Horizontal Peacemaking:

Practicing Socially Engaged Buddhism with Chronic Illness

by Diana Lion

July 2006

Dear friends,

Each week I make a pilgrimage to a small town north of Berkeley to my clinic and sit in a room full of people hoping not to die of cancer.  We all have IV bags dripping into our arms. The bags of pastel-hued sterile water bring us hope, as they slip acidly into our veins.  The procedure often stings a lot.  Last winter I wrote an essay about buying bracelets to cover up the huge purple and blue and yellow bruises that covered both arms: the only visible (and constant) reminder of my oh-so-invisible illnesses that are nibbling away at so many life-giving tissues I need in order to live my life. 

The bruises are much better now. I am finishing my tenth month of home retreat.  I have learned so much about making peace with this chronic illness and chronic pain.  We’re fighting less.  One might even say we have a more graceful relationship!  Not to romanticize chronic pain:  it is sucky.  It can eat away the marrow of one’s confidence and one’s sense of wanting to go on.  It has brought me to my knees many times.  I am no Pollyanna; however, I have always loved this world and been a determined sort of person.  Luckily – as I have needed every nanogram of determination to keep on going in the face of so much not knowing plus so much debilitating, puzzling, and painful illness.

 Now I’m at another crossroads. 

I wish there were a dharma guidebook with a chapter about what to do next for this juncture.  I would like something to turn to.  The hitch is that it hasn’t been written yet.  So far I’ve been doing this retreat without any sort of road map.  I’m depending on another kind of guide.  I’ve cobbled together a mosaic of beautiful teachings, teachers, healers, family, friends, and wisdom cultivated within practice that all support this retreat. 

We all know that nobody ever does anything alone.  The longer I stay on retreat, the longer I soak in the truth of interdependence.  We are all working and practicing hard together.  We share air, water, food, and other resources.  We all share many human emotions – the ones we enjoy, like joy, gratitude, generosity, equanimity, compassion, and appreciation.  And also the ones we enjoy less – like fear, anger, grief, jealousy, and pride.  We share concerns about our kids and grandkids and animals and world.  We share concerns about the state of this crazed country, and its impact on other members of our world community, with all the racism, greed, and environmental and economic suicide we are spewing out. 

For me this is a time of exploring edges.  I used to be a shy and wild child, who left a turbulent home to try to make sense of the world. I broke many bones during my teens and twenties from flinging myself out of planes and off horses.  I hitchhiked everywhere and learned to take care of myself.  Later I was a refrigeration mechanic and enjoyed being one of two women in Northern California driving up and down the coast with this unionized skill.  Underneath my adventures was the knowing that life was unfair to many of us. Both Marxism and Cesar Chavez’s organizing spoke to me.  Feminism and dharma rounded out the picture though I honestly had no idea how I was going to put it all together.  So I walked around with a bunch of jagged edges, for about two decades or so.

The one thing I always knew was that I cannot not be an activist.  Living in this world with the level of injustice I witness and experience each day, I cannot stomach being complacent.

Starting to work on staff at Buddhist Peace Fellowship in 1998 allowed me to finally bring together the many disparate pieces:  dharma, activism, progressive analysis, Nonviolent Communication.  BPF allowed me to learn and grow, and shaped me in unforeseen ways. 

Fast forward. Now I need to face that I’m still really sick.  Not yet able to keep an activist pace.  My koan throughout this retreat has been: how do I do socially engaged dharma while being so sick at home, largely in bed?  I have spent much time in reflection, consulted with many wise people, and shed many tears about this question.  Each time I do even a bit too much, I land back in bed in major pain, so there is no leeway about how much I can do still.  The question then becomes one of shifting and broadening my relationship with activism.  How can I widen the lens?  How can we all do that? How can my love of the world get even bigger, not shrink to fit my bedroom? 

