Journey Through Cancer – Chapter 20 – More About Treatment Progress

Since I first started radiation treatments, each day's dose was divided into beams of a brief duration from six positions. Apparently my case went back to the physicists for some fine tuning based on the latest X-rays, because today's session only had five positions. It feels like we have the cancer retreating and we are pursuing it to keep it from finding any hiding place. I realize that this is a very unscientific way of looking at it, but science isn't everything.
I chose to follow the course of “scientific” medical treatment, complemented and enhanced by alternative therapies. However, there are also those who pursue alternative treatments totally and successfully. I have a friend who has had several forms of cancer which have been treated with a “Rife machine.” Although “medical science” rejects the principles behind the device, my friend has again successfully recovered from this latest cancer. Others have followed Ayurvedic or Traditional Chinese Medicine treatments which have worked for them.
I personally believe that all the medical systems work, whether Ayurvedic, Traditional Chinese, Western Allopathic, Western Osteopathic, Western Homeopathic, Western Chiropractic, and so on. Regardless of their widely divergent theories to explain disease and the basis of their treatments, they all are successful in treating diseases and disorders. However, each system has its own range of effectiveness. In other words, each one has certain things that it handles well and other things that it can't seem to touch. Furthermore, I believe that the fundamental theories underlying and explaining each of these medical systems are totally irrelevant, because the true nature of reality is different from what we believe it to be.
There are so many indicators pointing to this truth. Physics and other sciences talk about the “observer effect” whereby the act of observation will make changes on the phenomenon being observed. Psychology speaks of the subjective nature of perception. In quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that the values of certain pairs of conjugate variables (position and momentum, for instance) cannot both be known with arbitrary precision. In astrophysics we have the “holographic theory” of the universe. In Tibetan Buddhism we have the principle of “karmic vision” whereby beings who share a common karma also share similar perceptions.
In the sciences one new theory succeeds another,each seeming to be the ultimate truth. Nevertheless the limits of each theory are reached and new discoveries point to the next theory. However, as Sogyal Rinpoche writes, “A realized being, or a buddha, will perceive the world as spontaneously perfect, a completely and dazzlingly pure realm. Since they have purified all the causes of karmic vision, they see everything in its naked, primordial sacredness.”
All our theories are fabrications of limited value. For the most part they serve to satisfy the needs of our ordinary mind, what Tibetans call sem. According to Sogyal Rinpoche, “Sem is the discursive, dualistic, thinking mind, which can only function in relation to a projected and falsely perceived external reference point.” It is this that needs such theories. Nevertheless, it is this ordinary mind that we seek to transcend to find the true nature of mind in enlightenment.