MINDFULNESS with SICKNESS

So.

Uh.

I'm aware that some People are dealing with the challenge of being sick and so forth well. It's interesting in a Zen Temple being sick. They have all this special vocabulary for everything ordinary ordinary things have their own sort of like special things so they don't say Bill Key, which means the normal Japanese word for being sick.

They have this expression buell soul.

Which means

Uh.

The symptoms of illness or the appearance of Hilmes, OK OK. So instead of saying this monkey is sick. They say this monk is showing the form of sickness. Like the appearance of sickness pills sold meaning of course, there's a there's a little bit of an implication.

That there is a sensory experience of being sick and then that's a map that is a form a manifestation. The implication of course, being that eventually you want to be able to escape into the sensory event of being sick to build soul Japanese, there's another word in Japanese there's just no English equivalent.

Out which is not ekiru noticible means you deal with it by Totaly becoming it.

You so become it that everything else is cut off nerdy not narrow means you become kiddo means you cut so you so become it that everything else is cut up off utterly achieve oneness with it or more idiomatic expression in English might be complete commitment. There's a complete commitment to.

Just experiencing being sick.

Um.

Now the good thing is.

The lucky thing for us.

Um is if you are sick. I'm going to encourage you as much as you want to like sleep and rest and take breaks and and so forth.

Uh.

But in the sand temple you're not allowed to do that no matter what you have to just you have to follow the schedule. No matter how sick you are.

And that is really misery OK. I didn't get sick, much, but you know every once in awhile we got.

Inoculated against Japan Encephalitis 'cause you know you get bit by mosquitoes right.

And.

Oh Man, I had a reaction to the shot.

But it's like.

There's no mercy, you just have to keep doing the schedule right no matter how you feel. I remembering I'd forgotten that was very unpleasant. There was summer 2 things like hot course. A lot better than getting Japan encephalitis, but anyway.

Uh so yeah, there's actually a long tradition of using the sickness for your practice. But here you know you have the luxury that you can take it easy if you need to, but even when you're taking it easy try to make you not begrudge. The fact that all I got sick now. I can't have an retreat that is the retreat that's in daily life.

Injury illness visiting the hospital whenever I work with students that they're calling me from the hospital. I'm evidence operation event thing going on. I say I always have a stock phrase, I say OK here in your having a non consensual retreat.

Not being forced into a situation where there's nothing to do, but Explorer the prospect of happiness. Independent of conditions goes. This condition is going to go on for a little while.

Before there was John or is the Japanese call it Zen in China. There was 10 tie. That was the first meditating School of Chinese Buddhism and that was actually at a relatively early period before the tongue during the sway dynasty is when that started and then it gained momentum in the early tongue.

Um.

Uh.

They came up with a very interesting way to Meditate. The Linneage did not survive. Though the linea je practice. Although the texts have survived. Other lineages like Sean or Zen and Pure Land and so forth survived. In that in China but tent. I didn't although it has been preserved in Japan.

It's called 10 die in Japanese reason, I'm mentioning it is that the first meditation manual that I'm aware of in the Chinese language.

Is called? Was written by the tent? I dasher the master? Who created that entice system and it's in 10 chapters. It's called the more hattrick one which means?

More has actually Sanskrit word incorporated into Chinese. It's mAh ha, which means big right or great.

True means in.

Mandarin means to stop and Quan means to see or observed so the The Great stop and see so stop it translates shamatha.

And one and C Orc one translates free passion, so before there was the words water on in Mandarin, which zazen in Japanese that's the normal word in Chinese and Japanese for meditate. But before that word existed in East Asia. The word for Meditate was Chuck One, which means to do summat uh be passionate to do.

Coming concentrating but also observing insight mixed together in any event.

When I will before I practiced.

Meditation I was academic studying at a scholar of it and I was fortunate because.

Before I even got interested in Buddhism was literate in both Chinese and Japanese. I could read those Asian languages. Fluently so all my early study of Buddhism was done actually by reading books in Chinese and Japanese about Buddhism and one of the books that I read was this manual by 10 Thai.

It's like this is something that was written in.

The 7th century AD in China.

So, like over let's like over a Millennium ago and half a world away.

Um.

But you could.

Sort of have an intimacy with the person that wrote this.

By reading what they had to say in reading about their struggles reason I'm mentioning this is 10. Chapters and just like I attempt to do. He very systematically lays out the nuts and bolts of practice and relates it to various scriptures.

Particularly the Lotus Sutra was central to this particular school.

So.

One of those chapters and in tight it's an entire chapter devoted to just.

The whys and wherefores of.

Practicing when you're sick and it was a long time ago that I read it. I don't remember the details. But I remember thinking tent, I must have himself had a lot of challenge fit. Health challenges and it must have been very difficult for him to achieve what he achieved and that's probably what's motivating.

