健康

　　Staying Healthy

　　最近時常聽到的一句話就是：“您要好好保重身體！”我的身體好像成了天底下至關重要的東西。自己也常常以“身安而後道隆”提醒自己注意日常保健，以免使不健康的身體成爲修行障礙。

　　“Do take good care of your health!” These days, people always greet me with this bidding, as if my health has become the weightiest issue on earth. In fact, I often remind myself of the axiom: “Sound body first, then great achievement,” and I have kept up my daily health care, lest poor health should become an obstacle on the spiritual path.

　　今天看到一篇報道，聯合國世界衛生組織對健康的定義是這樣的：“健康不僅僅是沒有疾病，而且是身體上、心理上和社會上的完好狀態或完全安甯。”我一下子感到釋然，原來與很多人相比，我都算是比較健康的人。至少，我沒有那麼多的不協調、不平衡、不適應、不安甯。雖然身體對人的影響是不言而喻的，但心理因素對生理的主導作用更是毋庸置疑的。雖然我的一些皮肉血骨或內部器官時常與我過不去，但與很多人心靈上的病痛相比，這肉體上的區區病痛，實在不足挂齒。

　　A report I read today states the World Health Organization”s definition of health: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Having read this, I immediately felt kind of relieved. So it turns out that I can be counted as quite healthy when compared with many others. At the very least, I have not been troubled by a lack of coordination, mental imbalance, ill adjustment, or restlessness. It goes without saying that the body will affect the mind, but unmistakably, mental factors also exert major effects on the body. For myself, ailments in my body”s components—bones, flesh, blood, or internal organs—have often plagued me, but these minor physical miseries are nothing when compared with the mental agonies suffered by many others.

　　我們時常因爲過分重視肉體，爲了這個肉身能舒適地存在，在世間的競技場上苦心鑽營、斤斤計較而導致心神不甯、情緒煩亂。作爲修行人，因執著肉體而放棄精進的聞思修，去追求名聞利養，更會成爲修行大障。形骸非親，萬物皆幻，放下對身體形骸的執著，抵製煩惱對我們心理健康的侵蝕，才是一個真正健康的人。

　　Normally, we tend to attach excessive value to our physical bodies. Striving for its comfort, we fight with great pains in the worldly arena and scheme for gains down to the last detail, until we are beset with a restless mind and confused emotions. If spiritual practitioners are over-attached to the corporeal body, great obstacles will arise on the path when they drop their study, contemplation, and meditation to pursue instead wealth and fame. But our bones and flesh do not really belong to us; all the phenomena in the world are but illusory. Only by letting go our attachment to the physical body and by protecting our minds from the erosion of destructive emotions can we claim ourselves to be truly healthy.

　　壬午年六月初七　　

　　2002年7月16日 　

　　7th of June, Year of RenWu

　　July 16, 2002