Essay Writing of Buddhas’ Practice Incorporated
(Issue 16)
The relationship between greed and disease
Instructor：Bennie Spirit
Shi Wuguang
Author: Wang Huaigu
January 4, 2024
Abstract
The relationship between greed and disease is a close causal one. Greed can lead to both mental and physical illnesses. Greed affects the mental health of the individual, including mental illnesses such as anger, ignorance, arrogance, doubt, and reduced memory and understanding. Craving for food will cause absolute harm and damage to the livers, kidneys and other internal organs, and diabetes and uremia will naturally follow. Greed will inevitably lead to all kinds of diseases.
Key Words: Greed, anger ignorance arrogance doubt, damage, diabetes
Chapter 1: Introduction
As a pre-study topic, this chapter first clarifies the motivation and purpose of this study, then explores the current status of the study from the literature review, and then gives a statement on the structure of the whole paper. Since I was a child, I have heard that many people suffer from various diseases, but I don’t know what they are, not to mention the reason why, I only think that this is a natural law, everyone can’t escape, it’s very normal. When I grew up and studied Buddhism, I realized that illnesses were related to greed and other vexations.
In view of the fact that “I must go to the root of the problem, I can’t pick the leaves and look for the branches”, in order to dispel the confusion in my mind, the author will, based on my own studies of sutras, theories, and medical and scientific knowledge, make a preliminary inquiry into the root cause of this disease, with a view to understanding more about the relationship between greed and disease.
This article first defines greed and disease, and then utilizes scientific and medical research findings to explore the two major aspects of mental and physical diseases caused by greed. Greed leads to mental illnesses, which include anger, ignorance, arrogance, doubt, reduced memory, comprehension and other mental illnesses. Greed will cause absolute damage to the liver, kidneys and other internal organs, and diabetes and uremia will naturally follow. Finally, we come to the important conclusion that greed will lead to all kinds of physical and psychological diseases, and that there is a definite causal relationship between greed and disease.
The text is divided into four chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: The Concept of Greed and Disease; Chapter 3: The Relationship between Greed and Mental Disease; Chapter 4: The Relationship between Greed and Physical Disease; and Chapter 5: Conclusion.
Chapter 2: Concepts of Greed and Disease
What is the definition of greed? It refers to the mental activity of being attached to the five desires of material, sound, smell, taste, and touch, etc. The Volume 5 of Mahayana Meanings says, “In the five external desires, the stained love is called greed.”
According to Buddhism, when living in the world, sentient beings use their eyes, ears, noses, tongues, and bodies to chase the five dusts of material, sound, smell, taste, and touch, and when they cling to these five dusts and develop love for them, they become greedy.
The Volume 16 of Treatise on All Giving says, “The evil desire for other’s possessions is called greed. In layman’s terms, the desire to endlessly pursue and possess fame, profit, wealth, all desirable things in the outside world, and even the body of living beings, which is composed of the five clusters of skandhas, can be called greed.
Let’s review what greed is again. To think of something false as real, to want it wrongly, and to think that one can get it is called greed! Greed is the thief who not only controls himself, but also cleans himself up, and leads himself specifically to harm himself.
There are many kinds of greed, such as greed for love, greed for favors, greed for coaxing, greed for food, greed for sex, greed for sleep, greed for fame, greed for profit, greed for material, sound, smell, taste, and touch, and so on. No matter what kind of greed is involved, it will cause people to become sick . However, in this article, the author would like to discuss the relationship between greed and sickness mainly from the perspective of craving for food.
According to the story “The King of Medicine of Man”, it says, “When the Buddha was practicing the Bodhisattva’s Way long ago, he was very eager to save the world. He saw that the people in the world of Yanfuti were suffering from serious heart diseases, like a pandemic. All over the world, the number of mental illnesses is ten thousand times greater than the number of physical illnesses.” The Volume 4 of the rough explanation of Brahma Sutra Bodhisattva Precepts says: “The four great elements are the body. There are four hundred and forty diseases.”
As you can see, illnesses can be divided into physical illnesses and mental illnesses. There are 440 kinds of physical illnesses, and mental illnesses are the vexation illnesses, which are divided into five major illnesses, namely, greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt, and in detail, there are infinite dust and sand vexation illnesses.
Disease, like health, can be defined differently from different perspectives. What is the definition of disease? Disease is an abnormal process of life activity that occurs when the organism’s self-regulation is disturbed due to the damaging effects of certain causes. The most commonly used definition is “deviation from the normal form and function of the body”.
