Priyatosh Dutta
While discussing Important issues facing our contemporary society, in a conversation with a Buddhist scholar, the Nobel laureate chemist Linus Pauling asked: What would the 21st century be like? The scholar DR. Daisaku Ikeda responded: “It would be a century of life”. Their conversation ended with the same set of words: Let’s work together to create a wonderful century of life. So, what, to start with, was a vision of a philosopher gradually becoming a shared determination of philosophy and science.
Health is an essential element of fundamental Human Rights. Health is a ceaseless struggle against illness and it comes from wisdom. Health and illness are interwoven like the two sides of the same coin. Falling ill is nothing to be ashamed of; it’s just a natural condition of life. Health and illness are one and inseparable. Is here anyone who has never fallen ill?
Did you feel very vulnerable, wondered and lamented over why out of many it’s you who falls sick? If so, then you may ask a few questions to yourself: Do I have the correct understanding of illness? Do I have a profound view of illness that extends beyond my common sense only? Do we have something like “Good Medicine” for the ills of all humankind? “Do I believe that the four virtues of eternity, happiness, true self and purity are inherent in myself, in both life and in death?” Can I declare that “Because all living beings are sick, therefore I am sick”? “Can I believe that my illness arises from my great compassion?” Can I believe that “No illness can prevent a person from what he has to do”?
Neither the questions, nor the answers are easy to apprehend. It requires a lot of pondering the whole thing from a deeper, profound and more fundamental level and we are not trying to do that either in this limited space. But If you are ready to accept the answers whatever they are, then you will have an opportunity to transform illness into a mission, to experience the benefit of seeing sickness, ageing and death for what they are as such without fear. In a greater context of life one can make sickness an opportunity to strengthen our lives.
To note that illness is different from the devil of illness. Illness is a universal suffering and we are not strangers to it; but when it causes us to sink into despair, to give up on life and to lose the strength to go on living, then it’s the devil of illness that plays its role. It drains us of our vitality, acts as a robber of ‘life’. The battle between human beings and both the illness and the devil of illness is age-old. Medical science has achieved a great deal in our efforts to promote health and longevity. But since the sufferings of sickness (like ageing and death) are inevitable, our battle against illness will persist forever. Let science fight it in its own way. But how to fight against the devil of illness; with what weapon? If health, in a greater context of life, is a process of building inner peace and security, attaining a state of complete happiness and freedom, then It’s only a genuine, higher philosophy of life that can impart the necessary courage and strength. Only a pacifist, life affirming philosophy can help us to strive and persevere until the very end, and can keep us young at heart.
The oneness of health and sickness or of birth and death seems paradoxical, not easy to apprehend as the dualism of existence and non-existence, or that of the particle and wave character of any entity (electron or light, say). Looking in a binary mode, only one side of the coin is inevitably erroneous or just incomplete to give an integrated picture in its entirety like annihilation and permanence, individually each of which is erroneous. You cannot go for either a “either-or” nor a “neither-nor” option. You need to consider, embrace both of them (however contradictory they apparently look like) and transcend both of them to see the true reality as such. The modern quantum physics and its complementarity principle too resonates with this one-ness concept. So, we have no need for worry or fear. What counts is how we face illness, our attitude in dealing with it. By appreciating the preciousness of each moment and confronting illness with the determination not to be defeated by it, we can expand our inner life state and lead deeper, stronger, nobler lives. The minimum prerequisite is spreading the teaching of respect for life. We can appreciate the true richness of the experience of being alive if we can understand the true nature of illness as one of life’s inherent, inevitable sufferings; only then we come to understand the importance of health and the preciousness of life. We can gain a deeper appreciation of our life and mission.
References:
1.A lifelong quest for peace- A dialogue; Linus Pauling and Daisaku Ikeda, I.B. Tauris
2.Unlocking the mysteries of Birth and death and everything in between; DaisakuIkeda, Eternal Ganges
3. Towards a Century of Health: The Wisdom for Leading a Long Life of Good Fortune and Benefit, Daisaku Ikeda, Value Creation, August-November, 2020
About Author:
Associate Professor in Chemistry, Anandamohan College, Kolkata 700009
Contact: ditsadut@gmail.com
