Comments on: Why Illness Happens

By: Frank Ostaseski

Frank Ostaseski — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:11:10 +0000

After my heart attacks…everybody seemed interested in “Why”. I got interested in “How”. How might I relate to my illness…how might it help me serve others?

After my surgery a very famous Tibetan teacher kindly called to wish me well. I knew he had heart problems himself, so I asked him how he dealt with it all….the drama, the confusion, the precariousness, the beauty.

He said simply, “…well it’s good to have a heart….and if we have one we should expect it will have problems”.

Then he giggled and reminded me to rest.

By: Noelle Imparato

Noelle Imparato — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:12:06 +0000

Thank you Lewis for reminding us of the obvious. As you say people are looking for special causes. Like my brother in law who has gotten the idea somewhere that it takes 10 years after a big trauma for a cancer to develop. So now he blames a 10 year old family drama for his newly discovered cancer. The hard thing is how to tell the truth to people without getting them upset?
noelle

By: Tara

Tara — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:46:08 +0000

Lewis and all,

Maybe sometimes for whatever reason, we choose or it happens that we get more suffering in this lifetime than others – maybe, as in my life, for my whole life, now at 51 years. If Bodhichitta and Bodhisattvas are not just pretty stories, and to me they are not, maybe we actually suffer so someone else doesn’t have to – someone we might not know but still, in our Buddha heart, we love. People say, “How can you do that? With all you deal with?” I say, “But look at all I don’t deal with, and I’m happy. It’s not the length of life but the quality. And it’s not the reason, because I am not this body and it’s quirks and breakdowns. My body can’t dance, but my soul sure can, and always always will.

Tara

By: lewrich

lewrich — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:01:08 +0000

The immanent.

By: Nan

Nan — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:04:41 +0000

I think Pope John said something similar. He said
“It (the cancer) wants to live, also.”

By: John E

John E — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:03:28 +0000

Thoughts are food, numbers are like tea, letters are like rice.

By: John E

John E — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:01:16 +0000

With the last supper Christ equated the body with food, and blood with drink, in that, Spirit can be witnessed in every composite form where we formerly assigned a kind of mindless act of oral gratification, and also divorced any sense of sacredness and ritual… a sacred rite of passage of remembering who puts all the forms together as One gift, of giving, bringing together a structure of water for the entire purpose of seeing God all around us, in everything. We only have to see it, because it exists at all times, and in every form. And once we see God in form, the form takes on a sacredness, from within one’s own heart, and this begins an opening, into the domain of spirit, as light.

I smile, then cry.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:58:54 +0000

I think it’s human to look for explanations, but I also think we ask for explanations of others’ illnesses in hopes of avoiding them ourselves. That’s human, too, though futile. I don’t know how it works for others, but for me, accepting that I am “of the nature to get ill” helps me savor this day when I am not ill.

By: Barry Briggs

Barry Briggs — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:11:05 +0000

I’m interested in mind’s tendency toward explanation. At times, this has seemed mostly a male mind-habit; that is, men look for explanations so that they can “fix” things. But, of course, females also seek causes and explanations. It’s one of the ways human mind dances with the world.

I’ve noticed in myself how quickly I move to “fix” difficult things in my life, and the lives of others. It takes work, real practice, for me to slow down enough to simply experience the feelings and emotions that arise when a “difficult thing” first arises. But, when I can do that, then the “fix” sometimes comes more easily, even when it means that there’s nothing to fix.

By: lewrich

lewrich — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 01:16:55 +0000

Re karma & illness: Well, in the largest sense the net of karma is why everything happens. But even the buddha and many buddhist great saints had many difficult illnesses, so if the doctrine John says is true then all of us, even the most blessed, have difficult karma from our past.

So I’m not sure, practically speaking, how much it helps our practice now to think of illness as repaying karmic debt, except insofar (and this may be important) as it helps us take responsibility for our illness and deal with it. Suzuki Roshi, when asked about his illness, said, “Cancer is my friend.”

That is how he dealt with that.