I’ve been very ill this week. On Wednesday, I got struck by horrible cramps, spent several hours on and off the toilet, and started an quite a heavy period which made me feel weak. Because PCOS can cause histamine issues, I’ve had hives, a slightly swollen throat, and continued GI issues that have put me off eating. I considered not writing this week - and I don’t think anyone would blame me - but through it all I also feel quite inspired to reflect upon what I’ve learned about dealing with pain and uncertainty.

When I started getting sick last year, I quickly found that distraction was not sufficient. Distraction had been enough to make colds, some fibro flares, and the occasional GI upset more bearable in the past but it so clearly made greater pain than that much worse. It demanded my attention and it would not take no for an answer.

This, frankly, is a terrifying experience. Specifically within the context of a great pain that is unlikely to kill you but will almost certainly visit again and again in life altering ways, the anxiety of facing it is unlike almost any other fear I’ve experienced in my life. There’s no escape yet you have to move. You can’t rush forward yet you can’t stay still. This - oddly enough - is how the Buddha described how he reached enlightenment.

The first Noble Truth that all of life involves suffering can feel vague and immaterial when life is going well, but when I’m in pain, it is immediate and inarguable. While I would never in my life go looking for this pain, it’s ability to sharpen my knowledge and understanding of suffering is unparalleled. The cycle of chronic pain is a near perfect encapsulation of the more mundane parts of samsara - the cycle of suffering and rebirth. When I’m in pain, I’m afraid of what’s happening to me and want to be rid of it. When I’m not in pain, I’m afraid of when I’ll be in pain next and cling to what I can’t do when I’m ill. Neither state ever lasts and while that brings me hope when I’m ill, it crushes me when I’m well. I’ve yet to experience a part of my life that isn’t touched either by the suffering of pain or the suffering of the inevitability of future pain.

The second Noble Truth is that suffering is rooted in attachment (implying both aversion and delusion to a degree as well) and illness has taught me that in a very embodied way. It is the habit of most people, myself included to reach for comfort when experiencing pain but after some of my painful episodes over the last roughly two years, things that used to really compel me - hobbies, entertainment, ideas, identities - started to lose their appeal. It was hard not to look at them and think of how they wouldn’t make me feel better when I was really ill, how I couldn’t plan around them because illness could prevent me from finishing projects, how I couldn’t find meaning in them because their presumed worth seemed to exist in a different context than the one I do when I am in pain. Or more concisely, being attached to things that wouldn’t ease my pain felt like a heavy burden, one I wanted to be rid of.

I spent a lot of time having to carry that attachment around anyways. What I’ve realized is seeing that it’s ultimately futile isn’t enough to get the confidence to chuck it all away. There is, after all, some measure of comfort in the habitual. The third Noble Truth is that there’s a way out of attachment. While I’ve been through enough to have total faith in the Buddha, I’ve had less direct experience of this myself. Not none.

Last June, when I had a particularly bad episode and wound up in the ER at one point, I spent a lot of time listening to dharma talks and trying to meditate as I recovered. Meditation is in some ways easier while in pain because you have a meditation object that demands your whole attention but it is also more difficult because you have a meditation object that demands your whole attention. After hours of lying there, I eventually got to a point in meditation where my body disappeared - I couldn’t feel it at all and this beautiful peace and contentment naturally arose. It was pure bliss and wasn’t dependent on any material thing. I dwelt in it for as long as I was able, about an an hour. When I got back to my body, it was still in pain but the relationship with it felt altered. I could cope.

I didn’t realize how important that experience had been until a week or so later. I was in conflict with my family, who I lived with at the time, over noise and agreements that had been made being broken. I felt so impossibly weak, I thought I might collapse. It felt intolerable to be told that I just needed to cope, that my illness didn’t merit deference, that lying to me had been fine. There was this moment when I felt an anger creep in, quickly followed by a hollow sort of hopelessness that felt like it might swallow me up completely. I’ve never felt understood by my family and it felt like I never would be. But then a peace came over me, a shred of that bliss I’d experienced while meditating came up in my mind. “That’s okay, my happiness isn’t dependent on them anyways.”

While this firm conviction has faded at points, the memory of how it arose never has. I’ve meditated far more in the past year than the past several combined. I’ve gotten quite attached to meditation and the ease it brings me, both in pain and without. The Buddha, when asked about this, said that there only four results to be had from attachment to meditation: the first stage of enlightenment, the second, the third, and the fourth. Given that it actually can bring me relief from more consistent pain and the realizations I’ve had have helped the more sharp pains feel less invasive - I have total confidence that attachment to meditation more fruitful. Letting go of old attachments bit by bit feels joyful knowing I’ve found safety in something else for the time being.

Meditation is just one spoke on the Eightfold Path. The fourth and final Noble Truth is that the Eightfold Path leads to liberation from samsara, a way out of suffering and rebirth completely. There is something about what I’ve experienced in meditation that makes the Eightfold Path feel very practical. It’s difficult to put into words, likely because I’m still in the early stages of whatever realizations underpin that, but it’s made following it seem more natural than it did before this illness came on in earnest. I’ve had several moments where even in the throws of difficult pain, my view shifted and I found myself in a deep sense of gratitude that made the pain infinitely easier to bear. I’ve seen how taking the time to say kind words when in pain brings a physical sense of ease to my body. I’ve felt how remaining mindful of my pain is key to understanding it, which also changes and often lessens it.

This is all to say that while I’ve been in pain a lot this week and sometimes the fear of future pain threatens to swallow me up, I am also immeasurably grateful to my pain for deepening my understanding of the Four Noble Truths and for giving me the physical feedback to find the reliable way out of suffering as a whole. I am not convinced I would have explored this with as much devotion if my body weren’t on the line in the way that it is. My body is a demanding and urgent teacher. While I’m not always a willing student, what I’ve learned has changed my life.

I’m going to skip the general updates this week. Instead I’ll leave you with the invitation to chat about this (as I’m able) via email at marzcorbeau@proton.me and this link to a list of dharma talks on illness I return to frequently for comfort. May they bring you ease as well.

All the best, friends. Wishing you all well.