Tu Viện Quảng Đức105 Lynch Rd, Fawkner, Vic 3060. Australia. Tel: 9357 3544. quangduc@quangduc.com* Viện Chủ: HT Tâm Phương, Trụ Trì: TT Nguyên Tạng   

A Life Sentence To Cancer Or Liberation From A Mindless Existence

28/05/201115:02(Xem: 2786)
A Life Sentence To Cancer Or Liberation From A Mindless Existence

A LIFE SENTENCE TO CANCER OR LIBERATION FROM A MINDLESS EXISTENCE

Susan Taylor

 


  

I have just returned from Tasmania after spending 3 weeks with my beloved sister Annie who had sudden surgery for a bowel blockage which turned out to be cancer. She is 42, the same age at which I was diagnosed with breast cancer now over 9 years ago and the same age at which our brother had a heart attack 2 years ago.

It was an extraordinary 3 weeks. I taught her to meditate, made lots of juices and very healthy vegetarian food and talked and talked and talked. Feeling so full of grief that she too would have to make this journey with cancer and so full of gratitude and joy that maybe I in some small way could help her to fast forward some of the processes by which she could uncover her own path of healing.

During this time I began to realise that maybe I had learnt one or two things, that I was still not really acknowledging a lot of what I had achieved in those areas where I had had choices and responsibility.

I decided that perhaps it was time to update my story for Mandala (an international Buddhist journal), my original article published 6 years ago in October 1993. It was called Growth through Suffering and it documented the first 3 years of my journey with cancer, including the elimination of an 8 cm liver secondary without the use of chemotherapy..

Incidentally, at the time the Ven. Thich Nguyen Tang , a Buddhist monk in Vietnam, a member of the FPMT and a prolific writer, translated that article into Vietnamese for his followers (" I have thought everyone, they achieve for themselves what you did for yourself’ he said "so I translated it into Vietnamese for my followers and it was published in our magazine. We are all delighted…"). Thereafter I received a steady flow of letters, some in English and some in Vietnamese from people in Vietnam asking me for help and advice with their illnesses and problems. With the support of the Vietnamese Buddhist community in Adelaide I corresponded with them all. They continued for a few years. In the meantime I lost contact with Ven. Tang because I changed my name from Dixon to my maiden name—until a young Vietnamese woman approached me at the Dying To Live workshop in Adelaide in June 1999 and told me that the Ven. Tang now lived in Melbourne and would like to visit me on Kangaroo Island on 4 July (coincidentally the date of my mastectomy 9 years ago--- yes, Independence day!).

Susan Taylor and Ven. Thich Nguyen Tang (1999)

 

So he and a party of 7 of his followers, mostly from Melbourne came to visit me and my Peter on KI, as he said to ‘update his information about me for his followers in Vietnam’

It was a wonderful experience to meet this beautiful young man, so completely committed to the Dharma, still writing for Vietnamese papers in Sydney and Vietnam and teaching at the temple in Melbourne. He gave me one article in the Vietnam News published in Sydney which had a large picture of Lama Osel and an article about me.

I told him the rest of my story……That in 1995 I made the decision to come to KI to write a book about my healing. It had been a huge wrench to leave my two younger children who had said that they wanted to live elsewhere, my son Aran (15) with their father and my daughter Hilary (18) with university friends. With Kimball Cuddihy’s great support I took my caravan down to the land next to De Tong Ling, in a beautiful remote wilderness area, wrote and wrote and led the monastic life. Until I met Peter who lived there, a man of earth wisdom, more buddhist than a lot of people I’d seen who professed to be Buddhist.

By March 1996 we had moved out to a rented cottage and found our own land. Not an easy time. The land was 600 acres of mostly virgin bush with a splendiferous array of plants and wildlife and we dreamt that one day we would have a biodynamic garden and a small retreat centre. Peter began a woolclassing course at Agricultural College in Victoria, coming home every fortnight or so and I made long-awaited plans to go to Ireland with Aran.

In May, just as we where about to leave for overseas I discovered that the 8 cm tumour was back in my liver. I put it down to the stress of moving, the separation from Peter and my family’s disapproval of the relationship. I went away anyway and had a great time. Aran and I were the fittest in the group we went with.

By October the tumour had shrunk somewhat. I’d been on and off tamoxifen, but I didn’t like being on it for its side effects, particularly the hot flushes, so I took myself off it again around then.

Life went on and we found ourselves overstreched with time and money trying to grow wool with my Sydney brother, with too many sheep and no resources. I had been aware that my life seemed somewhat out of balance even though I thought that things were fine in the relationship. We seemed to be working far too hard, driving 100 km round trip each day to our land, never getting home before 8 or 9 at night, never having quiet relaxing times.

