Week's end

          I haven't had a conversation with anyone since last Sunday, so that's about a week. I've bought stuff, but I don't count that. I didn't get to sleep last night till about five in the morning. Hours of yoga nidra, lying there feeling very, very relaxed and very warm. Quietly sweating.

          This occurred the last few times I've been down to the Samye Ling. I'm not sure what this means, if anything. The meditations have been hurtling onwards. I'm getting much warmer sometimes during the meditations and if what is happening is channels opening, well, something is still going on.

          Who knows where all this is going? You could still crash and burn. I'm operating without advice, but I'm not really looking for advice. What is going on is not a worry. I just want to get on with it.

          The lama told me a meeting or two ago that you'd get hot naturally through the meditations. That is, without concentrating on the channels and drops. I think that's what's been happening though I meditate now and again on the symbols. But what really seems to be coming on is the visualisations and the Dorje Sempe stuff. Fantastic bliss.

          Things I've read about hotboys: Alexandra David-Neil said that the hot stuff might come and go, but eventually stabilises so that you match the outside temperature, sort of thing. I've also read that hotboys have to sleep with only a thin sheet over them.

          Parts of the evenings have been problematic this week, but I've been getting calmer, I think. But tonight I might give myself a wee break and take a walk where there are women in summer dresses with long, long legs and subtle perfumes wafting.

Rain stopped play.

         I walked to Homebase in the late morning to get a padlock, paint and gardening gloves. I set fire to a bit of the roof of the old hut and was just about to open the paint can when the heavens opened. I sat in the hut to meditate and a pipe band started practising in Inverleith Park. It is quite hard  to meditate with a pipe band giving it laldy nearby, but I had to give it a go anyway since it was pissing down. Back in the lobby here, there's a guy on the building site outside who sometimes does something with a giant buzz saw thing

         I think I can say that now I have started writing. When the rain went off, I went to Costas and had a good think about the play. I might have developed a cunning plan.

         The trouble with Costas is that I don't really like coffee. I'd been drinking Americanos in there before, but you have to fill them with sugar. I haven't been using dairy for a few years now, but I had a latte thing this time and you can tolerate that without anything else in it. When I got back in, I did a hundred prostrations and then had a bath.

          I could see that becoming a regular thing for a late afternoon in the autumn, especially once I get the netbook thing sorted out with some word processing. I'm just not sure about the etiquette for cafes. When I was a teenager, Mr Ferris would chuck you out after an hour if you went in and just sat with the one coke for all that time.

Free socks!

          Normally, I'd go and buy a lot of socks and such like when I got a windfall. Now that they are almost free, I went out and bought fifteen pairs on Monday. I can now throw out all of my old socks, though some are still serviceable. But they are old. David Beckham only wears trainers once. This is because trainers to David are free. In fact, somebody probably gives him money to wear these trainers. The Queen has never paid for anything in her life. The more better off you become, the freer everything gets.

          Poor folk don't understand this. You get locked into your viewpoint. If they knew all this about the free stuff the evil bourgeois were getting, obviously they would rise up and put them all to the sword. Nobody deserves to be dead rich. It's a failure of law.

           In order to make things freer for the poor - like in the old days when specs were free, and the dentist was free, etc. - we on the left must start making an alliance with the progeny of the evil bourgeois. As soon as folk retire, the state should make a deal with their inheritors that the inheritors get half the parents money straight up if the state gets the other half, the half that's going back into free specs and teeth, and no beggars on the streets. The retired folk should be left with no more than a hundred grand. That's far too much money for anyone to have in the bank, not when there's 300,000 care workers sitting on zero hour contracts. They should also be offered free euthanasia pills since what's the point of being alive when you just waste all the time by not meditating?

          I've been reading 'Born in Tibet' by Chogyam Trungpa. I've always had a problem with Chogy who was killed by the drink in his 40s. Since I was born in Lanarkshire, we expect and hope that 'holy' joes should be renunciants. Like St Francis. Renunciation is a hinayana path. Vajrayana joes might not be renunciants. They're into transformation more than renunciation. Dzogchen leaves everything as it is. It is obvious as you read about Chogy's young life that he was obviously highly realised. In the book, he talks about monks who stay between life and death for a day or so. According to accounts, he did a bit better than that. Despite being on eight bottles of collapso a day. I was reading this in the pub this afternoon.

