At Sarnath, Buddha preached The Four Noble Truths. 1. There is suffering. 2. Striving is the source of suffering. 3. There is a path out of suffering. 4. The path is the Eightfold Path.
Increasingly i feel i have ended. My life here is gorgeous and peaceful, it will be a good old age and death. But I’m done. If this lasts 20 years, it will be 20 years more of this.
There is a kind of surprise and awe in this complete end of strife. It has a note of regret in it because for a couple decades now my striving has not been for dull stuff like career, status, family, money, fatherland, or Principle (with big P), which is the god awful, dreadful killjoy striving which is the source of all suffering; but I have striven for pleasure – new sights, new foods, new aesthetic raptures, etc. That kind of striving is not a heavy burden. There is no suffering in it, but excitement and anticipation. It’s definitely NOT a source of the “suffering caused by striving”. An important footnote to the sermon in Bodhgaya.
Now suddenly I’m downshifting. I really only miss paintings. It’s a new thing for me, this satiety, this contentment. I’m happy in it, experiencing little euphorias daily, which sneak up on me unawaited. This is all good.
But still i find the lack of striving odd. Disconcerting. I have not yet gotten used to it.
I’m reading a novel set in Istanbul and this is giving me a bit of that frisson of longing – but only a little: it is a joy to imagine myself walking in the streets the book names, or sitting in the parks, or riding the ferry to Kadiköy, tulip tea glass in hand, but I’m not getting up suddenly to plan a trip. Deep down, fundamentally, i know I’d rather be here than there.
It’s just too beautiful here to leave.
And the silence, oh, the silence. On evenings like tonight, when there is no wind, I can hear my own pulse. I have acute hearing, apparently, and this has been source of misery for me all my life. And now I luxuriate in silence.
And how about you, Mrs M? How are you? Silence has fallen from your side. Back to a few short messages once in a blue moon? Must our correspondence be like every other?
I have allowed all others to lapse. Those threads of communication only lasted because I invested in them. I had thoughts and experiences to share, so I shared them. My correspondents responded rarely, perfunctorily, with short messages which could have been sent by their slave bot. Out of their own initiative they had nothing to say. Perhaps because they didn’t care. Or perhaps there was nothing to share. Perhaps they had no internal life. Maybe they were just ghosts, like those in the journey to Ixtlan.
When I stopped making an effort, profound silence fell. Then after many weeks: hihowareyoufinethanks.
Is that our fate, too?
I wonder, am I the last man on earth?
Oltre Mare 