Health Bulletins ~ Are You Well?

In the spirit of mindful sharing ~ please don't feel you have to read this stuff ~ here is an ongoing record of all the experiences I've had since discovering a few months ago in August 2018 that I'm blessed with an impressively large prostate gland and consequently as a result, I have urinary retention. 

Doesn't sound like a fun read, but I like to be mindful in everyday life and say it how it is ~ the good, the bad, the funny and sad.  

So whether you are male or female, you have health issues and are actively availing yourself of a Health Care Service, or you are in your prime, never give it a second thought or perhaps might reflect on your future health one day.... this is definitely a mindful experience to be aware of. 

Read on to the Bulletins above, if you'd like to be amused and know more.... and you're not easily upset or offended!

What's It All About?

Every so often I go through a kind of crisis of I don’t know what—confidence maybe? Existence perhaps? I don’t know, but anyway these feelings come and go in waves.  They say when you retire, you should only do the things you want to do—only the things you really like, and perhaps have never had time for.  And I often ask myself, what is that? What is it that I really want to do? Today I went to the gym and spoke to two people separately I haven’t seen for a while—it was a pleasure and made me smile, ferried someone around to the shops and to catch a train, watched on TV a bit of ‘The World at War’ and saw for the millionth time how the Allies fared on D-Day, did some work on my bike, thought in anticipation about the meeting I was going to have that evening with someone from one of my mindfulness courses, prepared for my next evening course session, did some emails, wondered why some people reply really quickly and others don’t—and started to write this post.

And a clock is ticking steadily and loudly in front of me—and behind me too (there are two clocks in the room, and if you’re mindful of the echoing sound they make, it’s like a slow, metronomic, mesmeric rally in an unwinnable tennis match!), vehicles are passing by quickly and airily, rubber-to-road outside as people rush to get where they’re going, a picture smiles back at me capturing a moment of happy relief in our garden on the day all those years ago when me and my wife actually finished our degree courses—an original ‘selfie’ taken by camera on timer with old-fashioned tripod—and I can still feel the joyful moments now as I look at us and the girls framed by flowers and greenery, then I’m noticing my desk is a mess but not too bad, seeing there’s an old tape-measure there too and I’m wondering what it’s for, and in the next instant, I have the flashing image in mind from this morning, of me on my bike flying round a blind-bend and feeling really stupid because for the first time in ages I hadn’t rung my bell and there were loads of people and kids on the pathway there! Brake…. smile and mouth ‘....Sorry....!!’ comically, and glide on by. Another catastophe that didn’t happen. And I’m just hearing outside what I think is a child in distress crying, and looking fairly urgently and warily out of the window, I see clearly that it’s actually two boys larking around having great fun with a football, really enjoying themselves in all their ‘boy-ness’. Big smile to this!

And all these noticings and reflections are my life! The life I question, have crises about and don’t know what to do with. Come to think of it, the life I’ve always had crises about, always questioned and always didn’t know what to do with. Well it happened anyway, and thankfully it’s still happening now. All those bits of awareness and fragments of a life that tell me I exist—that tell me I’m here, that I showed up and was present for these moments, big and small, good and not so good at all—hooray—I am here!

I’m sure I had an idea in mind when I started to write this post, but can’t for the life of me think what it was. The mini-wave crisis of confidence and existence seems thankfully to have passed (temporarily I'm sure). And at this moment, I'm mindful of a whole new world visually, because I just picked up from the opticians my new prescription lense glasses! I can see a little more clearly and brightly now, and of course I suppose that's it, I am clearly doing what I want to do, and I am clearly doing what I like (at least some of the time) and this is it, this is my life. 

In any case, stuff like this that happens and that unfolds from moment-to-moment that I’m truly here for—and sometimes fully awake to and aware of—is far more interesting than the complications my mind wants to make of it all. The simple stuff, the trivial stuff, the mundane, the routine, the boring.... plus the disturbing, the worrying, the draining.... the uplifting, the changing, the exciting..... the rich mindful noticings of all this. It doesn’t matter what it is—it’s all the stuff of Life. These noticings are what it's all about. 

