Here's an interesting article on why, with a few useful tips on how.
It's written for nurses, but it takes two to tango when end-of-life beckons........
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Another 'make-over'?
This evocative image of clinging on is titled "A Study For Self-Doubt" - I can't recall its provenance.
I'm working slowly on a position paper that I hope will have implications for the Trust. There have been informal overtures from 'sources' (not yet to be disclosed as that would be premature) interested in a partnership arrangement with the Trust; a partnership that might lead to some diversification and expansion of the Trust's mission - into the field of mental health. The paper argues for such a partnership, against the background of changing need, of more pervasive social and political change (think "Big Society"); and in the context of the Trust as a 'dying organisation', in several senses of the words, dharmic, demographic, financial and real.
Mental health has long been of interest to me, partly because I have had a long career in mental health work - as a nurse, a nurse teacher, in service development as a manager, in Africa where they do things differently; and in my personal experience of mental illness at home: my own clinical depression and personality problems, the difficulties experienced by others in my immediate family, my interpretation of dukkha, and the remedies of the Noble Eightfold Path. Quite an inventory of interests and concerns.
And it seems to me that these are widely shared by other Buddhists. As long as I can recall, the Buddhist Hospice Trust has been something of a beacon to people in mental distress, not just as a result of serious physical illness, imminent death or bereavement, but often for complex and poorly articulated reasons, of alienation and exclusion, of confusion and anxiety, even of rage and resentment.
Some of these have been people who "bumped into Buddhism and got bruised" (a concept around which the Network of Buddhist Organisations developed under the auspices of the late Dr Sally Masheder), some have been shunned or stigmatised by Buddhist sanghas as 'weirdoes' or 'misfits' or 'malcontents' - people who turn up for meditation classes drunk or stoned, people who are garrulous and argumentative.
Like attracts like, they say, and I have always had both fellow-feeling with and a certain fascination for, such people. Not a few have become firm and wonderful friends, mentors and guides on my own spiritual journey, although both I and they are keenly aware that ours can be, or certainly feel like, an on-going, even a life-long struggle with disadvantage, stigmatisation and poor health.
I have long subscribed to the 'spiritual emergency' theory of mental illness, including psychosis, a proposition which is by no means new, and by no means to be lightly disregarded. Media attention to celebrity like Stephen Fry has given something of a sympathetic gloss to the idea that mental illness (especially bi-polar disorder) is a kind of benign holy madness with a creative spin. But the idea has merit, and is experientially as well as in research-terms, perfectly valid.
So I am serious in believing that Buddhism, and in particular the Buddhist Hospice Trust, has something to offer to the hundreds of thousands of people who suffer alone, struggle unsupported with recovery, and for whom simple fellowship, bearing witness, and presence is likely to be a key ingredient on the road to health. So I am working on the idea, and will publish it here first. If you have ideas on this, let me know.
Mental health has long been of interest to me, partly because I have had a long career in mental health work - as a nurse, a nurse teacher, in service development as a manager, in Africa where they do things differently; and in my personal experience of mental illness at home: my own clinical depression and personality problems, the difficulties experienced by others in my immediate family, my interpretation of dukkha, and the remedies of the Noble Eightfold Path. Quite an inventory of interests and concerns.
And it seems to me that these are widely shared by other Buddhists. As long as I can recall, the Buddhist Hospice Trust has been something of a beacon to people in mental distress, not just as a result of serious physical illness, imminent death or bereavement, but often for complex and poorly articulated reasons, of alienation and exclusion, of confusion and anxiety, even of rage and resentment.
Some of these have been people who "bumped into Buddhism and got bruised" (a concept around which the Network of Buddhist Organisations developed under the auspices of the late Dr Sally Masheder), some have been shunned or stigmatised by Buddhist sanghas as 'weirdoes' or 'misfits' or 'malcontents' - people who turn up for meditation classes drunk or stoned, people who are garrulous and argumentative.
