Equanimity

In response to my first two posts a friend, who also has Lyme disease, sent me an email: “Nice, Cara. Not sure that I'll find the degree of equanimity that you've found, however. Love the snowdrops!!” To which I replied: “Equanimity! Hahaha! Equanimity is something I keep having to come back to hence the title of the blog: ‘Coming back to peace.’ I have to practice it – over and over and over again.”

With a quick google search I found the following definition of equanimity on miriam-webster.com: “evenness of mind especially under stress.” It describes nicely the point of meditation practice, which is to become familiar with our minds so that we can ride the roller coaster of thoughts and emotions without freaking out. Contrary to what some might think meditation is not about getting rid of thoughts – good luck with that! The point of meditation is to develop mindfulness and awareness so that we aren’t jerked this way and that by our habitual emotional tendencies, concepts, and endless internal dialogue.

Equanimity takes practice, it’s the ability to be with whatever’s happening and not lose our cool. When we do lose our cool – which is certain to happen at some point – then equanimity is the ability to notice that we just lost it and climb back on the surfboard, skateboard, horse – you choose – and finish the ride. Then we use that as inspiration for next time so that when another big wave comes our way we have a chance to catch it before we’re slammed. 

Being sick is a lot like being slammed again and again by a huge wave. I never seem to get any ground beneath my feet. Some days I think to myself: “I am so fucked!” Sometimes I shout it out loud and that’s when I’m being most honest with myself because there’s nothing I can do. My situation can’t be fixed, changed, or solved. I’ve hit bottom. There’s no ground beneath my feet, there never has been any ground, the ground is only an illusion and all I can do is watch and be with whatever is happening in the moment – that’s equanimity in practice.

There’s tremendous wisdom in hitting bottom. In some ways it’s similar to what Zen practitioners refer to as “beginner’s mind.”[i] Beginner’s mind is fresh, open and without any concepts or preconceived ideas. Realizing that we’ve hit bottom is when we finally know that none of our concepts work. It’s when we know that no amount of effort on our part can change what we’re going through. Suddenly we can’t hold on any longer. We have no choice but to let go and when we do we discover that there is actually tremendous space in our situation. Like an eagle we might, for a brief moment, catch an updraft and realize that we can actually soar and then it all changes again. 

When we let go of our concepts and at the same time continue to hold our seat, not moving from that spot but continuing to look and stay with it, there’s an opportunity to see the basic sanity in our situation, the basic health that’s always there no matter how sick we are. Working with illness and pain in a productive way is, among other things, a practice of patience and equanimity. We come back to peace each time we let go of our concepts, internal dialogue and destructive emotional habits long enough to relax and enjoy the space that’s always there.

Note: From the Buddhist view sickness is sometimes considered a powerful path for practice. Why? First, there is no greater motivation for meditation practice than our own suffering and awareness of mortality. Second, touching our own pain at a deep level enables us to develop compassion and the motivation and aspiration to free other beings from suffering. Such an aspiration has tremendous benefit for oneself and others. It changes our whole intention and mindset toward other sentient beings and our world.

Learning basic mindfulness practice: There’s been a lot written lately about the benefits of mindfulness meditation for people living with pain and chronic or terminal illness. Scientific studies of the brain using imaging techniques such as MRI scans show that meditation alters the brain in significant and positive ways. Changes to the brain’s structure can happen relatively quickly even for beginning meditators who practice only a few minutes a day – consistency, however, is an important part of the practice. Anyone can learn to meditate. Simple, guided mindful meditation instructions are offered on line by the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center: http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22

For more information about mindfulness meditation, its benefits and positive effects on the human brain:

Washington Post – Monday, February 14, 2011

Meditation and mindfulness may give your brain a boost

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program

http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/whatMBSR.php

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[i] “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.”

- Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

The life we have

It’s tempting to think of illness as an interruption of our “real life,” as if we’ll get back to living once our health has returned. With a long-term or chronic illness, however, we may not know when or even if our health will return. Even if it does, we may never again experience the same level of physical strength and stamina that we once enjoyed. In that situation it can feel as if life is on hold, as if we cannot fully live or be happy without our previous level of health. However, as a friend once told me, “while you’re grieving for the life you used to have life is still going on. So live that life.”

In order to live well with illness we must figure out how to whole-heartedly embrace our experience rather than resent it. Resentment only compounds our suffering. And why resent our life just because we have an illness?  After years of being sick I’ve come to realize that illness is like the weather, we may not like that we’re sick, or that it’s raining, but neither illness nor rain are personal insults. Sure, being sick feels personal because it’s happening to our bodies but we make it worse when we take it personally, as in: “Why is this happening to me?”

Illness is simply a part of life; it’s an experience of life. How we choose to live with it, however, is up to us. Life doesn’t stop just because we’re sick. Our life may take a slightly or significantly different form as a consequence of illness but it continues. Even if we have a disease from which we won’t recover, life continues until the very moment of our death. How we live those moments makes all the difference in both the quality of our life and, eventually, the quality of our death.

Living well with illness is as easy, and as difficult, as simply accepting it. That may seem outrageous. Why, we might ask, should someone with cancer accept it? Because fighting or resenting it does no good. In fact there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that people who accept their illness – which is not the same thing as giving up or discontinuing treatment – actually do better physically and emotionally. Why? Because in the simplest terms they’re able to relax, which frees up energy that the body needs. People who can accept their situation tend to be happier and find more joy in living.

Instead of seeing illness as an interruption, an annoyance, a burden or maybe even a curse, we might think of it instead as an invitation to appreciate the fact that we’re still alive. Being sick presents us with an opportunity to look more deeply at our experience, at how we’re living and how we relate with other people and our world. I think of illness as an adventure and a process of discovery. For me illness is, among other things, a chance to practice being content and happy with what I have, rather than see my situation as one of loss. It’s a chance to explore the full range of my experience: pain, fear, anger, depression, grief, even gratitude and contentment. Whatever arises is basically okay. By bringing a gentle awareness and mindfulness to our situation whatever arises is manageable. When we can greet each moment, whatever that moment brings, however it manifests, with openness and a sense of genuine curiosity we can discover what it means to live the life we have.

Ordinary Blessings

“What do you want to do,” my sister asked when I was released from the hospital. It was a bright blue fall morning the glorious kind of day when the leaves are at their brilliant peak, the sun is shining and the chill on the air makes you feel alive. “First I want to take a bath and then I want to go to a park.”

My entire family was gathered in Bellingham, Washington that week keeping vigil at St. Joseph where I’d been admitted in acute congestive heart failure. Luckily my symptoms had quickly stabilized during a short stay in the ICU, surprising everyone in the hospital. With the advice to “get on a transplant list as soon as possible” I’d been released after only four days. Nothing can quite describe the experience of walking out of a hospital into the light of an ordinary day when one has been close to death. In a sense it’s so simple and ordinary: walking down a hallway into a lobby, through double sliding glass doors and out into the world.

In truth, there’s nothing ordinary at all about any day. There’s nothing ordinary about living in a world that’s full of miracles. On some level we know that each day is a miracle. Unfortunately, it’s easy to forget how precious life is. For the most part we’re simply too busy, too distracted to appreciate the miracle of our own life. So we take it for granted. And contrary to what we might think, illness and misfortune don’t diminish that miracle while fame and money don’t enhance it. Perhaps the only thing that might truly undermine the miracle of our precious human birth is not appreciating it, not being mindful of it, not utilizing it to its fullest capacity according to our ability and the opportunities that come our way – even something as simple as the opportunity to be kind.

Boulevard Park

Boulevard Park sits along the edge of Bellingham Bay with views to the San Juan Islands in the distance. It’s a beautiful and popular destination. On a nice weekend the park is packed with people – ordinary people – and on this sunny fall day people were everywhere. Park benches line the water’s edge and we headed across the grass to claim one of them, dodging a Frisbee game along the way. I was walking slowly, weakened by an enlarged heart and limping with leg muscles stiffened from too many days in bed.

A week earlier I’d finished a solo backpack trip of the northern section of the Pacific Crest Trail. Starting at the Canadian boarder and ending at Rainy Pass on the North Cascade Highway, I’d walked the 70 miles in under a week. I’d planned the trip as an escape from civilization, preferring the solitude of wilderness to the company of people. But on this day that was for me anything but ordinary, as my brother helped me to the bench, and as I took in the sights and sounds of the many people sharing the park, I realized with the suddenness and surety of an epiphany that we bless each other by our very presence.

It isn’t necessary that we know each other, or that we smile at each other, or nod, or recognize one another in any way – although those things are certainly nice. It is simply that our presence, our life, the very miracle of our existence is in itself a blessing. We are, each one of us, a blessing. Every ordinary person is an extraordinary miracle and it is a blessing to be in the presence of another human being.