Monthly musings of the naughtily nice kind
I took a mug off the dresser yesterday with a view to having a cuppa. Just before popping in the teabag, I glanced into the mug and saw a tiny spider. Shuddering at the thought of what might have happened, I helped it gently onto a plant. This sort of thing is happening all the time. I am becoming more and more careful not to injure tiny forms of life.
And my reverence for life has increased with age. I let the dog out at night carrying a torch (me, not him) so I don’t step on any snails. I’ve tried to reason with clothes moths instead of spraying them with chemicals, and as a result my jumpers are full of holes. After a while I began to wonder about this reverence for life: am I becoming a Buddhist?
Hastily I googled ‘Buddhism’, although aware a real Buddhist would have googled it slowly and serenely. Buddhists, I found, ‘refrain from taking life, stealing, acting unchastely, speaking falsely, and drinking intoxicants’. Well, let’s see… I have avoided murder so far, although often tempted by people who commit grammatical errors while working for the BBC.
Stealing? Well, at school I famously stole a packet of dates from the Domestic Science store cupboard, and buried the wrapper on the hockey field. But the guilt was such torture I’ve never stolen anything since. I admire burglars tremendously. A friend of mine arrived home once, strolled into his kitchen, and beheld a raffish looking man, who smiled awkwardly, announced, ‘I’m a burglar!’, dived out through the open window and vanished. Such panache!
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He can’t have been a Buddhist, however. I think you have to give up panache if you’re a Buddhist. What was the next thing? ‘Acting unchastely’. I used to do that quite a lot, but nowadays I prefer gardening. Incidentally, is that why Buddhist monks shave their heads? So, people won’t fancy them? Quite wrong, if so. So many men are completely bald and yet sexy. Inspector Montalbano. John Malkovich. Sajid Javid. No, wait, he slipped in under the radar. Prince William, I meant to say.
‘Drinking intoxicants’ – well, I’m almost totally teetotal. I’m sort of teepartial. I do take a thimbleful of white wine sometimes with dinner, and then experience the drunkenness of a dormouse. I think I could easily abstain forever from the grape and grain if Buddha required it, though I would need daily infusions of elderflower cordial.
But ‘speaking falsely’, that’s a tall order. My entire professional life has revolved around speaking falsely, because that’s what fiction is – comedy, in particular. For example, if I have a bad night, I arrive at the breakfast table and announce that ‘I haven’t slept for a hundred years’. Hyperbole. The stock in trade of the comedy writer. Odd word, hyperbole. It sounds like a herbaceous perennial. ‘The hyperbole has been lovely this year!’
Though by now desperate to become a Buddhist, I felt I was bound to fail. I read a bit more about Buddhism. Existence is regarded as suffering. Certainly true – in my case, particularly round the left ankle and right knee. We crave impermanent things. Does that mean I shall have to give up Portuguese custard tarts? Vegetarianism I could handle. Meditation I occasionally attempt. But wanting impermanent things: a new series of Gentleman Jack, a bowl of tulips, a Wimbledon Final… I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to give up longing for those delights. So, for the time being, I’ll confine myself to rescuing moths who fall in the bath. Sorry, Buddha!
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