tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39650762192350863042024-03-10T20:24:03.381-07:00The Buddha Diaries<strong>... getting to the heart of the matter... </strong>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.comBlogger2793125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-5404338200975715012021-12-04T08:35:00.000-08:002021-12-04T08:35:12.082-08:00RIGHTS--AND WRONGS<p> Dear Harry,</p><p>I have written to you before of my distress about the political and social culture of my adoptive country. Imagine, now, a father buying his 15-year old son a semi-automatic pistol--for a <i>Christmas present!</i> Imagine the son posting a picture of his new toy on social media and describing it as his "new beauty." Imagine the mother of that son taking him out the next day for target practice at a shooting range. Imagine those parents being called in to the school when their son is discovered making a drawing of shooting victims and appending a big grin of approval, and even then refusing to take him out of school. Imagine, hours later, that son pulling out his pistol and shooting numbers of his classmates--four of them fatally.</p><p>Can you even begin to imagine such events, Harry? Over here they come as a shock but no surprise. The worship of guns is pandemic here in America, the political protection of guns owners and the industry that supplies them with weapons is sacrosanct. The terrible, persistent occurrence of tragedies such as this one is apparently no deterrent to a political culture that cowers before the fanaticism of a relatively small number of gun owners and their addiction to a "freedom" they believe is guaranteed by the Constitution. </p><p>As with the current deadly epidemic and the stubborn refusal of millions of Americans to follow the most simple, elementary precautions that could stop it in its tracks, it comes down to the question of individual rights. What I learned from you and from the social environment in which I was raised is that those rights come with the responsibility to observe the rights of others. My choices necessarily affect the lives of those with whom I co-exist. If I insist on remaining unvaccinated and not wearing the recommended mask, I will be the one who passes on disease to my fellow-citizens, resulting quite possibly in their death. Guns in the hands of demented, ill-adjusted teenagers result in the deprivation of life and liberty for those they harm or kill. </p><p>Yet a significant number of we Americans--and yes, Harry, as you well know, I am one now--continue to assert their individual rights without regard for those of others. Witness, too, the years-long attack on abortion rights. I know you'd hate the notion of abortion. But I'm equally sure you would share my view that the right to make one's own choices should not extend to determining the right of others to make theirs.</p><p>Most of the people I know are those who share my view, and I like to believe that the majority of my countrymen and women view the insanity around us with dismay. We are held hostage by a political system that has ceased to work, as intended, "for the people." It has been hijacked by a ruthless and fanatical minority; and it needs to be reformed, if the country is ever to be better served by an effective, rational, and compassionate government.</p><p>Sorry to bother your eternal rest with such inanities! But it's thanks to your own social conscience that such things trouble me as they do.</p><p>With love, Peter</p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-3375886729191591342021-11-30T08:10:00.003-08:002021-11-30T08:11:18.375-08:00REDIRECT<p> If you happen to still be turning to The Buddha Diaries once in a while, please be aware that I'm now posting (similar content!) at my new blog, "<a href="https://revharryc.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Dear Harry</a>." Please join me there!</p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-15612610658534695972021-07-14T08:33:00.002-07:002021-07-14T08:33:31.295-07:00YOU ARE INVITED...!<p> No more entries in The Buddha Diaries. BUT...</p><p>... please go instead to my new blog, now in progress, <a href="https://revharryc.blogspot.com/">DEAR HARRY: Letters to My Father</a>, where I'm still "getting to the heart of the matter."</p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-88284020799701422942021-07-02T11:03:00.003-07:002021-07-02T11:03:50.274-07:00LAST POST<p>I have decided that, after 2,854 posts since 31 January, 2007, The Buddha Diaries has run its course. Its predecessor, <a href="http://thebushdiaries.blogspot.com/2004/12/truly-happy-new-year.html">The Bush Diaries</a> (the link is to the last entry) was a high-spirited, light-hearted political blog (it called itself "irreverent") that started at the time of the reelection of George W Bush in 2004. Like most liberal-minded people, I was unhappy with Bush, but it's true that he seems relatively benign when compared with the man who until recently occupied the White House--and still claims he belongs there!</p><p>I left The Bush Diaries behind after realizing that I was "waking up with Bush in bed with me every morning." The Buddha Diaries was intended as a return to sanity, a place to explore my growing interest in Buddhist teaching and applying it to my life. The blog remained an important part of my life for many years, and I say goodbye to it with both gratitude and sadness. And, be it said, in truth, with a sense of relief. Having posted daily, or nearly daily for all those years, I have been feeling some guilt for my neglect in recent months. </p><p>There is also the feeling that I have somehow said my say with The Buddha Diaries, and I'm looking for a different venue, a different <i>project</i> to refresh my interest in writing. If interested, you'll find me taking that new direction in a new blog, <a href="https://revharryc.blogspot.com/">Letters to Harry</a>, with the first entry posted today. </p><p>The "Harry" of the title is my father, who died more than a quarter century ago. I felt I never knew him very well. I spent the better part of my childhood years, when I should have been at home, at boarding school. The holidays--two weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter, four weeks in the summer--were brief respites "in the bosom of the family." After school, after university and a couple of years beyond, I left England for good, and the geographical distance between us discouraged further close relationship. </p><p>So "Letters to Harry" is my attempt to reconnect, connect, really, with the man who was instrumental in bringing me into this world, but whom I felt, to my regret, I hardly knew. So my new blog is about the search for love, too, about fathers and sons and their emotional bond--or the need for it, in its absence. And so much more. I'd welcome you to join me...</p><p>Meanwhile, it's goodbye, Buddha Diaries; hello, <a href="https://revharryc.blogspot.com/">Letters to Harry</a>.</p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-90131632898036367012021-06-20T08:11:00.001-07:002021-06-20T08:17:24.613-07:00MY FATHER'S FAITHI always understood the underpinning of my father's religious faith to be rooted in his dedication to deeply-held
socialist values (I use the small "s" advisedly). At the time of my birth, in
the mid-1930s, he was the incumbent of a "slum" parish in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in
