Sick on Vacation: Turning Disappointment Into Compassion and Love

​Sayulita, Mexico

I am sitting on this faded red tile deck in the heart of Sayulita. The central square is only a couple of hundred feet away. A few feet from me Jennifer is sipping her morning coffee.  One could paint a picture of a relaxing vacation in an exotic spot, with the ocean nearby and great ease. It looks idyllic doesn’t it?   Reality is more complex. There is a lot of noise in the street below and around us. There is a lot of construction nearby and often a rather huge and noisy truck passes by with clouds of diesel fumes.  There are lots of motorcycles, cars and golf carts as well.  Sayulita has become a significant spring break destination and until Saturday night the music from the clubs was LOUD until 3 AM. 
 
This trip has been a teaching in acceptance and disappointment. As Ruth said so many times, “Dahlink there is always a leak in the canoe”. 
 
We have been quite sick. On our second day here both of us began to feel unwell, and it quickly became intense GI illness with vomiting and diarrhea and remarkable and profound fatigue.  As days have passed we have discovered that there is a great deal of GI illness among both visitors and locals
 
Early on I remembered an old joke: “The last time I was afraid I would live was when I had food poisoning”. I remembered this while embracing the bowl and dry heaving.  What an experience of being in a body that is out of control and is taking care of business that is!
 
Around day three we experienced some humor around the fatigue. We wanted to change the sheets. There were clean ones on a chair beside the bed. All it would take would be to get up, pull off the old ones, stretch the new bottom sheet in place on the king size bed and then lay out the top sheet. We talked about it then napped a couple of times to gather our strength. Finally we did a count down. At zero we made heroic efforts and in just a few minutes we had the bed made. Then we collapsed for more napping.  
 
While lying here and surviving the days of feeling weak, nauseated and malaise I ponder, “where is the joy in this?
 
In all these decades of meditation practice I have long known how to “turn inward, toward the pain. Make the experience of pain the primary object and observe how dukkha is created not by the pain but by the resistance to it. Let the pain become the teacher of anicca, dukkha and anatta.” 
 
I can’t imagine how life would be without this liberating strategy.  And yet….where is the joy?
 
When I got well enough to leave the house I experienced one outcome of the retreat into illness. Everywhere I looked I experienced compassion for every person.  Whether they were serving coffee in a restaurant, carrying a surfboard toward the beach, setting up to sell their wares in the plaza or carrying a load of sheetrock, I felt love and compassion for every person as they made their way through these moments. I knew that inside they were experiencing dukkha and that they were vulnerable at any moment to becoming sick as I was or worse. Hmmmm these words are woefully inadequate. What am I trying to say? Being sick had changed me. It reminded me of my utter vulnerability and of the degrees of pain and suffering that are one bacterium away. It resulted in my heart being open and kind. Also in a certain cherishing the beauty of these people, each in their own way making their way through a human lifetime. 
 
That was another touching and odd part of the refined or honed perception arising out to the suffering. It was apparent that the bodies making their way through the world were not “who” was there. Something animated and brought life to those bodies. We were/are all visitors, travelling around in our earth-suits. Mostly we believe that we are these suits and the thoughts and emotions that consume us. Even a trace of freedom from identification with the stories and sensations and perceptions of our lives is where the mystery lives. 

Robert Beatty

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