Like attracts like, they say, and I have always had both fellow-feeling with and a certain fascination for, such people. Not a few have become firm and wonderful friends, mentors and guides on my own spiritual journey, although both I and they are keenly aware that ours can be, or certainly feel like, an on-going, even a life-long struggle with disadvantage, stigmatisation and poor health.
I have long subscribed to the 'spiritual emergency' theory of mental illness, including psychosis, a proposition which is by no means new, and by no means to be lightly disregarded. Media attention to celebrity like Stephen Fry has given something of a sympathetic gloss to the idea that mental illness (especially bi-polar disorder) is a kind of benign holy madness with a creative spin. But the idea has merit, and is experientially as well as in research-terms, perfectly valid.
So I am serious in believing that Buddhism, and in particular the Buddhist Hospice Trust, has something to offer to the hundreds of thousands of people who suffer alone, struggle unsupported with recovery, and for whom simple fellowship, bearing witness, and presence is likely to be a key ingredient on the road to health. So I am working on the idea, and will publish it here first. If you have ideas on this, let me know.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Standing-like-a-tree
My last post was in May, an interval of three months since.
I'm visited by a strange spirit of reticence recently, but not just that. I'm undergoing an internal 'makeover', the fruits of nine months of regular practice, using a method I read about in a book by Will Johnson, titled "Aligned, Relaxed, Resilient". I love the book, and I love the method. The first time I tried it I had a sense of 'coming home', and I've persevered with it ever since.
In his book, Will Johnson 'takes a pop' -gently and not dismissively - at sitting meditation , and suggests meditating standing up as an alternative or complementary posture, with eyes open. Just as it says on the book blurb, the secret is to align the body vertically with the downward embrace of gravity. This is not to strain to stay erect like a soldier on parade, but to rather to allow the body to align itself with gravity in an effortless way, like a tree: swaying slightly, the weight of its great limbs perfectly poised around a small base, anchored in the mothering earth, without effort or complaint.
The further secret is to surrender to the downward draw of the earth, to gravity's powerful anchoring pull. Like alignment, this isn't easy. I've learned to brace myself against all manner of shocks, and I hold my body in a state of more or less constant tension - although I seem on the surface to be relaxed, and not unusually 'up-tight'. This method teaches how to release this chronic 'holding' tension, wherever - through patient and careful examination - it reveals itself.
Alignment and relaxation together, that's the way, and it it taking time to get into it, but mindfulness of the breath provides the resting place for the mindfulness needed, so that awareness can extend to every part and corner of the body, to every subtle sensation and movement, eyes open and unfocussed, ears alert for all sounds, just in each moment, moment by moment. What a wonderful discovery, and so unlike the exacting methods proposed by many meditation teachers, of unwavering stillness, and attention only on the breath at the nostrils, or on the upper lip. Did the Buddha ever teach that? Johnson opines not.....
Resilience: this is the name applied to the myriad of tiny adjustments of body and mind, that allow alignment and relaxation, deepen mindfulness and open the aperture of awareness that is usually narrowed to a slit (like looking at the universe through a straw, someone said).
In his book, Will Johnson 'takes a pop' -gently and not dismissively - at sitting meditation , and suggests meditating standing up as an alternative or complementary posture, with eyes open. Just as it says on the book blurb, the secret is to align the body vertically with the downward embrace of gravity. This is not to strain to stay erect like a soldier on parade, but to rather to allow the body to align itself with gravity in an effortless way, like a tree: swaying slightly, the weight of its great limbs perfectly poised around a small base, anchored in the mothering earth, without effort or complaint.
The further secret is to surrender to the downward draw of the earth, to gravity's powerful anchoring pull. Like alignment, this isn't easy. I've learned to brace myself against all manner of shocks, and I hold my body in a state of more or less constant tension - although I seem on the surface to be relaxed, and not unusually 'up-tight'. This method teaches how to release this chronic 'holding' tension, wherever - through patient and careful examination - it reveals itself.
