Tag: pain

The Universal Suffering

Imagine the collective suffering that is taking place at this moment. Each sufferer managing their suffering in their own way. Drinking, drugging, praying, hiding, crying and on and on. I could never tell my whole story even if I knew it. Pain blocks out joy and then joy blocks out the pain. And I begin again. 

I am never going to be the person I most desire nor the person I least respect. I am a middling kind of guy who loved Martin Luther King JR. and vowed to be like him. But in the end I was just a regular guy who has trouble changing a bicycle tire much less the world. 

But when I think about the collective suffering I am reminded that most of us are just trying to get through the trials and tribulations of life. And in my small world I have so many examples of people who managed their tremendous difficulties with great dignity. My suffering is nothing more than the anxiety of thinking that when I feel bad I will always feel bad. It isn’t true. I have to stop making up stories with endings that never happen, sometimes love stories, others, stories of calamity. Doesn’t matter which, cause neither outcome could be permanent except the one where I eventually die.

Sometimes the antidote to my suffering is to empathize with the global conflicts, famine, oppression etc. If I allow the recognition of the global/universal suffering taking place it helps me to understand that empathy diminishes my focus on my pain and allows me to make room for all pain, its devastation and the physical, emotional and psychological effects. Sometimes from this suffering comes redemption but most of the time, it just results in pain.

I recite this Buddhist blessing for all beings as the war in Ukraine rages.

May all distresses be averted.

may every disease be destroyed.

May there be no dangers for you.

May you be happy & live long.

For one of respectful nature who

constantly honors the worthy,

Four qualities increase:

long life, beauty, happiness, strength.

May you be: freed from all disease, safe from all torment,

beyond all animosity, & unbound.

When you are at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

Thank you my dear dear friends and family. I did indeed recently reach the end of my rope. You advertently and inadvertently showed me that I do not live or die for me alone. I absorb my difficulties so that I can be part of this universal experience we call life.

I remind myself, with your help, that I am a vessel of infinite capacity for the likes of grief, suffering and pain. Unto myself, I am more than willing to slip into the darkest night. But over and over, when I share the difficulties, you remind me that it is my obsession with self that causes the majority of my suffering.

As my health problems multiplied, so did my mental health. But, as I shared, I learned to empathize and sympathize with your difficulties. You shared your tales of broken bones, disease and nose bleeds. ( I was in the ER yesterday for nose bleed.) You gently explained how long and painful my recoveries will be.

Broke my femur and my brother Rick, my sister Karen and others carried me. I lost my kitty cat to heart disease, I found my grief was shared by all pet owners. I had surgery for another problem and friends brought food and comfort

Ram Dass wrote about his stroke and how it changed his identity from golfer and sports car driver to patient in need of care. He wrote about the challenge of allowing himself to be a gracious patient needing help with everything. I carried thoughts of his journey into the ambulance, hospital bed and rehab because breaking my femur was a game/identity changer.

Dontcha think one of the great spiritual axioms is that when we share our burdens we lessen them? I am convinced that friends have repeatedly saved my soul. Perhaps they are merely God with skin on. Dunno. Don’t care. It works and I cannot come up with a better theory.

Community and connection equals my salvation. Rolling Stones sang

“I’m all alone, won’t you give all your sympathy to mine?
Tell me a story about how you adore me
Live in the shadow, see through the shadow
Live through the shadow, tear at the shadow
Hate in the shadow and love in your shadowy life
Have you seen your lover, baby, standing in the shadow?”

Thanks. Gracias. Kab khun krub. Mam’noon.

May you know the affection I carry in my heart for you. May all beings be safe and may you and they be free from all suffering.

Transitions

So if you know me it is no surprise that I am writing about transitions the day my pal Jerry died. But the subject is not really about Jerry but about me. I have been transitioning before your very eyes. Social media, specifically Facebook has been the playground you can see me play, fight, grow.

When this all started, I had issues and my issues had issues. I had skills but I had at least one specific deficit, dealing with pain. Jerry’s dying has given me an opportunity to see my own transformation. Sometimes I am directly connected to my shifts, at other times I find myself merely a keen observer.

Like everyone I know, I have suffered losses in my life. Family and friends die Colleagues die. Physical, psychological and emotional pain are often my constant companions. I have mad coping skills sometimes. I am seriously good in a crisis. Like everyone I know, I also must suffer through loss. It is inevitable.

What is weird to watch is a pronounced absence of a type of suffering which I experienced which I think was caused by two things. A lack of tools and spiritual ignorance. That type of suffering has evaporated. In its place, for now, is an acceptance of thoughts and feelings that previously went undetected, ignored or silenced.

