Disease is a fact of existence. Chih-I considered disease to be of two types. One is real and the other is tentative. We must not be misled by the use of tentative however as being something that only is of short duration or that will simply go a way. Another way of considering tentative is they are diseases of instruction.
A disease of instruction or tentative would be like the illness of Vimalakirti the famous lay Buddhist practitioner in Mahayana Buddhism. The story of this famous lay Mahayana follow of the Buddha is of him becoming very ill, bed ridden in fact. The Buddha upon hearing of Vimalakirti’s illness sent various of his disciples one by one to enquire after the health of Vimalakirti and to offer assistance.
One by one as the famous senior disciples goes to Vimalakirti they each are you could humbled by Vimalakirti involuntarily. That is he caused them to humble themselves as he demonstrated various truths of Buddhism to these senior and quite accomplished followers of the Buddha. Each one had his comeuppance during their visits. It got to the point that some disciples really didn’t want to go and be embarrassed by this person who was only a lay practitioner.
In this instance Vimalakirti took on the aspect of disease for the purpose of teaching. So this is what is meant by tentative disease and this contemplation is not about those and so we will set them aside.
You know you go through life sometimes hopefully most of the time and you feel fine, and you think you are in good health. Occasionally you might have a cold or flu or an upset stomach. Perhaps a headache and you take some over-the-counter remedy and it goes away after a while. No big deal. And then it might happen that you’re feeling fine, you go to the doctor and then they tell you something is going on inside you you were unaware was happening.
This sort of thing happens very often. I’ve witnessed it in my hospital work and I’ve experienced it in my life. Most recently about a year ago I had been loosing a lot of weight and had been mentioning it to my various doctors at the Veterans Association hospital. Finally when I moved to Syracuse my new doctor got curious about it. She said she wanted to do a series of X-rays and CAT scans.
After about a month when all the various tests had been finished an appointment was scheduled for me to come in and go over the accumulated results. To keep this story short let me say it’s not a good thing when your doctor draws a picture of a pretty flower and says that’s the shape of a tumor we spotted in your lung. It exhibits the growth pattern of cancer and not a good kind.
It’s been a year and a couple of months now and every three months I’ve gone in for follow-up CAT scans and pulmonary checks. The good news is there has been no growth of the tumor and the VA is going to switch to a two year cycle thinking the tumor is benign. The other news, which is not bad, is that it is uncertain.
Over the year plus when people have asked me about it I’ve compared it to an unwelcome house guest. You don’t want them in your house yet they won’t leave. So you have this truce which is you will feed them and house them and they will keep quiet, behave themselves and stay in their room. Well that’s been my arrangement.
Even though I feel like I’ve pretty much always felt there is a disease in my body. Sometimes we may have a disease and be acutely aware of the illness and at other times.
The truth, which we like to forget or ignore is that humans will suffer disease. I think in our modern time we have even an expectation that we will not suffer disease, or that disease is an affront to our existence. Some even have a mindset that disease is for other people, but not them.
Perhaps this comes about from being further and further removed from disease. Disease and illness happen some place else, in a doctor’s office, in a hospital, at the neighbors, or someplace outside one’s living room such as on TV. In ages not too long ago we were much more intimate with disease. You knew when your neighbor down the lane had an illness, sometimes you needed to know especially if it was contagious. You knew when the local doctor was making a house call because he was in one of your neighbor’s bedroom. Now people go to the doctor and no one knows about it unless they are family or possibly co-oworkers. Disease is less communal now because we go someplace else frequently rather than at home.
As for the times when we are experiencing an absence of disease it would be more healthy for us to realize these times are really temporary, will not last, are truly gifts not to be expected or taken for granted. The absence of disease is less the norm than the presence of disease. From a Buddhist perspective diseases are a condition of life, an absence of disease is temporary at best and in fact an absence really means you have ‘less’ disease to the point of being unaware. The constant condition of life tends towards disease.
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