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Went to get my knees MRI'd again. The process took an hour, 1/2 an hour per knee. It doesn't seem like such a long time to lay flat on one's back. Until about 15 minutes have gone by. I was okay for the first 15 minutes or so. I'm not claustrophobic. The machine is noisy - enough so that I was given ear plugs by the tech. Noisy thumping & clacking, rhythmic humming & whirring... just noisy. Not a big deal, though. The problem was my back. I don't hardly ever lay flat on my back for any length of time. I usually sleep on my side, one leg pulled up, or even half way on my belly. Laying flat like that - my back started spasming and just aching. Then my hips started complaining. Because I had to keep my leg still, I couldn't flex it or shift it or let my toes flop outward - no, I had to lay there, straight as an arrow. I started fidgeting, & my monkey-mind chattered away. The tech came back in when it was time to switch legs & I was hoping for a brief reprieve - maybe get to sit up & shift my hips a little bit. But nooooo, she just switched the restraint on my legs.
Another 10 or so minutes passed & my left knee started itching. That was about when I started chanting the Diamond Sutra in my head. It wasn't working to any great effect, so I switched to Om Mani Padme Hum... still no luck. Still had the fidgeting & monkey-mind chatter & itchy left knee to contend with. They really need to put some posters on the ceiling or something. Maybe one of those hidden picture things that never work for me because I don't have depth perception, but are still something to keep one's mind off an itchy left knee. Large-print newspaper. Anything, really.
It gave me time to think about the Four Noble Truths, though, and how they applied to my situation.
Life is suffering.
There is a reason for suffering.
There is a cessation of suffering.
The cessation of suffering is found through the Eightfold Path.
Suffering is having to lay flat on an aching back while having an MRI done & your knee starts itching. The reason why I was suffering was the MRI process. Cessation, sweet blissful cessation, was when the timer ran down & I was finally able to sit up, move around & scratch my fucking knee.
Nothing in the Eightfold Path helped me at all. The mantras were not helpful. Thinking about big, fat, smiling Buddha - not helpful. Scratching my knee & stretching my back - instant relief. I couldn't apply any feelings of attachment causing my suffering, other than the fact that I'm kind of physically attached to my knees, if only indirectly through muscles & not so much through ligaments. That was my fifteen minutes of spirituality for the day.
I'm also reading Kabbalah 365. It's one of those 'thought a day' books, but it's filled with some very interesting thoughts. The writer (Gershon something or other) has compiled writings from everything from ancient Babylonian Talmuds to modern Jewish spiritual writers, and it's an amazing book, really. Since I'm also reading TCIG to Understanding Buddhism, I'm getting to see a lot of parallels. For instance, one of the daily thoughts was about how, during the sexual act, the energy of the Four Winds fills you, travels through your body along your spine & shoots out the top of your head, reuniting you with the source. Sounds an awful lot like Kundalini to me. Some of the thoughts are grouped together by theme - how the Creator (the Kabbalah book uses 'Sacred Wellspring', 'Creator' and 'Unifying Force' far more than 'YHWH' or 'God'), by making man from earth, unified mankind with all living things, and how we should look to the animals, plants and even stones for clues on how to live rightly. How everything is All, and All is One.
One of my favorites was about how if you hear a raven caw, you should get your umbrella - a raven's caw calls down showers of blessings as well as rain.
For now, though, I'm doing laundry, feeding the snakes & just being glad the MRI is over for another few years. Sometime next week the verdict will be in & I'll know if surgery is in my future or not. I'm hoping for no, and if it's a yes, I'm hoping to push it off til the end of the semester.
Another 10 or so minutes passed & my left knee started itching. That was about when I started chanting the Diamond Sutra in my head. It wasn't working to any great effect, so I switched to Om Mani Padme Hum... still no luck. Still had the fidgeting & monkey-mind chatter & itchy left knee to contend with. They really need to put some posters on the ceiling or something. Maybe one of those hidden picture things that never work for me because I don't have depth perception, but are still something to keep one's mind off an itchy left knee. Large-print newspaper. Anything, really.
It gave me time to think about the Four Noble Truths, though, and how they applied to my situation.
Life is suffering.
There is a reason for suffering.
There is a cessation of suffering.
The cessation of suffering is found through the Eightfold Path.
Suffering is having to lay flat on an aching back while having an MRI done & your knee starts itching. The reason why I was suffering was the MRI process. Cessation, sweet blissful cessation, was when the timer ran down & I was finally able to sit up, move around & scratch my fucking knee.
Nothing in the Eightfold Path helped me at all. The mantras were not helpful. Thinking about big, fat, smiling Buddha - not helpful. Scratching my knee & stretching my back - instant relief. I couldn't apply any feelings of attachment causing my suffering, other than the fact that I'm kind of physically attached to my knees, if only indirectly through muscles & not so much through ligaments. That was my fifteen minutes of spirituality for the day.
I'm also reading Kabbalah 365. It's one of those 'thought a day' books, but it's filled with some very interesting thoughts. The writer (Gershon something or other) has compiled writings from everything from ancient Babylonian Talmuds to modern Jewish spiritual writers, and it's an amazing book, really. Since I'm also reading TCIG to Understanding Buddhism, I'm getting to see a lot of parallels. For instance, one of the daily thoughts was about how, during the sexual act, the energy of the Four Winds fills you, travels through your body along your spine & shoots out the top of your head, reuniting you with the source. Sounds an awful lot like Kundalini to me. Some of the thoughts are grouped together by theme - how the Creator (the Kabbalah book uses 'Sacred Wellspring', 'Creator' and 'Unifying Force' far more than 'YHWH' or 'God'), by making man from earth, unified mankind with all living things, and how we should look to the animals, plants and even stones for clues on how to live rightly. How everything is All, and All is One.
One of my favorites was about how if you hear a raven caw, you should get your umbrella - a raven's caw calls down showers of blessings as well as rain.
For now, though, I'm doing laundry, feeding the snakes & just being glad the MRI is over for another few years. Sometime next week the verdict will be in & I'll know if surgery is in my future or not. I'm hoping for no, and if it's a yes, I'm hoping to push it off til the end of the semester.
