Tru Dat, Mr. Walrus

There are many things in the teachings of Buddhism, that I find difficult to grasp. Now that I think of it, that is kind of the point. Grasping and holding things is one cause of the suffering that was so important to Buddha's dharma (teaching.) So maybe it's a good thing that every time I try to grab hold of an idea like reincarnation, I find it slipping through my mind's fingers. It is just so alien to the way that I grew up. 

Another thing that puzzles me is anatta; it means "no-self" and it tears away something that has been part of most western religions. As I understand it, no-self means that there is no "me" in this life or in the next. The idea of a soul where my consciousness lives, a personality that travels to another plane after death is absent in Buddha's teaching. 

I don't get it. I mean, OK. So there is no life after death except in the sense that our chemical parts disintegrate and are reassembled to become soil, or corn plants, or a platypus, or the cornerstone of a cathedral, or something. But that's only a shadow of the two-fold truth that the Dharma is scratching at.

I recently read an explanation from my old go-to, Thich Nhat Hanh. In The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, he comes at it it this way. There are two levels of truth. Relative Truth sees things as the world sees them. Of course I have a self. I am me. You are you. We are all together, Goo-Goo Ga J'oob. Or words to that effect. From a close-up view, we see a part of the truth, but only in relation to other parts of the world. I am not you, or the gravel on the road, or the air in the room, or the cheese on the moon. But there is another level of truth, a level you have to stand back a little to see. You have to change your perspective to a place where you see Absolute Truth. Out here, truth doesn't need context. It stands alone. Out here, we are not just related to one another: we truly are one another. I am not just made of the same stuff as my desktop. We are one thing. 

See why I say my mind has a hard time wrapping its fingers around the idea? It makes no sense and perfect sense at the same time. The truth is both/and. I am an individual, unique in all of creation. I am also creation itself, just as a wave is absolutely one of a kind and separate from the ocean, while at the same time it is the ocean. 

I know, weird, right?

So why does this strange idea strike me as so important? I think it challenges the way I think about other people and about (to use a suddenly controversial word) myself. The truth as I see it, is true, yes. But it is only true from my perspective. It is not only arrogant to believe I can know the absolute truth, it is also an inevitable source of suffering for me and for the people around me. I can't know that what you see is wrong, because I can't know what you see. I have to treat the truth with respect and humility.

Does that mean I can't know things? Well, yes and no. I can know that failing to put gas in my car will lead to a stalled engine. I can know that releasing a kettlebell over my foot will result in a lot of pain and a reasonable amount of foul language. I can know that using my debit card will decrease the amount of money available to me from my bank account. But can I know if it is a wicked thing to rely on fossil fuel to get to the gym or if no good will come of a broken foot or what exactly this "money" thing is in my account? Those are things I cannot know without absolute certainty.

I know this isn't particularly profound or revolutionary. But it is liberating, in a way. I can carry the things I see today, without the obligation to hold on to them if I see them differently tomorrow. I can look back on the things I thought were true when I was young without judgment or blame because they were just as true to me then as my new perspective is to me today. And I don't need to attack the things that you see, because I can't know if you are looking at the same truth as I am, just with a different lens or camera angle. 

So what does all this have to do with no-self? I guess it means that the truth - the absolute truth - is the thing that connects us. We might think it is atoms and elements, or the image of God, or the air we breathe, but ultimately, the thing that connects us is that we are connected. 

Just typing that, it feels like gibberish to me. It also makes perfect sense. I am the wave. I am also the water. Not because we are made of the same stuff, but because we are the same. We are one thing.

This is the sort of idea that occurs to you when you sit breathing for an hour with a cat in your lap at 5:00 AM every day. I'm not sure if I'm doing meditation right, but it certainly feels like light is shining in some new corners. And it's a relief not to feel pressure to be the smartest guy in the room all the time. But that is a topic for another day.

Goo-goo ga j'oob, y'all.

Pennsy

Meditations on Prayer Beads, Onions, and Valentines in a Bottle

Resting in the arms of love

I am so grateful.

During my morning's meditation, I was overwhelmed by the intensity of the emotion. This sometimes happens during the quiet time I spend with Sophie and God. It can be frightening, like the morning I imagined i could feel the world suffering. That was so intense and intimate an experience that, with your permission, I'll put off talking about it for a while longer. But this morning's emotion was different and needs sharing, I think. 

Gratitude.

