True Causes of Suffering; Ambien

Mindful paper shuffling at the Retreat Center again today. Last week, I copied and collated around 2000 pages to arrange into 70 information booklets for the rooms at the Center, failing to work mindfully because of an inner rant about church.

As the week went on I ranted further (my usual topics- medical care, things made in China, wastefulness, etc.) At the same time, back pain was at all-time high levels. It was a pretty bad week.

This Saturday, when I returned to my 2000-sheet project, I learned that I had to rearrange a number of sheets in each packet from the collation I had done last week. Surprisingly, this neither agitated me, nor made mindfulness difficult.

In retrospect, I see the reason. Enlightenment, it was not. The week before, I had begun a prescription for Ambien so that I could fall asleep in spite of pain. It was a godsend, I thought, because I could drop off like clockwork instead of the usual insomnia. And 8-9 hours of sleep is unheard of for me.

But uncharacteristically bad pain in the afternoon, and daily rants began to make me suspicious, so I googled around. Sure enough, these are side-effects for a small percentage of folks. Those who wrote, echoed my experience exactly. So I reconciled myself to insomnia, quit the Ambien, and I am on a more even keel.

This is not the first chapter in my story of drug intolerance. (ref. 1.25.08 post). This week's experience recalls the revelation of "A Resilient Biology" from my last retreat (ref. 2.13.08 post). I am thinking that much we ascribe to the spiritual really arises from the physical, though it is experienced or attributed otherwise. How much suffering could we alleviate from our lives by correct attribution, resulting in correct steps to alleviate actual causes?