the north of England. His flock consisted mainly of the working poor--coalminers
and their families who had a hard time making ends meet. He was not only their
pastoral mentor, he was the vocal advocate for the economic improvement of their
lives. A "high" churchman, he loved ritual and ceremony, but more than these he
loved his pastoral work and the responsibilities he knew came with it.<br><br>
These thoughts occur to me on Father's Day (though there was no such thing in England, when I was growing up...) because I have been reading in the newspaper about the
conference of the Southern Baptist Convention and the very narrow advantage of
the already deeply conservative leadership over their aggressively ultra-conservative
challengers. My father would not have recognized the "Christianity" espoused by
either of these groups. Even accounting for his understanding and
acknowledgement of the psychological and moral complexity of his fellow human beings--and indeed his own!--he would have been hard put to understand the continuing support of these loudly self-professed believers in Jesus and his gospels for a
political leader whose most salient features are his lack of human empathy, his
shameless dishonesty, his incessant lies and his undisputed moral turpitude.<br><br>
More even than this, however, my father would be dismayed by a form of Christianity that lacked compassion for the economically and socially disadvantaged--predominantly people of color in this white-first society. The Southern Baptist
convention was dominated, the newspeper report suggested, by a virulent storm of meretricious outrage
directed at "critical race theory", its intellectual complexities insultingly reduced to the
hated acronym, CRT. If I understand it right, critical race theory embraces an
acknowledgment of the deplorable history of the repression of Black people in
this country and an attempt to address its persistence in the form of
institutional racism with fresh, analytical integrity. In my view, a noble, long overdue and necessary goal.<br><br>
The socialism that my father embraced is widely accepted in Europe as the norm today: a health care system that provides coverage for every citizen, a safety net that addresses the needs of the disadvantaged and the unemployed, a retirement system that assures the security of the aging populations. He would have found it incomprehensible that American working people--and an established curch!--would be so hostile to a form of government that addressed such basic human needs. His reading of the Bible responded to a Christ whose qualities were mercy and compassion, who preached love and abhored hatred and exclusion in all its forms.<br><br>
This is the heritage my father left to me, in the way I view the world. And this is the father's heritage I would wish to leave to my own children and grandchildren. It is no longer, in my case, a heritage of Christian faith, but rather a belief in mutual respect for the dignity of every human being and a sense of shared responsibility for our common welfare, of obligation to do what we can to constantly improve the quality of life for all of us. Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-10812156174609234142021-06-17T11:43:00.001-07:002021-06-17T11:45:16.910-07:00SANGHAI have lapsed in my attendance at what used to be our regular sitting group here in Laguna Beach. Our "sangha", as we used to call it, had been going for many years. I myself joined the group somewhere in the mid-1990s, perhaps 1994 or 1995, in a lovely home surrounded by a lush garden filled with subtropical greenery. We were privileged to have the noted Thanissaro Bhikkhu ("Than Geoff"), abbot of the Metta Forest Monastery down south, as our friend and once-monthly teacher, and it was with his gentle, always humorous guidance that I had my introduction to the dharma.<br><br>
When the owners of that original location moved, a handful of us--six or eight, or sometimes more--continued to meet every Sunday at another location, in the home of one of our long-time members that overlooked the Pacific Ocean through a cluster of elegant eucapyltus trees. Before Covid, our practice was to convene to sit in silence for an hour, then spend the next hour in conversation--whether profound discussion of some aspect of the dharma or the exchange of purely personal experiences in meditation, or sometimes merely a chat about whatever happened to be on our minds. Sometimes even politics!<br><br>
With the arrival of the coronavirus, of course, we could no longer meet in person. It was not long before Zoom came to the rescue in the form of a weekly Sunday venue with a half-hour's sit led by Than Geoff and a dharma talk or question-and-answer session that followed. It seemed initially like a good idea, an adequate, if less-than-ideal substitute for "the real thing," and I joined in on my computer for a few weeks before, first, missing a Sunday here and there, and--though I could not help feeling disappointed in myself--finally opting out altogether.<br><br>
It has been a long time now since I sat with the group. It was now much larger, with people from many different parts of the country, it seemed, all lovely faces in those little rectangular boxes--page after page of them--very few of whom I recognized. I found myself missing the intimacy and the sense of community in our little sangha, the communal act of breathing--if not quite in unison, than at least all together--in a shared present moment. I came to understand that it was this, much more than a serious dedication to the study of the dharma, that attracted me and assured my commitment to those Sunday sits.<br><br>
More than this, I have come to realize that it was, as much as anything, about love--a profound sense of brotherhood and sisterhood amongst those of us who met each week to share the experience of meditation. The loss has been one of the attendant costs of the plague that has beset us, this past year and more; and I am left wondering, now that the Zoom "parisa"--no longer, now, a "sangha"--is established, whether we shall ever return to what we had before. As I approach my 85th birthday now, in little more than a month, I realize how keenly I am feeling that loss--and how much I treasure the less dharma-oriented group I have assembled in our Los Angeles neighborhood. There, too, we have resorted to Zoom; but I know that, come the fall, we'll make the effort to reassemble in person in our home. Until then, I'll look forward to that moment.Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-38409156131264332522021-06-08T08:30:00.001-07:002021-06-17T10:54:43.041-07:00D-DAYI'm sad to say that D-Day slipped past me with barely a thought this year. This morning I woke up remembering, two days late. I was 8 years old at the time. My boarding school had been evacuated from the South Downs, in Sussex, to temporary quarters in the Lake District, a safe distance from the military action. The school itself had been turned over to the armed forces for training purposes--the tank tracks we discovered churning up the ground all around the school on our return after the war were evidence of that, as were the clips of live ammunition and various other delightful boy toys we continued to discover in the undergrowth for months, even years later.