How to Be Sick (12 page)
Authors: Toni Bernhard,Sylvia Boorstein
A second equanimity practice comes from another Thai Forest monk, Ajahn Chah, whom we’ve heard from before. In his book
A Still Forest Pool
, he offers a statement so powerful that I’d committed it to memory long before getting sick:
A Still Forest Pool
, he offers a statement so powerful that I’d committed it to memory long before getting sick:
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom. Your struggles with the world will have come to an end.
I love this teaching because it allows me to take baby-steps in the direction of equanimity. I’ve found that before I can even take that first step and “let go a little,” I first have to recognize the suffering that arises from my desire for certainty and predictability. Just seeing the suffering in that desire loosens its hold on me, whether it’s wanting so badly to be at a family gathering or clinging to the hope for positive results from a medication or desiring for a doctor not to disappoint me. Once I see the dukkha in the mind, I can begin to let go a little. As soon as I do that, I get a taste of freedom that motivates me to let go a little more.
I used this practice while waiting for my ankle to be x-rayed. There I was, twenty-four hours after slipping down the two steps, my ankle still throbbing in pain, my knees bruised from crawling around the house, my body aching in fatigue from sitting in a wheelchair way beyond my capacity to be in an upright position. As thoughts whirled around about whether I could handle this injury on top on my illness, I searched for help in coping with the dukkha in my body and in my mind. Help came from Ajahn Chah’s teaching on letting go. I thought, “I’m suffering because I don’t want this to be happening but, like it or not, it
is
happening, so can I let go just a little—just a baby-step?” I could. And, having done that, I could take another baby step. After a few minutes, I was flooded with equanimity—with the taste of freedom that comes with peaceful acceptance of the unexpected complications that arise in our lives.
is
happening, so can I let go just a little—just a baby-step?” I could. And, having done that, I could take another baby step. After a few minutes, I was flooded with equanimity—with the taste of freedom that comes with peaceful acceptance of the unexpected complications that arise in our lives.
Our tendency is, of course, to want our desires to be fulfilled. But if our happiness depends on that, we’ve set ourselves up for a life of suffering. The strength of our equanimity in the face of not having our desires fulfilled is the measure of whether we will know the peace and freedom to which Ajahn Chah refers. It’s the measure of whether, as he said, our “struggles with the world will have come to an end.”
Imagine living in a world where we’ve let go completely and it’s okay if we can’t go to that family event, it’s okay if a medication doesn’t help, it’s okay if a doctor is disappointing. Just imagining it inspires me to let go a little. Then it’s easier to let go a lot. And every once in a while, I let go completely and, momentarily, bask in the glow of that blessed state of freedom and serenity that is equanimity.
Facing losses that feel overwhelming—from lost health to lost friends to lost livelihood—deeply challenges our cultivation of equanimity. But we can sometimes find teachings and practices in the most unexpected of places. One day I was watching an interview on television with the actress Susan Saint James. Three weeks before the interview, her fourteen-year-old son, Teddy, was killed in a plane crash. Her husband and another son were seriously injured and several of the crewmembers died. In the interview, Saint James talked about how close she was to Teddy because he was her youngest child and the only one still living at home. In addition, due to his work as head of NBC sports, her husband, Dick Ebersol, was gone much of the time. She said that she and Teddy were like roommates and had become best friends.
Then, emanating deep calm and acceptance, she made this most astonishing comment: “His was a life that lasted fourteen years.” I gasped. Could I make that statement with such equanimity should one of my children or grandchildren die? I still don’t know the answer to that question. But Susan Saint James’s words and the serenity with which she spoke them entered my heart that day. Ever since, when I find myself in grief and despair over the many losses I’ve had to face due to my illness, her words are my equanimity practice.
When I feel myself mourning my lost career as a law professor or a lost friendship, I say to myself, “This was a career that lasted twenty years”; or “This was a friendship that lasted twenty-five years.” If I feel overwhelmed by the loss of my health and its consequences, I say to myself, “This was a body that was illness-free long enough to be active in raising my children and to not be a burden to them when they were young; to be a part of their weddings; to teach and be of personal support to many law students; to travel and keep company with Tony out in the world.”
Inspired by Susan Saint James’s courage, which reinforces the teachings of the Buddha that I’ve learned, I’m able to say these equanimity phrases without bitterness. I can even be genuinely grateful for those years. When overcome with the losses you’ve encountered, be you chronically ill or the caregiver for a loved-one who is chronically ill, I encourage you to try the equanimity practice I cobbled together from the words of a remarkable woman facing the most devastating loss we can imagine.