When I took my year of unpaid medical leave from BPF last August, nobody (especially me) thought I would need the whole year off.  And now I see that I need even more than that.  I am slowly getting a bit better.  Isaac and Bob are happy with my progress.  Soon I will be strong enough to start being treated for the Lyme disease.  It is a slow process that is not ruled by my preferences.  I know in my bones that that’s not a bad thing. 

This whole process of being sick has been characterized by stepping off the cliff, time after time.  Not knowing what lies ahead, and no safety net.  Each time I’m scared shitless.  And yet somehow each time it’s turned out OK, though not necessarily as I’d imagined. I feel so much love for so many people, and cannot believe how many of you have come through for me – bringing me food, music, flowers (unscented!), and sending cards, emails, and gifts.  You all are keeping me going by donating money each month, which pays my daily expenses and medical bills.  Not only do I feel huge love for you, but I actually never realized how many people love me!  I figured nobody would remember I even exist after two weeks, and yet that’s not proven to be true.  Frankly, I’m stunned.  This is an unexpected side effect of this journey.

However, jumping off the cliff is hard every single time.  It never happens with a neat little ladylike hop – it takes a good boot in the butt.  Otherwise I’ll try to hang on with whatever means possible, not wanting to let go at all!  Later once the jumping part is done, and I’m already in the air, grace might visit.  Though as we all know, we can never do any letting go.  Letting go does itself.  All I can do is quit hanging on tight, and start creating the space that will give “letting go” some room to happen.

Meanwhile, my question persists.  How can I be socially engaged while being largely horizontal?  I spend lots of time practicing and sending blessings out each day, and hope it’s true that that helps the world. I am also paying close attention to this process of healing, and gathering information to use for articles later on.  My illnesses are environmentally-based, and therefore are very much a social issue, and the two articles I’ve written about MCS (multiple chemical sensitivities) have been distributed widely.  Plus I’m working with this mind:  noticing where I’m still identified with being an activist, and where that has dropped away.  I can be so much more effective when the identity is no longer there, and the work continues from an emptier place.  I dedicate the merit each day for the benefit of all beings – humans (those I love and don’t, plus everyone I don’t know), animals, plants (even poison oak), bugs (even Lyme-carrying ticks). 

Peacemaking involves finding some quiet and stillness. To do that we need to be willing to be with our loneliness.  We need to surrender the constant barrage of busyness we swim in, and be willing to swim outwards with strong sure strokes to a place that provides quiet and allows the mind to settle. 

A dear friend recently sent me a poem by Hafiz.  It contains three lines I particularly love:

Don't surrender your loneliness too quickly.

Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you as few human or even Divine ingredients can.

If I were well, I’d leap back into the fray in a heart beat, though never again in the same way I did before.  That was insanity. But right now the wisest course is to heal fully and deeply, for the sake of everyone and everything I love.  Putting energy elsewhere plunders that wholehearted effort.

I am willing to stay lonely for longer, and let it cut more deep, in hopes that it will season my efforts for wise activism later on.

Wishing each of you rest, silence, and much love –

Diana

PLEASE NOTE:

Diana's friends have helped to set up an innovative website in support of Diana, which features more of her writing as well as resources related to diversity and disability issues. To receive instructions on how to access Diana's web site (which is password-protected), please contact David at <David@VillageEconomics.biz>. 

Diana Lion is the founding director of BPF's national Prison Program. She was introduced to the dharma in 1974 by Joseph Goldstein, and has been actively involved in social justice issues since 1968. She has been involved in peace, women's, farm workers', labour, anti-racism, economic justice, and other types of organizing, as well as working to transform the prison industrial complex. She is passionate about skillfully blending the practices of dharma and nonviolent activism.

She is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leaders program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and is a certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication. She is currently on the faculty of the Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program offered through the Sati Center of Northern California. As a Canadian from Montreal, she loves hockey and Quebecois music. And, astounding as this might sound, she does not like chocolate.

Diana has been on medical leave from her position of Associate Director of BPF since August 2005.