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My teacher and friend Wilbur Mushin May recommended this wonderful book to me about one of our ancestors Master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1768) called Wild Ivy translated by Norman Waddell.  In the book there is a chapter entitled “Zen Sickness” which shares several ideas about sickness and health and the ways of the ancestors to deal with life as it appears in bodily challenges.

I was especially taken by one story and meditation called “The Soft-Butter Method” (pages 90-91) it was very similar to some of the healing meditations that I learned and used while I was a Unity minister.  So I decided to try it out on myself to help me with some problems I’d had with my digestion since I got my braces on.  Wow, within a day or two I began to feel much better and the symptoms all but disappeared.  I have continued to use it once or twice a day and look forward to even more fantastic results.

I hope you’ll try it and let me know if it helps you in any way.  In gassho, Shokai

The Soft-Butter Method

“Imagine that a lump of soft butter, pure in color and fragrance and the size and shape of a duck egg, is suddenly placed on the top of your head. As it begins to slowly melt, it imparts an exquisite sensation, moistening and saturating your head within and without. It continues to ooze down, moistening your shoulders, elbows, and chest; permeating lungs, diaphragm, liver, stomach, and bowels; moving down the spine through the hips, pelvis, and buttocks.

At that point, all the congestions that have accumulated within the five organs and six viscera, all the aches and pains in the abdomen and other affected parts, will follow the heart as it sinks downward into the lower body.  As it does, you will distinctly hear a sound like that of water trickling from a higher to a lower place.  It will move lower down through the lower body, suffusing the legs with beneficial warmth, until it reaches the soles of the feet, where it stops.

The student should then repeat the contemplation. As his vital energy flows downward, it gradually fills the lower region of the body, suffusing it with penetrating warmth, making him feel as if he were sitting up to his navel in a hot bath filled with a decoction of rare and fragrant medicinal herbs that have been gathered and infused by a skilled physician.

Inasmuch as all things are created by the mind, when you engage in this contemplation, the nose will actually smell the marvelous scent of pure, soft butter; your body will feel the exquisite sensation of its melting touch.  Your body and mind will be in perfect peace and harmony. You will feel better and enjoy greater health than you did as a youth of twenty or thirty.  At this time all the undesirable accumulations in your vital organs and viscera will melt away.  Stomach and bowels will function perfectly.  Before you know it, your skin will glow with health.  If you continue to practice the contemplation with diligence, there is no illness that cannot be cured, no virtue that cannot be acquired, no level of sagehood that cannot be reached, no religious practice that cannot be mastered.  Whether such results appear swiftly or slowly depends only upon how scrupulously you apply yourself.”[1]

[1] Waddell, N. (1999) Wild Ivy, The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin. Shambhala: Boston, MA

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