How to Be Sick by Toni Bernhard, Sylvia Boorstein Page B
Authors: Toni Bernhard, Sylvia Boorstein
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lasted fourteen years.” I gasped. Could I make that statement with such equanimity should one of my children or grandchildren die? I still don’t know the answer to that question. But Susan Saint James’s words and the serenity with which she spoke them entered my heart that day. Ever since, when I find myself in grief and despair over the many losses I’ve had to face due to my illness, her words are my equanimity practice.
When I feel myself mourning my lost career as a law professor or a lost friendship, I say to myself, “This was a career that lasted twenty years”; or “This was a friendship that lasted twenty-five years.” If I feel overwhelmed by the loss of my health and its consequences, I say to myself, “This was a body that was illness-free long enough to be active in raising my children and to not be a burden to them when they were young; to be a part of their weddings; to teach and be of personal support to many law students; to travel and keep company with Tony out in the world.”
Inspired by Susan Saint James’s courage, which reinforces the teachings of the Buddha that I’ve learned, I’m able to say these equanimity phrases without bitterness. I can even be genuinely grateful for those years. When overcome with the losses you’ve encountered, be you chronically ill or the caregiver for a loved-one who is chronically ill, I encourage you to try the equanimity practice I cobbled together from the words of a remarkable woman facing the most devastating loss we can imagine.
Turnarounds and Transformations
10
Getting Off the Wheel of Suffering
Nothing whatsoever should be clung to.
—BUDDHADASA BHIKKHU
MANY TEACHERS suggest starting Buddhist practice by learning how to meditate, but because of my academic background, I was compelled to hit the books first and do some research. Such was my need to put scholarship first, that soon after becoming interested in Buddhism in 1992, I researched and wrote a twenty-page paper, complete with footnotes that referenced over three dozen books. I titled it “Introduction to Buddhism.” Given that I can’t recall giving this little piece of scholarship to anyone, I appear to have been introducing Buddhism to myself.
While engaging in this scholarly study, I adopted a strategy that served me well: if I came upon a teaching that I didn’t understand, I skipped it. That was my first relationship to the wheel of suffering. I skipped it and moved to a teaching that was more accessible.
I started my study with a book we already owned: What the Buddha Taught , written in 1959 by the Sri Lankan monk and scholar Walpola Rahula. In 1992, when I took it off the bookshelf, this work was still considered by many the seminal guide for introducing Westerners to Buddhism. It was not an easy read, especially in contrast to the dozens of user-friendly books on Buddhism now available. When I reached Rahula’s discussion of the doctrine called paticca-samuppada— the “wheel of suffering” or, as it’s more commonly known, “dependent origination”—I very well might have been derailed in this new spiritual pursuit had I not just skipped over it. His use of phrases such as “conditioned genesis” and “cessation of volitional formations” had my mind spinning.
But years later, my meditation practice well-established, I tackled that teaching again through the writings of Ayya Khema and S.N. Goenka and it began to make sense. In particular, I learned a lot from When the Iron Eagle Flies by Ayya Khema and Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S.N. Goenka by William Hart.
Paticca-samuppada can be translated in many different ways. While the most common translation is “dependent origination,” I’ve chosen “the wheel of suffering” because it’s so descriptive of our experience. With the caveat that this will not be a comprehensive nor scholarly analysis , I’m going to jump on in the middle of the twelve
When I feel myself mourning my lost career as a law professor or a lost friendship, I say to myself, “This was a career that lasted twenty years”; or “This was a friendship that lasted twenty-five years.” If I feel overwhelmed by the loss of my health and its consequences, I say to myself, “This was a body that was illness-free long enough to be active in raising my children and to not be a burden to them when they were young; to be a part of their weddings; to teach and be of personal support to many law students; to travel and keep company with Tony out in the world.”
Inspired by Susan Saint James’s courage, which reinforces the teachings of the Buddha that I’ve learned, I’m able to say these equanimity phrases without bitterness. I can even be genuinely grateful for those years. When overcome with the losses you’ve encountered, be you chronically ill or the caregiver for a loved-one who is chronically ill, I encourage you to try the equanimity practice I cobbled together from the words of a remarkable woman facing the most devastating loss we can imagine.
Turnarounds and Transformations
10
Getting Off the Wheel of Suffering
Nothing whatsoever should be clung to.
—BUDDHADASA BHIKKHU
MANY TEACHERS suggest starting Buddhist practice by learning how to meditate, but because of my academic background, I was compelled to hit the books first and do some research. Such was my need to put scholarship first, that soon after becoming interested in Buddhism in 1992, I researched and wrote a twenty-page paper, complete with footnotes that referenced over three dozen books. I titled it “Introduction to Buddhism.” Given that I can’t recall giving this little piece of scholarship to anyone, I appear to have been introducing Buddhism to myself.
While engaging in this scholarly study, I adopted a strategy that served me well: if I came upon a teaching that I didn’t understand, I skipped it. That was my first relationship to the wheel of suffering. I skipped it and moved to a teaching that was more accessible.
I started my study with a book we already owned: What the Buddha Taught , written in 1959 by the Sri Lankan monk and scholar Walpola Rahula. In 1992, when I took it off the bookshelf, this work was still considered by many the seminal guide for introducing Westerners to Buddhism. It was not an easy read, especially in contrast to the dozens of user-friendly books on Buddhism now available. When I reached Rahula’s discussion of the doctrine called paticca-samuppada— the “wheel of suffering” or, as it’s more commonly known, “dependent origination”—I very well might have been derailed in this new spiritual pursuit had I not just skipped over it. His use of phrases such as “conditioned genesis” and “cessation of volitional formations” had my mind spinning.
But years later, my meditation practice well-established, I tackled that teaching again through the writings of Ayya Khema and S.N. Goenka and it began to make sense. In particular, I learned a lot from When the Iron Eagle Flies by Ayya Khema and Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S.N. Goenka by William Hart.
Paticca-samuppada can be translated in many different ways. While the most common translation is “dependent origination,” I’ve chosen “the wheel of suffering” because it’s so descriptive of our experience. With the caveat that this will not be a comprehensive nor scholarly analysis , I’m going to jump on in the middle of the twelve
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