In November 1997 I was totally devastated when Peter said that he thought that we should separate, that things weren’t working between us and that maybe in time we could be together again. A bleak Christmas with Hilary and Aran and a hot busy January chasing sheep over the paddocks, mustering them to sell once and for all.

By late January 1998 I put Peter and his daughter on the ferry to go to Adelaide shopping and aware of the growing pain in my right side, took myself off to hospital prior to the 100 km trip back to the other end of the Island. And I finally collapsed, overwhelmed with grief and pain which was quite obviously secondaries in my liver again. I stayed in the hospital, cared for by wonderful staff for 4 days by which I intended going back home with Peter who came back from Adelaide. We did that but he had to bring me back to hospital the next morning with horrific shoulder tip pain. He left me there and then the hospital organised to airlift me to Adelaide via the Royal Flying Doctor.

In floods of tears with grief and in a huge amount of pain I ended up in Flinders Medical Centre where the next day tests revealed a pea-sized lymph-node affected in my clavicle and both lungs full of tumours, my liver bursting with cancer. The oncologist recommended chemo and tamoxifen and I told him that I just knew that I could not have chemo having never had any drugs before. I’d take the tamoxifen. Meditation dealt with the pain and the staff left me alone for the week that I was there. It was somewhat awe-inspiring to be really and truly facing my death. I’d been through it all in theory, read all the books, done Po-Wa and Vajrayogini practice, but when it came down to it, I was plain terrified. I struggled for some days with the will to live, feeling that, in many ways, despite my terror, death must be a far easier option. After all, at some level, I felt that I’d done everything to deal with the underlying causes of cancer—so what more could I do? Maybe it was my karma to die sooner rather than later.

I knew that I had a choice to return to Adelaide, be near my old Dad and two sons (by now Hilary was studying medicine at Newcastle, NSW), go to Victoria amongst my friends and work colleagues at the Gawler Foundation where I had been working on and off, or to return to KI. I continued to meditate in hospital, asking my teachers and all the unseen beings for help and inspiration. I spoke with my friend Annie who prays in tongues and who helped me to realise that even returning at all to KI was an option. My friend Lynne confronted me with this issue and amidst more tears, terror and sheer determination, I made the hardest decision of all, to return too KI. The hardest thing I’d ever done. To go back into the mouth of the vast unknown, that place within myself. To be alone with my loved ones standing by, not stepping in to rescue me. To live by the sea in a cottage owned by an elderly bodhisattva couple. Hardly able to move at first, feeling utterly alone, facing myself for the first time. The demons of the mind. The heartache and the misery. Fear, heaps of fear. But also lots of meditation, juices and vitamin and herbal supplements. My dearest friend Trish even organised a circle of friends to contribute to a Healing Fund to help me pay for my carrots and supplements.

All of this was rewarded by a slow rebuilding of my physical strength, a glimmering of hope and a flickering of peace of mind I’d never experienced before. The lymph node began to shrink immediately. This was February. By March it was gone. By then there were only 2 out of 10 lesions in my lungs. By June all the lung tumours had gone and the liver tumours were smaller and more discrete. I had lots more energy, felt like I was a new person and Peter and I were able to make the decision to be together again. I felt like I had grown up, moved away from huge insecurities and doubts about myself. I’d experienced the dark night of the soul and felt in some way transformed.

Now eighteen months down the track, the liver tumours are still shrinking and the rest is clear. In May this year the oncologist told me that it was one thing to have static disease but quite another to shift tumours, particularly in the liver. I’ve realised that for years I projected the insecurities and need for approval stemming from my damaged self-esteem onto my relationships with people in the outside world. It was my relationship with myself that was the problem

And all through this time I’ve meditated, done my practices. Mindlessly. Now I feel like a complete beginner on the path. I used to ‘do’ meditation…still fear-based, it used to be ‘if you don’t do your practices, do retreats, attend every teaching possible, you’re a hopeless Buddhist and you’ll get nowhere on the path to enlightenment’. Just like my Old Testament upbringing.

My teachers Ven. Khensur Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche have given me their utmost love, support and guidance and without this I’m not sure that I’d be still around. And my practices, 35 Buddhas( visualising prostrations if I’m too ill or tired to do them, on instructions from Ven. Khensur Rinpoche), Vajrasattva Medicine Buddha twice a day , Vajrayogini and as much mindfulness of breathing as I can manage.

