When a person is ill time is measured differently than generally when healthy. In some instances especially when pain is present time can seem as if it stands still or even goes backward. Has it ever happened to you when you’re in pain and you have said something to the effect that things seem to be going backwards getting worse rather than better? Perhaps not.
Time, Chih-I advises is to be not even considered a factor when we are living through illness. He encourages us to focus not on the duration of the illness but put our attention on utilization of the methods he outlines and which I am relating to you here.
He doesn’t say this specifically but consider this yourself. If your mind wavers into the realm of time this is an area where doubt can take root. Doubt can lead to the abandonment of following through on the treatments, both those of medical professionals and Buddhist practice.
Once doubts arise if one does not root it out quickly, addressing the cause of the doubt as well as the nature of the doubt then it becomes fertile ground for the arising of even greater doubt. Eventually one may completely abandon one’s practice, or one’s treatment, or even both altogether. As tempting as it is when one is ill is no time to quit your practice, no matter what form it needs to take on due to the illness or pain it needs to be firmly held, even built upon.
Not directly related to this subject it occurred to me today while I was walking my dog, as many ideas do, that we put more effort sometimes and certainly more money frequently into cosmetics and appearance than we do healthcare and faith.
One time in the hospital there was a woman who needed to have her foot amputated. She had diabetes and a small wound on her foot became incurably infected. She was so afraid of loosing her foot. As they rolled her bed out of her room to take her to the surgery area she was yelling and screaming and crying. I happened to be near and so I went to her and held her hand the entire trip. There was nothing I could say with my mouth but I could say with my body that I was present with her. I stayed with her the entire time until they took her in to the surgery area.
The nurses told me later that in her room she was fastidious about her hair and her facial makeup. They said when she came in the first time her feet were in really bad condition, her nails were untrimmed and she had allowed the small sore to become larger. They said she was more concerned with the condition of her exposed body, her face and hair than she was about the parts that could not be seen.
I will grant that foot issues are common in pople who have diabetes. There is poor circulation of blood to the feet which compounds problem of healing of even the smallest of wounds. That is one reason if you have diabetes you should pay particular attention to your feet, something that perhaps many of us aren’t always so good at.
American’s spend huge amounts of time and money on cosmetics, not just women, men too. The cosmetics industry is a huge money making operation, as well as clothing. That is one of the driving factors behind the increase in men’s cosmetic products. We will do, and pay, almost anything to look younger or fight off the appearance of aging. Yet when it comes to the care of our spirit we don’t always give it the same equal treatment. Of the two the spirit outlasts anything to do with our appearances.
I realize that some care must be given to our skin and hair, and even our wardrobe. Still I wonder how much of that money is spent towards futile endeavors when supporting one’s Sangha or community of faith would help not only one’s self, it would greatly benefit others. Or even if half the money spent on cosmetics, lotions and potions, were donated to homeless or the hungry how much our society would improve for many more people. Maybe this is just socialist thinking.
The point here though is to consider the effort and resources spent on appearances and we keep spending. Yet when it comes to taking care of one’s body, whether it is exercise or appearances I’m not sure we focus always on the most important things. Consider this when you are tempted to call it quits as you live through your illness, it may take a lot of effort and how freely the effort is made to appearances and sometimes begrudgingly to health.
Illnesses will come, that is a given that we can be sure of, youth and beauty will vanish and sometimes the come from different directions, getting older and becoming more ill. Take an equal amount of diligence towards your treatment as you may have in your appearance. Of course there is no need to completely let one’s self go and ignore your looks, they are important and can be moral boosters. Yet give equal attention to both in their measure and requirement.
Selecting and Rejecting is the next item, number seven in the listing of Ten Characteristics given by Chih-I. This one is fairly straight forward in that what works you should continue and what doesn’t work should be discontinued. The caveat here is that you must know clearly what is working and what isn’t working.
Keeping a medical journal, or a treatment journal is an almost absolute necessity, especially if you are living through a long term illness. The journal can help you keep your pain and treatment in perspective. It gives you a clear record of what is going on. The mind is not a reliable resource for remembering our health. The mind, our thinking can and is affected by our health, our pain, our lack of pain. If the mind is being acted upon by pain then it is not a reliable tool to measure pain either in absence or in presence.
It is much more reliable to have a clear written record of what you experienced and when. The journal can also serve as a diagnostic aid in your treatment. In this time of ever shorter doctor patient office visits being able to quickly refer to your journal to succinctly state when you felt pain, what level it was, how many days it lasted, what areas of the body it occurred on, what you were doing before it began, what you did when it began, what you did when it stopped if it stopped, and so many more items that you will not possibly remember after even two weeks much less a month.
This can also include, and it should, a record of your practice activities. A vague recollection is more harmful sometimes than a clear record. The mind is going to focus on pain and discomfort, that’s what our brain is for, to warn us of danger. Three days of pain may seem like no time at all or it may seem like eternity. Yet three days is from either perspective still three days. And the weight of the three days is greater or lesser only in relation to the time surrounding the three days and the limitations on your activities during those three days. You may find from writing that the three days occurred before 5 days of no pain followed by 1 day of pain followed by more pain free time. You can weigh this you can measure this, a vague memory of a lot of pain is not nearly as valuable to you or your healthcare provider.
Also knowing that you were able to chant 30 minutes in the morning along with a good period of sutra recitation is valuable if you are discouraged because you couldn’t then also do the same in the evening. Perhaps putting more focus on practicing in the morning may yield a greater level of faith time and you can be at peace with doing nothing but attending to your pain in the evening. It is easier to express gratitude if you know where good things happen.
There have been days when 30 minutes of Odaimoku would be cause for great celebration rather than regret or disappointment. Our mind though is more likely to remember what we were unable to do rather than what was successfully accomplished. It is hard to celebrate what you have forgotten, so take the time to record your journey.
Also recording your journey through illness can provide you with a clear measurable indicator of what is working and what isn’t. Simply saying “I don’t think this is working” or “I don’t feel better” does not give your doctor or your faith adviser much to work on. If however you can say, “When I do this”, or “after taking this medicine I felt”, or “when I chant I get tired after however many minutes”, or “I can’t chant in the morning but I can at mid day”, now those are things your partner, whether doctor or faith adviser, can work with.
Your doctor depends on you as much if not more than you depend on them. The same goes for your faith companion. Neither can read your mind, nor do they know your body or spirit. Then when they give instructions or change directions you can record those and compare them to your previous plan to see which is working better for you. Again this helps not only you it is invaluable to your treatment providers.
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