Parapolitics: The Clincher

One of the more paradoxical consequences of my former involvement with organised Buddhism is that it initiated an introduction to, and real interest in, the arts of western culture. The best of art was apparently suffused with spiritual qualities, and could form a significant practice for those wishing to develop wisdom, compassion, and the rest. I am grateful for this initiation into the arts, especially some classical music and the Italian Renaissance painters.

My Buddhist teacher had a certain enthusiasm for the writings of Samuel - 'Doctor' - Johnson, even running a short seminar on a couple of his poems, to which I was invited, and which I duly attended. I never found Johnson much of a turn-on: I envisaged him as one in a line of British travelling curmudgeons, more recent examples being Alfred 'The Lake District' Wainwright and Cameron McNeish. This might have been extremely uncharitable on my part, but there we have it.....

One of Johnson's quotations that sometimes popped up within my world of organised Buddhism concerned second marriages. Getting married once, the Great Sage opined, is understandable. But doing it a second time was foolish in the extreme. It was, he stated, 'the triumph of hope over experience'. In a Buddhist organisation which followed the general pattern, with a tendency to idealise celibacy while gently (or not) disapproving of sexual relationships, Dr Johnson was quoted with a knowing nod of the head. Rock on, Sammie babe, what a shit-hot dude you are, was the general sentiment (though not necessarily expressed in those words exactly).

I was never overly impressed with Johnson's words of marital wisdom. In fact I find them a bit silly. Still, let's go with this a while...... 'the triumph of hope over experience'. Where will it lead us?

Sadly, I found some of these same Buddhists who quoted Johnson with a hearty guffaw less able to apply this notion to other areas of life. It was, I suppose, pretty safe and easy to give a thumbs-up to Johnson when he confirmed ones own pseudo-spiritual dispositions. Yet when 'hope over experience' could be presented to shed light on less comfortable aspects of life, which might indeed require turning the whole thing upside down, it might be better to turn a blind eye.

These were the thoughts that appeared a few weeks back, as I strolled down the Inverness High

Street. It was a week or so before some election or other, and the lamp-posts hung heavy with posters and placards declaring the various parties and some of the candidates. Lib-Dem, UKIP, Tory; Labour, SNP, Green; Scottish Christian Party. I know nothing of his policies - probably what we might expect - but the Conservative had the best name: one Edward Mountain. I looked out for Lucinda Lochan and Peter Precipice, but they were nowhere to be seen.

I was puzzled, confused, by the whole show. For one thing, it hadn't registered that there was an election of any description on. But the question loomed large: do people still believe in this stuff? Ten years ago, when I began work along this very  High Street, it was precisely the same. The same tired placards, the same weary attempt to elicit support. Mr Mountain was probably not there a decade ago, but otherwise nothing had changed.

I can kind-of understand a twenty-year old getting involved with this stuff. Youthful, idealistic, experimenting with the ways of the world. But older folk, with a decent beltload of experience wrapped around their by-now protruding bellies? How have they failed to learn? To not see, after decades of unfulfilled promise, shattered expectations, falsely-placed optimism? Nothing has changed. A few details, yes, but viscerally no. This is the real spectacle of hope triumphing over experience.

It requires a fundamental shift in consciousness, one that may be unsettling, disturbing; it may throw your entire view of life and who you are into turmoil. Which is why, I suppose, so many people don't go there. To see that the story of progress, of change, - of hope - is a phantom paraded before our eyes as a deception, a chimera intended to keep us quiet, content in our discontent. To maintain our status, without our even knowing, as sheeple, as some would unkindly have it. The road ahead is not in reality a road at all. It is a hamster wheel. There will be no change on that wheel. It is not intended to change, not designed to change. It simply keeps the system of hierarchy, of control, running smoothly. That is its function.

How many times do folk need their hopes dashed before they 'get it'? To see those moments of historic hope - the Blairs, the Clintons, the Obamas - come to nothing. Of course they come to nothing: that is the point. I have been there - I know. I was one of the multitudes who shed a tear to see Tony Blair out shaking the hands of the people on his first day in office. Gone the terrors of Thatcher and her inept successors. In with the righteous. But within a couple of years, Blair was clearly manifesting as a monster even more terrible than anything Thatcher and her buddies could dream up. These experiences form the node of learning, of going deeper into the fabric, burrowing down into what is really happening.