          I haven't had a conversation since Sunday. If you want to know what that might be like for a flatheid, you should read Company by Samuel Beckett. 'A dead rat? Ah, what company that would be!' But here the old man is purposeful and not so much lonely as trying to stay away from flatheids. Ah, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!

          It says in the book:  The Communists had entered the houses of the better class Tibetans and ransacked them; they had taken the clothes of the masters and made the servants wear them, and the masters had been forced to put on the servants clothes.' This is what will happen as soon as we get independence. The old evil bourgois will be forced to change clothes with the men digging up Portobello roads, and dig the roads while the workers will put on his clothes and stand there shouting abuse at him.

          What goes around, comes around. The trouble with the Chogy book is that it doesn't have an authentic voice. I want to know what the juju was like inside the boy's head and when he started in on the babes. I want the Charles Bukowski of the juju world. I think this book was published way too early for that. Anyway, it's no right to drink yourself to death. The boy's a bad example. But in a way he's absolutely on the money. Watch out for these buggers. Be nicer if you were holy, but you don't have to be.

Free Beer

          Since I joined the lower ranks of the evil bourgeois, beer is now free. Most things are free to the evil bourgeois. Nothing COSTS anything. You could buy yourself a pair of shoes any time you feel like it. Finance is no problem. You could drink as much beer as you liked.

          I never had enough money to drink regularly in pubs, but I think I might have a local now. A local pub where you sit drinking. I've been taking my play to work on. It's probably the worst script ever written, but perhaps something can be saved from it.

          They're building something out the window. Another drinking spot, I'd venture!

First allotment dinner!

          The last photie is of the first real food to come out of the allotment this year. I've had rhubarb, a turnip here and there, and the odd strawberry and raspberry, but this, nearing the end of July, is the start of dinner time! I can add two fried eggs to fried shallots, and boiled tatties and turnip. Hurrah! Folk who come to this bloggie often will know that I usually have soup as my staple food, but I've substituted porridge since the New Year. Now all I need is the cabbage to come on a bit and soup will be served once more!

           The evil bourgeois basturns have stolen my gardening gloves! The hut hasn't a lock on it. The gloves were lying just inside the door. There's probably no allotmenteers within fifty yards of me who aren't loaded. It's not about the money. They just steal because they know they can. It's a power trip. I will start a special meditation and tonight when they are lying in their beds, the gloves will start to crawl across the bedroom floor and ...

         

The Samye snaps and back home.

          The first photie was taken up the allotment when I was setting fire to a bit of the old hut. It's good to be back home. I'm knackered as usual!

Going home again!

          The sun is splitting the trees! Hurrah! Is this the best summer for four or five years? Got to be.

           I wasn't cool enough to read the De Profundis and The Heart Sutra, so the kiddo did it instead. Andrew was with us. In retrospect I might have had her read out the Magnificat, which is a prayer I also like a lot. Maybe next time. Ashes might be sprinkled next year at Lesbos and Skye.

          I finished the biography I bought when I got here. I didn't know there was a Tibetan tradition in writing biographies and autobiographies of realised folk, but I do now that I have the money to buy them. This one was an abridgement by Thrangu Rinpoche of the original. The rinpoche had a stroke maybe last year. I was much influenced by his book on the Medicine Buddha sadhana and I hope he has recovered his health now.

          I was the life story of Rechungpa, the second most influential disciple of Milarepa. There are many miraculous events in it, but what I like was the way he died. He just disappeared and left nothing behind. Some great yogis in Tibet managed to leave just fingernails and hair behind them and it seems the last one to be reported doing this was in the 1990s. If you are very good at the juju, it seems you can exist between life and death for several days after you're supposed to be dead, or at least, not breathing. But just to disappear completely has to be the perfect exit.

            At least, then no one has to bury you, cremate you, and no one has to sprinkle your ashes around the place.

            Since I expect to die like any other flatheid, ideally I'd like to be cremated on my allotment and my ashes (all of them!) thrown into the river here at the spot where I've often meditated. And I'd like someone to read out The Heart Sutra, which is my favourite bit of Buddhist literature, and dead short. Other than that, I wouldn't mind dying abroad. A good friend of mine died on Bali and got cremated the next day. I really liked that. Leave it all by the Ganges, or whatever, and let it be quick. Dragging out the ceremonials is not helpful, I don't think. Whatever happens, I don't want a gravestone and I don't want folk visiting and whatnot, like my ex-partner's family do. When I'm dead, I want folk to be able to get on with their lives and forget about me as soon as possible.