Turnarounds and Transformations
10
Getting Off the Wheel of Suffering
Nothing whatsoever should be clung to.
—BUDDHADASA BHIKKHU
MANY TEACHERS suggest starting Buddhist practice by learning how to meditate, but because of my academic background, I was compelled to hit the books first and do some research. Such was my need to put scholarship first, that soon after becoming interested in Buddhism in 1992, I researched and wrote a twenty-page paper, complete with footnotes that referenced over three dozen books. I titled it “Introduction to Buddhism.” Given that I can’t recall giving this little piece of scholarship to anyone, I appear to have been introducing Buddhism to myself.
While engaging in this scholarly study, I adopted a strategy that served me well: if I came upon a teaching that I didn’t understand, I skipped it. That was my first relationship to the wheel of suffering. I skipped it and moved to a teaching that was more accessible.
I started my study with a book we already owned:
What the Buddha Taught
, written in 1959 by the Sri Lankan monk and scholar Walpola Rahula. In 1992, when I took it off the bookshelf, this work was still considered by many the seminal guide for introducing Westerners to Buddhism. It was not an easy read, especially in contrast to the dozens of user-friendly books on Buddhism now available. When I reached Rahula’s discussion of the doctrine called
paticca-samuppada—
the “wheel of suffering” or, as it’s more commonly known, “dependent origination”—I very well might have been derailed in this new spiritual pursuit had I not just skipped over it. His use of phrases such as “conditioned genesis” and “cessation of volitional formations” had my mind spinning.
What the Buddha Taught
, written in 1959 by the Sri Lankan monk and scholar Walpola Rahula. In 1992, when I took it off the bookshelf, this work was still considered by many the seminal guide for introducing Westerners to Buddhism. It was not an easy read, especially in contrast to the dozens of user-friendly books on Buddhism now available. When I reached Rahula’s discussion of the doctrine called
paticca-samuppada—
the “wheel of suffering” or, as it’s more commonly known, “dependent origination”—I very well might have been derailed in this new spiritual pursuit had I not just skipped over it. His use of phrases such as “conditioned genesis” and “cessation of volitional formations” had my mind spinning.
But years later, my meditation practice well-established, I tackled that teaching again through the writings of Ayya Khema and S.N. Goenka and it began to make sense. In particular, I learned a lot from
When the Iron Eagle Flies
by Ayya Khema and
Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S.N. Goenka
by William Hart.
When the Iron Eagle Flies
by Ayya Khema and
Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S.N. Goenka
by William Hart.
Paticca-samuppada
can be translated in many different ways. While the most common translation is “dependent origination,” I’ve chosen “the wheel of suffering” because it’s so descriptive of our experience. With the caveat that this will not be a comprehensive nor scholarly analysis
,
I’m going to jump on in the middle of the twelve steps on this wheel or chain of suffering and explain how I use these teachings as a practical tool to help alleviate the mental suffering that accompanies chronic illness.
can be translated in many different ways. While the most common translation is “dependent origination,” I’ve chosen “the wheel of suffering” because it’s so descriptive of our experience. With the caveat that this will not be a comprehensive nor scholarly analysis
,
I’m going to jump on in the middle of the twelve steps on this wheel or chain of suffering and explain how I use these teachings as a practical tool to help alleviate the mental suffering that accompanies chronic illness.
As we go through life, we repeatedly encounter mental and physical contacts through our six senses. (Buddhism, like other Indian philosophical systems, includes the mental faculty that coordinates our perceptions as a sixth sense.) We experience these contacts as pleasant, unpleasant, or (less frequently) as neutral sensations. If the experience of the contact is
pleasant
, we want more of it, which is desire. If the experience of the contact is
unpleasant
, we want it go to away, which is simply another form of desire—the desire for it to go away—usually referred to in Buddhism as aversion. The Pali term for this desire/aversion, as we discussed above, is
tanha.
I like to refer to
tanha
as “want/don’t want”—since it pretty well describes one of the two mental states I’m in a good part of each day!
pleasant
, we want more of it, which is desire. If the experience of the contact is
unpleasant
, we want it go to away, which is simply another form of desire—the desire for it to go away—usually referred to in Buddhism as aversion. The Pali term for this desire/aversion, as we discussed above, is
tanha.
I like to refer to
tanha
as “want/don’t want”—since it pretty well describes one of the two mental states I’m in a good part of each day!
