Peter Clothier's Blog, page 12
June 2, 2020
MASKS
Ellie and I started on a walk in Heisler Park in Laguna Beach on Sunday. The steps from the boardwalk lead up to a long, narrow path that follows the edge of the cliff and overlooks the breakers, up close, and the long view of the great Pacific Ocean. It's an inspiring sight, and one that's enjoyed by both residents and visitors, particularly at the weekends.
I say "started" because we didn't make it very far along the path. It is narrow, in some places allowing far less than the recommended 6-foot social distancing. We are of an age where it seems smart--if sometimes distressing--to observe the basic rules of the coronavirus era: maintain that distance from your fellow walkers and, where that's not possible, wear a mask. It seems prudent, from what we hear, to wear a mask in any event when you're out in a fairly crowded situation. And Heisler Park, on a Sunday morning, is inevitably crowded.
But... no masks. Or very few in evidence. So we chose to leave the beaten path and walk instead along the (nearly) parallel sidewalk on Cliff Drive where we encountered fewer people.
We seemed to have reached a point of social responsibility fatigue, with many of our fellow citizens simply giving up on the protections we all had all agreed upon just a few short weeks ago. Our attention span is apparently exhausted, and the situation is exponentially exacerbated by the mass protests over the death of yet another black American at the hands of the police. There are many who are wearing masks, in the television images I see... and many who are not.
There is a small chance, insofar as I understand these things, that herd immunity will take over in this circumstance and prove that our precautions were excessive. But we won't know the results of all this "opening" for another two or three weeks.
I say "started" because we didn't make it very far along the path. It is narrow, in some places allowing far less than the recommended 6-foot social distancing. We are of an age where it seems smart--if sometimes distressing--to observe the basic rules of the coronavirus era: maintain that distance from your fellow walkers and, where that's not possible, wear a mask. It seems prudent, from what we hear, to wear a mask in any event when you're out in a fairly crowded situation. And Heisler Park, on a Sunday morning, is inevitably crowded.
But... no masks. Or very few in evidence. So we chose to leave the beaten path and walk instead along the (nearly) parallel sidewalk on Cliff Drive where we encountered fewer people.
We seemed to have reached a point of social responsibility fatigue, with many of our fellow citizens simply giving up on the protections we all had all agreed upon just a few short weeks ago. Our attention span is apparently exhausted, and the situation is exponentially exacerbated by the mass protests over the death of yet another black American at the hands of the police. There are many who are wearing masks, in the television images I see... and many who are not.
There is a small chance, insofar as I understand these things, that herd immunity will take over in this circumstance and prove that our precautions were excessive. But we won't know the results of all this "opening" for another two or three weeks.
June 1, 2020
LOSING SLEEP
I have been losing sleep. The country is descending into chaos. First there was the coronavirus crisis, followed shortly by the crisis in the economy; and now the crisis of social unrest.
We were hopelessly unprepared for the virus. The current administration catastrophically undermined preparations for a pandemic and worked assiduously to deprive further people of basic health care insurance; and the last five decades of misguided financial policy created the ground for the economic crisis, assuring the deep disparities in the distribution of wealth and disempowering government by depriving it of the revenue to operate efficiently and meet the needs of those who depend upon it.
What we are witnessing in America today is the apotheosis of greed, and Tr*mp is its avatar. He is a huge, lumbering, all-devouring monster who indiscriminatingly consumes everything that comes his way. He poisons minds before scarfing down the people who used to own them. He feasts on whole government agencies, gobbles up masses of assembled idolators, snatches up those who oppose him and thrusts them down his insatiable maw. He burps up unintelligible rants of ignorance and hate, and farts out venomous edicts that threaten to destroy the world. He will stop at nothing to gratify his inexhaustible, obsessive needs and accepts no boundaries to his personal entitlement.