Alignment and relaxation together, that's the way, and it it taking time to get into it, but mindfulness of the breath provides the resting place for the mindfulness needed, so that awareness can extend to every part and corner of the body, to every subtle sensation and movement, eyes open and unfocussed, ears alert for all sounds, just in each moment, moment by moment. What a wonderful discovery, and so unlike the exacting methods proposed by many meditation teachers, of unwavering stillness, and attention only on the breath at the nostrils, or on the upper lip. Did the Buddha ever teach that? Johnson opines not.....
Resilience: this is the name applied to the myriad of tiny adjustments of body and mind, that allow alignment and relaxation, deepen mindfulness and open the aperture of awareness that is usually narrowed to a slit (like looking at the universe through a straw, someone said).
Since reading Will Johnson's book - I love it so much I actually hug it, and I've twice kissed it! - I've written to Johnson and had his several replies, encouraging me and pointing me to ways of developing the insights I've gained. Through the kindness of George Draffan at naturalawareness.net I've learned to combine standing-like-a-tree, a qi gong practice that complements the standing meditation, and sitting, eyes open and unfocussed, at intervals when to do so seems right, which is more often than I could have believed possible hitherto.
The effects have been many and various. George Draffan - during a short on-line conversation using Skype - asked me what issues I was ready to work on now that I had got familiar with the practice, and recognised its worth. I was unprepared for the question, but heard myself stammering, "Er, anger, ,and, er, sadness, I think........and shame, and making amends...." "That's fine", said George, "work on those......"
I hadn't the presence of mind to ask him what "Work on those...." meant. But it seemed to me that just voicing those words, which came from I don't know where in my conscious or unconscious mind, was enough or, at least, it was enough that I formed some intent around or with those 'issues', so that that intent combined with the practice to let healing begin, in its own way, in its own time, and yielding its own results. My role is to notice, to trust, and to continue with the practice, joyfully. "Happy practice!" is George Draffan's coda to all his messages, and how it transforms it! No longer dutiful and arid, practice is like coming home, although the results are startling, challenging and call me to a new way of being.
I've said enough, I think. This is not exactly a frugal or parsimonious post, but I'm glad I've made it, thankful to those who have guided and supported me to here, and hopeful that some reader may take heart from the story, read Will Johnson's enlightening, funny and fascinating book, and find their own way home to dynamic, embodied awareness, as I've begun myself.
The effects have been many and various. George Draffan - during a short on-line conversation using Skype - asked me what issues I was ready to work on now that I had got familiar with the practice, and recognised its worth. I was unprepared for the question, but heard myself stammering, "Er, anger, ,and, er, sadness, I think........and shame, and making amends...." "That's fine", said George, "work on those......"
I hadn't the presence of mind to ask him what "Work on those...." meant. But it seemed to me that just voicing those words, which came from I don't know where in my conscious or unconscious mind, was enough or, at least, it was enough that I formed some intent around or with those 'issues', so that that intent combined with the practice to let healing begin, in its own way, in its own time, and yielding its own results. My role is to notice, to trust, and to continue with the practice, joyfully. "Happy practice!" is George Draffan's coda to all his messages, and how it transforms it! No longer dutiful and arid, practice is like coming home, although the results are startling, challenging and call me to a new way of being.
I've said enough, I think. This is not exactly a frugal or parsimonious post, but I'm glad I've made it, thankful to those who have guided and supported me to here, and hopeful that some reader may take heart from the story, read Will Johnson's enlightening, funny and fascinating book, and find their own way home to dynamic, embodied awareness, as I've begun myself.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Last offices
An article in Nursing Times alleges nurses' neglect of Last Offices in some NHS Trust hospitals, causing added distress to bereaved families and friends. In recent years, the NT claims, nurses have not had the teaching and guidance they need to perform Last Offices, a term that describes the procedure for washing, tending and 'laying out' the body of a person who has died in hospital or nursing home, prior to (and preparatory to) their removal from the ward to the mortuary.