          I nearly bumped into Lama Yeshe yesterday. I wasn't able to attend meditations with him since they've been cancelled due to the teachings going on just now, but it was nice to see him.

          I think this is the third visit I've made here in about five or six weeks. Every time it's gotten better. I'll be back for four days during the Drupcho in a few weeks time, but I might try to come down here for a month before the end of the year. The meditation this morning before I left the room was wondrous!

Samye Ashes Day

          I'm down at the Samye Ling today to cast some of the Domestic Bliss's ashes on the river. She did want some of them down here, so here we are. Having to live one life is bad enough, but if she has to live another one, I hope the ashes and other stuff she did in life give her a connection with this place. She did take at least one empowerment with me although she did not meditate. I hope she's not a flatheid the next time.

          There was a Horizon programme on this week which had a lot to do with meditation. This joe did seven weeks trying to get up to twenty minutes a day. He did the classic concentration on breath method. Even although this is hardly any meditation at all, after seven weeks they were able to measure a difference in his thinking and brain function. He was less stressed and his insomnia seemed to be helped.

          In fact, this is the kind of moron  I have to encounter every day in life. A flatheid. Almost  anybody can help themselves by meditating  and the fact that they don't shows just what they think of other people. They don't mind foisting their bad moods and general funged-up-ness on other people. They don't mind at all.

           Well, I do. I'm so looking forward to becoming more and more of a recluse. I'm looking forward to spending more and more time in my hut and on retreat, and generally being on my own.

            The only person I know who meditates is Brian Wilson, who claims to meditate about five minutes every day. Well, so be it. I'll come out every week or so and get steaming with Brian Wilson. I can also see Poisonous since he is a psychopath and you wouldn't expect one of them to meditate.

             When we do the ashes thing, I'm hoping to read the De Profundis and The Heart Sutra.

HutsRUs Part 3

          I meditated for the first time really in my new hut today. It's a wonderful hut. The last photie is out of the hut window. That means no one can look in the window if they're just walking along the path beside the allotment. Perfect.

          Some of the other photies show the amazing amount of work the kiddo and her partner did on the place on Thursday. They hacked everything to pieces and destroyed the jungle outside the hut, and prepared the iron rusty thing for cultivation. I was drinking beer watching them in amazement really. I hardly break sweat around there unless I'm digging.

           Can't tell you how happy I am to have a hut where I can go and be alone and meditate my socks off!! Let the good times roll!

HutRUs. Part 2

          The hut men showed up this morning. There was a rat nest in behind the kitchen unit bit which you couldn't get to, so they never were escaping under the hut. They didn't need to. The workmen pulled down the hut and went away. They should be back with a new hut later. I'll post the photies.

           Buddhists don't like attachment. Root out attachment, the boy says. It's the way things stick to you. Stickiness. You're not supposed to feel attached to the computer or the hut. I think you should imagine with all the stuff that you own that you've just borrowed it for a bit. This is why Buddhism and socialism should be a perfect match.

             I was telling someone yesterday I might not start writing again. I don't need the money. I don't even want the money I've got.And the meditations are coming along so, so well. If I was going to start writing again, it would have to be something I really wanted to do well, something I'd be prepared to spend a lot of time on, something I'd be prepared to write out in longhand seventeen times, like Christopher Isherwood did with his first novel. Writing a thriller aint going to do that for me. Maybe when everything has settled down a bit ...

When the revolution comes. Part 2. Property is Theft.

          So we're talking Proudhon, or how do you own anything. So, as I recall, the boy says look at your computery thing. How many people were involved in making that? Millions of folk. Each with a little bit eaten off them. So you look at the computery thing and ask yourself who owns it. Moi.

          Everybody owns it. Actually, I own it. That can't be right. We are supposed to root out attachment. Is it my computery thing or not?

When the revolution comes. Part One. Tell Sid.

            "Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we'll keep the red flag flying here!"

            When the solicitor asked me what I wanted done with the shares, I said sell them. Folk who own shares are all going to hell for taking part in man's inhumanity to man, and I'm glad Jesus Christ said the rich evil basturns are bound for the hot place.

