ABSTRACT

          The aim of this research is 1) to study of patient care according to Buddhism 2) to study the method of caring patient according to Thai local knowledge and 3) to comparative study of the patient care according to Buddhism and Thai Local wisdom. The resources were referred from the Tripitaka, Commentaries and the same field researches which run by material analyzing and synthesizing.

          The result of research finds that;

          There are 2 kinds of illness or disease namely; physical disease and mental disease. Physical disease means illness which effects to any parts of human such as headache, eye-ache and itch etc., The cause of physical disease is from changing seasons and unbalance of elements. The cause of mental disease is from human’s mind which is disturbed by defilements such as greed, hatred and delusion. The physical disease can suffer human’s mind. According to Buddhist principle, both diseases can cure by two ways, medicinal herb and Buddhist teaching respectively.

          For the former way, 5 medicines were allowed by the Buddha to cure physical diseases and many plants and materials were mentioned in the Tripitaka such as root, leaf, fruit, juice, salt, cow dung etc., for the latter way, enlightenment factors (Bojjhanga) and perception (Sanna) were instructed by the Buddha to cure mental diseases together with mind concentration. Moreover, Dhamma explanation (Dhamma-desana) and Dhamma discussion (Dhamma-sagaccha) also can restrain disease.

Download