Living Without sickness 71 Verse- Tao De Ching
Knowing Ignorance is Strength
Ignoring Knowledge is sickness
Only when we are sick of our sickness shall we cease to be sick
The Sage is not sick but sick of sickness
This is the secret to Health
There’s quite a paradox present in this passage, which has been expressed throughout my many readings of the Tao Te Ching as variations on “only when your sickness becomes sick will your sickness disappear.” Lao-tzu seems to be saying that one must actually become ill in order to avoid illness. Once again I’ve thought long and hard about this short verse. I’ve played with these words over and over in order to grasp their essential meaning for you, and for myself as well.
I’ve meditated with Lao-tzu’ s image before me, asking what he meant by this puzzling 71st verse. His answer is what I based the rest of this chapter on. First of all, what does the word sickness imply? For me, it means that some-thing in the body or mind is out of balance with the well-being from which it originated-that is, it’s not in agree-ment with the Tao. Conditions such as fevers, aches, wheezing, sniffling, breathlessness, coughing, unusual fatigue, and fainting are indications of the presence of illness; and the equiva-lent of such symptoms in our thinking could be fear, anxiety, anger, hatred, worry, guilt, stress, impatience, and so on. These are signals that our thoughts are out of balance with our Source, which is pure love, kindness, patience, contentment, and all of the other expressions of Tao-centeredness that appear in these 81 essays on the Tao Te Ching. The sage in this verse has looked long and hard at illness, and has come to realize that it represents a physical manifestation of non-Tao thinking. A fever, a cold, an ache, or a pain are all identical to the non-Tao expressions of impatience, fear, anger, or any other ego-driven impulse. Since the sage has seen where thoughts like these lead, he refuses to participate in such folly. Thus, he has looked at poor health and vowed: I will not think in ways that bring that about. I’ll stay centered in the natural well-being of the Tao because to think a sick thought is to allow sickness to crop up. Con-sequently, he’s sick of sickness, and the result is the secret of perfect health. Allow me to provide you with an example of this.
My colleague and friend Radhika Kinger recently returned from a visit to Puttaparthi, India, where she was in the presence of Sathya Sai Baba, a God-realized master who lives and breathes all of the Divine messages presented in the Tao Te Ching. Here’s an excerpt from the let-ter she sent me afterward: I just returned from Putta-parthi after spending a week there in Sai Baba’s Divine pres-ence. I was saddened to see Sai Baba in a wheelchair due to mul-tiple fractures in his hipbone. According to the doctors, no nor-mal human body can survive such physical agony. But Sai Baba remains ever so blissful and completely unaffected by his physical condition.
A devotee asked Sai Baba how is it that a God-realized being has to undergo physical suffering. Why doesn’t he cure himself? To this Sai Baba replied, “My life is my message. People today need to learn to give up body attachment and experience their divinity within. Pain is a natural phe-nomenon. But suffering is a ‘choice.’ I do not suffer, as I am not the body.” Sai Baba looked at his condition and declared himself to be sick of such a thing being in his life. Suffering with illness just isn’t an option when one lives in harmony with the Tao. With years of addictive behavior behind me, I can tell you that the wis-dom of this verse of the Tao Te Ching was largely responsible for my getting back to the purity and well-being from which I originated. I became sick of my sickness, as I was no longer willing to go through the withdrawals and shame that accompanied it. I saw my affliction not so much in the material world, but in the invisible world of my thoughts, which kept leading me back to the ill-ness. When I finally changed the way I looked at all of this, I was able to bring about the seeming paradox of no longer being ill by getting to the point of being sick of it. And this is truly the secret of heal th. Here’s how Lao-tzu would instruct you to put this wisdom to work for you here and now: Have a happy mind. An ancient Chinese proverb says that if a man has a happy mind, he will a have a happy body. A happy mind is sick of sickness-it refuses to antici-pate that things will get worse. It sees a sniffle, a stomachache, back or knee discomfort, and fatigue as messages to follow the body’s signals back to a nat-ural state of well-being. A happy mind thinks of the body as capable of healing infirmities because it knows that it isn’t a human creation, but a product of the Tao. A happy mind trusts the capac-ity of the body to live without sickness or suffering. So use your happy mind to work with you to stay healthy. Examine your habits. What daily habits distance you from your natural state of well-being? Any addictions, no matter how serious or minor they might seem, are beckoning you to be totally fed up with them. Get sick of being weakened by destructive pursuits. You know what they are, and you know when you’ve habitually let yourself become ill from food, alcohol, or drugs; or from the guilt and shame that results after a binge. Remember that “ignoring knowledge is sickness” and examine your fixations, vowing not to ignore your awareness of what they are.
Do the Tao Now Dedicate a day to really listening to and trusting the messages from your body, and then listen to what your mind tells you about those signals. Introduce your mind to the possibility that the body is signaling a request that you can grant, such as a nap or a walk along the beach, for instance. Cultivate the Tao-centered happy mind, which will not entertain sickness thoughts.
- Dr Wayne Dyer- Change your thoughts change your life, Living the wisdom of the Tao