Let's celebrate that with all our senses.

And I love the fact the old tape measure's got 'Cosmos' written on it.

I thought I was still 25

There is so much pain and suffering in the World and I think to myself how lucky I am that I don’t suffer all the time. Since last September though, I’ve often experienced a bit too much pain for comfort—it’s a fact! Pain in the back and leg, pain in the eye, pain in various joints—and aside from the physical pain—quite a bit of emotional pain too. This last one goes hand in hand with the actual pain—they come together as a package. Can’t do much about it of course, except live with it. Well, that’s not exactly true, because just like we all do, I have tried to get rid of it or at least make it less troublesome. I’ve seen a chiropractor, a physiotherapist, various doctors and an eye surgeon. I’ve also taken more eye drops and pain-killers (why do we call them that?) than ever before.

Thankfully, and blissfully, at this moment, there is what Thich Nhat Hanh refers to with a whistful sigh..... as….. ‘the absence of pain’.

He says this with—as I distinctly recall, a beautiful half-smile—or at least he did until recently when in his 80’s he had a stroke. He is recovering now and they say his smile is coming back—although he can’t speak again yet. I wonder if he is able to be mindful of his moment-to-moment experience now. 

I do hope so.

Some of the time I’m grateful to be mindful of all this pain. It does remind me that I’m alive. I hope I ‘practice what I preach’ in guiding others to directly turn towards the pain themselves in the moment and over time look deeply to notice how the sensory qualities of the pain change in intensity, together with all the thoughts and feelings that accompany the pain. Just Noticing, Observing and Witnessing. When I tell people I do this myself, for example when visiting the dentist, or when having the eye operation recently at the hospital—as an ‘opportunity to be mindful’—they often laugh and say I’m a masochist! I don’t think I am—I find the experience neither pleasurable nor painful. Well not as painful as it might be if I weren’t being mindful anyway. I should add that I don’t want to be a pain—the pain by itself is real enough—I just don’t want to add to it. But I know that I can be a pain some of the time. I’m sorry for that—please forgive me. Not being able to do things like go to the gym, ride my bike, or play as much with the grand kids can be very tiresome, frustrating and irritating. So plenty to be mindful of there. 