'Last Offices' is a fairly regular routine for nurses, and I'm a little surprised that it may have fallen by the wayside in the modern NHS, but not totally surprised. Nurses today are not what they were, which is not to say that twenty-first century nursing is necessarily inferior to earlier versions, but it is true that modern nurses do more technological high-turn-over medicine, are usually more technically proficient than their 1960s counterparts, and have a busier caseload than I ever did. It's easy to snipe from the side-lines, but I doubt I could survive a single shift in a modern hospital setting: my presence could be even be hazardous to health.
In my experience, performing Last Offices should be a leisurely, unhurried affair. I last did this about six weeks before I retired. Having nursed an elderly fellow during his last years, months, days and hours, he breathed his last one morning shortly after I had arrived on duty at 0700. His death was peaceful - "in his sleep" it might be claimed, although this expression poses a number of unanswerable questions.
I had to wait several hours after his death for his doctor to arrive to confirm his death. The doctor didn't question my 'diagnosis' of death. Although the 'certification' of death is for a doctor, most doctors will accept an experienced nurse's word on the matter, and don't attend the death as a matter of urgency.
After the doctor had left, I set about the preparations needed to minister to the old fellow's last needs, if he could be said to have any further needs at that point. I undressed the body carefuly, removing any medical equipment to which he might still be attached, removing any tubes still in body cavities, taking off dressings (replacing any that might be preventing discharge etc), and then carefully washed and tended the body as gently and carefully as if he were still living.
If necessary, a man might be shaved. Nails are carefully trimmed and cleaned, teeth or dentures cleaned, hair brushed and styled. The eyes are sometimes held closed with a small piece of adhesive tape, it used to be done with a moistened pledget of cotton wool. Jewellery may be removed and put away, suitably labelled, in safe place.
I find it a lovely thing to do Last Offices, although to some that might sound odd or macabre: it's a chance to say the final "Goodbyes", it settles the mind into a state of repose and peacefulness, it acknowledges the finality of death. If possible, I invite someone who has cared for the deceased to help with Last Offices, especially those who have not perhaps met death in this way before. On my last occasion my assistant was a relatively new care-worker, someone who had not done the Last Offices before, so it was an opportunity to show them the routine, and to explain the procedures that would be followed afterwards when the funeral director called to remove the body to his premises.
All this happened in a specialist Nursing Home rather than a busy hospital ward. In the latter setting there is enormous pressure on beds, and the body of a dead patients may be removed with 'indecent haste', without allowing the prescribed hour to elapse after death is pronounced, ostensibly to allow rigor mortis to set in, but also for the sake of decorum, and so that relatives have an opportunity to say their farewells (if they were not present at the death it is an indignity to arrive at the ward and find an empty bed).
Never an occasion goes by that I perform Last Offices without reflecting on my own death, and imagining my own corpse being tended by another. I sometimes think it would be good to be washed and tended by my kin, by my wife, or my sons, but - putting myself in their place - I think they may find this too upsetting, and I wouldn't want them to feel that they had 'let me down', so I will leave it to them to decide for themselves.
In Asian and African culture it is normal for family members to tend their dead, and to dig their own grave for the deceased, or to collect the requisites for a pyre, or whatever rite they follow: it's a do-it-yourself job, although help may be hired to provide transport, or to knock together a coffin. And a funeral is usually an occasion for a family gathering, a feast, some beer (in Africa at least), and in many cases a good deal of fractious squabbling over inheritance, the division of spoils.
'Last Offices' is a fairly regular routine for nurses, and I'm a little surprised that it may have fallen by the wayside in the modern NHS, but not totally surprised. Nurses today are not what they were, which is not to say that twenty-first century nursing is necessarily inferior to earlier versions, but it is true that modern nurses do more technological high-turn-over medicine, are usually more technically proficient than their 1960s counterparts, and have a busier caseload than I ever did. It's easy to snipe from the side-lines, but I doubt I could survive a single shift in a modern hospital setting: my presence could be even be hazardous to health.
