Saturday, August 16, 1997

The beginning of the end of disease

By MICHAEL O'CONNOR / Abilene Reporter-News

Feeling any better these days? If so you might want to send a thank you note to the Tonglen Foundation in California.

Seems they, whoever they are, decided the eighth day of the eighth month would be a perfect time to begin the end of disease. So they issued a press release, which probably brought on the story I read in USA Today while on vacation last week, calling us to join them in a "Sacred Ceremony signaling the beginning of the end of dis-ease."

What was supposed to happen was that groups of eight people would gather and participate in a ceremony the foundation has posted on its web site. The ceremonies were to take place simulataneously at 7:30 p.m. PDT. No explanation was offered as to why that time was chosen instead of 8 p.m., especially since eight seems to be the mystical number.

The ceremony is an incredible piece of work, and I don't mean this to be complimentary. Candles were to be used, symbolizing the power of light that is "the healing presence in each of us that counters all fear and doubt. After the candles were lit, participants were to walk around in a circle eight times, then sit on the ground and meditate for eight minutes.

The next item on the agenda was for participants to name and honor people they knew who had died. As each dear departed is named he or she is invited into the circle and the participants' willingness to feel love for the departed fully "will include them in the possibility of a world without disease." Silly me, I thought when you died you were already in a world without disease.

Personal faults, called fragments, are then named by each participant, and these fragment are symbolically added to the fire (presumably the candle flame) adding both warmth to the fire and burning off participants' limitations.

Loved ones and aquaintances who suffer from disease are named next, which also pulls them into the circle. They are invited to shed disease as a butterfly sheds a cocoon. Participants next forgive disease. Forgive me for not understanding the mumbo jumbo that explained the need for this action.

Finally participants were to make a commitment to ending disease, grounding this commitment in their candles, which are then allowed to burn themselves out. This was to symbolize that the commitments made would burn until disease ceased to exist. After the candle burned out, they were to be wrapped in a red cloth and buried. The groups were to join hands at the end, acknowledging their unity with each other and the world, until the leader nods to conclude. I suppose you would have to hope the leader doesn't become so enraptured with all this warmth and healing that he or she forgets to nod. The day after these ceremonies were to have taken place, I woke up a bit sore from having been on the road the day before and a bit stuffy from living in a small, county town where the multitude of growing plants wreak havoc on my allergies. I thought about the Tonglen Foundation's efforts, then took some aspirin and an antihistamine. About 20 minutes later I felt better. I guess the foundation's ceremony worked.

Michael O'Connor is Online Editor for the Abilene Reporter-News and is an ordained United Methodist minister. He can be reached online at religion@abinews.com.