Understanding the Dynamics of Body and Mind through Dhamma Teaching : หน้า 63/164

Meeting #10 04 February 2010 I am here today with a friend and volunteer to the Wat, Jane Welfar. She has been helping various programs here for the past three years, and literally gave up her life in England to become a volunteer. Now, she comes to Luang Por to say goodbye for awhile, because she needs to return to the UK. After our little mini-goodbye, we are delighted to have another Dhamma teaching from him. Although we are somewhat surprised that he would be gracious enough to spend the time with us, this is his calling, as you well know. He asks his assistant to get us some pens and notebooks, and when we have them in hand, he begins: "The real problem of living is not an economic one. As I have said in the past, we all consist of body and mind. Our body is composed of four basic elements: water, earth, wind, and fire. These four elements are not pure but decay every moment of every day. We know that our cells die all of the time and, of course, they must repair themselves over the course of time. Because we have to bring these 'repair' elements in from the outside – in other words, we have to eat, we have to clothe our bodies, we have to drink – we know that the elements may not be pure. So we are constantly in a state of decay, and we have to constantly repair the elements. "It is shallow thinking if we just 'repair' our body without thinking of the elements we are repairing the body with – in other words, we need to think of five things when we are replenishing the elements: quality, quantity, technique, timing, and environment. "There are, of course, two stages to this: When we are children, and when we are grown. In the first stage, as children, we depend solely on our mother, our parents, or our guardian. As soon as our umbilical cord is cut, we become independent. But we are not really independent, are we? This is really our 'poorest' time because we have no knowledge, no power, and no means to replenish our elements by ourselves. We are, in fact, required to be 'feed'. But really, as soon as the umbilical cord is cut, we need to be able to help ourselves. Even though our mother replenishes our elements, we also need to realize that we need to rely on ourselves. And, even though the Law of Kamma actually starts in the womb, we could say that the Law of Kamma begins when the umbilical cord is cut. If