Thursday, March 17, 2011

Synchronizing ones' actions—radioactivi…TEA

This morning I took the first 2 of 36 prescribed deximethosone tablets, tiny robin's egg blue pills the size of baby aspirin with perfect little scores across the middle, 16 mg per day. I will take 4 each day beginning the day before, the day of and day after each chemo-infusion- I rather love that word, infusion- conjures up an image of a russian or english tea house with scones and cubes of sugar, gloved hands amid the silver utensils administering the freshest brew, above all—manners, decorum, polite conduct
The tea ceremony——The Royal Society of Chemistry's Dr. Andrew Stapley has written about the chemistry behind brewing tea, and some traditional ceremonies using leaf tea appear to closely mimic his suggested method, including the idea of synchronizing ones' actions with the temperature of the water. 


Meanwhile, in the studio window this morning—the elm tree branches are swelling against their skin- synchronizing their own leaf blooming actions with the temperature of the air…
So far what I'm hoping happens is that the steroids will mitigate the terrible inflammation and unbelievable weakness I've been experiencing in my right, (or the non-surgery side) arm. For months prior to surgery, when the cancer was a mere twinkling in a young radiologist's eye, my right arm injury- a late summer round of tennis service gone awry, has brought tears to my eyes.  I've been heard saying I feel like a plastic baby-doll with it's arms pulled out! however, if I don't deceive myself, just now my right arm just managed a full 360º shoulder roll with out the fireworks, so my fingers are x'd.  
INFUSION ILLUSION  SECLUSION DELUSION CONTUSION RETRIBUTION ABSOLUTION — a certain ……tea
3 AM meditation ends today with : …"may I free all beings". In the tradition of buddhism, we dedicate our efforts of mindfulness (with an intention for bodhichitta arising), not for our own benefit, but the benefit of all others, the irony of course is without a clear intention of also benefitting ourselves we are no use to any one else, the bodhichitta does not arise. I look at the elm- I think, 'in a few weeks it will be covered with small perfectly green leaves, benefitting itself with sun catching chlorophyll producing intention', but it's shade, it's oxygen-production benefits all beneath it. What has happened? 
Q. What do we intend to free all beings from? A. The ocean of suffering, in sanskrit: samsara. Samsara or suffering as practiced with, through insight mediation, is the cyclic [grasping- desire- wanting, of] birth and the [aversion, disdain, hatred of] death of being- - the confusion particularly for westerners is we often only think of one kind of birth and death in our limits of imagination. But here I'm speaking of a birth and death of 'BE'-ing-  Being…  being, ……………… and I understood in a synchronistic moment of dedication and intention, an action of mind, as the un-birthing, the undying, and the un-be-ing of 'ME'. With the words …MAY I FREE ALL BE INGS" freeing ones', capital 'S'-self. Call it altruism, call it generosity, or selflessness, it is the freedom from BE- ing, ME-ing a freedom from reactivi-……tea

I like to imagine the japanese nuclear workers in a tea ceremony of ultimate proportion. Ultimate bodhichitta, a gesture of selfless ness, the un-being of the atomic workers in Japan, as they dedicate their efforts to the freeing of harm to their families, their country, the selfless un-being of the hundreds of rescuers, the un Be-ing of stranded thousands at the food shelters passing up their ration of water for another who may need it more- their kindness saves them, their un-Be ing benefits first themselves, and as consequence, then others, for no water is as nourishing as the wisdom of self-lessness, there is no thing more beneficial than the freedom of an awakened heart full of un-be ing.

This freedom is a kind of NON-action a no-brainer in the strictest sense of the phrase-, like the elm as a symbol standing there outside of samsara, outside of suffering- no causes, no conditions or movements of a mind concerned with self—just swelling with certain tea.
—this post is for the Japanese nuclear reactor workers-——"synchronizing their actions with the temperature of the water"…

2 comments:

Renee said...

Sending healing thoughts your way!

gary plouff said...

....and as a chaplain in my department says, "When the O2 masks fall down from the ceiling of the airplane who do you help first, the child next to you or yourself? The answer: yourself. You can't help anyone if you don't help yourself first. You free yourself so you are free to help others be free.