Hungry Ghosts

    
 I am preparing for a week long retreat with Shinzen Young . He is a vipassana meditation teacher and has been a teacher of the Prima Amiga and with her encouragement I am going to spend a week studying with him. He works with the various aspects of pain emotional and physical and I have found his teachings to be very helpful in dealing with all the afflictions of mind  and I can see how learning this material will help in staying mindful during affliction and pain of the body.

       Today the dukha( suffering) that seemed to be the flavor of the day was dancing in the realm of the hungry ghosts.The pretas in Tibetan . They are usually portrayed as large bellied thin necked creatures always attempting to consume more than they can swallow .
The character on the left of the blue Buddha in the picture above.
       The hungry ghost realm is where there is never enough and no matter how fast or hard that the level of consumption is pushed it never will fill the huge belly that always wants more.
        My lease in that realm seem to  be active today. Running around trying to get everything done to prepare for the event left me busy and nervous and not fulfilled. THe big moment when I got to realize how much I was part of the realm was when I went to the park to do a hike and got behind a truck that was moving at about 3 mph. I watched as the moment dissolved into the desire that things move faster and I not be stuck there. Suddenly it was not enough to be in  a beautiful park ,near sunset ,comfortably attired and feed and feeling good. I had to be at the  parking spot 30 seconds faster and nothing would make me happier.
         The irony hit me , I took a deep breath and then another, and another. Calmer I found myself at the parking spot and turned into it and then walked the park for 45 minutes. I still have a lease on that realm. I hope to surrender  a lot of it this week.

Not as bad a feared

    
  Went to the oncologist office today with S my  friend who has had breast cancer and is a gifted reiki therapist as well as being brilliant and caring and B who is a close friend and a CNA at the local hospice. They  and I listened to the information that was given to me about the bodies condition. What is the generally said was that the Bone Scan was excellent, A CT  scan is in order and the the PSA number is rising. This indicates that the cancer is replicating without testosterone. I have gone off of Casodex and the results of that will not be know until  next month but being off that may be temporary( reminds me of the Buddhist teaching on all things being subject to impermanence ) until the next series of events. After the next blood test  a decision needs to made as to follow a course of the chemotherapy drug taxatore. It is a plant alkaloid that attacks the rapidly dividing cells of the body. Cancer is the primary target, however other rapidly dividing cells are also attacked so stomach lining , nails and hair are also subject to attack. The side effects are nausea ,diarrhea , weight gain, sleepiness, and numbness in the fingers and toes.
            Both S and B  were optimistic about what they heard  I believe that to be the correct attitude.
            I got  phone call from Prima AMiga right before I went into the doctors office but did not catch it in time and the message was garbled. I know she sent love and encouragement and I am most appreciative as well as grateful for S& B for their company, love and  support. Friends are good.
            So next week is meditation with SHinzen Young who wrote of dealing with the pain of difficult emotions  and pain in general. THe right person at the right time.

        

Riding out the calm

       Got back from Simon Med for the first part of the bone scan. N , the tech told me that I will set of the alarms at the airport if I try to board a plane. That certainly makes me feel safer.
Things are looking a bit grim from the standpoint of life extension. PSA is rising even with the testosterone suppressant.

         Not to be entirely gloomy however N noticed on the x-ray pictures that the area around the breast bone is glowing. Radioactively is what he meant and also that since I had never had surgery on the chest he said that it is a good sign that healing is taking place. 

        To place hope in words like these is the natural reaction and I had it and I realized that I have been through the highs and lows of this game before so I therefore merely watch it as reactions that the body has. If the mind gets trapped into either fear or hope it is out of the moment and dukha(suffering) follows. By staying in the moment news is adsorbed, the bodies reactions are honored, and I can choose to stay with them or relax into them. 

         Friday I will see the oncologist and find out her recommendations. That will be followed by a week with Shinzen Young  studying the subject of dealing with emotional and physical pain.Then I will have to make decisions . Prima Amiga will be through with her retreat at Barre Ma. and will have a major voice in what I will be doing. I have learned enough to go into non-dualism around this subject and the process of dying so while the challenges are big I have and am developing the skills to work with them.
For instance ,last night I watched as I feel asleep. It was on an out breath.
Lucid dreaming is  more accessible but control is awful. One of the great things is that dreams and reality become so blurred in my meditation that I can carry that reality into some of the intense situations that I am facing.

        I talked to K  the therapist I see occasionally. She was interested in seeing Shinzen also. We spoke of the situation and I heard myself talk from my soul as to how well I am doing , it was reassuring. We also talked about the growing relationship with Prima Amiga and how I went to see K in part to reassure Prima Amiga of my centeredness since we are so involved she does feel objective about what she is listening to.Things like my need for boundaries and joining

          We talked of the faith that I have in Prima Amiga and how strong it has become that she will do the right thing for both of us. I have that faith.

            Also talked about this morning and having phone love making. Came upon both of so fast we did not realize it. Great fun and love.

           I am now at home and at peace grateful not to have to listen to callers asking for my vote.