But I have been losing sleep over the crisis of social unrest, whose roots precede the current president by centuries. We can no longer pretend to be surprised or shocked by the unequal administration of the law, which patently favors one skin color over others. To cast blame on the black community for the damage and disorder is to justify decades of injustice and unequal treatment under the law. It is to shirk responsibility for a system that benefits some at the expense of many; a system that disproportionately arrests, indicts and incarcerates black Americans for crimes that are excused or ignored when perpetrated by their white fellow Americans.
The anger and resentment on our city streets erupts after each outrage, and after each we manage to lay the blame on a few "bad apples" who do the damage. Will the anger at this latest outrage, compounded with the long-simmering anger against a system that has benefited so few Americans at the expense of so many, prove to be the catalyst for the change we so clearly need? Or will we sink back into the same old ways and await the next one, as we have done so often in the past?
For myself, I ask as always: what can I do? The Buddhist answer lies in the practice of goodwill and compassion. I thought of this last night as I lay awake with worry and distress, and the idea came to me to schedule a special session of my neighborhood sitting group this afternoon for a collective exercise in the practice of goodwill. I put out the invitation this morning. I hope that there are others who will join me.
We were hopelessly unprepared for the virus. The current administration catastrophically undermined preparations for a pandemic and worked assiduously to deprive further people of basic health care insurance; and the last five decades of misguided financial policy created the ground for the economic crisis, assuring the deep disparities in the distribution of wealth and disempowering government by depriving it of the revenue to operate efficiently and meet the needs of those who depend upon it.
What we are witnessing in America today is the apotheosis of greed, and Tr*mp is its avatar. He is a huge, lumbering, all-devouring monster who indiscriminatingly consumes everything that comes his way. He poisons minds before scarfing down the people who used to own them. He feasts on whole government agencies, gobbles up masses of assembled idolators, snatches up those who oppose him and thrusts them down his insatiable maw. He burps up unintelligible rants of ignorance and hate, and farts out venomous edicts that threaten to destroy the world. He will stop at nothing to gratify his inexhaustible, obsessive needs and accepts no boundaries to his personal entitlement.
But I have been losing sleep over the crisis of social unrest, whose roots precede the current president by centuries. We can no longer pretend to be surprised or shocked by the unequal administration of the law, which patently favors one skin color over others. To cast blame on the black community for the damage and disorder is to justify decades of injustice and unequal treatment under the law. It is to shirk responsibility for a system that benefits some at the expense of many; a system that disproportionately arrests, indicts and incarcerates black Americans for crimes that are excused or ignored when perpetrated by their white fellow Americans.
The anger and resentment on our city streets erupts after each outrage, and after each we manage to lay the blame on a few "bad apples" who do the damage. Will the anger at this latest outrage, compounded with the long-simmering anger against a system that has benefited so few Americans at the expense of so many, prove to be the catalyst for the change we so clearly need? Or will we sink back into the same old ways and await the next one, as we have done so often in the past?
For myself, I ask as always: what can I do? The Buddhist answer lies in the practice of goodwill and compassion. I thought of this last night as I lay awake with worry and distress, and the idea came to me to schedule a special session of my neighborhood sitting group this afternoon for a collective exercise in the practice of goodwill. I put out the invitation this morning. I hope that there are others who will join me.
May 27, 2020
GRATITUDE
Imagine what it's like to come face-to-face with a face you haven't seen in 60 years! I don't have to imagine because that's what happened yesterday evening, thanks to Zoom. The coronavirus has recently introduced me to this medium and I have been becoming familiar with it and thankful for the possibilities it has opened up. The neighborhood meditation group I started putting together more than four years ago has been meeting regularly every Wednesday on Zoom, and I have been able to guide the group as I have done in the past. We miss each other's actual physical presence in our sitting room, but Zoom does a creditable job in bring us together. The same goes for our artists' support group. We even use Zoom to continue the exercise program we used to follow with our mentor, Charles, at the gym.