The torch-bearers of hope are in fact necessary for the continued survival of our broken system. Precisely because of that: they wear the raiment of hope, the promise of better things to come. Without them, the system will surely implode entirely with its own fatigued decadence, its monolithic cliches uttered by puppets almost too world-weary to open their mouths and speak. British politics a few years ago - especially English politics - defined by the pathetic, moronic personages of Cameron, Miliband, and Clegg. A system on the verge of grinding to a complete halt though lack of energy. The system needs its 'hopes' to provide a necessary injection of vitality, of energy. Regardless of their political persuasions, these folk - the Trumps, Farages, Corbyns - are essential, to provide engine fodder. They are viciously, shamelessly, and relentlessly attacked by the mainstream media - I find it a spectacle horrible to watch. Surely, though, a vote for Hillary is a vote with a death-wish: a vote made in glaring blindness, a vote for the system as it rolls out its rubbish over the decades, over the centuries. Well-intentioned people all-too easily rolled over, voting for control, limitation, the death of independent, intelligent thought and being. This is the way: bring out the mavericks, providing a sense of hope for the masses; just don't let them go too far......

In the meantime, let us go forth, with experience our teacher, experience our guide. Do we need this version of 'hope' at all?

Images: Illusion of change: surface waters in motion, while the creatures of the deep continue life regardless. The Skye Cuillin, off Elgol.
             The Star, from Phantomwise Tarot.





  

      

My Buddhist Inventory: the other bits

I have written about the bits of my decades in organised Buddhism that I found really helpful; I have written about some of the aspects I found to be a nest of vipers. There remain the bits that, while not exactly harmful, didn't quite come up to what it claims on the tin. A cursory trip around the personal universe uncovers three subjects that immediately present themselves.

First up, Buddhist ethics. Like all forms of organised spirituality or religiosity, Buddhism comes with
a ready-made package of behavioural do's and don'ts. True to form, it is softer than its monotheistic equivalents, presenting precepts or guidelines, rather than rules and commandments (this is not strictly true, since you can get chucked out of monkhood for breaking certain precepts, I believe - and if that ain't rules and regs, I don't know what is). Nevertheless, the main approach is providing guidelines: this is how an enlightened being would behave naturally, the theory goes, so by adopting these styles, you will draw closer to Buddhahood.

That's all OK, I suppose. But I don't think, in general terms at least, I needed the ethics of Buddhism. I was already a reasonably decent person with an instinctive behavioural code in place before I came across organised Buddhism. Buddhism could theorise more comprehensively than me about why sila (the Sanskrit for morality) should be practiced, but I can't say this impinged upon my being very much. The practice of ethics Buddhist-style did not bring me much closer to Buddha. In fact, the main effect of taking Buddhist ethical proscription seriously was that it made the area of sexuality even more complicated and precarious than it already was.

Second, I've got study. We did plenty of studying of various Buddhist texts, along with a smattering of other books and poems that were reckoned to shed light upon the path towards Enlightenment. In my earlier days of Buddhism, in particular, we also spent many hours listening to lectures recorded on tape delivered by our teacher, explaining and amplifying on a wide range of Buddhist and Buddhist-related topics.

A few things stand out, moments that really jolted me. One such was my teacher's seminar on the 'Greater Mandala of Aesthetic Appreciation', or uselessness. The world does not exist primarily to be used: it is there to be appreciated, enjoyed for what it is. It is as it is. This is Wisdom, a profound non-utilitarianism. This I found most revealing and it speaks bucketloads to me to this day. Buddhism is often pretty good on conceptual clarity (one of its attributes that initially attracted me), and some of its concepts remain helpful in giving voice and shape to felt experience.

However, the majority of study that I undertook, including that which I 'led', sometimes laughably, had very little impact on me, my current depth-charge of honesty reveals. An awful lot failed to speak to me. At best there was some exercise of the intellectual faculty. But quite a lot was high on the scale of tedium. At worst, it was confusing, frustrating, enraging.

