Treating the Mind

If a monk doesn’t take proper care of himself when he’s ill, he’s punished in three ways: by the Dhamma, by the devas, and by human beings. When this is the case, regardless of whether he dies or recovers from his disease, it doesn’t serve any purpose.

How does the Dhamma inflict punishment? When illness comes and you understand that the illness is yours or that you’re a sick person, when you can’t separate the body and mind into two separate things because you don’t have enough stillness of mind to withstand the causes of the illness, the punishment is that you suffer from the pain.

To say that devas inflict punishment means this: Whoever practices the duties of a contemplative in good fashion tends to have devas looking after him. But when illness arises and you don’t keep control over your behavior and you show a lot of distress, it causes the devas to be disillusioned and disgusted—the fault being that you don’t maintain the stillness appropriate to your state as a contemplative. The devas are then bound to inflict punishment.

How do human beings inflict punishment? When you make yourself someone hard to care for. You don’t have any endurance; you don’t act in ways appropriate for the fact that you’re sick. You’re hard to please and entangled in sensual desires. You’re a residence for the hindrances—i.e., you let the hindrances overcome the mind. The mind then is bound to lose its power and strength. And this causes the people around you to despise you.

So when you’re sick, you should give rise to heedfulness both by day and by night. This will lead to well-being. Otherwise, your lack of heedfulness will cause the disease to grow stronger.

If you simply understand that “I’m in the hospital to treat my disease,” that’s a misunderstanding. You have to understand that “I’m developing saṁvega and practicing the duties of a contemplative that will lead to release from all suffering and stress.” Tell yourself that, instead of treating the disease, you’re treating your heart and mind. After all, you’re not the doctor. You don’t have to get too involved or worried about the affairs of the body. That’s simply a waste of your mind’s strength. Your duty as an ill person is to use your mindfulness to look after your mind, that’s all. Whether the disease is serious or not, whether you’ll recover or die: That’s not your business. You have to set your mind on thinking like this. That’s what’s right.