Healthy Mind Lives In A Healthy Body

Dhamma Talk + Guided Meditation
Session 046: Nov 18th, 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin

Banner Photo by Maxine Rose - Thank you!

Introduction

Mens sana in corpore sano - goes the often quoted Latin saying: which is best translated in meaning as a healthy mind can only live in a healthy body. 

Do you want to know who came up with that?

According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_sana_in_corpore_sano), it stems from the Roman poet Juvenal who wrote it in the early 2nd century as part of a whole list of what’s really desirable in life. This part goes like this:

You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body.
Ask for a stout heart that has no fear of death,
and deems length of days the least of Nature's gifts
that can endure any kind of toil,
that knows neither wrath nor desire and thinks
the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than
the loves and banquets and downy cushions of Sardanapalus.
What I commend to you, you can give to yourself;
For assuredly, the only road to a life of peace is virtue.

It sometimes blows my mind how thinkers of all different kinds of cultures had deep insights into what makes us humans really happy and what doesn’t - not just the Buddha and Jesus and other well-known spiritual ground-breakers. 

Taking Care Of Ourselves

All of them point us in the same direction: to take good care of yourself. In this meditation group, we’ve been focussing on our mental and spiritual growth. But care for our own bodies is essential for our mind training to be possible at all.

Of course, that means: 

• eat a healthy diet, 

• drink lots of water, 

• keep a rigorous personal hygiene (thanks to COVID-19 we’re reminded about this frequently these days), 

• exercise regularly, 

• stretch often (cats and dogs and other animals stretch something like every 10 minutes for a good reason),

• and sleep enough. 

Based on that only, we can use meditation to train our mind and to deeply relax our bodies. Be it from Ajahn Brahm, Bhante Vimalaramsi or Thich Nhat Hanh, they have all taught us to relax in meditation. Why? Because that’s taking care of the body. Ailments can heal by the body’s inherent wisdom, when we get out of its way.

As you know from our previous two sessions, I am currently reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s book The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. On pages 176-177, he instructs us how to be mindful of the body. Let me read it for you.

[reading from book, see video above].

Conclusion

This is all no news to you. We know that you know all too well that a healthy body is the basis for everything in this life. Without it, nothing is possible. 

In fact, one of you even encouraged us last week to go outside to walk and hike regularly. We’re very grateful for that. It shows us how much you care about us.

Just this morning, my Mom showed me some stretching exercises over Zoom for a recurring pain in my upper left thigh / hip area. Doing them felt so good. Plus, almost daily walking onto the hill outside our house (with our cats in tow) for the last three weeks has reduced the pain to a minimum.

We all can feel into ourselves what our body needs. Doctors can aid us with that where we need professional help.

Mindfulness for each body part, we need to learn to develop ourselves. That is, at the same time, taking care of the body. So, meditation can actually help us in taking care of our body, so we can have a healthy mind in a healthy body.

Let’s practice meditation right now.