I got the call a few days ago. The one every older person hopes never comes. It wasn’t exactly the end-of-the-road diagnosis, but clearly, according to the CT scan and multiple lab tests, we could expect rough weather ahead. I’d felt a similar anxious wave scrumming up my spine when I was on my first ocean passage, mid-way in the North Atlantic. “May I have your attention, please. This is the captain speaking. I advise all hands to stow their gear securely and be ready for seventy-to ninety-mile-an-hour wind and sixty-foot waves breaking over the bow. I know the seas can be terrifying, but this ship was built to be capable of the demands the seas will throw at us.”
The captain was paid to put us at ease. The rest was up to us. To trust.
And that’s where I, my mind and heart, went after hearing the news. Trust.
I am no stranger to end-of-life medical crises. Four years ago, the widowmaker heart attack. Two years ago, severe septic pneumonia with end-organ dysfunction. And now this uncommon pulmonary condition. Which is no surprise to a ten-year-old kid who was admitted for nearly two consecutive years to an asthma re-hab hospital two thousand miles from his family.
Then there’s the dozen razor-thin escapes from certain death in high-risk adventure sports. And here I’m not talking about close calls. It was certain death. But a series of near-miracles unfolded; I survived. So, I’m lucky to be here. Every day is a gift. The odds have not been on my side to be still standing.
So, how does someone in my shoes learn to trust the wisdom of creation, the mystery of life? It’s not self-hypnosis. Or positive affirmations. Or happy pills. No, it’s a dedicated Zen meditation practice for thousands of hours. And believe me, I’m no saint. I tried every possible dead-end experience before I realized all these temporarily insane escapades were but fleeting relief from the ennui of life. Drugs, sex, and rock n’ roll were just the early, well-known routes of distraction. Windsurfing offshore with sharks. Paragliding in Switzerland in extreme conditions. Reckless skiing down slopes that were above my pay grade. By the grace of all the Hail Marys my mother and grandmother said on my behalf, I lived to tell the tale.
I globetrotted for a bunch of years in search of anyone who had the keys to the mystery of enduring happiness. This Indian guru, that meditation master in Japan, this Abbot of the Trappist monks in France. They all confirmed, in one language or another, that the answer lies within. But I was addicted to the crusade of belief that it can’t be in there—no way could my travels have been in vain.
There is a proverb that implies that which you are seeking, is seeking you. It sounded good to me, but I was still lost in looking outside of my own self. Until one Friday afternoon a dear friend rang me and told me to go to a local bookstore that evening to listen to an author who had written a long list of books. Books about Zen practice.
I see-sawed between going or not. The place wasn’t famous for the caliber of its presentations. I realized, in a momentary insight, that maybe this inner conversation was simply my resistance to finding an authentic path. In India I had heard it said that many people are lifelong seekers, never daring to get close enough to Source to find what they seek: Their True Nature.
So, I went. The author had the modest-size crowd laughing in the aisles. This was my kind of Zen teacher—one who said, repeatedly, that a sense of humor was crucial to the path of awareness practice. And so began a couple of decades of learning to sit still, be present to the endless stories the ego/I will spin. To investigate the beliefs, the conclusions, the decisions, the prejudice, the unexamined basis of all that I took my self to be.
The father of Zen in America, Shunryu Suzuki, was asked why do we practice Zen? “To enjoy our old age.” That might well be the vehicle or the how of my acceptance of the latest medical report. Why worry? We only have this very moment. Not the next one, not the previous one. Not tomorrow’s. Only this now. Everything else is imagined.
Why would I go to the anxiety of worry or fear? Or all the what-ifs of medical treatment? If anything could be said of what had been apprehended on the meditation cushion it would be that there had been multiple encounters of the unity of all existence. As Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sang in Woodstock: “We are stardust, we are golden. We are billion-year-old carbon.”
I was, after all, an old hand at certain death. Each breath was a fresh look at the eternal fork in the road. Do I trust the wisdom of the cosmos, that LIFE is in control? Or do I go back to that old ego chatter interfering with the message: There Is Nothing Wrong. As Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
After the shock, bracing myself for a rough time breathing, steeling my nerves, I slowly got used to the idea that whatever may come my way, as my Zen teacher has told us—repeatedly—we are always adequate to whatever presents itself. Okay, so this is when we walk the talk. “Put your money where your mouth is.” I’ve survived this far, and I choose not to listen to the horror stories my mind might spin about how gruesome will be my end days. Zen states that suffering is caused by resistance to what is unfolding, moment by moment. I had signed up for this. Okay, bring it on. Let it be. Let go of your opting for an easy way out.
The pulmonologist called again. “Rico, I want you to come in for another scan and a repeat of the sputum culture.”
“Why? Is there another problem?”
“No, but we want to verify the diagnosis. Can you come back today?”
Two days later, the Doctor’s assistant called to schedule a follow-up visit. I noticed, again, how the mind wanted to churn out the worst possible outcome. It can only be bad news if he wants to see me again and so forth, just more rubbish from the ego/I.
“I hope you were not too upset about the previous test results. There is some likelihood the sample tested was contaminated. The CT scan after further review suggests that there’s nothing to worry about, simply age-appropriate findings. Sorry that we might have had you worried, but this happens in medical practice.”
Holy mother of Buddha! Oh, happy Blessed Day! Now I get to watch the play of joy…
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
