Healing Through Letting Go: On the Maturation of a Certain Conception of Medicine in Indian Buddhism

“Illness itself is emptiness”, says Vīmalakīrti, in a statement that appears to reflect on the nature of sickness and disease. However, Vimalakīrti’s approach of non-duality may not satisfy the rising interest in Buddhist medicine, for which philosophical ideas of emptiness seem too far removed from practical interventions with real people’s pain. Nevertheless, there may be more in Vimalakīrti’s ideas than mere sophistry, and the vision he expresses can connect to realistic practices of healing. In this article, I pursue one potent formulaic passage that appears in a number of early discourses preserved in Pāli (but not in Chinese), in order to examine some of the earlier antecedents of the idea that illness is a mental construction, and that the mind can contribute to recovery. The early discourses provide a more sober definition of the position expressed by Vimalakīrti, by showing how a variety of practitioners let go of their illness, through a change in attitude that was informed by Buddhist insight. With this these texts highlight an understanding regarding the powers of the mind over matter, which traces physical events to their mental apprehension. Not only monks, but also householders, can heal through letting go of the the inner causes that contribute to the disease. While such an understanding need not be generalized as a comprehensive statement on Buddhist medicine, it helps us understand the views and cogency of Buddhist doctrine in this context.