The Whole World Is Medicine (BCR87)
KOAN:
Sickness and medicine are in accord with each other.
The whole world is medicine.
What am I?
—The Blue Cliff Record, Case 87 (Yunmen)
Placebo, Chronic Fatigue & Dormitive Principles
I’m getting used to the thought that many things that seem as if they belong in the realm of the body are also influenced by the mind. Placebo studies indicate that even surgery can be a placebo. In medical school the faculty will sometimes say to students that they should use a drug a lot when it first comes out while people still believe in it. There is a Zen koan that goes “The whole world is medicine,” and the joke is that it could go, “The whole world is placebo.”
The Nature of Practice
Practice. The notion of practice, as something you embody, and you walk through, and you are—rather than something you add, like something added to gasoline. There’s also a sense of moving in the dark, in some way that’s positive. So that in a practice, “not knowing” is on your side.
How is it that Sickness & Medicine Heal Each Other?
The dark things shine as brightly as the bright light – and we don’t need health to shine.