Bit by bit, I hope I can recover some of the ability to be as active as before, but to be honest in darker moments, my biggest fear is that maybe this is it and I’ll have to accept any limitations just as they are. I suppose that does happen naturally anyway—accepting limitations that is. Like fading eyesight concealing the ravages of time—nature can sometimes have a way of letting us down gently. So it was a bit of a shock recently after having a cloudy lense in my eye replaced with a crystal clear one. Blimey!! The brightness and the colour and the sharpness and…. and…. is that me?! Oh heck, I thought I was still 25.

~~~Seaside Dip ~ English Summer~~~

That's me with the hat on, drifting by in the background.

Sandown Isle of Wight August 2014

_~~~Seaside Dip _~o~ English Summer_~~~

 

 Standing staring freezing

Thigh high choking

Bravely stepping wading

Waist water closing


Crooked elbows bracing


Finger tips testing


Eying swells encroaching


Bouncing joking grimacing

Chuckling ducking bobbing

Still standing looking…..

August-flipping cold!

That final dunking

Put off ever-lasting

Over trunks and trunking

Now fast chilling

Down forward dropping

Tipping falling toppling 


No way backing

Shocking submerging


Flat under smirking

Head-up holding

_~o~


Ahhrghh! I'm in!!

Waaaaayyyyy!!!

Log floating


Slight un-stiffening

Possibly relaxing

Gliding swaying


Swaythe waving


Not so chilling


Broad grin dashing

_~o~

Turning noticing

 Ooops…. disappearing!

_~~~Distant specs (do not) ashore_~~~


Bottom touching?

Nope, far out manning


Below water lining

Delicious dawning


Fear arising


No returning

Sensing daring


Flirting skirting

Somewhat hurting

Life endangering

Beyond the pale

Ah well returning

Back a-lying

Feet churning

Sky burning

Arms turning

Shore’s rim reaching

Seaweed clinging

Sand stone lapping

Semi-surfing

Cool arriving

_~~~Laying_~~~staying_~~~resting_~~~peace_~~~

 (Back on the Beach)

Sh-sh-shivering

Towels wrapping

Drinking coughing

Teeth chattering

Chips fattening

Salty sanding

Hypo-therming

Lolling laughing

Happy happening

Family sharing

_~~~Seeing_~~~enjoying_~~~belonging_~~~being_~~~

_~~~Living_~~~

<sub>~o~o~o~o~o~


Colin Eveleigh</sub>

A Mindful Day Out

Beautiful day out with my wife, daughter and the grand kids. Lunch at a café under the railway arches in Southsea on the Hard. Bit dubious about eating here because the sign on the wall didn’t look very welcoming for vegetarians. Noticed myself not being able to read the menu very well. I think it was because I expected everything to be burgers, so I was kind of distracted. As I settled a little, several veggie options came into focus. They had been there all the time but my mind wouldn’t see them. And it was a great lunch enjoyed by all, with the added dimension of the low roar and bumpy vibrations of the trains going overhead! 

Afterwards, me and the kids went to the dockyard on the water in a little electric ‘nee-naw’ boat. My grandson calls anything with a flashing blue light a nee-naw, and this was a Police boat. There was a wheel to steer and a switch to control the speed of the engine and a switch for the light. Both kids wanted to steer, and I said I would see how it went and then they could have a go. There were several other little boats in the water basin, mostly being driven by grown-ups. It was interesting! I felt pretty confident as we set off. ‘Steer….. steady, straight, straight, steady, steady …….’turning a little’….. ‘out of control; out of control’……‘Steer….. steady, straight, straight, steady, steady……‘ ‘turning a little…… ‘out of control; out of control’. That’s how it went!!  You had to have the experience of a seasoned sea captain of a huge ocean-going tanker to be able to anticipate what would actually happen when you steered a little to the left or a little to the right, or put on or took off any speed or cut the engine altogether. Oh and we did have reverse too, but we never tried reverse—everything was a bit too hectic and too complicated for that.  

On my own—he says confidently—I’m sure I could have mastered it with some panache pretty quickly, but with an 8 and a 2 and half year old, it was a little tricky to say the least. Trying to avoid going into a wall or another family boat, or a buoy or a blow-up tunnel was fun though—especially when we bumped into the lighthouse—they thought that was hilarious. ‘Let me have a go Gaga!’, says Romily.’ ‘Let Romily have a go’, says me to Dexter. ‘No!!’ says Dexter, ‘Don’t want to!’…… ‘OK then…..’After a while, I went aft as it were, and got an agreement that we could work together as a crew. Romily moved the engine lever up and down by clicks, and Dexter held the wheel, with me trying to anticipate and turn it when we needed to.   

Amazingly, there were no upsets—I was very mindful of the potential for upsets, and tried as best I could to prevent things from kicking-off (and I didn’t get upset once!). 

What I noticed mostly was the strong urge I had to want to control everything and just do it all…… and letting go of that, so I had the space to be mindful, and so they could see what would happen when they did something or forgot to do things…. And I didn’t turn it into a lesson either—it was just a bit of fun. We did get pretty smooth running in the end and anyhow, now we’ve got our sea legs, I think we’ll do it again! It is great fun and there is a lot to be mindful of in quite an amusing way.