<br><br>Meanwhile, up in the rocky hillsides and the woods around Ambleside, at the northern tip of Lake Windermere, there were many "Huns" that my friends and I would attack and kill with our long stick "rifles" in the course of our war games, only distantly aware of those thousands of men whose real lives were being ripped from them on those beaches to the south, across the English channel.<br><br>Americans, to me, were exotic gum-chewing, Lucky Strike smoking creatures from another world. We watched in awe as their convoys of trucks and Jeeps roared through our village. (Did you ever see "Hope and Glory"? That was so much my boyhood...) Our chant from the roadsides, "Got any gum. chum?" was more than just a trite cliche. We actually stood there shouting the words, and the men would throw us fistfuls of Spearmint pack with big American grins. How many of those men I have often wondered, never lived to return home to their country?<br><br>We Europeans--I can't help thinking of myself as one still, after nearly 60 years of living this side of the Atlantic--have so much to be grateful for, to America and Americans. It's a sad, sad feeling, these days, to remember that time, and to want so much for all that goodness and generosity and, yes, joy, to return to the many American hearts that seem to have turned sour and bitter, to long for those broad, unstinting, self-confident grins that represented, for me, as a child, what it meant to be American.<br><br>Perhaps, one day, the bitterness and bickering will cease and we'll rediscover what Joe Biden promises to be "the soul of America." I hope so. I truly do. Because I know it well enough, from those distant times, to miss it.Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-30579477258612574712021-05-11T08:21:00.000-07:002021-05-11T08:21:04.360-07:00RAGE<p> I had some kind and thoughtful messages of sympathy in response to my post yesterday, and am truly grateful--especially for those who have become more vigilant as a result of my saga.</p><p>A saga it has turned out to be. It is now more than a week since this sorry event started, and the repercussions seem unending--reports and claims to file, notifications, standing banking and credit card orders to be changed, redoubled efforts to protect identity. I spend entire days on the computer and the telephone, negotiating paths through multiple menu options in the effort to reach an actual person to whom I can explain the situation and ask for the action or the help I need.</p><p>What comes home is the realization--as though it were a new one!--that we are all now hooked into an invisible, impenetrable network of communications that no longer serves our human needs and interests but instead cannibalizes everything that's human about being human. It's a sobering experience, to have to face it so immediately and with such a deep sense of frustration and, yes, anger. It erupts constantly, a compulsion to throw the bloody telephone at the wall or toss the computer out the window.</p><p>So I get to watch my rage. I am thankful for the 25-odd years of meditation practice that allow me to moderate the impact of all this and give me, at least, small moments of clarity.</p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-39358819803244052732021-05-10T08:46:00.000-07:002021-05-10T08:46:26.827-07:00BE FOREWARNEDWE WERE SCAMMED
I fell victim to an online scam last week. It’s embarrassing and infuriating, and I’m sure I’ll look foolish and naïve, but I’d like to share what happened so that others may be forewarned. It was a clever scheme and one that’s worth watching out for. <div><br /></div><div>It started with an email thanking me for my business and notifying me of an annual automatic deduction to renew an online protection service. Not recognizing the source but knowing that I routinely make arrangements for automatic deductions of this kind (GoDaddy, Earthlink, that kind of thing), I called the number to determine the nature of the service (my first mistake! I should have checked my bank accounts and credit cards to be sure that the deduction had in fact been made). </div><div><br /></div><div>Offered the option by the “nice” man who responded (why a nice man, I have to wonder now, and not the whole familiar, exasperating menu of options and lengthy holds?), I chose to cancel the service and receive a refund. To close the (lengthy, tedious!) process I was asked to type in the relatively small refund amount requested, but as I did so, the system mysteriously added some extra zeroes before I could stop the order going through. </div><div><br /></div><div>Oh no! My new friend was so distressed! My typing error meant that his company had now refunded me a very much larger sum than was intended.
Of course, I needed to get their money back to them. My initial attempt to make a suggested wire transfer did not succeed, so they asked for a good faith payment in Target gift cards. (Okay, at this point I should surely have smelled a rat, but… I was reassured by the knowledge that I had a significant amount of “their money” in my account.) That initial request for gift cards was gradually tripled, by the way, but I won’t go into the excruciating detail of the trek from RiteAid to CVS to BestBuy and loading up our credit cards. </div><div><br /></div><div>After which, these people were kind enough to facilitate a wire transfer for the much larger balance… (This was early days, still a long time before I discovered that the “mistaken” refund that had arrived in my checking account was not their money at all, but had somehow been shifted over from another of my own family accounts. Their purported “refund” was in fact my own money from the start!) </div><div><br /></div><div>There followed literally days of negotiations to make good on what I was persuaded was a genuine mistake, involving financial shenanigans to avoid (at all costs!) having to pay a huge amount of tax on the mysterious, large sum of money that had appeared in my bank account (the IRS wants an explanation for anything more than $10K). More money was paid into my account to cover the dreaded taxes, and more taken out for the same reason. By this time, my head was spinning. I had become so engaged in the process I was unable to stand outside it and see it for the scam it was so obviously becoming. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bottom line, long story short, etc., the evidence piled up beyond my capacity to deny it. I realized I’d been had. I first froze all my bank accounts, then closed them and opened others. I alerted the bank’s fraud department and started a process to recall the major wire transfer—which or course may or may not happen. I tried, without success so far, to find someone in the Los Angeles Police Department interested in hearing the story and taking action. There’s a nightmare of reports to be made and consequences to be dealt with, including of course the revision of all my regular auto-deposits (Social Security, retirement plans…), and deductions to pay monthly bills, donate to charities, and so on. It will cost me at least another week of work to sort things out. </div><div><br /></div><div>So, friends, please guard against this particular piece of devilish cleverness. Above all, check to see in advance whether anyone thanking you for your business has actually done business with you before. When you read this story, please don’t attribute it only to my gullibility. Of course, there was some of that involved. But you’d be surprised, no matter how vigilant you are, at how easily you can get hooked. Please don’t!
