Health Preservation: Mental Nourishment Is Most Essential
Everyone knows health preservation involves supplementation: herbal remedies, dietary supplements, physical exercise. Yet there is another form—mental nourishment. It is the hardest to achieve, yet absolutely indispensable.
Mental Nourishment
What is mental nourishment? It means keeping the mind focused, avoiding distractions and emotional fluctuations. Easy to say, hard to do.
[Case Study]: A retired cadre suffering from heart disease. He was naturally sensitive and prone to excitement. Knowing his condition required calmness, he refused to engage in any matters, big or small. He didn’t answer phone calls—even if he could, he wouldn’t—afraid of getting excited. Each day he lay on the sofa, feeling his pulse and touching his left chest, monitoring his condition daily. On the surface, he rejected all disturbances, but his mind never truly calmed. Lying down, he constantly worried—carrying immense psychological burden.
The essence of mental nourishment lies in being able to let go, take up what is necessary, and release what is not.
The characteristic of mental nourishment is non-attachment and non-obsession.
[Buddhist Health Preservation Hundred Characters Mantra]
How to understand this?
Mental nourishment requires true mental stillness. But human thoughts are like a broken thermometer—when quiet, the mercury fragments scatter wildly. Thus, not deliberately seeking stillness often brings greater peace than actively pursuing it.
The great joy after doing something kind for others is the best mental nourishment. This explains why “ancient renowned physicians were mostly long-lived.”
Those who are competitive and always feel “I must be involved” to prove themselves find it difficult to attain mental nourishment.
If you care about health and health preservation, you must know what to take and what to let go.