You know that's This is probably based on his own experience. So it's like a whole section. It's like a 10th of the book. The first meditation manual in East Asia is about not be grudging. The fact that you're sick, but OK, you do this. You do this. You do this. You do this. Here's how you can treat illnesses. I see to remember now there was some Chinese Medison in there also seem to remember.

That there was some Dow is magic in there to sort of make certain kinds of spirits cause certain kinds of illnesses, and you can militate against them with this, or that I seem to remember that, but mostly what I remember is the notion OK, you're going to get sick.

That's

Just an opportunity for practice and don't begrudge the fact and just don't lose a beat use it for your practice so you know how you can do that within the context of what we're doing, you apply a technique basically if you have a sensory challenge.

There are 2 fundamental strategies and you can plan a Plan B and you can alternate plan A and Plan B.

Plan, A is turned towards it.

Untangle unblock gnarly to totally become it. How do you go beyond hotter cold when it's hot you boil to death when it's cold you freeze to death you just become it.

So that's that's plan a I call that strategy turned torrents now when you take a turn Thord strategy you.

Need concentration clarity and equanimity to do that successfully.

The flip side of that is by attempting to focus on it.

In a systematic wait you will develop concentration clarity and equipment. So it's an exercise in those skills. So you are developing those skills. But now you're also applying those skills to deconstructing or having a complete experience of whatever the sensory challenges Plan B is turn away.

Hum.

So turn away would be in terms of.

Possible focus range well, you could let's say that the let's say that the challenges is physical discomfort of an illness. So what is? What is the sensory gestalt for physical discomfort? We talked about it in the group process this morning? There's the uncomfortable physical sensation and then there's the reactivity of the Inter system.

To that, so and the uncomfortable physical sensation.

Will often resolve into one or more local intensities and then a more subtle global spread subtle is significant on so you've got.

Local intensity global spread in feel out the physicality of the body and then you have the inner system mental image. Mental talk body emotion reacting possibly to that or being impacted by that.

At.

So.

That's five sensory elements, local physical discomfort global physical discomfort mental image. Mental talk and body emotion. So you can work with the parts. You can work with the whole.

Untangle unblock.

Um that would be to focus a turn toward strategy. What's a turn away strategy well anything. That's not that so you could anchor in sights and sounds?

Up sometimes when I work with People well severe chronic pain, acute chronic pain. The only thing they can do is they just have to get away from the mind and the body because the mind and body are just untenable. The only thing they could focus on is sights and sounds so anchor out or maybe you can access restful states.

Seriously arrest feel restaurant, maybe you can nurture positive.

Image start body motion on so.

An alternative strategy Plan B is turn away.

Um now there's a tendency to think that.

If I turn away that's denial and suppression.

Um Unfortunately there's also a tendency to think if I turned towards that's just going to make it worse and reinforce it.

I think you can see that if you buy into those 2 beliefs. You literally have no place to turn you set yourself up for abject suffering So what I would like to encourage People is to consider that in fact, both of those options are viable strategies. Why? Because the turn away also entails concentration clarity and equanimity your ability to do it.

Is depends on those skills on the other hand, the attempt to do it? Builds those skills so you're developing and applying the same skill set.

Concentration power let's say you're anchoring insight and sound because the mind and body are untenable.

So you get pulled away from sights and sounds so you keep coming back. That's concentration power sensory clarity, while the sights and sounds might be subtle relative to the intensities that are going on in my body space.

Well, that ability to detect subtle things.

That's a sensory clarity or specifically when you're working on restful states see rest. You rest feel rest. Typically, the restful states are quite subtle relative to the activations, but you're developing sensory clarity by the ability to detect remember sensory clarity has.

2 depending on how you wanna look at it 3 Sub Dimensions.

Resolution power that the ability to distinguish.

On.

Ah sensitivity the ability to detect subtle signals. Those are different things. They both come under clarity and if you want to make it more complicated, but also more traditional you can say there's another aspect to clarity what the say adult school penetration.

Um so OK, one aspect of clarity is detection, so the ability to detect subtle things may be involved, probably will be involved in a turn away strategy and how 'bout equanimity well your willingness to allow the sensory challenge to expand and contract in the background. While your attention is focused in the foreground on something else. That's background equanimity so like I say I like to divide.

The skills it not only into dimensions, but sub dimensions, so the ability to.

Open up and turned towards that's one kind of equanimity foreground equanimity the ability to.

Turn away but at the same time open up in the background. That's actually a related but independent skill that I call background equanimity and I encourage People to develop both of those equanimity skills. Now we've talked about concentration. The ability to hold something small but also the ability to hold something large, the ability to hold one thing for a long period of time or the ability to taste momentary concentration on a variety of things.