</div>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-31670057922256095612021-05-01T08:29:00.001-07:002021-05-01T08:29:08.163-07:00SO LET IT BE WITH CAESAR...Eli Broad, who died on Friday, was the only billionaire I ever knew in person. I interviewed him in his home, many years ago. He invited Ellie and myself to join him and his wife, Edythe, for dinner at a posh Italian restaurant. In person, he was courteous, charming, at once himself interesting and interested in others--an important quality in my book. I'm well aware of his reputation as an autocratic philanthropist whose ego matched the scale of his ambitions; and even though many of those ambitions were for the city that he genuinely loved, they were perhaps, as Shakespeare's Mark Antony famously said of Caesar's, "a grievous fault." Certainly, they were held against him by many critics and many who matched wills with him and came off the worse for it. As for Broad, he brushed off such criticism, cheerfully calling himself "unreasonable" and attributing his success to that very quality. "The evil that men do lives after them" continued Mark Antony in his funeral oration. "The good is oft interred within their bones. So let it be with Caesar." In Broad's case it is perhaps the opposite: would we have Disney Hall, for example, without his sometimes bullying efforts? It's in part his philanthropy that turned the once widely mocked Los Angeles into a world cultural center to be reckoned with. May the emperor that was surely a good part of him be buried with his bones.Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-76157932454642379672021-04-28T07:04:00.003-07:002021-04-28T07:07:39.258-07:00LUCKY<p> I met with my surgeon yesterday, a full three weeks after the surgery to replace my right hip. It was a good moment to thank him, and compliment him on the orthopedic surgery team that has taken such good care of me from start to... well, not quite finish, because there is a way to go before full recovery, but I'm headed that way. He told me he was "lucky" with the people he works with.</p><p>Which reminded me of what I always think--and try to remember to say--when I hear people say they're lucky: that what happens in our lives has little or nothing to do with luck. In the case of my surgeon's team, his "luck" is the expression of everything he puts in to the work he does--the intelligence, the recognition of the skills and dedication of others, the demands he makes of them, his own love for his work and compassion for his patients; all these combine to create his "luck" in having such a team to work with.</p><p>He was pleased, I think with the recognition and appreciation, just as I was pleased with the reminder that luck plays only a small part in my recovery. What counts is the extent to which I have taken care of myself in the past and have worked to maintain my strength and keep my weight in at least manageable bounds; and everything I do now to speed recovery, in following the guidelines and practicing the exercise routine, in being as conscious as I can of my body, its limitations and potential, its needs and cautions. </p><p>I watch with amazement and respect as the body works to heal itself, and do everything I can to help it. The doctor, yesterday, suggested finding a new "project" every day to challenge its recovery, and that seems to me an excellent idea. It's early morning, yet, but I'll need to think up something for today. It should not be hard. There's still a long way to go!</p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-51247063875765711722021-04-25T07:45:00.002-07:002021-04-25T07:45:38.337-07:00DOG FIGHTWe had quite a scare yesterday.<div><br /></div><div>It was my first outing since surgery, now nearly three weeks ago. That homebound feeling was getting to me, and I needed to get out of the house and into the world out there, so it was my idea to head over to Highland Park--a twenty minute drive--to visit our daughter and grandson and see the new balcony and French doors she has had installed at her house.</div><div><br /></div><div>I put my new skills and mobility to work to climb into the car--in the passenger seat, of course, since I'm not yet allowed to drive--and we set off on this significant adventure. (I'm a terrible passenger. Even though Ellie is a seasoned driver of many years blameless experience, I had my foot on the brake for the entire journey!)</div><div><br /></div><div>So we had a delightful visit. The new addition to Sarah's home brings light and space into her bedroom, and the balcony connects to an existing one outside the kitchen, significantly expanding the area overlooking her back yard. Sarah was in good form, and it was great to have news of Luka's first three days back at school in more than a year. He's thrilled to be back in the classroom, and proud to have been assigned a desk in the front row. Class time is restricted to three hours, to allow the teacher to spend the rest of the school day with the children whose parents have chosen to keep them home until they feel safer, with the pandemic not yet fully contained. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was when we left that the trouble started. I headed out to the car first, needing more time to climb in and make myself comfortable. Then Ellie came out with Jake, the dog, and all hell broke loose. I was first only dimly aware of the racket--the barks and snarls and yelps of fear and the sounds of a terrible scuffle round the other side of the car; but soon promptly forgot all the instructions I'd received to take care of my hip and, abandoning all precautions, hauled myself precipitously out of my seat with my cane and hobbled furiously around behind the car--where I found Ellie and another woman struggling to pull apart two dogs engaged in mortal combat.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jake is not a big dog. He's strong, for his size, but King Charles Spaniels are pretty much gentle, inoffensive little creatures. He had been set upon by a powerful, mid-sized, grey pit bull, off leash, which had spotted Jake on the street and dashed out from its owner's house when she opened the door to take out the trash--with every apparent intent to kill the intruder on what it obviously deemed its territory.</div><div><br /></div><div>I joined the fray. Wielding my metal cane--and bending far below the limit for one in my condition--I managed to grab on to Jake's collar while the two women pulled the dogs apart. I dragged him forcibly around the back of the car, yelling out for Sarah to come out and help get him in through the rear door. The pit bull's owner, meanwhile, was struggling mightily to restrain her dog and shouting at me to put ours in the car--without knowing, of course, that I was incapacitated by the surgery. </div><div><br /></div><div>Well, Sarah came rushing out and we got a visibly angry and shaken Jake shut in on the back seat of the car, while the neighbor led her dog back into her house. Later, that evening, Sarah called for a report on Jake, and told us that the pit bull's owner was accusing him, Jake, of having bitten her dog! Said she'd had to take it in for an emergency visit to the vet. If so, we thought, it was clear that Jake was acting only in self-defense. The encounter was not without repercussions for him, too, having caused a recurrence of a problem with his back. Last night he was unable to jump up on the couch unaided, and this morning he has had trouble climbing the stairs. </div><div><br /></div><div>Having heard so many reports recently of small dogs being attacked and mauled--and in some severe cases actually killed--by pit bulls. we consider ourselves lucky. This episode could have ended so much worse than a bad back. We have come to treasure our little Jake. He has been the best of pals throughout the period of this pandemic, and a great comfort for Ellie while I have been out of action. It would be terrible to see him badly injured or, unimaginably, worse...</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not one to approve of violence in any circumstance, but it's hard not to feel proud of him for having put up such a good fight!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-59478095273635876372021-04-19T12:20:00.002-07:002021-04-19T12:20:56.050-07:00BODY AND MINDIt has been only two weeks to the day since the Kaiser surgical team removed my old hip and replaced it with a new one. I walked in from the street to the orthopedics department today with only a cane in hand for a post-op session to check up on progress and remove the staples. <br><br>I'm pleased to know that I am "well ahead" of many people who have his surgery. At home, I scarcely bother with the cane, let alone the walker--which sits neglected in a corner of the bedroom. I also no longer need to take the stairs one at a time; I'm not exactly bounding up and down, but I'm amazed that my right leg can already lift my body weight and take me up the steps. I follow the regime of exercises and am delighted with the tangible growth in strength and range of movement.