Back from the Samye LIng

   ,                  I'm just back from the Samye Ling and, as usual, I'm pretty tired. I always find it exhausting.

                      The weather was poor so I spent almost all the time in the temple or in my room. It's hard to go from here into such a full on meditation regime, but it's how it happens. I bought the hagiography of Khenpo Karthar, whom I met in the Catskills in 2015. It made me feel a bit silly. I wander among spiritual geniuses like a fool. I'm amazed that he spent forty minutes talking to me and Winnie.

                        Seeing him was really important for me since I was having real problems with guru yoga before I met the Khenpo, who was of course the guru of Lama Yeshe. I have no problem with guru yoga now.

                          The centre was very quiet for these prayers this year. This might be because, it seems, Lama Yeshe spends the winter in retreat these days in Purelands.

                           Felt a lot of things I'd never felt before as the meditations progress. In the book about the Khenpo, the author talks about the tummo demonstration at the end of a big retreat. They walk about in the cold in cotton shifts so folk can see if they're shivering. The khenpo said the cold, cold wind blowing felt like a welcome breeze, so I've got miles and miles to go!!

                            I can't believe how fortunate I have been since I met Lama Rinchen Palmo. And I am mindful that it was my partner Rowena who hustled me to go on that retreat. I owe a lot to a lot of people.

                            Next week |I will try to get the Ecuador book onto Kindle. Since my daughter is very busy these days, I will have to wrestle with some tool for making book covers. I will not like doing this, but I might as well since I've no intention of hustling it to anyone else. Forty odd random emails to agents is all I'm prepared to do.  I'm going to call it Stumblebumming towards Enlightenment and the best thing about it might be the title!!

Meeting with the lama

                    I had the great good fortune to meet up with Lama Rinchen Palmo yesterday. She is my spiritual friend. She was on a break from guiding folk through the winter retreat on the Holy Isle.

                    The lama is so wise and well practised that it is always inspiring to be in her company. I would really like to go on some kind of dharma visit with her, and I was able to make that offer to her since my central heating seems to be fixed without it breaking the bank. She took me to Bodh Gaya, of course, around Christmas 2014. Be great going somewhere with her again.

                      When we were talking about preliminary and foundational practises, she told me what I was doing with the heat/warmth was not a preliminary practise. It's the biz. I was so pleased when she told me that. She said the heat would burn off the neuroses. She made the future seem possibly glorious. I can hardly believe it with my bad habits and all. But I have been meditating for thirty odd years.

                       So I left her feeling pretty elated, which I always feel after speaking to her. I became an old age pensioner a year ago now, and my old age is going to just get better and better. I assume this will go hand in hand with my physical and probably intellectual decline. But my mind will get a lot better. The meditations are really galloping along now. It's as if it was pushing from outside, with a momentum of its own. Making an effort, trying hard, etc ... well, all this must get easier. The sensations will improve. The effect of purification on the sensations makes it easier to stay off the drink and tobacco, etc.

                        It's great to speak to the lama because no one else knows what the hell I'm going on about. It's a real shame that no friends of me got into the meditating, but that's not my fault.

                        I told the lama I really want to live now. If I could stay sober for the next couple of years ... and just keep meditating .... what a wonderful life I will have had.

                        Amazing how uplifting it is speaking to someone like the lama. Completely life affirming.

                        Raising heat is often mentioned alongside the illusory body and clear light mind. I had thought you'd have to have the first of the three before the other two. They might all show progress together. Anyway, she explained what illusory body means.

                        I said I liked the heat and that because it re-inforces my ignorance in that it shows that our model of what a body consists of is at best partial. She said it was crap.

       

Snowdrops

                     I took a photie of snowdrops this afternoon up the allotment. I had to put it on FB. I'd stop posting stuff on FB if I could get the photie thing to work here. I've been trying to get it onto the blog, but the machines are in revolt again. As I was attempting to do this, I strayed into Google album photies, which I don't know anything about. So I found this photie there somehow. It's a picture of me and my old pal, Oliver Davey. That's us sitting in a Pollock Halls room circa 1972. Of course, it has to be at the bottom of this post because ... I can't get the cursor to go passed it!!

