By Yu Qiong
I have some old friends who often mentioned their The grandfather of a friend was a well-known doctor. Bandits often came One day, the bandits’ leader was injured and came to see this esteemed In the past, patients would feel grateful to the doctors who had cured It is quite different from today’s modern society. I stayed in a local In this modern society, the relationship between doctors and patients In fact the encounter between a doctor and a patient is from a As one progresses in life, he will incur and repay karma. The Whether a person is doctor or patient, everyone is responsible for his
relatives and their medical practice.
to the village where he lived. When they passed through the village in the
night, the crops in the village would be looted.
doctor. Before healing his injuries, the grandfather insisted that the
bandit promise not to rob the village again. Soon the bandits’ leader was
cured. Since then they would take a detour around the village, or if they
occasionally passed through the village, they would leave some grain at
the doctor’s front door. The leader of the bandits always remembered that
the doctor saved his life.
them. They often brought something when they came to visit, just like they
did when they visited their relatives. Even a bandit would do so, not to
mention normal people.
doctor’s home after I came to the United States. He was a skillful and
older doctor. Almost all the people at the age of 30 or below in that town
had been delivered by him. His practice in recent years, became more
laborious. Even for a disease that was so apparent and could be determined
by a glance, he would require the patient to take various tests. He
transfers all the money he earns to his wife and children in the event
that one of patients would sue him. One of his friends is an excellent
doctor and yet had been sued by patients repeatedly that year, which made
my friend spend each day with great caution and stress.
has become very much like a business. The patient buys a treatment. If not
satisfied, he can find various excuses to find fault with the doctor. The
doctor asks the patient to do various tests. With the test results the
doctor will have the evidence to base the treatments and prescriptions on,
and thus will have a way to protect himself. For the patient, medical care
becomes more and more expensive. For the doctor, the insurance becomes
more and more costly. Everyone is cautiously watching each other. The
relationship is tense and adversarial, forming a bad cycle. As a result
the cost of medical care has become a big burden on society.
predestined relationship. It is not an accident for a patient to meet a
doctor. In the book of Many Lives, Many Teachers based on the
clinical records of a psychologist, a story is told that a patient
regressed back to her previous life and found the doctor in this life was
her teacher in her previous life.
relationship among people is based on karma, as in the one between the
doctor and the patient. The doctor cures a patient. He may accumulate de
[virtue] or repay karma for some kind of debt in his previous life.
If the doctor does something wrong such as pulling a wrong tooth, botching
an operation, or asking an unreasonably high price, he will receive karma
and have to pay it back later. To the patient, the hardships are to repay
karma. Suffering physically or mentally or paying the medical bill is all
to repay his karma. After the repayment, one can become healthy and life
can be smooth again.
own life. Everything one has done is recorded as accumulating virtue or
karma, which will be carried from lifetime to lifetime. The ancient people
knew this principle. Do good deeds to accumulate virtue; repay a debt of
gratitude. The behaviors of the modern people generate too much karma. If
a person continues doing harmful things without regard for virtue, his
life will soon be in danger.
Posting date: 18/Jan/2003
Original article date: 11/Jan/2003
Category: Open Forum
