It is a well known fact that meditation is great for your health.

Almost every media channel in the world promotes meditation as a healthy and de-stressing burnout-reliever. I am therefore interested in the question whether meditation practice is purely done to increase health and wellbeing – or maybe not.

Health – the best friend of disease

“Hold on tight, there’s light at the end of every tunnel!”
Observing nature closely reveals many of its secrets. One of the most obvious facts we can witness is the state of constant change. Night changes into daytime, sun and moon seem to play together, inhalation leads to exhalation. Every single phenomenon in nature requires its opposing force to make sense.

So what about health? Can we realistically expect to only be healthy all the time? Wouldn’t that be like expecting the world to spin according to ones own wishes? “Hey nature – listen to MY command!”

The cycle of life

Every dualistic priciple keeps moving around the two poles of itself. Sometimes we feel fantastic and healthy, other times we are feeling terrible and sick. Wishing it to be any other way will lead to nothing but an endless chain of suffering and happiness. That way the world is effectively in control of our feelings. If it spins left – we exclaim “hooray!” and try to keep it that way. When it changes we cry and

try to make it turn left again – repeat that without an end.

The solution: Be unhealthy – Be unsick

If we connect and depend our happiness on a changing environment, changing times, changing governments and changing stuff – IT WILL CHANGE. If the stuff, the times and the governments we like so much change into something else we are unhappy.
But CHANGE IS NATURE. Accepting change means accepting nature. Accepting nature leads to the understanding that there is no difference between you and nature. So if you want true happiness or solid satisfaction, the only solution is to make your happiness independent of a changing world. BE OUT OF THIS WORLD! Instead of depending your happiness on health and your suffering on illness – make it independent. Whether your body is healthy or sick – your mind can be at peace.

Be unhealthy and unsick: Don’t depend your satisfaction on “being”, “doing”, “having”, “future”, “past”, “this” or “that”. Don’t depend anything on an unreliable world which spins out of ego’s control since beginningless time. Nature was never interested in our idea of separation and our wish to BE IN CONTROL.
Peace simply IS. It can’t be “done” or “undone”. It can’t be possessed, it isn’t created. Yet it is right there to be found, to be known by a mind that is ready.

Peace is in between and beyond. 

Peace is found in between the two extremes of health and illness. It is found beyond health, beyond
illness. In order to find peace we have to transcend duality completely – health and illness, fun and sorrow, happiness and sadness don’t lead to peace.

BUT ONLY BY LIVING WELL DO WE FIND PEACE. So wellness, health and goodness as well as fun and joy play a vital role on the spiritual path. Before ultimately transcending the stream of endless duality and change – we have to rely upon it’s waters to swim to the shore. Relying upon skillful living is vital. Eating good food, sleeping well, avoiding stress, cultivating joy, love and compassion are
important factors. However we can ACHIEVE SO MUCH MORE with the power of a well trained mind.

Tobias Warzinek is the founder of Dharana | Phuket Meditation and Retreat Center. He has been studying and practicing traditional Buddhist Meditation since 2002 and regularly offers free meditation classes, workshops and retreats in Phuket.