Understanding Body and Mind : หน้า 19/47

CHAPTER 1 BODY AND MIND UNDERSTAND ONESELF To know and understand oneself as a human being is essential in the process of recognizing inbuilt weaknesses to be overcome and potential strengths that can be drawn upon. Being human we are distinguished from other living creatures by a superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and a refined and dexterous upright physical form. We also have a conscience to enable the separation of right from wrong in thought and action, plus self-awareness by which we may assess ourselves both mentally and physically. These human traits give us the ability to make reasoned decisions based on instinct, our experiences and accumulated knowledge in this lifetime. Whilst in this lifetime our temperament and circumstances may be influenced by our karma from previous lifetimes, which in turn may affect our personality and reasoning to some degree, with correct guidance the mind may be trained to choose to foster only good thoughts and actions that will be of great benefit to us as well as to others. If we are truly to grasp what it is to be human we must study the nature of the Human Body and the Human Mind. Let us begin with the body, which is the home of the mind, though not losing sight of the fact that the mind is the master and the body is the servant. When the mind becomes impure with defilements, the body's elements become impure as well. So, once the mind is pure, the body's elements will become pure also. BODY We should consider that the body consists of the four coarse elements — earth, water, air, and fire — combined in the form of cells. These cells are the building bricks that make up our organs, circulatory and nervous systems, muscles and skeleton, digestive system and brain or, in other words, the complete physiology. TRAINING THE TRAINERS 37