As I breathed quietly, in and out, my prayer beads rolling gently through my fingers, I felt the warm embrace of a gratitude so palpable that the texture of it comforted me like the stroke of my mother's tender palm on my face. I am so grateful, I could weep. 

I'm thankful to so many people that it makes me feel a little self conscious. There is something almost immodest about bragging about all the people who love me and how blessed I am and yadda-yadda-yadda. And I won't lie: when people who only know you because of the work you do or the effect you've had on their lives step up and offer generosity and compassion to you when you need it most - yeah, that kind of makes you feel like you're doing something right.

The winter before he died - he was recovering from a heart attack - my dad told me that the new neighbor had started shoveling the walk and steps in front of our house. "I've been shoveling snow for sick old people for so many years, I guess it's ok to let somebody help me for a change." He wouldn't have used the word karma, but I will. At the end of his life, my father got to taste some of the harvest from the seeds of service he had sown. 

I'll never be the man my father was, but I've done my best to imitate him. And I have to say, the loving-kindness that has flowed back to me lately has tasted very sweet.

The friend who flopped me into the back seat of her new car and drove me to the ER the morning I fainted into Sophie's breakfast bowl. The neighbor who scrubbed my kitchen and bathroom while I was in the hospital. The anonymous stranger who left a staggeringly generous gift on my desk to help pay for "Bob's Cataract Fund." The loving philanthropy of an admired colleague from show-business days who made sure I had access to DoorDash when I couldn't get out to buy my own food.  The lady from my water-fitness class who told me about a friend selling a car at a ludicrously low price after my own jalopy was totaled by a hit-and-run driver. The generous hands of a tenant who said, "Don't worry, Mr. Bob, I'll keep the grounds picked-up for you until you're strong enough to come back to work." The Y member who showed up at my front door in a shirt and tie, with a box of groceries in his arms. Get well cards from exercise classes filled with silly pictures loving messages, drops of sweat, and the faint smell of chlorine. Grandma-grade homemade soup in recycled take out containers. And of course, the people I meet everywhere I go, from the intensive care unit to the hardware store who stop and say, "Hey, I know you. You're Mr. Bob from the Y!"

This morning, I felt as if they were all wrapping their arms around me at once and lifting me up out of my chair. They are lending me the strength I need until I can find my own again.

Just as I have tried to do, when I'm living my best life.

And I am so grateful.

In particular, I'm grateful that I didn't have to wait until the last year of my life to experience this. My father got to taste the harvest he had planted, and that was a beautiful thing to see. But I have a different opportunity: I have tried to sow love through service, just as he did - but sometime soon, I will be able to plant a new crop using seeds from the fruit that all these loving people have brought back to me. 

What I'm trying to say is this: it's all going to be worth it. All the times you give without seeming to get anything back; all the times you go out of your way to help and are met with a snatch of the hand and an turn of the heel; all  the good intentions that make you feel like you should have a mile of pavement named after you on the road to Hell; they are all going to be worth the trouble. Love, compassion, kindness: these things don't just disappear out into the emptiness. They hide under the surface. They sprout. They reach toward life and become roots and stalks and trunks and branches. They bear fruit that anyone who needs to can take and taste and enjoy. That isn't just some bromide to make your soul's sour belly feel less bitter. It is a bedrock-stone-cold-truth. Love never dies.

And if you are very, very lucky, once in a while someone will come along with a poke of zucchini or a peck of onions and say, "Here. You're having a rough time. I brought you these." You will slice into one and the tears will start and you will know that you are eating an onion that you planted. One you forgot about. One you gave away just because it felt like the right thing to do. And now it's here in your hand, just when you need it the most.

And you are so grateful.

Look, it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you send your love-message-in-a-bottle out onto the water and you never see it again. Maybe it won't mean anything to the beach-comber who finds it. Maybe they will sneer or make fun of such a stupid gesture. Or maybe someone will unroll your little Valentine to the universe just when they need it most. Maybe the words, "I love you. You're worth my time," will save their life.

You can never know. 

But once in a while... once in a while you will hear an echo on the breeze and recognize your own love song.

And when that happens.

You will be so grateful.

As am I.

Thank you, my beloved.

 Pennsy

Managing my drug habit, and other summer adventures

 

Well, this should be interesting. I have asked for Siri’s help in writing this post. Any weirdness that ensues should be blamed on her, since my Neuro chemistry seems to be pretty much back to normal.