<br><br>Having taken reasonably good care of health and strength as I continue to age (85 in a couple of months!), I'm now more convinced than ever that it pays to take good care of this vehicle we're given to occupy for the length of our current life (I can't speak for other lives!)<br><br>The last line of the metta practice which has become an important part of my daily life is this: "May I look after myself with ease." My main fear in growing older is less the prospect of death than illness, enfeeblement, incapacity, dependence and the loss of mental acuity--and of course the indignities that accompany them. Knowing that I may yet be confronted with any of these, it's well to prepare both body and mind for them in advance.Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-74848573456491860352021-04-15T11:44:00.000-07:002021-04-15T11:44:32.995-07:00GRATITUDE<p>So yes, they gave me a new hip. Remarkably, a week ago Monday, they had me out of surgery and on my feet within an hour... and home a couple of hours later.</p><p>I understand what they mean--those well-meaning friends, especially the ones who have experienced the same--when they say it's easy. It is. Remarkably. But the nitty-gritty truth is that it's also hard. There's a good deal of pain involved, though mine has been absolutely manageable. I took myself off the narcotic medication a couple of days after surgery without severe repercussion, and have done pretty well instead with regular doses of Tylenol. The sharp, burning pains that accompany awkward shifts in position have largely subsided now, eight days later; they have been replaced by a deeper, more persistent pain around the hip joint. None of which is surprising, given that the surgical team cut their way in through flesh and muscle, sawed off the old, grating joint, and hammered in a new, prosthetic one. Hardly the recipe for comfort.</p><p>Harder to manage is the difficulty moving and the (now decreasing!) need for help. Simple things that you normally take for granted--things like sitting down and standing up, getting in and out of bed--become huge challenges requiring inordinate amounts of time and effort, not to mention pain. To put on a pair of underpants or pants required, initially, the help of my wife, Ellie, because I had been cautioned not to bend. Within a few days I learned to operate the "grabber"--a stick that allows me to reach for things on the ground and manipulate them into place. With this, I can now once again manage to dress myself--a skill I surely learned at the age of two or three and have been doing these past 80 years without a break!</p><p>I think perhaps the hardest challenge I was confronted with in the first several days after surgery was the inability to get a decent night's sleep. Impossible, first, to even get into a comfortable position. I am used to sleeping on alternate sides; now, unable to sleep on either one and forced to attempt it on my back, I struggled to find a position where I could conquer the pain and fall asleep. This was complicated by the constant, almost hourly need to pee. I soon resorted (excuse this intimate detail!) to the use of a bottle, which filled up all too soon and left me with the need for an in-person visit to the bathroom. It was a twenty minute operation--I was about to say "ordeal"--to get myself out of bed and into the frame of my walker, across the bedroom floor to the bathroom and back and finally, painfully, inch by dreadful inch, back into bed. The first couple of nights I had to call for help from the ever-patient Ellie; but her need for sleep is no less than my own, so we found ways for me to negotiate this particular challenge without help.</p><p>It took, I'd say, about a week to be restored to some semblance of independent movement. For several days, while I could manage the stairs (fifteen of them, in our house, one at a time, right foot first, descending, left foot first ascending) I needed to have Ellie in front of me, going down, or behind me, going up, just in case I stumbled. Yesterday, for the first time, my visiting Physical Therapist conceded me the right to take on the stairs alone. And yesterday, for the first time, he helped me begin the transition from walker to cane. This morning, instead of hobbling along, I was striding along manfully with a cane! Well, at least making appreciable forward motion. So there's progress every day, increasing strength and mobility and decreasing pain. It's truly remarkable.</p><p>So yes, I have much to be grateful for. First for Kaiser and its orthopedic surgical team, who were brilliant from start to finish--from the people in the prep room, to the anesthesiologists and the surgical gang, to those in the recovery area who woke me up and got me on my feet. Everyone was kind, without being patronizing, respectful, appropriately informative, and efficient. I have nothing but good words for these dedicated people. And then there's Ellie, who has been with me all the way, supportive and loving, working twice as hard as usual--and that's a lot!--to keep up with things around the house and at the same time cater to my reluctant but unavoidable needs. At a time when I needed a trusty guardian angel, I had one close to hand. </p><p>The improvement continues, the strength continues to return. I keep busy with my prescribed exercises and, under Ellie's watchful eye, take walks on the street outside our house. Today I learned how to navigate another of those tasks we perform every day without a second thought: getting in and out of the car. I have applied for a handicapped parking placard, and look forward to getting out and about before too long. I know it will be a while before I return to "normal", but at least I know I'm on the way!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-46444971510790342872021-04-07T11:58:00.000-07:002021-04-07T11:58:16.787-07:00FLOWERS!<p><br /></p><p> What a gorgeous bouquet! Sent by friends in metta. So much to be grateful for after surgery! Blessings to all</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv1I_ExbMprJEPImlOu29rKBJjZRWfbvcdFNB4PMUdpJR-UsHY7AQeTfKVd3qmEQXOjlzaxl9CqXnEXt2WUH5bCzwSoUjOFkYoRTZCwBDvWXW-b3hBmSfa8wPHoi5aRJazcvdWEY995S79/s640/IMG_3309.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv1I_ExbMprJEPImlOu29rKBJjZRWfbvcdFNB4PMUdpJR-UsHY7AQeTfKVd3qmEQXOjlzaxl9CqXnEXt2WUH5bCzwSoUjOFkYoRTZCwBDvWXW-b3hBmSfa8wPHoi5aRJazcvdWEY995S79/s320/IMG_3309.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-58838375296166432452021-04-03T08:05:00.000-07:002021-04-03T08:05:29.123-07:00PALINDROME<p>I did not sleep well last night, and for a particularly ridiculous reason: I became obsessed with a palindrome. It started, I suspect, with a dream in which some genius wordsmith had come up with a palindromic version of a highly technical medical instruction--something to do with my imminent hip replacement surgery--which was a whole paragraph long, surely one of the longest palindromes ever created. I was so impressed with this prodigious act of alphabetical prestidigitation that I became obsessed, between dream and waking, with trying to remember and describe it. I must have settled on "prodigious act of alphabetical prestidigitation," because there it is. I was pretty pleased with myself for having come up, if not with the palindrome, at least with its description. But I lost a lot of sleep trying to work it all out.</p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-40956602254054194302021-03-31T13:02:00.003-07:002021-03-31T15:23:52.465-07:00TODAY IT STARTS<p>Today is the first in a five-day preparation for hip replacement surgery next week. It starts with the daily application of a disinfectant soap.