Journey Through Cancer - Chapter 5

The power of attachment to "stuff" is something that I have underestimated in myself. As with all kinds of nonvirtue, it is easier to see it in others than in oneself. I could see how many people defined themselves and measured their self worth by the kind of car or truck they drove, the house and neighborhood in which they lived, the kind of possessions that they accumulate. Men often take pride in the quality and quantity of tools that they own. Women often take similar pride in the quality and quantity of their home furnishings. This can also be seen in people's adherence to "fashion" in their clothing. What is less obvious is that when one has little, one may be just as attached to the little that one has. Furthermore, one may be just as prideful about the antifashion styles that one wears as another would be of wearing the latest high fashion styles.
When I started "liquidating my own estate," it was easy to find things to sell. There were enough things whose uselessness for me were clear, things to which I had no attachment, things that I had kept long after I had ceased to have any reason for them.Of course, from the very start I found things that had little or no financial value. The difficulty came when there were things which had not only "sentimental value" but also financial value. Among them have been an out of print book with a personalized inscription and the only hand painted icon that I've owned. It helped me very much that Venerable Khenpo Tsultrim told us about a great Buddhist "saint" whose only sacred image in his cave retreat was a charcoal drawing that he had made of Shakyamuni Buddha. Even now, although I still plan to "improve" my shrine by making it a "proper" three-tiered construction, I am no longer so attached to it being "perfect." I can refocus on its value being solely in the spiritual help that it provides.
I still need to keep going through my "stuff" dividing it into the following categories: (1) "stuff" of which I have no need but has monetary value, (2) "stuff" that I still need for some practical or spiritual purpose, (3) "stuff" that I don't need but has little or no monetary value, and (4) "stuff" which I'd really be better off without. For the things in the first and fourth categories I'll have to figure out the best way to dispose of them. The things in the third category I'll find some way to give to someone. However, the "stuff" in the second category I'll have to keep evaluating for its continued usefulness and check myself constantly for attachment. The best example of the need for that can be found in my relation to tools. I have long been proud of trying to maintain the best quality tools in the best condition, but the level of pride has been problematic. I really became aware of this when the rechargeable batteries for my drill started to fail. I can no longer afford the cost of replacing them. Instead, to meet my needs I just bought the cheapest "Made in China" drill that I could find.
Buying the drill is not the problem but rather the way that I felt about buying it. I really felt rotten that I couldn't buy the quality of tools that I usually insist upon buying. What about me is so invested in the kind of tools that I own? It certainly is not the practical consideration about the usefulness or even the longevity of the tool, but rather something of my ego that is involved. And I thought I didn't have attachments to very much, but I find that I can be just as troubled with them as anybody. I can even turn the utilitarian character of my truck and my mode of dress and even my poor house into a point of pride and the source of aversion toward others who do not live so "simply."
Of course, this does not mean that I should give up simple living and join the mainstream of consumerism, but rather that I should have compassion and not aversion for those caught in the traps that I am trying to avoid. The measure of the value of everything that I do needs to be its spiritual value. How does it benefit everyone for enlightement? How can it reduce suffering in myself and others?
I have to keep working on both the spiritual and the practical aspect of this journey. However, I cannot afford to lose sight of the importance of those spiritual aspects, because they have the most lasting importance. They are the steps on the path to enlightenment for myself and all sentient beings.

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Journey Through Cancer Chapter 4 - Birthday

