In the days before I fell sick last week, I was talking to my yoga students about the unity of body and mind. Lying on the sofa for days with a nasty cold gave me plenty of time to reflect on the mind-body connection.
I think most people recognize that mental stress and tension definitely affect the body. Iyengar wrote “While yoga may begin with the cult of the body, it leads toward the cultivation of our consciousness. As we cultivate our mind, we are able to avoid the stress that would otherwise lodge itself in our body, causing disease and suffering.” (Light on Life, B.K.S. Iyengar.) I know that some of the worst illnesses in my life have definitely had a relationship to the stress in my daily life. Mind you, I don’t think this relationship always applies to things like simple colds. Sometimes you just get exposed to people with infectious conditions. But I do believe that when the soul is sick, the body is likely to be also.
What I think we are less likely to remember is that the reverse relationship also applies: the stress of the body affects the mind. I remember reading a report on a small study where women with serious depression were given Botox injections. The Botox was not used in this case for cosmetic purposes but to relax their habitual sad and frowning facial expressions. Shortly thereafter, the women reported a dramatic improvement in their moods and a lifting of their depression symptoms. (See articles that appeared in the Washington Post and FoxNews among other places.)
This study was far from scientific, being much too small and with limited follow-up on the women. But I found it very thought provoking. Why do we so often act as though the body-mind link communicates only one way, from mind to body? We know that a rough day at the job engenders headaches and tight shoulders. Why should we doubt that holding the body with poor posture or habitual imbalances or an angry facial expression can also negatively affect both mind and spirit?
Have you ever seen photographs of Tibetan Buddhist monks? One thing that always strikes me is how pleasant they look. Many of them have faces of such kindness and warmth you can’t help but feel they’d be wonderful people to know. I believe it has to be related to the kind of meditation they habitually practice, of meditating with compassion for the world and all its problems. Doing that kind of spiritual work day after day has to make itself felt in the body and especially in the face. Or perhaps because they habitually smile and look kindly their spirits naturally become more compassionate as a result. The outside and the inside are one and the same.
Anthony had a teacher that always said: What you focus on – you become. So always focus on that which is the highest and brghtest.
Or, an old saying attributed to American Indians: Ff you keep you face to the sun – you will not see the shadows.
Boy oh boy – am I ever with you on this one!
Oh, and two others, one from my mother: Smile as if you mean it. And another from I don’t remember where: Act as if.
One of the true signs of an enlightened master is that he/she has a fabulous sense of humor.
During 9/11 when we were ecavuated from our apartment by the national guard, we had the good furtune to stay with friends, one of whom was co-incidentally the daughter of our teacher, Namka Drimed Rinpoche. He was very glad to see us safe and sound, ans we all sat togher for the rest of that day and most of the next few, in front of the television watching footage of the tradgedy.
At one point, when someone mentioned how horrific it was that we (the US) had lost so many people, Rinpoche turned and said gently; “These things happen every day, all over the world to someone’s mother, or sister, or father or husband. It seems most terrible to you because it’s happened in your backyard, and to people you know, but it’s no more terrible than tradgedy anywhere else. Be glad that yyou’ve escaped such misfortune for so long”. And then he smiled. I didn’t feel better about it, but he did help me put it into perspective.
I try and smile as much as I can – and belive me, with all the peacock problems around here – it isn’t always easy!