Both afflictions and illnesses are manifested by the mind

By carefully contemplating the illusory nature of our mind consciousness, and attentively observing the arising, ceasing, and illusory nature of all dharmas in the world, the mind will engage in less grasping, with fewer fantasies and wild thoughts; people's mental illnesses will decrease, nervous exhaustion and insomnia will be alleviated, and all kinds of ailments will be reduced. Where do illnesses come from? One source is the karmic retribution of past actions, and the other is that they are imagined into existence by present afflictions and delusive thoughts. Sentient beings always create suffering for themselves. When the principle is understood, the mind has no afflictions; when the principle is not understood, afflictions pile up and suffering is boundless—all self-inflicted, given by no one else. All illnesses are illusory and conjured; they have no place of arising, and when they cease, there is no place of cessation, because they are illusory. Once these principles are thoroughly understood, all illnesses can be cured—no physician of the body or physician of the mind is needed at all; all disease-obstructions arise illusorily and cease illusorily. Once the Buddha-dharma is understood, all dharmas are understood; by learning the Buddha-dharma well, all worldly dharmas are completely understood.

The physical illnesses and mental illnesses of worldly people, all the afflictions within the family, the troubles of work and career—all such things are the result of being entangled by one's own ignorance and karmic obstructions. Those who have not studied Buddhism do not understand these principles; those who have studied Buddhism but have not yet learned it clearly, who have not engaged in deep and detailed contemplation and contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), are obscured by their own ignorance. To truly comprehend the truths of the world, one must first understand oneself, and thereafter all dharmas will be understood. Therefore, when worldly dharmas are not understood, it is because the mind has knots and bonds; what needs to be untied is one's own mental knots, not the resolution of external circumstances.

We should not complain that external material sense-objects are so troubling that they insist on disturbing our mind; rather, we should reflect on why our mind is attracted by external forms and seized by them. Why must we stick to external objects? Is it that external objects want to bind us and cling to us? No—it is our own mind that insists on grasping at them or rejecting them, and as a result we are stuck to the objects. We originally wanted to seize the objects, but instead we were seized by them. The five desires and six sense-objects have bound us to suffer poverty and the suffering of saṃsāra life after life; thus we are bound by all dharmas within the six realms of rebirth, bound in this ocean of afflictions and birth-and-death.