Category: Healthy Living

 

It is believed in folklore that  rubbing Buddha’s belly brings wealth and prosperity.

While Yoga and its sister science, Ayurveda, took root in India about 5000 years ago, Buddhism, a major world religion, began about 2,500 years ago in India. This faith spread to Japan and took root there mingling with the already indigenous native spirituality to create their customized version of Buddhism.  Unique and at the same time universal and rooted in the original texts that traveled from India through China, Japan’s form of Buddhism underwent a factionalism during the Kamakura Period (1185-1333):

The Kamakura period was a period of crises in which the control of the country moved from the imperial aristocracy to the samurai. In 1185 the Shogunate was established at Kamakura.

This period saw the introduction of the two schools that had perhaps the greatest impact on the country: (1) the Amidist Pure Land schools, promulgated by evangelists such as Genshin and articulated by monks such as Hōnen, which emphasize salvation through faith in Amitabha and remain the largest Buddhist sect in Japan (and throughout Asia); and (2) the more philosophical Zen schools, promulgated by monks such as Eisai and Dogen, which emphasize liberation through the insight of meditation, which were equally rapidly adopted by the upper classes and had a profound impact on Japanese culture.

Additionally, it was during the Kamakura period that the influential monk Nichiren began teaching devotion to the Lotus Sutra. Eventually, his disciples formed their own school of Nichiren Buddhism, which includes various sects that have their own interpretations of Nichiren’s teachings.

(excerpt from wiki)

In Christianity too, prayers by the faithful is another form of meditation and hymns, another form of chanting… I embrace all forms of spirituality and not one is better than another as they all value non-violence, love and compassion.  Above all, Peace.

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In Japan, round bellies of babies and toddlers are looked upon adoringly with afffection…at temples, people will suround the smaller buddha statute to touch and rub all over especially the belly for good luck.

In Yoga terms, were you aware that Enteric Nervous System – at the solar plexus (yep, that’s the belly region) – so called the “Belly Brain” has 100 million neurons – more than the spinal cord ?!

What’s interesting is that nerves involved in the solar plexus include those that govern the autonomic nervous system, that part of the nervous system that we cannot voluntarily control. The autonomic nervous system regulates organ function, constriction and dilation of blood vessels (for e.g.  pupil size).

Maybe rubbing our belly brings more than wealth and prosperity while I wished for that as well when I rubbed the Japanese version of buddha at a temple in Kamakura many many times:)

Wishing you all the best of health in 2014!  Health is our most precious wealth.

Without Health, There is no Wealth.

Happy New Year !

May Year of the Horse bring about optimal health steeped in inner-wealth.

You are born in the Year of the Horse if your birthday falls in one of these lunar years:

02/11/1918-01/31/1919	01/30/1930-02/16/1931	02/15/1942-02/04/1943
02/03/1954-01/23/1955	01/21/1966-02/08/1967	02/07/1978-01/27/1979
01/27/1990-02/14/1991	02/12/2002-01/31/2003	01/31/2014-02/18/2015
02/17/2026-02/05/2027	02/04/2038-01/23/2039	01/23/2050-02/10/2051