Even Though the Body is Sick, Let Not the Mind be Sick

I don’t fall sick often nowadays, but when I do, it’s a great experience. Not that I enjoy being sick, but I learnt a lot from those sick experiences.

The most recent one is two days ago. I was down with a sore throat, flu and fever. Being unmindful, I let the disease overcome me. And it felt as if my whole being was unwell. I wanted to take MC for the next day but couldn’t without seeing a doctor. So I went to see one, unwillingly. The doctor gave me, to my surprise and shock, 5 types of medicine, all of which were cast aside on my return home. I’m not taking any of those!

The Buddha said that there’re three types of sickness (for a full version read http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/anguttara/an03-022.html ):
1. Those that can be cured, whether or not one takes medicine
2. Those that can’t be cured, whether or not one takes medicine
3. Those that can only be cured if one takes medicine

For the first and second, why bother taking any medicine?

For my case, it is the first type. So I decided not to take any of those medicines, and instead use the Dhamma medicine – prescribed by the Buddha. What I did was: keep the mind in shape and make use of the healing power of the breath to cure the disease. Keep the mind in shape means inducing the mind with wholesome qualities: good-will (Metta) and generosity (dana). Making use of the healing power of the breath is done through meditating. The result? I was happy the whole day and the sickness and inconveniences brought about by a sick body didn’t trouble me at all. When I took care of the mind, the well-being of body followed.

What I noticed was: when the body falls sick, only a certain part of it is sick, not the whole body. And in fact, when that certain part is sick, the body has its own mechanism to heal itself. I need not bother with it. I need not wish it to go away. I need not do anything in particular to cure myself. I can just let the sickness be, and let the body do its job. The body falls sick following its nature, and by its nature, it will either get better or get worse. Either way, I need not bother. One can still enjoy a great sense of well being by focusing away from that sick part of the body.

This is the third experience of falling sick that I keenly observe within the last half-year or so (there were other small occurrences, but they come and go so swiftly without me taking any particular notice).