style="font-size:15px;"> A woman in her sixties had often listened to my lectures at the Temple, but it had been some time I had seen her. When I did see her again, she was wheelchair bound, pushed to the Temple by her daughter. She did not look well. It turned out that she had just recovered from a serious illness. One day when she was buying vegetables, she had been given a fake 50-yuan note. After discovering that it was a fake, she rushed to find the peddler in the vegetable market, but he had left without a trace. Furious, the woman began to feel dizzy. She had a stroke and was hospitalized. What she ultimately lost was not only 50 yuan, but more than 10,000 yuan in medical charges.
Anger is the source of many diseases. No one likes getting angry, but living in today’s complicated society, it is inevitable that we become irritated, resentful, or even hostile because of the unpleasant things we come across.
Anger is not a good thing. Throughout history, many people have died of anger. According to the teaching of traditional Chinese medicine, anger impairs the liver, because it causes liver yang hyperactivity and makes the patient feel dizzy or even spit up blood. Sadly, many patients with heart disease or high blood pressure become angry over trivial things and finally die in an uncontrollable fury.
In fact, to get angry is to get sick. We often say that it is anger that causes illness. If we are so angry, we lose our appetite, we may have stomach troubles. If we feel fidgety or suffer from insomnia, we may develop mental anxiety. If we feel like throwing things, insulting others, or even dying, it may be a sign of liver-related liver depression. If our blood pressure rises and our heartbeat increases, we may develop high blood pressure, heart disease, or cerebrovascular diseases. If a woman gets angry easily, she may develop gynecological diseases such as mastitis and breast lumps.
What’s worse, anger also destroys our interpersonal relationship. Once, an older woman came to me saying that her husband had said very ugly things to her. I asked, “Why didn’t you answer?”
She said, “If I did, he would have become even angrier. Then both of us would be angry. Why bother doing that? Instead, I come to the Temple to relax.”
“You’ve made the right choice,” I said, “because getting angry only makes things more difficult for yourself. If you don’t get angry, anger will not find you. If you are angry with your colleagues, you won’t be able to do your work. If you get angry with your family, your life will become a mess. The Buddha teaches us several methods of self-adjustment. The first is to step away for a moment, and the second to tell ourselves that if we get angry with others, we are trapped. Finally, we should try to think of what we look like when we get angry. You have instinctively used the first method, so you’re quite enlightened.”
She was elated when she heard these words, which, though few, had filled her with joy.
7. Controlling Your Emotions
Similarly, people may fall ill because of sorrow or overexcitement. Human beings possess seven emotions, joy, anger, worry, anxiety, grief, fear, and surprise, all of which are closely linked with their internal organs. For example, extreme grief injuries the lungs, extreme fear harms the kidney, and extreme joy taxes the heart. Our health is, therefore, directly determined by our emotional state, and extreme emotions do harm to our physical and psychological health.
The Buddha says, “To follow the path of the Bodhisattva, one must be able to endure humiliations.” This indicates that we must remain clam in the face of both setbacks and heavy blows, as well as in success and joy. The Buddha teaches us to control our emotions, neither pleased by external gains nor saddened by personal losses.
Some people become nervous the moment they fall ill, turning in desperation to any doctor they can. In consequence, a minor illness develops into a major one, often as a result of misdiagnosis. Other people, dizzy with their success, immediately become outspoken and reckless, bringing disaster to themselves by hurting others or causing jealousy. Such outcomes grow out of extreme emotion and a chaotic heart. As the most crucial of all organs, if it is in trouble, the heart will fail to control the other internal and external organs, and disaster will naturally ensue.
When I was young, my teacher told me a story. Once there was a farmer whose field was beside an expanse of reeds. Since wild beasts often frequented the reeds, he always patrolled the border area between his field and the reeds with his bow and arrows, to prevent the beasts from destroying his crops.
One day, the farmer went to protect his field again, but the whole day, nothing happened. Towards evening, he was tired. Seeing that nothing would happen, he sat down at the edge of his field for a rest.
Suddenly, he noticed reed catkins flying up into the air from among the reeds. He couldn’t help wondering, “I didn’t shake the reeds and there’s no wind now, so what has made the catkins fly up? There must be some beasts moving among the reed.”
Alarmed by this thought, the farmer stood up and looked carefully into the reeds. Only after a long while did he find a tiger scampering around excitedly. Oblivious to the danger nearby, it jumped out of the reeds, exposing itself to the farmer’s sight.
“Why is the tiger so excited?” thought the farmer, “it must have captured its prey.” Hiding himself, the farmer aimed at where the tiger stood. He shot the arrow as soon as the tiger jumped out again. With a shrilling scream, it fell back among the reeds.
When he went over to see what had happened, the farmer found a tiger with an arrow in its chest and a dead river deer beneath it.
This is exactly the sort of disaster brought on when one gets carried away by extreme joy. Of course, just as extreme joy is not a good thing, neither are extreme grief, anger, anxiety, and fear. Extreme grief can impair the lungs. A Chinese idiom which refers to a state in which ones is “choked with sobs.” This serves as a good example. Why does a sobbing person easily become choked? Because his grief leads to depression, which in turn may block his smooth breathing.
In a similar way, extreme anxiety, impairs the spleen. For example, when you anxiously wait for your partner to return home, you are not in the mood to eat. Even if you do eat several mouthfuls, the food seems bland. What’s worse, anxiety results in a gloomy mood, which, if it carries on too long, will cause nervous disorders and a decrease in the secretion of digestive juice. This, in turn, will lead to other symptoms, such as a loss of appetite, panting, weariness, fatigue, and depression. In addition, overanxiety is another reason for poor blood circulation, slowness of thought, or even thoughts of suicide.
Extreme fear injures the kidney. When frightened, one’s legs may shake or he may urinate frequently. Some may even wet their pants. All these conditions have to do with kidney function.
In order to maintain our health, we must maintain a peaceful state of mind. My secret lies in just two words: keep smiling. Whatever we encounter, we must face it with a smile. There is no need to take things too seriously, whether good or bad. What we need is to take a deep breath, adjust our mood, and be calm. If we are open-minded, tolerant, composed, and benevolent in our handling of worldly matters, we will get fewer diseases and more blessings.
8. Not Focusing on Your Illness
Being ill need not be terrifying. What’s terrifying is one’s attitude toward the illness.
Once, I came across a patient suffering from heart disease and mental anxiety. A little over 60, she said to me the moment she saw me, “Master, with this heart disease, I could leave the world any time.”
I led her to the southwest corner of the Temple, where there was a pile of sand that had been left after a building was completed.
I
