My MRI Meditation

A friend of mine said, a few weeks ago before my recent medical thing (is it a spot? is it a blur?), as we were talking about belief in God, that I would discover faith and a belief in a higher power if I suffered something life-threatening. She didn't mean it ominously, only reflected how she herself had drawn on her faith when she had cancer and other members of her family were dangerously ill. And in a weird way, she was right. And wrong. (Though I wouldn't exactly call my wait for MRI results "life-threatening," though perhaps life-altering.) I have been giving a lot of thought to Buddhism, the notions of attachment and suffering, and meditation, but I am no closer--and perhaps even further after attending a Catholic funeral mass on Saturday--to believing in a sentient higher power or God.

I had my MRI Thursday afternoon, at a different facility, with friendlier people. It was a much easier test, even with the contrast injection, maybe because I knew what to expect. Just like before, I meditated by counting my breaths. And when the counting became disjointed because of my attention to all the different noises (more than to the random thoughts in my head), I just noted that I was breathing in and out. I won't say the time passed quickly or even easily but I didn't move and I didn't get upset, so that's success in my book.

Especially because some of my sitting meditations recently have been disastrous. When the ortho first told me about my lordosis (the flattened back) and thus my reduced pulmonary capacity (yes, my ortho tells too many scary stories when he doesn't need to), I would sit to breath and in breathing would think on my lungs and just cry, cry, cry. That's been waning since my GP told me that the lordosis might keep from being an opera singer or Olympic athlete but otherwise probably wouldn't be noticeable. And so on Thursday, I could count and breathe for the 40+ minutes I think I was in the tunnel (I guess I can meditate more than 5 minutes now! I might be more ready for sangha than I thought).

My leg hurt afterwards; I must have been holding it tightly. I spoke to the nurse and walked it off while I waited for the CD-Rom of my pictures. Yeah, I have the pictures, the evidence of whether the gray spot was a false positive or proof positive. But since I can't read them, and the radiologist's report will come later, I'm not going to bother to open them. What is, is.

While I walked and waited, I also looked at the latest Shambhala Sun (a magazine on Buddhism), which was in my mailbox as I left for the test (along with the new King Arthur Flour Baking Sheet, to which I'm newly subscribed). And there in its pages was something I needed: five questions to help us deal with distress. I read the beginning and then took the article by Ezra Bayda to the coffee shop (okay, yeah, you know it was Starbucks, but for iced soy chai not crappaccino), where I worked my way through them. It gave me a handle on what I have been trying to grasp since last Tuesday.

1. What is going on right now? Well, nothing. I don't hurt. There are no symptoms. So if I stay in the present, am mindful of the "what is" instead of focusing on negative possibilities, then everything is fine.

2. Can I see this as my path? I took this to mean do I want to deal with this. Yes. Because I am starting to recognize that suffering, frustration, disappointment are everywhere. And if I run, it would just be in a vicious circle.

3. What is my most believed thought? There are several: that I can't do this, that I don't want to do this, that being ill will ruin the lives of not just be but of Mama and the kids, that I'm scared of dying.

4. What is this? It's all fear. A scary lack of control.

5. Can I let this experience just be? I'm going to try. What else can you do? Fighting it doesn't help. Though it reminds me of that story about the man whose son broke his leg and when people said that was too bad, he said "maybe." And when the son didn't have to go to war, people said that was good, and the dad said "maybe." It goes on and on . . . . Everything is both good and bad. It just is.

And so, when I feel myself starting to picture the worst-case future for me or without me, I stop and remind myself that it's just the fear. And I face the fear. And it seems to run from the light . . . .