Ayurveda is unique because it is based upon the three doshas of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. These three biological components together constitute the physical and functional unit of all living cells, tissues, organs and the body as a whole. When normal, they constitute the three basic tissues or pillars termed as “Tridhathus” which stabilize life, but when irregular, the same three elements are responsible for ageing, disease, and death; and hence they are termed as “Doshas”.

Ayurveda and Fertility

I shall now demonstrate, in the field of Infertility, how making use of these simple physiological principles sometimes gives amazing clinical results.

Different causes of infertility need to be treated differently. Ayurvedic herbal treatment is very useful in increasing sperm count in men and is very effective in women where the cause of infertility cannot be pinpointed.

Healthy female and male fertility require a healthy digestive fire, quality of tissue and free-flowing channels in order for the reproductive system to be well nourished. This is because according to Ayurveda, digestive fire converts food that enters the stomach into the essence of foods, which then flows and nourishes the tissues within the body.

Buddhism and the health profession

In some traditional Asian families, natural therapies and rituals at the temple are highly regarded and may play a more important role in their approach to healthcare than contemporary medicine. These views are more culturally driven.

Physicians are generally highly respected in the eyes of the religion if they practice with compassionate wisdom and many physicians themselves are aware of the unique opportunities that their role affords them in this regard.

This article will discuss a Buddhist view and explore how cultural and social factors may influence Buddhist women’s perspectives on reproductive health. It is not possible to represent the views of all Buddhists here and neither can it represent all of Buddhism, as there is no unified doctrine with respect to these complex issues.

• Birth arises from being (bhava paccayà jàti ti).
• Being arises from holding (upàdàna paccayà bhavo),
• Holding arises from craving (tanhà paccayà upàdànaü),
• Craving arises from feelings (vedanà paccayà taõhà).

Turning this the other way around we see that the centre point is feeling It is from a feeling that craving, holding, being, and birth come about. With contact, there is a feeling. On account of the feeling, there is craving, Craving is the interested following up of the feeling, either with like or dislike. Then there is a mental hold of this situation, on account of which is being, that is being with those feelings, perceptions and thoughts. On account of this, there is birth. It’s the birth of thought. Or even birth too happens in this manner.

• Feelings arise from contact (phassa paccayà vedanà).
• Contact arises from the six mental spheres (salàyatana paccayà phasso).
• The six mental spheres arise from name and matter (nàma råpa paccayà salàyatanaü).

The waking of the self-complete with his six doors of mental contact takes place at one or the other of the doors of mental contact. This point of waking is called name and matter. Names are the fivefold reactions of the mind in the form of feelings, perceptions, attention, contact and mental cognition. The matter is this body of ours together with the doors of mental contact, and the various things that matter at the doors, such as sights, sounds etc.

• Name and matter arises from consciousness (vi¤¤àna paccayà nàma råpaü).

There should be a conscious door, eye, ear or anything else, for name and matter to take birth.

• Consciousness arises from determinations (sankhàra paccayà vi¤¤ànaü ti).

Determinations are threefold, as bodily, verbal and mental. Bodily determinations are in and out breaths, verbal determinations are thinking and pondering and mental determinations are feelings and perceptions. When these internal and prior activities of breathing, thinking, feeling and perceiving are present, there a consciousness would arise.

• Determinations arise from ignorance (avijjhà paccayà sankhàràti).

These activities of breathing, thinking, pondering, feeling and perceiving is on account of ignorance.

Abides with mindfulness of the body not established, not knowing the release of mind and the release through wisdom, where thoughts of demerit cease completely (anupaññhita kàya sati và viharati paritta cetaso tanca ceto vimuttiü pa¤¤à vimuttiü yatà bhåtaü nappajànàti).

The release of mind is gained when the bhikkhu completely handles the control of his mental faculties. Such a one enjoys the non-touched pleasure of his doors of mental contact. This is also called the release through knowing. The release through wisdom is gained by attaining to the jhànas, ascending from the first and descending from the topmost.

