From Suffering to Sovereign: Faith, ‘Placebo’ & Change

The placebo effect shows that in some cases the mere suggestion of recovery can kick the body’s innate self-healing power into action.

According to the traditional medical paradigm this is little more than a quirk - even though its effects are demonstrable, and seen again and again in countless studies, the placebo effect is dismissed because it doesn't fit the western model of health.

In the East, the body’s self-healing power has been taken seriously for decades, and now the very cutting edge of Western neuroscience is just beginning to catch on.  

But it's in the realm of Buddhist psychology where the placebo effect is most clearly mapped out - and we can use this ancient description of the mind to tap into our own self-healing potential today.

The placebo effect is essentially what contemplative traditions call ‘Faith’ - but because faith has somewhat of an ambivalent connotation in the West we need to think carefully about what this word actually refers to. 

Since the 17th century Western culture has tended to distinguish between faith and reason. To many of us faith is something illogical and unreliable.

But in Buddhist meditation and all genuine contemplative traditions this is not the case at all, and that’s because these traditions are ‘phenomenological’ in the sense that they meticulously describe our shared inner terrain. 

They map out the mind through rigorous investigation - in an empirical, scientific way. 

So for our purposes there’s no distinction between faith and reason. They are both part of the same rigorous inner science.

The word ‘faith’ comes from the latin ‘fides’ which means trust - and to trust is to become open to something and to give ourselves over to it. 

When we develop faith - or trust - we first investigate scientifically to see if something is reliable and ‘trust-worthy’, and having done so, we then ‘entrust’ ourselves to it and allow ourselves to be influenced by it.

Buddhist psychology distinguishes between three types of faith - admiration, believing and wishing. Let’s look at how these work in practice.

If we had a health problem we naturally seek out a ‘specialist’ in that area. But in order for that person to actually help us, we have to develop an attitude of trust and openness towards them.

If we’re able to develop that trust it will generally proceed as follows. 

We first develop ‘admiration’ for their expertise, knowledge and experience (admiring faith). On that basis we then ‘believe’ what they say to us about our illness and chance of recovery (believing faith). And through that we then naturally ‘wish’ to give ourselves over to their course of treatment and to see ourself and our life in the terms that they describe (wishing faith).

When these three mental states come together our sense of identity and our worldview undergo a change. Before the consultation we related to ourself as sick or broken, and we grasped at a world of misfortune and ill-health. 

Now having experienced admiring, believing and wishing faith, we relate to ourself as someone in a direct relationship with health and recovery. We see ourself in a new light - and feel that we are literally inhabiting a new world. And because of this - our innate powers of recovery are activated.

Faith is therefore the agent that allows our innate self-healing powers to come alive.

So ‘faith’ - this inner process of ‘trusting’ and ‘entrusting’ - functions to change our setting. Not the external setting, but the inner setting - like a setting on a dial. We changed the setting of our mind from sickness to wellness; from scarcity to abundance; from suffering to Sovereign.

And this is precisely what happens in any documented case of the placebo effect in the medical literature.

So faith could really be rendered as ‘transformational trust’. And the trust we really want to develop is a deep trust in our own Sovereign potential.

Every week we take the time to tap into this on Sovereign Tea Time - through meditation, qigong and contemplation. Every week we learn to admire, believe in, and wish to further develop the astonishing untapped potential of our own body and mind. Find out more below: