|
|
Fitness Articles |
|
10 Totally Unhealthy Eating Behaviors To Avoid! 10 Totally Unhealthy Eating Behaviors To Avoid! Take Control of Your Metabolism Weight Problems - Facts You May Not Know The Fountain of Youth Within US! Nutrition as an Attention Deficit Disorder How To Get Slim With Healthy Eating Habits Health Spas: Exercise Your Rights Who's Responsible For Your Health? Success with Strength Training Exercise
on Long Flights Essential
|
holistic medicine a
doctrine of preventive and therapeutic medicine that emphasizes the
necessity of looking at the whole person--his body, mind, emotions, and
environment--rather than at an isolated function or organ and which
promotes the use of a wide range of health practices and therapies. It has
especially come to stress responsibility for "self-healing," or
"self-care," by observing the traditional commonsense essentials
of exercise, healthful diet, adequate sleep, good air, moderation in
personal habits, and so forth. The
term holistic medicine became especially fashionable in the late 20th
century (the International Association of Holistic Health Practitioners
was founded in 1970, assuming its current holistic name in 1981). In its
underlying philosophy, in emphasizing the provision of whole care to a
person or patient, holistic medicine is not new, being inseparable from
any traditional health care of good quality. Holistic medicine in extreme
instances, however, has tended to equate the validity of a wide range of
schools or approaches to health care, not all of them compatible and some
of them competitive, some scientific and some unscientific. Although
mainstream Western medical practices are not ignored, they are seen as
only one part of the available therapies and by no means the only
effective ones. Congresses and conferences on holistic health have thus
drawn not only representatives of medical schools and institutions but
also advocates of such widely varying concepts as acupuncture, alternative
childbirth, astrology, biofeedback, chiropractic, faith healing,
graphology, homeopathy, macrobiotics, megavitamin therapy, naturopathy,
numerology, nutrition, osteopathy, psychocalisthenics, psychotherapy,
self-massage, shiatsu (or acupressure), touch encounter, and yoga. Buddhist meditation the
practice of mental concentration leading ultimately through a succession
of stages to the final goal of spiritual freedom, nirvana. Meditation
occupies a central place in Buddhism and combines, in its highest stages,
the discipline of progressively increased introversion with the insight
brought about by wisdom, or prajna. The
object of concentration (the kammatthana) may vary according
to individual and situation. One Pali text lists 40 kammatthanas,
including devices (such as a colour or a light), repulsive things (such as
a corpse), recollections (as of the Buddha), and the brahmaviharas
(virtues, such as friendliness). Four
stages (called in Sanskrit dhyanas; Pali jhanas) are
distinguished in the shift of attention from the outward sensory world:
(1) detachment from the external world and a consciousness of joy and
ease; (2) concentration, with suppression of reasoning and investigation;
(3) the passing away of joy, with the sense of ease remaining; and (4) the
passing away of ease also, bringing about a state of pure self-possession
and equanimity. The
dhyanas are followed by four further spiritual exercises, the samapattis
("attainments"). They are described as: (1) consciousness of
infinity of space; (2) consciousness of the infinity of cognition; (3)
concern with the unreality of things (nihility); and (4) consciousness of
unreality as the object of thought. The
stages of Buddhist meditation show many similarities with Hindu
meditation, reflecting a common tradition in ancient India. The Buddhists,
however, describe the culminating trancelike state as transient; final
Nirvana requires the insight of wisdom. The exercises that are
meant to develop wisdom involve meditation on the true nature of reality
or the conditioned and unconditioned dharmas (elements) that make up all
phenomena. Meditation,
though important in all schools of Buddhism, has developed characteristic
variations within different traditions. In China and Japan the practice of
dhyana (meditation) assumed sufficient importance to develop into a
school of its own (Ch'an and Zen;), in which meditation is the most
essential feature of the school. Transcendental Meditation TM),
movement that was founded by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and became popular
in the West during the 1960s. The movement is based more on the practice
of specific techniques of meditation than on a set of religious or
philosophical beliefs. As a monk in India in the 1940s and '50s the
Maharishi developed a form of meditation that could be easily
practiced by people in the modern world. In 1958 he began teaching it in
India, and in 1959 he made his first tour of the West. Transcendental
Meditation uses one of a variety of Sanskrit mantras, each of which
is a short word or phrase that, repeated in the mind, helps the user still
the activity of thought and find a deeper level of consciousness. Through
this process it is claimed that the practitioner finds deep relaxation,
which leads to enhanced inner joy, vitality, and creativity. The
perspective behind TM, based on Vedanta philosophy, is called the Science
of Creative Intelligence. To
practice TM, a person must be initiated by a teacher. This involves
sessions of formal instruction, followed by a ceremony in which the
applicant makes monetary and other offerings and receives his mantra,
selected by the teacher on the basis of the meditator's temperament and
occupation. There are three subsequent "checking" sessions in
which the person meditates under the teacher's observation. The person
then begins meditating independently twice a day for periods of 20 minutes
each and continues to do so indefinitely. Further levels of training are
available. Many physiologists and psychologists have recognized
Transcendental Meditation's relaxing and vitalizing effects on the
body and mind.
|