A birthday is an occasion that naturally lends itself to reflections on ones life. How have I spent my years up to this point? How many years lie ahead of me? What have I accomplished with the time that I've had? What do I yet hope to accomplish? Adding to this tendency toward self reflection, this weekend I was dividing my time between a pagan festival and activities of my local Dharma Center, only getting to the Sweat Lodge Ceremony on Friday night and the teaching on the Songs of Milarepa on Sunday afternoon.
In Sweat Lodge Ceremonies I have been prone to experience visions. Of course the nature of such visions is that one really never knows whether they are really communications from some spiritual source outside oneself or rather originate within oneself or even come from something like Jung's "collective unconscious." In any case, they can supply information of value because this information may not be accessible through more ordinary means. Since I tend fire at some of these, I often only go into the lodge for the fourth round after I have delivered the last stones. On this occasion I had help in tending the fire and went in during the third round. At this particular lodge, the third round is the "round of the ancestors" and connected with Grizzly Bear, my chief totem animal, and related to the balance of introversion and action. Among the prayers that I prayed was a traditional Tibetan Buddhist prayer about acceptance:
"I rely on you, buddhas and bodhisattvas, until I achieve enlightenment. Please grant me enough wisdom and courage to be free from delusion.
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...." However, when I came to the words, "If I am supposed to die, let me die," I heard the voice of my grandmother say, "but not just now." With this I felt great comfort that my present illness, while it may demand much of me, is not to be an illness unto death or at least not too soon. Nevertheless, I cannot afford to take that for granted.
The fourth round in this particular lodge was devoted to a guided meditation during which, this time, we met with our totem animal for guidance. Sister Bear and I discussed my present illness and my response to it. She said it was particularly important for me to keep up this blog. None of us are especially unique in our life experience and one of the benefits we may share with others as we go through difficulties is to help them see that they are not alone in theirs. Furthermore, we may share with them the spiritual resources that help us and may help them as well.
Saturday, I spent working on my broken truck which involves some broken wires including in the battery cables. This kept me from attending the Milarepa Empowerment sponsored by our Dharma Center. That night when I thought I had finished, it turned out that there were still problems in the wiring which kept me from going back out to All World Acres for the drumming. However, on Sunday I went with my sister to the event of the Dharma Center, a teaching by Venerable Khenpo Tsultrim on the Songs of Milarepa. I am really glad that I was able to be there, because Milarepa is an inspiration especially for those of us who may not have spent the earlier part of our lives in fruitful spiritual practice or even may have done great evil. Milarepa did great evil in his early life, but turned to the Dharma and attained Enlightenment in the same lifetime.
At a time of self reflection another area one may naturally contemplate is one's history of romantic relationships. In my case that history is nil. I have had what I thought at the time were romantic relationships, but were actually something else entirely. First of all, throughout high school I hardly dated at all much less develop any kind of teenage romance. In college the first time, as a budding alcoholic I fell into dating the daughter of an alcoholic which was hardly a romance but rather two sick people supporting each other's sickness. Furthermore, although this was the era of "free love" we hardly got into heavy petting. Through my first hitch in the Navy, I hardly dated at all, but soon started the practice of turning to prostitutes for sex. Returning to college from the Navy, I dated even less although I found myself very comfortably in the company of women as I had at various times before. Often they were so comfortable and "safe" with me that they would reveal the most intimate of secrets, never considering how much inner conflict this might entail for me.
Not long after college, I did marry, but this had nothing to do with romance or even "good sex." I filled the requirements for her to get her son out of foster care. I also provided some degree of financial security. Although this was a nightmare of a marriage with her drinking and drugging and nearly psychotic behavior, karmicly it was for the good, because I protected her son from her violence. During my second enlistment in the Navy we divorced. after which I only dated a few times and had a sexual relationship once before I was discharged from the Navy and entered a Russian Orthodox Monastery. From then until now, notwithstanding both an informal renunciation of the monastic vows and a ritualized renunciation of them, in the years since I quit being a monk I have not actually dated nor have I had a sexual relationship not even a single romantic kiss. We're not talking just about a sex life, but about the potential of a real love life!
Reflecting on this sordid history, especially the time after rejecting the constraints of Orthodox Christian monasticism, I have to come to certain conclusions. It is my Karma, for whatever reasons from my present life and my past lives that I am not seen by any woman as being a potential romantic partner or sexual partner. Since we are in the 21st Century and no longer operating within the limitations of the 1960s, if a woman really were interested, she would make herself known. Indeed one lady who found my MySpace profile interesting did contact me, making her interest known to me although, in spite of our common interests and shared points of view, nothing ultimately came of it.
At this late date in my life, facing this constant reminder of my mortality, I shall give no more energy of any sort to even the possibility of romance, sex, or any such thing. I shall strive instead to accept that the remainder of my life is to be at least as solitary as it has been so far. No wife, no girl friend, no lover, no partner of any kind. I am instead to be permanently celibate as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. While this is a firmly and well considered decision, its implementation will require mental, emotional and spiritual work for its fulfillment. I am, after all, a thoroughly heterosexual man with a healthy libido, but that has only been a source of pain and suffering rather than joy. This is finally the acceptance of my Karma. No amount of effort and energy on my part can actually make it otherwise. This I can finally see.
Actually, I won't be totally alone. I still have friends. I still have my Vajra brothers and sisters. I will have the monastic brothers of my Sangha.

Journey Through Cancer Chapter 3

Sometimes we can have all the tools we need and even know how to use them, yet when the need arises we fail to use them. A few days ago I let the stress of my present circumstances overwhelm me. Instead of turning to meditation or mantra recitations, I wound up with angina pains for the first time in a very long while. Fortunately, I did eventually begin meditating, watching my breathing, and the pain went away. However, with right view and maintaining the practice I was supposed to be keeping, this was totally preventable.
Today, October 9th, I had my first appointment at Radiation Oncology with Dr. Zachariah and his nurse, Joyce. We discussed the plan for my treatment which will begin sooner than previously expected. It seems that current research indicates no benefit from hormone therapy for patients receiving beam radiation treatments. On the other hand, it could have produced unnecessary side effects, even exacerbating coronary artery disease which I have to an as yet mild degree. Just incidentally, now I don't have to face the development of "man boobs" and I get a reprieve from E. D. ("erectile dysfunction"). Of course the doctor and I did discuss the reality that 35% or more of the men that get radiation therapy eventually have E. D. from the radiation itself.
The radiation alone has a daunting set of its own side effects. These start with the relatively minor sensitivity or irritation of the skin through which the beam passes. From there we move through a series of consequences to the bladder, urethra, and rectum which range from minor to very serious. Already having urinary symptoms, I can expect them to get at least a little worse, but hopefully well within the range that other meds can give effective relief. Of course, any discussion of side effects has to be weighed against the results of the cancer spreading to other organs and tissues. While I'm not particularly worried about dying, I'd really rather not have to deal with cancer loose in the rest of my body.
My scheduling takes into account my commitments at Florida Pagan Gathering. I get to do my own workshop and my workshop jointly with my sister as well as fire-tending for Grey Ghosthawk and being "tech support" for my sister's workshop. My next Radiation Oncology appointment after FPG will be for a CT scan called "3-D Simulation" whose purpose is to figure out the shape, size and position of my prostate that we are targeting and the locations of other structures that we don't want to expose to these levels of radiation. Unfortunately, my severe allergy to the "contrast medium" may make this a little less precise, because these things won't stand out as clearly in the CT images. Although I had expected that they would premedicate me against the allergic reaction for this test, Dr. Zachariah considers the risk of my stopping breathing unacceptable. ;-) I kind of agree with him because I have a few more things to do in this lifetime like attaining Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.
From this test they will calculate the precise positions of the beams to maximize the exposure of the cancer and minimize the exposure of adjoining tissues and structures. Since, at this stage, we assume that the cancer is confined to the prostate, we will blast the h--- out of it and try not to damage my bladder, urethra and rectum. At my age and being single, it would be no great loss if my supply of sperm suffered annihilation, but they try to protect them too. :-)
On December 2nd, I go in for my first treatment session of around 42. Thereafter, Monday through Friday, except for Federal Holidays, I go in every day until all those have been completed. Interestingly, after all the years that VA doctors have been urging me to lose weight, I have been instructed neither to lose nor to gain weight once the treatments have begun until they are all finished. If my weight should change, the targeting of the radiation beam could be incorrect. That could result in too little radiation on the cancer and too much on healthy tissues.
From this point onward, my personal efforts need to be two-fold, maintaining my spiritual practices and promoting the health of healthy tissues and organs. For both these programs I have the help of friends and family. My vajra brothers and sisters provide encouragement and support in my practice of the Dharma. My sister is trying to keep my diet oriented toward the needs of my healthy organs and tissues. While this is not likely to be an easy process, I have all the resources that I need for this journey, whether it is someone to drive when I'm not up to it or a place to spend the night when fatigue makes going all the way home between treatments more than I care to do.