In my experience, performing Last Offices should be a leisurely, unhurried affair. I last did this about six weeks before I retired. Having nursed an elderly fellow during his last years, months, days and hours, he breathed his last one morning shortly after I had arrived on duty at 0700. His death was peaceful - "in his sleep" it might be claimed, although this expression poses a number of unanswerable questions.
I had to wait several hours after his death for his doctor to arrive to confirm his death. The doctor didn't question my 'diagnosis' of death. Although the 'certification' of death is for a doctor, most doctors will accept an experienced nurse's word on the matter, and don't attend the death as a matter of urgency.
After the doctor had left, I set about the preparations needed to minister to the old fellow's last needs, if he could be said to have any further needs at that point. I undressed the body carefuly, removing any medical equipment to which he might still be attached, removing any tubes still in body cavities, taking off dressings (replacing any that might be preventing discharge etc), and then carefully washed and tended the body as gently and carefully as if he were still living.
If necessary, a man might be shaved. Nails are carefully trimmed and cleaned, teeth or dentures cleaned, hair brushed and styled. The eyes are sometimes held closed with a small piece of adhesive tape, it used to be done with a moistened pledget of cotton wool. Jewellery may be removed and put away, suitably labelled, in safe place.
I find it a lovely thing to do Last Offices, although to some that might sound odd or macabre: it's a chance to say the final "Goodbyes", it settles the mind into a state of repose and peacefulness, it acknowledges the finality of death. If possible, I invite someone who has cared for the deceased to help with Last Offices, especially those who have not perhaps met death in this way before. On my last occasion my assistant was a relatively new care-worker, someone who had not done the Last Offices before, so it was an opportunity to show them the routine, and to explain the procedures that would be followed afterwards when the funeral director called to remove the body to his premises.
All this happened in a specialist Nursing Home rather than a busy hospital ward. In the latter setting there is enormous pressure on beds, and the body of a dead patients may be removed with 'indecent haste', without allowing the prescribed hour to elapse after death is pronounced, ostensibly to allow rigor mortis to set in, but also for the sake of decorum, and so that relatives have an opportunity to say their farewells (if they were not present at the death it is an indignity to arrive at the ward and find an empty bed).
Never an occasion goes by that I perform Last Offices without reflecting on my own death, and imagining my own corpse being tended by another. I sometimes think it would be good to be washed and tended by my kin, by my wife, or my sons, but - putting myself in their place - I think they may find this too upsetting, and I wouldn't want them to feel that they had 'let me down', so I will leave it to them to decide for themselves.
In Asian and African culture it is normal for family members to tend their dead, and to dig their own grave for the deceased, or to collect the requisites for a pyre, or whatever rite they follow: it's a do-it-yourself job, although help may be hired to provide transport, or to knock together a coffin. And a funeral is usually an occasion for a family gathering, a feast, some beer (in Africa at least), and in many cases a good deal of fractious squabbling over inheritance, the division of spoils.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Bunny Suicides
The image (centre) is of Garuda, mythical bird in Buddhist and Hindu lore, mentioned below. NOT A BUNNY.
I can't quite work out how this fluffy bunny (see picture opposite) managed to depress the lever -from inside the toaster - after inserting himself (or herself) into the toasting slot. Can this be a case of assisted suicide or bunny euthanasia?The technology-assisted self-destruction shown in the picture (below, at the bottom) shows a level of ingenuity, and a capacity for meticulous pre-planning, I wouldn't have associated with bunnies. But the older I get the more I realise how I may always have taken the sensibilities of animals for granted, and underestimated their intelligence.
