This "Bardo"

Now when the bardo of this life is dawning upon me,
I will abandon laziness, for which life has no time,
Enter, undistracted, the path of listening and hearing,
   reflection and contemplation, and meditation,
Making perceptions and mind the path, and realize the
   “three kayas”: the enlightened mind;
Now that I have once attained the human body,
There is no time on the path for the mind to wander.

Padmasambhava

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“Bardo” can be explained as the space between breaths. The “three kayas” are the body, speech, and mind. No one is more aware of the body than one who has endured serious injury or whose lot in life is to suffer constant pain. Fibromyalgia comes to mind first… not as bad as leprosy… but, get the drift? When there are no opiates that can completely mask the pain and drinking my self into oblivion was no longer an option, I had to find ways to embrace the pain. That doesn’t mean I don’t see physicians, chiropractors, and so on, about possible treatments or therapies, but that I don’t give it reason to bitch and whine about it; that I don’t allow it to sink my spirit into despair. Speech is intimately connected to mind. Nothing illustrates better this where spirit follows speech.

   Temporary pain is easy because it doesn’t last; but constant, ever present pain, is another story altogether. I don’t propose a masochistic acceptance and perverse embrace of pain, like it is a blessing from God; but that I use pain to remove karma. By not allowing my speech to even say that I suffer pain is to take away the obsession with it and to treat it appropriately. Pain is there and that is for sure… but it is mine only in the sense that it is a visitor in my house. Mindful acceptance rather than oppressive obsession treats it in a completely different light.

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