Category Archives: suffering

If I don’t learn anything else in life, I want to learn this: pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

move towards the turbulence

ephemeral dreams

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“Spiritual awakening is frequently described as a journey to the top of a mountain. In the process of discovering bodhichitta [the awakened heart], the journey goes down, not up. It’s as if the mountain pointed toward the center of the earth instead of reaching into the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.” —Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, pages 91-92

This advice is counter-intuitive. It even sounds crazy. Why would anyone move towards pain? Isn’t the idea to be free of it? But how does that work for you? It doesn’t work.  Pushing away doesn’t work. Ignoring it doesn’t work. (It may feel okay to the person ignoring it, but probably not to the people around the ignorer.) It doesn’t go away. It just gets worse.

But oddly, when I can embrace pain, insecurity, turbulence as a natural part of my life, as a natural part of the human condition, neither good nor bad, it doesn’t wield the power over my life that it once had. Accepting it is oddly freeing. Oddly comfortable. Not saying that I can do this every moment, every day. But when I can, it’s YES! in capital letters.

don’t get a grip on reality

#2 Regard All Dharma As Dreams

In the context of this Lojong slogan, dharma means the experienced world. The idea that there is nothing solid about our experience is unnerving. More than unnerving. If my experience is not real and lasting, what am I? On the other hand, I have observed myself in the last week making a very big deal of something that was not a big deal at all. I recognize the urge to sometimes make events solid that are not solid at all. So it’s not unlikely that I do it more than I realize.

I received a notice from the bank to pay a rental fee for a safe deposit box. I’ve had the box for years, and I’ve never put anything in it. I had only signed up for it because it came free with an account, but now it was no longer free. I decided to cancel rather than pay, and I looked everywhere for the keys, but I couldn’t find them. Arrrgh. This meant the bank would have to drill the box open. I guess they wanted to make sure I hadn’t left a forgotten diamond tiara inside. Drilling the box would cost me $150, and I had to show up when the drilling took place which would cost me time (and money).

By the time I showed up for the appointment, I had stirred myself into high dudgeon. To make matters worse, the bankers kept me and the man who would drill the box waiting. I ranted on and on to him, about how unfair the rental fee was, how banks are charging all manner of absurd fees these days, how ridiculously high the drilling fee was, that I was losing money sitting there, blah, blah, blah, blah, ad nauseam.

Out of nowhere, the banker was at my side. I don’t know where he came from, and as many times as I’ve been to my branch, I’d never seen him before. He felt my pain. As we walked to the vault, he said, “I’ll only charge you half the fee.” My mood changed immediately. My anger dissipated all at once, like air from a popped balloon.

I expressed my gratitude to him, but I also realized how ridiculous my behavior had been. I had gotten all worked up, blackened my day, blackened the day of anyone I had come in contact with, and probably raised my blood pressure. How silly. I am sure the banker saw me brighten. He told me he believed in doing a good deed for someone every day, and I promised him that I would pass his favor on. We had a very pleasant chat in his office later on.

I laughed at myself on the way home, and I am laughing at myself as I write this. Why do I make such a big deal about something that is not really a big deal at all? How often do I waste energy worrying or being angry when it’s absolutely not necessary (and certainly not helpful)? Silly human. Silly, silly human.

Update 1/31/11. The drilling charge has not appeared on my account. I have a feeling it never will.

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

letter to a friend

Thought you might like to know what I’ve been up to. On Sunday 9/19 I fell off a step stool in my kitchen onto a tile floor and fractured my leg—tibial plateau fractures. Hurt like heck, and I couldn’t get up let alone walk. Lynn (from my group) came to my rescue and commandeered strong men off the street where I live and in the hospital to help me into the car and then the wheelchair. Then she stayed with me all day. I am very grateful to her—to say the very least. She has been so very helpful, solid and generous, and I am particularly appreciative knowing she has just had to go through the whole hospital thing with her mother. Not great to be back in this environment, I am sure.