Several years ago my daughter gave me the Book of Bunny Suicides for Christmas, and I was impressed with Andy Riley's finely-observed compilation of several dozen cartoons, each depicting the self-executed demise of a "little fluffy bunny who just doesn't want to live any more". Whatever one thinks of the incidence, causes and morbidity of depression in bunnies (and I haven't previously given it much thought at all), this book illuminates the issue vividly, and I read it at a single sitting.
To say I read it gives a false impression, as there is hardly any text at all, it's all pictures, there's a laugh on every page, and not many pages overall. On several pages I laughed out loud, and on quite a few I laughed helplessly. These cartoons are wickedly funny, consistently, inventively morbid, timeless and also de nos jours. Some bunny-suicides as illustrated take a bit of working out: for example, one bunny - presumably having tried unsuccessfully to die at his own paw using other methods - succeeds in fixing himself to the front of an Underground train (super-glue, velcro, blue-tack?) from which position - suspended above the tracks - he urinates directly and precisely onto the third 'live' rail, with the result that a violent electric charge passes up his urine-stream, with the intended result: he sizzles.
You have to see it to be swept away with admiration at his determination and his ingenuity. How did he manage to fix himself on to the front of the train without attracting the driver's attention? How much did he have to drink to be sure that he could maintain a steady urine-stream for long enough to hold the circuit and produce death? Did he have to practice this method by 'dummy runs'? All this is fascinating conjecture, without even going into what caused bunny to be depressed in the first place, even if he were depressed, which is itself debatable (there are other motives for suicide than depression).
Shortly after I got the Book of Bunny Suicides I passed it on to someone I visited in hospital, dying of an inoperable brain tumour. I did this on an impulse, and it turned out to be a helpful one. The person to whom I gave it found it a real tonic, and got many laughs out of it during his final illness. It's a book you can keep around and turn to in those moments of rather ponderous solemnity and self-concern we're all subject to now and then.
I bought a dozen of these Bunny Suicide books, one for myself, and the rest to give away when the circumstances seemed right, especially around terminal illness: I don't think offering this book as a gift to someone dying is a matter of very fine judgement, in fact I think that bringing very fine judgement to bear on dying and death can be a fearful business. Attending on the dying and death of others - and our own - calls, perhaps, for the qualities of that mythical and fearless Buddhist bird, Garuda.
Garuda is a do-anything, go-anywhere bird, and he can fly as soon as he is hatched. He crawls out of his shell on to the narrow shelf overlooking a vertiginous precipice and - finding no where to perch - falls into the void spreading his wings and flying at once, looking fearlessly for evil adversaries to slay: doubt, prevarication, hesitation, self-consciousness. It's said that Garuda sat on the Lord Buddha's throne as a protector until - during the Buddha's delivery of the Heart Sutra - a bat farted. Garuda promptly killed the bat for its insolence, whereupon he was banished for breaking the First Precept.
I do think (by the account given in the story) the Lord Buddha seemed very hard-hearted, but perhaps he didn't issue the order that banished Garuda, perhaps it was a pompous minion acting ultra vires. If the Lord Buddha lacked a sense of humour, or a sense of proportion, and had never himself farted in public (doubtful indeed), he would probably have had me banished - like that flatulent bat -for distributing Bunny Suicide books to dying friends. Which is why I've always taken stories about the life of the Buddha with a pinch of salt, or with a whiff of bat-fart.
As far as I can recollect, Garuda was eventually re-instated, and is now available to me - when the occasion presents itself - to deliver the remaining two Bunny Suicide books I've got left to give away.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sutra Cordis
Thanks to Mariano Marcigaglia of the Buddhist Society who forwarded this majestic Latin rendering of the Heart Sutra for everyone's enjoyment......
Sutra Cordis Magnae Sapientiae Transcendentis
(Om laudetur Domina Nobilissima Sapientia Transcendens!)
Sutra Cordis Magnae Sapientiae Transcendentis
(Om laudetur Domina Nobilissima Sapientia Transcendens!)
