If You Want Body and Mind at Peace, First Make the Disposition Calm and Balanced

There is a Chinese saying: "It is easier to change rivers and mountains than a person's nature." Once a character has formed, it is very hard to change, which is why people often say: character determines destiny. But in the course of studying medicine and meeting patients, I have gradually come to realize that character also determines a person's physical and mental health.

If you want body and mind at peace, first make the disposition calm and balanced. TCM theory often emphasizes that the seven emotions cause disease, and modern medicine also emphasizes that human emotions readily lead to various illnesses. Fundamentally, a person's emotions are governed by his or her character. People with paranoid, suspicious, or manic-depressive personalities easily develop all sorts of diseases. And such character-based illnesses are very hard for a doctor to treat. Hiding faults and covering up errors does not solve the patient's root problem; speaking bluntly of the faults sends the patient into a rage, so most doctors choose silence on this issue.

Correcting one's character is no easy matter. A person's character is intimately bound up with the family, school, and social education received, as well as with a lifetime of experiences. A person's character determines his or her views and attitudes toward various people and events, and also determines everyday behaviors and psychology. Over time, this in turn determines that person's interpersonal relationships and how others view and treat him or her. All of this easily forms rigid, unchanging patterns that are very hard to alter even after major life upheavals.

So when a person falls physically or mentally ill, stepping outside the original social circle, letting go of many old attachments, accepting new understandings, and entering a new natural and social environment may bring about great improvement. We often hear that someone was sick and miserable in one place, yet after moving elsewhere suddenly became much healthier. This is not only related to the change in natural environment; it also has a great deal to do with a change in the interpersonal environment.

Interpersonal relationships often become a psychological burden; even family bonds can become a burden in life. Long-standing grievances that accumulate among family members and friends often become unbearable for some people. Because everyone's character inevitably has flaws, and different people have different flaws, repeated friction among them creates many rifts that are outwardly hidden yet run deep. This is also why some families break apart.

In the Sutra of the Buddha's Bequeathed Teaching, the Buddha requires that once a person becomes a monk, he must abandon his former occupation and sever all worldly entanglements. This is really preparation for a person to remake his own life. As long as a person still clings to old undertakings and old relationships, spiritual rebirth is hard to achieve; and without spiritual rebirth, the remaking of character cannot even begin.

Psychotherapy often works only for a time, but the remaking of character can transform a person anew. This may also explain why a few terminally ill patients, after giving up their old lives to travel around the world or embracing a religion they never believed in before, suddenly find their illness greatly eased. A person needs, in a new environment, to receive new cognitions and to reflect on and examine himself, repent and correct, in order to gradually free himself from the various physical and mental sufferings caused by his own character flaws.