Body Wisdom

What is the body? What are flesh and bone?

Simply put, the body is a vehicle for you to experience life, but it is not truly yours. Arising from consciousness itself, it is intelligent and complicated beyond imagination. Masterfully made of earth and water, it is a gift you gave yourself, a gift to appreciate, honor, and love, but it pays not to get too attached to it- it is a gift you will soon return.

A great way to appreciate the body is to foster some conscious awareness of how it works. Whether you know it or not, innumerable things are going right for you this very moment. You are breathing air that is perfectly designed for your existence and survival. Countless chemical processes are happening in every one of your 50 trillion cells that are supporting you in your quest to experience this thing called life and to generate crazy amounts of love. Imagine 50 trillion separate entities, all collaborating on your behalf, in utter perfection. Let’s face it- you are a freaking miracle.

When some of those cells become specialized and get together to perform a specific function within the body, they form an organ. Think of it as a community of like-minded individuals with a common goal. Let’s take a quick look at a couple.

We’ll start with the humble kidney. The chemistry, mechanics, and intelligence of what is going on down there is astounding if you take the time to appreciate it. The working cells of the kidney are called nephrons, but the real action takes place in a part of the nephron called the loop of Henle (no relation to Don). Check out the complexity of the anatomy of just one nephron, while keeping in mind there are over one million of these in each kidney.

The anatomy here is impressive enough, but what is even more amazing is the physiology. Every second of every day this apparatus, particularly the loop of Henle, is keeping the blood concentration of various solutes and water exactly where they need to be. It is both an active and passive process, and we can dive ever deeper into complexity, but what really needs to be considered is the efficiency of purpose occurring here. These cells are actively, selectively and intelligently picking and choosing, in real-time all the time, based on the chemical composition of the incoming blood and hormonal mechanisms, exactly what needs to be eliminated and what needs to be retained.

Even if you don’t understand chemistry or things like osmolarity or concentration gradients, it doesn’t take much to comprehend the miraculous nature of how the body makes urine. Yes, every time you pee, it is a miracle. If the kidneys didn’t do their job perfectly 24/7, absorbing, re-absorbing and excreting water, urea, and electrolytes, you wouldn’t be alive for long (I promise to not dive too deeply into anatomy, physiology, chemistry, etc. this is not the purpose of this endeavor, but it does help to know a little to gain an appreciation for the miraculous nature of it all).

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Then there are the lungs, and that precious, delicate, and sacred interface between your body and the air you invite so deeply into its depths. In a continual and perfectly balanced interaction, oxygen-rich air flows in, and carbon dioxide laden air flows out, 12-20 times per minute on average for your entire earth-based adventure.

Where does the carbon dioxide come from? In the process of cellular respiration, carbon dioxide (among other things) is produced. Think of the energy-producing portion of a cell as a furnace where food is combusted to give physical life. When that food is “burned,” waste is produced, including carbon dioxide. This a massive oversimplification; it only hints at the profundity of this and many other bodily processes. Here, take a glimpse of the complexity of cellular respiration, just a tiny bit of what is happening inside a living cell, a glimpse of what is happening inside every part of you…

This cycle, also known as the Krebs Cycle, is how energy is produced in the body, or more accurately, how energy is liberated from food for use by our cells. Food, water and oxygen are all here, their chemical bonds being broken down and reassembled into new things; the chemistry twisting and dancing, transforming itself into the energy of life. Essentially, the lungs simply feed the fire, like blowing on a flame. And as can be seen, this is the start of a wonderfully beautiful set of chemical reactions, a chain of energetic transfers that is so elegant in its design; it should leave one in awe.

Why does knowing this matter? Well, it doesn’t. Your body is doing all these things and many more right this second, and you don’t have to think about it one bit. Through homeostasis, or what I like to call homeostatic intelligence, your body knows how to be alive and how to be healthy. Body temperature is kept in a very narrow range by various mechanisms such as vasoconstriction, vasodilation, sweating, chills, etc. Heart rate and blood pressure are kept within limits and are instantly responsive to increased cellular oxygen demand, i.e., exercise. The pancreas tightly controls blood sugar (through insulin production), along with the liver, (through the conversion of glucose to glycogen for storage, and the conversion of glycogen back to glucose for use when needed. This is just one of the livers over 500 functions…we won’t even dive into the wonders of fat and protein synthesis and metabolism). Then there are blood gases, pH, fluid balance, and so on. All these things are perfectly designed, intrinsic and necessary for life to happen, and all are kept right where they should be through various control and feedback mechanisms that are continually adjusting this or that, to keep things just so. And let us not forget the extraordinarily intelligent immune system, actively keeping out harmful foreign invaders while all this other stuff is going on. All these mechanisms are interwoven, interrelated, and interdependent. They are intelligent, purposeful, and happening real-time, all the time, and it all exists for one reason- to conspire to give you life.