I recall one seminar held by my former teacher. I should express gratitude for being invited, but I suspect my invitation was based largely on my being local friendly bigwig at the time. It was on a book called 'Forest Monks of Sri Lanka'. Though in some respects a maverick, my teacher was always keen to find validation for his particular approach within the wider Buddhist tradition, and to find parallels therein. There were apparently echoes of our own style within the activities of these Forest Monks. We students would read a chapter in the morning, then convene in groups to come up with earnest intelligent questions to fire at our teacher during the evening session. This really was one of the most tedious little periods of my life to date. I had as much in common with these Forest Monks of Sri Lanka as I did with alien invaders from some outer galaxy. After a number of days of fruitless head scratching, I eventually came up with a question that I found interesting. It was about inner fire or something, a footnote to the main meat of the seminar, about lifestyles and organisation among the Forest Monks. 'I have dealt with this subject in another seminar' was my teacher's curt reply to my futile attempt at personal engagement. 'Next question please.'

I recently engaged in a full-scale scramble around in dusty boxes in the garage to see if my copy of this noble tome was still around. Nowhere to be seen. In a fit of blasphemy, I must have chucked it out somewhere along the line. I was mortified. I had checked it on Amazon, and copies are nowadays worth a pretty penny.

The final bit (for now, at any rate) that current reflection suggests was not personally up to what it was supposed to be concerns work. The particular Buddhist organisation I participated in was big on work - in the 1970s and 1980s especially, when my involvement was at its height. The rationale was well-formed. Work got your energies going. Work for the organisation (which is what we are mainly talking about here) was a positive action, helping other people to get going on the Buddhist path, and helping to create a better society. Work involved co-operating with others, learning to communicate creatively. Work was, in sum, the Boddhisatva spirit in operation. You couldn't ask for more than that, could you?

Working with like-minded people; helping to create a better world: this was what my pre-Buddhist life had been about, when I lived in a commune. I should have been in paradise. But I often wasn't....

When I first moved to London to practice Buddhism, my mind was very clear. I was going to find a part-time job, earning enough for survival, then devote the remainder of my time and energy to meditating and studying the Buddhist texts. I was up for Enlightenment, and this was the way to go about it, I had concluded. Some people thought otherwise. A short time after moving into Buddhist community in Archway, north London, I was approached by one of my fellow community members and new-found buddies. He had just started a wholefood business, selling healthy foodstuffs on market stalls and with a basement stockroom away in east London beneath the 'under construction' big new Buddhist centre over there. Did I want to go and have a look? I said 'yes'; and the rest, as they say, is history. Before I knew it, most of my waking hours were being spent packing peanuts into bags and plying our health-giving wares in Brick Lane and other London markets at weekends. I was so good at this work stuff that, as related in a previous post, within three years I was chairing the West London Buddhist Centre.

Why, when I look back, does it seem (not in black and white, but on balance) so unsatisfying? I was living the dream, wasn't I? Some of the 'work is good' rhetoric didn't wash: 'getting my energies going through work' was one. I had come into Buddhism fresh out of fifty- and sixty-hour weeks in warehouses and delivering mail during my commune days. The vital difference was that, during that phase, I was putting into practice a dream that came from (or flowed through) me. It was personal and universal in equal measure. Now, it seems, I had signed onto someone else's dream. I wanted to do Buddhism, but how to go about it was being dictated to me by others who, I was informed, were more 'experienced' and knew better. I learnt the art of giving people the benefit of the doubt, a pernicious mindset to fall into. It was no longer my dream; I had given it all away - or a good dose of it, anyway.

That moment when I allowed myself to be diverted from my path into the 'building a Buddhist movement' was critical. That is the seminal snapshot of experience which I feel is the precise node of personal growth for the future. I don't want my 'soul' to have to go down that route again; the route of 'giving it away' in the mistaken belief that I 'getting it'. What do I require to ignite within the core of my being to avoid the endless repetition that accompanies lessons unlearnt? The answer, it has been emerging of late, is simple, though hard to practice. It is simply a matter of connection to the path. Stay connected and things cannot go far off-course. Remain true to heart and instinct; engage with others fully, intensively, but don't give your dream away.

It was balm to my soul, and a sure sign that I was on track, when I emerged from organised Buddhism and began to discover folk like Neil Kramer, uncompromisingly emphasising personal uniqueness and authenticity, listening to the voices within, finding your own way on the sacred path.

I find it fascinating that all three 'not very useful practices' I have described here are employed in distorted form by the perpetrators of darkness in our world as means of control. 'Ethics', codes of morality, can become ways to make people afraid, submissive, easily manipulated. The notion of 'Study' can be distorted into ideology, belief systems and media brainwashing. Work can be used as a means of exploitation, keeping people in the state of slavery to a heartless system for all their lives. There are always these tendencies, subtle though they may be.

