Emptiness and Health

Emptiness Games #5

Can sickness lead us to Enlightenment?

Review

1. Every realthing (every thing or situation in the real world) is a story.

2. Our inner Goddess Samsara learned or created these stories, in order to help us meet Basic Human Needs.

3. We cling desperately to these stories. This clinging, is the essence of what it means to be ‘real’. If we say a thing is ‘real’, then we are desperately clinging to its story.

4. We emptify a realthing (in other words, we realize a thing or a situation’s Emptiness) when we accept that the realthing is only a story, and we stop clinging to that story.

   (If these notes don’t make sense, check out the ‘Samsara the Goddess’ essays. Go to http://ompoem.com/ and skip the ‘subscribe’ option.)

Avoid the G.R.U.N.GE. Five ways to WRECK Emptiness:

1. G-rasping: believing there is a thing called Emptiness, reaching for it, and craving to possess it.

2. R-emembering: grasping for a remembered experience or practice, instead of practicing in the present moment.

3. U-nderstanding: understanding a practice without actually doing it. Understanding is useless at this point. You’ve got to LOOK! Again and again and again.

4. N-egativity: abusing yourself because you’re not feeling successful at a practice.

5. G-igantic E-go: big egos beware. These games ARE DESIGNED to shrink your ego down to the size of a grain of sand.

Introduction

This post is more personal than my previous posts on Emptiness. I wrote it because I’m sick. Me being me, I’m trying to use the sickness as a vehicle to reach Enlightenment. At the very least, I dug up a few Dharma jewels. Ha!

The rough-and-tumble Dharma path led me to a holy place, where I sleep beside a giant stupa. I spend hours in the middle of the night meditating on sickness and healing. This post comes from those hours. You might say it arises from the stupa, but I hate to blame the stupa for my bullsh!t.

Some people write Dharma BEFORE they experience it. Some write AS they experience it. Some write AFTER. I’m the second sort. What you read below is just what I’m doing, for better or worse. This whole post is rather chaotic.

There is a pretty intense practice described below. If you get negative results, please stop the practice immediately.

I want to clarify how I’m using two common terms from Mahayana Buddhism.

1. Whenever I use the word ‘Bodhicitta’ I am referring to ‘Ultimate Bodhicitta’. I just got tired of writing ‘Ultimate’ all the time.

2. I use the word ‘Bodhisattva’ to refer to someone who has taken the Dharma to heart, and is destined for Enlightenment. You, dear reader, are a Bodhisattva.

Now, on to exploring Emptiness and healing. First, I’d like to make a distinction between two different types of healing. I call them Samsaric Healing and Emptiness Healing.

Samsaric Healing

Samsaric Healing is all about realthings. There’s the me realthing who’s sick. There’s the malevolent force that’s making me sick. There is a long long line of people realthings giving me advise. There are drug realthings, treatments, tests and supplements out the wazoo. Everything costs money, but it’s unclear how much money, or where the money is coming from.

There are doctor realthings and hospitals and podcasters and books and advertisements on every channel. There are so many choices that I’m completely lost. Two things are certain, doctors will decide whether I live or die, and, I don’t trust doctors.

Lost in the catacombs of modern medicine
I have received a death sentence
Smiling medical people rush by, doing good
Shall I die by their rules?

The Mood of Samsaric Healing

I’m mad with anxiety, panic, terror, uncertainty, and above all, STRESS. Stress is oozing from my pores. PANIC… gets worse and worse. If I don’t act ASAP my — disease — is — going — to — kill — me.

Of course I’m describing my mood, but that’s all I have to go on. If your Samsaric Healing mood is better, congratulations. I envy you.

(Sorry, I overstate my case. Supplements, repurposed drugs, Aruvedic medicine, yoga, etc. are all realthings. And I totally use them for health purposes.)

Emptiness Healing

Am I craving and grasping
For health and survival?
Or —
Am I exhaling my grasping self into Emptiness
So that clear-light might radiate
It’s wellbeing and an end to suffering
Upon all sentient beings in my vicinity?
And since I am a sentient being in my vicinity
I’ll get a piece of that action.

Well, that was twisted! Except it works. And it doesn’t just work; it works on steroids.

1. The universe is filled with a radiance, undiscovered by science. The radiance is a limitless inexhaustible source of love, generosity, wellbeing, and an end to suffering. (What can I say?)

2. Mahayana Buddhists call it Bodhicitta or clear-light.

3. HEALING IS PART OF THAT RADIENCE.

4. Emptiness gives us access to the radiance. It allows the light to shine through our obscurations.

5. Emptiness Healing is where we let clear-light shine through our obscurations, and then we absorb it’s healing gift.

We usually talk about Bodhicitta in terms of healing ALL sentient beings. But healing ourselves is absolutely part of ‘healing all sentient beings’. It’s SUPER IMPORTANT. If we heal ourselves now, we’ll gain clarity about healing in other situations. And we’ll gain clarity about healing others.

The Mood of Emptiness Healing

The healing light arises from Emptiness!
I may live or die
But my destiny is to rest
Anchored in Bodhicitta
Glowing in ecstatic health and wellbeing
For the benefit of all sentient beings
Including the sentient being which is me.

Striking a Balance

Emptiness Healing and Samsaric Healing should work together. They should complement one another.

For me, nope. I had my tonsils out at age five, and acquired a lifelong distrust of doctors. When my health issues led me to a hospital for tests, diagnosis, etc. — I was REPELLED. It reminded me of stepping next to a rattle snake. I’ll spare you that confused story, which continues...

For nutty me, Emptiness Healing and mainstream medicine are incompatible. A teaspoon of mainstream healing contaminates a lake full of Emptiness Healing. I must choose one or the other. I’m not being rational here. Everyone says, FOR GOD SAKES let the doctors at least give you information. That option looks like a slippery slope. :( Either I’m very lucky, or very unlucky. Ha!

