Journey Through Cancer – Chapter 9 – Why do any of this?

It may seem from what I've written that I have it all together all the time, but that impression couldn't be farther from the truth. Instead, having suffered from chronic low grade depression for years, although it has been very successfully treated, under the present circumstances, it is not surprising that I have to deal with it again now. The symptoms of an enlarged prostate for which the old treatments are no longer as effective are aggravating. The herbs that are part of the alternative therapy that I am using before the radiation therapy begins are only tolerable when masked by the spice in my daily chai. The seaweed that is supposed to prepare my body to cope with radiation makes my noodles unpalatable. Each day can be an emotional roller-coaster, but I continue to be able to find my way back to that balance point of confidence in my path and hopefulness for the future. For that I have a lot of help.
First of all is the living of my own particular life. I have repeatedly survived what could have easily been fatal circumstances and conditions. They may have involved a lot of pain and a long recovery, but I did survive. All this has brought me through diverse experiences to find my way back to Tibetan Buddhism which I had followed in a previous lifetime centuries ago. I know that I can survive anything no matter how improbable it might seem. On balance, I do realize that I won't survive everything, even when I've made it through this. However, it is a great blessing that Lama Sonam will be teaching on the Bardo and I am reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying to prepare for it. It is no coincidence that just when the specter of Death looms so large that I am to study about preparing for it while I am most receptive for the knowledge even if I am not really dying just now.
Next, I have my absolute certainty that I have lived before and can live again. However, this does leave me the responsibility to do all that I can with the rest of my life no matter how short or long to ensure that, even if I don't attain enlightenment in this lifetime, I shall have a good rebirth to have the chance to attain it then. If I should wind up like the poor earthworms that we liberated last weekend, how many more lifetimes as how many different kinds of living things would I need just to get back to this same point? While I continue to breathe, while I still have this life, I can aspire toward bodhicitta.
Next, I also have a whole host of people who care very much what happens to me and are doing what they can to help me overcome and recover from this disease. Some advise me in alternative or adjunctive therapies. Some supply me with the essential oils, herbs,or soaps for a particular regimen. Others are willing to help me with transportation to my treatment. I even had someone whom I have never met contribute toward my transportation needs. Furthermore, I have the whole VA medical system to support me with the conventional treatments and medicines. Still others give me the benefit of various alternative therapies especially forms of “energy work.” I even have a “witchy” friend who plans to have my healing as part of the magical working in the ritual at her Winter Solstice celebration.
Furthermore, I have my Dharma Center, my vajra brothers and sisters who are my Sangha. And even more than just them, my Greater Sangha which includes my root lama and the Sri Lankan monk who sends me email Dharma teachings and my Zen friend who got me involved in the Maitreya Project Relic Tour and even the monks of the Wat Florida Dhammaram whose pilgrimage shrines I visited. All these keep bringing me back to study of the Dharma and the practice of the Dharma which includes the practice of compassion. Even last night at our Vegetarian Thanksgiving,.Venerable Lama Sonam stressed to us the importance of opening any practice that we are doing with altruistic motivation and concluding it with our dedicating it to benefit others, reminding us of the central place of compassion in Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism where we so often repeat, “for the benefit of all sentient beings.”.
I could be walking through this disease and its treatment alone which would be both profoundly lonely and also interminably depressing, but I am not alone but rather have a whole host of caring supporters. I could be doing this solely for my own individual selfish survival, but I am not doing this only for me but rather for the benefit of so many others who must walk a similar road. I could see this as the Karmic result of my own actions in this or a previous life which would be both true and very sad, but, more than that, it is the opportunity to be of service to others which is an occasion for joy. I learned long ago that pursuing my own selfish goals brings no happiness, but helping others brings true joy. I enjoy cooking, but never so much as when I cook for others and see their enjoyment of what I have prepared.
We are walking through all these peaks and valleys of this thing together and we will get to the other side of it. When we find ourselves “cancer free,” it may not be all that much farther that we have to face another cancer in another part of our body, but we will walk through that too. However, when we reach that or another challenge of life, we will reach with the tools that this experience has given us. Moreover we will meet it as new people changed by this and all other experiences. Even the very atoms that make up our body will be different, because nothing, not even ourselves, stays the same.