Every hour is just a repeat, more or less,
of the previous hour. And then when all
the hours are done, they repeat the hours
for those who missed them the first time
around. In the first hour, you feel a sense
of discontent seeing things from a part-
icular perspective and so on and so on
throughout the evening. If you switched
the channel, you would feel a sense of dis-
content from a different perspective. If
you then turned on the local or national
news, you would feel a sense of discontent
coming from every direction, and so you
might wish to remove yourself from all
that discontent by watching some crime
thrillers, which are ubiquitous with the
fall season previews promising even more
and you would be confronted with pedo-
philes, serial killers, terrorists, lots
of gunfire, quite a bit of agony, torture,
maiming, death and more and more gore,
which would all be quite disconcerting
even with the joking that goes on at
police headquarters in between the shoot
‘em ups. You hear someone clearing his
throat. You look over at the Buddha who
is sitting in the green, leather recliner
with his calloused feet on the ottoman
and his hands clasped behind his head.
He asks, “How do you feel right now —
anxious, discontented? See. This is
exactly what I mean by my use of the
word suffering. And you pay good money
for this?” Jesus, lying on the couch
with a Dorothy Sayers’ mystery in his
hands, remarks, “Truer words were never
spoken.” Lao Tzu, playing a Sudoku on
the computer, simply says, “Amen.”