the Zen of Pain Management

I do not know if you have watched the movie - or DVD - of The Aviator. In this movie, there is a scene - based on a true Hughsism - in which he dictates into an audio recorder the procedure for purchasing and delivering a quart of milk from the store. The point is, that unless the procedure is followed, the milk must be returned to the store and the entire procedure repeated again.

Well, the last three days in the hospital, I had oatmeal, banana, and soy milk for breakfast. So to focus on the external, and avoid any 'pain' medication whatsoever, I came up with a procedure.

1) The banana must be sliced into 18 to 24 slices of 1/4" each.
2) The banana slices must be evenly placed in a circle on top of the oatmeal.
3) the soy milk...

If the procedure is not followed, then the banana slices must be returned to the banana skin. The reassembled banana must then be put in a paper bag and returned to the store.

Now the background of the banana is this. They give you a fairly strong diuretic to reduce water retention and swelling. And this diuretic can dangerously reduce an electrolyte - potassium - in your blood. Aside from popping another pill, you can restore the potassium by eating, for example, bananas and/or melons.

OF COURSE, I was kidding and the a.m. nurse got a real chuckle out of the episode (which I repeated on Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning). BTW, have you ever attempted to uniformly slice a banana with a plastic knife... (?) Silly to the point of the ridiculous.

By moving my focus to the supposed procedure of slicing my banana methodically, I attenuated the sense of self to the point there was NO PAIN whatsoever. To keep the nursing staff happy, I said on a 1 - 10 scale that my pain level was about three (which it wasn't - there was no pain).

That is one of the purposes of koan practice - to attenuate "self."

In so doing, you are able to focus your attention on something external - like tea, a garden, medicinal herbs, and things which can mitigate the pain and suffering of others.