In the Middle Length sayings of Gotama Buddha, it has been
recorded:
"The Buddha is like a physician in that He is able to
heal sickness of the defilements. The dhamma is like a rightly applied
medicine, and the Sangha with the defilements cured, are like people restored
to health by the medicine."
Again, in another passage it is said : Of all the medicine
in the world, Manifold and various There is none like the medicine of Dhamma
Therefore, O monks, drink of this. The Buddha was a humanist who strove to
soothe the ills of life with his dhamma therapy, as a Physician He possessed
clairvoyance and He was able to see suffering man, and identify the causes of
facets of suffering. The medicines He dispensed to provide mental relief in
states of unsatisfactoriness were, His Noble dharma, which was a form of psychotherapy.
DHAMMA AS MEDICINE
The Buddha, the physician par excellence, administers
medicine in the form of dhamma to the mentally and spiritually sick, for their
recovery from ills by which they suffer throughout their lives. The dhamma is
medicine and considered a colorful sugar-coated medicinal pill. The fact has
been brought to light in a discourse in the Majjhima Nikaya. As given there, undertaking of the dhamma is
conducive to happiness both in the present as well as in the future. The Buddha
illustrating the fact says, "The dhamma is as if honey, oil and sugar had
been mixed together and given to a man suffering from dysentery. While he
drinks he might be pleased with its color, scent and taste. After having drunk
it, he would get his illness cured. Therefore the undertaking of the dhamma is
pleasant now and it ripens in the future as pleasant and with its shining and
beaming radiance it surpassed other doctrines whatsoever that are preached by
ordinary recluses and brahmins."
In another instance, addressing Sunakkhatta, a Licchavi, He
explains the present predicament of man and how he should achieve his welfare
in this world and in the next In the course of the explanation a simile of a
man wounded by a dart and a surgeon attending on him has been drawn. At the
end, identifying the different constituents of the simile. He says that he
spoke in terms of a simile in order to convey the following meanings:
"Wound is a term for the six internal bases. 'Poisonous' humour (septicaemia)
is a term for ignorance. 'Dart' is a term for craving. 'Probe' is a term for
mindfulness. 'Knife' is a term for Noble wisdom. 'Surgeon' is a term for the
Tathagata, the Accomplished One, the Fully Enlightened One."
Comparatively, mental health is far more important than
physical health. Mental health contributes to physical health and vice versa.
Wrong perception makes a person sick in mind. When once Nakulapita, the
householder, said to the Buddha that he was aged, advanced in years, old and
had lived out his span of life, sick and was always ailing, the Buddha told him
that if a person who took material form, feeling, peception, conformations and
consciousness as substantial he would be sick in mind. Although physical health
had begun to deteriorate in old age one could maintain mental health though
correct and right perception."
The fact that mental hygiene is desirability is highlighted
in another discourse. Addressing the monks the Buddha says: "There are to
be seen beings who can admit freedom from suffering from bodily disease for one
year, for two years, for three years, four, five, for ten, twenty, thirty,
forty and fifty years. But monks; those beings are hard to find in the world,
who can admit freedom from mental disease even for one moment save only those
in whom the defilements have been destroyed."
In the very first sermon at Isipathana (modern Sarnath) The Turning of the Wheel of Law', the Buddha's expounding of the Four Noble Truths can be understood on the analogy of a pathological analysis of affliction and cure. Therein the present predicament of man is analysed in the First Noble Truth with its physical, psychological and psycho-physical aspects, showing how those afflictions are woven into the fabric of our existence.
In the Second Truth, the root cause of the present
affliction, which exists in the form of desire, is broken down into its
constituents for the better understanding of that cause. In the Third, the
state of being redeemed from afflictions by regaining health is described,
which is nothing but Nibbana, the Supreme Bliss. In the Fourth Truth, the
remedy to ameliorate the affliction is prescribed by way of the Noble Eightfold
Path. It is quite clear that the theory of causality also applies to the
analysis of suffering, the cause of suffering and its appeasement and path.
This preached by: Ven Dr. Pathegama Gnanarama Maha Thera PhD
