Chronic pain & fatigue and the quiet power of Dharma

Guest article by a practicing Buddhist.

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When I was 23, I developed a debilitating illness, the cause of which was unknown to every medical practitioner that I could find. I distinctly remember developing severe vertigo as I walked into my apartment one day, and from there, I have experienced a bewildering array of medical problems that has given rise to chronic pain and chronic fatigue for the last 30 years. I am exhausted every second of the day, and pain accompanies most of my movements throughout the day.

My illness began while my mother Sally was dying of lymphatic cancer. Diagnosed with this terminal illness at age 54, she was given 6 months to live. I was 20 years old at the time of her diagnosis. She fought hard to stay alive, and miraculously lived for four years. Near the end of this period is when I first fell ill. I went from being an active and vital 23-year old to not being able to walk to the corner of my block without assistance. I needed a wheelchair and taxis to get from one location to another. I was so sick. I had never been so ill, and I could find no medical practitioner who was able to tell me what was wrong with me, and thus how to get better.

Soon after this initial vertigo episode, I was sitting in the waiting room of a natural health centre. I looked up and saw a flyer that was advertising a workshop at a Kadampa Centre, entitled “On Death and Dying.” If I had blinked, I wouldn’t have seen it.

Before my Mum died, I had started looking for answers about what happens after death, how best to help those who are dying, how to benefit others the most, and how to take the essence of this human life. Once I became ill, I began wondering how those of us who are debilitatingly ill can best help others?

As usual, I was unwell on the day of the workshop, but I knew that I needed to attend. I got to the Centre, took a seat, and then a young monk appeared. He began teaching, and spoke with such warmth, respect and even humor about death. He was so light yet so profound. He talked about how pain is a completely natural feature of life, how it is in fact the normal state of affairs. How striving for a life free from pain without wanting to control our mind is impossible, futile. To hear that the pain and suffering that I was experiencing were normal, not extraordinary, not unusual, was what I hadn’t known I needed to hear.

Part of what is so difficult and traumatizing about illness – especially chronic illness – is the messages that we sick people internalize that there is something fundamentally wrong and freakish about US, and that is the reason we are so sick and unable to recover. Hearing from this humble, kind, calm monk that pain is entirely normal and natural in samsara – a life ruled by a mind with anger, greed, attachment, and so forth – was a panacea. I hung on his every word. That workshop transformed my life.

When the cure is acceptance

He talked about karma that morning, about how we have created the cause of our suffering through our previous actions motivated by our negative, painful minds. That we aren’t to blame, but that we have to take responsibility. He said that our suffering is not random, and that it’s not caused by an external being. He explained that every moment of pain that we patiently accept purifies eons of negativity. It doesn’t mean that our current pain necessarily disappears, but we can know that, on a subtle karmic level, profound changes are occurring.

Learning about purification practice and the sublime practice of Buddha Vajrasattva changed everything for me. When you have chronic pain and illness, you feel so static, so stuck. You feel that nothing is changing and that you are going to stay the same sick person forever until you die. This is one of the reasons that physical illness and the mental illnesses of anxiety and depression are so intertwined. Doing regular, short sessions of Vajrasattva practice improved my health by about 30%. And learning how to patiently accept my illness has changed my life.

I owe everything to the Kadampa monk who taught that morning in the fall of 1997, and I owe even more to his Teacher (who later became my Teacher, Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche).

My three auto-immune illnesses (finally diagnosed), and the resultant chronic pain and exhaustion, remind me every day of the nature of samsara. Pain and fatigue are part of its nature! They’re natural! I am thankful that I have a glimmer of this understanding.

Peace beyond symptoms

Another aspect of Dharma understanding that helps me manage is to remember impermanence. When I have flare-ups that awaken me 6-10 times per night, I try to remember that the pain will pass, that the sleeplessness will pass, that it all will pass. Impermanence is a great balm, and it is a colossal comfort when things are looking particularly grim.

