Transformation in the Operating Room

I survived another surgery! And this time I was not put under general anesthesia, so I was awake and aware through the whole thing. I was mildly terrified by this concept, so I had dosed myself up with Rescue Remedy and prepared a Spotify playlist of healing mantras to play for myself through my earbuds during the procedure. But it turned out that my earbuds weren’t working, so one of the nurses offered to play the playlist in the operating room. I wasn’t expecting this, and part of me wondered if the music would be either too sedative for the surgeon and staff, or too weird, or both. Not everyone is accustomed to the very low tones of a Tibetan monk chanting a Medicine Buddha mantra, after all. And the sedation was meant for me, not for a group of people with tiny scalpels in their hands. But those wonderings went away as soon as the mantras began playing over the speakers.

Most of the music on the playlist was Tibetan: Ani Choying, Lama Gyurme, Tenzin Chogyal (whose voice always seems to run straight down my central channel and purify EVERYTHING), plus other singers of Tibetan mantras. The surgery took about 90 minutes and there was a tent-like sheet separating me from the surgeon and his team. I could hear everything but not see. I imagined the tent was a vajra tent; I imagined that all of us were surrounded with this diamond-like shield of blessings and protection. Meanwhile, the mantra music flowing from the speakers somehow transformed everything into a temple. I could feel the tone in the room shift, and soon there was the sort of quiet that usually comes with awe. And concentration. And deep presence. Surgery is an art. Medicine, at its best, is a also a healing ritual. While an expertly trained man sliced open my left hand, I was quietly (as in internally) singing along to The Four Immeasurables. Then the Medicine Buddha mantra. In a way, I was an active participant in the surgery, rather than just a knocked-out body. It felt, strangely, like a privilege. And it was a privilege to be receiving medical care from such a prominent team (unlike the schlocky care I received at Northern Dutchess right after the accident last year...)

Soon I found myself filling with such profound gratitude for this team of doctors; such a profound love for everyone, for the world, that I actually wondered for a second what kind of drugs they had injected into me. “Did you give me Valium?” I asked the surgeon. (We had discussed that prior to the surgery, but I was pretty sure I had declined.) “No,” he answered from behind the curtain and resumed his art.

And how silly of me to think that the rising joy I felt was artificially induced. It’s true that I have not felt much joy lately (too much stress and too much Fascism can get in the way of daily bliss) but those of us who chant regularly will recognize this particular intoxicant: Gratitude. Divinity. Love.

Another recording of a long Tibetan healing mantra came up in the queue. Some piano and Bansuri flute played by friends of mine. A beautiful esraj played by another friend. I could see the woman monitoring my vitals swaying along to the music at her laptop, and I could hear some of the attending nurses humming along. Even my surgeon was humming. “What is she singing?” I heard my surgeon asking the PA. “What are the words?”

Throught the tent, I told them the mantra and recited each syllable slowly and told them what the benefits of the mantra were. We were at the sewing-me-back-up phase at that point, and I could occasionally feel the pinch of a needle passing through skin. I am normally very needle-phobic, but the surgeon was now chanting the mantra along to the music. It sounded like a few of them were. All of us together in the vajra tent; all of us joined in receiving blessings. I imagined that each poke of the needle was a tiny pinprick of mantra, of healing. It all felt extraordinarily sacred and ceremonial, and I don’t think I am the only one who felt it.

Who can explain? Every moment can be sacred because, actually, every moment is sacred, especially if we take that view.

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