Pancreatic Cancer, Golf, and a Gate to the Dali Lama's Home

May 5, 2026 — The Second Round, The Quiet GateYesterday, I walked nine holes under a forgiving sky and, for a few hours, felt wholly like myself again. Four pars. Clean strikes. A body that remembered its old language. Western Pennsylvania, freshly rinsed by a real winter for the first time in decades, carried a kind of renewal in the air—groundwater restored, greens alive, the land breathing deeper than it has in years. You take those signs where you can find them.Carl’s Mind Chimes Magazine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Today, I stand on the threshold of round two.Tomorrow brings the long chair, the slow drip, the clinical ritual that now defines the rhythm of my weeks. Before that, the numbers—blood panels measuring the unseen war: red cells, white cells, and the quiet oracle of the CA 19-9 test, whispering whether the tumor has retreated or held its ground. So far, the fight remains contained—confined to the pancreas, not yet a traveler. That matters. That matters more than anything.There’s always a shadow thought—what if the treatment stirs something loose? But yesterday on the course, you wouldn’t have known such thoughts existed. That’s the paradox of this experience: the body can host both fear and freedom at once.Physically, after the first round, I give myself a B+. I’ve held up. There’s dehydration to manage, the subtle erosion—skin thinning, hair drying, the body asking for reinforcement. I’ve turned to collagen, hydration, small acts of maintenance that feel almost symbolic, like shoring up a house in a storm. Coconut oil may soon join the rotation. You learn to listen differently now—to every signal, every shift.The pattern is becoming clear: a few hard days after treatment, then a slow return. A rebound. A gathering of strength before the next wave. It is, in every sense, a fight for time—and within that, a fight for life.And somewhere in that space between the clinical and the existential, a memory returned to me.Years ago, I found myself in Dharamsala, India, sitting face-to-face with Tenzin Gyatso—a man whose presence has outlasted empires, whose leadership has endured exile, whose calm feels less like performance and more like atmosphere.I had gone there as a filmmaker, chasing a story about Tibet and China—politics dressed in the delicate clothing of religion. Before we began, I apologized to him. The questions I carried were not gentle ones. But he met them with openness, even generosity, expanding beyond what was asked, offering not just answers but perspective.The interview itself was remarkable. But the moment that stayed with me happened outside the frame.— Continue reading on Substack —Behind the monastery, near his residence—once a military fort, now something quieter—there’s a tree-lined stretch of land. A small park, simple and still. I remember standing near the gate and saying aloud, almost involuntarily, “It’s so calm here.”A monk beside me smiled and said, “His Holiness is just inside. That is what you’re feeling.”I dismissed it at the time. Attributed it to scenery, to altitude, to suggestion.But the next day, a member of my crew—someone untouched by that earlier conversation—walked up to the same gate and said, unprompted, “There’s something incredibly peaceful about this place.”No cue. No context. Just recognition.And I remember standing there, a little stunned, wondering whether peace can, in fact, radiate. Whether presence—true presence—has a field, like gravity.Tomorrow, I return to a very different kind of chamber. Fluorescent lights instead of Himalayan sun. Machines instead of monks. But I carry something with me from that gate—a reminder that not everything measurable is everything real.If the body is a battleground, the mind remains a sanctuary. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you find a way to keep that gate open.I’ll be in the chair from noon to five. Watching, waiting, letting the medicine do its work. Perhaps I’ll write from there—send a dispatch from the middle of it.Until then, thank you—for reading, for sharing, for the quiet current of support that travels farther than we ever quite understand.—CarlIf this piece moved you, stay with me on this road. Subscribe, share, and pass it forward. There’s more to come.Carl’s Mind Chimes Magazine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindchimesmagazine.substack.com/subscribe