The mind and spirit in health

The religions are the original 'mind,body,spirit' zone, looking at the whole wellbeing of the human person in both the immediate and also the wider - and indeed widest - context. We may not think of them like that - as with history, culture and custom, we go through phases (sometimes taking centuries) of an arguable un-balance in emphasis of approach in any one tradition. But when we are inhabiting and expressing a philosophy/theology as opposed to a pathology, then we can be in a good place to feel receptive to the insights coming to us not just out of our own tradition but also from others.  

Which makes living in the UK in the 21^st century a particular privilege and challenge, as with our ever richer and more varied ideological landscape we have so much to learn from and to share with one another. Of course there is the 'pic'n'mix' danger of putting ingredients into a self-help cocktail that do not naturally belong together and may indeed not work together.

But to the extent that we can be 'true to self and open to others' (our motto at London Inter Faith Centre) then I do feel we can hope to manage the integrity of one tradition, while allowing it to be enriched and modified by others. In terms of whole health, as a Christian brought up on a mixture of conventional medicine and homeopathy I enjoy reading various faith approaches both to wellbeing in particular and more generally on how the human person is constituted.

I find the Buddhist theory of aggregates challenging: that we are the sum of our parts, down to the most finessed and subtle of those parts. What then triggers their interaction for good or ill? For health or sickness? A Buddhist colleague tells me 'mind'. What might we do to help ‘mind’ help us?  

There are two specific features of this piece of Buddhist theory I want to draw out here – one positive and the other negative – which I believe to be of profound and hugely underestimated significance in the formation of our spirit and thus of our wellbeing (I will take it as read that readers of this website accept a connection between body, mind and spirit). The positive force for good health is humour. Humour provides perspective. Perspective places us in a bigger picture than we might otherwise find ourselves. And if we laugh in the process of being put there – with others and at ourselves – then I am told that during laughter the brain secretes nature's form of morphine into our system and we feel and are physically better as a result, while also having ministered to our non-physical selves by relocating ourselves beyond the bounds of our self-absorption. 

The negative force against good health is any form of grudge. Jesus' injunction that we should love our enemies takes account – among many other things - of the psycho-spiritual wellbeing towards which we move when letting go of both real and imagined wrongs done us by others. 

Put the two together – humour and non-grudge – and one's whole system is then put in so much more receptive and conducive a space to attract and process those particular aids to health and wellbeing that may be available to us. And it also seems to me that this – like praying – points towards some sort of moral justice at the heart of things, in that it is available to all – rich or poor, educated or uneducated. And of course not only is the individual's health helped thereby, but how quickly the wider world too would change if more people took this approach. For the moment you and I can start with you and me.