Objects as Inconceivable
I’m not sure many of us have considered illness or disease as inconceivable, especially since we are experiencing it and so we are deluded into thinking it is conceivable (conceptually understood). Yet there is an aspect to disease, dis-ease, that is also, perhaps for a lack of a better way of conceptualizing this, metaphysical in nature. Let’s see if I can clarify this.
Currently the Veterans Administration is monitoring my health for two major, potentially serious matters. One is a tumor in my lung which has the appearance of being cancer. The other is a more recent finding that the first vertebrae in my spine, the one directly connected to my skull is fractured. In both of these there is an awareness on the part of the doctors of each problem, there is also an unawareness of the degree of potential harm, the tumor, and the potential solution, the spine and the tumor.
For me, the spine issue is very painful and very debilitating. Also because I have not yet had an MRI on the area of the spine there is a lack of information as to the degree of the fracture and so it is not possible to begin any treatment due to the risk of causing further damage. The tumor in the lung while contributing to diminishment of breathing function is less obvious, especially on a moment by moment basis. Of the two however the most serious one to the longevity of my life is the tumor.
So the least obvious issue is the most threatening and the most painful and constantly obvious issue is the least important to longevity of life. So the issue of the tumor while not really metaphysical medically speaking is experientially almost entirely metaphysical. Does that make sense, I hope so.
Remember earlier in the book I wrote about pain and pain research and how after a period of long term pain, pain becomes its own thing. Pain becomes a real almost separate thing beyond merely a feeling or sensation. Pain becomes an entity in and of itself beyond the thing triggering the pain. Yet the pain is not fundamentally a thing but an experience. The pain transitions from being an experience to a substantive matter. Yet in our experience of the pain, and without the medical technicalities pain has no essence beyond the experience in relation to the thing causing the pain. Pain in that situation while real is sort of metaphysical, at least in our experience.
The lack of pain from the tumor in my lung is also somewhat metaphysical in that there is really pain there, from the sense of disruption of harmony in my lung. By rights since the ‘pain’ in my lung and the tumor that exists is potentially the most dangerous condition to longevity that pain should be more pronounced.
So to some degree hopefully you can see that there is an inconceivable nature of illness and disease. Another way to think of it, though not philosophically accurate is to consider germs and bacteria. We can’t see them unaided and so they are sort of like sneaky inconceivable little gremlins waiting of an opportune moment to attack us. They are not in themselves nefarious it is just that their existence and the environment they need to live in is harmful and not in our human life best interest. Sort of like humans existing in the environment of the earth, we are not necessarily in the best interest in the continuation of a healthy balanced eco-system of the planet. We are a bacteria which is killing our good Mother Nature. This is also perhaps inconceivable, certainly almost intangible.
A single thought moment of disease is not real and does not fundamentally exist but it does exist phenomenally, because all phenomena are involved in dis-ease, and those phenomena do not go beyond that involvement. These phenomena are dis-ease phenomena and while we might find similar looking phenomena in other experiences they are not the ‘same’ phenomena because of the relation to the unique experience. The phenomena of hell in dis-ease is not distinct from the phenomena of any of the other realms, it is the same phenomena only our understanding of, awareness, utilization, understanding, and actions make the phenomena distinct. There is no unique realm of the phenomena that is hell other than our action in relation to the phenomena. It is beyond our ability to verbally express it is in essence pure, and only our interpretation assigns it as one value over another. In this way the reality of dis-ease is inconceivable. Chih-I says it is like the wish-fulfilling jewel. The jewel is neither empty or full, it simply resides as a potential, and regardless of whether the wish is used for good or ill, the jewel is not the nature of the wish.
Drawing again on my own current condition of the fractured vertebrae. The pain at times is almost unbearable, sometimes I’m unable to sleep, sometimes I simply want to curl in on myself and become as small as possible in the hope that a smaller me will be a smaller surface of pain. I am also unable to hold things at times in my right hand, the muscles simply do not work. Further I have lost feeling in my pinky and ring finger of the right hand. I’m sharing this not for sympathy, simply as a way to provide some illustration to these concepts. Also I’m sharing so that perhaps you can see into some of my ways of understanding beyond mere theory and from a practical application point of view.
