Rain, rain, go away

Vajraloka, May 2022

A while back I mentioned that the windows in Lola Towers are old and a bit leaky. A few have received attention as part of some other job, but it was time to replace the hinges on five upstairs windows. Doors and Windows Ulf arrived with sidekick and did the job, which included cleaning many of the old windows and adjusting a couple of the new doors that were giving a bit of trouble. He's a cheerful and helpful chap, and good to have around.

While he was up on the kitchen roof I took the opportunity of joining him to check the roof light, and to wipe it clean of moss to prevent leaks, as I'd been advised previously. Except this time it has had the opposite effect. At the moment I'm hoping for magical self-healing and have placed a towel on the kitchen worktop to catch the indoor precipitation, although Ulf has offered to come back and have a look when it finally stops raining. I am taking the same approach to my printer which is digging its heels in and refusing to function at all while reporting a non-existent paper jam. The Internet has offered a couple of fixes that haven't worked and then suggests contacting the manufacturer, which is usually a coded message for "time for a new printer."

My Buddhist study group has been in abeyance for a while, which gave me the opportunity to play badminton on a couple of Mondays. I miss that club! They are fun to be with and also to play with, and I look forward to the weeks when I can get there.

And, for the first time ever, I've been to our local theatre. I can't believe I've never done it before; it's a lovely little place by the river run by volunteers, with a small auditorium and a very cheap bar. UJ came with me to see Wyrd Sisters, a play based on the Terry Pratchett novel (which UJ has read), and we both enjoyed it. UJ commented in the interval that it isn't so easy for her without the subtitles, and she would have had the added difficulty of TP's very English puns and wordplay, and various characters were using quite thick regional accents, but I think she got the gist.

I'm hoping for an appearance soon by guest bloggers Lola II and/or Mr M to describe our adventures in London and Leamington, but until then, a last note regarding a message I received from mum. Over the years as maintenance has been needed she has discovered some staggering incompetence on the part of the tradesmen involved in the building of an extension, including the heating thermostat on the wall being entirely decorative, a pump installed the wrong way round, and much more. This time the downstairs toilet flush needed a bit of help and the plumber was duly called. In the course of his work he discovered, unbelievably, that it was plumbed into the hot water supply and has presumably been so ever since its installation by what must have been the most incompetent tradesman ever employed.

Solitary retreat

'Gribbles', March 2023

A solitary retreat is an interesting thing. I've had solitary holidays before, but that just meant going somewhere on my own without any other restrictions on what I do, where I go or whom I speak to. This time the intention was deliberately to see and speak to no one, have no Internet or other broadcast media, and spend time with some Buddhist texts and my own mind for company.

I didn't think this would be a huge challenge because I've often spent days on end without interacting with anyone, but I haven't added the other restrictions before. I consulted anyone who had experience of going on solitary retreat and received wildly conflicting advice, so I just decided for myself how I would arrange it. I would go without Internet - that would be easy - but make it possible to listen to music if I wanted to. I downloaded the talks I planned to listen to, and took the books relating to that topic with me, and my notebooks, and I took one other book for lighter reading, just in case. I borrowed OS maps from the library and took my walking boots. For food I took porridge pots for breakfast, and vegan Soulful Food pots for lunch and supper, with chocolate and crisps to make it a bit less worthy. And that's it.

In the end I didn't listen to any music or read the extra book, and what emerged over the week was that because there wasn't all that much to do and plenty of time to do it, I found myself doing just one thing at a time (plus looking out of the window). Drinking a cup of tea became just that. I focused on brushing my teeth while I was brushing my teeth rather than thinking about what I'd done earlier or what I would be doing next. When one thing was finished, I stopped, sat, looked out of the window, and decided what the next thing would be. I meditated, listened to the lectures, read the textbook, made notes, ate meals, drank tea, went for walks. Life became immensely simple. I even took away all the watches and clocks, so my only clue to the time of day was whether it was light or dark outside.

Despite being in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the public footpaths weren't all that exciting. The cabin faced an earth bank that was clearly a rabbit warren, and there were cute furry young bunnies to watch through the window while I was drinking tea. The main challenge was the weather. It was unseasonably cold, and while the hut's convection heater worked very well, my feet got a bit cold and I didn't have a hot water bottle. A couple of times I had to run hot water from the shower over my feet to warm them up. Obviously I hadn't been looking at the forecast, so it was a surprise on the last day to be packing up in freezing sleet (it's just visible in the photo) and then be confronted with heavy snow on the road.

There were aspects of the week that I would have liked to replicate at home, but it just isn't possible. There are infinitely more things to do at home, jobs and responsibilities, and I can't stay off the Internet for ever. When would I listen to podcasts if not during mealtimes? And podcasts aren't just meaningless entertainment (although some of them are), I do often learn from them.

So it wasn't long before things returned to normal, although I think it took about three days to catch up with all the messages. Then the week's business started - dentist, optician, doctor, Buddhists, parents, badminton.

What I've been reading

Tales of the City
by Armistead Maupin

"San Francisco, 1976. A naïve young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous."

