How to Be Sick (9 page)
Authors: Toni Bernhard,Sylvia Boorstein
Before I became chronically ill, two teachers helped me “recondition” my mind so that compassion became a natural response to my own suffering. The first teacher was Thich Nhat Hanh. In his book
Commentaries on the Diamond Sutra,
he describes how our body responds naturally—without thought—to its own pain:
Commentaries on the Diamond Sutra,
he describes how our body responds naturally—without thought—to its own pain:
When our left hand is injured, our right hand takes care of it right away. It doesn’t stop to say, “I am taking care of you. You are benefiting from my compassion.”
Indeed, when I fell and broke my ankle, before any thoughts about it arose in my mind, my hands had already reached out to care for the pain. With practice, we can condition the mind to respond compassionately to our pain and suffering, just as our hands do. When cultivating a compassionate mental state, sometimes I look for words that address the source of the suffering, anguish, or stress. The source is, of course, what the second noble truth points to: the desire for things to be other than they are. I might silently say, “It’s so hard to want so badly not to be sick.” Other times, I look for words that simply open my heart to the suffering, such as, “My poor body, working so hard to feel better.” Whatever words I choose, I often stroke one arm with the hand of the other. This has brought me to tears many times, but tears of compassion are healing tears.
The second teacher who helped me learn to cultivate compassion for myself was Mary Orr who, on a Spirit Rock retreat in the late 1990s, told a story that altered my approach to life. She was describing a harried day in which she had too much to do and too little time in which to do it. (Sound familiar?) At one point, while in her car, she realized she was talking to herself in a way she would never talk to others. I don’t remember her exact words, but they immediately resonated with me because of their similarity to the way I used to talk to myself:
“How stupid of me to take this route; it’s always full of traffic.”
“I’m so dumb, I forgot to bring my notebook.”
“You clumsy idiot—you dropped your drink again.”
Would I ever call Tony “dumb” or “stupid” or an “idiot”? No! And what’s more, if I ever heard someone talking like this to someone I cared about—or even a stranger!—I would at least feel the impulse to intervene. Mary’s story was an eye-opener for me. From then on, when I’d catch myself using that language, I’d stop and reflect on how I’d never talk to others that way. After a few months, I had “re-conditioned” my mind to treat my own difficulties with compassion.
Then I got sick and that re-conditioning unraveled.
I blamed myself for not recovering from the initial viral infection—as if not regaining my health was my fault, a failure of will, somehow, or a deficit of character. This is a common reaction for people to have toward their illness. It’s not surprising, given that our culture tends to treat chronic illness as some kind of personal failure on the part of the afflicted—the bias is often implicit or unconscious, but it is nonetheless palpable. I was helped by Tony and by Spirit Rock teacher Sylvia Boorstein, who kept reminding me that this illness was just this illness and was not a personal failing on my part. In the end, it took an intense moment of physical and mental suffering for me to finally reach out to myself with compassion.
It happened on Thanksgiving. At that time, I’d been sick for a year and a half, but I was still not willing to accept that I could no longer travel to family events. So I agreed to go to Escondido where, for years, my daughter-in-law’s parents, Bob and Jacqueline Lawhorn, hosted us for Thanksgiving. I planned the trip to accommodate my illness. Tony would drive down from Davis; I would get a ride to the airport and take a plane from Sacramento, which would shorten my travel time; and I’d only stay for two days.
The moment Tony picked me up at the San Diego airport and we began the forty-five-minute drive to Escondido, I knew the trip had been a mistake. We checked into our hotel and drove to the Lawhorn’s house. After ten minutes of visiting, I felt so sick that the room began to spin and I couldn’t focus on people. I told Jacqueline that I needed to lie down. Except for sleeping at the hotel at night, I spent that day and the next on the Lawhorn’s bed. I felt no compassion for myself. I was ashamed of being sick and I blamed myself for everything my mind could come up with: undertaking the trip in the first place; taking over the Lawhorn’s bedroom (which they graciously gave me, of course); not visiting with family and friends; ruining Tony’s Thanksgiving. The list was long because, as Jack Kornfield likes to say, “The mind has no shame.”
On Friday, Tony dropped me off at the San Diego airport. The flight was delayed two hours. I propped myself up in the chairs near the gate as best I could. I’d arranged for the Davis Airporter, a mini-van service, to pick me up at the Sacramento airport. I walked outside the terminal to find that Sacramento was socked in with tule fog—a cold, wet fog that descends on the Central Valley in winter. The van wasn’t there yet, so I sat on my suitcase in the fog. Since getting sick, this was the closest I’d come to simply collapsing on the ground. When the van pulled up about fifteen minutes later, the driver told me that he had to wait for two other planes to arrive before he could drive to Davis. I got in the van and lay down on the seat to wait. It was cold and damp. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes. My physical suffering was matched only by my mental suffering in the form of the hatred and blame I was directing at myself.
Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, there was a turning of the mind, and my heart opened. Maybe, on a subconscious level, I was recalling Mary Orr’s story, and I knew I’d never treat another person the way I was treating myself. Maybe I was finally ready to receive Tony and Sylvia’s compassionate reminder that this illness was not a personal failing on my part. I’m not sure what caused this change of heart and mind, but I got out of the van, explained to the driver that I was sick, and asked if he could please call the dispatcher and get permission to take me to Davis. He called, got permission immediately, and drove me home. That experience marked the beginning of my ability treat this illness with compassion.
My principal compassion practice has become
tonglen—
literally “sending and taking”
—
from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. We’ll explore that practice in detail in chapter 11. Here, I want to write about three other practices I use to cultivate compassion for myself. I developed the first one from a generosity practice taught by Sharon Salzberg at a Spirit Rock retreat. She suggested that as soon as the thought arose to be generous in a particular way (call a friend in need, give something of ours away just because a person had admired it), we should resolve to follow through on that generous impulse even though we may subsequently try to talk ourselves out of it with thoughts like, “I’m too busy to call”; “On second thought, I want that item I was going to give away.” I had used this practice for many years. Not only did it benefit others, but I found it highly amusing to reflect on the rationalizations I could come up with for talking myself out of that initial impulse to be generous: “Hmm, if I’m ever invited to the White House, I might want to wear that scarf . . .”
tonglen—
literally “sending and taking”
—
from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. We’ll explore that practice in detail in chapter 11. Here, I want to write about three other practices I use to cultivate compassion for myself. I developed the first one from a generosity practice taught by Sharon Salzberg at a Spirit Rock retreat. She suggested that as soon as the thought arose to be generous in a particular way (call a friend in need, give something of ours away just because a person had admired it), we should resolve to follow through on that generous impulse even though we may subsequently try to talk ourselves out of it with thoughts like, “I’m too busy to call”; “On second thought, I want that item I was going to give away.” I had used this practice for many years. Not only did it benefit others, but I found it highly amusing to reflect on the rationalizations I could come up with for talking myself out of that initial impulse to be generous: “Hmm, if I’m ever invited to the White House, I might want to wear that scarf . . .”
After that transformative experience at Thanksgiving, I looked for ways to alleviate the suffering that accompanied my illness. One day, I stumbled upon a way to change Sharon’s generosity practice into a compassion practice for myself. Although the practices are quite different, I must give Sharon credit because I wouldn’t have thought of mine had it not been for the wisdom of hers.
The practices are different because, instead of following through on an initial impulse to be generous, in this compassion practice I force myself to do the reverse of my initial impulse. Here’s an example of how it works. If my two children haven’t been in touch for a while, as soon as the thought arises, “Why don’t they contact me?” I immediately contact
them
. So instead of allowing that thought, “Why don’t they contact me?” to spin out into the many absurd storylines it could take (“They don’t care about me”; “They’d like me better if I weren’t sick”), I “cut off the mind road” (to use a Zen saying we’ll learn about later) and force myself to contact them. It’s as if my “penalty” for thinking that they should contact
me
is that I have to contact
them
!
them
. So instead of allowing that thought, “Why don’t they contact me?” to spin out into the many absurd storylines it could take (“They don’t care about me”; “They’d like me better if I weren’t sick”), I “cut off the mind road” (to use a Zen saying we’ll learn about later) and force myself to contact them. It’s as if my “penalty” for thinking that they should contact
me
is that I have to contact
them
!
The results are always uplifting and never fail to alleviate the suffering brought about by the proliferation of thoughts that simply weren’t true. When I call my children, we talk about what they’ve been up to. We talk about my grandchildren. We share common experiences—maybe a movie on DVD or a sporting event on TV we’ve both seen. They may seek my advice. It always becomes clear as we’re talking that they’ve been thinking about me. Sometimes it turns out they’ve been busy. (Didn’t I want them to be independent as adults and to live full lives? Yes!) Sometimes it turns out they’ve been sick themselves.
The principal feature that Sharon’s practice and my practice share is how, unless we remain vigilant by cultivating awareness—called “mindfulness” by Buddhist practitioners—the mind can talk us into or out of just about anything, no matter how counterproductive or harmful the consequences.