Throughout these abiding’s, the mind ceases to behave in demerit. When the mind abides in jhàanas and higher abiding, the message should be registered in the mind that those pure states of mind are impermanent, so unpleasant, and it is foolish to take them as me or mine. This is for the purpose of giving up the self-view (sakkàyadiññhi).

The interest for feelings is the holding (yà vedanàsu nandi tad-upàdànaü). This is one of the twelve links of dependent arising. Here the Blessed One points out how we should pierce through from one of these links so that we could see dependent cessation. It is this interest for feelings that we have to dispel little by little. Reading the discourse several times would be helpful, for realizing dependent arising and dependent cessation.

Karma and Rebirth

The wheel of life, or “samsara”, is an ancient symbol that has the same meaning in Buddhism and Hinduism. It symbolizes the cycle of birth, life, and death. When one revolution of the wheel is completed, life begins again with rebirth.

What is karma?

Karma is a Sanskrit word that literally means “action”. The word is used to refer to volitional acts as well as the fruits or consequences that arise from these acts. The idea of karma had existed in ancient Indian philosophy before the time of Siddhartha Gautama, and it became an important element of Buddhist philosophy.

The Hindu and Buddhist concepts of karma are quite similar, although Hinduism makes a further distinction between different types of karma, such as present karma, latent karma, and future karma. In the understanding of both thought systems, the law of karma describes the connection between actions and the resulting forces, as follows: wholesome actions lead to wholesome states while unwholesome actions lead to unwholesome states, individually as well as collectively.

The ethical dimension

To make this more intelligible, one has to account for (un)wholesome actions and (un)wholesome states and their respective meaning in Buddhism. The former is outlined in the Noble Eightfold Path. Action springs from volition, which springs from intention, which springs from thought, and so forth. The quality of actions can be described in ethical terms, simply as either good or bad, or both good and bad, or indifferent.

There are various grades of ethical qualities; and most people have an intuitive understanding that enables them to discern between good and bad, although the discerning ability depends on the person’s state of mental development. A wise person at a high level of mental development can clearly discern mental activities and actions in an ethical dimension, while a deluded person has difficulties or is even unable to do so.

Good and bad vs. skilful and unskillful

Wherever the three defilements – delusion, greed, and aversion – are present, they blur the view and increase the level of confusion in the individual or group. Consequently, if the defilements are present, there is a low level of skill in distinguishing between good and bad actions.

Thus it makes sense to say that we have skilful (good) and unskillful (bad) thoughts, we speak skilful (good) and unskillful (bad) words and we act either in a skilful (good) or in an unskillful (bad) way. Sensations of unpleasantness issued from this same person. This thought is a further delusion. This is followed by a willful decision to speak words that will produce an unpleasant sensation in that which is perceived as a person. This decision is an act of hostility.

Of all the events described so far, only the last is called karma. Words are carefully chosen in the hopes that when heard they will cause pain. The words are pronounced aloud. This is the execution of the decision to be hostile. It may also be classed as a kind of karma, although technically it is after-karma.

There is a visual sensation of a furrowed brow and turned down mouth. The thought arises that the other person’s face is frowning. The thought arises that the other person’s feelings were hurt. There is a fleeting joyful feeling of success in knowing that one has scored a damaging verbal blow.

Eventually, perhaps much later, there is an unpleasant sensation of regret, perhaps taking the form of a sensation of fear that the perceived enemy may retaliate, or perhaps taking the form of remorse on having acted impetuously, like an immature child, and hoping that no one will remember this childish action. This regret or fear is the unpleasant ripening of the karma, the unskillful decision to inflict pain through words.

Rebirth

Buddhists hold that the retributive process of karma can span more than one lifetime. Rebirth has always been an important tenet in Buddhism, and it is often referred to as walking the wheel of life (samsara). It is the process of being born over and over again in different times and different situations, possibly for many thousand times.

As long as there is a delusion, greed, and aversion, and as long as passions are not extinguished, we generate karma. Because we eventually accumulate immaterialized karma, there is a next lifetime in which the accumulated karma will take form. Only when all accumulated karma is realized and the generation of new karma is calmed, one can enter the stream that leads to Nirvana. This process continues until Nirvana is reached, which signifies the cessation of rebirth and, hence, the end of suffering.