So I met--and fell in love with!--this young woman at Cambridge in the mid-1950s. We had what I remember as a romance but which she barely remembers at all! A fine lesson in humility, as well as in the way we each perceive the same experience in a very different way; and of course in the unreliability of memory. I can't recall what prompted me to look for her online a few years ago--perhaps the simple fact that I could look for her online, something that would not have been possible even ten years before. But I did find her, via devious means, and discovered that she had migrated many years before to Australia, where she still lives. We exchanged some correspondence for a while, and then lost touch again.
Then we renewed contact a few months ago and have been exchanged occasional emails ever since. Just recently I suggested tentatively that we try Zoom, to which she soon agreed. So there I was, last evening, face-to-face with a face I had not seen since, we calculated, 1958 or 1958, when we had known each other briefly in London after our Cambridge years. It was an easy, comfortable encounter. Not quite as though we picked up where we had left off, but--for me, at least--with the comfort one feels with an old, old friend. (We are both now in our 80s, but I don't mean "old" in that sense). I wonder if my face seemed utterly unfamiliar to her, after all these years? I think I would not have recognized her "on the street," as they say, and I struggled a bit to rediscover the features I could recall so well in my mind--or was it my imagination? Eventually, though, I simply gave up on that attempt, and contented myself with acquainting myself and speaking to the person she is now.
I have to say that I'm amazed that this could even happen. That the initial contact was possible. That we managed to make the reconnection after a five-year silence and a change in email address. That we could exchange emails so easily and with such immediacy. That we could see and speak to each other contemporaneously across the thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean. All of which would have been inconceivable, except in science fiction, back in the days we actually knew each other. It's a particular blessing, of course, at this time of plague, when physical separation in a requirement for simple survival. Hard to imagine what life wold have been like under the coronavirus cloud without the Internet and digital technology.
It seems that of all the historical moments I could have chosen to manifest as a human being on this planet, this particular one has been fortuitous in many ways. I was born too late to have had to serve in the Second World War, and in a wrong place to have had to serve in Korea. I was too old, when I became a US citizen, to have had to serve in Vietnam. Good fortune has followed me in almost other every way, including that of having ended up in a kind, temperate climate where the living is almost sinfully easy compared with most other places in the world. I have much to be grateful for, including a friend from sixty years ago...
So I met--and fell in love with!--this young woman at Cambridge in the mid-1950s. We had what I remember as a romance but which she barely remembers at all! A fine lesson in humility, as well as in the way we each perceive the same experience in a very different way; and of course in the unreliability of memory. I can't recall what prompted me to look for her online a few years ago--perhaps the simple fact that I could look for her online, something that would not have been possible even ten years before. But I did find her, via devious means, and discovered that she had migrated many years before to Australia, where she still lives. We exchanged some correspondence for a while, and then lost touch again.
Then we renewed contact a few months ago and have been exchanged occasional emails ever since. Just recently I suggested tentatively that we try Zoom, to which she soon agreed. So there I was, last evening, face-to-face with a face I had not seen since, we calculated, 1958 or 1958, when we had known each other briefly in London after our Cambridge years. It was an easy, comfortable encounter. Not quite as though we picked up where we had left off, but--for me, at least--with the comfort one feels with an old, old friend. (We are both now in our 80s, but I don't mean "old" in that sense). I wonder if my face seemed utterly unfamiliar to her, after all these years? I think I would not have recognized her "on the street," as they say, and I struggled a bit to rediscover the features I could recall so well in my mind--or was it my imagination? Eventually, though, I simply gave up on that attempt, and contented myself with acquainting myself and speaking to the person she is now.
I have to say that I'm amazed that this could even happen. That the initial contact was possible. That we managed to make the reconnection after a five-year silence and a change in email address. That we could exchange emails so easily and with such immediacy. That we could see and speak to each other contemporaneously across the thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean. All of which would have been inconceivable, except in science fiction, back in the days we actually knew each other. It's a particular blessing, of course, at this time of plague, when physical separation in a requirement for simple survival. Hard to imagine what life wold have been like under the coronavirus cloud without the Internet and digital technology.
