Great Construction
A Human Being Is A Receptacle Of Health
Since ancient days man has often been called a receptacle of disease, but nothing can be more mistaken than this expression. We wish to correct it and say, “A human being is a receptacle of health. This is because health is the inherent condition of man. But the actual state of affairs is that disease is an inseparable part of human life and that the problem seems to be insoluble after all man’s efforts, so he has resigned himself to it a fate.
In fact, once a human being is afflicted by illness he is not easily healed. Sometimes it takes a long time before he is well. Sometimes he is attacked by the same disease; there are some people whose periods of illness are longer than their periods of health. Perhaps it is for this reason that people thought it more appropriate to call man a receptacle of disease; seeing individuals suffering from illness for long periods, they started to use such an expression. We cannot blame those who lived in olden times because in those days the true nature of disease was not clear: it was believed that human beings could not be freed from sickness just as they could not get away from the fate of death. It is for the same reason Gautama Buddha gave his teachings of resignation. He taught that man should resign himself to the fate of four major sufferings—birth, sickness, old age and death.
Let me explain in what ways human beings deviate from Nature and how these become the cause of sickness.
When a human being is attacked by illness he usually takes some kind of medicine as the only means of healing. This is the first mistake he makes. Chinese medicine is extracted from roots of herbs and barks of trees, Western medicine is extracted from minerals or vegetables. This is fundamentally against Nature. Just think. All these medicines, without exception, have some quality which is not agreeable to a human’s taste buds, such as bitterness, sourness, bad odor. From olden days people have spoken of swallowing something sweet after medicine to take away its bitter taste. We should think about why medicine has a bad taste and is hard to swallow. It is God’s way of letting human beings know that it is not good for them.
All foods and drinks are created so they suit human taste, and we may ingest these things; this is in accord with Nature. People often speak of what is good for nutrition or what is not, but this is a mistake. There are some differences in the kinds of food produced according to the climate weather of each locality, but generally speaking, the kinds of food produced in a certain locality are those which are best suited for the people who live there. The yellow race eats rice as its main food because it is suited to it and the white race eats wheat for the same reason.
The fact that Japan is an island country means that it is good for its people to eat more fish, and the fact the people living on the continents eat more meat is right for them. Farmers eat more vegetables for the same reason; it is suited to them in accord with the law of Nature. That they can stand constant physical labor from early morning until evening is due to the fact that vegetable food is suited to that way of life. In recent years the nutritionists, not knowing this truth, have been trying to encourage farmers to eat more fish and meat but if they follow this advice their working power will decrease. In contrast to this, fishermen eat more fish, so they lack sustaining power for their work; they work intermittently. Fish-eating enhances the sensitivity which is suited to the work of catching fish. Really, it is surprising to observe how perfectly Nature works for people of different vocations.
The Divinely-Inspired Approach to Health, page 13, April 20, 1950
translated by KH* * *
“Ningen wa Kenkō no Utsuwa,” written specifically to be the third chapter of the tenth volume of Jikan Sōsho, Shinji no Kenkōhō (The Divine-Inspired Approach to Health, Jikan Library, Volume 10), page 13, April 20, 1950, and never anthologized while Meishu-sama was alive, has appeared in translation. Citation is given below for reference.
“Human Beings as Vessels for Health,” True Health, 1987, page 32 (text abridged by 27%).
“Man is born to be healthy,” A Hundred Teachings of Meishusama, no date, page 195.