some comments re: cancer, life and death, on the eve of one more in a string of 9 years worth of receiving the results of one more scan to determine the ongoing effectiveness of the treatments im receiving for lymphomas. When folks receive a diagnosis of cancer, many of us freak out and perhaps, righteously so, because our societal and media imprinting has gone very deep into the portion of our brain that deals with primal/primitive fear...and it is indeed sheer fear that triggered a truly ignorant fear [is any fear educated?] of my own, on April 19, 2006, when the oncologist told me, We had hoped that it was only above your waist, but in fact it is everywhere!...hence, the diagnosis of Stage 4B, Hodgkins lymphoma, with the almost instantaneous outlining of the chemotherapy protocol, the radiation protocol if needed, and the stem cell transplant if all else failed. Over the years. having participated in numerous support groups for people with various types of cancer, I have learned first-hand, that many cancers are far from life-threatening and indeed have a somewhat routine course and concurrent treatment protocols; hence, i have long since stopped seeing cancer as THE BIG C or any other of the scare tactics used by media/society to envelop a person [and her/his family & friends] under and within a veil of ignorant terror! As I have come to experience, in my humble view, the truth, that A DIAGNOSIS OF CANCER IS NOT A DEATH SENTENCE - AND I WOULD HOPE THAT MEDIA AND OTHERS STOP BLARING OUT NEWS ANNOUNCEMENTS AND HEADLINES THAT SO AND SO HAS CANCER, because when the full story is unveiled, often it is something NOT life-threatening and has only been presented in such a way as to garner viewers, readers, etc. and yet the effect lingers on in the subversive shadowy world of ignorance masking as the DEATH RAY OF CANCER!!! ALL CANCER IS NOT ALIKE!!! i humbly suggest one not buy into this stereotypical equation that inflicts great suffering on the unsuspecting, uneducated and unwilling - those who have not sought out the realities of the types of cancer, the treatment[s] available, and so forth. Dont turn yourself and/or a loved one into an immediate Basket Case!!! There are days when I am more at home with the diagnoses of both Hodgkins and Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and there are times when I feel Im deceiving myself and that The Buddha was right in the extreme - that indeed all life is not only suffering but its all shit, piled higher and deeper as I get older. There are days when I can observe the grief I still experience over my late wife, Alexs, death in November of 1998, after her third recurrence of breast cancer, and feel mostly okay, and there are times, some fifteen years later, when I feel Im deceiving myself and that The Buddha was absolutely right, yet he exhibited great restraint when noting that all life is suffering, because the truth - my truth - remains that the shit keeps stacking up until one is threatened - not by terminal illness[es] but by the inability to breathe through all the shit!!! And yet...and yet...I hold on to a deeper understanding of Buddhas First Noble Truth and as it applies to me, in this lifetime, I understand that the more my unconscious suffering becomes conscious [through practice] the less I need to cling addictively to sadness, the less I need to venture into the past when everything was coming up roses [which was not true] and simply stay with the reality of the moment, this moment and allow everything to rest and abide in equanimity. As C.S.Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed, following the death of his wife from a cancer, One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness (or Happiness). One only meets each hour or moment that comes. All manner of ups and downs. Many bad spots in our best times, many good ones in our worst. One never gets the total impact of what we call the thing itself. But we call it wrongly. The thing itself is simply all these ups and downs: the rest is simply a name or an idea. [p.25] Dedicated in gratitude and with love to two very important women in my life, my late and truly angelic wife of a quarter-century, Alexandra, and to Lydia Saltzman, who is doing her utmost to help me understand at depth, Buddhism in general and Karma in particular. May all beings in this life and all successive lives, obtain the precious human body and meet with Friends of Virtue. Having completely perfected the paths and stages of Bodhisattva conduct, may they complete the Two Objectives: benefitting themselves and others. [ Kalu Rimpoche ] Namo Amida Butsu
Posted on: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 00:52:26 +0000
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