Sutra Cordis Magnae Sapientiae Transcendentis
Bodhisattva Avalokita
profundam Sapientiam transcendentem excolens,
quinque complexuum vacuam naturam conspexit
Bodhisattva Avalokita
profundam Sapientiam transcendentem excolens,
quinque complexuum vacuam naturam conspexit
et hoc modem omnes dolores superavit
Shariputra, forma dissimilis non est vacuitatis,
vacuitas dissimilis formae non est.
Forma est vacuitas, vacuitas forma est.
Idem accidit sensibus, perceptionibus, propensionibus, conscientiis.
Shariputra, omnia phaenomena natura vacua sunt:
Forma est vacuitas, vacuitas forma est.
Idem accidit sensibus, perceptionibus, propensionibus, conscientiis.
Shariputra, omnia phaenomena natura vacua sunt:
non nata neque exstincta, non pura neque impura,
non crescentia neque descrescentia.
Ideo in vacuitate
forma, sensus, perceptio, propensio, conscientia non est;
non oculus, auris, nasus, lingua, corpus, mens;
non species, sonus, odor, sapor, contactus, notio.
Sensus videndi non est, neque alia elementa huius generis
usque ad mentis conscientiam.
Ignorantia non est, neque finis eius, aliaque huius generis
usque ad senectutem et mortem, neque finis eorem est,
Labor non est, non causa, non exitus, non via.
Scientia non est, neque adeptio.
Cum nihil adipiscendum sit
bodhisattva Sapientia transcendente nisus,
animo libero ab impedimentis vivit.
Impedimentis non obstantibus nulla timet,
falsas cogitationes relinquit et summum Niravana fit.
Cum Sapientia transcendente nitantur, omnes Buddha trium temporum
perfectam illuminationem consequentuur.
Scito igitur Sapientiam transcendentem
sublimem mantra esse, mantra magnum et fulgentem,
Labor non est, non causa, non exitus, non via.
Scientia non est, neque adeptio.
Cum nihil adipiscendum sit
bodhisattva Sapientia transcendente nisus,
animo libero ab impedimentis vivit.
Impedimentis non obstantibus nulla timet,
falsas cogitationes relinquit et summum Niravana fit.
Cum Sapientia transcendente nitantur, omnes Buddha trium temporum
perfectam illuminationem consequentuur.
Scito igitur Sapientiam transcendentem
sublimem mantra esse, mantra magnum et fulgentem,
maximum mantra, mantra sine aequali,
quod omnes labores dissolvere potest.
Verum est, sine errore.
Proinde mantra Sapientiae transcendentis ita pronuntia:
GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
(Ivit, ivit, transivit, totum transivit, Illuminatio tum sit!)
quod omnes labores dissolvere potest.
Verum est, sine errore.
Proinde mantra Sapientiae transcendentis ita pronuntia:
GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
(Ivit, ivit, transivit, totum transivit, Illuminatio tum sit!)
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Vapour trails in the sky
The skies are strangely unblemished by vapour trails since air-traffic has been suspended, and I am in an odd - but not disagreeable -psychological space because of this.
It's as if the unblemished sky reminds me somehow of another more innocent time, and I feel a small tug of nostalgic yearning for that time, a small hope that the sight of intercontinental jet aeroplanes high in the sky above our home in South-East England has gone forever.
I've done my share - perhaps more than my share, indeed certainly more than my share - of careless jetting around Europe in recent years. It hasn't even been entirely careless: every trip has caused me a twinge of guilt about the self-indulgence of cheap flights to European destinations, but the twinge has never been sharp enough to make me desist. It's always been possible to rationalise my discomfort: for example, as a concerned spouse meeting his wife's legitimate need to visit a daughter abroad, and - of course - his own need too. And I've also made a fair number of more expensive and tiring trips abroad by car, and on the train, to 'reduce my carbon footprint', although I have no confidence at all in this 'fig-leaf' of self-deception.