In the end, the Buddhist trip was just getting in the way. What started off as a passport to liberation became a yolk around the neck. I feel that I was offered a very basic, 'exoteric' path, which led so far and then hit a brick wall. My sense of the magical, the mystical, the multidimensional magnificence of living was left unassuaged. Some of my Buddhist friends and former colleagues have attempted a resolution by going Tibetan, but the complex system of grades of initiation, ritual etc isn't for me. Others have gone into focussed non-duality, no-self stuff. In my view, this has its not-inconsiderable value, but leaves me wanting for the truly mystical, noumenous way. It is one part of the jigsaw only. In the meantime, I feel that I have come back home.

Let's finish with Acharya S., one of the voices of inspiration, courage, and uncommon common sense that has spoken to me out of the jungle of nonsense. "To truly 'get' Buddhism, one needs to become a Buddha, and a Buddha is a free agent not belonging to any particular group, cult, or religion, not separate from 'God', and not ascribing to ritual and rote, except that which moves her/him in her/his autonomy." (In 'Is Buddhism all it's cracked up to be?'). Thanks, Acharya.

Images:

The Tower, Thoth Tarot. The terrifying magnificence of collapse. for example of preconceptions about reality. The destructive aspect of change.

Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava. The all-penetrating eye that seeks out every tiny speck of bullshit. Courtesy of ChinaBuddhismEncyclopedia.




       

     

Always the Fool

'Organised Buddhism' is the term that I seem to have settled on to describe the phenomenon that I am in the process of exploring right now. It is 'organised', not to distinguish it from 'disorganised Buddhism' or the like. No. It is to suggest how Buddhist practice in this case comes within a framework of a collectivity with agreed principles, practices, approaches, and the rest. My purpose in this writing is not to give anybody a hard time, or to apportion 'blame'. It is to examine my own life, where it has gone and why; and what lessons can be learnt from all this, so they are not repeated. When I turn to the phenomenon of 'organised Buddhism' it is instructive to see how the original naked pure motivation of liberation of the individual can - and often does - so easily become subsumed under an umbrella of collectivity, with its norms, rules or guidelines, its 'this is the way to do things and not to do things'. How the collectivity insidiously takes on its own identity, with survival and aggrandisement as priority over everything else; its promotion of its own goodness, excellence, uniqueness.

In 'The Buddhist Inventory', April 28th, I illustrated the theme with the Hierophant, Tarot card number five, from the Rider-Waite deck as embodying the essence of organised religion, organised spirituality even. The Hierophant manifests orthodoxy, conformity, the established order, tradition in a sense. So much so that the card is sometimes referred to as the Pope.

I have a problem with the Hierophant: this is one way of looking at the some of the underlying themes of these pieces. A wander around the internet quickly showed me that I am not the only person with Hierophant issues. Nevertheless, there it is, a card in the Tarot, one aspect of the totality of experience to be undergone on the sacred path, should we read the Tarot in this way. In order to shed more light on the Hierophant, I decided to check out a different version, that from the Thoth Tarot deck of Aleister Crowley. Good old Aleister,always to the rescue! The Thoth deck is fascinating, as we might expect from a Tarot originating in the uneven wisdom of the Great Beast, and doesn't shy from the darker sides of reality. It is the Hierophant of the Thoth Tarot below.    


A short but illuminating commentary on the Thoth Hierophant by Suzanne Wagner, readily accessible on Youtube, points up several salient details of Crowley's depiction. One is that around the head of the Hierophant, behind which can be seen a stained-glass window, is a dead snake. The serpent, as we know, is a manifestation of both sexual and spiritual energies. And in the case of the Hierophant, it's dead, stuck through with daggers. And standing beneath the Hierophant is the Egyptian goddess Isis. Her left hand holds a waning moon: the moon, filled with the energy of the sacred feminine, dwindles under the influence of formal religiosity, of the conventional and conformity. Organised religion, be it Christian, Buddhist, or other, will by its very nature have an uneasy relationship with the feminine, regarding it with suspicion at the least, or attempting to destroy it completely. The Thoth Tarot has the Hierophant's number.

