Hello Pink,pink_trike wrote:I agree with Chris, life and one's bathroom mirror is the very best teacher when it comes to old age, sickness, and death - if we're awake to these experiences.
Spitting blood
Clears up reality
And dream alike
- Sunao, Zen monk. Died 1926
Late this last Sunday, I had a major heart attack. For about 45 minutes I was a blink from death. Paramedics came and rushed me to hospital, threw me on a stainless steel table in an icy cold room, poured liquid anesthesia on the groin, cut a hole into the artery, moved a cable up the artery to the heart, dislodged the blockage, inserted a NASA quality tiny sewer pipe in the vein, removed the cable, slapped a bandage on the hole, and stuck the body in bed to recover...and then cleaned the table for the next person, and the next, and the next, and the next... The actual procedure took less than 15 minutes. Observing the massive chest pains and the intense, amazing sensations that were arising as a result of the mechanical manipulations taking place inside the heart cleared away yet another layer of confusion. Looking at my face in the mirror a day later cleared up even more confusion. Taking the 6 drugs daily clears away even more.
We don't need a teacher to contemplate aging, sickness, and death. We only need to see what's right in front of, in us, and all around us. Point at anything that isn't aging and degenerating. At any age, if we look behind our deluded self-cherishing of youth and our veneration of regeneration, we see our denied but nevertheless active shadow...aging and degeneration. We have a choice in every single moment - recognize that each inhale may be the last...or delude ourselves with constant reaching and becoming. This choice is our birth right. Choose carefully.
Thank you for sharing this. My very best wishes for your complete recovery. I found your post very comforting and accurate.
A strange thing happened when I was sitting with my mother after she was transferred to a ward - she has been diagnosed with pneumonia and further tests are being carried out to see if there is further bacterial infection. While I was sitting there, I experienced tachycardia and the nurses popped me into a wheel chair and had me taken down to the Emergency Department. Ecg, x-ray, blood tests were done Only the ecg was showing anything out of the ordinary. I was made an in-patient on a different floor to my mothers' ward and had tubes in my veins (ouch!) and all the patches for an ecg and the dangly wires still attached to me. It is really horrible to be in a hospital without a change of undies, wearing a hospital gown open down the back, no hair brush or make-up, no toothbrush/toothpaste. I saw a cardiologist the next morning and was discharged. I am due for a 'procedure' next Thursday. All I know is I have Dual A-V Nodal Pathways, possibly from birth, now with Paroxysmal SupraventricularTachycardia and it will be treated by radiofrequency catheter ablation. I am due to be readmitted on Thursday at 10.00 a.m. I'm not sure if I will be in overnight or just for the day. It is done under local anasthetic - catheter fed up through the groin. Yikes! I don't like needles.
But seriously, Pink ... to come back to Dhamma Wheel and read your post gave me a great sense of "fellow feeling". Thanks again.
And a big thank-you for all the good wishes from members. by post and esp. by skype call. Appreciated.
metta
Chris