Page 11 - EH68

TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON 9

to death are known, felt, and are directly shaping one’s When does our “when” begin? In many worldviews—
daily patterns of living. religious or philosophical—it is at birth. But what
about before that? The Buddhist process of rebirth is
I’ve largely (but not completely) avoided the “why,” an opaque filter, another form of knowing that there is
but figuring out how to live with the “when” is very much we do not know about ourselves. We know that
hard. Those series of two months between brain we generated karma in pasts that far preceded our birth
scans initially brought some relief—even comfort—in into this life, but we do not, and cannot, know anything
their regularity, and in the fact that we would leave about the causes of that karma or its current effects.
San Francisco with the news that the tumor was still Only the buddhas know such a thing; the Pali texts tell
stable. But then, a few days before the checkup process us that the vision to see our own and others’ past and
approached, my horizon would begin to feel unstable future lifetimes is gained only on the second stage of
again. There is forward motion, but it felt like I was awakening.
constantly stumbling, tripping as I moved toward the
next MRI looking for changes in the tumor as the sign or So, again, is the question of when this illness began a
progression of the cancer. productive question? From a doctor’s perspective it
is relevant for both diagnosis and prognosis. This is
My honest, ethical doctors are upfront about the one of the interpretive levers that makes my future
imprecision of the available tools for making these unfixable: Do we take as the cancer’s starting point that
assessments. Ed refers to the MRI measurement tools as MRI in 2002 that first shows the tumor? Or the 2014
Etch a Sketches, as they appear on the computer screen craniotomy that brings me the diagnosis of grade II
like our childhood toys. In any case, my repeated pleas glioma brain cancer? Or does the clock reset in 2017,
for a prognosis are dependent on the interpretation of with the second craniotomy that diagnoses grade IV
when all this began. Time, again, is the issue. “When” glioblastoma, one of the deadliest forms of cancer?
isn’t just a matter of conclusion, but of the start of all If doctors start the measurement of my prognosis in
this as well. When did they arise, these conditions that 2014 or earlier, then my current longevity goes beyond
created the present and are determining my future? any of the statistical charts. If 2017, then my prognosis
When did my brain cancer begin? Was I born with it? probabilities are scarier; I may be dead when you are
Unlikely. Did it begin when my mom broke the bottle reading this. My oncologists don’t know with absolute
on my skull? Impossible to know. When I am injured certainty when the beginning begins.
in the car accident that killed my mom? Some doctors
consider that possibility, others give a definitive no. I find myself shifting between these different temporal
Most of us live with uncertainty of how to frame the contexts quite often in my attempts to accept the
time of our life and life experiences. uncertainty as a primary dimension of impermanence.
My pole star is my children. How old will they be in
The way we live in time is a condition for living well. My two years? In six? In ten? I’ve told my oncologist that
visceral memories of my past made possible the work my goal is to live until my youngest leaves home for
of setting down my anger and fear. While I no longer college. His nod acknowledges that hope, but he can’t
cling to those memories, or at least to the pain of those responsibly reassure me that this cancer, at least, won’t
events, they continue to help me know the conditions be the obstacle to reaching that goal. He cannot predict
of my present and shape my concerns for the future the success of my aspiration.
too. I often hear or read that people who experience
severe illness, or an event that brought death into My progressively dire diagnoses and my decreasingly
focus, gain a new appreciation for living in the present hopeful prognoses have created a new and distressing
moment. That’s great; but I’m not sure I totally buy relationship with time. I long to live within the
it. Or, it doesn’t release me from a more complicated structures of Buddhist stories when a Buddha predicts
relationship to the time frame of my life. the future, in particular, those stories, found in many