Being sick or having pain in the body is typically difficult for most humans.
This hurts. It should stop. I need help. This is a problem.
Here is this body, which normally we think of as “ours”, which we’re inhabiting. It’s making noise right now. It’s bringing attention to itself, or part of itself, it seems.
So what do we mean by “this is a problem”?
I just had a fever for about 30 hours, sleeping from 7:00 pm until dawn two nights in a row. Very unusual. It appears to be gone this morning, although my stomach still hurts and is very tender to the touch.
Part of the mind kicks into high gear “What did I eat? What could this be? Am I reacting to that flu shot? Where’s the Tylenol? I must do everything I can to get rid of this.”
The mind is interested in the past and the future. What happened (so I can understand it and prevent it) and what can I do to get rid of it in the future. Hopefully the NEAR future.
But with inquiry, something else also arises with sickness or pain, I’ve noticed. I feel all the sensations and strangely, without really trying, I begin to find advantages. I’m not kidding, this happens almost as quickly as the resistance to the pain. Weird.
So what is good about this fever state over the past couple of days? What is useful? Even just a drop of usefulness…it doesn’t have to be amazing, life-changing, or fantastic.
- I happen to be traveling, on my way to a meditation retreat, so with this stomach pain increasing I notice how well I still move from point A to point B, just at a slower pace.
- I don’t have to worry about finding something good to eat for lunch when I get off the plane.
- I go straight to a hotel room instead of exploring the area, I spend the day by myself quietly, I go to sleep for 12 hours.
- I participate in the meditation retreat even though my whole body is pulsing with fever and all my bones ache, I know being right here is fabulous and better than anywhere else.
- I notice that I completely forget about my body for sections of time, because my mind gets very interested in the teaching, the conversation, the questions raised by participants in this retreat.
- I don’t think about where or how to exercise, run or move the body in the usual daily practice I have of doing that.
- I remember how this body is not all of me, it is some kind of vehicle, it will die and dissolve one day, it has a limited life span, this physical thing is all temporary…for me and for everyone. That’s the way of it.
- I realize how vulnerable this body is, and get the chance once again to contemplate this vulnerability as NOT being terrible. Could it even be beautiful? Vulnerability, after all, is open, sensitive, delicate, gentle and without defense. Quiet and fearless.
Then suddenly I am amazed. Feeling ill has brought this reflection on the temporary nature of this body. I could die this weekend (although probably not, chuckle).
I see how this one part of my mind doesn’t like that idea. It feels afraid of dying. It is against pain and accidents and sickness. It demands wellness at all times.
I laugh, though, because that Dictator Defender part of the mind, I see, is only afraid.
It thinks that “I” am this body…that I am important as this body. It thinks that if this body dies, then “I” will end and that is BAD.
The Dictator Defender thinks there is danger lurking here.
I need to LIVE!!!
Really? Is it true? What for?
The world will continue to revolve, life will spring up everywhere, in fact right now in the present moment, life and death are happening all over the place.
The people I love and who love me will go on and have amazing adventures…that would happen whether I was alive or dead actually.
Reality, the Universe, All This…seems to be changing constantly; unstable, morphing, moving, undulating, alive, transforming.
I discover here, with sickness, that I imagined that I would miss something if I were ill. That it would be better if I were not ill. I absolutely cannot know that this is true.
In fact, I’m pretty dang sure in this moment that it is incredible to have been feverish for a day and a half. I just learned or re-learned that what I truly am is not this body.
I am a part of a great Consciousness that continues, exists, and contains everything, where things within it come and go. This body doesn’t matter, really.
“In the beginning was the Tao. All things issue from it; all things return to it….Seeing into darkness is clarity. Knowing how to yield is strength. Use your own light and return to the source of light. This is called practicing eternity.”~Tao Te Ching #52
Maybe it is not sad that this body doesn’t matter. Just imagine if it wasn’t. Maybe it is not frightening, or depressing, or shocking.
Who would you be without that thought that you need this body, you need this body to be healthy, you need to live, or you need to defend against vulnerability, sickness or death?
Wow. I would be observing. Noticing. Amazed. Watching. Here Now. Not Afraid. Not Against.
I would also take Tylenol and drink lots of water. Which I did.