Dr. Doner’s Blog

July 1, 2010

“Death is a vast mystery, but there are two things we can say about it: It is absolutely certain that we will die and it is uncertain when or how we will die. The only surety we have, then, is this uncertainty about the hour of our death, which we seize on as the excuse to postpone facing death directly. We are like children who cover their eyes in a game of hide and seek and think that no one can see them.”

Glimpse after Glimpse , Sogyal Rinpoche

Our little “Last Year” group has pledged to live this year as if it were our last. (See previous writing – A Year to Live and Stephen Levine’s book). When we met for the second time we were curious to see if this vow had had any real effect in each others’ lives. The vote was a unanimous “Yes!”

For most of us the quality of life had changed – more precious, more joyful and the little annoyances less important. Our Vision Boards were becoming true. One friend quite surprised herself as she resigned from her engineering job after just one day of employment! She had retired and was quite comfortable but wanted more money to travel and update her furniture. Back on the job she realized how much she hated the tediousness of it. “If this is my last year, this is not the way I want to spend my time!” she declared and thoroughly impressed us.

What was the focus to be for this next segment of time? “Renouncing and Releasing,” we decided.

Why? Perhaps we were just tired of the same old patterns of behavior, harmful habits, unhelpful beliefs and unhappy feelings. We could understand why they were there and that of course we weren’t any worse than most people. But we knew for sure that they were a colossal waste of our limited time! In view of death, life now contained a new urgency.

So, in a guided imagery session we placed all we wanted to be rid of into a virtual fire and watched it burn into nothingness. We then saved all the wisdom, compassion and self-forgiveness we had learned from the old patterns as a nugget of gold. What we released had served its purpose and taught us valuable lessons. But it was time to be lighter and freer.

What was mine? So many things, of course. And it seems that I’ve released these same tendencies over and over for years, like New Year’s Resolutions. Maybe “releasing” is a continuous, even a daily practice, like mental hygiene. Or maybe once I’ve truly seen the suffering caused by these patterns I can truly “renounce” them and let go in a deeper way. After all, the smokers I work with do it and become free of their addictions!

After many weeks of contemplation I finally understand the most fundamental pattern I want to renounce. It is anger.

It doesn’t matter why anger is my default mechanism whenever people, places or things aren’t how I want them to be. Others may habitually react with hopelessness or depression or apathy. I am moved by instant anger to take action! In the past it served a purpose. It taught me that something wasn’t quite right, that someone was in danger or that I was being disrespected. After all, anger is a primal feeling that can insure survival! And anger can actually feel good and become addictive.

Below my anger, with its self-righteous energetic quality, is fear. But I’m not actually in danger. I also now have a more mature understanding of the ridiculous behavior of others (and myself) and of foolish or greedy social and political systems. So, once I’ve gained the wisdom from the initial reaction there really is no sense in continued anger! Obviously, renouncing anger is not repression or self-judgment. But it comes from a deep knowing that I don’t need it any more, that it hurts relationships and that it hurts me.

This decision took on a new urgency when the newspaper headlines blared that a physician in town had been arrested for the attempted murder of his wife As I write this he is still sitting in jail, with a million dollar bond and is claiming his innocence. Her head was beaten bloody against the tile floor. Thousands have enjoyed this doctor’s care and I was always happy to refer to him. But the mug-shot looks like a man whose life has been destroyed. I don’t know who did it or why. But someone acted violently out of rage or aggression and in one moment caused destruction. The consequences of anger are dire.

So, aware of the suffering caused by anger, aware that others too are victims of their own anger and aware that life is short, I’ve chosen to renounce anger. It still arises, of course. I don’t pretend it isn’t there. But from the clear seeing of anger’s consequences and the daily aspiration to be more understanding, I’m more able to catch it earlier. I am less likely act on it. I can get the learning from it and work through it. I’m responsible and every morning I can choose to release anger and to practice patience.

How does this feel? Clearer, stronger and freer. A good way to live.

“Renunciation has both sadness and joy in it: sadness because you realize the futility of your old ways, and joy because of the greater vision that begins to unfold when you are able to let go of them. This is no ordinary joy. It is a joy that gives birth to a new and profound strength, a confidence, an abiding inspiration that you are not condemned to your habits, that you can indeed emerge from them, that you can change, and grow more and more free”

Glimpse after Glimpse, Sogyal Rinpoche

I Took to the Mountains

I thought I “took to the mountains” for rest and relaxation in July. I did enjoy the 9 day meditation retreat outside Boulder, Colorado. Then, I camped throughout Colorado for two weeks by myself. Going wherever I wanted to go and doing whatever I wanted to do, with no restrictions, sounded like absolute freedom. Or so I thought before the “triple whammy.”

The first glitch involved my right knee. I’m used to fearlessly following my goals. Seven years post-graduate training to become a doctor?  Sure. Divorce, full-time medical practice and two children, OK – I can do that. Sell the practice after 21 years and pursue a holistic healing vision? I’ll make it work out. Like the “Little Engine that Could” I chugged my way past every challenge. “Climb every mountain” was my motto. Will, force and determination had insured success to date.

But on the camping trip I found I couldn’t hike! The meniscus surgery seven months ago did not give me the  strong painless knee I expected! Sure, in Florida I could walk on level ground but not up and down a Colorado hill, let alone a mountain. This was a profoundly rude shock to my belief system. Will and exercise alone could not reverse the aging process. It was also a rude shock to my identity. Vacations revolved around hiking. Who was I if not a hiker? And how would I take vacations with my hiking boyfriend?

