Home > Quotes > Health & Illness

While it is absurd to reject medical science, the principal factor in overcoming illness is the patient and his or her “life force.” In medical terms, it is our capacity to heal ourselves. Life force is a mystic phenomenon that transcends human understanding.

While it is absurd to reject medical science, the principal factor in overcoming illness is the patient and his or her “life force.” In medical terms, it is our capacity to heal ourselves. Life force is a mystic phenomenon that transcends human understanding.
It is precisely because we battle with sickness that we are able to experience firsthand the best and worst in life, allowing us to forge the strength within ourselves that will never succumb. That time of struggle enables one to empathize with the suffering of the sick.
Don’t confuse good health with not being sick. A truly healthy life is one spent creating value—tackling the challenges thrown at us over a lifetime, striving to achieve something worthy and meaningful; constantly expanding the frontiers of our lives.
The key to battling illness lies in summoning a vigorous life-force and a positive fighting spirit. This brings out the full effectiveness of a curative treatment.
Is health a state where one’s body is simply free of disease? Good health is mustering a robust attitude to aggressively combat any malicious threats to our well-being. It is in this unyielding resolve to fight, challenge, create and ceaselessly advance that we find the basis of true human health.
Sickness and death are unavoidable in life. To experience illness is not itself misfortune, but to be defeated by illness is misfortune.
A critical illness gives one a chance to think of one’s death and reflect on one’s life. One can use the suffering of illness to face these deepest issues of life and death.

Stories of Hope

Facing Challenges

Whilst the stark truth is that hardship and difficulties are inevitable and inescapable, the definitive question may be whether we yield under their weight or use them as an opportunity to better ourselves. Read here ...

Stories of Hope

Raising Children

What is the greatest gift a parent can bequeath to a child? Ikeda believes the ultimate goal of child-rearing lies in nurturing in children the fortitude to prevail over the tests of life and belief in their limitless potential. Read here ...

Stories of Hope

Staying Young

Insights into staying youthful from an octogenarian who shouldn’t have lived beyond his thirties. Ikeda reminds us that our approach to aging and death will have a major impact on the quality of the final chapters of our lives. Read here ...