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Diseases to be contemplated as has already been said do not include those that are taken on as a means to educate or instruct someone in the Dharma. What is left is the wide range of karmic diseases, or diseases that are ours because we have a physical body. We are in this case speaking of karma in a general and broad sense and not to any specific karmic disease.
Besides the suffering of the disease there is the additional negative impact on one’s faith and practice while in the disease process. I know from experiences in my own life that even a simple cold or sinus infection can impact my daily practice. When your body aches with fever, or perhaps you feel weak or nauseated it is challenging to even sit down to change the water or offer tea, or light candles and incense, and then to simply chant Odaimoku three times. I have, I admit, lain in bed and skipped the ritual for a day until tomorrow.
I imagine if you’re like myself you may not have given much thought to comparing disease with a journey. We think of course that our Buddhist practice is a journey and we use language to symbolize that. We commonly say things like walking the path of our Buddhist practice, or the path of faith. We don’t frequently say the same things about illness or disease and yet they too are a journey, perhaps through pain, perhaps through inconvenience, or even to death.
If you’ve ever taken a long trip, and especially a very long trip away from home then you are probably well aware that it can be challenging to maintain a steady practice. There may be some days when you don’t practice at all other than some Odaimoku under your breath or in your head. It’s alright, don’t worry, you won’t be punished for it. There is not punishment for not practicing in Buddhism, there is simply the absence of those valuable causes.
One of the great benefits of a steady practice when you are able is that you have that momentum and history of accumulated good benefits. So skipping a day or a week is not as noticeable as if your practice were sketchy. Although if your practice is sporadic then you might not notice any difference at all.
With a continual strong regular practice though we accumulate a wealth of good fortune. That is one reason why the Buddha frequently mentions that the benefits of our Buddhist faith are immeasurable. How is it possible to measure unlimited, it’s simply unlimited. With the accumulated good fortune we can afford to miss some practice and still have a strong faith, of course it isn’t possible to coast for very long because immeasurable, as unlimited as it may be has limits. Crazy huh?
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So, you’re traveling and you miss some days, no worries. Simply resume again when you can. Don’t add stress to your already stressful situation. However you know deep inside whether you are being lazy and if so that of course should sound alarm bells, klaxons even warning you: DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!
Traveling is disruptive, even if it is fun. Our regular schedule is not so regular at times, our rhythm is not so rhythmical either. And sometimes it is hard to sort out what time it really is especially with international travel. I know I face this problem with taking my medications. I leave in the morning of one day and arrive in the morning of the next day. Is it still morning and if so what happened to the evening? Well with regard to our practice don’t stress out, you didn’t miss anything. Simply practice when you can.
With illness it may not seem quite the same and yet it is. The pain or discomfort has a way of blending all days into one day, of parts of a day into one long blur. I met a patient in dialysis once who told me he has adjusted to the reality of his once every two day dialysis treatment by going to a 48 hour day.
For those not familiar with dialysis, you go in one day, usually in the morning or mid day, though it could be in the afternoon. You are completely drained when you arrive and also whipped out when you finish your treatment. So roughly 6-8 hours and you are close to being non-functional. Then for the next 40 or so hours minus your 8 hours of normal sleep you are full of energy. Well if you stay on a 24 hour day that means that every other day you have no energy or capacity to do anything. That can be depressing, one day you can be with friends and then the next you can’t, one day you can interact with your family and the next you can not.
Of course a 48 hour day is a mental practice and not everyone can adapt to even that. However for this patient he says it works for him and he finds that dialysis doesn’t bother him so much, it is like a long night with a very long day.
So he has adapted, and has learned to live with his disease. The journey of illness is part of managing its impact on our lives. Just as managing our practice when we travel is about the journey of faith.
Another trait this particular patient manifests is forbearance. Chih-I talks about the practice of forbearance being critical in our contemplation of disease. How we tolerate the intolerable, how we endure the unbearable, how we practice self-control when every things seems to be out of our control. Yet these are exactly the conditions of our life in every moment, even when we don’t think we are sick or have a disease.
Long travel, lengthy journeys are a hinderance to our practice and so is the strain of disease and illness. So too can health be a hinderance to faith.
Some people live life in a leisurely way, taking things fore-granted, assuming there is all the time in the world to accomplish things, or that this smooth situation will continue indefinitely. This is a doorway for Mara that is lit with neon signs. So too is resignation and hopelessness in the face of difficulty, disease, or illness. Mara sees these and knows he only needs to bring half his army because you are already defeated.
Some people use their good times to great advantage, others slack off. Some people use adversity to great advantage, while others give up. Simply having a disease or an illness does not determine what our response will be, our nature and tendency does. This is our karma, not the disease or the good fortune, it is what we do with either condition. Of course being born with a material form is our karma to be susceptible to disease. One is immutable, material body, the other is mutable, what we do about it.
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