1.
I am the villain in this story. At least in the beginning.
2.
I disliked Tyler the moment I met him.
(Note: Tyler is not his real name and his identifying details have been changed).
I flew across the country and then drove for hours to get to a retreat center buried in the woods of New England. I needed to escape from the world for a bit. And here’s this guy with weird energy, talking loudly, and constantly clearing his throat already ruining my experience.
I assumed that Tyler’s quirks would quickly fade into the background once we took our week-long vow of silence.
But I was wrong. Even amidst the silence, Tyler kept clearing his throat, often multiple times per minute. I felt my frustration rising with each interruption.
The icing on the cake? Tyler’s bed was right next to mine in the dorm, and he snored through the night. I barely slept.
3.
Eventually I was able to settle my focus and let the coughing fade into the background of my mind. But still, I was struggling—not just with Tyler, but with everything. At living in a sick world. At working too much over the last year. At needing to deal with challenging people. You know how it goes…
4.
Eventually, I realized something obvious: I was in pain. I, like everyone, was suffering. And I was mostly blaming Tyler instead of working to transform it inside myself.
5.
Until this point in the retreat, I had been practicing my usual form of meditation, “Choiceless Awareness.” It’s a consciousness practice that develops significant levels of insight, calm, and spaciousness. Or at least allegedly. I certainly was not feeling calm, spacious, or insightful.
6.
When I realized I was in pain, I recalled something Tara Brach, one of the teachers I studied with during my meditation teacher training, said. She said, “Waking up requires both consciousness and compassion. It’s like two wings of a bird. You need to develop both equally.”
I had been over indexed on consciousness practices, and neglecting the compassion practices. My wings were very lopsided.
7.
Back at the retreat, I realized that I needed to do something about my own suffering and work to balance myself a bit.
So I started practicing metta. Metta is a heart opening meditation. First the meditator sends love to themselves. Then to someone who is easy to love. Then to someone they are neutral about. Then to someone they struggle with or dislike. Finally, to all beings.
And you know who I chose for the person I disliked? Tyler.
8.
With time, I began to soften and relax. I was happy to be at the retreat and in my own company. Tyler’s continued throat clearing and coughing didn’t phase me as much. I was able to sleep through the snoring too.
Then, I noticed another obvious thing that I’d somehow been missing: Tyler must be in pain too. Probably much more pain than me.
I started to feel compassion for him. To deal with uncontrollable throat clearing and coughing must be terrible. I wished there was something I could do to help.
Without meaning to, my relationship to Tyler and his throat clearing began to change. First I strongly disliked it. Then I was neutral about it. Finally, it became a meditation bell, gently inviting me back to consciousness and compassion.
I developed a genuine sense of care and love for Tyler. I went from being a villain, pointing anger toward this innocent man, to being a normal, imperfect human trying his best to let go of suffering and open his heart. And I was sort of succeeding, too, which was cool.
9.
On the last night of the retreat, the teacher offered an open format Q&A after the evening meditation.
By now, I was feeling refreshed, spacious, open, and excited to return to the world.
I was also feeling deepening levels of fondness and care for Tyler, even though I’d never spoken to him. (Apparently that metta thing works…).
He spoke during the Q&A.
With a shaky voice on the verge of tears, he said, “I need help understanding Buddhism’s stance on karma, cancer, and suicide. I have cancer. Did I do this to myself? Is there something in my karma that caused me to get cancer? And what are the karmic repercussions of taking my life? My cancer isn’t easily treatable and I want to end the pain peacefully—either by starving myself or with a willing physician. But I’m afraid the cancer is my karma and that if I end my life prematurely, my karma will be even worse in the next life.”
10.
My heart sunk. I teared up.
Within the sadness I felt relief that my attitude towards Tyler evolved from resenting him to appreciating him before I knew his story. He was dealing with more pain than I could ever imagine. He deserved all the compassion in the world.
If I could take Tyler’s pain away, I would have, and I was devastated that I couldn’t. Still, I felt happy that I could (and can) hold him in my mind and my heart in a way that’s dignified, caring, and beneficial. He deserves that. We all deserve that.
11.
The most important lesson of the retreat, for me, was also one of the simple ones: when I notice that I’m upset with someone or something, that means that I am in pain and I need to be kind to myself first. I need to acknowledge that it sucks that I’m suffering. This human experience is so hard and confusing with its 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows.
But of course, the goal isn’t just to tend to myself. It’s to get to a place where I have an abundance of care so that I can give it to other people too.
So often it seems like people are being difficult intentionally—like they could somehow do better or that they’re choosing to be antagonistic. But of course, that’s rarely the full story. We’re all doing just as well as we can, even if it doesn’t look like much. And in most cases, the challenging people are suffering much more than I am.
The throat clearing that constantly penetrated the silence wasn’t disdain for other people’s experience (obviously). It was a side effect of cancer, and in its own little way, it was a momentary reminder that suicide hadn’t won yet.
I was reminded that the goal is to take care of myself (and let myself be taken care of) so that I can also take care of others. Even if the best I can do is hold someone lovingly in my heart and mind, as it was with Tyler, then I want to be the type of person who does that and I’ll work at it until it becomes my default.
POST SCRIPT
Tyler’s question “Is this uncontrollable pain—cancer—something I did to myself?” deserves our attention. We are living in an age where people often assume too much responsibility for the bad things in their lives and assign too much responsibility in the lives of others, especially with chronic illness and abuse.
How many times have we all heard some new age person or life coach say, “You are responsible for your own reality,” or “You are complicit in the circumstances you claim to dislike.”
Fuck. That.
Speaking as a licensed therapist and someone certified in Buddhist Psychology and teaching meditation, I do not believe that Tyler gave himself cancer.
The world is filled with pain, bad luck, and other people’s bull shit. That stuff is unavoidable. We’re also living in a very sick world that creates countless opportunities for physical and mental illness. Sometimes, we’ve forgotten how to love each other well, especially strangers. Heck, I need reminders, too.
So Tyler and reader, please know that I don’t think your pain and suffering is your fault, especially if it’s as pervasive and intense as cancer, chronic illness, or abuse. Pain is an unavoidable part of the human condition, and my heart hopes that you find a compassionate path out of the suffering in this lifetime. You deserve that. Until then, I’ll be practicing metta for you.