Cowboy Cottage
Cattle Pasture, East Napa, California, USA
April 6, 2025
"Miracles
are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of
miracles:they
are by somebody who can
love
and who shall be continually reborn,a human being;somebody who said to
those near him,when
his fingers
would not hold a brush 'tie it to my hand'--"
American football
aka
"gridiron" football,
is grueling. I've never played it. But I've watched it on TV, and it
looks grueling. What I have played is the British version
aka "rugby". To be sure, rugby is grueling too. But given its extra
astute rules which protect any player not in possession of
the ball, it's a lot safer.
I was once in an
American footballlocker room,
listening as
the coach
addressed players dealing with residual, ongoing physical discomfort
resulting from playing the game. He asked them to share what they had
going on in that regard. "I have an ache in my knee, a pain in my
elbow, and pain in my left hip" said one. "I have a constant ache in my
ankle, pain in the right side of my ribcage, and an ongoing ache in my
right wrist" said another. "I have stiffness in my lower back, a sharp
pain when I move my neck, and ongoing discomfort from breaking my nose
in a tackle which has never healed properly" said yet a third. "I get
it" said
the coach
whom we all knew had played more football than everyone on the team
combined, "and
I have only one ache in my body.".
"You
have only one ache in your body?
No! Only one!?", the team was incredulous, "after all the
football you've played?". "Only one" he reiterated, "... and today it
started in my arm, and then it moved to my knee, then it moved to my
shoulder, then it moved to my neck, then it moved to my right ankle,
then it moved to my thigh then to my back. True
I have only one ache in my
body"
he said, "but boy! does it ever get around!" (his was a novel way of
putting it).
The way he downplayed his aches, pains, and discomfort was eye-opening.
And it's not that he only plays when he has no aches. Rather it's that
he brings his aches with him when he plays (which isn't a bad way to
look at it really). There's no option to not have aches impact you.
But there is an option to not have them run you. A good friend of mine
with whom I have
the privilege
of visiting now and then, acknowledges aches as
what's so,
and then she simply lets them be. That's how she brings transformation
to her body, and to what happens as our bodies degrade - either through
playing football or just aging.
I tell her "You're
marvelous!".
She knows it. I'm not telling her anything she doesn't know. I want to
ask her what her
secret
is. How does her nearly ninety year old body deal with aging, with
staying active, yet seemingly unphased by its physical degrading as it
grows older? What I get is ie what I start letting in is it's not that
she'll have no aching in her nineties, nor is it that she has a cure, a
balm, an ointment which alleviates any and all aching and discomfort.
It's that she doesn't dwell on them. She lets them be.
They are her body. They are
what's so.
"I feel wonderful today ... but ... I have an ache" is
replaced by "I feel wonderful today ... and ... I have an
ache" which is replaced, straight up, by "I feel wonderful today"
without dwelling on any of her aches at all.
We talk about not dwelling on aches and discomfort ie about not
dwelling on aches and discomfort by complaining about them. Hers is a
deceptively simple way of dealing with them. As she approaches ninety,
there are (and there will be) aches and discomfort. Period. End of
story. Regardless of whether or not we complain about them, they will
be there. Adding complaint about them doesn't make any difference,
changes nothing, and may just prolong them. "Cut out the
complaint" she'll say. And look (I want you to get clear
about this): that's not the same thing as being in denial. What it is,
is just
plain good Zen.