I remember liking this book a whole lot more when I first read it than this time - I'm finding books about hooking up with partners and relationships a little hard going at the moment. It's not a bad book, but back then (in the late 1980's?) I think it was very new to me, unlike anything I'd read before. Now I'm older and more world-weary.

Phineas Finn
by Anthony Trollope

narrated by Timothy West

"Phineas Finn is a talented but naive doctor's son from Ireland with Parliamentary aspirations. He must make numerous practical and ethical choices regarding his career, his political beliefs, and his romantic life, in hopes of emerging with his character, reputation, and prospects intact."

It's interesting how much I thought I remembered from the BBC production of The Pallisers starring Susan Hampshire as Glencora and Philip Latham as Plantagenet. In particular, the characters of Phineas Finn and Madame Max Goesler stood out - I thought I remembered her dark dresses in green and black, and her facial appearance and accent. But I can't find any trace of her on IMDb so can only conclude that I must be thinking of someone else. Whatever, I still love Trollope and very much appreciated that he allowed his characters to remain honourable and not let me down.

Doomsday Book
by Connie Willis

"For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her."

One of my top five books that I return to occasionally. I found it after reading To Say Nothing of the Dog - it's by the same author but I like it more, not that it's a cheerful story or anything, but the settings of Oxford in the future and Oxfordshire in the past are brought fully to life and I can imagine living among the people, especially in the past. The sections set in the future have a new resonance, because a flu epidemic has broken out there - a new strain not yet sequenced, and so much of what she wrote about in 1992 came to pass in 2020 - PPE and face masks, mortality, quarantine and restrictions, and, surprisingly, toilet paper. How did she know that a shortage of toilet paper would be one of the hallmarks of the UK Coronavirus pandemic? And the final few chapters are really wonderful.

Moving Against the Stream: The Birth of a New Buddhist Movement
by Sangharakshita

"After twenty years in the subcontinent - travelling and lecturing, writing, working among the most deprived, and extending and deepening his knowledge of the Dharma - Sangharakshita has been invited by leading British Buddhists to help resolve tensions in the British Buddhist scene."

The fourth memoir by the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Community, and written much later than the first three, after a gap of about 30 years, so he struggles to recall the events with immediacy and relies quite a lot on his contemporaneous journals. I got the impression that he felt the need to record two things: one, the friendship he enjoyed with one particular man who took his life at the end of the events described in the book, and two, why he broke away from the two English Buddhist Societies that existed at the time to found a new movement. Reading the memoirs has been illuminating about the author as a man who was incredibly well read in humanities, arts and philosophy but completely lacking in any scientific knowledge. He was intensely spiritual, believed in all sorts of supernatural phenomena, saw visions, and took his dreams very seriously.

At the same time as reading this book during my solitary retreat I was also listening to the voice of the author delivering a series of lectures which form the basis of the material we're about to study in one of my Buddhist groups, and also reading the book which came out of the lectures including additional material and clarification on some points. So I was really immersed in the man. There's no doubt of his sincerity and his knowledge of Eastern Buddhism, but when he lapses into speaking as himself he reveals himself to be a man of the time, with views that clash badly with today's society - about the place of women, for example. He was also the subject of a scandal when it was reported that some people who looked to him as a teacher complained that he had been a sexual predator. No charges were brought and the Triratna Buddhist Order has taken steps to put rigorous safeguarding processes in place to prevent any recurrence of this type of activity.

Shortly after he died, which was only in 2018, I went to a talk at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre where various people were asked to speak of their connection with him. I was slightly taken aback when one of the speakers said that in a way he was glad that Sangharakshita was now dead, because it allowed his far-sighted vision of Buddhism in the West and his extraordinary skill in building a sustainable movement and community to shine through and not be sullied any longer by the man himself. I now think I understand what he meant, and I concur.

The week

Vajraloka, May 2022

Quick round up of events in the last week before I head off into the unknown:

• Last minute outing for Lola II's birthday, for delicious Sunday lunch (which was what she asked for) at a fancy pub near Oxford, chosen because it's about half-way between us and was highly rated. My vegetarian choices were amazing, Lola II and Mr M reported that their starter was wonderful but there was a bit too much fat and gristle on the roast beef. The waitress who came to ask how the meal was steadfastly refused to apologise for this, which lost them the option of a return visit (from me anyway).
• Then we returned to Oxford and stayed over so that we could do a bit of tourism. What we actually did was watch two films (Bank of Dave and Tár), visit the Weston Library (interesting exhibition about the early years of photography), have a slap up breakfast in town, lunch in the market, and cake for tea. I had a lovely time.
• I had a Zoom meeting and a real life meeting with the Buddhists. It was film night at my house, there were six of us, and we had supper together then watched The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. A couple of people hadn't seen it before, and it's always fun to see and hear their reactions.
• I went to see mum and dad, and was encouraged that mum is still improving , albeit more slowly than she would like.
• Another Thursday, another badminton match. We lost the match, but my partner and I won one game, which makes it slightly better.

Now I'm about to go on a week's solitary retreat in Suffolk, which I haven't done before. I've been thinking about it a great deal, trying to work out what to take and what not to take, and planning what I might do with my time offline. I'm very interested in how I manage, but overall I'm looking forward to it.