This morning I needed something of substance to read, so I picked up a book by the Dalai Lama that has been sitting half-read on the shelf for a while. The bookmark where I left off was in a chapter called Reflecting on Impermanence:

We are under the illusion of permanence, so we always think there is a lot of time remaining. This mistaken belief puts us in great danger of wasting our lives in procrastination...we become fixated on superficialities - material possessions and temporary friends and situations. To overcome this ignorance, you need to reflect on the fact that a day is coming when you will not be here.

Even though there is no certainty that you will die tonight, when you cultivate an awareness of death, you appreciate that you could die tonight...



Let me back up three days, to Monday evening...

Pat was out of town, on the East Coast. I was on a ladder in the living room, measuring and marking the high vaulted ceiling for an additional skylight to be installed the next morning. To extend my reach, I placed a foot off the lader on the back of a big leather upholstered chair. It tipped back unexpectedly, and I lost my balance. Falling forward onto the chair, my left lower ribs contacted an arm of the chair, with the rest of my two hundred pounds arriving on top of that point, tipping the chair over from the force, and leaving me feeling for the extent of the damage as I arose from the floor. Fairly certain no ribs were broken, I thought for a short time that my wounded dignity and revealed incompetency would be the worst consequences of my error.

But as I grew increasingly uncomfortable, I did a quick mental inventory of the underlying physiology of that spot. Spleen - I was pretty sure it was right under those ribs, or close by. I called Becky, who has certainly witnessed a few of these spongy vascular organs in various states of distress among the bushels of innards she routinely deals with in her OR activities. She confirmed my fears about proximity - and risk for trauma. We discussed symptoms of a ruptured spleen - the consequences (of rapid blood loss into the abdominal cavity) were self-evident.

I had to decide whether to stay put for the night, or go in for a proper evaluation - since the time was after 9pm any medical oversight would have to come from an ER. I was usure if I could drive as I the discomfort increased. I decided to take a calculated risk and stay put for the night. I wrote Pat's cell number and Mona's home phone number on a piece of paper, labeled it EMERGENCY NUMBERS, and placed it in my shirt pocket. My wallet and cell phone went into a bag on the desk. I left the front porch light on, and the front door unlocked, and took the phone to bed with me, where I lay under a blanket, clothes on. If there was bleeding from a damaged spleen, I wondered if I would wake up able to dial 911 for transport to have the leaky thing removed. Or even wake up.

An hour or so later I fell asleep, then awoke an hour after that. I did a little mental exercise with numbers and letters to see if I was alert. Reassured that I was, I lay there for a while, fully appreciating the presence of the gentle Mdog and her soft cheek on my hand. I wondered how the remaining hours to dawn would unfold, and pondering the potential consequences of avoiding a trip to the ER. Unable to roll over or get up to pee without a painful struggle, I considered calling Becky again (now about 4am) and asking her about getting Mona out of bed for the almost 2-hour drive down here. I thought at least she might drive me to the hospital, and avoid the spectacle of an ambulance arriving here, with the Mdog barking hysterically and then left alone as I was carted off...

But I dozed off again, and didn't call anyone until later in the morning, as my gamble seemed to not yet have cost me the farm I had bet. For the next two days, I struggled with the pain of the bruised ribs, and gradually began to hope that whatever damage had occured was reversible. Mona and Becky both checked in with me regularly, which I was grateful for. As I told Mona this morning, three days of this episode was like three months of daily meditation on impermanence. Hah - like I'd know about three months of daily meditation on anything.

View things compounded from causes
To be like twinkling stars, figments seen with an eye disease,
The flickering light of a butter lamp, magical illusions,
Dew, bubbles, dreams, lightning, and clouds.

You and I, and all that we experience, are things compounded from causes.

Despite our indulgence in the fantasy of permanence, we will all die. We do not know when or how. Could we live our lives in such a way that we might have fewer or no regrets when that time arrives? To use our time wisely may be as close to the Buddhist ideal as many of us can aspire to.

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