Humility in Action

One of the hardest things for the ego about hospitalization is acceptance of where we are and what it will take to recover from the reason we're hospitalized in the first place. Suddenly, so much of what our bodies do in such times can be humiliating... we lose control of things we usually take for granted... like bowel movements or the ability to hold food down when we were put in a damned near alien environment where we were plugged in to so many monitors and machines... so many limitations and restrictions... even to simply breathe takes an oxygen mask. We are told our most important thing we can do is to breathe... the medical staff is there to take care of the rest. Gradually, the perimeters around us are lifted as we take on more responsibility. Recovery often depends on how compliant we are to instruction and that, almost as much as our will-power, can determine when we can be sent home. It is a triad of yielding, will-power properly applied, and that magical extra something... the spiritual booster shot.
     This lesson in humility heen in action in other areas of my life.

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Distraction and Technology

We are so addicted to looking outside of ourselves that we have lost access to our inner being almost completely. We are terrified to look inward, because our culture has given us no idea of what we will find. We may even think that if we do, we will be in danger of madness. This is one of the last and most resourceful ploys of ego to prevent us from discovering our real nature.

            So we make our lives so hectic that we eliminate the slightest risk of looking into ourselves. Even the idea of meditation can scare people. When they hear the words egoless or emptiness, they think that experiencing those states will be like being thrown out the door of a spaceship to float forever in the dark, chilling void. Nothing could be further from the truth. But in a world dedicated to distraction, silence and stillness terrify us; we protect ourselves from them with noise and frantic busyness. Looking into the nature of our mind is the last thing we would dare to do.

Glimpse After Glimpse,

Sogyal Rinpoche

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I had no idea how addicted to distraction I was until after 9/11 I cut-off my cable service. I thought I’d find more time for creative pursuits. Immediately, I reacted as though I was a junkie that had his supply of dope taken away. I searched frantically for distraction. I had purchased my first computer back then and I went from site to site looking for some distraction while talk radio played in the background. I became angry and agitated once I got home and had nothing to do. I did not get more productive because something was wrong… I was using my natural instincts towards creativity as a distraction too. I had to find some way to make peace with distraction. I think I did just that once I used these great information and communication devices as tools for inspiration rather than a way to avoid inner discovery. Once I did that, instead of feeling as though I was being ejected from a spaceship, it felt more like being let out of a jail. There are inmates in prisons and mental institutions that are afraid of what awaits them outside of the bars. Isn’t that true for most of us?

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The Bardo of Life

Saturday, July 6, 2013:

Sometimes I feel that I’m not so sure I can deal with much more travail in our lives. Bonnie’s heart surgery was one thing, but thrown on top of that was liver and kidney failure. Thank God her liver and kidneys are recovering because I’m not so positive I could handle it if she were to be taken away from me. She is a beacon of light in my life and, like the love I have for Alanna (and once had for Carrie), I was sorely afraid that Bonnie would be taken away too. I still haven’t fully recovered from the loss of thirty years ago and the fear of that has revisited me. So, I deal with fear: fear of loss.

I’m not so very afraid going into the later years of my life alone but it is hard to accept the suffering of a loved one. I suppose that this is a part of aging: friends pass away and those who are dear to us sometimes suffer. It causes me to cherish the good fortune I’ve had in family and the few friends that have stuck around… at least I still have my mother and father, my sisters, all my nephews, grand nephews and nieces... and those adding another generation faster than I can count. Life goes on and passes. I am so very glad that I have been afforded the love and passion of a life that has been full regardless of my stumbling around.

Tibetans call this life a “bardo”. A bardo is that space between inhaling and exhaling. It is but a brief moment in eternity and my thinking tells me I ought to either be depressed about it or enjoy it while I can. Now, there are several ways of enjoying this bit of time. One is through excess and an other is all about breaking through that barrier of one breath to another. It doesn’t matter all that much to me… both end and so we might as well love each other… eh?

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Where Do We Go?

Friday, July 5, 2013:

Here is where the rubber hits the road… where faith is applied… where acceptance is the only viable alternative to despair.

I was, however, fascinated by Bonnie’s absence of mind. Actually, I don’t really think she went anywhere. She was very present, but to us onlookers, it seemed that she wasn’t. I believe that her mind was scanning… going over and over again the same phrases, words and pleas for help… scanning for something to anchor itself on. It can be described as more of a semi-conscious state rather than an unconscious one. The studies using M.R.I.’s to see what parts of the brain lights up might show some surprising results as these fantastic devices have been used in the past to do so for everything from Alzheimer’s to meditative states of elevated consciousness.