Our true nature, in both its being and its becoming, is perfectly expressed in another figure from the Tarot, the Fool (Rider-Waite Fool shown at the beginning of this piece). The Fool, significantly, does not possess a number: he is zero, out of time, or present everywhere. He kind-of stands at the beginning of the Great Journey, and kind-of stands at the end. If we do the trip right, he is our companion every step of the way. And this, I have discovered, was my error, as I immersed my being more and more in organised spiritual life. I lost my prime identity, my visceral affiliation with the Fool. Or, I didn't lose it, but entered a state of amnesia. In the reality that is Tarot, the glorious Fool heads off on a marvellous adventure, the morning sun on his back. He travels light, with just a few necessary provisions wrapped in the kerchief he carries on a stick over his shoulder. His folly is that he walks with his head in the clouds, heedless of the precipice he is about to fall off - into disaster or freedom, nobody knows. The dog at his heels tries to alert him to the earth beneath his feet, to watch where he walks. Naive yet magnificently wise, the Fool treads his journey of life free - nobody could be further from the vice of organised religion than he.

To repeat what I said above: the problem with organised Buddhism, as with organised anything else, is that it becomes concerned with its own identity, and its own perpetuity, its survival through time. It takes itself too seriously, believes in itself in the wrong way. It is this unspoken agenda that fuels the rigidity, the standards, the do-it-like-this-or-you're-out. My former Buddhist teacher has become preoccupied, it would seem to me, with the preservation of his writings above all else, as a means of continued influence on the world of western Buddhism. He could, instead, trust in the divine and in the integrity of his disciples, and wander free like the Fool. But his chosen priorities are typical, I suggest, of the syndrome I am outlining here.

Were I to take on the mantle of the Hierophant and set up my own religious or spiritual organisation (heaven forbid), I would do it as an ongoing apprenticeship. Every three years, say, the disciple would go out into the wilderness for a fortnight to consider. With no prejudice, no holds barred, they would view their life, their current reality, and ask the question: do I wish to continue beneath this spiritual umbrella, or am I ready to go forth in all my glorious unique authenticity, taking and giving freely whenever and wherever seems fit? Can I walk the face of this magnificent Earth, my home, with the self-knowledge to penetrate its greatest mysteries, live fully its adamantine miracle, its eternal present? If so, I am free to go, with the deepest blessings of all I have struggled and loved and practiced with. It is The Way.

There is more that I wish to write on this theme. But I set out with a central question: how did I falter on my own way, and what lesson can be learned to avoid this repeating itself? In my writing, I have stumbled upon at least some of the answer.
        

My Buddhist Inventory - some nasty bits

It's high summer 1987.... 88? Does it matter? By dint of a miracle conferred by some supernatural entity or other, I have been chairman (nowadays chairperson) of the modestly-titled West London Buddhist Centre for some eight years or so. I am generally friendly (-ish) and approachable, and my sense of responsibilty means that the meditation classes start on time. In other respects, however, I am gloriously unsuited to the job. Expansion is the name of the game, with the goal of ever-more people flocking to an increasingly-full weekly programme of beginners meditation, yoga and massage classes, study groups, meditation for experienced people..... you get the picture. This is not a world that I readily fit into. At our summit meetings, other chairmen try to remain patient as the West London Buddhist Centre still shows no sign of getting much bigger. I seem to be pathologically lacking in the crusading spirit. Don't I realise how important spreading the word is?

I have finally had enough, and announce as much to my fellow workers in West London. They are generally supportive: a reluctant leader is a rubbish leader, after all. It remains to communicate with the head of the Buddhist Order and organisation with which I am intimately associated. He is away somewhere or other, but I write a letter. Informing him of our collective intention, I end by saying that, if I hear nothing from him, I will assume his assent. End of story; or so I think.

I soon receive a reply, along with a summons to his residence in deepest Norfolk. This 'I shall go ahead if I hear nothing' approach is not, it appears, good form. I turn up with a day return train ticket in my pocket and a heavy bagload of apprehension. The head of the Order does not consider my idea a good one at all. There are, I am informed, no suitable replacements for me as yet; I should stay on for another couple of years while a successor is found and duly trained up. And that is it. There is, as I recall, no question about how I am feeling personally, why I wish to relinquish this role, what I might like to do with my life instead of running the Buddhist centre, and how any personal difficulties I may be having could be constructively worked with. No. My individual whims and fancies are, it appears, irrelevant. There is a Buddhist movement to be run; that is the main thing. And I am in the service (at the mercy, more like) of the Greater Good.