It seems that of all the historical moments I could have chosen to manifest as a human being on this planet, this particular one has been fortuitous in many ways. I was born too late to have had to serve in the Second World War, and in a wrong place to have had to serve in Korea. I was too old, when I became a US citizen, to have had to serve in Vietnam. Good fortune has followed me in almost other every way, including that of having ended up in a kind, temperate climate where the living is almost sinfully easy compared with most other places in the world. I have much to be grateful for, including a friend from sixty years ago...
May 23, 2020
DESCANSO
Descanso Gardens, one of our favorite spots in the Los Angeles area, has reopened to the public on an advance appointment basis. We stopped by a couple of days ago, and were happy that we did. Some of the lovely things we saw...
SPELLING
I wish I could remember how to spell "allegiance." I always get it wrong.
May 18, 2020
SITTING
It was one of those mornings. I sat for 40 minutes and could not get the mind to focus. It insisted on hopping around, from thought to thought, from image to image and confused emotion... I learned (yet again!) what it means to be "driven to distraction."
Yesterday I sat with my Laguna Beach sangha on Zoom--two dozen or more little boxes filled with the faces of fellow-meditators. It was a pleasure to see old friends, with whom I have been sitting on Sunday mornings for twenty-five years and more. We were guided once more in meditation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, whose familiar firm and calming voice allowed me to slip easily into fully focused attention and stay there for the duration of the sit. I am grateful, always, for his guidance, as well as for the community.
Another week of isolation lies ahead. I have lost count of how many there have been, and have no idea, of course, how many more we must expect. This time of uncertainty is visited upon us, reminding us of the most essential truth about our lives: we can be sure of nothing, everything is in flux, and the best thing we can do is to learn to be with uncertainty and change without "losing our minds."
Yesterday I sat with my Laguna Beach sangha on Zoom--two dozen or more little boxes filled with the faces of fellow-meditators. It was a pleasure to see old friends, with whom I have been sitting on Sunday mornings for twenty-five years and more. We were guided once more in meditation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, whose familiar firm and calming voice allowed me to slip easily into fully focused attention and stay there for the duration of the sit. I am grateful, always, for his guidance, as well as for the community.
Another week of isolation lies ahead. I have lost count of how many there have been, and have no idea, of course, how many more we must expect. This time of uncertainty is visited upon us, reminding us of the most essential truth about our lives: we can be sure of nothing, everything is in flux, and the best thing we can do is to learn to be with uncertainty and change without "losing our minds."
May 14, 2020
THE ELEPHANT
Think twice before blaming "the elephant in the room"--that obvious, unnamed, pervasive but unmentionable problem--for your inability to see things or discuss an issue clearly.
Too often, on second thought, the elephant in the room turns out to be... yourself.
Too often, on second thought, the elephant in the room turns out to be... yourself.
May 13, 2020
STATS
Welcome!
I took a look at The Buddha Diaries' "stats" yesterday. This is my 2,743rd entry since this blog morphed from the political The Bush Diaries some 13 years ago. I started The Bush Diaries on Tuesday, November 9, 2004, immediately following the re-election of George W. Bush. The blog started as my incredulous response to the re-election of a man whose first term I considered (in my wisdom!) a disaster--after 9/11, the US invasion of Afghanistan, and the lies that led us into the needless war in Iraq. There were a total of 801 entries in The Bush Diaries. Every one of them took the form of a slightly irreverent, but I hoped not unkind letter to the then president, whom I addressed cheekily as "Bush"--no "Mr.", no "President", just "Bush."
I have had a few other blogs along the way, mostly short-lived, but they have all entertained me--and a few other people--and have given me the opportunity that every writer craves: to put some words out into the world almost every day, and to be able to reach at least a handful of readers who respond to what he has to say. Over the years I have come to recognize and appreciate the genre that most suits what I consider to be my talents: the essay form. Or the mini-essay, since many of my entries are quite short. I think, admiringly and without pretensions to scale the heights of their achievements, of forebears like Guy de Montaigne and Blaise Pascal, both masters of the art... The innumerable reviews--of art, literature, movies...--I have written professionally over the years fall into the same category, of course. I like brevity. I am, perhaps, short-winded!
