Meditation and Lung Surgery

Friday, Jan. 7, 2011
My lung surgery is scheduled for 11 am Monday morning, Jan. 10th.  I met with S-K personnel this past Monday, all day Wednesday, and for an hour today.  I am a bit worn out from all of the procedures.  Quite a bit of redundancy.  I did find out from the nurse that they are discovering more and more Stage Ia lung cancers as accidental findings from scans and X-rays.

I am also "growly", which is a combination of emotions characterized by frustration, disgust, annoyance, and a desire to remain just where I am.  I have created a sanctuary here in my house....The three plantings outside of my kitchen door, the upright and proud green and blue spruces with the tan drooping feathers of the ornamental grasses between them have been decorated by the recent snow in precisely the way I desired, and they offer their beauty to me at every glance.  The firs wear shrugs of puffy snow, while the trees behind them stand tall with icing on every branch. 

Deer, possum, raccoon, cat, and skunk tracks create intricate embroideries of paw and hoof prints in the snow up to the feeding platters we have set out for them for their winter picnic.  Chloe stands erect at ther door hoping to be incited by a fleeing or teasing grey or black squirrel, although I half believe that she woofs for the sheer exhuberance of the output.

I am also resentful that my meditation and my contemplation must be disrupted by a return to S-K where I am plopped amidst the busy-ness of the hospital, the every-3-hours vitals check, the lack of tranquility and of self-direction about every bodily functions.

Sat., Jan. 8, 2011
I immediately notice that this "growliness" has permitted suffering to re-enter my life!

"If we get caught in our notions and concepts, we can make ourselves suffer and we can also make those we love suffer," says Thich Nhat Hanh. 

Notice what I had been doing to myself----I was in a state of bliss while resting in the moment in my beloved kitchen with my 3 acre view outside; by choosing to switch out of the moment to Monday, all of that bliss has been replaced by a mild version of suffering, which manifests as agita as I cling to my seat and the view from my kitchen.  I lept forward to not-being there, to the loss of that moment.

 "Our freedom, peace and joy in the present moment is the most important thing we have.  But without an awakened understanding of impermanence, it is not possible to be happy."

I have put conditions on my happiness, which destroys it.  That which I am not looking forward to in the hospital---and it os neither the surgery or the pain, but rather some very pedestrian gripes---cannot be predicted as I sit here typing and ruminating.  The busy-ness of the hospital itself, the interruptions of tenuous sleep, the annoyance with rommates and their families, all these will manifest in ways I cannot even imagine, and I must allow them to do so without placing conditions or fears or anger upon them.

Was I not given an extraordinary gift during my last stay?  Did I not come to awaken to what others have so exquisitely crafted from their own experiences over the ages while striding the halls?

Sun., Jan. 9, 2011
I am happy and content. 

My husband and puppy (she is going to celebrate her 3rd birthday on Wed. but at 7 lbs. we still think of her as a perenntial puppy) are here with me as I tidy up before my 3-4 days away.  Chloe does not take her eyes off of me, as I am sure she fears the moment when the suitcase comes out and she senses that I will soon not be around.

I am doing routine "chop wood, carry water" tasks that fill me with love.  I am living in the moment and am taking pleasure from every glance out of my office window at the snow blanket with random naked spkes of plants resting until spring calls them once again to manifest their renewed life cycles.  Birds are flitting to and from our numerous feeders.  I am particularly attuned to avian life ( they represent spirit), and thrill at their aeronautical swoops, darts, and coordinated flight paths.  I surely have mirror neurons that light up as they flit within my vision, so that I am flying along with them in my body-mind.

And isn't that part of the Mystery?

"Touching the earth, I let go of the idea that I am this body and my life span is limited....I see that thius body, made up of the four elements, is not really me and I am not limited by this body.  I am part of a stream of life of spiritual and blood ancestors that for thousands of years has been flowing into the present and for thousands of years flows on into the future.  I am one with my ancestors.  I am one with all people and all beings, whether they are peaceful and fearless or suffering and afraid....The disintegration of this body does not touch me, just as when the plum blossom falls it does not mean the end of the plum tree.  I see myself as a wave on the surface of the ocean.  My nature is the ocean water."
No Death, No Fear, pp. 168-9

This is precisely what I experienced upon the birth of my daughter----being the midpoint of all of my ancestors, all of the mothers and fathers leading up to my manifestation, and then zooming into the future with all the mothers and fathers who are destined to manifest.

When my breast had to be removed, I felt no real personal connection to its loss.  I had successfully and lovingly nourished my daughter through it, and had experienced sexual pleasure from it.  In a sense, it had done its work in my 65 years, and could be removed with my deep bow to the role it played in my heart-body and the lives of those who shared it with me.  I would have had a different feeling had I been 35, however, I am sure.  So the loss was a sweet adieu, not a wrenching grief-stricken event.  Being involved in cellular meditation, I did grieve for the loss of the healthy cells surrounding the tumor, who had been doing their job s yet who had to be sacrificed for the good of the whole.  I hope that I paid my respects to those minute body parts laden with my consciousness so that there was an understanding of my intentions toward the surgery.

Tomorrow's surgery gets me into more serious and problematic territory---my lung.  The lower left lobe will be removed.  I will be heavily medicated with morphine, my first experience with it.

The surgery is done robotically and arthroscopically with three relatively small incisions in my back.  But this surgery is deep inside me, and it involves the very organ that makes meditation possible:  "breathe in, breathe out"

From No Death, No Loss again:

"Breathing in, I know that I am
breathing in.

Breathing out, I know that I am
breathing out....

Breathing in, I am only aware of my
in-breath.

Breathing out, I am only aware of my
out-breath."

But the very act of doing that will involve intense pain and effort.  What will I learn as I contemplate the paradox of the supposed ease of in-out breath being one that causes intense pain?  I am an asthmatic and tend to have bad brochial attacks. I know what fear I experience when I cannot take a breath.  I am phobic about suffiocating as a result, which is why I cannot scuba, and have to manage panic attacks when I snorkel, an activity I adore.  So the simplicity of the in-out breath will become a challenge for me beginning tomorrow, and I will have to sink into that feeling of suffocation with as much presence as I can.

No, I am not my body, but how far can I live within that understanding without the automatic ease of taking a breath?  I will become curious asbout that over the following days.