After I got sick, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could be of greatest benefit to others with the very limited energy I had. What could I do with my time and my mind when I was so sick, tired and hurting? After meeting Kadam Dharma, and learning about bodhichitta (the wish to attain enlightenment to free ourself and others from suffering), I realized that simply having and holding on to this mental goal was the most profound action that I could take. Furthermore, learning how dedicating my good actions to the permanent freedom from suffering of all beings was a beautiful feature of this bodhichitta wish.

We all know how easy it is to get annoyed when we are tired, and being chronically fatigued gives rise to many irks. Thus, I learned how important it is to dedicate my positive deeds to great enlightenment. I do this throughout the day every day. In so doing, I know that I am accomplishing a lot with the very small energy I have. I know that things are shifting on a subtle level in my mind and in the world because of dedicating in this way.

Another practice I can do with my limited energy is to make mental offerings to enlightened beings. I have often not had the energy to do water offerings, but I learned that doing mental offerings is just as good! Everywhere I look – whether it is the silver maple tree in my backyard or a patch of particularly beautiful sky – I see something I can mentally offer to the Buddhas.

Hope without expectations 

I want to write briefly about hope. I’ve spent an immeasurable amount of money, hours, and mental energy trying to get better. There is no contradiction between patiently accepting the illness that we have and concurrently trying to find some relief from it. As I have mentioned, fatigue and pain are my constant companions. I occasionally read online about something that might improve my situation; for example, a supplement. I order it, start taking it, and things DO improve slightly – for about three weeks. Then everything goes back to normal, and the pain and fatigue are once again with me.

I’ve learned through experience that it is helpful to hope that we may get a bit better, but that expecting things to get better only leads to disappointment, depression, and again feeling like the reason we can’t get better is because there is something fundamentally wrong with us. However, not getting better is the nature of samsara. This is not pessimistic. It is simply the truth. I have to remind myself of this constantly. At the age of 52, I still hope that I will get a bit better. However, I don’t expect this to happen. And I will get out of samsara.

Honestly, on a physical level, things have gotten quite a lot worse over the last few years. I have more pain in more parts of my body than ever before. I sleep worse than I did before – except compared to the very start of my illness. However, I have never been so focused and upbeat as I am now. I have worked at Kadampa Centres for a large part of my life, and this feels like the best use of my energy. It doesn’t mean that I can’t volunteer at our local syringe exchange from time to time, for example, but most of my limited energy goes towards helping Dharma to flourish in my community.

As I continue to age, my health may only get worse, but the Dharma tools I have keep me buoyant. People who meet me don’t think I live with constant pain and fatigue. I have learned to mask it well – not that I am trying to deceive people, but what else am I going to do? Be listless and sad about something that I can’t control? I am an optimistic person – just not about the nature of samsara.

The power of Medicine Buddha

One final thing that I find helpful when my pain or injuries flare up is to ask Medicine Buddha to become the part of my body that is giving me pain. The nature of Buddha’s mind pervades all things. Thus, when my left knee, for example, is hurting so much that I can’t fall asleep, I ask Medicine Buddha to become my knee and to take the pain away. Then I ask him to take away the pain of all others. More often than not, my pain disappears and I fall asleep.

Community

After that Death and Dying workshop over 30 years ago, I moved to the city where that monk was teaching – not because that is where he lived, but because moving there had always been my plan, illness or not. I was often too sick to attend his classes. On particularly bad health days, the kind Centre volunteers would make me a little bed at the back of the meditation room so that I could lie down and listen to the teachings because sitting was too tiring. Those people have become life-long friends. I can’t overstate the value of friendship and community when facing chronic illness.

Pain and fatigue have taken a lot away from my life, but they have also brought me to Kadam Dharma, and have thus given me a framework, a goal, a large community of friends, and the answer as to how best to help myself and others. I wouldn’t have found any of these without having fallen ill, and for this reason, I am grateful that I became sick when I did. These have been 30 extraordinary years.

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