Senior Tutor – Waifs & Strays – Great Compassion Dream 13-05-2025

Here is this morning’s dream. I have often thought of my stint as Senior Tutor as a karmic payback caused by my own days of depression and misery.

The dream starts on a dreary wet grey council estate multistorey housing facility. There are runway balconies connecting the apartments. This is grey and tatty. There is a smell of piss and there are graffiti tags. The feel, the air, is of decay and danger. It is in South London, the rough side of Brixton. I am approaching a red door. There is music and a whiff of skunk cannabis.

I knock on the door and ring the bell. There is some talk inside, someone goes to the net curtain and checks through the window. The music goes off and a young white American man answers the door. He has blonde skanky corn-row dreadlocks. He is both surprised to see me and not surprised at all.

I explain to him that I have come looking for him because he has been cutting classes and not turning up for lab work. I ask if I can come in. He is reticent to let me in. I explain that it is ultra-unlikely that I will be shocked by what I see. I have been to drug dens before, and I will not judge him for a few spliffs.

He lets me in, and we sit in a scruffy lounge area where there is “party” debris. He ushers to his flat mate to leave us alone. I ask him what the problem is. He says that he has some debts and has to earn a little money on the side. He is into some gang related problems. I say that if he wants, I can come to talk with his gang contact. He does not think I can hack it. I explain that I have talked with gang bangers before. They do not scare me.

I say that he needs to find some way of balancing his work at university and his gang activity. He needs to stay off the class A drugs. I suggest that he comes back to college and tapers off his involvement in selling drugs. Otherwise, I will come and talk to the gang. He realizes that I am serious.

The scene changes and I am in an office, my office. It is in a university hall of residence, and I am tutor / warden there. It is late in the evening. There is a knock on the door and a young woman is there. She has been crying. I let her in. She says that the American man from before has suggested that she talks with me. She is highly suspicious and on edge. I invite her in and have her sit in my living room. I say to here that it is my job to look after the lost and the wayward. I have seen most of it. There are few surprises. I deal with boy girl problems, coming out issues, parent problems, depression, hyperactivity. I can advise on finances, condom coming off type problems. I can refer to health services. I deal with handicap and disability. Sometimes I just listen for a while. I can change her tutors if they are being arseholes. As a Buddhist I am well placed to discuss faith from all perspectives and am non-judgemental and widely read. I can hear “confession” if there is something she wants off her chest. Try me I say. I will see if/how I can help. I pass her a box of tissues to dry her eyes. I say that I am not an ogre. She smiles.

A while later in the morning I have another knock on my door. It is a young man a dwarf with achondroplasia.  I let him in. Now I am wearing maroon monk’s robes with a yellow under vest. It is my job to “simply love them” to offer my great compassion. I usher him in, and he plops onto the soda. I ask him about his general health and how his dwarfism may be hindering his studies. He says that he has some thyroid problems which are handled medically and that from time to time the arthritis is his hips plays up. I say that if he runs out, he can have some of my hip arthritis pain killers. I joke that we should go dancing. He says that the girl from before, has by word of mouth, suggested that he talk with me. I ask him how I may help. He says that he needs to get some height aids and a reaching device for high shelves. I say that I will sort it. He has been in trouble with the warden for being drunk and disorderly. I remind him that because of his low body mass he should not try to drink pint for pint with the other students. I will tell the warden he has been to see me.  I say that my door is always open. He notices my rosary on my left hand which is made out of antique yellow-amber beads. I explain to him that I am not easily shocked and am not prone to judgement. He wishes me a good day and leaves.

Next, I am in the corridor outside my flat and another young male student approaches me. He taps me on the shoulder and asks if we can have a word. We go to sit in a coffee bar. He is agitated and keeps glancing over his shoulder. He says that he is in deep trouble. I ask in what way and what his name is. He is sat on a sofa, and I am sat cross legged on the carpet of the coffee shop. He says that he does not want to give me his real name. He gives me his passport name. The one he uses. He is Eastern European / Russian. I ask him to tell me is real name. Anayin, or something like that. He writes it in Cyrillic for me. I know this to be the name of an exiled Russian mafia boss. He is having problems with immigration and the Home Office. His father has a security services protected identity. He says that the officials are being shirty with him. I suggest that for his next meeting I come with him. I can show them my University Identity card and confirm that his application and attendance at university is all in order. He is doing well in his studies. I say that my manner of dress can have interesting effects on uppity officials. It wrong foots them. He agrees and we will keep his familial identity between us. He says that the girl who came to see me before is his girlfriend and that the morning after pill has worked according to her recent self-pregnancy test. I suggest that he needs to be more careful because the last thing that either of them needs right now is a baby. The studies are hard enough. I punch him playfully on the arm.

The dream ends…

Something Changing…

Over the last few days I have had the sensation of things stacking up, coming towards some kind of nexus. After which the future might be clearer. There is a sense of tension and of missed opportunity exterior to our world. I feel an avoided crossing which may not get close to manifesting for a large number of years or ever again. The sense is of an aperture closing, of time running out.

Life can take trajectories other than we might imagine.

It does not turn out the way we might anticipate or expect.

The upcoming rheumatology appointment may shed some light on what is going on with my skeleton. It is wise not to get too optimistic. Life has shown me that I have to endure on a number of occasions, there can be no solution or let up.

I feel one pathway one trajectory  may be closing off.

I do not see a way forward.

It is all a little up in the air.

This little foray upcoming may come to something or send us back to where we started.

What may be happening external, according to the banging jungle drums, I have no control over. But my gut feeling is that if anything is incoming it will be a foxtrot unicorn. An overly complex “cunning plan”. If such a thing is in the pipeline I would advise, desist. But since when did anyone listen to me.

It is weird. It feels as if something is afoot exterior to the compound here…

What may come in dreams tonight remains to be seen…large pink-bunny steroids don’t sound all that attractive.

I will be all Timmy Mallet – wide awake.

Turnpike Inn – Ghost – Hitech – Pink Tablets Dreams – 12-05-2025.

Here are last night’s dreams.

The first dream starts in a 18th century style horse drawn carriage. It is closed and very much like an Adam Ant video. We are heading north to Edinburgh. There is a couple who are well off, myself and my helper / lieutenant. I am dressed casually in white blouson and with my long grey hair tied back in a pony tail. It is getting towards dusk. We will be staying at a large turnpike inn just inside the borders.

We pull up in front of the inn and the horsemen steady the horses and let them drink. We dismount and I am greeted by the landlord who has been waiting for me. He has a lantern and is accompanied by his wife. He has a Scottish brogue. The otherwise bustling turnpike inn is fairly deserted. He has called me north to investigate. There have been a series of haunting /poltergeist like happenings which have scared his customers.

He leads me into the bar and we have a drink out of pewter cups. It is some kind of port. He asks me how I want to proceed. He then comes with me upstairs into a wood panelled suite with a large four poster style bed and a dressing room with commode. He says that this is where most of the “action” is. He puts a lantern, the port bottle and a pewter cup on the table. He backs out nervously.

I know this physical body from before. I pull my pony tail gently. I introduce myself to who/whatever is there. I take a cushion off the bed and put it on the floor next to the wall. I sit there with the cup full by my side. I am getting ready to wait. I can see my pantaloons, the tops of my stockings and my brown leather riding boots.

I say out loud, “Don’t be afraid because I am not. If you wish to materialise, please feel free. I will just sit here. What troubles you, what ails you? I am happy to discus and help put your mind at rest.”

I reach over and blow out the lantern and sit quietly adjusting to the darkness. In the night I can start to see. I note the semblance of fog-like patterns forming. I start to get a very strong sense of camaraderie as if someone/thing has sat opposite me on the floor. It is the ghost. He is now relaxed. We just sit and share each other’s company. He has no need to talk. We just feel.

This segment ends. This more towards dawn.

The next segment starts in a very brightly lit hospital environment. I am on a hospital bed which is raised for me to sit up. In the corner of the room is the large doughnut of an unspecified high-tech scanner. A male nurse is taking a cannula out of my arm through which I have had contrast agent. I know that it is a CT scanner. The nurse is chatting away.

A young girl who is in a wheelchair comes in. She manoeuvres towards my bed curious of me and what is going on. She has a nasal oxygen supply and is wearing a hospital gown. She is hairless and smiling with me. Her parents come in and call her name, Abby. They come over to us and say hi to me.

A female doctor in a white coat comes in with a small retinue of medical students. She hands me a blister of large bright Rhodamine-pink tablets each about the size of the end of my little finger. She gives me a small bottle of medicine. She hands several blisters of pink tablets to the girl’s parents. Her tablets are the size of the end of my thumb. I joke with her that the doctor has mistaken her for a horse or an elephant. She says that she is used to these tablets. I know that these tablets are very high dose steroids. They are on clinical trial. We both have to take them.

The dream ends.

Importance and Priority


“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower


People can deem all sorts of things as important; these can be personal or of a wider more general import. I think it fair to speculate that the majority have a me-centric sense of importance. The things which matter to them concern themselves, their lives and those of family and friends. Things on their agenda are more important than those not.

I am important in the lives of one human being and three cats and maybe some birds which we feed. That is the extent. My priorities are in and around this sphere of influence. My significance to the wider world is very small. In terms of social kudos I have none. My passing is unlikely to impact beyond my circle, my sphere.

I have just gone and lost a piece of tooth filling. Which is actually both important to me and ever so slightly urgent. I am due to have a titanium implant fitted soon. It is due next to the broken tooth. Unless the tooth is repaired, they may not go ahead with the implant. In my me-centric world this is horizon stuff. We need to know so that we can free up a dental slot by prompt cancellation if that is the case.

The concatenation of various health problems is getting to be boring.

What happens here, in principle, has a wider impact elsewhere. But I doubt anyone in San Francisco needs to fear the butterfly effect from our compound.

Self-perception has implications. We watched a film last night “The Substance” and surprisingly it had a big affect on me. This is unusual. It was about human folly and the desire to be young / look young and operate in an appearance obsessed society. People go to extraordinary lengths to keep up appearances. I can’t remember being much concerned about how I looked. All I wanted as a teenager / early twenty was for my fairly severe acne to pass. Being called “pizza face” is not a great deal of fun, named after a Margherita.

In an earlier post I postulated that “face” was one of the most expensive of all human notions, human folly. It appears to be very important to some and they will kill and maim in an attempt to preserve face. Face is behind conflict, face is behind war, face {loss} is causal of revenge. The weird thing is that face is a completely man made illusion. No leopard or tiger would acknowledge your sense of face or kudos in the jungle at dusk. Yum, yum…

As I was making coffee this morning, I noted that although I imagine that I have some knowledge to share. This notion is not widely held. It is not held important on a wider scale. It does not matter what I imagine.

Out there somewhere important people are busy doing things they deem important. They have their priorities whether considered or otherwise. I have never been so disinterested in all the hot air, hype and show which fills the news.

The world has lost its sense of direction. It is heading deeper into petty squabbles over who sells what for what price in the sandpit or behind the bike sheds. The world is arguing the toss about who is or isn’t a fair trading partner.

Thousands of people are dying and the world is focussed on “deals” and “bargains”.

The great car boot sale is on!!

Thousands no longer get antivirals; ordnance efficacy can be tested in vivo in Gaza and Yemen. Let’s boost arms spending hype so we can sell more weapons…

I think the priorities of humanity have been badly skewed and it is not getting better…

Seeing Things Differently

Recently I was talking with someone who suggested that an in-patient group oriented intensive physiotherapy regime postoperative for hip arthroplasty was a good idea / French practice. He was, to understate, more extroverted than I. The idea of being around loads of people “helping” me to recuperate via conviviality just does not work for me. It would be close to torture, feeling unwell and having to interact in a foreign language on a regular basis, with others. No thanks.

This sounds like a showstopper to me. In my mentality I would delay or not proceed at all.

Maybe I am ungrateful or maybe I know myself well.

It is clear in this simple example how we see things differently.

“Jack Sprat he ate no fat; his wife she ate no lean.”

What works for one person does not work for others. According to all the common metrics I am socially isolated. Some might imagine that I need help. Poor Alan.

They may even imagine that they know what is best for me. Because as every newspaper vendor knows it is always the antisocial loner, who is not well liked, that becomes the heinous murderer. Helping the socially excluded is an anti-murder prophylactic measure, which makes sound societal sense.

Unlike most people I don’t care what the ‘phone companies do with my data, because I don’t generate any. I am not in any target marketing demographic. Daytime TV however is full of adverts aimed at the likes of me. I’ll get my SAGA loyalty card soon, to use until my pre-paid cremation plan kicks in.

The problem with seeing things differently is that it is nigh on impossible to explain or otherwise convey that difference to others, specifically the scale thereof.

I look relatively normal. I can speak “normal” for a short while. But I know from experience that the way I assimilate the world differs radically from others. I am not prone to influencers, whatever they are. I do not swallow hook line and sinker what I might read in the news of whichever flavour / prejudice. As an outsider, I need help to rejoin the fold, the group lunacy. Bless…

Most people suffer from worry and catastrophising. I can have brutal clarity without dramatic catastrophic thinking. I can envision futures and remain calm.

It is impossible to communicate the lack of ambition / goal to anyone who is beholden to theirs. I am happy to make unilateral decisions based on available information even when I know that information is incomplete.

Once you have attained impermanence, you change as does your orientation towards life.

“This too, shall pass”, is more than just a saying.

People in general have a need to “do” something. There is a need of immediacy. A desire, an urge, to get things “sorted”. I have learned that some things simply cannot be sorted. Some have to be endured. Some need let go of. Some need to calm in emotional temperature and thence to fade away.

It is economical not to intrude, to inflict oneself upon or otherwise interfere in the lives of others. This is a form of harmlessness.

A passive approach of response when needed tends to calm. Though it can also infuriate, humans being as they are.

It is impossible to please everyone.

I see apertures in the web of life, during which things may be possible. When I see them closing, I know that the possibility and probability of things happening drops. Until finally what once might have been possible, no longer is.

One of the aspects of impermanence is the notion of timeliness. Timeliness has a time limit. If things do not occur when they may or might, they do not and cannot. The moment has passed. The “permanent” possibility or opportunity is gone.

Impermanence teaches that complacency is unwise. It is a non-nihilistic implication which many fail to see. There is only a discrete aperture in spacetime for things to occur…

You have only my word for it, that I imagine that I see things differently from others…

I could be talking BS…

You decide…..

The Three Threads



Out there in the wider world, people are busy with their business. Maybe focussed on whatever it is that may be “important” to them or so they deem. There is very little genuinely spare time, largely because that internal dialogue is rampant. Many have some kind of agenda which they seek to enact, be that as simple as going to the football and having a skin full, or not.

I have been coming around to the idea that fate has little left in store for me in terms of my interactions in a wider world for the end-game of this lifetime. I am pretty much done.

The {my} world turns inwards and is governed largely by biological health and physical pain. I have managed to get a French rheumatology appointment for September which is contemporary with my next scheduled GP doctor appointment. I have a UK rheumatology appointment next week but they cannot prescribe for French pharmacies. I will probably self-medicate unless things get genuinely unbearable. Any hip operation looks at least a year off.

We have started looking at houses suitable for handicapped living and this is the so-called nanna-thread. The one that looks the most real, the most likely. If we end up in some nanna-accommodation with shared communal facilities, there is a chance that even if I don’t want to, I will end up in some way as spokesperson / organiser for the grey hordes. The nanna thread has UK options in Llanelli with the Scarlets or near Gloucester with the Cherry and Whites.

That is about as far as thinking has gone.

In the background my unpublished dreams provide detail of just how disingenuous and unpleasant various people, allegedly “close” to me in the past, have been towards me. Those dreams have gone beyond what I already knew to be true. I am not surprised, rather thematically bored. I could not be arsed, to recall them, to write them down. Boring.

The Buddhist-thread with Tibetan spices, seems likely to have no physical plane future. I can’t see any trajectory which might make it more substantial or solid. It seems to me “just one of those things”. A possibility in the web of life, unable to manifest, due to the reality of life circumstances. Practicality aborts dream, if you want to be dramatic.

It may be simply a ghost, an echo, that I need to let fade, to work through my system and to let go of. There is no vicinal or proximal context.

My little dream-world does not impinge exterior. There is no data.

Of late there has been a tiny hint of something I might do were we to have a UK small-garden property. It is the merest hint of a thread. The conceptual difficulty I have is that it pertains to the “leadership” red herring. Someone gaslighted me into this notion, when in reality I have always been more about teaching, possibility and not manifestation. I cannot lead in a socio-political sense because I cannot be bothered with fake niceties and bartering politics.

For some bizarre reason some expect me to do, when I would much rather research, think and speculate. I enjoy planning and envisioning; I don’t fuss if these get binned or forgotten.

The only thread that I can start to picture is the first. I could see the bathroom of the house we saw yesterday adapted for grip bars in the shower. I questioned whether the tiled stud-wall could support a fraction of my ~100kg. I would need a second look.

For now, these are the three threads in order or increasing tenuousness.

Monk’s Robes – Toilets – Seminar Dream 09-05-2025

Here is this morning’s dream.

The dream starts in my chambers. They are wooden panelled and there is not a great deal of light. It is not long after dawn and I am getting dressed in my monk’s robes. I am being helped by my assistant, a young relatively novice monk. He is fussing over me. The robes which I am putting on are of Himalayan-Tibetan colour with a yellowish undervest. I am putting them on left-handed in that it is my left shoulder which is relatively bare. I am left-handed. I sit on a chair and the young monk helps me to put on some grey part woollen socks to go with my open toed synthetic walking sandals. He helps me stand up because I am very stiff and slow moving in the morning.

We go to the communal wash facilities in which there are showers and toilets. I use the toilet and come back to the line of washbasins in front of a mirror to wash my face and clean my teeth. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche is there as a younger man maybe around forty years of age. He is smiling. He notes how the novice and I play fight a little. He jokes that he has seen quite enough of our kung fu and that we should be serious. I say that it is not a good idea to always be so dour. Something which all of us find hysterically funny.

Today I am going to give a seminar at a London university. As I approach the lecture halls / seminar block I come upon an open office scenario with cubicles for side offices. Throughout the office, on slightly raised pedestals, are isolated “Armitage Shanks” style WC toilets without cisterns. They are antique with wooden seats and lids. Several of my erstwhile colleagues from decades ago are in the office. They do not seem to notice the more than half a dozen toilets. They are fixtures. I go into one of the side offices and someone is sat upon the “throne” mid dump. I apologise and back out.

I move down the corridor and into the seminar rooms / lecture theatre. There are more Buddhist monks with me now one of whom is quite senior and bespectacled. I go into the seminar room and pick up an overhead projector which I take to the lecture desk at the front. I comment than in addition to computer slides I sometimes like to scribble.

The senior monk stands up and says that it is important not to try to take notes as handouts will be given. He says that it is particularly important to note whatever it is that Rinpoche writes down by hand. I am holding a marker pen in my left hand as he speaks. The monk says that Rinpoche’s annotations are key-like and important.

A young female member of the audience who knew me from before as a senior tutor asks me why I am wearing robes. I say that I have not yet been fully ordained and that these are by way of an experiment to see how people respond to me during the course of this three days long seminar. I say that tomorrow I might wear a business suit or sports gear.

I say to her that ordination is a bit like semantics. I am very aligned with Buddhist thinking and don’t really need a “certificate”. I say the difference between vegetarianism and a plant-based diet is also semantic. If you eat a fully plant-based diet as a vegan you are already a vegetarian and don’t need to prove your veggie status. Whereas some veggies are insistent about the virtue of their diet, a true vegan just does. Deeds are more important than words.

The dream ends.

Messaging Assumption and Miscommunication

Postulate.

The human ability to get entirely the wrong of the stick is close to infinite.

Herein lies the mystery of perception, bias and multiple failures in communication both as a purveyor and acceptor. People may not be aware that they are, whether consciously or not, sending messages which others are receiving and perceiving and assimilating.

I suspect that because I am largely silent and can be not expressive, people tend to imagine that I am judging and being critical. They may expect some verbal response / discussion / mutual bullshitting when talking and when none is forthcoming, they can get unnerved. The feedback mechanism is missing. They expect chit-chat. In the absence they can confer multiple meanings which simply are not there.

People can read all sorts of shit into things. They may imagine I am sending a message when I am not. People might read this blog and imagine that I am messaging them directly.

The likelihood of miscommunication in the context of different cultures and frames of refence is enhanced. People may imagine that their customs are transferable. The French attitude of laissez-faire can be interpreted as complete indifference, fence sitting and not giving a shit, disinterest. It can be read, “that person can’t be arsed, sod ’em, they are not serious. Let’s move on to someone who has a point of view or opinion.”

In trying not to impinge a different message can be received. “Waste of time.”

I’ll assume with a high confidence integral that many people have made hugely erroneous assumptions over the years as to my motivations, what I am thinking and where I am coming from. This {my} assumption is based upon my interpretations of their behaviours and could be invalid. There may be transference of their ways of thinking and prejudices onto me.

There are certain types of people who like to argue the toss and “win” arguments / debates. They like to “score” points.

If someone like this expresses a point of view and one does not counter it, remaining silent even. They can assume agreement and/or victory. The lucky recipient of opinion may disagree totally but cannot be arsed to verbalise. Agreement can be assumed and the illusion of being right /accurate taken from the non-intervention.

Many introverts cannot be bothered to do the thinking for gobby extroverts. It is not important to them nor is share of air time or limelight kudos. The introverts can be disinterested in interaction.

I am reasonably confident that I have by accident, thrown a spanner into the works, with my interactions with the French medical profession. I have not behaved in the manner to which they are accustomed and they have not had the skill or experience to handle it. There has a result been extensive miscommunication and they have made assumptions about what might transpire, what I understand and how I perceive them. It can be very hierarchical. Most medics have not interacted as I have. My need to chat and discuss is vanishingly small when viewed from the angle of French customs. If I want to find out my first port of call is research which I will do thoroughly.

Once miscommunication has gone beyond a certain point the situation becomes very difficult if not impossible to salvage. This is because face and pride have now come into play and dominate, often unilaterally, subsequent interpersonal dynamics.

Postulate

The human notion of face and implicit loss of face is one of the most expensive bits of human folly in terms of relationships and loss of human life.

Face in this context is illusion, a socio-political construct which sells gossip magazines, tabloid newspapers and underpins the scripts of television soap operas.

“Face” lies aback assumption and miscommunication. People get offended, an emotional overaction, if things do not comply with assumption and social expectation. People can assume that the {their} worldview is common and that everyone holds similar prejudices to them.

Once people have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick the tendency is to grasp this ever more tightly. Mis-perceptions and mis-assimilations of reality are more concrete and fixed than one might imagine.

There is no better demonstration of miscommunication than the game of “Chinese whispers”. Yet surprisingly, given this knowledge, the faceless and ubiquitous “they” are somehow the font of all truth and knowledge….

There is not a lot you can do or say which is contrary to the omniscience of “they”. No matter how well you communicate it, it cannot be perceived accurately because “they” dogmatically forbid it.

The wrong end of the stick beckons with the gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole…

Away From the Highfalutin

Irrespective of anything fancy, life goes on much as normal here. Yesterday I went to see the arse doctor and today we went to see the boob doctor. I was being followed up for post operative colon cancer and the wife for post-op breast cancer. In July I have an appointment for a colonoscopy and in August one for the higher PSA level and a prostate follow up.

I was thinking of a tune but I could not quite put a finger on it so to speak

“Bum-titty-bum-bum…”

Once I have seen the chimney sweep, and after my joyous interaction with industrial grade laxative, if all is well and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, there is no more programmed chimney sweeping for five years.

My next GP appointment is, barring any health change, due in October. I have a rheumatology appointment next week, which should provide some clarity. The issue of two {three} major operations on my hips will be on hold over the summer.

We view a house for sale later this week which will make the downsizing real. A brief visit to Jersey will advise if we can hack being surrounded by anglophones.

At the moment aside from the wife, I speak briefly with the guy who cuts the grass every few weeks, 4-6 times per year with the GP and with the physiotherapist every three weeks or so. That is the full extent of my external “social” interaction. I speak with nobody on the ‘phone or internet and am not in any email dialogue. People might find that extent of social interaction difficult to believe. But it is true.

It is possible that we may downsize this year. The tax return has been sent off.

Shortly I have 75kg of dry bentonite in the garage. The pond has a slow leak and I am going to attempt to plug that a little with clay. Then before we have any drought warning I will refill the pond from the river.

The contrast between the day to day life and what happens in the dreaming is marked.

My “diabetic” socks from China have just arrived without any tariff notice or to pay.

There are two decisions pending patent and blog…what to do…

Life goes on pretty much as normal…nothing fancy…