Journey Through Cancer Chapter 2

This afternoon I went to Katsel Dharma Center to be with my Vajra brothers and sisters. Although Sunday afternoons are scheduled as "Introduction to Buddhism," without any beginners, the three of us did Amitayus Sadhana Practice. This was probably only the third time for me to do this practice since the empowerment, but it was very rewarding to do it with others. I feel strongly inclined to make Amitayus Sadhana Practice togther with Medicine Buddha Sadhana Practice the foundation of my daily practice during the present phase of my journey through cancer. The "plan" of my daily practice is to rotate through all the practices for which I have received empowerment, but this would seem to be a better choice for a while.
During the practice, a couple of times I noticed the Tibetan letters in connection with the phonetic rendering of familiar mantras and prayers. Although it has occured to me before, I am strongly motivated to make my first step toward learning the Tibetan language trying to learn the alphabet, the starting point in learning any language, by picking out the letters just to be able to pronounce the chants from the Tibetan text rather than just from the phonetics. When I started going to the Russian Orthodox Church, that was how I first handled the prayers in Old Church Slavonic. Eventually, it became a language of prayer for me not just meaningless sounds. Perhaps with practice the same process may work for me with the Tibetan language, maybe with actual language study I might progress to full understanding eventually.
On a different track, I had long thought that I wasn't a very materialistic person, but the process that I described to a friend as "liquidating my own estate" is showing me that I've kept so many things that are really useless to me. This is turning out to be more about spiritual discovery than just about the practical need for transportation funds. The more "stuff" I get out of here, the more freedom I feel. I think I'll be expanding this process to include everything, even things with no resale value, asking, "Why do I have this thing? Does it bind and constrain me?" More of my "stuff" will be going out even if it goes to the garbage.
It is so strange to remember that when I left St. Herman of Alaska Monastery, Platina, California, to move to Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, New York, I only had what I could pack in a backpack. When I moved back here to this area, I only added a few boxes of books that were mailed to me. In the years since then, I have accummulated so much unnecessary "stuff" that doesn't make my life better, but rather less free. I feel so sad for those who are bound and enslaved by so much more "stuff" in their lives. For me, the wealthy are more to be pitied than envied.
With my present circumstances, I am aware of some of the many stresses that fill our daily lives. Even in the limited circle of my friends I am not the only one coping with financial strains from the current "economic downturn" and medical crises. Others are struggling with different combinations of stressors. Some of us cope better than others. Sometimes we cope better than at other times. At the best of times it is difficult to be "fully responsible" for our own actions and choices. In my present situation I already have symptoms that make me feel "not so good," but they are not so bad that I should let them keep me from doing what really needs to be done. I'm particularly thinking about my commitment to the Dharma both from taking refuge and from Ngakpa ordination. When I don't make it to the Dharma center, it is easier to blame the disease process rather than face the shortcomings in my coping. What will I do if the disease gets really bad or the treatments give me horrible side effects? Whatever it is, I'm still responsible for my choices.
I was talking to a friend about people we knew who had cancer but refused the usual pain meds because they wanted to keep their minds clear. Ani Drolkar said that it would interfere with her practice. Metropolitan Philaret who was head of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia worried that it would make him doze instead of pray. Could I exhibit that kind of strength and commitment to the Dharma?
This, like everything else in life, is a spiritual journey. What I go through is not important, but how I go through it is of ultimate importance.