Chapter 3: The Relationship between Greed and Mental Illnesses
Greed is mainly manifested in three major areas: appetite, lust, and desire for sleep. These three desires seem to be normal physiological needs of human beings, so how can they be related to illness? Is there an inevitable relationship between them and disease?
I would like to discuss the relationship between greed and disease from two aspects: greed can cause mental and physical diseases. There are many types of greed, but in this article, I would like to discuss the relationship between greed and disease from the perspective of gluttony. First of all, let us recognize that greed can lead to various psychological diseases.
Greed can lead to mental illnesses such as anger, ignorance, arrogance and doubt. For example, if a certain person wants to eat a watermelon, and the watermelon is right in front of him, and he wants to eat it very much, but he loves to save face, and he thinks that if he shows himself to be so greedy, people around him will definitely think that he is a glutton, and won’t that be a great loss of face for him?
For the sake of his own face, a certain A is holding back there, forcing himself to hold back, but in his heart, he really wants to eat it, but he dares not eat it for the sake of his face, and that’s why he is so angry because of greed, and that’s what triggers the anger in his heart. It is because a certain A is greedy for watermelon, now even though there is watermelon he can only look at it, but can not eat it. Then he begins to ruminate there, why do not these people go away? This triggers ignorance in his heart.
A certain B comes to eat the watermelon without saying, a certain A thinks he has no reason to eat my watermelon, he has no qualifications to eat my watermelon, and he is not an important person. This triggers the arrogance in his heart.
At the same time, a certain A thinks: why does a certain B eat my watermelon? Is he intentionally screwing with me, or is he intentionally pissing me off? Or did I offend him yesterday? This leads to doubt in the mind. Anger, ignorance, arrogance and doubt are all mental illnesses. Therefore, greed leads to mental illness.
Covetousness causes sickness in the heart and makes people stupid. Many of the foods in our lives do cause severe mental decline, which is very scary, and some of these diets also hinder the development of the human brain!
I wonder if readers have heard of the 15 Worst Foods That Make You Stupid? According to the introduction, there are these foods: 1. muffins 2. citrus soda 3. artificial saccharin soda 4. canned tuna 5. soy sauce 6. rib-eye steak 7. frozen pies 8. cured meats 9. frozen pizza 10. ice cream 11. french fries 12. white rice 13. fruit juice 14. alcohol 15. donuts.
For example, No. 1, drinking artificially sweetened sodas is horrible. It is bad for your memory and makes it hard for you to concentrate on your writing at work. And then there’s No.7, frozen pies, which not only make you fat, but also cause serious damage to your brain. Eating cured meats like the eighth ham, bacon, cold cuts of pork and pastrami on a regular basis can cause brain fog.
And No. 11, fried foods such as French fries, which clog arteries, can also increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and lead to a decline in cognitive function. Number 12, certain high-carbohydrate foods, such as white rice and other white grain products, have been shown to have a negative impact on mental health.
Then there’s Number 13, fruit juice. Store-bought juices are often high in sugar, which is extremely bad for the brain. A diet high in sugar can lead to a significant decline in cognitive functioning and can also affect a person’s long-term and short-term memory. Number 14, alcohol, kills brain cells. Although this anecdote may seem dramatic, it is not exaggerated.
And Number 15, donuts. A medium-sized doughnut contains more than 12 grams of sugar and 7 grams of saturated fat, two of the main harmful nutrients that reduce cognitive function in the brain.
Chapter 4: The Relationship Between Greed and Physical Disease
Gluttony not only makes the human mind sick and stupid, it also makes the body sick and causes a variety of physical illnesses. Because of greed, one will eat and drink greatly, eat and drink wildly, eat and drink indiscriminately, and eventually become sick, and even end up paralyzed in bed, unable to move, only to rot until he dies there, die of pain, and wait for death.
This is the reason why greed gives rise to so many diseases and sufferings. In the Sutra on Buddhist Medicine Spoken by the Buddha, the Buddha said, “There are five sins of eating too much: first, sleeping too much; second, being sick too much; third, being sexy too much.” The Buddha is teaching us that the mere act of gluttony will bring about many illnesses and sufferings, and that the Dharma is like that.
In the Sutra on Buddhist Medicine Spoken by the Buddha , the Buddha also mentioned that there are ten causes and conditions of illness: “First, sitting for a long time without food; second, endless eating…” As you can see from the above quotes, the food without credit that is mentioned here is that there is no aversion to food, and this is why the illnesses are brought about. Imagine: not only do ordinary people have no aversion to food, but they also have a special love for it, a special craving for it, a special love for it, and so on, and so on，doesn’t that lead to more sickness? Even so many that the hospital beds are full and can’t hold more and more patients.
