Thank you very much, Celine, for this opportunity to share my experience and joy of faith. I also want to express my deepest appreciation for everyone’s prayers and daimoku throughout my ordeal. I felt your beautiful support and I wholeheartedly and openly and enthusiastically received it.
Sensei often says, “The mystic law is perfect. All we have to do is tell others and create unity.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, I did an amazingly stupid thing. On March 11, the day before WHO declared the pandemic, Yoshiko and I flew to Spain, at the time the worst hit country. That was not my stupidist: I also convinced a elderly, frail, friend from Melbourne, who does not travel well, to join us in Spain. And Andrea left for London a few days before. She also was to meet us. Oy.
As we landed in Barcelona my smart phone filled with messages cancelling all our travel and business plans and meetings. We went directly into total lock-down in a tiny Catalan village. The next day Andrea messaged me, “Trudeau says come home.”
But we could not come home until we made sure our Australian friend was safe and on her way. We could not leave her stranded.
A few days later we managed to put her on a plane. Now, how to get ourselves home? Westjet booked us on a flight from Paris for March 20. But how could we get to Paris? By that time Spain's borders were closed. All buses, trains, planes, even boats, out of Spain were cancelled. The only way we could think of was to keep our rental car and drive one way. We did not know what would happen at the border, if we would be allowed into France. No one could tell us. The Canadian Consulates in Madrid and Paris did not know. I contacted a friend who works at the French foreign ministry. Even he did not know. I read on the Internet that to go anywhere in France, even pick up groceries, people had to have special documents. We had no documents, special or normal. Just two Canadians driving a Spanish car through the shutdown.
We could not think of any other way to get home and we did not want to stay locked in the village. So Yoshiko drove to Paris. It took two days and nights. Even though we could not stop anywhere, it was a wonderful drive, a memorable road trip. Finally we came home on Westjet’s second to last flight out.
At home we have four small businesses. Of course, all our business was cancelled. But we were home and dry. So we were happy. I was fine staying home and baking bread. I thought, “Toda-sensei attained enlightenment alone in a prison cell. My situation is pretty darn good.”
But as a disciple of Ikeda-sensei, I could not remain content. After all, the whole world is on fire, just as the Lotus Sutra states. How can I be content among so much suffering? I tried to find some way to help others.
I have Crohn’s disease. In July I started getting very sick. I had three distinct symptoms, none of which were like Crohn’s. Nor like Covid. Towards the end of July I went into the Foothills Hospital. My kidneys were failing. At the hospital, they drained over 1600 MLs of urine out of my bladder. They told me a normal bladder is full at 500 MLs. My urine was backing up into my kidneys, destroying them and killing me. I was very sick. I stayed at the Foothills almost two weeks. They stabilized me, made sure I didn’t die. But they did not know what was wrong.
Now the Foothills Medical Centre is one of the world’s largest teaching hospitals. They have everything there - the world's first and most powerful movable MRI machine, the world’s leader in robotic surgery. Everything. The best.
Except they do not have a urology department. In fact, they do not have a urologist. Hundreds of doctors. Dozens of specialties. Not one urologist. When they have a patient like me, which I’m told is common, all they can do is phone the Urology Institute at the Rockyview Hospital and talk to whomever is the urologist on call.
So after 13 days, they sent me home with my kidneys stabilized, symptoms under control, and tubes coming out of places you don’t want tubes coming out.
I waited to get an appointment with a specialist. Home care nurses came to see me and to care for the tubes.
Yoshiko and I read the gosho together about Nichiren alone at Mt Minobu. Nichiren wrote:
There is not a single dwelling other than mine in the area. My only visitors, infrequent as they are, are the monkeys that come swinging through the treetops. And to my regret, even they do not stay for long, but scurry back to where they came from.
Like all of us, Nichiren was in isolation.
Finally I saw a urologist at the Rockyview. He was young and smart and caring and listened to my story in great detail. He used a machine to look inside me.
Surgery was scheduled for October 2, exactly sixty years to the day after Sensei took the first steps for world-wide kosen rufu.
At 6 am on October 2 I chanted with other members including Celine and Erica. Then after Yoshiko woke up we did gongyo and chanted together.
We were waiting to go to the Rockyview, so we did gongyo again, why not, and chanted some more.
Then I did what any reasonable person would. I wrote a poem. I called my poem Surgery Morning Haiku. It goes like this:
Gold leaves in a pile
The surgeon's knife is waiting
This installment ends.
At the Rockyview. I met with the anesthesiologist. He said, we can go one of two ways - we can put you out completely or we can do an epidural, a spinal block. I said, let’s do an epidural. I’ve had good luck with those before. But I have one condition, I said. You have to keep me awake. I want to be awake for everything. He said he would try but the meds are very powerful; if I keep you awake you will feel quite wonky.
They took away my glasses so I was disoriented. They took me into the operating room. The urologist was there, completely cloaked, and lots of people in full PPE and incredibly high tech stuff. Robotic surgical machines and electronic screens and shiny equipment. It was like a scene from a science fiction movie. They were preparing for me, moving together smoothly. I wasn't moving at all.
The urologist said, now you are going to feel wonky. Like Morpheus said to Nero.
I started feeling really disoriented, really wonky. It was like a scene where the hero is abducted by aliens and they take him somewhere and probe him and do horrible things to him. Maybe they take something from him, or maybe they implant something in him. Maybe both.
But I was determined to be present and stay awake. I said to myself, “My name is Keith Robinson. I am a Bodhisattva of the earth. I was born in Vancouver, BC. My name is Keith Robinson. I am a disciple of Ikeda-sensei. I am married to Yoshiko and have two daughters. My name is…” Over and over. I stayed awake and present for the entire operation. I interacted appropriately with the doctors and nurses. They were working very hard but took time to explain everything, answer my questions.
The aliens were transformed. They became beautiful Buddhas helping me and transforming me and healing me.
It was remarkable.
Thank you all for your prayers and support. I am determined to do my best for the next ten years to contribute to the happiness of others and the development of our movement.
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Waiting for a doctor
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After surgery - Five Guys
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