First surgery thoughts, posted late

I originally sent this as an email on Nov 9, 2021 the day of surgery on my right eye.  That was the first eye to have the trabeculectomy procedure.

 Good morning everyone.  My deep gratitude for your many messages of support and love.

I would say that my mind, and my feelings, are in a realistic place about my eye situation, and today’s surgery.  Surely I have been more dramatic about this surgery than others, at least since my cancer surgery of nearly 14 years ago now.  The possibility of losing one’s sight is a scary thing. Of course, I am doing the surgery to prevent that.

Venerable Nisabho, a Thai Forest Monk and student in the tradition of Ajahn Chah   https://ajahnchah.org/   and often a visitor to where I live, says “everybody takes refuge in something”.  For me, I find moral and ethical guidance, and some resultant strength in Buddhism, and I have taken formal refuge in it.  But that is a ceremony with prescribed words.  I have remained puzzled about what keeps me going despite the challenges in my life.  A snippet of wisdom showed up for me  last night in the Netflix movie The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (known for his anthropomorphic cat drawings) and somewhere in there there was the line that all people are “fearful and brave”.  That explained to me a lot about how we keep going.

I know, this Buddhism thing can seem glum,  After all its foundational observation is usually translated “All life is suffering”.  But the Sanskrit word is dukkha, and literally it refers to a wagon wheel that wobbles.  Life is unsteady, variable, uncertain, and if we get too embedded into that we become unhappy or distraught, or worse.  In a real sense we create our own suffering,   Understanding what life is really like is the path to the cessation of suffering.  To paraphrase Hillel the Elder’s comment on the Torah, he stated what has become the golden rule, and that in the Torah “everything else is commentary”.

Here’s a nice observation of life, from my favorite group Trampled by Turtles  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejfMrZQU3Eo 

You come into the world alone

And you go out of the world alone
But in between, theres you and me

The summer breezes blow so tall
And the winter nights are cold and so long
In between the falling leaves 

The days and nights are killing me
The light and dark are still in me
But there's and anchor on the beach
So let the wind blow hard
And bring a falling star 

Another thing I was thinking about this morning, yet to arise from bed, was how together we do better.  In my Zen tradition we often invoke the Four Great Vows, which in our translation uses “we” instead of “I”  (the original Chinese is not specific about this).  That lead me to another musical reference.  In this stage performance by Dire Straits of Sultans of Swing, they work together like clockwork, but individually are each themselves (especially the flamboyant rhythm guitarist, I think he could have been a gay man ahead of his time).  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pa9x9fZBtY  Nearly 11 minutes of music to play loud!

I’ll be fine, I’ll live to see another day (pun intended), but I may complain.  Love to you all,

=Tommy=