It Beat Me Up

A couple years ago I contracted Lyme Disease. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t know it until many months later. So despite several antibiotic treatments, I’ve been told I’ll just have to live with it. Lyme disease has an abundance of varied symptoms; one of many reasons it is so difficult to diagnose. One of the most sinister of them is the distinct brand of depression it bestows on its victims. It can come on quickly without warning with it’s devouring self-hatred. I’ve been told the leading cause of death from Lyme Disease is suicide.

Lyme cycles. I feel better for a while, then symptoms increase and intensify: pain, aching, heart palpitations, shortness of breath and depression. Last week, while in the throes of another bout of Lyme symptoms, I asked myself the question; what about depression? How do I navigate these dark corridors of hell?

I remembered another brilliant teaching story. This one, as far as I know, is a true story. Vipassana is a form of meditation involving concentration on the body or its sensations, and the insight that this provides. A beloved vipassana meditation teacher was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. There was a large conference for vipassana meditators at his center. Realizing the uncertainty of the situation, his followers nonetheless asked him to be the keynote speaker for the event. They knew it may well be the last time he spoke publicly. When he approached the podium on that day, with the room filled with hundreds, maybe even thousands of earnest listeners, his mind went blank. He stood there quietly as the audience waited, attentive. Time ticked on and still, no words. After what must have seemed an eternity, he leaned into the mic and said quietly: “feeling ashamed” ... silence... “feeling embarrassed”... “breathing”... “steady”... “just this breath”... and on it went. Basically what he was doing was demonstrating how the meditation carries through into every moment. He was not getting caught up in emotional or mental knots. Instead he was staying fully present and letting his heart be touched by whatever came up from moment to moment, without judgment or criticism.

It was, perhaps the best speech he could have given to that group on that day. The response of that one man, already in the throes of Alzheimer's, remaining lucid and calm in the most stressful of situations, continues to ripple outward, touching the lives of people he will never meet. He helped me through a tough night and I've never met him and don't even know his name.