These are dimensions within the clarity skill so I'm going to say that if you elect a turn away strategy that you are developing and applying?

The core skill set.

If you elect a turn port strategy. You're doing exactly the same, so if you think about it this way, it's a win win situation.

Either strategy is legitimate out and what you want to avoid is the lose lose situation, which is why I don't want to turn away from it 'cause that just makes that's just an island suppression. I don't want to turn towards it because that's going to just exacerbate it an reinforce it. So now that you have nowhere to turn so anyway. If you happen to have a?

A challenge of sensory challenge of any sort in general and specifically if you're struggling with an illness that are retreat or that kind of thing. These are some things you can keep in mind, and so when you're in the meditation. Hall try to be aware of your breathing that may come about through sleepiness or through some discomfort that you're going through.

Open your eyes straighten your spine, etc, etc.

Most of you know this story. But this is how I learned about.

A lot of times you don't realize how.

Disruptive you might be so.

In my I'd been meditating for I don't know maybe a year or so and I went off to this, Soto Zen Temple called on Tai Chi.

And so this is one of these so to set so you meditate facing the wall. I was already a shingle on monk at the time so that means that I was wearing ropes and.

Underneath so you have sort of these robes that they're not very thick and then underneath that you have a key monale and it's a winter kimono, but almost not really designed for cold weather OK. It's great for the summer, the air. Just comes through. But I was really, really cold and I was sick. I got sick in the middle of the thing.

And I was really, really miserable.

Um.

And you know, no heat in the zendo at all right, and it's like winter. So I guess I didn't realize it, but I was like.

All day so like.

The second day of the session, you're facing the wall right there. You can't see anything behind you and I go to sit down and back so much punches me in the nose from the back with a clinics stop and I couldn't see who it was.

You only.

Word that I can think of is.

Vesuvius of rage all day, it just over and over again. How dare that mother ****** 'cause, I didn't know who the mother ****** ******

Almost certainly a Japanese monk, so now I've got all that going on and you can't do anything you just have to face the wall and face yourself. I mean, I got the message OK. Dude, you been an ******* even sniffing this whole time, so now OK. I won't sniff anymore, but.

Oh my God, I was so angry and so uncomfortable and there's just nothing. You could do you just Soto Zen? It's 15 minutes? It's 10 minute walk 15 minutes at 10 minute walk? I think they did 14 hours of sitting each day. Something like that, and you're facing the wall talks know nothing it was hard.

It was Scott has a it was like just sit.

An there's nothing to do, but just face that inner hell and deal with it.

Which is sort of awful but not nearly as awful as not dealing with it some of you have sweated with my friends Wolf and Lisa.

The A Traditional Native American Sweat Lodge so anyway. It's Lisa that does the really hot sweats she's full blood Lakota Sioux. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but the.

And we were in a sweat once and she was saying.

I know this path is hard. I know this path is hard. I know this path is hard, but there's one thing harder than this path.

Harder than doing this path is not doing this path.

And it is so true so you know, I could have been the person that.

Was n't

Miserable and sick and beat up in Japan. I could have been not that person that would have been so much harder.

So much harder, I think I mentioned in the last retreat.

Maybe I didn't but.

When acquaintance of mine wrote a book called 10% happier Dan. Harris is on the Nightline right, I think ABC.

Good Morning America or something like that right is like a Taco, but he's one of us.

He famously had a panic attack on Camera all at some point in his career, which you can actually see it's on YouTube. It's like will be there forever right? That was his wake up call that he had something was radically wrong with his life. Major part of his recovery was to take on this practice mindfulness practice.

But because he's in the position of being.

You know prominent television personality. It's sort of cool for us, so he he wrote. This book called 10% happier at. He's got a whole program that goes with it actually is partnering up with one of my facilitators. Jeff Warren from Canada. They're on tour now in the US sort of bringing the message of mindfulness so cool that were that mainstream at this point.

Um anyway, um.

That the title of that book got be thinking about my own life.

So you know 10% happier and I started to calculate in my mind did the like of a thought experiment.

OK, at my current age.

What would the picture be?

If I hadn't made that decision at the age of 25 to buy hunker Crook Meditate. Every day of my life.

What if I hadn't done that? What if I just been one of the million other things that I could have been.

As a non meditator. So where would I be?

Given who I was at 25.

Extrapolating, where would I be and then where I know myself to be as the result of that decision.

And.

Objectively, I just had to say.

It's it's not 10% happier it's 10 times happier.

I mean, Object Ivli Easilly 10 times, happier or put the other way. I would be 110th as happy, which actually would be like pretty miserable so anyway, encourage you in that regard.