But I also think it’s been about a daily Dharma practice of living in relationship and learning how to speak about how I feel. Very scary stuff when I have hidden behind intellectuality and my achievements in the world all my life. Acknowledging negative emotions, particularly anger has been extraordinarily difficult, especially understanding that it’s a root cause of suffering and a complete ‘no no’ in Buddhist cosmology. But I did learn that my teachers were not saying ‘don’t feel anger’. They were saying ‘be aware of your feelings and make a conscious choice to deal with its expression differently.’ To transform anger with compassion. Such a liberating awareness. Be conscious, wake up. My favourite writer of all times, Stephen Levine speaks so eloquently of this very path. And Jack Kornfield’s article Even the Best Meditators Have Old Wounds To Heal has been of enormous value as he speaks so brilliantly about what I have experienced—meditating for 17 years and still finding myself full of deep unresolved childhood issues, only just now surfacing and beginning to be resolved

So the dharma practice of letting go of control, allowing things to be as they are, understanding that I can only take responsibility for my reactions to what arises as my karma unfolds. I can’t make anything happen. The daily practice of taking responsibility for my feelings and trying at all times to avoid projecting them on to others. Through living, through being in relationship with another person committed to the path of honouring who they are intrinsically, who has the courage to live his truth regardless of, as Caroline Myss says, the ‘tribal culture’ and who has the willingness to open his heart and love unconditionally. To open our hearts, take the risk to be close, have the courage to speak our truth and be who we are as individuals, sharing our lives together, committed to continuing the process of unfoldment of ourselves..

And so we live day by day. Our vision unfolding, working in our certified garden with windsong and birdsound. I’ve been working here and there counselling and running huge groups at the Gawler Foundation with my dear dear friend Bob Sharples of Tara Institute fame, another major support person for me along this way. I ran a Dying to Live workshop at Buddha House and Chenrezig Institute in Queensland ( the latter rather ill with the flu—I felt that I was a living example of someone who was dying!). Both were opportunities for me to share my ideas about death awareness and living consciously and mindfully every day. And meditating and having lots of laughs together and cooking very healthy and delicious food, making our own tofu using Southern Ocean sea water….

So there we are. I feel completely blessed to be alive, so humbled by the experience of being ordinary and human and glad that I have the opportunity of living every day with cancer. I will live until I die. I will be healing myself (with a little help from my friends/teachers) until the day I die---and then into my next life.

(Written in 1998 to Mandala. It was published in the Gawler Foundation Newsletter in Spring 2000)

Now here it is June 2001 and Peter and I are living in Tasmania. We came here to be closer to Annie my sister and to find work so that we could save to eventually build a house and retreat centre on KI. We live in another beautiful landscape with huge tall trees and stunning coastal scenery, the big cliffs and the mountains, all the water, the sea meeting the sky, the birds..

Annie died on 2 May. I think I helped her to die well but it is so sad. I had an experience that showed me that death is only part of the fabric of this cycle of samsara, that the essence of Dharma practice in each life we have is to be kind, be gentle and compassionate and that love is the tool that will heal the world. And that it will make a difference…..

Susan Taylor 
June 2001

 

 