What we must remember is that in the end, all of this is inseparable. All of it is One.

Matter and energy-

Everything is fundamentally energy. Matter is congealed energy, and our bodies are made of matter. Our physical bodies are simply converting energy into that which we call life; we are turning the material constituents of life- food, water, and air, into memories, learning, and experience. And this is what our lungs, through the seemingly simple act of breathing, are doing.

Interacting with the environment and participating in this energy chain is what your body does. I hinted at this in A Gentler Path-

One bright day, I walked along the seashore, and as the sunlight fell upon my skin, it told a story.

Solar energy, produced by a simple nuclear reaction ninety-three million miles away, powers everything around me: the birds floating by and all life in the ocean. And this power of light not only enlivens my body but my thoughts. And these thoughts and feelings, along with the motion being created by my muscles—my heartbeat and breathing—all start in space.

It takes ten million years for energy produced in a nuclear furnace in the sun’s core to make it to the surface in the form of light. It then takes about eight minutes for this light to travel to earth, to fall upon my skin this glorious summer day. The reaction responsible for all that has ever physically lived on this planet is simple in its physics, which shouldn’t be surprising. Four hydrogen nuclei are squeezed together under immense pressure to produce a helium nucleus, which (conveniently, luckily, purposely, intelligently, miraculously?) has less mass than the totality of the previous particles, and that difference in mass is expressed as energy. That’s it.

Energy that was formed ten million ago years plus eight minutes give or take, is giving life to the thought, emotion, movement, and self-awareness we are experiencing presently. And on the beach that day, I realized that every thought ever thought; every piece of art or note of music ever conceived and performed; every insect that has ever crawled, scurried, or flittered about; every bush, plant, tree, leaf, and blade of grass that has ever existed; every heartbeat that has ever beaten in every animal that has ever lived; every raindrop that has ever fallen; and every single thought and act of love or hate that has ever occurred, has arisen from this energy.

I sat in the sand, feeling the weight of this realization, letting myself become aware of the life coursing within me. I gave thanks for the sunlight and the food it created for me. I thought of the mechanics of cellular respiration, of how in each of my cells food combined with the oxygen I was breathing and chemical bonds were broken and reformed, releasing stored energy for me to use. A living, breathing, thinking, and loving chemistry, transforming food into usable energy and physical structure by the timeless, perfect, and intelligent orchestrating mechanism of the life force itself. I felt the rhythmic strength of my beating heart and the pulsing blood within my vasculature, blood which, by no coincidence, tastes of the ocean. And traveling within this vital, pulsing, living, liquid matrix are red blood cells, each containing at their core a molecule of iron, just like the core of iron found at the center of the earth. These are not coincidences; this is perfection, and of it, I am a part. I sat on the beach, feeling at once immense like the stars and small like the ants at my feet.

All this is beyond conscious reason, the subtle intricacies of the mechanics beyond comprehension. The ultimate control of these mechanisms, the overseeing force, the master controller, is beyond the realm of scientific exploration and intellect.  

It’s easy to forget about the miracle of life we are. At the heart of it all, the fact remains that we are simply turning solar energy into lessons, experience, and Love.

The problem I see in our modern “parts is parts” way of doing things in the medical system is that we have attempted to separate the inseparable. A nephrologist sees the kidney, the cardiologist, the heart, but often, neither sees the entire person. There is a balance, intelligence, cooperation, and interrelationship between all body systems, and between all cells. This is reflected through all of life- interdependence, harmony, and balance define the nature of the Universe itself. Microcosm reflects macrocosm; the patterns repeat, forever, and ever.

Body health is simple. Like so many things, it’s been ridiculously overcomplicated. I feel it is ignorant and arrogant, at the very least, to think we know more about the body than the body does about itself. There is more intelligence in one cell than all the scientific and medical knowledge we could ever know. Life has been doing this for a long time.

The mind-body interface-

Every thought you think is felt by every cell in your body. Staying out of fear, judgment, anger, and so on is one of the most overlooked yet impactful things you can do for your physical health.

This again speaks to responsibility. We are taught that to be responsible, we need to eat well, cut out the fat and salt, and get exercise. But we are not taught the most powerful determining factor regarding our health is our thinking. We are never taught the only thing in this life we can truly control is our thoughts. We are never taught we have a responsibility to ourselves, the people we love, and all of humanity to think correctly, which means lovingly. All we manifest in our lives comes from thought, every bit—all our health, all our joy, all our misery, all our pain, and all our material abundance. Everything comes from our thoughts. The hell or heaven on earth we have created was created entirely with our thoughts.