Next week my wife and I were to have travelled to Italy by air for a four-day break, two in Rome and two in Florence. This visit to Rome and Florence has long been a dream of my wife, who craves the warmth and sunshine of the countries of southern Europe as a temporary respite from her forty year exile in the nippy Northern hemisphere - her birthplace was sub-Saharan Africa.
Along with millions of others we shall need to grin and bear the disappointment, and find some consolation in the early Spring sunshine here at home. At least we shall be here to see the flowering cherry we planted in our garden ten years ago come into ravishing blossom, a heart-stopping display that quickly tarnishes and fades a day or so after its pristine first flush.
Alongside the disappointment I shall feel (more for my wife, vicariously, than for myself) there is something like satisfaction, perhaps vindication of my long held view that my life of self-indulgence is intrinsically hollow and illusory, although I have often felt locked into it by circumstances, by powerful social convention, ties of affection and family solidarity that can't be undone, not that I want to undo them.
I am only one individual in a family of (currently) five constituent members, and the other family members don't necessarily agree with my purely theoretical ideas on the merits of self-denial, and abstinence from small pleasures which they - quite validly - feel they have earned. We do have discussions about this, as I imagine most families do - I may be wrong about this, I often am on such matters. Such discussions sometimes mar the serene skies of family accord with vapour trails that disperse only slowly, and are replaced quickly by new ones when they fade.
The trouble with me, as always, is that I'm not as ready to give up my own pleasures as I am to point out to my loved ones the value - to them - of giving up theirs.
Perhaps there's hope for me yet in terms of personal turn-around, although I think there may not be a lot of time.....
It's as if the unblemished sky reminds me somehow of another more innocent time, and I feel a small tug of nostalgic yearning for that time, a small hope that the sight of intercontinental jet aeroplanes high in the sky above our home in South-East England has gone forever.
I've done my share - perhaps more than my share, indeed certainly more than my share - of careless jetting around Europe in recent years. It hasn't even been entirely careless: every trip has caused me a twinge of guilt about the self-indulgence of cheap flights to European destinations, but the twinge has never been sharp enough to make me desist. It's always been possible to rationalise my discomfort: for example, as a concerned spouse meeting his wife's legitimate need to visit a daughter abroad, and - of course - his own need too. And I've also made a fair number of more expensive and tiring trips abroad by car, and on the train, to 'reduce my carbon footprint', although I have no confidence at all in this 'fig-leaf' of self-deception.
Next week my wife and I were to have travelled to Italy by air for a four-day break, two in Rome and two in Florence. This visit to Rome and Florence has long been a dream of my wife, who craves the warmth and sunshine of the countries of southern Europe as a temporary respite from her forty year exile in the nippy Northern hemisphere - her birthplace was sub-Saharan Africa.
Along with millions of others we shall need to grin and bear the disappointment, and find some consolation in the early Spring sunshine here at home. At least we shall be here to see the flowering cherry we planted in our garden ten years ago come into ravishing blossom, a heart-stopping display that quickly tarnishes and fades a day or so after its pristine first flush.
Alongside the disappointment I shall feel (more for my wife, vicariously, than for myself) there is something like satisfaction, perhaps vindication of my long held view that my life of self-indulgence is intrinsically hollow and illusory, although I have often felt locked into it by circumstances, by powerful social convention, ties of affection and family solidarity that can't be undone, not that I want to undo them.
I am only one individual in a family of (currently) five constituent members, and the other family members don't necessarily agree with my purely theoretical ideas on the merits of self-denial, and abstinence from small pleasures which they - quite validly - feel they have earned. We do have discussions about this, as I imagine most families do - I may be wrong about this, I often am on such matters. Such discussions sometimes mar the serene skies of family accord with vapour trails that disperse only slowly, and are replaced quickly by new ones when they fade.
The trouble with me, as always, is that I'm not as ready to give up my own pleasures as I am to point out to my loved ones the value - to them - of giving up theirs.
Perhaps there's hope for me yet in terms of personal turn-around, although I think there may not be a lot of time.....
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