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!