According to Buddhism and many of the world's other wisdom traditions, the root of all our problems is the grasping of the mind. The Buddhist term for this is grasping at "self." This can be somewhat tricky for Westerners to comprehend. For one thing, the common understanding of "self" is an "I" or an "ego." In the Buddhist view, "self" includes "me" and "mine" but is also very much broader and encompasses all phenomena arising in our consciousness.

However, according to the highest understanding of Buddhism, there is no "self" that truly exists as a solid, fixed, unchanging entity.

We normally think that a person is a subject who perceives and is separate from objects, and we tend to treat objects as if they were solid and dependable in some kind of absolute way. Yet mental objects -- wealth, power, a house, a television show, an idea, a feeling, whatever phenomenon you can think of -- are really not so absolute but instead are relative, arising and passing away, and seen only in relation to other phenomena.

But how can this be, you may ask? Surely as "I" read a "book," they both exist, since there seems to be an "I" who holds the book in my hand. The answer is that all things exist in relation to one another, and existence is marked by change. Perhaps the best way to clarify this a bit would be to use the example of the body. The body is changing all the time. In babies, we can see this more vividly because they grow so quickly. But we all know that every body changes, even from day to day -- for example, according to what we eat or how much we weigh.

Even our moods can affect the body and be reflected in how we look, perhaps crestfallen or haggard or else bright and vital. Above all, we know that the body ages and eventually passes away. The body is a vivid illustration of the transitory nature of existence. If we think of the body as solid, fixed, and unchanging, and cling to this notion, that is grasping at the body as "self."

To the extent that grasping at self becomes tighter, all the mental and emotional afflictions -- such as craving, stress, anxiety, confusion, greed, and aggression -- will be intensified, and physical and social problems will be magnified. Shantideva writes:

• All the violence, fear, and suffering
  That exist in the world
  Come from grasping at "self."
  What use is this great evil monster to you?
  If you do not let go of the "self
  " There, will never be an end to your suffering.
  Just as, if you do not let go of a flame with your hand, You can't stop it from burning your hand.
  
  The Buddha himself said:
  When you see with your wisdom
  That all the compounded phenomena are without a "self,"
  Then no suffering will ever afflict your mind.
  This is the right approach, the approach that cuts off all the pains of craving.

According to Buddhism, grasping at self can be the source of physical disease as well as mental anguish. Many Western scholars agree that negative emotions, anger, and anxiety can cause many diseases. Daniel Goleman writes:

Both anger and anxiety, when chronic, can make people more susceptible to a range of disease.

People who are chronically distressed -- whether anxious and worried, depressed and pessimistic, or angry and hostile -- have double the average risk of getting a major disease in the ensuing years. Smoking increases the risk of serious disease by 60 percent; chronic emotional distress by I00 percent. This makes distressing emotion almost double the health risk compared with smoking.

Loosening the grip on "self" is our best remedy for all problems, and to the extent that we can do this, that much happier we will be. This is healing in its truest sense. A common Buddhist scripture, or sutra, puts it this way:

• "What is healing from sickness?
  It is the freedom from grasping at "I" and "my" [egoism and possessiveness]."