In addition, it is said in the Sutra of the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva: ” To gluttons he says that hunger, thirst and sicknesses of the throat will be the retribution.” If you don’t know the amount of food and drink and don’t have a degree, you will get hunger, thirst and throat diseases.
In the Sutra of the Buddha’s Explanation for the Elder Shou Jia of Distinctions in Karmic Retribution, it is also said, “There are ten more karmas that can cause sentient beings to suffer from many diseases …. The tenth one is the one who has not yet eliminated the cause and condition of the past food and will eat again.” One of the retributions that can cause sentient beings to be sickly is that they will get sick if they eat again after eating food but the food has not been digested. Therefore, if one does not know how to control the amount of food, that is, if one plays greed, it will directly lead to physical illness.
Since craving for food can produce instantaneous good feelings, even though such good feelings are gone immediately, people cannot let go of such instantaneous good feelings, so they will inevitably crave for food, and all kinds of illnesses will be formed. There is a lot of Dr. Berg’s video as an argument. For example, eating too many carbohydrates, such as rice, flour, wheat, pasta, will form absolute damage and destruction to the liver, kidneys and other internal organs, diabetes, uremia will naturally follow.
One of the most important causes of diabetes is eating too many carbohydrates and eating a sugary diet that triggers insulin and causes high insulin. If you want to lower insulin, you must eat less carbohydrates. But because people are so accustomed to carbohydrates such as rice, noodles, and bread, they are bound to crave these carbohydrates, and they are bound to develop diabetes.
So why is it that gluttony, eating too much and eating enough are so harmful and cause so much suffering? The author will analyze this with the help of some information from the Buddhist scriptures, medicine, health science, science and the news.
Modern medical pathology research have found that if greedy eating, eating too much will bring many hazards to our body, such as damage to the spleen and stomach. Because the human body on the digestion, absorption, transport of food and drink mainly rely on the spleen and stomach to complete. But when it comes to what they love to eat, some people never care about the feelings of the spleen and stomach …In reality, he does not know that if he eats too much, it will increase the burden of digestion of the intestines and stomach, so that the secretion of digestive juices is reduced, which can easily lead to indigestion, and at the same time, if our stomach is often in a full state, in a state of high-intensity work, having no opportunity to rest, it is very easy to suffer from various stomach diseases.
In addition, eating too much can cause many diseases. We see that there are more and more people with big bellies around us. This is because a high-calorie diet makes the digestive system suffer, and the digestive system has to work very hard, thus allowing excess calories and energy to pile up in the body, and obesity and overweight are inevitable.
Clinical medicine has confirmed that often eat too much can cause insulin, leptin secretion disorder, is the main cause of obesity. This is the main cause of obesity, followed by hyperlipidemia, hypertension, coronary heart disease, cancer and dementia!
Secondly, eating too much is likely to cause fatigue, affecting work efficiency. This is because when we eat enough, the body’s blood will run to the gastrointestinal system to help work, which will easily put people in a state of fatigue, resulting in slow brain response. Some experts have found that frequent overeating increases the growth factors in the brain, which reduces oxygen and nutrients to the brain, causing memory loss and dullness of thought.
Therefore, beings who are greedy, unwise and unhealthy cannot live a happy life , but will only bring themselves endless illnesses and other sufferings.
Also, people who specialize in certain foods will definitely get sick, and get sick fast. For example, those especially like to eat fructose, because eating fructose hurts the liver and heart. This is because fructose does not stimulate blood sugar, for people with high carbohydrates, fructose will not feel satisfied, does not stimulate insulin, so eating it is difficult to meet their desires, but will stimulate the appetite to eat more.
The most terrible thing is that fructose is the most difficult to be metabolized. Fructose metabolism is unable to enter the muscle cells, can not directly supply energy to the body, it can only go to one place that is the liver. Therefore, in a short period of time (a few months can be) intake of large amounts of fructose and glucose will be very easy to cause fatty liver, gout, even children can not avoid.
The general public knows that alcohol hurts the liver, but many people do not know that fructose hurts the liver. In fact, fructose is just as harmful to the liver as alcohol, and fructose is the main culprit in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Someone fed fructose to rats, after 16 weeks of feeding, the changes in liver conditions are very scary, the formation principle of non-alcoholic fatty liver is this. Therefore , as long as someone eats fructose for several months, or glucose and fructose together, drink a lot of drinks, juices, or sweets, they will have a fatty liver.
