The Meaning of Healing : A Personal Heuristic

As I reflect about healing and its meanings, I cannot help but reflect on my own life’s journey. I come from a place where my body has been poisoned by the environment, ravaged by cancer, and the western medical community. I can relate to the picture of Frida Kahlo with all the blood, sutures, and being put back together, but with missing parts. I will say that what enabled great healing for me during this time and since then is the psycho-spiritual line of development. I find great solace and equanimity in spiritual development because in general, development in psycho-spiritual is necessary to facilitate change in the biological, interpersonal, and worldly life; they are all interconnected with each other, helping the other along on the journey if you will.
My healing orbits around a spiritual sun. It is interesting because like the earth and the rest of the solar system, my orbit moves away from that sun or healing until I end up in darkness, the dark side of the moon. The great religious mystics often talk about in the absence of God you find God. The negation or absence of healing can bring a real driving force into the equation to journey on the path of healing or drive to manifest what is missing or to balance out. Therefore, balance is very important to health. When speaking of healing and the spiritual line, it is important to note that it does not, for me, mean religion, although there are some systems of religions that do have spiritual aspects within the dogma. I think healing and health surround acts and a life of altruism. Meditations, from many different religious traditions, create a way to practice compassion.
Healing for me is everywhere, all the time. It is not linear, outside of our concept of time, and there is no place for dualistic thinking there is movement and change involved. My own heuristic research of the meaning of healing uncovered a list of metta themes. The list is derived from the whole exploration and personal inquiry of the meaning if healing. The list is in no way exhaustive. The list is as follows: 1) Healing is relative and personal and turning towards the “ordinary” things with mindfulness and awareness can be the bedrock for healing. 2) Healing occurs in relation or interconnection with other. 3) Healing occurs in relation or interconnection with nature. 4) Healing is being with whatever is a rising. 5) Healing is evolutionary process on both the conscious and unconsciously. 6) Healing occurs on many levels mind/body/ spiritual component. I think interconnectedness is the key. Healing for the benefit for others is an over arching theme for me. Healing for the benefit for all sentient beings is selfless and ultimately an act of the compassion.
Healing is embedded with compassion. I remember reading about some scientific studies that the Dalai Lama was tracking involving one of his monks. The meditation practice of Metta (lovingkindness) was scientifically recorded as being able to create wellbeing in the practitioner. This practice can evoke the sense of wellbeing in oneself however; the practice really focuses on well wishing of others. In Buddhism, it is thought that humans are conditioned by ignorance and the illusion of a finite self. This is what causes disease and suffering. Its solution to the problem is to overcome the fundamental blindness of the ego and the realization that everything is interconnected. Therefore, health and healing for everyone on the planet is interconnected. In this light, why not cultivate this sense of interconnectedness though diligence and practice.
It is imperative for healing to foster a way of being present in ones one life so it spills out into the world. In regards to health, I love the holistic teachings of Buddhism and the Bodhisattva path in specific, which is meant to restore our vision, to elevate and transform the contours of the human condition. The HEALING Path is a journey towards Enlightenment, ceaseless process of advancement towards wisdom and compassion. The goal of this journey is eternally achieved and eternally in the process of being achieved.