The last two people I meditated with are now dead

  i spent 5 hours today and 3 hours yesterday at the local hospice where i do volunteer work. It is a lovely location near downtown Phoenix and is staffed by caring people. The first day that i was called  had me sitting with two different people both of whom were actively dying. i merely sat and did my Shamatha mediation in the presence of two people whom i felt honored to serve in a small capacity. There was no family available to either one of them and we in the eleventh hour program became that family. A role that each of us in the program are all to familiar with.

   It is very interesting to sit with someone whose life is leaving their body while knowing full well what we share in the way  of diagnosis. The motivation to having a deep meditation is intense. It is also one of the most amazing ways to have a meditation that i have experienced. 

     The choices that i have in that situation become more and more narrow to the place where the only reasonable thing to do is to find that in me that is eternal and dwell in it. Nothing else even comes close in importance. The reward to this type of practice is in the Buddhist terms called Bodhicitta which is a cognitive conceptual stance that places the benefit of all sentient beings as the primary motivation. 

     When i one write it , it sounds like a burden but as an experience it is incredibly uplifting. The experience becomes one of meditative adsorption. No longer is it an effort to sit and meditate. Watching the mind chatter ,the emotions wander ,and the and awareness drift. The focus  becomes clear , the emotions become helpers, and death becomes a friend , reminding me of impermanence.

     

Contrasts

         Friday four of us drove to Tucson to be part of a medical exam by a Tibetan doctor. It all seemed perfectly natural that my cousin , K who has become my consort , and a good friend  B who is interested in Tibetan healing arts should all have a field trip to the Doctor.
        The office was a beautiful residential retreat in Northwest Tucson and the Doctor a seventh generation Tibetan physician. She dressed in a purple outfit complete with gold high heel shoes and conducted the process in an hour long interview in which she took several different pulses , from holding my arm.
        THe diagnosis was that I have too much heat in the system and need to reduce it. To preserve the organ that is most under stress , the liver , a regime of cooling foods less strenuous exercise, meditations that  involve gentleness , and taking some pills would be advisable.
         While this all sounds quite banal  the sense of healing that each of us was being part of was palpable.
         Contrasting is the visit to the cardiologist two days earlier. In it my cousin and my ex joined me at a doctors office where the first part of the healing process involved making copies of my insurance card and drivers license , filling out a form which asked several of the same questions that I had answered on the previous form , and then waiting in a small cubicle for the physician.
         The physician impressed me as a kind man who did his work more for the purpose of healing than that of padding his wallet , He also was very straightforward about the risks that were incurred by taking the drugs that the doctors were prescribing . Words such as diabetes, high blood pressure , and  heart attack were among the deleterious consequences. Excellent warnings but hardly uplifting.
          He reiterated what I already knew in that saying in the best condition possible was the best way to stay healthy.
          What my insight tells me is that his knowledge is partial as all knowledge must be and that my own path must be created by me not in defiance of the medical culture but as a guide to those who wish to heal.

The week ahead

      This week should be busy. My closest relative arrive tomorrow. My cousin/big sister have know each other our entire lives. My first meeting with her was captured on film by my father. I am the one in the carriage and she is the cute little girl smiling next it. She has been instrumental in helping me in the last five years and my debt to her is enormous. She is also the person who will have control over the living will. Given the circumstances that are extant we need to throughly discuss what to do in arising situations.
      She and I then will attend a medical meeting with a cardiologist who will be giving a baseline study of heart health. The drugs being administered by the other physicians are deleterious to the heart. These are options that the allopathic world is administering that I am going to have to make a decision about leaving at some time. Not now, but the time is coming . Less is more in this situation until none is best is the plan.
     The ex will be at the doctors office with us and perhaps will socialize  for awhile. I do not like my ex but I trust her judgement and respect her and her opinion . Therefore I am going to coordinate my cousin and my ex into  the oversight of the living will.
      I have no desire to stay a moment beyond my fated time and I wish that it would be sooner in dire circumstances rather than later. Deciding that fate is what we will discuss.
    Wednesday K arrives , she is becoming integral to the bodies health. She is becoming the embodiment of maternal energy and our shared goal of using the mind to heal has intensified on almost a daily basis with discussion , sharing, understanding, and love. I wish her to know my cousin and for my cousin to deepen her understanding of what is transpiring.
      Thursday we three go to Tucson to visit a Tibetan physician and listen to what she recommends. She is associated with Alan Wallace and has a great deal of respect in the Shamatha community of which I am a part. That evening another shamatha meditation teacher in Tucson is giving a teaching and we will attend.
       Friday we will drive back from Tucson and K will leave in the evening.

A day in the life

           I had an unexpected invitation to a fire puja this morning for a participant in a Chenrezig (a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas) retreat. I watched as the mind went from disbelief, to detached observation, to understanding, to honoring the participant and her work. The teachings come faster.

My mother has a memorial plaque about a mile from the location of the puja, tara called for me to stop and pay homage. (Tara is a tantric meditation deity whose practice is used by practitioners of the Tibetan branch of Vajrayana Buddhism to develop certain inner qualities and understand outer, inner and secret teachings about compassion and emptiness) I could not resist. I bowed to the ten directions and gave thanks for the blessings being bestowed upon me.

Upon reaching home I indulged the body in the exercise it has become accustomed to.

The paperwork of the day had me filling out the forms for the cardiologist visit that will take place this Tuesday. I realized how angry I was becoming as the form went on at length. It was redundant. Asking for the same information on the same side of the same page, it was interested in the form of payment for the visit in almost as great length as the questions as to symptoms . It did not give me hope or even an inclination of healing. I have moved far from believing in the allopathic medical model.

It also again reminded me of my vulnerability and my impermanence.

I had lunch, slept, and then an intense meditation. Lasting more than 90 minutes. This picture is a good representation of the struggle. All of the elements were within the meditation . Charon, the river Sty, the struggle, and even Dante.

In writing this I have gained insight.

The collaboration begins

      K's visit has concluded. It was a cornucopia of gifts , teachings , sharing ,learning , delight ,  and insights.
     The hours of conversation that we shared provided me with the basis for a framework to consider the nature of thought and how it is a process. The framework has levels of understanding that allow for the transformation of thinking .
      Many insights that I gained from the exchange were obvious but only after being seen. A simple example in my case was my relationship to the story of the Odyssey. It is the myth that I have resonated with most of my life.
       The function of a myth is to provide a larger cognition within which one lives ones life. It allows the individual to become part of the whole of mankind, Subtle and vital to life well lived.
       This is one simple example of numerous examples I received from  the discussions. Some of those insights have depth and breadth while many are unsophisticated and need much expansion to achieve any degree of usefulness in healing and understanding. It is a delight and honor to be with someone who is so generous in sharing in such a loving way.
         K also is an accomplished chef able to take the severe restrictions that my diet imposes and turn it into numerous small culinary piêce de rêsistance . 
         While the picture tries to  capture the elegance and beauty of the dish it can only give a feeble idea of how delicious. 
         Both of us were part of  the Shamatha  Meditation Project which I have written of before . That shared background along with the blessings of the originator of the project Alan Wallace are another of the basis of the   collaboration that we are forming. 
         I am leaving out much that is important . There is however so much there to write about that editorial discretion must be exercised.