I value the fact that I have readers. The Bush Diaries totaled 60,001 "page views" by the time it came to its natural conclusion (I joke that I got fed up waking up with Bush in bed with me every morning...) I'm not sure, quite honestly, what "page views" means, but I have a total of 871,929 of them as of this morning on The Buddha Diaries. Small potatoes, I know, beside the thousands, even millions who "follow" writers more famous (or "successful"?) than myself. But it's still gratifying to me to know that my words are not scattered entirely to the winds. I insist, to anyone who might wonder, that I don't "write for myself." I write because I want what I have written to be read. That's a part of the bargain. Writing, like every other art, is a form of communication and would, in my view, make no sense without that other part of the deal, the reader.
So if you happen to be reading this 2,743rd post, thank you. Please know that you are appreciated. That you're needed. And always welcome here. As to the next post, I have no idea what it will be or even when, but I do know that it will be my 2,744th in The Buddha Diaries. That's the stat.
I took a look at The Buddha Diaries' "stats" yesterday. This is my 2,743rd entry since this blog morphed from the political The Bush Diaries some 13 years ago. I started The Bush Diaries on Tuesday, November 9, 2004, immediately following the re-election of George W. Bush. The blog started as my incredulous response to the re-election of a man whose first term I considered (in my wisdom!) a disaster--after 9/11, the US invasion of Afghanistan, and the lies that led us into the needless war in Iraq. There were a total of 801 entries in The Bush Diaries. Every one of them took the form of a slightly irreverent, but I hoped not unkind letter to the then president, whom I addressed cheekily as "Bush"--no "Mr.", no "President", just "Bush."
I have had a few other blogs along the way, mostly short-lived, but they have all entertained me--and a few other people--and have given me the opportunity that every writer craves: to put some words out into the world almost every day, and to be able to reach at least a handful of readers who respond to what he has to say. Over the years I have come to recognize and appreciate the genre that most suits what I consider to be my talents: the essay form. Or the mini-essay, since many of my entries are quite short. I think, admiringly and without pretensions to scale the heights of their achievements, of forebears like Guy de Montaigne and Blaise Pascal, both masters of the art... The innumerable reviews--of art, literature, movies...--I have written professionally over the years fall into the same category, of course. I like brevity. I am, perhaps, short-winded!
I value the fact that I have readers. The Bush Diaries totaled 60,001 "page views" by the time it came to its natural conclusion (I joke that I got fed up waking up with Bush in bed with me every morning...) I'm not sure, quite honestly, what "page views" means, but I have a total of 871,929 of them as of this morning on The Buddha Diaries. Small potatoes, I know, beside the thousands, even millions who "follow" writers more famous (or "successful"?) than myself. But it's still gratifying to me to know that my words are not scattered entirely to the winds. I insist, to anyone who might wonder, that I don't "write for myself." I write because I want what I have written to be read. That's a part of the bargain. Writing, like every other art, is a form of communication and would, in my view, make no sense without that other part of the deal, the reader.
So if you happen to be reading this 2,743rd post, thank you. Please know that you are appreciated. That you're needed. And always welcome here. As to the next post, I have no idea what it will be or even when, but I do know that it will be my 2,744th in The Buddha Diaries. That's the stat.
May 12, 2020
CONNECTION
I have been going through the list of contacts on my computer. I have allowed the roster to accumulate unchecked over the years--and it's no surprise that I ended up with over 1,500 people, many of whom I could not remember ever having known.
So I began to use the gift of some coronavirus time to look through the list and ask myself who belonged on it and who did not. In the process I have been coming across the names of old friends and associates with whom I lost contact, some of them many years ago, some more recently, and decided to drop them a line, in part to see if the email address that I had was still valid, in part out of a genuine desire to renew an old connection.