Keeping stress under control is paramount. No single thing can be more beneficial for our health. And where does stress, or more accurately, psychogenic (arising from the mind) stress, come from? One place, fear. Control fear by controlling fearful thoughts, and we control stress.

When we’re chronically stressed, a sustained release of hormones prepares us for fight or flight. We are not meant to be in this state chronically, and these chemicals will eventually deteriorate the body. According to the Cleveland Clinic, there are a few ways that stress impacts the human body and mind. Heart attack, stroke, hypertension, palpitations, asthma, chronic pain, muscle spasms, fibromyalgia, eczema, rosacea, psoriasis, GERD, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, TMJ, bruxism (teeth grinding), depression, anxiety and last but not least, it can significantly weaken the immune system leading to more frequent, and more severe infections, and even cancer.

If you are chronically stressed, there is only so much energy to go around. If you are in fight-or-flight (even a little bit), energy via chemical mediators is shunted to prepare for just that: to run away or fight. That energy must be taken from somewhere and is often stolen from your other defensive apparatus, the immune system.

Ironically, it is the fear of death that ultimately gives rise to all other fears. So, because we irrationally fear death, we create stress, which can and will shorten our lives. Kind of silly, isn’t it?

(Note- the nature of death will be explored in an upcoming section on Impermanence).

Remember, the body knows no difference between real and imagined threats. Fear is fear, and the body always reacts perfectly to it. Unfortunately, the mind keeps sounding what is, in reality, a false alarm.

Most stress is self-induced and unnecessary, brought on by presumptions, interpretations, and judgments that may not always be true. Those interpretations and presumptions are usually subconscious, having been installed in childhood. They are background programs that are always running, and if you are not aware of them and the attitudinal patterns they have created in your life, you will continue to respond to life the way you always have.

…could it be that the likelihood of the disease is not genetically predetermined (i.e., found on the genome) but that its presence is indicative of the learned fear one lives with, something we picked up from our parents, which could be said to be hereditary in its own way? Could we be destined to follow the same path of disease and illness they have not because of something found in our DNA but because we live and approach life as they did? Is it possible that a correlation could be erroneously made that genetics are responsible when it is learned behavior related to the person’s familial environment and upbringing? Could it be that all this costly and complicated research into disease using the latest in super-science and genetics is often unnecessary? Could it be that if we live peaceful, loving, and accepting lives, where the real causes of stress are controlled and dealt with, we would already have much of what we need to stay healthy for a long time? Could health and wellness be this simple?

I think the answer is a resounding yes.

What if, instead of developing yet another drug, we learn how to live with less stress? We seem to accept chronic stress is a normal part of life. Why? Where is that written?

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So, where does this leave us? Hopefully, in a place where we can appreciate ourselves and each other a little more. By understanding the nature of our physical vehicle, we can let go of the need to control our health. We are often guilty of caring too much, of doing too much, of trying to affect our health from the outside. We get so involved in micro-managing every little part of our health that we get stressed out over it and, in the end, do more damage than if we just let things be. Sunlight, fresh air, good water, natural food, natural exercise, and paying attention to stress and our inner environment are all that are needed.

It should be clear now that all healing comes from within, as does disease. All healing is spiritual healing, which is to be made whole again. The body will follow. It is the undoing of the errors that have caused you to fracture and become separate within yourself. It is the re-integration of your being.

Keeping ourselves in a connected and loving state of awareness is more impactful on our health than anything we can do outside of ourselves. Our bodies were created by, and thrive on, loving energy; it is our most essential “food.” It makes sense that what created us will sustain us. We forget this because we don’t see Love; we can’t pick it up and touch it. We can’t go to the store and buy it, cook it, and eat it. We also miss this most essential of facts because we are never told of it by those we trust with our health—because there is no money in it. It defies scientific analysis; therefore, it cannot be externally controlled. You can’t patent Love, you can’t bottle it, nor can it be prescribed.

Loving energy given freely by the Universe organizes, energizes, and heals us. Health is an ongoing process. It is not a state that is attained or lost; it merely is. Every moment is another chance to allow it or not. It is up to you. It is not measured by how far you can run or how many push-ups you can do; it is not reflected in arbitrary numbers. It is not something that can be manipulated, forced, or attained by taking any kind of pill, prescription, or otherwise. Health is a reflection of consciousness. Whether it is allowed or not is the question. 

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

-Jiddu Krishnamurti