It is notable that this also entails the avoidance of “good karma”. Once the stream that leads to Nirvana is entered, creating wholesome karma is not an object anymore. Although wholesome karma leads to entering the stream, it does not necessarily lead to Nirvana, only the extinguishment of all karma leads to Nirvana.

The Buddhist Precepts and the Ten Perfections give concrete meaning to good and bad and explain skilful and unskillful volitional acts in detail. Since everything in Buddhism is interrelated, the Eightfold Path must be seen in connection with the Four Noble Truths, the concept of karma, and the tenet of rebirth.

The moral quality of volitional acts determines karma

The law of karma states that there is a connection between the moral quality, the level of skill in volitional actions, and the resulting states. What we are is determined largely by what we thought, said and did in the past, while what we are thinking, saying, and doing now will form our future. The karma of past, present, and future events are connected by the law of cause and effect.

For instance, if one generates bad karma by hurting or killing sentient beings, one will have to endure the negative consequences of these deeds in this or another lifetime. Similarly, if one generates good karma by observing the precepts, positive consequences will follow inevitably.

Buddhists understand karma as a natural law. There is no higher instance, no judgment, no divine intervention, and no gods that steer man’s destiny, but only the law of karma itself, which works on a universal scale. Deeds yield consequences either in the next second, in the next hour, day, month, year, decade, or even in the next lifetime, or in another distant lifetime. To illustrate this, consider the following example describing a sequence of volitional acts, which yield instant karmic results:

The Non-Self

The concept of rebirth is unfamiliar to most Western people. Its philosophical and traditional foundation is found in India, where the theory of transmigration of souls had presumably existed long before it was written down in the Upanishads around 300 BC.

The Buddhist concept is subtly different from the classical Indian understanding because it denies the existence of a self or a soul. In Buddhism, the idea of self is merely an illusion. Man wrongly identifies perception, consciousness, mind and body with what he calls self. In reality, there is no abiding entity that could be identified with a self, because the states of perception, consciousness, and mind and body constantly change.

The body is mortal and when it dies, all mental activities cease. That is why there is no soul. The idea of the soul is simply an extension of the self; in fact, it is an immortal version of the self that supposedly survives physical death. Buddhism denies the existence of such an entity. Instead, what we call self is just a stream of consciousness that draws identity from concepts and memories, all of which are impermanent.

The idea of an abiding self is deceptive because it is derived from unenlightened reasoning. The word self simply provides a reference frame for the mind-body phenomena of sentient beings. We usually identify it with our body and the stream of consciousness that is sustained by sense perceptions and thoughts. In reality, what we call self is neither abiding nor detached from the rest of the world and other beings. Buddhists call this the “neither self nor non-self”.

What is reborn if not the “self”?

If the idea of non-self sounds odd, then it must sound even more curious that non-self can be reborn. There is a seeming contradiction between the canon of rebirth and that of the non-self, which even many Buddhists find difficult to understand. The contradiction is, however, only on the surface and can be solved if one pictures the self as the result of a karmic formation. This can be put into less abstract words:

If we imagine the world as an ocean, we are like the ripples on the ocean. Formations like ripples and waves occur, because of wind, tides, and other kinetic forces. In the Buddhist analogy, the universe is in motion due to karmic forces. A ripple, a wave, or a billow may seem like an individual entity for a moment, creating the illusion that it has a self, but it is gone in the next moment. The truth is that all individuals are one. A ripple is a temporary phenomenon; it is just water in motion. We know that kinetic energy causes waveforms on a body of water and it would be ridiculous to say that a single ripple or wave has a self.

Similarly, in the case of beings, the process of coming into life and being conditioned in a particular way is caused by karmic forces. The up and down of the ocean’s waves corresponds with the rotation of the wheel of life. The sea that surges, falls, and resurges, is the life that is born, dies, and is reborn again. It is therefore obvious that we should not focus on the temporary phenomenon of the wave, but on the force that causes, forms, and drives it. Nothing else is said, although in more practical terms, in the Eightfold Path.