More random thoughts by Punya
About ten years ago, I gave a psychic reading at a mini-sessions event in Corfu Buddha Hall. The question was: What is the reason why I got this stroke? After searching, and waiting, and searching again, the answer that came out – and it was clearly spelt – was: There is no reason. Bodies just have their own ways.
The client, who then stopped talking to me for years after that, was of course waiting for an esoteric answer, maybe about a past life, something which happened to them as a child, an aspect of their psyche they had to change, improve, etc. I was a big disappointment!
Since Mrs Hay and the whole Body-Mind movement came into action, we have been enquiring about every minute malfunction of our poor bodies. It’s gone to such extremes that women with breast cancer have even started doubting their ability to love! Worse is that others have taken the liberty of judging those individuals, who on top of being troubled by heavy medication and frightening and uncomfortable procedures, now even have to blame themselves for their lack of creativity, speech, groundedness, love, their repressed sexuality, or whatever.
I remember when one of the first in our sangha to leave this plane died from cancer, some people had the temerity to blame it all on him: Of course, he was smoking and drinking and leading an unruly life. Well, that might have influenced the timescale somewhat. But what upset me the most was that the very person who had said that, died a few years later from cancer herself, though she had lived a very virtuous life, taking care of her body with the best food available.
Another friend was vilified because he had succumbed to a stroke. Of course, he is so much in the mind! It pains me to say that the person who had said that horrible thing died a few years later – from a tumour in the brain! (My friend with the stroke is still using his brain proficiently for translating Osho’s words, or was until recently.)
Our entitlement, and lack of empathy and respect, has gone so far that these days you can easily find a comment below an obituary on social media saying, Great news! Not very graceful, is it?
The eternal question of nature or nurture remains, not only for our upbringing, but for diseases as well.
In my partner’s family, last year 4 out of 5 brothers had a stroke; most of them – luckily – very mild. Their father had a stroke after he retired. So that weakness must run in the family. They are working class originally, but commercially savvy, owning their own houses and businesses, so definitely not people living ‘too much in their minds’.
It’s mostly the judging that upsets me. The Of course she got that because she does not do this or that, she does not eat this or that… (Could it be that the person who explains the death by vilifying some habit is terrified of it happening to them and is so trying to make the fear go away?)
Still, maybe, I should restrain from those After Eights a bit (but not too much). But don’t tell me to!
Featured image by Lisa pexels.com/@fotios-photos
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