Journey Through Cancer - Chapter 1

It has only been a few days ago that I received a diagnosis that is likely to shape my life for the next several months. I plan to "blog" my way through the process of treatment planning, the treatment itself and the recovery afterwards.
My previous blog "Walking with Death" serves as a suitable preface to the present work. Both my experiences under medical care and also my training as a nurse tend to make me interested in the technical aspects of what awaits me. Furthermore, it is most fortuitous that my first real introduction to Tibetan Buddhism was a Medicine Buddha Empowerment and Retreat. This together with my life experience shapes my attitudes toward the diagnosis and treatment.
A clearly good consequence has been that the looming prospect of cancer brought me to a deeper appreciation of "precious human life" and to a greater commitment to Buddhist practice beginning with "taking refuge." From that point I went on to take Ngakpa ordination, the especially inward nature of whose samayas seems particularly appropriate. Nevertheless, the thought of wasting what remains of my life motivates me to try to benefit my brothers and sisters at our Dharma center and in the wider community. Furthermore, it increases my desire and commitment to seek full monastic ordination.
I wrote my first email to my Root Lama about all of this happening as well what I've been doing. I believe that he understood and approved of my attitude toward this as the life lessons through which I must live and learn. I have to keep my focus on what is truly important which has nothing to do with dying nor even with pain. First of all, "stuff happens" and we really have little control over that, but rather we control our attitudes and actions, but even that takes a certain level of mental training to overcome "afflictive emotions" and "obscurations" enough. I need to keep growing in my practice and maintain my determination to keep my samayas as a Ngakpa and to move on toward becoming a monk. The real danger for me in all of this is that I could get so focused on my own pain and so obsessed with death that I cease to grow in compassion. Like everyone else my death is certain, but my life is not certain.
Yesterday I got a call from the Radiation Oncology Department at the VA Hospital, setting the appointment for my "evaluation" and the first of many tests that lay ahead. I can't afford to let all of this divert me from the truly important. In fact, as the expression is "this is where the rubber meets the road." The teachings of the Buddha work in just such circumstances as this not just in the little routine things in life. In fact, they seem to have the potential of turning the most exceptional circumstances into routine.
Next month when Khenpo Tsultrim is here for teachings, I plan to talk to him about the facilities for retreats at Tibetan Meditation Center in Frederick, Maryland. In the Spring, after my treatments are finished, I think it may be a most appropriate time to make a retreat.
As I progress through this whole process of treatments, tests, and just life, I'll continue to blog. One of the preparations that I have already begun is the process of raising funds to cover the gas I'll need to make it to all my treatments. I was already starting to get rid of "stuff" that I no longer need. Now I have started selling some of it on eBay and have my sister list the books in her inventory for sale. I've already made some substantial sales to go into that transportation fund.
Another spiritual development is that several people have offered to help me get to treatments or otherwise support me in them. They may not realize that they are being given the opportunity to accumulate merit which is something we all need. This also could be my own opportunity to purify karma?