I DEMAND DEMAND to stay centered in the Dharma. Whatever else happens, fine, as long as that happens. I’m an old geezer. If I don’t take total refuge now, then when?

And maybe my diagnosis is a big mistake. I’m telling you, the flying gurus would definitely pull a stunt like this. If you convince them you’re deadly serious about Enlightenment, they will KICK your ass down the Dharma path.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is, I shouldn’t be giving anyone suggestions about striking a balance.

(No medical advice please.)

The Gift of a Deathly Diagnosis

The Goddess and the Bodhisattva Work Together!

According to the good doctor we’ve got a disease which might kill us. The presence of Death is like being chased by a hungry tiger. We become very very motivated. This is a lucky moment. And we’re in for a surprise; Samsara Nature and Buddha Nature are now in alignment — THEY JOIN FORCES.

Samsara’s Perspective

When a Venerable red-suit tells the Goddess Samsara (for the 500th time) that she might die tomorrow, she just blows it off. But if it’s a white-coat with an M.D. and a specialty, she listens. The white-coat has status and authority and a stethoscope. THIS MUST BE THE REAL DEAL!!!

Samsara’s obsession is to survive and prosper, so she totally understands survival. Survival is near the top of her list of priorities.

Bodhisattva’s Perspective

Our inner Bodhisattva knew that dying was going to hit the fan sooner or later.

If we’re a traditional believer in the reincarnation, our lucky Precious Human Life is nearly over. OMG — we might reincarnate as a gnat or a Hungry Ghost! We’ve got negative karma to purify. NEED MORE TIME! NEED MORE TIME! We better get to work surviving.

If we’re a western smart-phone addict, who doesn’t believe in reincarnation, life was our one and only opportunity to become a Buddha. Before we die, we must penetrate the ecstatic magic of Enlightenment. NEED MORE TIME! NEED MORE TIME! Better get busy surviving.

Skills Multiply

We’re in the bright undeniable presence of Death. We’re unified. Being chased by a tiger causes our motivation, concentration and visualization skills to go right through the roof. Truly, what an opportunity! Take refuge in the Buddha!

From Emptiness to Enlightened Wellness

I tried to write out an explanation of the process, but it kept getting longer and longer and more intricate, until it started to feel insane. Like I was raving. So I’ll sum it up and continue on with the practice.

To sum it up

Bodhicitta is a vast radiance. It is an inexhaustible source of love, generosity, and wellbeing. Health is part of that wellbeing!

Obscurations are actions and emotions which obscure Bodhicitta. The main ones are grasping, aversion, and the belief that the real world truly and inherently exists.

We subdue our obscurations by meditating on Emptiness. We do this so that Bodhicitta might shine, and offer us nuggets of wellbeing, out of the mysterious unknowable luminous void.

When our inner Samsara encounters such a nugget, she gives birth to a realthing, which is soaked and dripping in healing and wellness.

If we CONCENTRATE like a maniac on that realthing, the result is a flood of health and wellbeing, here, in the real world. (It works.)

You don’t have to explicitly tell Bodhicitta to create healing nuggets, because that’s it’s nature. You don’t have to explicitly tell Samsara to create healing realthings, because you ARE her.

The flood of health and wellbeing effects those of us doing the meditating, and it magnetically seeks, it is actively contagious to, other sentient beings. It spreads.

(That’s the best I can do. I wish I could be more complete but I’m exhausted from writing this post.)

The Healing Game

Here are the details:

1. Meditate on Emptiness. (This opens our door to Bodhicitta nuggets. It’s a challenge. We MUST go there.) How?

   1. Mindfulness meditation (on one or several physical sensations).

   2. Pay attention to the present moment (my favorite).

   3. Become a blank sheet of paper (quick and easy if you get the hang of it).

   4. Watch yourself watching.

   5. “Less and less and less.” “Nothing, nothing, nothing”

   6. Etc.

2. SAMSARA DOES HER JOB — she creates a realthing out of a Bodhicitta nugget. It might be a body movement, a visualization, an intention, a mantra, a massage, or what-EVER. (Samsara understands your disease and desperation. She cares.)

3. CONCENTRATE on, or ENACT that realthing, as if your life depended on it. Do it one or 10 or 1,000 times. Use your chased-by-a-tiger skills.

4. When your focus tires or dissipates, remember, TIME is empty. TIME is a realthing; it’s just a story. The only ‘TIME’ there ever was or is, is NOW. No matter how exhausted or distracted you feel, you’ve only, just NOW, started playing this game.

5. Rest a bit. Then back to step one.

Four Themes

The realthings Samsara creates may have themes:

• Push push push away the disease.

• Heal heal heal heal the damage.

• Turn the body into a flourishing, blooming garden of health.

• Share that health with other sentient beings (as well as yourself).

If one does all of the above like a maniac, A SECRET PRIZE AWAITS!

Example

I meditate on the present moment. A realthing arises, unbidden. It’s story, is to massage my big toe. I massage the toe like crazy. I tire. I use the Emptiness of Time to keep on massaging. Finally something tells me ‘enough’. I rest a moment. Then I return to meditating on the present moment.

Simple. No? It took me sooooo many words to say something so simple. Oh well.

Conclusion

Just some final notes:

I’m sure every journey along the Emptiness Healing path is unique.

Beware of grasping to re-experience a previous journey. It DON’T work.

Repetition is so important. Our skills increase with each repeat. ‘Flourishing’ and ‘sharing’ could reasonably be repeated a million times.

Don’t forget the present moment. It keeps us clean, energized, focused, agile.

And where does this all get us? Hahaha.
Wellness and Hope!!!
Blessings!!!

Thanks for reading!!!