             

           

letting go

          Went for Zometa today and received the word about the PSA test . The numbers are accelerating and that is a sign that the cancer has learned how to replicate without testosterone. This news comes to me and I feel a great deal of equanimity.
           I will have to face a nuclear bone san tomorrow at 8:30 and then the x-rays at noon and I don't expect a great deal of change since the PSA is beginning to rise and most of the tests are within parameters. Friday my friend Sandra and maybe Bill will accompany me to the oncologist and get her advice. Lisa who will be traveling wants to have an email sent to her which I will do.
            I have been  practicing meditation for 40 years and this is the payoff. Facing death is easier since the knowledge of no-self helps. If I thought that I am my body I would freak out.  It is dying. If I thought that I was only my mind or senses or emotions to have to give them up would leave me in terror. As it is I have learned enough not to be attached to being me or I and have more and more identified with the awareness itself rather than what the awareness is aware of.
          I have been aware of all of the ways Mara, the buddhist word for illusion, manifests and have seen through the illusion to truth. It is not a heaven or a hell but is rather a sense of being and non-being.
          My girlfriend is one of the great joys of my life and we are together now as few could ever hope to be. I would wish the beauty such a relationship be the blessing of everyone .
          Tomorrow I also see my friends from the pilgrimage who will be here in the evening.
Need to firm up the time .
          The vale of this life is becoming thinner and more transparent.
            Love is the only thing that can endure.

Changes

                
           Went hiking in the white mountains, Mt Escadilla. The third highest mountain in Arizona. Most of the leaves had been washed from the trees in the rain but did get to the place where I could walk back down through the above pictured ravine.
           This is a difficult hike and I could not complete it. I am either out of shape which is often the case when I start getting back in shape after a summer of not being as actively hiking or the the body has weakened that it can not do what was easy before.
           Some of this is of course an aspect of age , and as such must be acknowledged and respected. some of this may be  an aspect of the drugs that the body is subjected to and that must be fought.  Finding that balance is my path. Learning  inner joy is the gift.
            I had a day yesterday that would have thrown me completely into despair  realizing that I had not been as attended on the levels of PSA in the tests I have been given I found myself in panic. However after sitting with this for a few minutes I realized that is was only a wave that was going through me and just as a large wave washes over  a rock on the seashore. It rose and dropped just as surely as the ebb and flow of the ocean.
            It was an exercise in mindfulness and equanimity the rest of the day, there was simply a sense of being present with whatever emotion or pain emerged. It was not difficult since there was not anything to attach to it. The mind functions normally but the awareness of the mind stays still .
            My prima amiga sent me an extensive collection of audio tapes of a teacher named Shinzen Young. I have learned how to transpose the tapes into the computer and have been doing so . While doing so the subject matter on the tapes came to the forefront . Emotional pain, mainly fear, although all emotions for me are not pure but rather a jumbled mess that I can extract one part out of and then another. As each of these are brought to awareness there is a growing realization of what the buddha was talking about when he spoke of impermanence . Nothing lasts including whatever is the flavor of emotional or physical suffering that is being experienced.
           Shantideva the famous 8th century Indian Buddhist philosopher once said that people call to themselves the very thing of which they are most afraid. I certainly do have a great deal of concern and fear about metastatic bone cancer , but not facing the fear will not undo the diagnosis and will certainly make things worse since it will transform into a hell. Facing the fear will allow for the transformation to  awareness rather than running from awareness. It may change the physical nature of the body ,it will change the emotional and psychological nature of the mind.
            It already has.

Late Sunday afternoon

        It is late in the afternoon on Sunday and I have had a day in which using the meditation that I am learning has  brought me up to the old feelings that I would l often have growing up . I notice that I can no longer characterize them  like I used to. I would formerly described them as intense melancholy and I would flee from them mentally as quickly as I could unsuccessfully I might  add . Now it is something that observed closely is like watching a boring TV show.
       I went for a hike after my morning meditation and walked a different route. I walking this route I discovered garbage that had been lying  on the hillside for many years. Cans broken glass shot up bowls all rusty and very unattractive. I picked the garbage up and before I realized it I had more than I could comfortably carry.
       After disposing of the material I drove home and continued a project that I have been doing this week. That of recording into the computer all of the old tapes that have been sitting in the closet.  Winne the Pooh to Understanding Buddhist Psychology, the Ramayana to the Rolling Stones. I have heard what I have collected over the years and have put aside for newer and fresher things.  While playing these tapes I have been playing some computer chess and am gradually getting better. Another thing from my past that I had forgotten and put aside thinking that I had outgrown them.
         In the afternoon I spoke to the prima and now only girlfriend. SHe had been visiting her high school class reunion and spoke of how she had felt the same type of feelings that had been uncomfortable for her in high school had returned and or perhaps had never left. It was unfulfilling then and still is. It brought forth in me the same type of response about that which had not been fulfilled then was not fulfilled now.
           Later I talked to K the woman who I had thought would be a big part of my life and it turned out that she was since she fulfilled the role of catalyst in bringing A and I together into a union.(The desk clerk at the hotel we stayed at in San Antonio called her Ms. Meyer. )Anyway I needed K's help in filling some order forms for Tibetan herbs. She is happy in her new existence and I am happy for her.
           This feeling lasted the request number of hours before it passed and I had an opportunity to look
at it more closely as I become more skilled I will be able to figure out what was going on.
         One of the speculations that I have about this is that it is that it is part of the energy work from John of God . The sensations of having a energetic awareness of so much of my body at these times might be a possible explanation.
          Time will tell.

Following in the footsteps of the three stooges

 Today I learned a great lesson. One should use only dishwasher  detergent in a dishwasher. Had some leftover Palmolive dish soap and threw it into the dishwasher  figuring that it would wash the dishes I guess it does but here are the pictures of the results.