The mind then latches on to this desire or aversion, sticking to it like glue. This part of the process is varyingly referred to as clinging, grasping, or attachment. Once we’ve latched on to desire or aversion like this, there’s no turning back. This latching on gives rise to a sense of a solid self—as if the glue has dried. In short, we are reborn moment to moment into self-identities we create by clinging or attaching to our desires and aversions.
We then have to live out the consequences of the birth—or rebirth, if you like—we have taken each moment. Those consequences are what’s meant by
karma
, and living out those consequences is the ripening or fruition of karma.
karma
, and living out those consequences is the ripening or fruition of karma.
Take a simple example. There’s a contact with the world in the form of someone merging in front of us in traffic even though we have the right-of-way. Note that the contact involves more than one sense: the eyes see the car merge, the ears hear the car move, the sixth sense thinks, “He’s cutting in front of me even though I have the right-of-way.” The part of the contact involving the mind is experienced as an unpleasant sensation. Before we can stop ourselves, we react with aversion to the unpleasantness. In fact, we can’t shake the aversion. It takes hold of us, sticking like glue, and we’re right on course for “becoming” and being “reborn” that very moment as a cranky person. And there you have it: suffering—the first noble truth.
The good news is that we can break the cycle before we get to that place of suffering by becoming mindful right at that moment
before
an unpleasant sensation gives rise to the desire that things be other than they are
.
S.N. Goenka refers to this as “learning to observe [unpleasant sensations] objectively.” He says that between the contact and the reaction to it—the desire or aversion—stands a crucial step: “When we learn to observe sensation without reacting in craving and aversion, the cause of suffering does not arise and suffering ceases.”
before
an unpleasant sensation gives rise to the desire that things be other than they are
.
S.N. Goenka refers to this as “learning to observe [unpleasant sensations] objectively.” He says that between the contact and the reaction to it—the desire or aversion—stands a crucial step: “When we learn to observe sensation without reacting in craving and aversion, the cause of suffering does not arise and suffering ceases.”
That split-second between the experience of a pleasant or unpleasant sensation and the arising of desire for the former or aversion to the latter is the doorway out, our opportunity to get off the wheel of suffering. We can’t avoid the arising of sensation or feeling after a contact—touching a hot stove is going to feel unpleasant! But Ayya Khema says that the practice is to see that sensation as just a sensation without owning it. After all, she says, if we really “owned” our sensations in the sense of being fully able to control them, we’d never let our sensations and feelings be anything but pleasant! And this is also what S.N. Goenka means when he says we should learn to observe sensations objectively.
When someone merges in front of us in traffic even though we have the right-of-way, we can just observe that the sensation is unpleasant and leave the experience at that—without reacting to it as anything more than one of the thousands of momentary contacts we encounter every day. Not only will we see the truth of impermanence, but suffering will not arise and, before we know it, we’ve moved on to the next contact of the day, which might just be a sympathetic smile from another driver.
This takes us to a practice I developed that combines the teachings of the wheel of suffering with the four sublime states—even though they may appear to be an unlikely partnership.
The idea for this practice began with a teaching from the wise and wonderful Sylvia Boorstein, whom I mentioned above. Sylvia is one of Spirit Rock’s founding teachers. In her book
Happiness Is an Inside Job
she tells the story of how she and her husband, Seymour, were visiting a ski resort in Europe. As Sylvia watched people learning to ski, she recalled all the times she and Seymour had tackled the slopes together before reaching the age where it would no longer be safe for them to do so. Just as her mind began to “wobble” as she calls it (my wobble would have been straight to the unpleasant mental feeling of envy), she looked around at all the fun people were having and suddenly felt great delight in their joy, especially that of a little girl who was just learning to ski. And so, with her wisdom mind, Sylvia turned that approaching negative mind state into the sublime state of joy in the joy of others.
Happiness Is an Inside Job
she tells the story of how she and her husband, Seymour, were visiting a ski resort in Europe. As Sylvia watched people learning to ski, she recalled all the times she and Seymour had tackled the slopes together before reaching the age where it would no longer be safe for them to do so. Just as her mind began to “wobble” as she calls it (my wobble would have been straight to the unpleasant mental feeling of envy), she looked around at all the fun people were having and suddenly felt great delight in their joy, especially that of a little girl who was just learning to ski. And so, with her wisdom mind, Sylvia turned that approaching negative mind state into the sublime state of joy in the joy of others.
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