Someone brought a teaching from an elder teacher to the teacher: "Mindfulness as a factor of enlightenment gradually cures illness... illness can undoubtedly be cured." They asked the teacher to explain why this factor of mindfulness can cure disease.

What Is the Mindfulness Factor of Enlightenment

The teacher explained that this factor means fixing mindfulness steadily at the center of the sphere of Dhamma that constitutes the human body, never lapsing for even a moment — whether sitting, lying down, or walking, one must always guard the mind's stillness. This mindfulness factor is one of seven factors of enlightenment: mindfulness, investigation of states, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity, beginning with mindfulness and developing into investigation — selecting, from the forty meditation subjects, whichever one lets mindfulness rest most clearly and continuously. Once chosen, energy comes into play: sustained, repeated effort that draws in pure energy to cleanse impurity layer by layer, refining the mind progressively, moving from coarse impurity toward ever subtler impurity, further and further from the hindrances and defilements.

Why Illness Arises

He explained that illness arises from impurity — the residue of kamma created in the past — taking the form of a "dark element" lodged within the sphere of Dhamma since conception in the mother's womb, like a blueprint embedded throughout the body. As long as its proper moment hasn't arrived, this dark element produces no effect; but when the kammic pattern comes due, it acts like a time bomb releasing a current of demerit, feeding unwholesome energy into whichever part of the body holds that dark element, and illness results — comparable to insurgents receiving weapons and resources that allow them to act.

The Principle of Resolving It Layer by Layer Through the Mindfulness Factor

The teacher explained that resolving illness requires stilling the mind at the center of the sphere of Dhamma, to draw in ever subtler energy layer by layer — like peeling an onion down to its core, where each layer holds its own accumulated impurity that must be cleared with progressively finer refinement, until reaching the center where the kammic pattern resides. The more completely the mind stills, the more purified energy can reach subtler dimensions, resolving the earth, water, wind, and fire elements that underlie the illness, step by step. He reassured that at every stage of this process, one is never alone — Knowers and Powerful Ones exist at each subtler dimension, always ready to guide and help.