                     I've decided to try and write another Buddhisty book, but I'm not doing it unless there has been some significant developments with my meditations. I think that means when my inner heat practise ... well, when it starts producing real heat!! It'll be the last one so I'll have had to make some progress. I'll call it Stumblebumming Towards Enlightenment .... ,maybe not since I've not had a drink for two and a bit weeks already!!

Vase Breathing, Tummo and the bliss!!

Well, there seems to be some kind of video there, but the prose has now gone weird. Moving backwards. 

           I feel a weight off my back now that I've given up trying to get the Buddhisty books published. Kindle is really the perfect place for the book about Ecuador. I don't need what little money getting published would bring and whatever financial rewards would not compensate for the hassle. But I'm happy to put it on Kindle. Next week I'll work out how to do some kind of book cover.

            I haven't had a drink for a fortnight. Today I did the six three minute rounds of shadow boxing and I was really very happy with that. A fortnight ago, I did not feel so good.

            The hard time when not drinking is sometimes around eight in the evening, the time when you might have been used to having a bevvy. So I sat there n the floor, my girlfriend drinking wine and watching the telly, and tried to do a wee meditation, took a vase breath.

             It's as if there was a series of concentric rings. You're in the one right in the middle. Sometimes,  as the meditations develop, you feel as if you are moving into a bigger ring. The feelings will be exaggerated compared to the inner ring, and will feel a surprisingly different somehow. And there is an addition. Something has been added, but the main thing is that the mental/physical space has changed. You've broke out again.

             I have to mention this to folk when I have a chat. A wee bit like the elephant in the room, they cannot see it. There's no point in going on about it, but it's hard not to mention it.

Now that I'm sixty six!

          I'm trying to upload a video. Some hope. It was of my standing on my head and going into a sitting position. Just showing off really, but I wanted to post this when I became an old age pensioner last year, but
          I've tried three different ways to unload this video, but the machines do not like it. I put it on facebook yesterday anyway.

          I'm writing because I feel like this is a turning point. I've randomly emailed about forty agents and I haven't got anyone (I think) to read the Ecuador book yet. If you paint self portraits, you shouldn't expect anyone to buy them!! So I've decided to give up on the Buddhisty books for now. If I can ever dry off wet sheets using tummo, I'll write another one.

          So if I try to sell anything else, it'll be Remote Control or the young adult books. When I'm writing now, I'll concentrate on developing the plotline of the second crime book.

          Wrote an email to my lama yesterday. My meditations are going so, so well. I think it will be amazing if I can stay alive for another couple of years!!

Another change of tack!!

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          I've just sent about ten random emails to agents about the Buddhisty books. A couple of days ago I sent out a similar number and got no responses at all. So if I don't get anything from this raft of emails, I'll just give up trying to flog the Buddhisty books. I'm sure they'll get pub'lished sometime, but I'm not going to get an agent sending out random emails. I might start trying to flog Remote Control and the young adult books, but this whole publishing thing will have to go to the back burner.

         It's my birthday today. I'm sixty six. I'm going to stick a video on FB showing me doing a handstand and then a lotus upside down, and then bending into the sitting position. I'm going to show. I'd never have thought I'd be able to do stuff like that at this age.

         The photie is of my "shrine". I sit in the lobby. The shrine is on the floor.

Some responses

          I was a wee bit surprised at the lack of response to the random emails, but checked my spam folder (for the first time in years!) and found two knock backs. The response from A.M. Heath was the usual brush off, meaning that they probably didn't bother reading any of the stuff I sent. However, Dan Herron, who is an assistant at PFD, got back to say they weren't interested, but they had obviously looked at the Amazon web page.

          I think AM Heath and PFD are big agencies. You probably won't get published unless you're with a big agency, but that doesn't matter. I'm pretty resolved now to get on with this even if I don't think there's much chance of getting those Buddhisty books published. I can get some of these emails read, it seems, and I think the three books are really exceptional in terms of the subject matter. I don't think there's anything like it around.

           Now that the flu is gone and the New Year at last dead for another year, I'm very optimistic about things. I will try to get the books published and make a good effort, but I don't care. My meditations are so wonderful just now, that's all that matters. Liberation through samedhi is what the man in the dream said to me. So much bliss; so much bliss.