How to Be Sick (16 page)

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Authors: Toni Bernhard,Sylvia Boorstein

BOOK: How to Be Sick
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“It’s your own fault that you feel so sick today,” I thought for the dozenth time, at which point I looked up and saw my face in the mirror of the bathroom sink and said, “Woman on stool, brushing her teeth.” It was a magical moment. It broke the hold these stressful thoughts had on me. Just to be sure, I repeated (to use Katie’s words) the only thing that was true for sure, “Woman on stool, brushing her teeth.” And I smiled because being in the present moment is a relief indeed!
 
 
The Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh does teach formal meditation practice, but he focuses just as much on staying mindful of the present moment as we engage in activities of everyday life, from brushing our teeth to making the bed to washing the dishes. In
The Miracle of Mindfulness
he offers several exercises in mindfulness. Many of them start with the instruction to “half-smile”—a wonderful practice in itself. Try a half-smile and see how your mind and body immediately relax and how a touch of serenity arises. Here are two of Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness exercises, which you can easily apply in your own life:
Half-smile while listening to music
. Listen to a piece of music for two or three minutes. Pay attention to the words, music, rhythm, and sentiments. Smile while watching your inhalations and exhalations.
 
Mindfulness while making tea.
Prepare a pot of tea. Do each movement slowly, in mindfulness. Do not let one detail of your movements go by without being mindful of it. Know that your hand lifts the pot by its handle, know that you are pouring the fragrant warm tea into the cup. Follow each step in mindfulness. Breathe gently and more deeply than usual. Take hold of your breath if your mind strays.
 
 
 
I still haven’t found a way to resume a “formal” meditation practice even though it was such a major part of my life before I got sick. Nonetheless, I do practice every day with the tools and exercises in this book—including times when I am working to transform my negative self-judgment that sometimes arises from the fact that I no longer “sit” formally. But using drop-it practice, Byron Katie’s teaching, and the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh on mindfulness of the present moment allows mindfulness practice to remain an important part of my life.
 
 
I encourage readers to give formal mindfulness meditation a try, if your health and physical condition allow for it. You can find instruction online or in books. Thich Nhat Hanh provides instruction in
The Miracle of Mindfulness.
I also recommend Joseph Goldstein’s
The Experience of Insight
and Bhante Gunaratana’s
Mindfulness in Plain English
.
 
If you are not spiritually inclined, look at the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn. He was the pioneer in taking traditional Buddhist mindfulness meditation and turning it into a secular practice. He founded the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and has written several books on using mindfulness meditation to reduce stress and to promote healing in a variety of medical conditions.
 
If bodily pain or discomfort prove to be obstacles, try guided audio meditations. Because you’re listening to a guide’s voice, your mind has something to do other than to concentrate exclusively on bodily sensations. Even if the meditation focuses on the body, being guided by a voice makes it easier to relax into sensations without making the discomfort worse by adding stressful thoughts.
 
 
I’ll close with a prayer that Sylvia Boorstein uses and shares with us in her book
Happiness Is an Inside Job.
While discussing how mindfulness and metta are partners in practice, she says, “I cannot be genuinely mindful—open to my moment-to-moment experience without hesitation or hiding—unless my mind is benevolent . . .”
 
And she offers this aspirational prayer, which you can say over and over again:
May I meet this moment fully.
 
May I meet it as a friend.
 
 
 
14
 
What to Do When (It Seems) You Can’t Do Anything
 
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
—RUMI
 
 
IN TEACHING US HOW to alleviate or put an end to the suffering in the mind, the Buddha presented the Eightfold Path, which I briefly described earlier. When we were exploring how to handle insensitive or hurtful comments, we discussed cultivating wise speech, and we’ll take that up again in the next chapter. But first, we need to look at another practice on the Eightfold Path—wise action—because it has a lot to teach the chronically ill about how to take care of themselves. Simply stated, actions that lead to the cessation of suffering are to be cultivated and actions that enhance or amplify suffering are to be avoided. Wise
inaction
can thus be thought of as simply not engaging in those actions that make our condition worse.
 
Since becoming sick, I’ve learned how crucial—yet difficult— it is to practice wise inaction. The challenge is to avoid actions that exacerbate symptoms because worsening symptoms give rise to both physical and mental suffering—sometimes so severe that I break down in sobs of despair, dukkha in abundance, a total meltdown. This used to happen frequently, but now it’s a rare occurrence, thankfully. A meltdown is not only hard on Tony, but leaves me feeling even more sick.
 
Obviously, those of us who are house-bound must let go of activities that take us away from our dwelling place. I am not physically unable to leave the house, but the exacerbation of symptoms that results is seldom worth the journey. Even in the confines of the house and yard, however, it takes tremendous discipline to avoid overexertion. I’m still working to overcome a lifetime of conditioning that led me to believe that making sure my house looked its best was essential to the quality of life of the family. Suddenly and unexpectedly, tasks such as keeping windows washed, surfaces dusted, walkways cleared of leaves, became actions that increased suffering. Every day, I have to muster the willpower to stop myself from doing something that now comes under the category of unwise action, and I don’t always succeed. I keep a haiku of Issa’s posted nearby. It’s about nonharming, but I use it as a reminder to let go.
 