I have been doing this gradually, to avoid the possible glut of emails to which I would be unable to respond; and systematically, starting with the A's. I have now completed the E's, and I'm happy to have heard back from a good number of those to whom I sent a note. In every case, I have followed up my initial email and the response I received with a more complete update, sometimes initiating a longer correspondence.
It has all been a pleasure, in part simply to be in touch again. Connections lost, it seems, can often be renewed, and warm feelings for friends remain unchanged. Old memories, revived, can stimulate the mind, sometimes with clarity, sometimes simply with the glow of pleasurable familiarity. As a writer, I have learned to value solitude, and I'm in danger of forgetting that it is our connections with others that enrich our lives and gratify our hearts.
It strikes me that it is perhaps a good time, too, to renew contact with those with whom I have been in conflict in the past, or whom I have disliked or mistrusted. Reconciliation, whether explicit and examined or simply implicit in re-establishing connection, can serve to heal old, hidden wounds that lurk below the surface of my life, so I am watching for those, too, as I work through my list.
The other benefit of this exercise is to reduce some of the clutter of years past. As I say, there are many on my list who remain a mystery to me. How did they get there? Sometimes I have left clues as to where and when I met them, but I can still invoke no memory of the occasion. In many cases they are simply names that, despite my earnest efforts, mean nothing to me. I regret the lapse of my part, because there must surely have been some reason for their original inclusion. If they are still out there, in the world, I wonder if they have any memory of me?
And then there are the dead. It pains me to press the "delete" button when I come upon their contact cards, as though this action might consign them somehow further to the grave--the graveyard of my memory. Some have died of old age, some of illness, some of causes that will remain forever unknown to me. For most, I never had the opportunity so say goodbye. For some, I recall having mourned their passing and attending their funeral or memorial. When I see their name and remember they are gone, the world feels for a moment a little emptier without them.
I still have a long way to go with this exercise, many more connections to make, many memories to relive. This afternoon I'm looking forward to Zooming with someone I knew only passingly, and many years ago. I found to my surprise that we have more in common that I could have thought. So, yes, there's that...
So I began to use the gift of some coronavirus time to look through the list and ask myself who belonged on it and who did not. In the process I have been coming across the names of old friends and associates with whom I lost contact, some of them many years ago, some more recently, and decided to drop them a line, in part to see if the email address that I had was still valid, in part out of a genuine desire to renew an old connection.
I have been doing this gradually, to avoid the possible glut of emails to which I would be unable to respond; and systematically, starting with the A's. I have now completed the E's, and I'm happy to have heard back from a good number of those to whom I sent a note. In every case, I have followed up my initial email and the response I received with a more complete update, sometimes initiating a longer correspondence.
It has all been a pleasure, in part simply to be in touch again. Connections lost, it seems, can often be renewed, and warm feelings for friends remain unchanged. Old memories, revived, can stimulate the mind, sometimes with clarity, sometimes simply with the glow of pleasurable familiarity. As a writer, I have learned to value solitude, and I'm in danger of forgetting that it is our connections with others that enrich our lives and gratify our hearts.
It strikes me that it is perhaps a good time, too, to renew contact with those with whom I have been in conflict in the past, or whom I have disliked or mistrusted. Reconciliation, whether explicit and examined or simply implicit in re-establishing connection, can serve to heal old, hidden wounds that lurk below the surface of my life, so I am watching for those, too, as I work through my list.
The other benefit of this exercise is to reduce some of the clutter of years past. As I say, there are many on my list who remain a mystery to me. How did they get there? Sometimes I have left clues as to where and when I met them, but I can still invoke no memory of the occasion. In many cases they are simply names that, despite my earnest efforts, mean nothing to me. I regret the lapse of my part, because there must surely have been some reason for their original inclusion. If they are still out there, in the world, I wonder if they have any memory of me?