Here’s another example of how I used this practice. My friend Dawn tries to visit me for a short time every week. She lives two hours away but comes to Davis a few times a week for work. One time, Tony was at a meditation retreat. He’d left on a Friday. Dawn was going to visit on Tuesday. But two days after Tony left, I lost the benefit I’d been experiencing from a new treatment and had a big setback in my condition. I had to cancel our visit. She said she could visit on Wednesday instead, but I had to cancel that too. I was just too sick.
Come Friday night, I suddenly felt resentful that, knowing I wasn’t doing well, Dawn hadn’t checked in with me. As soon as that resentful thought arose, the “penalty” kicked in, meaning I had to cut off the negative thoughts that were about to proliferate and, instead, immediately contact her. I forced myself to pick up my laptop and send her an email. I wrote a short paragraph about my rough week and then asked how she and her family were doing. She wrote back right away. Her email started with this sentence: “I had been thinking about you, but I think I was afraid to ask you how you were doing. I won’t do that again.”
Here I’d been judging her negatively only to find out that, not only had she been thinking about me, but she had a reason for not getting in touch; sometimes it’s just too hard for people to hear how poorly a friend is doing. In addition, it turned out she’d had a particularly busy week—hosting visitors from out of town, taking care of two of her grandchildren, negotiating the purchase of some property that was located a few hours from where she lived. A full plate indeed. Once again, the storyline I’d spun regarding someone else’s motives failed to reflect what was really going on.
Practicing compassion is the act of reaching out to ourselves and to others to help alleviate suffering. By using the practice I just described, instead of allowing stressful thoughts about family and friends to proliferate and then fester, I consciously shift my mental state and take action. That action has never failed to alleviate my suffering and, as a bonus, give me a big lift.
The second way I cultivate compassion for myself is to practice
khanti
, usually translated as “patience.” (Warning: it’s part of another list!) Khanti is one of the ten “practices of perfection” (also called the ten
paramis
). Two of the four sublime states—metta (loving-kindness) and upekkha (equanimity)—are also on this list. The
paramis
are ten qualities that a buddha, or enlightened one, has perfected. The other seven are generosity, moral conduct, renunciation, wisdom, energy, truthfulness, and determination. In
Being Nobody, Going Nowhere
, Ayya Khema said of the perfections
:
“We have their seed in us. If that were not so, we would be cultivating barren ground.”
khanti
, usually translated as “patience.” (Warning: it’s part of another list!) Khanti is one of the ten “practices of perfection” (also called the ten
paramis
). Two of the four sublime states—metta (loving-kindness) and upekkha (equanimity)—are also on this list. The
paramis
are ten qualities that a buddha, or enlightened one, has perfected. The other seven are generosity, moral conduct, renunciation, wisdom, energy, truthfulness, and determination. In
Being Nobody, Going Nowhere
, Ayya Khema said of the perfections
:
“We have their seed in us. If that were not so, we would be cultivating barren ground.”
Ayya Khema was a native German Jew who, after escaping the Nazis, became a Theravada Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka. She translates
khanti
as “patient endurance.” At a retreat in Northern California in 1996, she told us that maintaining patient endurance is the most difficult part of Buddhist practice. Ayya Khema’s rendering transforms what could be seen as a passive state of mind (“just be patient”) into an active practice. Patient endurance suggests that, in addition to being patient (that is, serene and uncomplaining—two synonyms for the word “patient”), we actively “endure.” The dictionary definition of
endure
includes “to survive when faced with difficulties,” and “to experience hardship without giving up.” I also like to compare the practice of “patient endurance” to the instruction given by César Milan, the “Dog Whisperer.” He tells dog owners that the most effective way to work with their pets is to maintain a “calm and assertive” mind state. In other words, take charge, but in a calm and patient manner.
khanti
as “patient endurance.” At a retreat in Northern California in 1996, she told us that maintaining patient endurance is the most difficult part of Buddhist practice. Ayya Khema’s rendering transforms what could be seen as a passive state of mind (“just be patient”) into an active practice. Patient endurance suggests that, in addition to being patient (that is, serene and uncomplaining—two synonyms for the word “patient”), we actively “endure.” The dictionary definition of
endure
includes “to survive when faced with difficulties,” and “to experience hardship without giving up.” I also like to compare the practice of “patient endurance” to the instruction given by César Milan, the “Dog Whisperer.” He tells dog owners that the most effective way to work with their pets is to maintain a “calm and assertive” mind state. In other words, take charge, but in a calm and patient manner.
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