I was admitted to the hospital that evening after being in emergency all afternoon, after x-ray and CAT Scan and lots and lots of waiting. Florida Hospital Orlando has a fracture care unit. (Would you believe?) I am getting excellent, state of the art, care. I am relatively pain free, They really like to push the pain meds here, and I have indulged. When it hurts it really hurts though, and the hardest thing is that I have to ask for help with everything.

Tuesday I had surgery. It was a long day with lots of waiting, but before two procedures, the pain block for my leg and later before the surgery itself, they gave me Versed which relieves anxiety but also makes you forget everything. So I have no memory of going even going into the room for surgery. I woke from the anesthesia, like waking from a sleep, maybe even less grumpy than usual. I felt fine, not sick at all, a little pain in my leg, but I waived off the morphine (which seemed a bit much) and am still taking Percocet which seems to work fine. I have a sleeve over my leg to protect the incisions—there are many incisions including two very mysterious ones down near my ankle—and then a knee immobilizer which is made of fabric wraps around my leg from my upper thigh to my lower calf and closes with velcro similar to sneakers. No hard cast for me. Yay! I only have to wear the fabric brace when I walk.

The other piece of good news is that they first thought there was damage to my kneecap and a quadricep tear, but that turned out not to be true. Big relief on that. The surgeon repaired the fracture with pins and screws. I’ve seen the pictures. Pretty amazing. I’ve had physical therapy. I walk with a walker, and can put 20 pounds of weight on the injured leg (like walking on an egg) so it’s pretty awkward and often painful, but I can get around, and I am sure I will get better at it. The big thing in my house is stairs. Bedrooms and full bath are upstairs. I practiced on the stairs with a crutch with the PT, but it was very scary, so we’ll see.

My sister Terri (a nurse) and her husband came down yesterday. She will leave on Tuesday, but my San Francisco sister, Louise, is coming on Monday to help for three weeks. Lezlie has offered her downstairs bedroom to me, if I want it. But another friend has loaned a bed which I will use downstairs for now. Overall, the calls and good wishes and promises of help have been pouring in. I am really overwhelmed by all the help and support I am getting. (Still surprised by it, too, but accepting it all, and really soaking it in.) There is no way I can do this on my own, so I have to accept help and have to recognize the love that comes with it.

Later this afternoon I am going home. I am afraid of all I have ahead of me, but I also know I have plenty of support. I will tell you too, this is practice big time. Like some big cosmic lesson tailored for me. Practice not getting ahead of myself, letting the story take over, projecting too far in the future. Look, even the medical issue which is bad, didn’t turn out to be as bad as expected.

The other day while waiting for surgery there was a woman next door to me screaming and crying and generally acting out. I could tell that she was afraid. The staff ,talked calmly to her and she still went on and on. I think they finally gave her a sedative. But it made me think. I am afraid, too, but look how she was making herself (and others around her) suffer with the fear.

I don’t think I am burying my fear. I just don’t let it take me over. Same with the pain from the beginning, really and the whole hospital process. I just kept remembering to stay in the moment and go to my breath. Did a lot of going to my breath after the fall when I had to get upstairs to get my phone and during all the waiting in emergency. Was more than four hours between the time I injured myself and when help came. I didn’t panic.

Practice also helpful because I feel vulnerable, not only because of my health, but because of my living situation (alone and stairs), and finances now. I have shed some tears, for sure. But really, I have been able to rest in the moment, to go to my breath, to really see the people who care about me. I am not panicked or fearful, and my blood pressure (high the first day) has evened out back down to normal. This situation is hitting all my big schema buttons, but I am staying in the moment, I am asking for help a lot and am becoming more and more aware of how much people care for me, and how they are there for me. I feel like everything will work out. I’m am going home later today. It’s not going to be easy, but I feel like all the inner work I have done has prepared me to deal with this challenging time with equanimity and I am very grateful for that. Right now they say 3-4 months before full weight-bearing and six months to a year for a total mend. So I know—plenty more practice to come. I feel calm. Not exactly sure if it’s the practice or the Percocet. Perhaps a bit of both.

In any case, right now, I am okay