What do monks and people with locked-in syndrome have in common? Nearly everything. 

Locked-in syndrome is a rare neurologic condition where the person is aware of his surroundings but cannot move any voluntary muscles due to paralysis, except for his eye muscles. The person is fully conscious, however, and is able to communicate sufficiently with eye movements to communicate his basic needs. 

Many people describe this condition as hell. Being paralyzed, but consciously aware of your situation sounds intolerable to most. Unable to scratch your arse, move your torso, or even turn your head sounds terrible. Additionally, communicating slowly with one’s eyes can be frustrating and infuriating - I can understand why people feel this way. 

On the other hand, a monk, or another ultra-spiritual person, essentially seeks out this condition. He prefers to live in a monastery, surrounded by other monks, with little distractions. I imagine the environment is quiet, serene, and isolated. In this monastery, the monks spend many hours sitting motionless, with eyes closed, meditating. They stop moving, stop using their bodies, and allow their inner subconscious experience to consume them. The more experienced one becomes at this practice, the less connected to the outside world one becomes, and the inner experience can become transcendent. In fact, there are reports of teachers hitting their students with sticks while the students are in deep meditation, and the students don’t even flinch, having drawn so deeply inwards that their physical bodies are merely shells for their inner experience. 

This process of achieving enlightenment and spiritual transcendence can take years, or even a lifetime. It is difficult, and requires intense concentration. There are always obstacles and temptations to pull one away from this inner peace and tranquility. Yet, if a monk was to have locked-in syndrome, it would, in many ways, be a helpful situation. No longer tempted by the constant urges or movements of the body, the monk would be forced to turn inwards and succumb to the subconscious experience. A monk, as long as his physical body was cared for fully, might look at locked-in syndrome as a gift, or an opportunity to accelerate his union with god. He could truly focus on his meditative practices without being distracted by the outside world. On the other hand, an athlete would likely view locked-in syndrome as living hell, having lost the most important thing in the world to him: use of his physical body. 

There is no deep meaning inherent in this comparison other than to highlight the concept of perspective. One man’s hell could literally be one man’s heaven. It all depends on perspective.