Natural Cures for Constipation and Diarrhea. (Don’t Try These at Home!)
Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2007
by e
Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation
It was 1981 and my wife and I were living at a monastery in the remote jungles of Northeast Thailand practicing as a Buddhist monk and nun . . . and Janet was having problems stomaching the coarse food.
With only one meal in the morning and no further food permitted the rest of the day, she couldn’t get enough to eat. I stayed away from the grasshoppers, raw fish, and insect eggs myself, but loved the rice and bananas — I could easily have survived on sticky rice and bananas! But Janet couldn’t, or at least she didn’t think that she could, and her situation only worsened.
Becoming desperate, she finally scrunched up enough courage to speak with the abbot, who was known to be harsh with whomever he considered to be a crybaby! The abbot patronizingly summoned another monk (two monks must be present when speaking to a woman), and impatiently listened to Janet’s sad story.
“Three months without shitting!" He exclaimed. “Please, I have gone six months without shitting. Don't eat anything and go drink your urine. End of discussion."
Janet was not a happy camper. Not only was she starving and beginning to look like a skeleton, but she might have to drink her pee too!
As one could imagine, she tried everything — all kinds of remedies first, but to no avail. Then, reluctantly, out of desperation, she finally did as he suggested; she closed her nose and eyes and . . . down the hatch!
Surprise! It wasn’t as bad as she imagined . . . a little salty perhaps, and within a few days, lo and behold . . . success. And she soon learned not only that eating only bananas and sticky rice will bind you up tighter than a drum, but that the bitter leafy vegetables had better be eaten as well to make you go, like them or not. But this episode was only a prelude of what was to come for my training partner.
While my best-friend-ever was having constipation problems, my tribulations were, as usual, on the opposite end of the scale. Late one night, in the middle of the jungle in my little hut, I awoke from a dream — that I was sled riding — only to find myself sliding around on my little bamboo mat that served as my bed on the hardwood floor!
“This is strange," I thought, “what could I be sliding in?" I felt around, and it was as if my mat was covered with mayonnaise! I lit my lantern to see what the heck was so slippery, and immediately wished I hadn’t. The green, slimy, horrible mess covered the entire floor of my little hut, my mat, and me! I was covered in poop. The dysentery came on like a thief in the night and didn’t even wake me up.
The forest was pitch-black that time of night when all kinds of things crawl around, and with no convenient change of clothes (a monk is only allowed a waistcloth antaravasaka, an upper robe uttarsanga, and outer robe sanghati), and no bathroom to clean up in, I made my way to an outhouse a quarter mile away, where I spent another hour or so squatting away in the blackness.
When I was finally cleaned out for the moment, I took some detergent, that was always available in the outhouses to clean up with, and made my way another quarter mile to the well, where I cleaned my robes as best I could.
I smelled to high heaven the next morning, wearing the wet robes on alms round, but the Thai villagers understood these things, and I even received more than usual in my bowl that day!
But the diarrhea didn’t go away. Two weeks later, I was still afraid to fall asleep and this nightly nightmare began taking its toll. I became weaker and weaker, and frankly tired of living in the outhouse, so I finally broke down and reluctantly went to my intolerant-to-those-who-are-sick abbot for help — and he surprised me! He asked a villager to fetch some honey and bananas, and then instructed me to eat only honey and bananas exclusively for a week.
It was great the first day, but boy can you get sick of honey and bananas quickly, and who in their right mind would believe that honey and bananas could cure dysentery? I certainly didn’t.
But within a week, the honey and bananas, or something, did of course cure the dysentery, and I wouldn’t have been disappointed to never see a banana or honey again, or an outhouse!
(The above is an excerpt from “ The Vow, Secrets of a Buddhist Monk and Nun — In Search of the Seven Freedoms" a memoir that Janet and I are presently working on.)
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E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)e, you keep suggesting people try meditating. if a person has to go through all the crap you have to go through to be a successful meditator. I can see how you get little results from your readers.You're a comedian David!
Thanks again for the great rating!
Best.............e
On a serious note e, do you think a person like me could benefit from meditating? I told you of that one episode I had when I seen a vision of Buddha. however I wasn't trying to meditate. also how could meditating resolve the issues of the world unless some higher power directed you to act in a specific way. As far as benefiting personally I believe I could benefit from a good night sleep just as well. What I'm trying to say is just simply Why?Hi Dave, do we have to get serious? (heh,heh). From Janet's and my experience, you have to be really searching for answers before you can seriously meditate. If what you are doing is working for you, which is your Christianity, I would suggest that you deepen it. Do it completely and all the way, perhaps beginning with St. Teresa of Avila's book, "Interior Castle." By reading it, you can determine where you are at regarding your spiritual life. Our experience was that we had no idea that meditation would help, actually, we were just hiding out in a Zen monastery in California in 1979, and had to meditate in order to stay there! We had no idea of the power of just sitting quietly, which, surprisingly, accidentally changed our entire lives! Once we got a taste of meditation and what it can reveal, it's kind of like the feeling a soldier has fighting for his or her country, we were willing to risk our lives for what we knew to be the only thing that was important to us, and that is unbridled freedom, not from an oppressor, but from ourselves. It takes that kind of committment, I believe, otherwise we should probably do something else! Does this make sense? Be well............e
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