I also believe that it wasn't necessary to resort to baby talk when addressing Bonnie as her mind was merely somewhat elsewhere... she was still an adult... eh?. My personal experience with having gran mal seizures, and still being conscious but unable to speak, is where I experienced similar treatment by those concerned about me. Because I couldn’t put together any words, it was assumed that I wasn’t there. I also remember when Big Al was in a coma and close to death. We, his friends, were gathered around his bed and chatting as though he wasn’t a part of the conversation. Someone said something about the Saint Francis Prayer and Al let out a loud grunt. As we recited it in unison, Al’s continence changed and he grunted louder after we finished. I believe this was his way of letting us know he was still with us.

Every drunk that has experienced a black-out knows something of this too. The rages and so on are like an automatic brain scan... a search for some way out of the insanity and very little of it comes back after we wake up the next morning... I have always wondered where I went at such times.

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Mind What Matters

Wednesday, July 3, 2013:

MIND OVER MATTER

Mind over matter means that, if I don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. If it matters, I ought to best be mindful of it.

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P.S.

            Bonnie is improving. I’m on my way to see her. I update on facebook… sooooo.

Compassion is Grace

It is a completely different day today. Bonnie is showing signs of recovery. The liver and the kidneys are still an issue but I am hopeful for full recovery… hopeful. I’m not so sure the Dr.s are disclosing everything to me… they are sometimes overly cautious in what they tell me and I can’t blame them for that. However, I do get an overall impression that Bonnie has a good chance to fully recover. It could be wishful thinking on my part too so I am prepared for it otherwise. It takes some degree of surrender… accepting the powerlessness but still holding on to that fight to overcome. After all, what is all this business of recovery about anyway?

            I sit at her bedside and hold her hand as she says the same phrases or words over and over again…. as though her brain is on auto-pilot and is going over a flight pattern that is obscure to me. I wonder what is going on in her mind. We hope it is the repairing process… employed after millions of years of evolution… a place where poets and dreamers go… perhaps.

            Medical science: I’m afraid that all this technical equipment is alienating nursing skills away from TLC and redefining them in terms of monitoring computer screens. One older nurse admitted to me… “It is all a numbers game now.” She knew as well as I know that the human touch is becoming alien to the present generation of the practice. That is why it is all the more important for family or friends to be involved with doing things like holding a hand and assuring, with a calm and kind voice, that they are loved and cared for.

           I can tell which ones “get it” when I come back from home from a night of rest and see clean sheets and her bed clothing neatly arranged in the morning. A good example of this happened yesterday. When I returned from running some errands, I asked the nurse, who was fully engaged with the monitor screen, how Bonnie was doing. Her answer was discouraging, saying there was no improvement from when I left… Bonnie still didn’t respond to us and that she didn’t open her eyes or recognize anyone. I simply gave Bonnie a sop of water and told her I love her. She opened her eyes immediately and said I love you too. The nurse was surprised. I was not. It is a sad thing but it told me how important it is that I be there even when it looked like my presence was useless. The Heart of Compassion is there when I am compassionate. Compassion is the Grace of God.

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Watching Bonnie

Another day at the hospital. Watching Bonnie has been hard to do because I feel so helpless to do anything for her. She calls out… pleading… for what??? And then she drifts off into her head… eyes closed mumbling names and places… she sees her mother and calls out to her… I sit and hold her hand… doesn’t know who I am or where she is.

The mind, is it connected to the brain at all? I’m not sure… but I do know this… all the talk about spirituality and consciousness seems nonsense at this time. The computer is no longer connecting in there to anything I can comprehend from out here. These things are beyond anything I can control. We just think we have these things figured out about morality, will and so on… but when that bit of gray matter between our ears gets scrambled or when a simple thing like blood sugar goes haywire… everything we know, and damned near everything we think we are, goes out the window.

So, Dr.’s of Divinity and so called Spiritual Giants, what the fuck do you have to say about that? Where is God in any of this? What does it matter if I am kind and compassionate if it all is but a vapor? Why bother? It isn’t so much that I am mad at God or anything like that… I just don’t believe in God or anything like that. We die and it all goes back to where it came from… this consciousness business. So what if I’m as evil as Adolf Hitler… so what if I am Mahatma fucking Gandhi? Does it matter in the big picture where this biomass of human neurons connected arose from the primordial ooze just a short time ago in the grand scheme of things is? Do you really think so or is it all just a charade for charlatans who… well, might as well as anything else, be charlatans.

Okay, so I admit it freely… I am but one of those fakers… a fakir of sorts. Should I wear the mask of someone who cares, I will wear it the best I can, lay on a bed of nails...because why not? When I ask why, the answer seems to be, why not? Why not be kind as long as I can in this brief and meaningless span between birth and death? Why should I not try my best to find peace and maybe even happiness here and now? Now and then I think it better to believe in something than to believe in nothing at all. So, do I really know that there is a Heart of Compassion beyond the limitations of my own blood pump? Sometimes I am sure of it and at others, like these,… I just wonder.

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