Humanistic Buddhism and Holistic Health Management

Abstract

Master Hsing Yun said that humanistic Buddhism has six characteristics: (1) human nature, (2) life nature, (3) altruism, (4) joy, (5) contemporary nature, and (6) universal relief nature. Among the six characteristics, life nature is closely related to the health of the whole person. When the World Health Organization (WHO) was founded in 1948, the definition of health was: "Health is a complete sense of physical, mental, and social well-being and not only the absence of disease or infirmity." This definition is the beginning of focusing on holistic health. Most people in the Western Christian world have a good understanding of the word spirituality, but it is difficult for believers in other religious faiths in the non-Christian world to grasp its meaning. This is also an important reason why most countries at the WHO meeting were unable to reach a consensus to include spirituality in the definition of health. Therefore, the concept of "spirituality" must be interpreted and integrated into the culture according to local characteristics in order to implement holistic health with local significance. Lu (2022) proposed a holistic health model that integrates three parts: (I) Dimensions: Physical, Mental, Spiritual, and Social, (II) Status: Health, Sub-health, Illness, and Recovering, and (III) Approach: Western medicine, Eastern medicine and Folklore Therapy, Religions and Beliefs, Sports and Martial Arts. This study explores religion in the third approach within the holistic health model, exploring its relationship within (I) Physical, Mental, Spiritual, and Social dimensions, and (II) states of Health, Sub-health, Illness, and Recovering from a perspective of Humanistic Buddhism.