</p><p>I will confess to having some anxiety about the surgery for which I'm scheduled next Monday (I have to show up at 5:30AM for the procedure!) I think I'm not so much concerned about the surgery itself; I am assured --and not only by the doctor who'll be performing it, but by numerous kind friends who know from experience--that it's an easy, fast, in-and-out process these days. They aim to have you on your feet and walking within an hour after surgery, and send you home as soon as possible once the effects of anesthesia have worn off. </p><p>So, no, it's not so much the surgery, though I don't relish the thought of being drugged out of consciousness and sliced open with a scalpel. It's more the recovery period that I anticipate with some anxiety. And even then, not the pain. Pain is somehow private, a transaction between mind and body that I believe (hope?) I can negotiate with some dignity thanks to the years I have devoted to my meditation practice. What provokes the anxiety has more to do with the physical incapacity and dependence, the difficulty in getting around and performing simple, daily tasks without needing help. It is perhaps a rehearsal for still more advanced old age--though I trust, now, without the incontinence that can sometimes accompany that time of life and which I truly dread. (It would be a good time, perhaps, to re-read Ram Dass's book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Still-Here-Embracing-Aging-Changing/dp/1573228710">Still Here</a>, written after his debilitating stroke, in which he writes about the need to learn a dignified, even joyful acceptance of dependence). </p><p>There's another, deeper fear. It's that the surgery will succeed in relieving me of the pain in that one part of the body, but leave me with the knowledge that the source of the pain I have been experiencing of late--physical, yes, but also (related, surely) emotional and spiritual--is more than just one wonky hip, and will not miraculously produce the bright, pain-free "new man" that well-meaning friends have been promising me. Suppose I find out that the "old man" walk--that slow, hesitant, tottering forward motion I have been observing in myself, to my distress--turns out to be endemic to my advancing years, and not merely attributable to that one bad hip? Suppose I find out that this old, deteriorating body is really who I am? And that I have to learn to live with it? </p><p>So there's the rub. There's the source of the anxiety. Next challenge: to address it!</p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-48236871975572429012021-03-29T07:55:00.000-07:002021-03-29T07:55:02.803-07:00KNOTS<p>I found myself thinking, this morning, of the feats of manual dexterity required of me before being sent off, as a very young boy, to boarding school: I had to be able to tie my shoelaces and tie my tie. The shoes, of course, were the basic black leather Oxfords; and the tie was woolen, with horizontal black and white stripes, squared off at either end. </p><p>It seems odd, from the long perspective of life today in contemporary California, where my 9 year-old grandson wears neither lace-up shoes nor tie and looks askance at me when I tell him that I did, that little boys should have been required to perform this daily ritual. But there you are. Every single day at school would start with the same ritual: once the underpants and prickly undershirt (the "vest") were on, and the grey short pants and the gray shirt, and the grey pullover with black and white trim, and the knee-length grey socks with the same black and white trim, it was time to tie the shoelaces and tie the tie. </p><p>Shoelaces first, first right, then left. One lace over and under the other, pulled as tight as you could in opposite directions. Make a bow with one end and hold it firm while you circle it with the other, then poke the second bow through and under the first, pull tight again, and adjust. If it's too loose, of course, you have to start again. </p><p>Then the tie. Flip up the collar of your shirt and slip the tie around your neck, then over and under, up and around and through and down and pull it tight, but not too tight--and not too loose, of course--to make the knot. Then slip the knot up to cover the top button of your shirt. Last thing, turn the collar down again all around the neck to cover the tie and check that the knot is neatly placed in the triangle made by the tips of the collar. Pull it up further if necessary to look neat. </p><p>There, you're done. Ready to run down the long flights of stairs from the dormitory on the top floor to the dining room in the basement, where you'll find a steaming pot of porridge ready for you to fill your bowl for breakfast.</p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-69068362378751529292021-03-26T08:22:00.000-07:002021-03-26T08:22:57.663-07:00THE OTHER SIDE (OF THE PLANET)<p>I have a friend in Sydney, Australia, whom I first knew more than sixty years ago. I remembered her as an early great love of my life; she remembers me, well... less well! But at least she remembers me. It's an interesting story for another time. Anyway, we renewed contact about five years ago, and then lost touch again until more recently. I have enjoyed getting a view of America from the other side of the world--and also trying to summarize what's happening around me for the benefit of someone who lives so far away. I thought it might be interesting, here on The Buddha Diaries, to include you, even in mid-conversation. Here's my latest effort:</p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica;">Hello again, Susan,</span></p><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Thanks again for yours. Such a lot to respond to… and maybe more to add, after these two latest dreadful shootings which I’m sure you’ve read about. Our media seems intent on asking: Why? I think the question should be: How? How do we continue to make it possible for such obviously deranged young men to acquire the kind of weapons that can destroy so many lives in so few seconds? It seems beyond belief to people like myself (old lefties, liberals, whatever) that our government is so paralyzed by fear of the NRA and subservient to the Second Amendment (the “right to bear arms”) that was written, for God’s sake, at a time when “arms” were front-loaded muskets, one shot at a time, and time for reloading in between! Did you know that we now have four hundred million firearms in private hands in this country—more than actual people!</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Which brings me to one of your questions: the filibuster, which has been paralyzing the US Senate for years now. It’s an arcane rule that allows any senator to hold up any bill until he/she finishes talking about it. Originally that meant actually standing on the Senate floor and haranguing on forever, or until everyone gave up and let him/her have his/her way. But that rule was changed and all they have to do is announce an intention to filibuster and the whole works get gummed up. The mere threat of a filibuster is enough to prevent any action. The result is that absolutely nothing gets done in the US Senate. Now that it’s a 50-50 split, one conservative Democratic senator (Manchin) has the yea-nay power on every single piece of legislation. And he won’t budge on guns, voting rights, or any other major issue. It is, again, beyond belief, in this supposedly most powerful country in the world. I think I would be inclined toward some other place to live if I could find one; and if we weren’t so settled (and, yes, I must admit it, so comfortable) here.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">We (the “right”ones, of course!) are much relived that the Covid relief bill has passed—though without a single Republican vote in House or Senate—and that Biden and his team are finally doing such a fine, and remarkably speedy job in vaccine production and distribution. I’m surprised to hear about your own delay. We hear generally such good things about Australia’s handling of the virus. Obviously, at least until now, you have done a far better job that we have. Trump, as I see it, is becoming increasingly irrelevant, even though his supporters (even those in Congress) refuse to give up on the Big Lie that he won the election. Thanks, I think, in good part to social media, the QAnon faction and its close cultural relatives remain absurdly influential, and it’s disturbing to see elected officials cowering before the nonsense they promulgate. The media are already talking about the 2022 mid-term elections, which will be a test of the remaining power of Trump and Trumpism. It pains me to say that we could still swing further to the right. But I’m hoping not.