Walking with Death

When I was growing up, I sometimes heard my mom talk about an incident when I was just an infant. She said that I just went limp almost like I was dead. This was particularly frightening for my parents, because this was barely more than a year, if that long, since my brother died as an infant. In a very understaffed ER, it happened again and Mom just prayed, "Please don't take this one." I survived.
While there were some health issues, my elementary school years passed uneventfully until I was 12 when doctors became alarmed at the implications of the murmur that I had since birth. There began years of cardiologist consultations and just about every new noninvasive test that came along. Finally, when I was 16, they decided that I was old enough to have a cardiac catheterization. After they had examined all the test data and the motion pictures of the fluoroscope images, they informed me that I was healthy enough to "go out and chop logs." Years later a surgeon would have taken exception to such a prognosis, but he had the advantage of direct observation, far superior to any indirect test.
Over the years, during my drinking years, there were many "close calls." However, I easily dismissed all of these even one in 1973 which involved a fractured vertebra which the orthopedic surgeon said should have "at least paralyzed" me. That only served to get me to my first alcohol rehab and my first AA meeting. A few days out of the hospital I drank again.
Although this may not be the experience of most people, it really isn't all that different. From the moment we are born, "Death" is not far from us. He is most likely to take us without warning when we least expect it, by a heart attack when we think we are healthy or when someone runs a red light and crashes into us or any of so many ways we couldn't even guess. Just that suddenly he came close to me in the spring 1983. I had been staying up too many hours and gotten too little rest (probably even already manifesting the sleep disorders that were diagnosed years later). While driving home one night, I fell asleep at the wheel, taking an exit unexpectedly. Still sleeping, I took out a stop sign and awoke to the pain of both arms breaking. The van crossed the intersection and perched in a tree where I waited to be rescued. With two broken arms, a fractured knee, a few holes in me, and unknown internal injuries I spent the night until firefighters and paramedics extracted me from my wrecked van. I had barely escaped "Death" once again, but I didn't know how close he still was.
Two weeks into my hospital stay, after so many tests chasing "poor lung function," the day before physical therapy is scheduled to start getting me out of bed, an intern is practicing reading Xrays by looking at the film and then checking the report to see whether he found everything the radiologist had. When he looked at my chest Xray, he saw a shadow that wasn't explained in the re;port. He called whoever was supervising him and asked about it. Up until that time all my chest Xrays had been "portable' chest Xrays because they hadn't had me out of bed. A normal chest Xray and an arteriogram clearly showed a traumatic tear of the descending aorta which was "seeping." A thin membrane was keeping me from "bleeding out" into my chest.
As they are giving me a healthy dose of Valium by injection, the doctors not only explain the seriousness of my condition but also inform me that I have to be transferred to the Army hospital on the other side of the Bay because the Navy hospital doesn't have a heart-lung machine and the helicopter is already on another case.
Not only was my aorta successfully patched but also the surgeon repaired a coarctation of the aorta, a congenital defect. In fact, he informed me that it is a wonder that I had grown to be an adult with such a serious degree of narrowing. "Death" had been walking with me all those years "just out of reach."
After surviving this wreck so dramatically, eventually found that I had also lost all fear of death. Adding to this the fact that I have clear memories from past lives that I have lived, I have complete confidence that not only could I live through anything but also, if I should die, I will live again.
Several months ago, when a high PSA score got me sent to Urology for evaluation and a lump was found and a biopsy was scheduled, my mortality once again came into focus. At my age and with a background of these kinds of experiences and unconstrained by not having a wife or even a girlfriend, how could I not conclude that there is no better way to spend the rest of my life than devoted to the Dharma as a Buddhist monk.
Now with the results of the biopsy showing cancer and a treatment plan set out for me, not only is my decision to pursue Tibetan Buddhist monasticism confirmed but I also can see "Death" hanging out with me just out of reach. I don't fear dying, but I do want to be of benefit to all sentient beings.

Vajrasattva Practice

For the second time I have participated in Vajrasattva Practice with my vajra brothers and sisters at Katsel Dharma Center. Although I have not yet had the empowerment, but soon hope to receive it when Khenpo Tsultrim is here next month, this practice has been a powerful experience both times.
The most I can do to describe it is that it has the best aspects of a "good confession" as I knew them when I was Russian Orthodox. There is a powerful sense of cleansing and a great weight being lifted. However there is no feeling of guilt involved, but rather the anticipation of a new beginning.
The cleansing, renewing and uplifting in this practice seems to come from the "four powers" or strengths which are essential to its fruitfulness: the power of support or reliance, the power of regret, the power of the antidote or remedy, and the power of resolution or confidence. That on which we depend for support, that on which we rely, for the effectiveness of this practice is our own "buddha-nature." However, as one who has not yet attained Enlightenment, I can also rely, in the meantime, on Vajrasattva and my guru to be the ground by which I am supported as I walk this path. Hence, in the visualization I take within myself Varjasattva.
Nonetheless, it is within myself that I find the power of regret. Here it is beneficial to contemplate, even beforehand, the suffering and harm from any negative karma. It is also most useful to develop and generate bodhicitta, because not only does negative karma harm me but it also harms others in their progress toward Enlightenment. Therefore, with this regret I form the positive desire to be cleansed of all nonvirtues and take whatever action may be required. Thus we have the various elements which constitute the "antidote or remedy." Hence, we have, among other things, the offering mudras, meditation, and mantra recitation.
The fourth power, "the power of resolution or confidence" now means that we receive the purification which we seek. In the text of the practice we are told that we have been "completely purified." Herein we must exercise our faith in the effectiveness of this practice. Furthermore, having been thus purified we commit ourselves to change ourselves and abstain from these same nonvirtues.
I realize that my experience is most elementary and my understanding is that of a beginner. Nevertheless, I look forward to the Vajrasattva Empowerment and the change that it will bring.