weight and and various ailments begin to appear. We see some unfortunate people who become housebound and completely immobile because of excess weight. Food is literally killing them.
If we live with anger in our mind, our heart experiences surges of adrenalin regularly. This will not only damage the heart, but affect every organ in the body eventually. It may take many years for the effect of anger to be felt physically but eventually our body will take the toll.
The only way to be truly healthy is to remove this inner poison of the delusions from our mind. Buddha’s teachings are called ‘Medicine for the mind” because they explain methods for destroying delusions and cultivating instead minds of loving kindness, compassion and wisdom which bring inner peace and balance to our mind and our body.
Through the practice of meditation we apply the medicine to our mind and destroy the root of our suffering. Meditation is the path to mental and physical health and happiness for everyone, Buddhists and non-Buddhists. It is simple to learn and even ten minutes of meditation a day can have very beneficial effects on our health and general well-being.
In his book “ Transform Your Life”, Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso writes:
“ When the turbulence of distracting thoughts
subsides and our mind becomes still, a deep happiness and contentment
naturally arises from within. This feeling of contentment and well-being
helps us to cope with the busyness and difficulties of daily life. So
much of the stress and tension we normally experience comes from our mind
and many problems we experience such as ill health are caused or aggravated
by this stress. Just by doing ten or fifteen minutes breathing meditation
a day we are able to reduce this stress.”
Visit www.MeditationInSoCal.org.