---o0o---

Update : 01-08-2002

Gửi ý kiến của bạn
Tắt
Telex
VNI
Tên của bạn
Email của bạn
14/10/2023(Xem: 2415)
Our immense pleasure is to present to you this remarkable conference book – Buddhism: A Historical and Practical Vision. Inside these pages lies a stunning tapestry of wisdom created by the joint dedication and hard work of young Vietnamese Buddhist monks and nuns scholars who have explored the legacy of Buddhism in depth. From exploring the compatibility and integration of Mahāyāna Buddhism’s teachings with realistic political theory on leadership and the introduction Buddhist philosophy and the establishment and significance of Buddhist universities in the United States, each paper stands as a testament to the vibrant diversity and enduring relevance of Buddhist thought. Among the thought-provoking papers, you will discover insightful investigations into the practical theory of impermanence as a means to enhance one’s own living experience. Additionally, a critical interpretation of Nibbāna from Dr. Ambedkar’s perspective in the Indian Engaged Buddhist Movement sheds light
14/10/2023(Xem: 1448)
On a summer afternoon in 2023, on the Kandy plateau in Sri Lanka, renowned for its veneration of the sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha, on the lush green grounds of the University of Peradeniya, Kandy, the Departments of Education and Buddhist Studies held a Buddhist Seminar on July 14, 2023, with the patronage of Maha Mahinda International Dharmadutha Society, Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Huong Sen Buddhist Temple, California, USA.
25/07/2023(Xem: 2783)
Dealing with the chosen work, I observe that a puggala has been present in the world because of dependent origination (paṭiccasamuppāda) or continuity of change (santāna). The five masses of elements (pañcakkhandhā), which constitute the puggala and the world around him, are without any substance (anattā), impermanent (anicca) and they are really causes of grief (dukkha)...
03/05/2023(Xem: 1396)
When Buddhism first entered China from India and Central Asia two thousand years ago, Chinese favourably disposed towards it tended to view it as a part or companion school of the native Chinese Huang–Lao Daoist tradition, a form of Daoism rooted in texts and practices attributed to Huangdi (the Yellow Emperor) and Laozi. Others, less accepting of this ‘foreign’ incursion from the ‘barbarous’ Western Countries, viewed Buddhism as an exotic and dangerous challenge to the social and ethical Chinese civil order. For several centuries, these two attitudes formed the crucible within which the Chinese
07/02/2022(Xem: 5181)
Andy Le, a 10-year-old monk at the Ventura Buddhist Center,is believed to be on a spiritual path that will help bring peace to humanity in the 21st century. “This is an amazing little boy,” said Venerable Thich Thong Hai, founder of the Ventura Buddhist Center. “We are very happy and honored he was born in this county. It’s a great blessing.” Reincarnation is part of the Buddhist tradition, leading spiritual leaders to believe the boy’s birth in Oxnard is part of a greater plan, Hai said. “In a previous life, he was a high ranking monk in Thailand,” he said. “That’s why his parents and the monks and nuns here are trying to help … keep him on the right track. That’s why we protect him.”
07/08/2021(Xem: 9883)
The Eight Precepts with Right Livelihood as the Eighth (Ājīvatthamaka Sīla) Dhamma Teachers Certificate EN074 -__ Feb2010 5 8 Precepts Diacritials Requirements and Ceremonies for the Five Precepts (Panca Sila), The Eight Precepts with Right Livelihood as the Eighth (Ajivatthamaka Sila), Dhamma Teachers Certificate, issued by the Buddhist Group of Kendal (Theravada) and Ketumati Buddhist Vihara at Wesak 2006). Updated February 2010
07/08/2021(Xem: 9394)
The BEP Buddhist Embroidery Project was started by attendees of the London Buddhist Vihara (Monastery) in 1994. The BEP decided to teach embroidery to people who had not learnt it in childhood. The late Venerable Apparakke Jinaratana, a Theravada Buddhist Bhikkhu (monk), who lived in a cave in Sri Lanka, near a very poor village, was using very old newspapers (supplied by villagers) as tablecloths. The BEP decided to embroider tablecloths, wall hangings and sitting cloths for his use. Although items are given to one monk, they actually belong to the whole of the Bhikkhu Sangha [Order of Buddhist Monks] according to the Vinaya (Buddhist Monastic Discipline). In Asian villages, washing is done in streams and waterfalls, and hung to dry in the hot sun, so items do not last as long as they do in the west.
09/07/2021(Xem: 3752)
The Covid-19 pandemic is the most serious disaster the world is facing. The pandemic has a negative impact on many aspects of human life. Although numerous reports and statistics emphasize economic damages, they seem to pay less attention to psychological injuries or problems caused by the pandemic. Whereas, in reality millions of people are living with stress, fear and despair because of Covid-19. According to a report by the United Nations: People’s distress is understandable given the impact of the pandemic on people’s lives. During the Covid-19 emergency, people are afraid of infection, dying, and losing family members…. Not surprisingly, higher-than-usual levels of symptoms of depression and anxiety have been recorded in various countries. (2020, p. 7)
03/05/2021(Xem: 8120)
As a child, my mother Enid often said to me, “There is no such thing as a silly question,” and then would add, “unless.” This latter word was left hanging, and I eventually realised that it was up to me to learn the depth of its meaning. At the same time that Enid was planting seeds for reflection, my first spiritual teacher, Ven. Lama Senge Tashi, encouraged me to cultivate more skilful thoughts, speech and actions. Sometimes I would try to verbally assert “I” or “Me,” and Lama would respond with, “Who is speaking?” or “Who is asking?”
facebook youtube google-plus linkedin twitter blog
Nguyện đem công đức này, trang nghiêm Phật Tịnh Độ, trên đền bốn ơn nặng, dưới cứu khổ ba đường,
nếu có người thấy nghe, đều phát lòng Bồ Đề, hết một báo thân này, sinh qua cõi Cực Lạc.

May the Merit and virtue,accrued from this work, adorn the Buddhas pureland,
Repay the four great kindnesses above, andrelieve the suffering of those on the three paths below,
may those who see or hear of these efforts generates Bodhi Mind, spend their lives devoted to the Buddha Dharma,
the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

Quang Duc Buddhist Welfare Association of Victoria
Tu Viện Quảng Đức | Quang Duc Monastery
Senior Venerable Thich Tam Phuong | Senior Venerable Thich Nguyen Tang
Address: Quang Duc Monastery, 105 Lynch Road, Fawkner, Vic.3060 Australia
Tel: 61.03.9357 3544 ; Fax: 61.03.9357 3600
Website: http://www.quangduc.com ; http://www.tuvienquangduc.com.au (old)
Xin gửi Xin gửi bài mới và ý kiến đóng góp đến Ban Biên Tập qua địa chỉ:
quangduc@quangduc.com , tvquangduc@bigpond.com
VISITOR
110,220,567