And then there are the dead. It pains me to press the "delete" button when I come upon their contact cards, as though this action might consign them somehow further to the grave--the graveyard of my memory. Some have died of old age, some of illness, some of causes that will remain forever unknown to me. For most, I never had the opportunity so say goodbye. For some, I recall having mourned their passing and attending their funeral or memorial. When I see their name and remember they are gone, the world feels for a moment a little emptier without them.
I still have a long way to go with this exercise, many more connections to make, many memories to relive. This afternoon I'm looking forward to Zooming with someone I knew only passingly, and many years ago. I found to my surprise that we have more in common that I could have thought. So, yes, there's that...
May 9, 2020
THE GIFT
This idea for an exercise came to me in this morning's meditation:
Imagine that you wake one morning as usual and go through your usual morning rituals. When you arrive at your breakfast, you find that a gift is awaiting you. It comes, perhaps, in an envelope, with a card, or in a beautifully wrapped envelope...
You open it. Inside is the one thing that you always needed, always longed for, but were never able to lay your hands on; the one thing that you know will make you happy. It's a "dream come true." It might be a precious object, a much-needed tool, a cashier's check for $10 million. It could be evidence for the fulfillment of an elusive goal--a book, perhaps, that you always wanted to write, now published in glorious hardback by a major publishing house.
Imagine how thrilled you are, how gratified, by this unexpected gift. At last you have what it is what you always wanted, the one thing that completes your life, that makes you happy.
Just then comes an imperious knocking at your front door. You go to open it and find two burly cops outside. They wear helmets, protective gear, reflective sunglasses. They carry night sticks and wear pistols on their hips. Perhaps they tote automatic rifles.
"We have information that you're in possession of stolen property," says the lead cop. He steps across your threshold threateningly. "We're here to reclaim it."
"But...," you protest, devastated, scared. "It was a gift."
"Not according to our information," says the cop. "You realize we could arrest you for this. You could face up to twenty years in jail."
Despite your protests, the two cops march into your house and seize the gift that only moments ago had brought you such unmitigated joy. The one thing that you thought you always needed, that your happiness depended on. They grab it from your breakfast table and march out the door with it and you are left alone.
Now how do you feel?
Okay, it's just a joke, just an exercise. But it helps me to understand what attachment is all about, and what impermanence feels like. It's pretty much about the experience of life. You're given it, and then it's taken away.
Imagine that you wake one morning as usual and go through your usual morning rituals. When you arrive at your breakfast, you find that a gift is awaiting you. It comes, perhaps, in an envelope, with a card, or in a beautifully wrapped envelope...
You open it. Inside is the one thing that you always needed, always longed for, but were never able to lay your hands on; the one thing that you know will make you happy. It's a "dream come true." It might be a precious object, a much-needed tool, a cashier's check for $10 million. It could be evidence for the fulfillment of an elusive goal--a book, perhaps, that you always wanted to write, now published in glorious hardback by a major publishing house.
Imagine how thrilled you are, how gratified, by this unexpected gift. At last you have what it is what you always wanted, the one thing that completes your life, that makes you happy.
Just then comes an imperious knocking at your front door. You go to open it and find two burly cops outside. They wear helmets, protective gear, reflective sunglasses. They carry night sticks and wear pistols on their hips. Perhaps they tote automatic rifles.
"We have information that you're in possession of stolen property," says the lead cop. He steps across your threshold threateningly. "We're here to reclaim it."
"But...," you protest, devastated, scared. "It was a gift."
"Not according to our information," says the cop. "You realize we could arrest you for this. You could face up to twenty years in jail."
Despite your protests, the two cops march into your house and seize the gift that only moments ago had brought you such unmitigated joy. The one thing that you thought you always needed, that your happiness depended on. They grab it from your breakfast table and march out the door with it and you are left alone.
Now how do you feel?
Okay, it's just a joke, just an exercise. But it helps me to understand what attachment is all about, and what impermanence feels like. It's pretty much about the experience of life. You're given it, and then it's taken away.
