illness

i came across this text [1]:

Be certain that all that appears is naturally manifest [in the mind],

Like the images in a mirror which [also] appear naturally.

[…]

There are no phenomena extraneous to those that originate from the mind.

so i asked myself: if a person has an illness, let’s say a tumor, is that caused by that person’s mind?

how does buddhism explain illness?

:: what is illness ::

our experience of the world, of the body, of the illness, are inseparable from the mental processes through which we perceive and interpret them.

buddhism doesn’t simply state that negative thoughts originate illness.

illness can have multiple causes.

our body belongs to a conditioned world (saṅkhāra): it is born, it changes, it deteriorates, it dies. the body is subject to many causes: biological, environmental, accidental, behavioural, etc.

to be alive means being subject to illnesses.

:: does everything originate from the mind? ::

there’s the expression manopubbaṅgamā dhammā = the mind precedes phenomena.

as i understand it, in that context dhammā doesn’t mean all phenomena. it is more about experience and action:

what we think conditions what we experience.

when we’re sick, we may experience pain and fear, which in turn trigger thoughts like “why me?” and subsequent despair. the initial pain/fear and the final despair have different causes: the illness and our thoughts, respectively.

buddhism is about the latter, because we can’t control being sick, but we can control how our mind perceives the illness.

:: the second arrow ::

there’s a very good metaphor: a person who is hit by an arrow experiences pain. but if they get hit by a second arrow, in the wound made by the first one, the pain will be enormously greater.

like an arrow, an illness may cause pain or fear. we should try to avoid a second arrow of negative thoughts shot by our mind, which would cause despair.

buddhism doesn’t promise to eliminate the first arrow, but teaches to avoid shooting the second one.

:: what about karma? ::

in buddhism, karma doesn’t mean bad things happen to us because we were bad (and vice-versa). rather, karma is about intentional actions and their consequences.

moreover, not everything is explained through karma. the causes of an illness can be multiple, and include things over which we have no control.

so, an illness is not a punishment, but a natural consequence of being born, which is part of the concept of dhukka (often translated as suffering, but it’s actually a feeling of unsatisfaction).

:: my understanding ::

we are not necessarily responsible for our illnesses, but we should observe what happens in our mind when the body gets sick.

by doing that, we would avoid the additional suffering caused by our worries and fears.

~~ notes ~~

[1] (Gyurme Dorje, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, ch. “observations related to examining the nature of mind”, Penguin Books, 2005)