First of all, it has been a long long time since I tried to write anything. I’m not sure why, maybe I just didn’t have much to say. but the boredom of recuperation from surgery has led me to a state of desperation, I suppose I just want a way to organize what’s on my mind.

Our story so far: 2025 has been a heck of a year, not just for our country, which appears to be held, bent on self-destruction, but also for me personally. This is the year I turned 65, and my body’s sense of humor has been on full display. I had another little episode of a fib at the beginning of the year, met a new cardiologist, and had the old ticker shocked back into rhythm. It sort of reminds me of my old radio that would tune in if you just slapped it on the side hard enough. In Midsomer, I had a string of fainting spells that culminated in a trip to the emergency room, where the doctor admitted me for a couple of days while I was bled and tested, and a radiated to no avail. They found a neurologist who specializes in my particular condition, And I was able to get an appointment for March 17, 2026. I’ll update you…

Then, a couple of weeks ago, at least I think it was a couple of weeks, I was out for a late night run when I felt a twinge in my left Achilles heel. I decided not to be stupid and stopped running. As I walked home, I felt what I thought was the concrete breaking under my foot. But with my next step, a searing pain shot through my leg, and I realized that what I had felt was that famous tendon popping. I was about a half mile from home, so I limped to the house, wrapped up in ice, and sat quietly debating whether or not I should go to the emergency room. That question was settled when I tried to stand back up out of my chair. Based on the shrieking, the neighbors must have thought that someone was torturing a puppy in my house. I managed to limp to my rental car (oh, did I mention that my own car had been totaled a few days earlier by a hit and run lunatic?) And drove myself to the ER. There I was once again bled and tested and a radiated  The handsome young doctor looked at my foot, and in his best clinical bedside manner, whispered the words “uh-oh.” The only question that remains was whether or not the Achilles tendon was just torn or completely ruptured. Subsequent MRI and orthopedic surgeon consultation led to the conclusion that the tendon was not only completely ruptured, but broken in a really unusual way. Ordinarily, the tendon snaps somewhere in the middle, and the surgeon can sew the ends back together. In my case, the tendon had snapped off at the Heel bone. The second surgeon, I talked to, one who specializes in such things, described the process, as installing some kind of hardware that would be screwed into my heel, giving him something to sew the frayed end of my tendon down, connecting my foot to the rest of my leg once again. It is a fascinating and slightly miraculous procedure, and one for which I am grateful.

The surgery was last Tuesday, (I’m writing this on Saturday afternoon), and my instructions are to spend the next two weeks “sitting in a chair like a slug.“ Other than occasional trips to the bathroom and the microwave, I have done my best to obey those instructions. Which leads me to the aforementioned  drug habit. 

The doctors sent me home with a potent anti-nausea drug to offset the effects of the notorious opioid they prescribed for my pain. Considering the damage it has done to my home state, I was a little surprised that you could still get OxyContin in Kentucky, but there it was: a little white pill that had brought about so much damage, not just in the Commonwealth but all over the country. I was suspicious, but advice from my friends and the throbbing in my foot led me to cautiously begin using the medication. To be honest, I’m not sure yet did much to reduce my pain– but it definitely made me care much less about how much my foot hurt.

I took the pills every four hours, as prescribed, for the first two days, then backed off to one in the morning, and one before bed. Today I have not had one at all, and while I am certainly aware of unpleasant sensations under the bandages, I would not describe what I’m feeling as severe enough to require medical intervention. So it seems I have escaped Leif as a geriatric junkie. At least for the time being. 

So, how does one spend one’s time under the kind of restrictions I have? I have been sleeping a lot. I have been reminding myself to eat, because I know how important that is to healing and… You know… Staying alive and every day. I have been Meditating. Practicing mindfulness and quiet contemplation. I have a short stack of books. I’m reading, one on the teachings of the Buddha guy techno Han. OK, Siri. That’s not funny. That should be Thich Nhat Hanh. Siri’s Vietnamese is sorely lacking.

 I am also skimming around in the manual for my new car, a 15 year old Honda that I hope to be able to drive sometime in October. As I said… it has been a heck of a year.

I did not intend for this post to be a novella, so I think I’ll wrap up for the time being. If nothing else, it will help loved ones to catch up and help me to . Keep my memories organized. I hope you are well, dear reader. We’ll catch up again soon.