          Someone has got a jobbie somewhere and they produce ten clonks of value. Their boss gives them eight clonks and takes two. He keeps the two for himself or if he has shareholders, gives it to them. What have the shareholders done for this money? How much work have they put into making the original ten clonks? Bugger all! What the evil basturns who own the shares are doing is help exploit the poor basturn who actually does the work and produces the wealth. The difference  between what the working person makes and what he or she gets is called surplus value. It's one of the things that's wrong with capitalism, stealing from working people.

          Aye, they want you to give them awards and gongs and salutes for creating employment and giving folk jobs. Don't make me laugh! When the revolution comes, they're all going up against the wall!

           When I was on minimum  wages levels, I kept my mouth shut in front of the evil bourgeois basturns because maybe folk would think I was just jealous what with being skint and all. But I wasn't jealous. Now that I have unwittingly joined their ranks, they look even more despicable. The evil bourgeois are, always were, and always will be, bound for hell!

Allotment shots

          I had a beautiful meditation up the allotment early in the afternoon. Lovely day! Had to take some photies. The hole in the ground under the photies of the roses is a wasp nest now. Don't know who dug the hole, but the whitish stuff on the left is the start of the nest. I remember getting stung by wasps guarding their nest a couple of years back, so I was glad to spot that one. I took the photies of the hut because next week it's getting replaced. You can see by the wood at the back how old the hut must be.

          I  sadly found out this morning that Marie-Rex, who's been commenting on my blogs practically since they started, has been handed the kind of the black spot which is terminal. I only met her once, but the meeting left me full of admiration. Not an easy life by any manner of means, but fantastic spirit. Our thoughts are with her!

Reflections before going home!

          What I really like about the Lord of the Dance man, Chagdud Tulku, is that his autobiography is an autobiography. It's transcribed, but it is him speaking, sort of thing. What is wonderful is the lack of hypocrisy. The guy comes across as perfectly human as well as dead wonderful in his practise. Also, it's really the autobiography I think should have been done by Lama Yeshe, the abbot of this place. So, it has been done. I was so inspired I've just bought a hardback for about £30! I haven't spent that much very often on a book I didn't need to own.

          For the first time in the last three times I've been down here, Lama Yeshe was at the morning meditation. Him being here makes such a difference. When I used to come here before for about a week, I usually had a very good experience in my last meditation, something much better than usual. I used to joke with myself that this was a wee present from the lama. I told this to a nun here once some time ago and she looked at me as if it probably wasn't a joke. Who knows? The man is an inspiration.

          So I thought that maybe I could try for an interview with him before I go home, but I think I'm not emotionally stable enough. I've been doing a lot of weeping this year and I think the tears would just start to pour if I started telling him about my current situation, which is wonderful apart from the grieving. I'll maybe wait till the Drupcho in August, or at least until I've got my new hut.

          Last night I didn't get into bed, but lay under the quilt they provide if you are cold with the downie. I slept well. I would have stayed longer today if it hadn't been raining, but we've got really Samye weather today alright!

          I feel quite exhilerated. That's what this place will do to you if you'll let it.

Lord of the Dance

          Chagdud Tulku's autobiography is most inspirational! I thnk it's the most autobiographical thing I'd read by a Tibertan so far. Such a wonderful book. The boy isn't shy about talking about people having powers  and whatnot.

           People with powers don't seem to act like saints as much as you'd expect.For instance, the lama's maw is very highly realized, but this doesn't stop her leathering the kid several times a day. It's a bit like Scotland a long time ago when parents didn't spare the rod.

            It's a bit sad that I cannot share my joy about such things as this book. The Domestic Bliss used to have to put up with me raving about stuff like that, and I really miss her when I come down here. Maybe it's because I have nothing to distract me. A lot of the meditations this year have been done through tears. It's just grief. Watch and wait and it'll turn into something else.

           I'm sorry I've been less than attentive to some other blogs this year, but there's been a lot going on. I was sorry to discover that Marie-Rex has been diagnosed with cancer. Another black spot handed out. I think she'd the only person who came to my blogs who practised, so I'll remember her in my meditations.

           Not being able to share the enthusiasm I have for such things as the book I'm reading makes me realise that I really do need to get to know some buddhists!