Traditional Images

One of the best known textbooks on health education, Yo Jyo Kun - a teaching of wellness, is by the Japanese physician and Confucian scholar Ekiken Kaibara, and was published in 1713. This book is still read by many Japanese because of its unique advice on how to lead a healthy life. Kaibara said it was good for one's health not to work too much, not to eat too much, to sleep well and to take a moderate amount of exercise. In this teaching, health is the result of a continuous lifelong effort to lead a healthy life. It is important to note here that health is not seen as strength, speed or bodily power but as a moderate and integrated lifestyle. Detailed suggestions on how to achieve harmony of spirit, body and mind are based on traditional Chinese and Japanese medical wisdom of the time, derived from Confucian ethics.

Visionary images are a powerful source of traditional cultural activities. In Japan, one of our images of happiness is a healthy and respected elderly person surrounded by family members. This led in 1966 to the establishment of 15 September as an annual "Day of Respect for the Elderly". A long life is seen in Japan as a very positive outcome of healthy daily living, and the elderly are respected for this, as well as for their contribution to society. Living a long and healthy life is valuable in itself, and questions of productivity, important though they are, are irrelevant to the basic ethical notion of respect for the elderly.

Who's image of health?

During the time of Japan's modernization, the Meiji government's political slogan was Fukoku-Kyohei - "rich nation, strong military". The image was of strong and healthy soldiers. The government actively supported immunization, disease prevention and health promotion but the prevailing images of health were initiated, controlled and applied by the state. Of course, consistent and well-coordinated health policies are desirable, but images of health which involve compulsory activities are ethically problematical. "Exercise hour" on the radio has been popular in Japan since the 1920s, but if it is forced on primary school children or even business people during their break time, as it still is in many parts of the country, health itself can come to be seen as an unwelcome obligation.

Creating new images of health

To be healthy is a fundamental human right. The state has a responsibility to support the health and welfare of its people, but it is important to remember that health is also a serious matter of personal choice and individual freedom. Images of health differ from person to person, and people who have incurable diseases, for instance, are apt to see things differently from those who do not. Positive notions of "health for all" should not produce images that are discriminatory towards those with health problems. A valid image of health cannot be produced by an organization or authority except through the views of each individual in each social context. Although the meaning and value of health is something for each individual to decide, we need shared images as well, and as part of a global community we need a new image of "health for all" for the 21st century. An image of health could be a very important and powerful means of communication and cooperation, and help us build a healthier world.

If I were a Zen Buddhist artist and were asked to draw that image of health, I would take up the big brush and paint the rainbow-coloures "big circle", to represent the globe, wholeness, harmony and hope, in the body, mind and spirit, as one human being united with others. And I imagine that a close look at this rainbow circle would reveal that it consisted of hundreds of images, of all the people in the world - women and men, girls and boys, young and old, fit and bedridden, smiling and serious, and in all the settings of the world, such as homes, factories, schools, hospitals, clinics, refugee camps, offices, in cities, suburbs and rural areas - as part of a global community.

I believe the new strategy for health for all definitely needs something like this visionary approach so that it can cultivate a new ethical sense of sharing with and caring for each other in our cultural diversity and the different traditions of the global human family in the 21st century.