While I find nothing positive about Jerry’s death other than a release from physical suffering, I do find that the journey has been with purpose. Jerry’s death in my life has brought about a willingness to be present with my feelings. I am willing to cry (while still thinking “if you make fun of me crying, I will kill you). I am willing to just be. I have demonstrated to myself and others that I can subjugate my anger and fears in order to be of maximum service to others. Subjugation, crying, acceptance, and being present were not concepts I was interested in exploring before.

Facebook creates this public arena for pain and suffering, joy and happiness and kids photos. In the past, if someone close to me had died, I knew instinctively to share. But I didn’t always know with whom. Or if I knew, either I couldn’t find said person to share with, or I waved off the idea. When my boarding school roommate died years after school was out, I felt quite alone because no one in my world knew him and I couldn’t find anyone that did. Eventually over the years, I heard from two people who went to that boarding school with us, and have reconnected. They helped me bring closure to losing my roommate some time back and now, today, they help me embrace my new loss.

Some of Jerry’s friends are my friends. Facebook has become an outlet for the community to grieve. I do not feel alone in the least. ( I will overeat today. Powerless to resist food when hurt.) Unlike the past where I felt a loss of this type was my loss, today I see it is a community’s loss. It is a loss to Jerry’s community and family as well as to my community and family. My friends who never knew Jerry are still sharing their intimate acquaintance with experiencing losing a loved one.  They are empathetic and sympathetic. If I made this about me it would also be about how shallow I could be.

I am uncertain of the value, especially in the long run of exposing ourselves on social media. But in this moment it is quite apparent to me that it is serving me constructively. This blog is a way to harness the thoughts and feelings that come in waves. And then the blog will post to Facebook. Then I think I shall revisit my pain in a healthy way in days ahead versus the neurotic coping I see in people who can only see their pain in a very small context.

Pain and suffering are not the only feelings that are arising. My friends and I share joy, passion and anger also. And in some slightly more mature way than before, I am here for all of it. Sometimes I gloss over Facebook posts about new boyfriends/girlfriends. I skim over hundreds of photos my daughter posts from Korea. And most recipes and book reports go unread. But many life events are noted. Many of those I reply to. Sometimes I even get the right feeling to match the event when I post. (Sometimes not)

So I post photos of my family, friends and I, having fun, surgery, passages and disasters. I sell and buy stuff from Facebook. This is not intended as a promo or an advocacy of the utility of Facebook. It is merely to observe that I am transitioning before your very social media eyes. But big shout out to 12 step recovery, meditation and Buddhism for facilitating the change for others to observe. By the way, if you scratch your head and think, “I don’t get it”, that’s cool too. If you think, “Bull, Facebook and social media are for sissies” or some such, I hear ya. I do not think I care that much what you think.

Today is my little brother Ricky’s birthday. I woulda forgot without the FB  reminder. I texted him a greeting as a result. Sometimes I give a birthday shout to mere acquaintances. It just seems reasonable since I was already at the computer and seems a nice thing to do. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers have been lost. Pets have died and I sent condolences to the owners. I am not half-bad at it and sometimes I say something which strikes a chord with someone in the midst of their own difficulties.

Meditation has shown me that feelings and thoughts arise, and they depart. I have no investment in managing or controlling when and how. I need not crumble in the face of great emotional pain. My feelings are simply appropriate and to be expected. My anger is especially interesting as I struggle to put it in perspective without nurturing resentments or feeling guilty. It is just anger I feel. I am not the anger. But it is only by observing these thoughts and feelings that I resist the time old tradition of acting as badly as I feel. Interesting to watch people I resent and know in my heart that most of what I feel is all about my choosing to feel that way. Just as I can choose to feel pain without embarrassment and joy without clinging, I can also let anger arise and leave without the need to exacerbate it.

I hope my growing up in public serves more than a voyeuristic moment for the observer. I hope it stimulates interest and action to spiritual pursuit. Maybe it will encourage the practice of metta.  Metta, loving-kindness meditation, is the simple practice of directing well-wishes towards other people, and all living beings. It would be reasonable to think, if Ken can do it, anyone can.

Jerry Cichon passed away today. He was like a brother. We traveled what was frequently and arduous and tortured spiritual journey together in AA and elsewhere. After the 3rd or 4th hour of talking our way up a mountain, you tend to go deeper, to connect deeper. The small talk is long out of the way and straight talk kicks in. I may have known Jerry better than even my oldest friends because Jerry was so raw when we met. I was his lawyer, friend and brother. He was my first new friend in my new sober lifestyle who died in such a way (cancer) that sometimes it felt like we faced it together. It was not sudden for Jerry. It was not without great suffering. But as with most things in his new sober life, Jerry saw it was an opportunity to practice his spiritual and religious beliefs. Circumstances preclude me from sharing with his family the many things he shared. Such a day may come. Jerry said to me in recent days that I was spiritual perfection. Imagine that. Even if it isn’t true, can one man say anything kinder to a pal?