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Activating the Inner Healer: Mindfulness Practices for Body and Relationship Renewal
Research from the Mind Body Institute at Harvard confirms that concentrating the mind—through meditation, chanting, or prayer—naturally releases elements that favor healing and transformation. This energy of mindfulness and concentration resides as seeds within the store consciousness of every person, not just Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. While the Medicine Buddha possesses powerful energy, ordinary beings must generate their own mindfulness to allow this external energy to penetrate, much like a radio requires a battery to capture broadcast waves. Sustained practice, rather than brief moments, is necessary to calm suffering and facilitate healing.
Specific methods generate this energy. Touching the Earth involves slow prostrations where one breathes in and out three times, allowing the energy of Avalokiteshvara to embrace the practitioner. Walking meditation requires investing one hundred percent of the body and mind into every step to attain solidity and freedom from past regrets and future worries. Mindful eating utilizes the Five Contemplations, focusing attention on the food and the Sangha without talking or thinking. The Sutra on the Contemplation of the Body in the Body offers a method of scanning the body with the ray of mindfulness, similar to a farmer sorting seeds or a medical scanner. By breathing in and becoming aware of specific organs like the eyes, lungs, liver, or heart, and breathing out to smile at them, one recognizes their function and promises to protect them from the effects of forgetfulness.
The body possesses a natural power to heal itself, observed in how animals rest when wounded, yet humans have lost this capacity due to stress and anxiety. Returning to the here and now allows one to touch the refreshing and healing elements of life, recognizing the conditions of happiness already present. This energy transforms internal afflictions like anger and fear, and restores communication in relationships through the practices of compassionate listening and loving speech. By training in mindfulness, one develops the capacity to listen without irritation, helping others suffer less and reconciling with family members, a practice that has proven effective in renewing the teaching for younger generations and Western cultures.
