Y'dig?

It’s led by the wonderfully personable Nilgun Bhandari. In the last two weeks, even after nearly twenty years of this practice, I’ve learned/been reminded a) how to remain in thoughtless awareness while meditating, and b) that I am not as much, “the detached witness of love and compassion” that I so regularly advocate to others, as I think I am. Back to the drawing board on that one, but at least it makes it worth getting out of bed for in the mornings, when most old boys of my vintage are living out lives of playing golf and waiting to die.

Ooops, mustn’t say die, nobody dies around here any more, they pass, pass on or some such, sounds more iike a problem of the lower regions than permanent disappearance from this mortal coil*.

Should I start a campaign to resurrect the word ‘die’ as in to kick the bucket, snuff it, fall off one’s perch, or what have you. It’s a perfectly good word, everybody knows what it means, and who, in their right minds would want to hang around here forever anyway? God help us.

Anyway, if you get a chance, stroll along to:

The Center for Arts Education (between 7th and 8th Avenues in Manhattan)
225 West 34th Street
11th floor

On Tuesday or Wednesday evenings at 7pm and spend a pleasant hour learning an enjoyable technique that works, if you do it, of course – see above. (nothing works if you don’t do it).

*Derived from 16th Century English, “coil” refers to tumults or troubles. Used idiomatically, the phrase means “the bustle and turmoil of this mortal life.” ^[1] “Coil” has an unusual etymological history. It was coined repeatedly; at one time people used it as a verb to mean “to cull,” “to thrash,” “to lay in rings or spirals,” “to turn,” “to mound hay” and “to stir.” As a noun it has meant “a selection,” “a spiral,” “the breech of a gun,” “a mound of hay”, “a pen for hens”, and “noisy disturbance, fuss, ado.”^[2] It is in this last sense, which became popular in the 16th century, that Shakespeare used the word.

In fact, “mortal coil”—along with “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” “to sleep, perchance to dream” and “ay, there’s the rub”—is part of Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” speech. “Coil” is no longer used as a synonym for “disturbance.”