Don’t worry spiders,
I keep house
casually.
 
 
The Middle Way
 
Can we live a good and fulfilling life when our activities are so severely curtailed? Are there actions that can reduce suffering despite the limitations imposed by chronic illness?
 
I’ve discovered that wise action lies in finding the middle ground between what we used to be able to do and the alternative of doing nothing, out of fear of exacerbating our symptoms or out of anger over our perceived misfortune. The challenge is to find the “middle way,” the balance between too much and too little.
 
In
A Still Forest Pool
, Ajahn Chah talks about his teaching method. I use his discourse as a guide for determining what is wise action, given my new limitations:
It’s as though I see people walking down a road I know well. To them the way may be unclear. I look up and see someone about to fall into a ditch on the right-hand side of the road, so I call out to him, “Go left, go left!” Similarly, if I see another person about to fall into a ditch on the left, I call out, “Go right, go right!” That is the extent of my teaching. Whatever extreme you get attached to, I say, “Let go of that too.” Let go to the left, let go to the right. Come back to the center, and you will arrive at the true Dharma.
 
 
 
The key to wise action for the chronically ill, then, is to avoid extremes. If we veer too far to the one side and act as if we have the stamina and physical abilities we used to have, we risk overexertion that could land us in bed for days. But if we veer too far to the other side of the road (for example, lie in bed in a fetal position as I did for several months early on in my illness), we risk falling into despair. Another extreme. Either one increases our suffering (and that of our caregivers) and so cannot be considered wise action. The challenge is to find that middle ground.
 
One Thing at a Time
 
Another guideline for wise action comes from Korean Zen master Seung Sahn. It’s a teaching I consider crucial as I try to engage in wise actions from my bed:
 
“When reading, only read. When eating, only eat. When thinking, only think.”
 
For us, this means “No multitasking!” This is particularly good advice for the chronically ill whose symptoms are exacerbated if there’s too much sensory input. It takes a lot of discipline to break our habit of multitasking. Mindfulness practice helps because, unless we consciously pay attention to the present moment, we can find ourselves engaged in multiple tasks without even realizing it.
 
Help!
 
Caregivers also find themselves forced into a change in “action” by this new and unexpected life change. Whether they are the spouse, partner, child, or parent of a chronically ill person, activities away from home that were a source of joy may suddenly be severely curtailed because they have to stay home to care for the person in their care. Even at home, their ability to interact and socialize with their loved one may be severely limited by his or her illness.
 
It’s not surprising that caregivers experience moments of despair when they exclaim (out loud or silently), “Help! I just don’t know what to do to help make you better.” This dilemma takes me back to the theme reflected in the title of this chapter, and so the question becomes “What can caregivers do for their loved one when (it seems) they can’t do anything?” Here’s what happened in our household.
 
After I’d been sick for a while, I noticed a change in what Tony was delivering to me in bed each night for dinner. All of a sudden, I was receiving a gourmet meal! Not only did it taste spectacular, but it was aesthetically beautiful to the eye. He’d take great care to include foods of different consistencies and colors. Looking forward to that meal became the highlight of my day. I didn’t ask him, but I suspected that he began to do this because he realized he couldn’t cure this illness (a dozen doctors couldn’t, how could he?), but this was something he
could
do that contributed to my quality of life.
 
Even if you are helpless to cure your loved one’s illness, there are wise actions, kind and generous actions, in which you
can
engage—cooking a meal, giving a massage, reading aloud. I can tell you from experience, these little actions can lift the spirits of a person who is chronically ill—and in so doing, will lift the spirits of the caregiver as well.
 
15
 
Zen Helps
 
Everything
Just as it is,
as it is,
as is.
Flowers in bloom.
Nothing to add.
—ROBERT AITKEN
 
 
 
ALTHOUGH I’M NOT A STUDENT OF ZEN BUDDHISM, I love to read the teachings and commentaries of Zen masters. I’d like to describe for you three ways that Zen has helped me live well with chronic illness—each of which has formed itself into a bit of a practice for me.
 
First, Zen has a unique ability to shock the mind out of its conventional way of perceiving the world. I can count on Zen to give me a fresh perspective on my own thinking or to take me beyond thinking altogether. Secondly, a core focus of Zen teachings is how little we know for certain. Not only does this encourage me to question my lifelong assumptions, but it also serves as a reminder to stop engaging in that fruitless task of trying to predict what will happen next in my illness (and my life). And, oh, is it liberating to be relieved of the burden of having to know everything! Finally, Zen masters often teach by using poetic forms. As this verse from Soen Nakagawa illustrates, the poetry of Zen inspires us to see the world through new eyes:
All beings are flowers
blossoming
in a blossoming universe.
 
 
 
As a bonus, the Zen way of conveying the Buddha’s teachings—whether by shocking the mind, by pointing to how little we know for certain, or by using poetic language—can often set off a good old-fashioned belly laugh for me, the medicinal effects of which are well-documented.

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