I'm Old ~ It's Official!!

Whenever you tell him where something is—predictably—my grandson says, ‘I can’t see it!’. If it’s not immediately visible to him, and he can’t see it, he can’t believe it exists—he’s two and a half. I’m a bit older and I'm still inclined to the same way of ‘seeing is believing’. 

Some things we don’t want to see or hear at all. 

Like the ophthalmologist has just told me I have age-related cataracts. Apparently, you can get cataracts at a young age too, but I will soon be (gulp!!) 65, and that’s when they could become a nuisance. I can mostly see fog from my right eye—a bit like this…... 

‘You can get it fixed—it depends on your ‘Life Style’—the ophthalmologist said drily. I thought, ‘What kind of life style would I need to have where it didn’t matter that I could only see fog?!’ Perhaps I could become a weather man spotting fog. Any fog I spotted that was worse than mine would immediately warrant an alert! 

To be honest, I ummed and ahhed about posting this note to you all and wondered why. It’s kind of obvious really. Vanity(?) and the mind doesn’t want to be associated with its failing host—the body. Put it another way, the Self—‘I’—don’t want to admit to getting older. Or, let’s be truthful, getting old—but it’s a fact. One that’s quite hard to sit with and face. But it is true. My eyes tell me that and my aches and pains give me little reminders too. Mostly I’m alright with it—and in any case what can I do about these facts of life anyway?

I suppose it helps that at present for me it’s a gradual decline. That way maybe the mind and body hopefully will slowly adjust to one another. But I don’t know what it would be like if things were a bit more sudden though, as they are for some people. Maybe I’ll find out—maybe not—all in good time. And how long will that be? I don’t know. So I’d better get on with it—including the uncertainty of whenever or whatever it is—and make the most of what I’ve got now. I like the idea of ‘getting on’ with things—it’s what we say when we’re getting busy, and it can also mean ‘getting along’ with, as in having a good relationship with, let’s say ‘others’ or ‘myself’. 

It reminds me..... I do need to be a friend to myself, and there are so many things I can give thanks for.

The Best of Both Worlds

I’ve just returned from a very special bike ride. It was an interesting trip and as part of it I stayed for a night and a day at a monastery for Retreat.  I was there before some 44 years previously on Retreat with a friend. It seems an impossibly long time ago, and I remember the week with great fondness. One day after a big summer storm, we were down at the monastery’s private beach and I found a washed up huge wicker elliptically-shaped boat-fender attached to a rope.

On a whim (or should that be on a limb?) I tied it to a dead tree which hung over the water and with my shoes and socks off and jeans rolled up over my knees, splashing around, digging up handfuls of clay, I found myself slapping the clay joyfully on to the hanging fender, where pretty soon a large face began to form. As I remember it, as far as human faces go it was quite grotesque, but fun anyway. I really enjoyed myself and each day after that I went back to the beach to see how the face had weathered. By the end of the week it had completely transformed and was sagging somewhat (especially the mouth) with the weight of water and clumps of seaweed—it became ‘out of this world’ and I loved it.

The point of the story is, the other day I wanted to spend some quiet time on this same beach just to see if I could experience the memory and the joy again—to rekindle the feelings.  In the process, I nearly missed the here and now real-life opportunity to experience directly everything there was to experience right there and then. In fact as it turned out, I got the best of both worlds. Not only was there the joyful memory, but also there was the joy of actually being there and being able to see, hear, touch, taste and smell everything that was there on the beach, that was happening as it happened.  And the truth is that that particular direct experience was amazing and terrific too. I’m really glad I was able to recall and let go of the previous memory, and at the same time be present to experience all the other stuff too, to make a new memory. This time amongst many other things, I had the joy of making something else to leave on the beach—an arrangement of a few stones to sit on. To sit on and reflect. Which I did a lot.

At the end of my Retreat when I was leaving, one of the monks said to me ‘You’ll come back and see us again?’  ‘Hmm…’ I replied. And then with a wry smile he added, ‘Maybe in another 44 years?!’ There’s a lesson in that too.

Drilling Deep

It was all going so well putting up the shelf—I like a bit of DIY—and then my ancient electric drill decided to give up the ghost. I didn’t mind the forced pause though and got to work immediately researching how I might repair the fault and finding out what new and better drill I might get if a repair was not feasible. Finally, after much deliberation, I decided to treat myself to a new drill which I found as a great deal online. It was perfect and I was all set and excited to buy it, when....... my daughter kindly offered the loan of her drills saying very sensibly that we could share them.

My mind was not prepared for this turn of events at all and instantly rebelled with ‘Nooooo!! I want my own new drill!’ What can you do with a childish mind like that? It eventually calmed down (luckily the offer was sent to me by text, so my reaction apart from lamentably sharing my feelings with my wife who famously gets all this stuff—sorry Christina—was largely an internal one) and I was then able to accept the drills reasonably graciously. Phew!! 

By the way, these drills that I’m talking about and now using are great..... and even older than my broken one!! 

There’s a lot to be said for allowing time for the mind to settle before always doing straight away what it wants you to.

“Oh no, not my bell!!”

In the 12 years that I’ve been involved in exploring and coming to personal understandings about mindfulness, I admit I have not had a great attachment to the conventions of Buddhist practice. Like many others, I have been on Retreat, attended conferences, and trainings, joined several classes and groups, sat a fair amount and read a lot, but I have never felt really comfortable with actions and symbols like, chanting, mantras, prayers, icons, rituals, gestures, bowing and so on. I can see the beauty—the purpose—and I realise how helpful these are to some of us in identifying with a religious belief or particular movement, and I understand the way they may assist our intentions and efforts to sustain the habit of practice; I have nothing against them at all—they’re just not for me. However, although I tend to eschew these historic and deeply meaningful ways, I have to admit……….. I love my bell! 

It is a proper Buddhist bell that I bought whilst on Retreat in Nottingham with the Vietnamese Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh. Like him, the bell is wonderful, many people admire it and ask me where they can get one, it has a beautiful sound to my ear, and we use the bell as a way of marking the beginning and ending of practice—the passage of time. In the spirit of everyday mindfulness, I have experimented in the past by using non-Buddhist bells, (even a school bell a bicycle bell, and an hotel reception bell on various occasions) and I have used other everyday recorded sounds, but have always come back to this one; my bell. However, until recently, I had not realised the full power of the bell—not only to delight—but also to disturb.

I found this out the other day at the beginning of a 6-week ‘Introduction to Mindfulness In Everyday Life’ course that I run at a local library. I soon discovered that one of the people on the course had a serious problem with the bell and could not tolerate the sound or the resonance—this was because she has a condition called hyperacusis, which means she has difficulty tolerating everyday sounds, some of which may seem unpleasantly or painfully loud. On top of that she also has tinnitus, which apparently was being aggravated by the sound sensitivity to the bell. Her immediate and very strong negative reaction to the sound of the bell was to find that it actually increased the suffering she experienced—it was not soothing or pleasant at all. Even if I sounded the bell as quietly as possible, not only was she unable to listen to it before and after each guided awareness session, she found she couldn’t even bear the sound of the same bell when she listened at home to the recordings of practices I gave her. It became clear pretty quickly that she would not be able to continue with the course and something would have to give. This was a conundrum for me and it came quite out of the blue. Should I give up the bell for one person when everyone else (I assumed) likes and appreciates it so much? Or should she be encouraged, as a part of turning towards her own suffering, to learn to be mindful of her reactions and let them take their rightful place alongside all her other awareness so that she could get used to the sounds and not suffer such extreme reactions?

I have worked with people suffering in this way before, but never had the suffering quite so directly associated with the bell—and clearly in this case, it makes perfect sense. So I sat with it to allow some insight and compassion to arrive and as a resolution I came back and offered two things—modified recordings of the practices with no bell sounds at all, and a promise not to use the bell in our weekly sessions. I understood that she might feel she had to drop out anyway, but she was very grateful for these offers, and knowing she would be relieved of the pain of the bell, was happy to continue and very determined to get on with the course and the homework.
 

It’s not exactly a popular idea, but there is a lot to be said for turning towards suffering, and I’m sure, because we’ve honestly looked at the effects of the bell on the course, it will open doors and allow us to venture into new places. In the end, I decided that we would all gain much more by being able to stay together as a group, experiencing whatever came up for us during the course (the course without the bell for goodness sake!) and having the added possibility that each of us would be able to share these experiences and reach deeper understandings. Rather than have the lady leave, the decision to offer the no-bell options felt right. It seemed to be kind, and I felt more congruent and at ease with myself as a result.

And of course, this post is not about hyperacusis or tinnitus or the sound of the bell, it is really about letting go of attachments—or ‘craving and desire’ as the Buddha put it.

I have been letting go of so many things lately……. I have let go of my mindfulness books to charity so other people can read them. I have let go of the need to be quite so well prepared when I facilitate mindfulness events for others. I did this partly because it was suggested to me by one helpful person in another one of my groups, and I thought I would give it a try. It fits very well with the notion of being able to trust in myself and others and also it means that I’m not striving so hard to achieve desirable outcomes—which is mindful, right? In theory, it also has the effect of enabling me to be more present and available too. I have so much more to let go of every day—often over and over—a lifetimes worth of thoughts, feelings and sensations to accept and let go of. “Dying to every moment”, as Krishnamurti so dramatically tells us.
 

All this reminds me that there is something here to re-learn and to re-member to be mindful of—and admittedly, it is a recognition of the obvious; we are all different, and others have a lifetime of their own thoughts, feelings and sensations to accept and let go of too! We are different in our perceptions and needs, and well…. we are different in just about every way—except for the fact that we have the same kind of mind that always causes and adds to our suffering by making more of an experience than is actually there. And that’s why I’m letting go of as many attachments as I can—yes, even the bell—because then maybe there’s a chance I might be just a little more present, a little more aware, a little more available—to be able, truly to be with, rather than separate from others.
 

No-bell no-Self? Well.... just another little bit of Self I let go of anyway!

The Paperboy

It’s a very long time since I stood on the decks of the Royal Yacht Brittania—50 years to be precise! I’m standing here now, because we’ve taken a few days break in Edinburgh and this is where she now lies as a major visitor-attraction in Leith, Scotland. Back in 1963-4, the 14 year old paperboy that I was then, lived in Stamshaw, Portsmouth and when—in between her many World Tours and State Visits—she was in her Portsmouth Dockyard berth just off Whale Island, close to our house, I would cycle off each morning from the Newsagents to sell papers and magazines to the crew. Not many people know this!

It’s a very strange feeling to be back on board. I’m excited and a little bit perturbed and disorientated as I try to find the exact spot where I stood on those icy-cold early mornings before going off bleary-eyed to school. Unlike this visit, where I am free to go absolutely anywhere I like—even (shock-horror) to see the Queen’s bedroom—I never actually got to be any place on board in those days, except to ‘man’ a small undercover bit towards the stern, having left my bike on the quayside and lugged my massively heavy papers and equally huge cash bag up the gangway with me. And of course sadly, I never met the Queen.

As we walk up and down, deck-by-deck with all the other enthralled multi-national visitors looking at the memorabilia, artifacts, fabulous collections and history of the ship and her esteemed Royal Family, who travelled over a million miles in her across far flung seas, enjoying their privacy and also entertaining many famous dignitaries and wealthy guests for over 60 years—I’m not sure what or how I’m feeling. Such a long time has gone by so quickly and so many things have happened in my life—was this really a part of it? Did it shape or influence who I am or what I went on to do?

'Amongst his wares, the paperboy had been given several men’s magazines to sell, and he remembers with quite a lot of embarrassment, the sailors laughing about the ‘tame’ nature of what was on show. They tried to make him blush by showing pictures they had of eye-popping and seemingly impossible things.'

I did blush…. and I’m still blushing now!

'Also, he remembers after one of these trips, cycling back to the shop with his much lighter newspapers and magazines bag and very much heavier cash bag. Approaching the bridge, he had to slow down and come to a wobbly stop because of traffic lights. He waited for them to change and scooted along to get back on his bike again. Cocking his leg confidently over the saddle—yes, you’ve guessed it—he proceeded to empty all over the road the complete contents of his cash bag as it tipped off his shoulder.'

I couldn’t believe it!! Traffic came to a standstill as I scrabbled around trying to pick up the money and several people came to help—at least I think they were helping.

Anyway, funny memories….. and I’m wondering if embarrassment is etched deep in my soul, and whatever else there might be there from the past. 

Recollecting and reflecting on the past. 

Ah well, the past….. the past….. all is past, except for now, remembering. Nothing profound, nothing important—not now anyway. Remembering and letting go of the past.