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">I’m interested to hear that your friend in India could not get into The White Tiger. I found it quite compelling reading. I’m now engaged in a powerful book coming from “the other (i.e. Muslim) side”. It’s called Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar, and (thus far) it’s mostly about the life of a Pakistani man growing up in America. But the family also visits relatives in Pakistan, and the tension left behind by the British Raj is a part of the story too. What a mess the rich and powerful countries have created in the world—and what a potential disaster we have prepared for our (only!) planet! You mention the devastating rains in New South Wales which, yes, I have read about; and we have our own climate extremes over here. Again, we have to rely on Biden and his team to change our course—and perhaps the world’s. </div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Mentioning the Raj reminds me of another of your questions—about the Oprah interview. I thought the young couple came across rather well, even though their privilege makes their complaints sound somewhat self-serving. Many Americans, these days, seem more royalist than the Brits! For myself—I wonder if it’s so for you, too—I’m old enough to remember the importance of the Royal Family during World War II and to respect the poor old Queen’s unswerving sense of duty to “her people.” I think I feel more sorry for their rather ridiculous predicament than eager for their removal. But would be interested to hear more of your thoughts.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; text-size-adjust: auto;">Did I cover everything? You wrote such a long and interesting email, provoking lots of thoughts. It is—have I mentioned this before?—especially interesting for me to see this country from the other side of the world, so I look forward to your insights. <br /><div><br /></div><div>With love, as always, and excuses for the typos, Peter</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-85262906598502170632021-03-25T08:17:00.003-07:002021-03-25T08:17:47.125-07:00MISSING THEM...I woke this morning feeling lonely for my grandkids. Not so much Luka, the youngest, who lives not far from us in Los Angeles. Even at the very start of the pandemic, he could come over with his mom and take a walk around the hill with us. Not long into it we started having him over, masked and socially distant, for longer, indoor visits. And in the past few months he has been a regular overnight visitor, coming over for an online school day and staying a night, sometimes two, in the room that has come to be "Luka's room" in our house. Quite recently, especially since our vaccinations, we have abandoned all pretense at masks and social distance, and have felt free to give him the hugs a small boy needs from his grandparents. Which is all good.<div><br /></div><div>So, no, it's the other three I feel lonely for. The circumstances of their parents' lives have always kept us geographically far removed: Alice, our oldest, now in her early twenties, was born in Tokyo, where my son Matthew and his wife Diane worked for quite a number of years. The twins, Joseph and Georgia, were born in London when the family returned to Europe, in part to be closer to their other grandparents as they grew up. They have lived in and near London ever since. and thanks to the great distance, the cost of airfare, the obvious need for longer visits if we were to make the journey and the consequent inevitable disruption in our lives, our visits there--or theirs here--have been pretty much biannual, or annual at best.</div><div><br /></div><div>Which is clearly no way to be a grandparent. Of my own two grandfathers, I knew my father's father only through a single photograph of myself and my sister sitting on his knee when I was about one year old; and a family portrait of a distinguished gentleman with a genial smile, a smart tweed suit and an ascot tie. He died quite suddenly on a business trip to New Zealand before I reached the age of two, so I never got to know him. I did know my maternal grandfather, though. "Grimp", as he was affectionately known to all his grandchildren, was, by the time I knew him, the Chancellor emeritus of Brecon Cathedral in Wales. For the better part of his life he had served as a parish priest in Swansea, and had retired with my grandmother to the village of Aberporth on the Cardiganshire coast. They lived in Penparc Cottage, a low, single-story, white-washed home with a gray slate roof. I remember Grimp as a gentle man with thinning silver hair and a wry sense of humor. He was hardy, too, a strong swimmer, and even into his eighties he would don his bathing suit each day for a morning swim in the frigid waters of the bay. In my mind's eye I best recall him sitting at the breakfast table in the front room of that little cottage, patiently chopping the top off his boiled egg and dipping into the yolk with toast "fingers".</div><div><br /></div><div>To me, as a child, even this grandfather seemed remote. The west coast of Wales, in those days, was a very long trek from the midlands, Bedfordshire, where my father had his parish. But we did manage the trip almost every year, in the summer, even during the war when petrol was strictly rationed and hard to come by. And Grimp lived on until I was in my late teen years, so at least I knew him as a grandfather. And he remains the model for me until today: kindly and patient, quietly attentive to childhood hurts and fantasies, tolerant of moods and childish outbursts, and at the same time totally secure in his own aging adult world. I certainly remember having felt the power of his blessing, even though it went unspoken.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps--I would like to think this--I am a similar presence to Luka. For the others, I remain known more by my absence than my presence. From everything I know about my distant grandchildren, they are thriving. After several months of Covid-related socially-removed work, Alice has now returned full-time to her job at a school not far from where she still lives with her parents. Having started out after university as a teacher's assistant (as I understand it), she is now herself a teacher and will be studying for her full qualifications as she works. Of the three, she is the one we know best because she came out a couple of years ago and spent some time with us in California. That was a special joy.</div><div><br /></div><div>The twins, two years Alice's junior, both started out at university this year, Joseph at Nottingham, where Alice graduated, and Georgia, to my huge pride and joy, at my old Cambridge college where my father also studied in the 1920s. I feel so sorry that their university experience--and their first time away from home--had to start out with all the strictures imposed by our current pandemic; with isolation and social distancing, at a time when the university experience should be one not only of educational opportunity and shared learning in lecture halls and seminars, but also of the first social experience of adult life. (My own first year, in the 1950s, after twelve years of lockdown in boys' boarding schools and adolescent emotional interaction almost exclusively with other boys, was a splurge of beer and ill-fated, fumbling attempts to adjust to the wondrous world of girls!)</div><div><br /></div><div>In short, I have a grandfather's pride in the achievements of my grandkids, but lack the opportunity to spend time with them as a grandfather would want to. As it is, I send anonymous blessings from afar, and wish them well in everything they do, and hope for wonderful relationships in lust and love, and send the fondest of thoughts their way. And miss them. There was a time--before even I was born, and that's a long, long time ago!--when families of custom and necessity stayed close, fathers and mothers and their children, uncles and aunts, even; and, of course, the grandparents. Our world today is very different, with different social mores, different opportunities for dislocation, different modes of travel. There is something deeply human lost in this, something perhaps to do with the ancient tribal gene, the sense of belonging, of solidarity, of communal life, of family. </div><div><br /></div><div>I wonder: are we witness to a new, perhaps more rapid stage in the evolution of our human species? Must we now, as we set our sights on previously unimaginable distances--the moon, the planet Mars?--adapt to the effects of dislocation, disconnection, separation? </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-50010944093871343102021-03-24T07:53:00.002-07:002021-03-24T07:53:34.376-07:00THE GREAT MYSTERY<p>I wake from this strange and beautiful dream. I have been invited to the studio of David Hockney, to view, or review, his newest paintings--perhaps to write about them for some national magazine. David--yes, I know him, because I wrote that book about him many years ago--David is his familiar, gnomish, shyly gregarious, incessantly cigarette-smoking self. He leaves me alone with the paintings.