Stop Smoking by Using Buddhist Methods By Dr. Wu Tao-Wei Even the heroin addicts all agree that it was easier for them to stop taking heroin than it was to stop smoking tobacco. And yet, with my simple method, you can quit smoking tobacco if you want to. The important phrase here is: "if you want to" because you must actually WANT to quit smoking as the first step. Of course! There are two elements to my method. The first element is for curing your body and the second element is for curing your Mind. After all, tobacco addiction involves both the physical addiction and the psychological addiction. For curing the physical addiction, one must make sure that your diet is adequate. Eating healthy food is necessary for the relief of ANY disease as well as the maintenance of general good health at all times. And since you are quitting tobacco, your taste buds will no longer be scorched off and numbed by the searing tobacco fumes and nicotine. So you will begin to appreciate the delicious flavors of the food. This is the time to explore your local health food store and organic foods market to begin enjoying a part of Life that is closed to tobacco smokers, namely, the delicious tastes of food. In addition, no matter what foods you eat, you must make sure to take vitamins and mineral supplements. Buy these at health food stores since such vitamins pills usually are of higher quality and from natural sources than are the vitamins found in regular food stores and pharmacies. You want to take vitamins, especially vitamin B complex, because nicotine pushes the B vitamins out of your body. Thus, much of the cravings for a smoke that addicts feel are actually cravings for vitamin B. But since nicotine quickly replaces vitamin B, the tobacco addict senses that he/she can eliminate the cravings merely by having another smoke. And so they get caught in a crave-and-fulfillment spiral. For my method to work, you must take vitamins everyday. Use liquid vitamins or the soft gel capsule vitamins from health food sources. That is the first element of my quit smoking system, curing the body. The second element of my system is for curing the Mind. And this is the tricky part. It is not that you have to "trick" your own Mind but that your own Mind is so tricky. And so, to calm the Mind and make it "understand", we shall consider the Buddhist Four Nobel Truths. The Four Nobel Truths are: (1) This is suffering, (2) This is the Path to suffering, (3) This is the Path away from suffering, (4) This is the Nobel Eight Fold Path. Now, I will not explore the Nobel Eight Fold Path here since it is not necessary to know anything about it for my quit-smoking system to work. Let's first look at what the nicotine in tobacco is. Nicotine is a deadly poison. It is a colorless vegetable alkaloid that turns brown when exposed to the air as it absorptions oxygen. It is used commercially as an insecticide and a hog wormer. But it is so very poisonous that a tea made from two cigarettes and drunk down, is the lethal dose for an adult. Pure nicotine paralyses the nerves and may be quickly fatal. Symptoms are tremors, headaches and dizziness, with collapse due to paralysis of the respiratory system. Nicotine is not something that you want to ingest into your body. But when you smoke it in tobacco, it induces a feeling of relaxation and mild euphoria and is a mild pain killer. And of course, tobacco causes cancer, heart disease, emphysema, foul breath, and other ailments. So, ask yourself. "Are all of these diseases fun to have?" Catching even one of these diseases is no fun at all and can most assuredly be called a form of suffering. And so, you MUST understand that smoking tobacco leads to pain and suffering. Oh, you might have a feeling of relaxation, mental tranquility and euphoria when you smoke, but it is a rosy path that leads to disability and death, that is, it leads to suffering. Therefore, when you see an advertisement for tobacco; when you see someone smoking; when you see cigars or cigarettes in a store; you should repeat to yourself the First Nobel Truth of Buddhism and say, "This is suffering." When you pick up a cigarette, cigar or pipe, repeat to yourself, "This is the Path that leads to Suffering," When you put down or stub out what you are smoking, say, "This is the Path that leads away from suffering." These three precepts will begin to shape your thoughts and to focus your Mind. But there is more. These are not magic pills but are strategic thinking methods that prepare you for Buddhist understanding. The final method to quit smoking actually involves (of all things!) actually smoking a cigarette! Before lighting that cigarette or cigar, pause for a moment and ask yourself, "What is nicer? This lung-full of life-giving, wonderful air?" Now, as you think this, inhale the air deeply into your lungs and then breath out to feel what the air does for you. Next, light the cigarette that you were intending to smoke and as you light it, ask yourself, "Or this lung-full of hot, poisonous fumes?" And as you think this, inhale the cigarette smoke into your lungs. Soon, you will begin to realize that that breath of health-giving air is much, much nicer than the poisonous tobacco fumes. Finally, as you stub out the cigarette or crush it under your feet, say, "This is the Path away from suffering." My stop-smoking method works, but it is you, yourself, who works it. ---------------------------------------------------------- Second Publication Rights Granted as long as the following is credited: First Published in the Chinese Swaztika Newsletter, for free subscription send blank eMail to: