Dhyāna

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From Wikipedia

In the oldest texts of Buddhism, dhyāna (Sanskrit) or jhāna (Pāḷi) is the training of the mind, commonly translated as meditation, to withdraw the mind from the automatic responses to sense-impressions, and leading to a “state of perfect equanimity and awareness (upekkhā-sati-parisuddhi).” Dhyāna may have been the core practice of pre-sectarian Buddhism, in combination with several related practices which together lead to perfected mindfulness and detachment and are fully realized with the practice of dhyana.

In the later commentarial tradition, which has survived in present-day Theravāda, dhyāna is equated with “concentration,” a state of one-pointed absorption in which there is a diminished awareness of the surroundings. In the contemporary Theravāda-based Vipassana movement, this absorbed state of mind is regarded as unnecessary and even non-beneficial for awakening, which has to be reached by mindfulness of the body and vipassanā (insight into impermanence). Since the 1980s, scholars and practitioners have started to question this equation, arguing for a more comprehensive and integrated understanding and approach, based on the oldest descriptions of dhyāna in the suttas.

In Chán and Zen, the names of which Buddhist traditions are the Chinese and Japanese pronunciations, respectively, of dhyāna, dhyāna is the central practice, which is ultimately based on Sarvastivāda meditation practices, and has been transmitted since the beginning of the Common Era.

Etymology

Dhyāna, from Proto-Indo-European root *√dheie-, “to see, to look,” “to show.” Developed into Sanskrit root √dhī and n. dhī, which in the earliest layer of text of the Vedas refers to “imaginative vision” and associated with goddess Saraswati with powers of knowledge, wisdom and poetic eloquence. This term developed into the variant √dhyā, “to contemplate, meditate, think”, from which dhyāna is derived.

According to Buddhaghosa (5th century CE Theravāda exegete), the term jhāna (Skt. dhyāna) is derived from the verb jhayati, “to think or meditate,” while the verb jhapeti, “to burn up,” explicates its function, namely burning up opposing states, burning up or destroying “the mental defilements preventing […] the development of serenity and insight.”

Commonly translated as meditation, and often equated with “concentration,” though meditation may refer to a wider scala of exercises for bhāvanā, development. Dhyāna can also mean “attention, thought, reflection.”

The jhānas

The Pāḷi canon describes four progressive states of jhāna called rūpa jhāna (“form jhāna“), and four additional meditative states called arūpa (“without form”).

Preceding practices

Meditation and contemplation are preceded by several practices, which are fully realized with the practice of dhyāna. As described in the Noble Eightfold Path, right view leads to leaving the household life and becoming a wandering monk. Sīla (morality) comprises the rules for right conduct. Right effort, or the four right efforts, aim to prevent the arising of unwholesome states, and to generate wholesome states. This includes indriya samvara (sense restraint), controlling the response to sensual perceptions, not giving in to lust and aversion but simply noticing the objects of perception as they appear. Right effort and mindfulness calm the mind-body complex, releasing unwholesome states and habitual patterns, and encouraging the development of wholesome states and non-automatic responses. By following these cumulative steps and practices, the mind becomes set, almost naturally, for the practice of dhyāna. The practice of dhyāna reinforces the development of wholesome states, leading to upekkhā (equanimity) and mindfulness.

The rūpa jhānas

Qualities of the rūpa jhānas

The practice of dhyāna is aided by ānāpānasati, mindfulness of breathing. The Suttapiṭaka and the Agamas describe four stages of rūpa jhāna. Rūpa refers to the material realm, in a neutral stance, as different from the kāma realm (lust, desire) and the arūpa-realm (non-material realm). Each jhāna is characterised by a set of qualities which are present in that jhāna.

  • First dhyāna: the first dhyāna can be entered when one is secluded from sensuality and unskillful qualities, due to withdrawal and right effort. There is pīti (“rapture”) and non-sensual sukha (“pleasure”) as the result of seclusion, while vitarka-vicara (“discursive thought”) continues.
  • Second dhyāna: there is pīti (“rapture”) and non-sensual sukha (“pleasure”) as the result of concentration (samadhi-ji, “born of samadhi”); ekaggata (unification of awareness) free from vitarka-vicara (“discursive thought”); sampasadana (“inner tranquility”).
  • Third dhyāna: upekkhā (equanimous; “affective detachment”), mindful, and alert, and senses pleasure with the body.
  • Fourth dhyāna: upekkhāsatipārisuddhi (purity of equanimity and mindfulness); neither-pleasure-nor-pain. Traditionally, the fourth jhāna is seen as the beginning of attaining psychic powers (abhijñā).

The arūpas

Grouped into the jhāna-scheme are four meditative states referred to in the early texts as arūpas. These are also referred to in commentarial literature as immaterial/formless jhānas (arūpajhānas), also translated as The Formless Dimensions, to be distinguished from the first four jhānas (rūpa jhānas). In the Buddhist canonical texts, the word “jhāna” is never explicitly used to denote them; they are instead referred to as āyatana. However, they are sometimes mentioned in sequence after the first four jhānas (other texts, e.g. MN 121, treat them as a distinct set of attainments) and thus came to be treated by later exegetes as jhānas. The immaterial are related to, or derived from, yogic meditation, while the jhānas proper are related to the cultivation of the mind. The state of complete dwelling in emptiness is reached when the eighth jhāna is transcended.

The four arūpas are:

  • fifth jhāna: infinite space (Pāḷi ākāsānañcāyatana, Skt. ākāśānantyāyatana),
  • sixth jhāna: infinite consciousness (Pāḷi viññāṇañcāyatana, Skt. vijñānānantyāyatana),
  • seventh jhāna: infinite nothingness (Pāḷi ākiñcaññāyatana, Skt. ākiṃcanyāyatana),
  • eighth jhāna: neither perception nor non-perception (Pāḷi nevasaññānāsaññāyatana, Skt. naivasaṃjñānāsaṃjñāyatana).

Although the “Dimension of Nothingness” and the “Dimension of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception” are included in the list of nine jhānas taught by the Buddha they are not included in the Noble Eightfold Path. Noble Truth number eight is sammā samādhi (Right Concentration), and only the first four jhānas are considered “Right Concentration.” If he takes a disciple through all the jhānas, the emphasis is on the “Cessation of Feelings and Perceptions” rather than stopping short at the “Dimension of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception”.

Nirodha-samāpatti

Beyond the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception lies a state called nirodha samāpatti, the “cessation of perception, feelings and consciousness”. Only in commentarial and scholarly literature, this is sometimes called the “ninth jhāna“

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And from Wikipédia

Dhyāna

Dhyāna (sanskrit : ध्यान (devanāgarī) ; pali : झान, romanisation, jhāna ; chinois simplifié : 禅 ; chinois traditionnel : 禪 ; pinyin : chán ; coréen : 선, translit. : seon ; zen (禅) ; vietnamien : thiền ; tibétain : བསམ་གཏན, Wylie : bsam gtan, THL : Samten) est un terme sanskrit qui correspond dans les Yoga Sūtra de Patañjali au septième membre (aṅga) du Yoga. Ce terme désigne des états de concentration cultivés dans l’hindouisme, le bouddhisme, et le jaïnisme. Il est souvent traduit par « absorption », bien qu’étymologiquement il signifie simplement méditation ou contemplation. Le terme méditation est utilisé aujourd’hui comme un mot désignant de nombreuses techniques en occident, il s’apparente à la vigilance en psychologie ou en philosophie. Historiquement et pour le sous-continent indien, dhyana en est le plus proche.

Patañjali, le compilateur des Yoga Sūtra, en fait une étape préliminaire du samādhi. Les deux termes sont interchangés pour désigner ces états de conscience « transcendants ». Par exemple, les traductions Ch’an en chinois, Sŏn en coréeen, Thiền en vietnamien et Zen en japonais sont des noms d’écoles de dhyāna bouddhistes, dérivées les unes des autres, où dhyāna prend ce sens fort de samādhi.

On rencontre plus souvent, en bouddhisme, le terme pāli jhāna, parce que les enseignements qui y sont liés sont plutôt une préoccupation de l’école Theravāda.

Therāvada

Atteindre les jhānas correspond au développement de la tranquillité et de la sagesse (voir Samatha bhavana). On distingue cinq jhānas de la forme ou de la sphère physique pure, et quatre jhanas dans la méditation sur les royaumes immatériels. Anapanasati est la principale technique d’accès aux jhānas, la méditation metta en est une autre. Ces jhānas sont différenciés en fonction des « facteurs » qui les caractérisent :

  • Application initiale (mouvement de l’esprit vers l’objet de méditation) : vitakka ;
  • Application soutenue (saisie de l’objet par l’esprit) : vicāra ;
  • Joie, ravissement : piti ;
  • Bonheur : sukha ;
  • Concentration en un point : ekaggata ;
  • Équanimité : upekkha.

Pour être atteints, les jhānas nécessitent la suppression de cinq empêchements :

  • le désir des sens (kāmacchanda) ;
  • la colère ou l’animosité (vyāpāda) ;
  • la paresse ou la torpeur (thīna-middha) ;
  • l’agitation ou le remords (uddhacca-kukkucca) ;
  • le doute (vicikicchā).

Les cinq jhānas du monde de la forme comportent tous des facteurs différents ; leur nombre est souvent réduit à quatre (en ne tenant pas compte d’un état intermédiaire entre le premier et le deuxième, dépourvu de vitakka, mais avec un reste de vicāra) :

  1. premier dhyâna : vitakka, vicāra, piti, sukha et ekaggata (le monde des cinq sens est complètement transcendé) ;
  2. deuxième dhyâna : piti, sukha et ekaggata (il n’y a plus d’action, de mouvement du mental, sont seulement ressentis la joie et le bonheur).
  3. troisième dhyâna : sukha et ekaggata (seul le bonheur demeure).
  4. quatrième dhyâna : upekkha et ekaggata (pure équanimité, il y a arrêt temporaire de la respiration dans cet état).

Ces deux facteurs, équanimité et concentration, resteront présents dans les 4 jhānas du sans-forme ou non physiques.

Les quatre royaumes immatériels de la méditation sont :

  1. la sphère de l’espace infini
  2. la sphère de la conscience infinie
  3. la sphère du néant
  4. la sphère sans perception et sans non-perception

Dog – Blood – Pine Marten – Putin Dream 21-07-2025

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Here is last night’s dream, of note is the marked vivid nature of the blood early on. I have not had one like this.

The dream starts in a very British holiday camp setting like a Butlins of old. It is dank and damp outside and I am in communal area with British holiday makers, mostly families. We are waiting for a break in the weather. A TV is playing in the corner high up on the wall. Some people are gathered around Formica tables playing cards. There are children and adolescents on their technology. It seems old-school, old-fashioned, 1970s even.

I go up some stairs to a common room area on the upper level. This leads to chalet rooms. People are sat around and I note a door which has a cardboard box placed in front of it holding it shut. I ask a woman why. She says that it is there to keep them in. I can take a look if I would like but she advises against it. If I do, I should close the door behind me.

I am like others slightly bored by the confinement indoors. I go over to the room and enter closing the door behind me. A medium sized black dog tries to get out as I go in. I shoe it with my foot and enter. I look down and notice that it is badly injured. There are lacerations and cuts. In the dream I know that it is dying and unwell.

Out of nowhere, it seems, a pine marten like animal starts to chase the dog around the room trying to kill it, to bite it on the back of the neck to administer a coup de grâce. The animals chase each other around the room at high speed. The pine marten bites the dog and the dog tries to bite it.

The dog runs into an open cupboard. The pine marten stops in front of me and stands up on its hind legs, it looks me quizzically in the eye. Both the pine marten and I know that it is best for the dog to die. The wounds it received when being hit by a car are not going to heal and will ultimately prove fatal. It is better that the marten quickly finishes the job. I can hear people outside saying that I should trap the marten and let the dog out. The marten knows me and trusts me.

The chase continues. By now the room is filled with vivid bright red blood sprayed everywhere. It comes mostly from the dog. There is more blood than makes sense and it has squirted across my face and arms. The dog gets cornered by the marten and bitten again. The chase continues helter-skelter. Finally the marten has the dog at the back of the neck and holds it until the dog is still. The marten is limping a little after it lets go.

I go out through the door and into a palatine Kremlin like room. Sat at a table in a meeting is Putin. There are Russian politburo members around the table. I go over and say, “Vladimir I need you to summon the vet. Your pine marten is injured next door.” Putin gets up from the table after making a call. We are joined by a vet in a white coat.  I open the door and the marten comes to me. I explain to both Putin and the vet, in Imperial French, that the marten has a problem with its his legs and a lump on its tail. The vet asks me to hold the marten which I do whilst it is examined. The vet find a boiled sweet lozenge entangled in the hair of the marten’s tail. During the process all the marten’s fur has become whiter more like a winter pelt. The vet cuts the lozenge out with some scissors. He shows it to me and throws it into a bin. The vet then wipes the fur of the marten with a cloth soaked in vodka. Putin is beaming with happiness. When I let go the clean marten climbs up my legs and into my arms. It is only slightly hurt. I know in the dream that the pine marten is more than a pine marten, some kind of rare totem.

The dream ends.

On writing this up I think of this…

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Going Through the Motions of Life

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Must have opened my front door at eight o’clock or so
And stopped along the way to buy some Chinese food to go
I’m sure I had my dinner watching something on TV
There’s not, I think, a single episode of Dallas that I didn’t see
I must have gone to bed around a quarter after ten
I need a lot of sleep, and so I like to be in bed by then
I must have read a while
The latest one by Marilyn French or something in that style
It’s funny, but I had no sense of living without aim
The day before you came

And turning out the light
I must have yawned and cuddled up for yet another night
And rattling on the roof I must have heard the sound of rain
The day before you came

Benny Goran Bror Andersson / Bjoern K Ulvaeus

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Whether we know it and accept it or not in our coterie, in our slumber, a sudden change to life can exist just around the corner. Something can upend and change much of that which we hold true and perhaps long-lasting. It might be as simple as a cancer diagnosis, being caught on kiss-cam in flagrante delicto or the arrival on the doormat of an unexpected DNA test result. Suddenly the trajectory of life and our assimilation thereof changes. The universe throws us a curve ball, chucks a spanner in the works and Bam!! Life is no longer what we assumed it to be.

Many are pretty somnambulant and any kind of wake up call can be a shocker. Others are hypervigilant always scanning and perhaps anticipating, thereby manifesting. Most in the comfortable West are going through the motions of life, it is relatively benign, doing similar things, without fearing an IDF bullet or kamikaze drone. They may even be pursuing a successful career assuming that is important.

Yet there it is, just around the corner, something which might shatter their complacency. Someone might turn their lives upside down. It does not have to be a movie script or an ABBA song.

I have recently been going through the motions of all these medical exams. I have not really pressed for them. I have followed the suggestions of others. At anytime some whopper could be revealed to me / us. In our house we are used, accustomed to, medical surprises of an unpleasant nature, which give us something new to contend with and endure. If there is any kind of expectation on my part it is that things will not be “just dandy”. In a self-fulfilling way I do not expect to be listened to or taken seriously. Therefore I cut my communication back to the very basic level, quasi monosyllabic even. If somebody actually listened to me, I might fall off my chair. Yet they could find something else untoward in their testing on the guinea pig which is me.

I sense in me and what I know somethings that could completely re-order notions of reality for someone else should they be exposed fully thereto. I have been very careful not to start something where I cannot follow through.

Without being all Nietzschean and super-man, no red underpants outside the tights, I do not feel encompassed by herd or shoal. What I have done to myself has changed me in ways which are not obvious yet are profound. I am not held to societal concepts in the common way nor do I contravene the basic laws in the country where I live. I look the same and at first pass behave the same. Inside I am wired differently. I am less perturbed by the crises of life. And in no way do I subscribe to the notion that life needs to be fair. My lot is my lot. I do not have concepts of deserving better or worse. It is what it is. I expect virtually nothing, I have few if any, wants desires or demands. By and large I have no wish to inflict myself on others. I have no axe to grind or vengeance to sate. I am not overly sympathetic to the petty wants and moans and whinges of others. They are just overly dramatic and manipulative. Perhaps I am cold and heartless, a cold fish. I am not a bleeding heart or hand wringer.

Provided that I limit my interactions to the most basic, the most mundane, I cause no pain, no suffering, no discomfort. I am thus well within my boundaries. I have a kind of clarity which I suspect many might struggle to live with. They need some sense of hope, some narrative to life, too. They do not see that the universe is a bleak unforgiving and potent place. Our minuscule which we deem important is insignificant. This notion, if fully attained, can be hard to bear fully. We may note it, put it to one side and then carry on as if nothing has happened. Human mind struggles to reconcile the infinite with the mundane, which is itself all too finite in space and time.

I struggle these days with compassion, finding it and expressing, that is. I see humans justifying and arguing about their right to visit brutality and death upon others as a deterrence, their just and bloody revenge. When, ever, in human history has death and slaying ever deterred death and slaying? I see gluttonous people ignore the burning planet to acquire more profits and to consume like hormonal locusts. I see the historical lessons from totalitarianism tattooed deep into the blood vessels of humans ignored and repeated. I see jackboots and caps, propaganda and division.

I see a comfortable numb complacency on all sides. People going through the motions of life, not rocking the boat nor upsetting the applecart. I see humanity walking half asleep, earphones in, staring at their shiny narco-screens, veins itching for the next electronic ping of social interaction. I see people without much in the way of purpose heading slowly, lemming like, towards an unpleasantness the scale of which they have no concept of.

Looking at the news, I have become inured, accustomed to the ceaseless death toll ticker in Gaza, the nightly drone count in Kyiv and the predictable soap box rants from DC. I don’t care how much Starmer increase taxes or if the Bank of England changes the interest rate by 0.25%.

The world, humanity, has lost its way, big time. Humanity is going through the motions of living. It is not however going anywhere meaningful…stuck in a rut…like a stuck Status Quo long player vinyl record, again and again and again…

The Shoe Horn of Ought & Should

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When things don’t turn out how you think {and insist}, they ought to be, how they should be, it can fuck with your head. The sense of order is perturbed and a cognitive dissonance can set in. One can ignore the “data” before your eyes and try to fit an interpretation of “reality” to how it should be. One can invent stories to try to shoe horn notions so that the {sacrosanct} narrative of life does not get upended. Reality can be avoided because it does not match the fairytale.

A while back I had an “A” level physics student for whom I was a private tutor. The young man was very fluid and he was quick on the uptake when I used circular intuitive as opposed to linear list teaching. He was bored shitless at school, but we had some fun. He was a bit of a rebel. Run forward a few years and he was upset that his sleuthing skills had been unable to find much of an internet trace for me. It was a challenge for him and we eventually reconnected. His view was that people with my background do not disappear into the aether, there should be some institutional paper trail of my career. He could not find my contact details at Bedlam or Friern Barnet Mental Hospital.

In the UK alone there were ~313,000 missing persons reports in 2022-23 for England and Wales. More males went missing than females. And 0.3% of all missing persons reports had a fatal outcome. People can and do fall off the radar, slip over the edge of the world and otherwise disappear with few traces. It is harder these days because many carry a GPS monitoring device AKA ‘phone. It is pretty unlikely that anyone filed a missing persons report for me, though they might have. In which case I have not yet been found. The charities have pages devoted to individuals who are missing with entreaties for them to get in contact. I did not find a page dedicated to me. Maybe I should keep searching.

Sometimes the sense of should & ought is more subconscious than fully present in awareness.

About twenty years ago I used to give personal development courses for science Ph.D. students. I had quit {a travesty} a tenured position. Although not overtly stated I sensed that this renunciation of something to which many of them aspired was a big subconscious black mark against me. I was a suspect. They could not take me seriously because I had shown myself to not be aligned with their view of how the world {and things} should & ought to be. It was a non sequitur of elephantine proportions in the room.

In other cases people invented scandals as a driver for my exit. Perhaps I had been caught on kiss-cam with a junior at an Oasis concert. The truth, simple and unconvoluted, was against the perceived order of how things are, how they play out and how they should be.

I have no idea what stories, narratives and other bollocks may or may not have been in circulation. People can need some ersatz to keep the sacred should & ought intact.

People make assumptions often and the quality of those assumptions is generally a lot poorer than they assume it to be.

If the wife and I died quietly one night, nobody would raise an alarm here. It would only be when the post box started to fill up that anyone would suspect. We don’t get many letters and if there was no Amazon delivery due, it could take months before postie noticed. Because we are isolated nobody would smell our demise.

Maybe that shoe horn is important for a happy life with 2.2 children and a white picket fence. I suspect that many people are kidding themselves, a lot. The effort to fabricate a demonstrable outcome aligned with how things should & ought to be according to the omniscient THEY, is perhaps aback the so-called mental health crisis. It is my thesis that should & ought are in fact toxins which we socially enforce upon ourselves and one and other.

The pressure from that shoe horn squeezes the life out of us….

Venture Capital – UCL – Dream 20-07-2025.

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Here is last night’s dream, unusually had early in the night ~1 AM. It seems contextually out of the blue.

The dream starts outside a swish urban building similar in style to The Ritz or Berner Kantonalbank, with a partially covered walk way. The feel is European, Germanic or British not French. There is a sense of commerce and business. The building is like a TARDIS much more spacious on the inside than the outsides suggest. It is high rent, posh and opulent.

In the atrium on a meeting area to one side I am sat in an alcove with Mark. There are antique like chairs with coffee tables  arranged facing each other in a semi-circle. Mark is there with his team from the Venture Fund. They are all suited and well dressed. Mark is a bit younger than he would be now. We are discussing the funding opportunities for my project. He is quite enthusiastic. The event we are at is some kind of inventor-investor meet-up.

He stands up and ushers me to follow him. I note that I do not have a suit on simply a white collarless granddad shirt which is immaculately pressed. I cannot see my lower half. I can see the fine grain of the cloth.

He leads me up a grand staircase to the event dining room. In a wall-mirrored room sat around large round “Louis XIV” gilded tables are diners in groups of around a dozen. Mark ushers me to a table where Debbie and Sue are sat. Sue is the far end of the table next to the wall and Debbie is nearer the walkway. She stands up to greet me  and we hug. Sue is more reticent as if she is embarrassed to see me for some reason. Debbie is at the event to promote technology transfer from her university. She is keen to hear what I have been up to. She says that I can stay in her room overnight if I would like. There is a very faint sexual overtone. She is roughly as she was thirty years ago when I last saw her. She addresses me using the nickname “George” which was in use then. She says that if I stay with her, I can get one of the most excellent breakfasts put on by the event. The wanting to feed motif is much stronger than any faint sexual overtone.

I ask her if she recognises the dress I am wearing. In the dream I show her the material of an exquisitely patterned grey floral female dress which I am wearing on my top half. It is very expensive and high quality with petite floral designs interspersed with doves. I say that it used to be her dress. She does not recognise it. She hands me her technology transfer / business development card. I make my excuses and leave the posh event.

As I am leaving the lobby of the building, I see a news broadcast about a man who is promoting cross channel intellectual and business collaborations between France and England. His ‘phone number and email flash up on screen, which I write down on the back of the business card.

I continue out of the building and into a suburban train station car park. It is very dark and raining slightly. I walk over a partially covered bridge over the rails to the station on the other side of the tracks.

The dream ends and seems incongruous.

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  • Mark, Debbie and Sue were in my Chemistry degree class at UCL in the early eighties. I have spoken to Mark on Teams in the last year, before that not for forty years. I have not spoken in person to Debbie for thirty years and Sue for probably forty years.

Future Plans – Pre-op Chore List

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Assuming that the frequency of hospital appointments remains reduced we can start planning for the future. So far there is no “show stopper” for the pencilled in total hip replacement surgery in late autumn. There are two major appointments for which we do not yet have dates: a pre-op anaesthesia assessment and a CT cardio-angiogram. The latter is due.

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The cardiologist suggested that this would probably be ok, but nobody has imaged me thus, yet. Given they operate on frail old nannas I should be good to go. But it may advise on my increased risk. I also need a full dental 360 degree check.

It seems a long way off but when you have a big garden, scale can eat time. I have to think about doing the heavy donkey work before the operation because I will be very incapacitated for 6 weeks or so, through Christmas. No driving for me…We live alone and have to hope that the wife’s health holds. If that starts to fail we are in deep shit.

I am not a fan of last minute dot com.

Chores:

  1. Sewerage check – lift the inspection covers and use plumber’s rods to clear the 30 metres to the cess pit. Should last 3-6 months.
  2. Wood – we need to order some oven dried wood. There is probably about 1 tonne of wood left over to be sorted and sized. I may need to split the pine left over from Tempest Ciaran. Perhaps another tonne or so. I will need to break and clear two wooden pallets. These can be sized for kindling. Two palettes is about 3 months. They may need to be cut to fire-stick ready size. Perhaps I need a new splitting axe.
  3. I need to move some more earth to shore up the side of the pond which has a slow leak. A couple of loads of 250kg of dirt should help it cope with the full pond. The pond always fills to overflow with the autumn rain.
  4. Need to clean and power wash the external hallway. The swallows who nested there will head off for Africa and leave the guano behind.
  5. We need to secure someone to help out in the gardening. The maintenance pruning needs to be put on hold
  6. The pink rambler rose at 2 metres  high needs dead heading.
  7. I have strimming and mole trapping to be done. There will be one or two full property boundary strims to do at 8000 metres squared that is a bit of strimming frenzy.

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  • Indoors we need to sugar soap wash the room near the wood oven. This will provoke painting of much of the downstairs. That is a big job.
  • The downstairs floor needs to be solvent cleaned with acetone to remove dirt accumulation from excess glue. I will need to use my favourite product Mr Propre floor cleaner with a mop.
  • The upstairs kitchen needs to be floored. It is the only remaining room which we have not done already. We have floored in excess of 200 square metres.
  • It may need a lick of paint too.
  • The repaired volet boxes need cleaned and filled, painted to bring back up to standard.
  • There is one room with loose wallpaper which needs removed and new paper perhaps glued in place.

We need to figure out if I need a downstairs hospital bed. The spiral staircase looks to be a bit tricky. The loo and shower are already disabled enabled downstairs.

Do we need a bigger freezer and for me to prepare spicey foods?

Knowing the way things work here I will need a yellow bio-hazard sharps box for the used anti-coagulant syringes, which I will be self-darting.

This seems to be what the next few months looks like heading into year end.

That is probably the scope of it…

I can already use a Zimmer frame and peg about on crutches.

Where can I get a black eye patch and a parrot?

Circle Game – Merry-go-round

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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There’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Joni Mitchell

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This morning I had yet another scan, a CT scan to test MY diagnosis of diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH). This based on my interpretation of a lung CT scan which included data on the spinal column.

“Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) is a type of arthritis that affects tendons and ligaments, mainly around your spine. These bands of tissue can become hardened (calcified) and form growths called bone spurs where they connect to your bones. DISH can also cause bone spurs in your hips, knees, shoulders, feet and hands and harden bones throughout your body. 

DISH, sometimes called Forestier disease, often doesn’t cause symptoms and is usually found when you have an imaging test for another problem. Some people have pain and stiffness in their  back that may get worse over time.” 

The GP has asked the radiologist specifically so we should get a specific answer. It will then be on record and “official” if indeed the formal diagnosis is made.

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This brings to the end a flurry of medical appointments and scans. Perhaps there will be a hiatus. I have a GP appointment late next week to pull threads together. Then I have a urologist “finger” appointment to discuss my elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) level in early August. They may order a biopsy {yippee}, but perhaps we are not there yet.  

I am due a CT cardio angiogram at some stage before the hip operation.

A number of the threads will probably go nowhere, be left with no actions.

Of late I have been wondering, “does modern medicine with its endless testing and so-called preventative measures {like statins} actually make you ill? Is it some weird self-fulfilling prophecy?”

There certainly is tendency to obsess about health engendered thereby. What are my cholesterol levels like today? Have I had too many units of alcohol?  Will I die of health related anxiety or a stress induced hypertensive episode? Is the world getting a tad obsessed by medical metrics?

Buggered if I know…

What it looks like is maybe an autumnal new hip, perhaps followed by a second in early spring assuming I can hack it. Which means in summer ’26 I might have a little less pain and a little more flexibility. I am not expecting much.

Off-compound interaction is likely to remain low and we will have to sell the house to get something smaller and more suitable. The blighty or Brittany question will raise its head. Aside from that I do not see any great shakes. I have emailed a couple of people about dreaming.

In general people are vey busy, they have lots on their plates and I am functionally irrelevant to the wider world. I am an anomaly to the mainstream. No biggie…

A recent dream has pointed at some kind of engagement with mental health. Implicit in this has to be anglophone. I am not sounding a trumpet call of excitement. The world out there is a minefield. If someone can get sacked from their high profile job for a single racist jibe whilst half pissed, it is a strange and disproportionate place. Best to say fuck all then. That is the take home message.

I know that I am largely out of touch with the younger people. I do not have any personal data on how people younger than 40 think, because I have not interacted with any. It looks such a  dangerous minefield out there and it makes me so glad that I am not in my erstwhile role in “pastoral care”.

The dreaming has not dreamed in, any vision of the future. I note that in the year 2015 when I had my colon cancer operation there were precious few dreams. Maybe as I approach surgery later, they will cease in a similar manner.

Maybe the painted ponies have stopped going up and down for a while, a brief respite, while other merry-go-round users climb aboard. Soon the garish music will start anew and the ride will begin again….

The Cubic Centimetre of Chance

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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“All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time. The difference between an average man and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this, and one of his tasks is to be alert, deliberately waiting, so that when his cubic centimeter pops out he has the necessary speed, the prowess, to pick it up.”

― Carlos Castaneda

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With this quote who has the chance / opportunity can be down to perspective. Some feel that they may be holding and offering the chance to others unaware that it is they who are in fact missing out. The perception as to who has power may have more than one interpretation. It is not always obvious.

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I have noted elsewhere in this blog that in general I observe that people feel the need to “teach” me. They tend to extrovert and I do not often argue because my assessment is that there is little or no point. Rarely, very rarely, do people inquire.

When we have the chance to profess or the chance to learn, many choose to profess, often from their soap boxes. People like to be heard and sometimes admired. They like to be seen as knowing, expert even. There is kudos therein.

In the common view of the world opportunity is seen for advancement and material success. Applying for and getting a job at a top university, although difficult to achieve, could be seen as seizing the cubic centimetre of chance. Quitting the highfalutin could be seen as the opposite, though it could be the chance to get off the endless hamster wheel of the slippery pole rat race.

It terms of perspective chance differs. What is on offer, what is the opportunity, what is in it for me? Is philosophically opposite to emptiness and not striving. In the respective frameworks one offers material success and social kudos, the other a kind of pared back freedom. Many would struggle to seize such a gap to freedom were it to materialize. They would not like a life so lacking in accoutrement.

Inherent in the cubic centimetre of chance is the 99% rule. The rule states that 99% of people think only of themselves 99% of the time. People caught under the umbrella of this rule are nearly always unaware of the cubic centimetre of chance when it appears fleetingly before them.

Castaneda stresses the need for speed, for quick and decisive action, carpe diem on steroids. Afraid of looking foolish and worried by risk, many throw away cubic centimetre after cubic centimetre. In trying to control every aspect of life they fail to grasp that which might be of most  benefit to them in the long run. The problem is that effort and hard work are often unattractive though nearly always the most fruitful at harvest. Short termism wins out frequently. The gift horse is examined and found dentally wanting, it is wastefully jettisoned. Convenience is often detrimental to evolution. That which is familiar and convenient cannot bring change. This 7/11 choice is the most commonly made, stay the same.

The blinkers of expectation and desired outcome can often hide these cubic centimetres. They do not look like they should or ought according to rigid preconceived ideas. They may not have the fancy clothes of institutional affiliation; their track record or CV may be non-standard. That is why exactly they may be the cubic centimetre of chance. The wrapping is however unacceptable. The potential gift remains unopened.

People are often not very alert and as the saying goes, “Britain needs lerts”.

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Have you ever failed to seize a cubic centimetre of chance offered kindly to you by the universe?

Did you only notice in hindsight?

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Castaneda and Neuroscience

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Prompted by the dream the other day I have been having a little look into neuroscience. It seems that there is much interest in using hallucinogens to {perhaps} help with mental health. There is interest in the crossover between dreams and hallucinogenic activity. This from “Frontiers in Neuroscience”.

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In the books of Castaneda, don Juan introduces him to peyote (lophophora williamsii), jimson weed (datura) and magic mushrooms (psylocibin). Castaneda describes some of his outlandish experiences whilst off his trolly. Castaneda wrote a book on “The Art of Dreaming” which perhaps tacitly lies aback much of the Lucid Dreaming genre. One could suggest that Castaneda had an effect on neuroscience and the psychology of dreams. If you look at the graph below from the above article the similarity of psychoactive experience and dream lucidity is correlated with the don Juan substances of choice. Only LSD outperforms the “natural” substances. Cannabis comes close. {Man}

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When I was ill, I was prescribed the MAOI phenelzine which had no psychoactive effects, as far as I could tell. I had one hypertensive crisis at a business dinner in Japan, something iffy with tryamine in the seaweed. Those Nitrogen atoms look receptor ready…hydrogen bonding to the fore.

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“Phenelzine, sold under the brand name Nardil among others, is a non-selective and irreversible monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) of the hydrazine family which is primarily used as an antidepressant and anxiolytic to treat depression and anxiety. Along with tranylcypromine and isocarboxazid, phenelzine is one of the few non-selective and irreversible MAOIs still in widespread clinical use.”

I used this for probably one year. It is a MAOI to the right of the graph.

I have had limited exposure to magic mushrooms and LSD, over thirty years ago and I stopped smoking week in 1999.

Obviously if one is doing research, it must seem pukka and thoroughly scientific. I doubt anyone acknowledges Castaneda though some may have read him…