If This Mind Is Not Tempered in the Affairs of Life, Where Else Can It Be Tempered?
Wang Yangming wrote a line of poetry: "If this mind is not tempered in the affairs of life, where else can it be tempered?" Treating cancer patients is an excellent way to temper the mind. The partings and deaths, the griefs and joys of human life unfold before my eyes every day; no deeply moving television drama or film can match the heartbreak of this real human suffering. Everyone I face—whether grieving or angry, suspicious or trusting, anxious or composed—shows their true feelings in the face of life and death.
Few people truly want to die. Most cancer patients have a powerful will to live, even when they say they have made peace with life and death. Fearing death is no disgrace; as ordinary mortals, cherishing life is an inborn instinct. People who cling to life in the face of cancer are more authentic and reliable. I have treated several monastics, and they too cherished life when cancer came; I see nothing wrong with that.
In recent years I have come to understand and forgive almost everyone, because most people, when cancer strikes, show a disheveled side. What I witness is not their polished moments but their most wretched ones. People of high social standing, once admitted to a cancer ward and treated by an oncologist, are all pitiful souls. Cancer patients are people who are suffering, and so are their families. Facing their pleas and answering their longing, day after day, my heart has gradually been smoothed.
My happiness now is simple. Put some flowerpots on the windowsill, plant vegetables in them, watch the seeds become sprouts and the sprouts grow into vegetables, and I feel content. Growing vegetables and treating patients both require patience. When a seed does not sprout or a seedling grows slowly, one must not be anxious but carefully find and solve the problem; when a patient does not respond to medication, or responds imperfectly, one must not be anxious but slowly adjust the prescription; when a patient's condition worsens and emotions are collapsing, one must not be anxious but slowly comfort them and find ways to ease their physical and mental suffering.
I have met many people who did not trust me, but I do not blame them. I simply end the exchange as quickly as possible so they can go find the oncology expert they trust. I understand their distrust: entrusting one's life to another person requires great affinity and courage. Insufficient trust first reflects insufficient mutual understanding and insufficient affinity.
Some cancer patients or their families have even hurled inexplicable filth and abuse at me, but I do not grow angry; I simply meet it in silence. Everyone's life is hard; surely they have endured many misfortunes, and the enormous pressure of cancer has filled their hearts with resentment that bursts out at any opportunity. Or perhaps some principle we take for granted crossed their bottom line, igniting a nameless fury that demands release. Having chosen work related to cancer, one must accept all of this.
The real human world has never been perfect. If it were perfect, the cells of our multicellular bodies would not make mistakes in reproduction, and there would be no such disease as cancer. Affairs temper the mind; it is not the affairs that are wrong, but the mind. In its childish state the mind is always full of unrealistic fantasies, and affairs show us how absurd those fantasies are. The more we experience, the deeper our understanding, and the more at peace our mind becomes.
Medicine is one of the fields richest in disagreement, and disputes over medical matters are innumerable. What patients and families believe or doubt has deep roots. A person's education, environment, experiences, relationships, finances, and the tenor of public opinion all profoundly shape their view of medicine. Some patients and families even feel they know better than their doctors, and that is understandable. When disagreement arises, it is best to hold to the principle that silence is golden. Arguments and debates cannot change a person's view of a medical issue; silence perhaps can, perhaps cannot, but silence at least cools people down, whereas debate only inflames emotions, and inflamed emotions only entrench the stubborn.
The phrase "understandable and pardonable" has been deeply imprinted on my mind; whenever anything disappoints me, I console myself with these four words. If you had seen how parents exhaust themselves to save their children, how children spare no effort to hold on to their parents' lives, how partners weep at a loved one's suffering, how the elderly would rather die than burden their children, I believe you would not be hard-hearted either. Facing people who have run out of road, one is always willing to forgive all their behavior.
Long ago a patient's family member thought I knew a great deal of Buddhism and begged me to chant and perform some ritual to improve the spirits of her theistic mother. I was angry at the time, because I am an atheist, trained in science and engineering, and devout to science; I dislike charlatanry and would not even exaggerate efficacy to comfort people, let alone perform spirit-possession rituals. Now I feel ashamed. A physician must recognize that we ourselves are a walking placebo; when patients need us to become their medicine and soothe their hearts, it is acceptable to play along appropriately—especially when the patient's family begs us to.
Sometimes I feel that my greatest value lies not in how much pain I relieve but in the fact that, with me present, patients no longer fear death and disease. A cancer diagnosis often plunges a person's emotions into an abyss. Having a caring doctor to help them climb out again and again, gather strength, and move on is enough. Who escapes death? To face death without being tormented by fear into a living hell is already very good.
Voltaire said that doctors make people cheerful, and that nature cures disease. This should not be read as mockery of doctors but as a correct definition of their function. If a doctor can give a patient enough confidence to overcome illness, miracles sometimes happen. It is God who cures; doctors are merely the bridge between God and the patient.
Create affinity, embrace affinity, cherish affinity, and let affinity go. A physician's mission and the purpose of studying medicine lie in easing the physical and mental suffering of patients and their families, and to achieve this we must rely on affinity. Affinity is not water without a source: doctors must create it with patients, cherish it once formed, but never force it, holding an attitude of letting things take their course.
Finally, we must keep a broom, constantly sweeping away the emotional rubbish that gathers in our own minds. Medical outcomes often disappoint; in clinical work, many negative emotions can overwhelm us—a patient we fought hard to save dies sadly, or dedicated work is constantly misunderstood. This is why the rate of depression among medical staff is so high. We must learn to sweep away this emotional rubbish at all times, ensuring our own physical and mental health; only when we are healthy can we work longer in the post of guarding health.
Tempering the mind through affairs and disciplining it in response to circumstances, over time the mind becomes clear as a mirror, reflecting things as they truly are, no longer obscured by ignorance nor trapped in craving, anger, and delusion. In the end, practicing medicine and the Buddha's awakening follow different roads to the same destination; when the tempering is done, it is nothing more than the word "harmony."