I was once proud to be a shit-hot ultra-transcendental psychedelic countercultural superhero. In the space of ten years I had managed to evolve and develop to..... this. A piece on the chessboard of Buddhist empire-building. That's not all I was, but a piece all the same. I did not see it clearly at the time, of course. Maybe it was a jolly good empire, with a unique and vital message for the world. Nevertheless, from that moment on, there was one direction, and one direction only, for me to take. And that was 'out'.

To their great credit, some of my fellow Buddhist workers in London were far from happy with my intention to remain for those two years. They were personal friends, and knew that I was frustrated. They stuck to their 'a reluctant leader is a rubbish leader' guns. However, I decided to stay. I had read my Tibetan Buddhism, and knew about the flaming hells that await people who go against the guru. So it was that I signed myself up to the most frustrating two years of my life to date. I mean, what do you do?

This story encapsulates the essence of the messy side to my years as full-on Buddhist. I jumped in with the dream of discovering my own true nature, but ended up giving plenty of it away. It was all, fortunately we might say, soft core in the particular organisation I became affiliated with. I was not easy meat for the more extreme total and totalitarian cults of fervent devotion that were floating around at the time. I was not readily taken in by swamis, gurus, perfect ones, and the rest - my anarchistic, commune past led me to view leaders and authorities, even enlightened ones illuminating the way to the promised land, with circumspection.

The head of the Order I eventually joined would style himself as teacher rather than guru, in an attempt to distance himself from the intelligence-numbing excesses of some of the characters turning up with their roots somewhere in the orient. There was, in many respects, a good deal of leeway in the movement that he set up. The notion of 'becoming a true individual' was held in high esteem, though in an increasingly uneasy dynamic with 'following the Buddhist path within a specific context'. A distinction was made between a 'group' and a 'spiritual community', the latter consisting of a collection of aspiring individuals, rather than a bundle of sheep. Good theory, but life ain't quite as simple as that. And when you've got a movement to run, classes to teach, Buddhist businesses to service ......

As mentioned in my previous article, the high value placed upon friendship was, in my view, one of the good things about this particular Buddhist organisation. There was, however, a dark side to this 'getting to know people' lark. Especially if you were promoted to being one of the people in high places, you would suddenly find yourself in demand. Everybody wanted to spend time with you, be friends with you. Conversely, it became one of your own duties to spend time with people - regardless of whether you liked, wanted to spend time or be friends with this particular person. The business lunch was replaced by the spiritual lunch, and walking-and-talking in the park, or countryside lanes if on retreat, became the order of the day. It was part of our culture, really. People wanted to learn from you, be inspired by you, even if you felt crap, hadn't a clue what you were doing, and the problem being placed in front of your nose was way outside your personal experience.

Most insidious, and something that to this day I feel shame about, was the twist: walking and talking, chomping pasta together, invariably contained a subtext. Getting people more involved. Different levels of involvement existed, based upon the individual's degree of commitment to our particular brand of Buddhist practice. Especially with folk who were 'beginning to get more involved', this hidden - or not so hidden - plot would be there. People would sense this, and it was not to everybody's taste. I still recall a number of very decent interesting people I knew, who 'disappeared' after one subtle 'involvement' lunch too many. I wish here and now to, in the Buddhist lingo, confess my faults, and say sorry to those who may have been put off by this. Why wasn't it good enough to simply experience the pure joy of being with another human being, free of agendas? Why not? Oh, I forgot. What we were doing was so great that any reasonable-minded person would want to jump in. And it was good to have expanding classes, bigger businesses etc.

Then there was the opposite. While those people who didn't want to get more involved were diagnosed as 'having a problem', there were others who wanted to get more involved, but were deemed not as yet ready. Then lunch would involve indigestion, as you tried to explain that they didn't have enough self-confidence, or they had too much, or were just a bloody mess. Sorry, guys, sorry.

It was a funny thing, really. To jump into something that really seemed like a ticket to total freedom, then gradually sense that liberation was no longer taking place, personally (and I speak 'personally' here) at least. That the bus pass came with a bundle of conditions and restrictions, 'valid on these routes only', that seemed conducive to anything but freedom.

So this is a snapshot of some of the 'nasty bits'. There remain for another time the bits that just didn't seem to work.......

Image: Ulmata Mahakala/Bhairab. Destroying delusion in whatever form it may manifest.