NM Wisdom Challenge: Do We Live Healthy Lives to Avoid or Postpone Death?

Hello Kind Mindful Steemians!

This wisdom challenge from @naturalmedicine (@metametheus) this week is stimulating the cognitive thought process. This week question is Do We Live Healthy Lives to Avoid or Postpone Death? The challenge confronts the perceived rationale behind living healthy life. After all, why do we want to lead a healthy when we all are going to die anyway? Or at least we think we are all going to die? Do we really know that? I mean, are we absolutely sure we are going to die? Or so we think?

Family Brainstorming
You won’t believe how much enjoyable this question made our 45 minutes car journey to Easter egg hunt. This challenge was very good for brainstorming in the family. My 8 & 10 years old kids were joining in the conversation. My son says “eating fruits, protein make your brain & heart healthy so you can do better in math, english and every subject in class. So you are full of energy so you can be quick, help others.” 👏🏼 My 10 year old daughter joins in “keeping balanced food, making sure your body gets what it need, getting it cleaned, keeping fit.” She says she wants to be healthy to stop disease, to not die early, to prevent mental and physical illness. She adds “I want to be healthy because I don’t want to be unhealthy.” 😄 Simple! Kids often have simple answer and sometimes within that simple answers lies the deep meaning. My wife had similar ideas - we want to be healthy to avoid need for medication including injectables, to avoid pain, to enjoy life and so on.

So it appears, from our family brainstorming, that we try to live healthy life to avoid suffering and pain and to enjoy life. But is it?

Unhealthy “Young Me”
I was not particularly leading a healthy lifestyle in my youth although I used to run regularly, do some martial arts and play Table Tennis. But I used to smoke and drink alcohol often in excess. We used to perceive it as fun, enjoyment, entertainment & so forth. Smoking and drinking made it easier to make friends and socialize or so we thought. Often lived the life with a motto “You live once…”. Unhealthy living then was not necessarily a conscious individual choice but an autonomic response to the socio-environmental influences. Why was I living the unhealthy life? To suffer? No, I was enjoying the life or at least so I thought back then. At times I may have been avoiding the stresses and pain with alcohol and cigarettes.

So what am I saying here? Am I living healthy to enjoy life and avoid pain and suffering (as our family brainstorming seems to suggest) or otherwise as my youth age suggest?

Quitting smoking, alcohol & becoming vegetarian
Fast forward 9 years to 2009 – married and a father. I attended 10 days Vipasanna Meditation course and gave up smoking and drinking as if never been a smoker or drinker. Although my motivation to quit smoking and alcohol was not health but my wife who did not like them both. And although I had been trying many times to quit smoking unsuccessfully, meditation cut off the habit with ease. So nearly 10 years without cigarettes and alcohol. Then on 1st Jan 2018 I decided to become a vegetarian – again not necessarily for health reasons (although had a bit of raised cholesterol) – but wanted to see what effect it would have on my body. And glad I experimented, I feel fresh, light and more energetic – so I stuck to it.

While it seems that healthy life in general leads to less suffering and longevity I wasn’t necessarily making healthy choices for those reasons. Meditation improved my immune system and wellbeing so I maintained my regular daily practice. Giving up smoking and drinking kept my wife happy and (now) see the health benefit. Being vegetarian felt good and my body likes it.

So to me, it wasn’t necessarily making an informed decision to lead healthy life to postpone or avoid death. It just happened – unhealthy lifestyles happened but felt I was enjoying it without fear for the future; healthy choice happened without thinking about the future. So, NO I did not choose how to live to postpone or avoid death. Enjoying and living the moment……..

Do we really die?
And again, do we really know? Or how do we know for sure? Or is death a “Myth”? One thing for sure, we know people’s body dies physiologically – we have seen it many times. Is that what we mean death? Or does the journey of this life ends as we know it but continues on different realm? Does life only mean the sense spheres experience i.e. see, hear, taste, smell, feel and think? Or something exist beyond?

Do we believe the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying which suggest that we go on to live after death?

“Even as man discards old clothes for the new ones, so the dweller in the body, the soul, leaving aside the worn-out bodies, enters into new bodies. The soul migrates from body to body. Weapons cannot cleave it, nor fire consume it, nor water drench it, nor wind dry it.” Bhagavad Gita

Regardless, as Buddha said it is our duty to keep this body healthy.....Now I know 🤔

With Peace Love & Joy 🕉❤️😊
Let’s grow together in wisdom through #meditation 🧘🏼‍♂️🧘🏼‍♀️