The second surprise happened one morning, after soaking in a natural hot-spring the night before. I woke up with one-quarter of my left breast, just above the bathing suit line, beet red! As a physician this was terrifying. There were only two explanations. Either it was a cellulitis that I could possibly treat with antibiotics in the first-aid kit – or – it was inflammatory breast cancer and I could die! I could live with the first possibility but wasn’t ready for the second. And even if I didn’t die how could I continue to work and pay the bills while undergoing surgery, radiation and chemotherapy? Many people do it but I never thought it could happen to me! My body would change drastically and perhaps my romantic relationship!

The redness resolved after the antibiotics but my relationship with my body didn’t. It was no longer trustworthy. Neither was my identity. This was extremely disorienting and frightening.

The third unexpected occurrence was when I returned home and took a quick look at the accumulated e-mail. “A memorial service for Deborah…” What? Deborah died! She’s younger than me! She just dropped over dead with no known medical problems. I’ll never see her sunny smile again. I can never call her up to see a movie. She just got engaged to the man of her dreams and now she’s gone.

Three aspects of my previously well-running life had stopped functioning as ordered. My body and its abilities, my identity, and my friendships. Poof! In just a few weeks changed forever.

And then I got it that the meditation retreat was not about being blissful and stress-free. It was about understanding the truth of reality. That my body, my identity and my relationships are impermanent. I can only depend on the fact that they are always changing. That Death is always around the corner. That, in fact, Death is impermanence and is always operating in the process called “life.”

This is the way it is. And to truly live with this knowing is actually liberating! I can be grateful every morning I wake up with two breasts. I can appreciate however strong my body is right now. I am determined to love my friends more passionately and forgive them more quickly because we will be attending each others’ memorial services.

Something has profoundly shifted in me. The flowers smell sweeter and anger is more regrettable. The old belief in willful bravery has been replaced with true courage to accept life. I now realize that this is the lesson I had unconsciously requested from this vacation. It turns out that along with the Colorado mountain maps for the trip, I had also packed a quote from the sage Milarepa:

“In horror of death, I took to the mountains –

Again and again I meditated on the uncertainty of the hour of death,

Capturing the fortress of the deathless unending nature of mind.

Now all fear of death is over and done.”

Have you ever wondered if your life really mattered?

 

I’m preparing to turn 60. The career climb is over and the kids are raised. The new generation doesn’t want to listens to my advice. A life of experience has distilled into priceless wisdom and yet it sometimes feels as if no one wants it.

 

I remember my Dad turning 60. He usually wasn’t a complainer but something about this milestone was bothering him. Mom bought him a red leather Lazy-Boy recliner for a birthday present. That did not help his nagging feeling of waning vitality!

 

Recent funerals have also fueled this angst in me. We honor the dead, we miss them… and then life goes on. What did it all matter? Occupying this life is like occupying a house. Lots of decorations and getting the appearances just right, then POOF, time to move on. Time for the next person to occupy the space.

 

The distress came to a head last week. “What is this discomfort really about?” I cried . “It’s really about not wanting my life to be a waste! I have so many gifts and abilities. I don’t want them to just lie there, not used. It’s OK for a field to lie fallow for awhile but it’s not OK for my life not to be fully harvested!!”

 

With this freshly felt unease I planted my Mother. She’d been lying in the casket above ground for a month until the rains stopped and Florida soil drained. Now we finally laid her to rest. The celebration and hugs of the actual funeral were past. There was no more solace of food and friends or the illusion that she is just lying there asleep in a lovely purple outfit. Now she was simply lowered into a hole and covered with dirt, to get wet with next summer’s rains. She’d used her body well and now it was over.

 

“It’s now or never,” I thought. “Either I use these 60’s well or I don’t. Because someday I’ll return to the mud. How can I make my life matter?”

 

After the burial my sister and I visited our childhood home. We thought, “Why not knock on the door and see who is occupying it?” The owner was very happy to hear our old stories. We asked about remembered trees and plantings.

 

“Yes,” he assured us. “Our sons also had a tree house in that old oak.  But your mango trees froze and the orange trees died. There is something curious, however, that I never understood. Every spring a patch out front erupts into Easter lilies. My sons want to mow the area but I won’t let them. Each year we marvel at this magic and wonder where they came from!”

 

Those were my Easter lilies! I’d rescued them from the church after Easter. I remember carefully separating the bulbs and planting them at age 13. Idealistic even then, I had hoped that I was doing something permanent. That I was planting beauty that would never end. That what I was doing really mattered.

 

Yes, I’ve moved on, someone else was occupying my former space, but the lilies keep coming up.

 

Those Easter lilies had been symbolic of life after death. Now they were the answer to my current anguish. That there is resurrection of life within life. That all we ever do matters. We are all always planting bulbs, always affecting the people around us, always making a difference. We can’t control the outcome, just as Mom couldn’t control her kids. But there is always a consequence and there are great grandkids that keep bursting forth.

 

To want the 60’s to produce great accomplishments is just pure ego. To appreciate the time and space that it provides is my more enlightened vow. That I use it well to grow and to give– that’s all that really matters.

Kathy Doner, MD

copyright 2009