old dog, new insight

“Within light, there is darkness, but do not try to understand that darkness.

Within darkness there is light, but do not look for that light.

Light and darkness are a pair, like the foot before and the foot behind in walking. Each has its own intrinsic value ….”

~ Sekito Kisen, 8th-century Chinese Chan (Zen) teacher [1]

I’ve lost count of the times I said these lines during early morning service (back in the day at the monastery). I remember refusing to join in, hiding instead behind the chant book hoping no-one would spot my feeble protest. I won’t say words that have no meaning to me. 

Sleep-deprived I’d go into flight mode: maybe I should leave and seek salvation ‘where the grass is greener’. Yet, my private struggle didn’t escape the abbot’s eagle eyes. He’d pull me aside: Why this reactivity? It dawned on me (much later) that he was pointing towards something much bigger than chanting obscure texts.

Soon afterwards a clue came my way via Rilke’s Letters to a young poet. In it a literary apprentice receives the master’s advice, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” [2]

So, what brought this on, you may ask.

Three weeks ago I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Chronic Kidney Disease. With neither cure, treatment, or medication available, the way to slow progression is to increase physical exercise, drink lots more water, and drastically reduce the intake of Potassium, Phosphorous, and Sodium. They’re hidden in many foods we consume and which the ailing kidneys are increasingly incapable of extracting from the blood stream.

For the first two weeks following the diagnosis I felt calm and at ease. Hurray to years of mindfulness practice, I proclaimed. But then one morning, out of the blue, panic attack! One more disease to add to the list, cried the frightened mind, another reminder of death’s omnipresence. Dr. Google (who’s not a real doctor!) fed the frenzy  with advice, warnings, charts, and miracle recipes about what to eat and what to avoid. Bananas, potatoes, dried fruit, and whole-wheat bread are out, kale, eggplant, soft tofu, and almond milk are in, to name a few.

a carefully cut chiffonade of basil

Fast forward to last night. Informed by an hour’s consultation with a dietitian and equipped with a meal plan I entered Day One of a new way of feeding myself.

As the first bite entered my mouth a penny dropped: each loss holds a gain within. While my mind had misgivings about the lack salt, my senses were delighted by the perfume of basil.

“There’s a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” ~ Leonard Cohen [3]

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[1] From “Identity of Relative and Absolute” (Sandokai). In: fChants and Sutras, Great Vow Zen Monastery.  [2] Rilke, Rainer Maria. (1934). Letters to a young poet. Stephen Mitchell trans. (1984), p. 34. Here’s an excerpt read aloud. [3] From “Anthem“.