</p><p>Untypically, they are abstractions. There are a number of smaller ones, quite colorful and energized, but these do not first attract my interest. I find myself engaged in a massive canvas, nearly all white. It is perhaps more like a Sam Francis than a David Hockney, but there it is. I find myself lost in that vast expanse of whiteness, the color only in the periphery of my vision. There is an awareness somewhere at the back of my mind that I am supposed to have something to say about these paintings, something to write, but now I realize that I have no words. I have nothing to say. </p><p>Rather than being worried about that familiar obligation, though, as I would have expected, I am overwhelmed instead by a sense of serenity. Lost in the whiteness of the painting, I come to terms with the simple understanding that this is a great mystery... </p><p>And then, no. That this is <i>the </i>great mystery. </p><p>And I am content to have nothing to say.</p>Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-37106915424360790312021-03-18T09:02:00.002-07:002021-03-18T09:02:53.254-07:00THURSDAYI know it's Thursday because I hosted our weekly meditation group last night, Wednesday. Otherwise, there's no particular reason to know. This curious, seemingly endless string of days we're living through has us all befuddled, when it comes to discerning one day from the next. It's disorienting, of course, but perhaps the disorientation contains a seed of wisdom, an opportunity to learn the value of being in the present moment. And yet I struggle with that, even when I sit in meditation: the mind slips so easily back into the past, forward into the future. It is a challenge to hold it steady in the now.Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-33628585301584567982021-03-16T10:38:00.001-07:002021-03-16T10:38:50.444-07:00SURGERYI just heard yesterday that I now have a date for my hip replacement surgery. I was intially told that I'd be waiting for 2 - 3 months, thanks to OR backups due to the Covid-19 epidemic. It seems that things have opened up significantly, because they are now able to fit me in the day after Easter Sunday, just a couple of weeks from now. Between now and then there are classes, online or phone meetings with doctors, nurses, physical therapists and so on. Blood tests... It looks like I'll be busy with medical appointments for a while to come.<br><br>I have to say that I'm relieved to have the surgery sooner rather than later. Friends who have been through the procedure assure me that it's a suprisingly easy process, and that recovery is very fast. They have you back on your feet almost immediately following surgery, and there are follow-up physical therapy dates the same day, the next day, and several days thereafter. I hear, too, that it's a great release from the pain that has become familiar in recent months, almost a friend. The pace of progress in medical interventions such as this has been little short of miraculous. Hip and knee replacement have become pretty much routine procedures. Just twenty years ago, did these things even exist? I suppose so, but they were certainly far less common than they are today.<br><br>Today is a bright one, sunny and cold in Southern California, as I sit looking out over our balcony, past the city of Hollywood to the hills. We seem to be nearing not the beginning of the end, as Churchill said, but at least end of the beginning of the battle against the pandemic that besets us. If public health experts are to be believed, as I think they should be, we need more patience than many are now showing if we are to persist. We could very easily mess this up and find ourselves back at that proverbial square one. Let's hope not!Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-38309834359111542792021-03-15T10:47:00.003-07:002021-03-15T10:50:33.207-07:00NO MORE EXCUSESHow many times have I said that to myself over the years? I find myself saying it now, again, as I contemplate the miracle of time opening up ahead of me with no specific obligation. Oh, there are a couple of minor ones, but the taxes are done, the work on our Laguna Beach cottage is finally complete, the remaining distractions are relatively minor ones, and there really are no more excuses.<br><br>From what, then, have I been excusing myself? What's the Big One? Obviously, undeniably, it's a return to the not-quite-yet-finished and not-quite-yet abandoned novel on which I worked for a full half-year and which got shelved after the completion of a second--and what I imagined to be the final--full-length draft. Just as I imagined I was done with it, a glaring flaw became unavoidably apparent. I had known all along that it was setting there in the back of my mind as I was writing but I chose not to recognize it because... well, perhaps because I was just too lazy and chose to brush it off in my haste to get the damn thing finished.<br><br>So anyway, there it was. There it is. A piece of work that requires a whole lot more time and effort than I have already devoted to it, and I have chosen to let it sit and allow the fear to build.<br><br>There is, to be honest, another factor that's at play here: self judgment. Or perhaps instead, or also, the fear of others' judgment. That (significant!) part of me that embraces the teachings of the Buddha raises thorny questions of Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Everything, when it comes to the novel's dominant theme--human sexuality; and I ask myself why this theme continues to haunt me, even at my now advanced age? Should I not know better?<br><br>I do not have an answer to that question, but I know that it contributes to my reluctance to return to what I started. And it occurs to me that to be attached to having an answer is simply one more excuse and that the (significant!) part of me that is a writer will not rest easy if I continue to prevaricate. It's time to find the courage to return to work!
Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-11954487467776647352021-03-12T11:46:00.002-08:002021-03-12T11:50:25.020-08:00A PUZZLEI keep promising myself to come back to The Buddha Diaries but it doesn't seem to have happened recently. I'm easily distracted. This past week has been devoted to my annual tax preparation, putting together all the information that my tax guy needs to get the forms filled in and submitted by the April deadline. I suppose I should be able to do this myself after all these years, but my math skills are abysmal--have been since school days!--as is my understanding of the finer points of the tax coade. Better leave it in some one else's hands than risk screwing things up myself.<br> <br>
And then there is this book that I still keep trying to finish. It's a piece of fiction. I thought to have finished it a couple of times already, the first time as a "novella." Then a friend read it and made some rather astute comments about a dark side to the story that remained unexplored. She was right. There was much more work to do. So I set about the work and thought to have finished it yet again, this time as a full-length "novel"; and had in fact sent it off to this same friend for a second read when I stopped short and realized that I still had a very basic question that remained unanswered: what was the point?<br><br>
That's a pretty fundamental problem. It was something I had "known" all along, with a kind of uncomfortable awareness, but without the kind of clarity that would have helped me recognize and address it. I had all these events taking place and people participating in them without any particular reason for doing so. There was a story, in other words--well, a string of stories--but no "arc" to connect them, no initial issue for which to provide a resolution at the end. It lacked the kind of <i>necessity</i> that's required for compelling reading.<br><br>
And with the realization of this problem came the glimmer of a promise for its solution, a change in the early pages of the book that could motivate my characters and provide a reason for them behaving in the way they do. With it, they would have something to gain and something to lose by their actions. There would be, in other words, a point.<br><br>
It has been several weeks now since I arrived at this insight and I have still not found the kind of energy and motivation it would take to make the changes. It's as though I have so thoroughly worked through what the book was asking of me that have no longer any reason to actually write it. It's a curious and uncomfortable place in which I find myself. I have given myself leave to sit with it a while longer to see what happens. Meantime, I keep promising myself to come back to The Buddha Diaries--which, today, I have!
Peter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.com3