Fructose is also a major cause of many metabolic diseases. Fructose can make people eat more and more, fructose causes leptin resistance, fructose may directly cause gout, and if the liver processes too much fructose, it can cause high uric acid; lactic acid is produced by fructose metabolism, which inhibits the kidneys from excreting uric acid.
Fructose can also cause high blood pressure, is also the culprit of heart disease, high blood cholesterol. Why? Because excessive intake of fructose, the liver will store a lot of fat, in addition to becoming fatty liver, there are generally two destinations: the first, to the whole body of adipose tissue, body fat ratio rises, everywhere is full of fat. The second, blood circulation, so the blood lipids (triglycerides) in the blood of the people will become very high, triglycerides is the killer of cardiovascular disease, will block people’s blood vessels.
If you consume too much sugar, you can develop diabetes. The average person consumes about 149 pounds of sugar per year, but the body cannot consume that much sugar. Even baby food is full of high fructose corn syrup, fruit juices for children, sodas for adults, etc., all have too much sugar. But the body’s cells can’t handle that kind of problem, and it puts the cells in a state of exhaustion. So many people develop diabetes.
Diabetes can cause a lot of damage and harm. For example, diabetes can destroy vision. Diabetes damages four types of tissues: the kidneys, the heart, the nervous system, and the eyes. There is one called diabetic retinopathy, which damages the retina. Diabetic patients are also prone to glaucoma, a condition in which the pressure inside the eye is so high that it blocks some of the small holes in the eye and prevents the fluid from draining out, causing backflow and damage to the eye nerves, most likely resulting in blindness. Why? The retina is the front line of the brain, and collects information and sends it to the brain. Too much blood sugar will damage the microscopic nerves in the eye, and damage to the nerves will lead to blindness. The eye may also have macular degeneration, and the back of the eye may not rotate well. Cataracts are an opaque cloud on the lens and often occur in pre-diabetes, diabetes, or insulin resistance. Therefore, too much blood sugar can damage a person’s vision.
If you add too much salt to a dish to feed the greed or craving, there will also be serious problems. Because the salty diet is very harmful to the body, will increase the metabolic pressure on the kidneys, and will increase blood pressure, affect the stomach, etc., and will bring a lot of sufferings of disease.
According to textual research, being greedy for salt and eating more salt has seven major harmful effects on the body: 1. liver and kidney disease 2. high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and stroke 3. osteoporosis and kidney stones 4. stomach cancer 5. obesity 6. susceptible to colds 7. more wrinkles.
A survey by the University of London found that in 2010, there were about 7,000 stomach cancer patients in the UK, and about a quarter of them (1,694 patients) were associated with excessive salt intake. It is true that eating too much salt over a long period of time may increase the risk of stomach cancer.
According to Tencent News, it says a 27-year-old woman in Taiwan chewed gum for 8 hours a day and ate so hard that she couldn’t even open her jaw. Doctors took a lot of setbacks to help her open her mouth.
These examples tell us the hard truth: having the mind of greed can lead to all kinds of sufferings of diseases .
Therefore, greed leads to all kinds of terrible physical and mental illnesses.
Chapter 5 Conclusion
When there is greed, all kinds of terrible physical and mental illnesses will be caused. The cause of greed must lead to the effect of physical and mental illness.
Bibliography
I. Ancient Texts (in chronological order by dynasty)
1、Wu, translated by Wu Zhu Ruyan and Zhi Yue: vol. 1, the Sutra on Buddhist Medicine Spoken by the Buddha, vol. 17, Da Zheng Zang.
2、Sui, Written by Huiyuan: Volume 5 of Mahayana Meanings, vol. 44 of Da Zheng Zang.
3、Sui, translated by Qutanfazhi: vol. 1 of the Sutra of the Buddha’s Explanation for the Elder Shou Jia of Distinctions in Karmic Retribution, vol. 1 of Da Zheng Zang.
II. OTHERS
1、Website Name: Medical Encyclopedia: URL: https://www.yixue.com/%e7%97%85%e7%90%86%e7%94%9f%e7%90%86%e5%ad%a6/%e7%96%be%e7%97%85%e7%9a%84%e6%a6%82%e5%bf%b5. Date of retrieval: January 4, 2024.
2、Brainstorming: (15 Bad Foods That Will Make You Stupid), Website Name: YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb4Ejh0lWrY, February 12, 2019 . Retrieved January 4, 2024 .
3、Lost Author: (The consequences of eating too much at every meal, you need to know! ), Website name: 《 Find a topic》, Website address: http://toments.com/840613/, March 13, 2018 . Retrieved January 4, 2024.