by Brie Hines
Colorado Springs, Colo.
Illness struck at the worst time—amid a global summit within my first few months on the job. Business partners had flown in from around the world, and I was expected to befriend them. But I could hardly move; overnight, I’d lost feeling in my legs.
Six months earlier, I’d scored a huge break: a well-paying job in the arts in Colorado Springs, where I promptly moved with my partner. But here I was, just months in, ducking the offended looks of my colleagues, slipping into deserted corner rooms, overwhelmed by waves of fatigue that nearly knocked me off my feet. It was in panic and humiliation that I sought time off to seek a diagnosis. In two weeks I had one: multiple sclerosis, or “MS” for short, a chronic, progressive and “invisible” neurological disease. “You don’t look sick,” people said when they found out, usually when I had to explain a moment of fatigue, imbalance or brain fog.
Every day, for nearly two years, I lived like this, embarrassed and afraid, catastrophizing about my health and everything else—because there was plenty else that was going on.
Just before my move to Colorado Springs, my father was imprisoned in Lubbock, Texas, leaving me to care for my grandma and grandpa. I made monthly trips to Lubbock to see them as their health declined, working nights so I could care for them by day, an arrangement continually negotiated with my boss. In everything I felt on the defensive, in the red, asking for sympathy I hadn’t “earned,” for the person least qualified to receive it—me, a newcomer, a stranger. Even for the one person who really did know me, I felt I was asking too much. Exhausted every time I came home, I plopped on the couch, speechless while my partner tried, fruitlessly, to engage in conversation.
What if I lose my job? I wondered in a daze. What if I lose my insurance and can’t support my family? And how would this affect my marriage?
In 2018, my grandma did, indeed, die, followed soon after by my grandpa. In January 2019, I lost my job, and it was exactly the blow you’d imagine. This Buddhist practice came at the best possible time—my partner found it searching online for an active meditation practice.
We began chanting together, enjoying the rhythm and feeling. Cautious, I attended an SGI-USA youth gathering in March, wary of religions, having grown up in a highly stringent one. The people disarmed me, though—they were warm and high-spirited, their message beautiful and strong—captured, essentially, in that old adage “We are the change we wish to see in the world.” The consistent, costly, outspoken anti-war stance of all three founding presidents of the SGI impressed me, as did the efforts made by Ikeda Sensei to ease global tensions through dialogue. I began chanting for what I needed most—a job—and secured one by May as an optician.
By August, I’d even signed with my partner on a home and that same month received the Gohonzon. For me, it was just in time; within a year, Colorado went into lockdown, and the pandemic took its toll on everyone.
At work, colleagues and patients struggled alike. I was in the Kayo core, studying the writings of Nichiren Daishonin and the encouragement of Sensei. Often, I still worried: What if? What if? But I took my worries to the Gohonzon and transformed them into prayers and determinations. Rather than plea for a spot of sun through clouds, I decided to be the sunshine to brighten someone’s day. Every day this prayer was put to the test, though certain days, in particular, come to mind.
In 2022, I was called to the front by our receptionist, a young woman in her 20s, whose professional tone could not disguise her panic. I found her there in a kind of argument with a client—he insisting on an operation and she insisting (truthfully) that we could not perform it. One look at him told me he was nearly blind. But that’s not all I saw—beneath the shouting and the rage, I saw someone who was, like my receptionist, afraid. I stepped in.
The gentleman was unhoused, he told me, and having difficulty coordinating a sorely needed cataract surgery. Unfortunately, his demand really was impossible—we could not perform the surgery here—but we could help him find someone who could.
I asked him to sit while I made some calls. We found a relevant, nearby location that took his insurance and scheduled a time that worked for him. He left changed: relieved, grateful, energized.
After, I spoke with my team. “We’re gonna have some people who come in here angry. But that anger is not our anger. It’s not meant for us. It’s anger toward what’s going on in their lives. If we can listen to them, give them the dignity of being heard—if we can see their humanity—they will show us their humanity.” My colleagues seemed relieved to hear it. And so was I. In fact, of everyone in that room, I was likely the one who needed to hear it most. Just months earlier, my partner and I had separated, leaving me with a mortgage I couldn’t pay. In every area of my life, I battled to be the sun.
Every week I took a walk with a friend in faith and talked through everything going on in our lives. Honestly, I don’t remember any particulars, only how I felt: safe, seen and heard—like my struggles were meaningful and would make me strong.
That year, I accepted women’s division leadership for my chapter and, as though the universe were responding to my cause, received a near-simultaneous promotion at work. The promotion brought a sizeable raise—enough for me to keep my home, my “lighthouse” for my community.
In 2023, my colleague, our receptionist—the young woman I mentioned earlier—was struck by a mysterious illness. She asked for time off and reminded me of myself when I’d first begun presenting with MS: panicked and afraid. I asked her to take care of herself and let me know how I could help. “It’s going to be OK,” I added. That’s when she asked me how I could be so sure—how I always seemed so calm. And that’s when I told her about Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Like me, she was cautious at first, but in time began to chant and join her discussion meetings.
Five years have passed since the last major flare-up of my illness. Today, people still tell me, “You don’t look like you have an illness,” but rarely, because I rarely bring it up. The thing is, I really don’t feel like I have an illness. It is just one thing I share now and again with those who need proof of a way forward, who need a spot of light in the dark.
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