Yesterday, we had the ceremony with a small group, only a couple of whom were Buddhist, which turned out well. I believe that most of them grasped the point of the liberation and understood the significance of “all mother sentient beings” which, to me, is such an important concept underlying so much of what we do in our practice. Native Americans talk about “all our relations,” but this takes it a step farther and also is connected to our understanding of time as cyclic rather than linear. My mind truly opened to that when someone asked me why, if I accepted that I have been born multiple times, I couldn't accept that the “universe” as we know it might also have been “born” multiple times. At the same time, scientists and mathematicians hypothesize multiple universes coexisting with this one. Why could they not be various Buddhafields?
For this ceremony, I had to set up a temporary altar and, since I hadn't done my daily practice before leaving home in the morning, I did the daily offerings. This gave rise to questions about the nature and significance of each of them. While I could only answer about a couple of them from memory, I promised to send her a copy of the transcript of the talk by Khenpo Konchog Gyaltsen Rinpoche which inspired me to do the same kind of daily offerings. This way she gets the teaching of someone who is actually qualified to teach. However, I can help to promote the curiosity that motivates someone to seek a qualified teacher.
A couple of us talked a little about the prayer: “If I am supposed to get sick, let me get sick, and I’ll be happy. May this sickness purify my negative karma and the sickness of all sentient beings. If I am supposed to be healed, let all my sickness and confusion be healed, and I’ll be happy. May all sentient beings be healed and filled with happiness. If I am supposed to die, let me die and I’ll be happy. May all the delusion and the causes of suffering of beings die. If I am supposed to live a long life, let me live a long life and I’ll be happy. May my life be meaningful in service to sentient beings. If my life is to be cut short, let it be cut short and I’ll be happy. May I and all others be free from attachment and aversion.”
I am inclined to see my present experience living with and struggling with my cancer as the practice of this very prayer in daily life. Whether the cancer is going to kill me soon, or later or not at all, whether it is to be cured by conventional allopathic medicine, or by alternative therapies, or not at all, I am not just doing this for myself but for the benefit of all sentient beings. Furthermore, just like the animal liberation, I dedicate the living out of this to the same folks.
Once you remove the concerns about death and you realize that there are no symptoms other than those I have been experiencing for years with a simple enlarged prostate and the new lower back pain is probably more likely psychological rather than physiological, most of that with which I am coping is “treatment” whether conventional or alternative. My “medicinal” Ramen noodles with their shiitake mushrooms and broccoli cuts are made almost totally unpalatable by the hijiki seaweed, but it is supposed to be preparing my body to cope with the radiation. Replacing my milk with soy milk takes away one of the pleasures that I've enjoyed all my life. Scheduling sessions for the various alternative healing modalities takes time of which I already have too little. At the same time I'm trying to integrate a couple of guided meditations into my life as the time gets closer for my radiation treatments.
To balance this I have my spiritual practice which must not diminish but still keep developing toward the goals set in consultation with my root lama. These aren't just incidental to or merely supportive of the alternative or conventional medical modalities, but rather they are the basis, the cause and the purpose of everything else. Furthermore, to fail to grow in my spiritual practice or to lose the focus on eventually taking full ordination as a monk would be to through away one of the greatest benefits to my life of this whole experience.
Leaving aside, for the moment, the bigger Karmic issues and any consideration of the accumulation of merit, I am walking a path that others must walk, but in so doing I am working out the practical application of certain principles to daily life. For example, what does trusting my root lama in matters of my spiritual life mean if I can't trust him in simple recommendations regarding my physical life? Likewise, if I truly believe that others' intentions are pure in their motivation to help me toward full health, why would I not accept their help? Since I believe that, in regard to my health just like any other circumstance arising in my life, what happens is the result of the intersection exercise my will with the Karmic consequences of my past decisions and actions, why would I not take active control of my health care decisions and plans? In doing these things or any others by which I benefit others in addition to myself, I am not some spiritual hero or saint or Bodhisattva, just the result of certain causes and conditions coming together in this particular way. However certain causes and conditions place me on this path and enable me to walk it as I do.
“Whatever merit I have gathered through prostrations, offerings, confession, rejoicing, beseeching and praying - for the sake of the enlightenment of all sentient beings, all this I dedicate.”
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