Words are cheap, actions are much more expensive.
The loss of grip and feeling means that frequently I am unable to hold a pen to write with. The loss of feeling also means that I can not sense how my hand rests on the writing surface and how much pressure or contact I am making with the writing instrument. The loss of feeling in the two fingers make typing very challenging. I can’t tell when I have hit a key with enough pressure to actually cause the key to ‘strike’. Typing means I need to look at every character as it appears on the screen and not rely on touch-typing. Typing this manuscript has been challenging because I make so many misstrikes and so many typing errors I am constantly hitting the backspace key to redo what I wrote. It is annoying and frustrating, though I am learning a certain amount of forbearance in the process. Not being able to grip and feel means that holding a knife to carve blocks for printing is to some degree not safe and to another degree certain to yield poorly carved blocks.
These issues in and of themselves are not life threatening with reasonable caution. They certainly are annoying, even discouraging and of course that can lead to a decrease in desire to live which greatly affects longevity. Now, please do not worry, I am not experiencing and decrease in my desire to live. I’m only sharing it to show how the cycle could continue and how it does for many people who live with long term disabilities.
Now all of these symptoms have no fundamental value, they are not hell nor are they Buddha or Bodhisattva. They are empty, even if annoying in their limitations. The key is what do I do, how do I react, how do I live in the pain and limitations, not just how do I live with. To me living in is slightly different than living with. I live with the tumor in my lung, it is there, unwelcome, and does not greatly affect my day to day living; of course that may change.
I can choose to live with my pain, meaning that my life is always less than it was due to the pain and limitations. I can also try to choose to live in the pain or live through the pain by learning a new way of living that brings me joy even if the means is different. So, I can’t carve right now, that may or may not become permanent. In the mean time what other things can I do that will bring me joy? Well building Legos models is one thing, doing collage and some painting is also possible and joyful. I can still walk and play with my dog. So life in pain will perhaps look different than it did before pain. The pain is not the limitation when I live in pain, I am the limitation or the expansion of joy and activity in pain. I think here the English language is failing us. Living in pain is not to me the same as being in pain, or a painful existence. I live in Syracuse NY, I live in a two story house, I live many things, and I live in pain. It snows there a lot during winter, the snow sometimes limits my outdoor activities, there is pain in my body and sometimes that limits my activities.
I am not dispassionate about my pain. My doctor and physical therapists can tell you I am not for sure as I have sometimes in weak moments let my frustration slip out in my language and interactions. I think that is human, or perhaps I want to give myself an excuse to be weak. I care about my pain and how much it hurts at times, but the pain is not the enemy or at least not one powerful enough to control my entire life. Living in pain means that it is there, it is part of my sensory experiences, it has affects on my body, and it is not evil or good it simply is. It is the degree I allow it to control my joy, my experiences of life, my desire to live which is under my control. The pain is not in charge, unless I give in to it.
The pain is in a way a wish-fulfilling jewel, it sits there hanging out on my nerve endings doing its thing like its supposed to do warning me of damage someplace in my body, and it sits there doing what it is designed to do and waits for me to decide how I will use it, what wish will I make and act upon.
This pain, and my illnesses are in a way tentative diseases like what I discussed earlier in the book, they perhaps exist as tools to allow me to teach. What do you think? I think it depends on me what use or value I put on them. They can be Mara, if I allow myself to be defeated, even if limited and debilitated, or they can be Golden Buddhas inspiring me to do the necessary work of teaching the Lotus Sutra. They have no intrinsic value other than the value my life gives them.
This way dis-ease, disease, and illnesses are inconceivable objects.
Subscribe to my blog post newsletter
[amazon_link asins=’1979530815,B00HTOFM44,1975689763,147834198X,0692257470,1979814023,1511592907,1726325520,1508534780,1492886041′ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’ryusho0a-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’5b00ab74-b021-11e8-94bb-8388b7973e5c’]
