Different attitude required

          Once upon a time, I thought there were three folk I should be particularly concerned about; folk I was very keen to get interested in meditation and maybe buddhism. Meditation anyway. These were my mother, my partner and my daughter.

          My auld maw meditated as much as she was able. Letting thoughts go and not clinging to them. My partner had no interest in meditation and her main interest was in trying to enjoy her life, which she did as much as she was able, and she died well, considering. That's maybe as much a character thing. But she never meditated and never had any access to a peaceful place in her mind, far less being able to do the bliss.

            My daughter is very like her mother in many, many ways. I would really, really like her to start meditating, but why should she? Apart from me, nobody she knows meditates, and I'm hardly an example of good practise.

             So I'll have to sort myself out and make myself a better example. If you haven't tamed your mind, you can't help anyone.

              I do have some campassion for flatheids, but mainly they irritate me. I think what I should do is keep away from them and try to develop the altruistic intention, my meditations and suchlike. At this moment, I don't think I can abandon drinking, smoking and wasting my precious time as long as I have to socialise with the too dumb to meditate.

               However, there may be a middle way!! I think I could come down here a couple of days a week and see my friends at the weekends. Something like that. Do more retreats. Stop acting like an asshole. Stop insulting the flatheids.

               Still having problems with tobacco and alcohol. Bugger it!
3.05 p.m.
               Funny the things you read which seem somehow dead appropriate. This is from a commentary by Dilgo Khyentse on a poem by Patrul Rinpoche. Here's the verse:
                Though you explain, people miss the point or don't believe you;
                 Though you motivation is purely altruistic, people think it's not.
                 These days, when the crooked see the straight as crooked,
                  You can't help anyone - give up any hope of that.

The commentary says, at one point: 'When, in broad daylight, a group of blindfolded people agree that it is dark, the problem is surely their mistaken perception. The attitudes that are current these days cut people off from their inherent sanity.'

          Well, there it is. No point in talking to the too dumb to meditate about the bliss. I have a few things I still have to do in Edinburgh, such as getting eight windows in the flat replaced, but after this time passes, I hope I can get into solitary retreats.