The Healing Power of Zen
by Jim Bedard
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Amazon.com
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Shambhala,
1999
Softcover,
160 pages
Reviewed by ANNA OLSON
IT'S IRONIC that the cover describes this as a book for people "interested in natural, alternative, and transpersonal ways of healing." Transpersonal, yes: we learn about the power of faith, mental discipline, chanting and prayer. Natural and alternative healing—noooo. All we glean here are the debilitating and often deadly side effects of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants.
In August of 1995, while still only in his early forties, Jim Bedard was suddenly stricken with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). On the day he was diagnosed, Bedard suggested to his doctor he'd like to look into alternatives to chemotherapy. The doctor bluntly replied that without chemo Bedard would only have about seven to ten days to live, "and Jim, don't kid yourself. There will not be a good day among them."
The Bethany, Ontario businessman caved in. He towed the orthodox medical line. In spite of the horrific side effects that followed during his year long medical ordeal, he never once asked: "Do you suppose there might be a better way?" A more apt title might have been, How Zen Helped Me to Recover From the Horrors of Modern Medicine.
Bedard doesn't skimp on the gruesome details.
"Alongwith the chemotherapy," he graphically recounts, "I was also being given blood and platelets. My temperature was rising fast and I began to experience rigors—convulsive, tremor-like spasms—caused by my body's reaction to the platelets. At times the rigors became so bad that it seemed as if I were going to jump right out of my bed." Bedard contracted double pneumonia and almost needed defibrillation. He developed a systemic infection requiring intravenous antibiotics. Breathless, he was put on oxygen and then a respirator. His lungs bled; his blood pressure was abnormal; liver tests results were ominous; his kidneys were failing—and his cheeks were so swollen, his nose seemed to disappear. It was the first of many times Bedard would look death in the face.
At first, Bedard was more than willing to passively serve his medical death sentence. But Bedard had been a practicing Zen Buddhist for 20 years, having originally trained with the famous Zen master Roshi Philip Kapleau. Sunyana-sensei, Bedard's teacher at the time of his life-and-death crisis, had other ideas for her student.
"Yourfamily needs you! The sangha [Buddhist community] needs you! I need you! You must promise me that you will fight, and when and if the time comes to choose, you will choose life. Your work here is not over yet!"
With four young children
and a wife to worry about leaving behind, Bedard chose life. He determined
to fight for it with all the mental discipline he had acquired in his years
of studying and practising Zen Buddhism and karate (Bedard is a fifth degree
back belt).
"Leukemia," Bedard concludes his odyssey, "has left me a gift for which I am immensely grateful: the resolve to examine my own thoughts, words, and deeds carefully and to try to live each day in harmony with all sentient beings."
Bedard describes his change of heart: "I can do this! I thought. Whether I live or die, I must not lose sight of my true Mind. Now is my chance to test it in fire. . . .Storms may come and go, I thought, but the sky remains undisturbed."
Bedard "vowed to try to stay centered." And he sought comfort from chanting: "I knew that chanting would help me more than anything else in dealing with my overwhelming thoughts and emotions."
It did more than that. Kapleau enlarged a photograph of Bedard and circulated copies widely so that friends and Zen devotees could chant for him. "Roshi," Bedard writes, "knew well how effective such services are in helping others. . . .'Our fundamental Mind is not limited by time or space,' he often said."
Eventually, through some combination of the spiritual power of faith and love and the brute power of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation, Bedard achieved a complete remission from AML less than one year from the beginning of his journey.
Bedard wrote this account as an act of gratitude to Sensei for all her spiritual and emotional help. She had refused to accept a financial donation from her student. Instead, she asked him to write about his experience: his pain, his faith, his recovery.
"Leukemia," Bedard concludes his odyssey, "has left me a gift for which I am immensely grateful: the resolve to examine my own thoughts, words, and deeds carefully and to try to live each day in harmony with all sentient beings."
A personal note: I always knew that the side effects of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation are very painful. But I didn't know how much until I read Lotus in the Fire. It may not have been Bedard's intention, but I'm more inspired than ever to continue advocating for alternative medicine.
order it
from Amazon.com
or Amazon.ca
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