Photies

Got the photies, lost the text. The usual machine screw up!!

The Strange Sensations.

          I was hoping to download some recent photies - a main purpose for this blog - and, of course, Windows 10 is effing me around as usual and I only managed to download a photie of my old training shoes. I've probably been using these for shadow boxing around the kitchen for more than decade, but threw them out yesterday. No photies of the daffodils at Lauriston Castle at the weekend. Oh well.

          There are a lot of sensations being experienced in these meditation and there have been for some time. For years and years now, whenever I've been sitting quietly doing nothing, a lot of stuff is going on. Say, there were ten sensations which you don't feel unless you meditate. None of these sensations are bad sensations, but some are neutral. There are a whole different set of variable sensations which check in as the after-effects of the vase breathing.

          So what does all this mean? It means nothing to me really. These sensations just occur. I was hoping yesterday that I might recognise some order, as in, this is happening so I know what to expect next. But I'm not anywhere near there.

          The sensations progress and develop and they are just sensations to me. I don't even have labels for them. No names. If you have a label for something, that is not the same as understanding it, but at least it is a start, an attempt at classification.

          This is a lovely time of the year. I've agreed to go an a pilgrimage with Lama Rinchen for most of November. Unfortunately, it's to Northern India mostly and that's my least favourite place, but what the hell. Shame the man didn't become enlightened in the south of France.

         

Mornings as time goes by.

          About twenty five years ago, I decided to try and get up and meditate for an hour before I went to work. This is probably starting in January with the New Year resolutions and all, and trying to give up the tobacco.

          So I'd get up about six in the morning and sometimes sit beside the radiator because it was cold then. Later on, I started just sitting up when I was wakened by the alarm. So I'd put a duvet round my shoulders and try just to sit up and do some meditating for an hour before going to work.

          Encouraging times for me. About then, I discovered that I could go into a meditative state of some kind when I gazed on the green light at the bottom of the computery thing. The road to freedom! But the best thing was how great I started to feel when I started off for work. Used to feel the wind so much in my sails as I walked up the road to the bus stop.

          Now I do not have a jobbie and so don't have to get up in the morning to do anything, but the first things in the day these days are so, so very nice indeed. You're lying on your back first thing and the duvet is nice and warm over you. Almost as soon as you get consciousness, you get the bliss and you can lie there and just be there and do that. So you are not meditating in the normal sense, and you might move onto your side, etc., etc., but how brilliant it is to waken into this. It's not meditating, I suppose, since you have not tried to do anything, but you know then that though you have to get up, how can getting up beat this?

         I fell into the love of meditating very quickly. I needed it. Most folk don't. All I have to say is that the flatheids do not seem to be happy. Flatheids just don't get the bliss. But why should anyone think that concentrating on anything, particularly mumbo jumbo, should lead to wakening up in the morning to the .....

Daily Practice

          This should be a pretty usual Monday. I'd like to record my practice these days, so here goes.

          10:15 began the first meditation of the day. Sometimes I've wondered if this is even meditation, but this is what I do. I go through a list of gurus, some I have met and some I haven't. They are in this order, Lama Yeshe, Dr Akong, Ringo Tulku, Ani Llamo, Lama Rinchen Palmo, Kalu Rinpoche, Lama Thebten Yeshe, Tai Situ, Khenpo Karath, Dilgo Khyentse, Dalai Lama, 16th Karmapa, 17th Karmapa, and, last but not least, Jesus Christ who suffered and died for me.

          When I'm doing the gurus, I try to visualise them in front of me. Then have the different coloured lights coming from them into my head, throat and chest. Then imagine them over my head and pouring down into me.
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          Then I go through the list of dead folk I know or who are close relations. Since I'm still dedicating merit to my nephew Malk, he starts and finishes this list, but when the seven weeks are up, I'll slot him in beside his maw. The list then will be Rowena, maw, da, sister Jane, brother Makie, Ken Davis, Uncle Dan, John McKenzie (!), Teresa Lennon, Malk, Rose Anne McKenzie, Paul, Dr Bowman, Mrs Bowman, Gordon Watts, Carol Rich, Wilbur, Colin Quinn, Daso, John Doyle, Brian Lithgow, the Big Jambo, Colin Smith, Tony O'Boyle, Rachel A., Auntie Mary, Anastasia, Dave, Tin and Rowena.

           So if you are a good friend of mine or a close relative, you will cross my mind every day (as a fine example of impermanence!) until I snuff it.

            Time for a tai chi set and another hour on the cushion before lunch!

             Meditated from noon till quarter past one. The second meditation was mainly about deity yoga. Generating and dissolving. A wee bit of vase breathing there. The deity yoga stuff is really a cut down sadhana from Thrangu Tulku's book on Medicine Buddha meditations. These are not preliminary exercises, but maybe they are for me since I can't do them properly.

             The meditations later on will go into the channels and symbols. There was warmth in the first meditation today. Yesterday it didn't show up till I'd been meditating for three hours. The difference is down to going out with Brian Wilson on Saturday afternoon.


       

       

Because thou art saved, shall there be no more cakes and ale?

           Doesn't that look like a perfect spot to go on retreat?       

           Anyone who knows anything about me knows that for most of my adult life I've spent some of the evenings drunk or stoned. This is not an anonymous blog, so ... sadhus smoke dope. With drugs, if you can still maintain concentration and do some kind of mental calming ... something that has just heightened your awareness a little bit might not be too much of a problem if you can bring on the focus ..... drink is the curse of course since you never get the dose just right and it is the worst drug if you want to do this juju at all. Of course, I'd like to be happy being completely sober and straight all the time, but I have to admit that my practice isn't there yet. But what I'd really like to do is stop drinking. I'd like to go to sleep at night sober and straight so I could practice dream yoga or, at least, start to remember my dreams again.

           In some kind of weird way, I think I might find it easier to give all these pollutants up if I give up trying to give up. If I can be happy for a little bit here in Stockbridge, I think gradually this will sort itself out. The meditations might begin to make taking any pollutants seem idiotic, and only a way to have a less enjoyable time!!

          At least, I managed not to get steaming with Brian Wilson yesterday. I had about five pints of awful tasting, mainly weak, beer over five hours. I might have had seven beers but Brian Wilson drank two of mine. I don't think he knew how much he was drinking because whenever he went outside for a fag, I poured some beer from my glass into his.

          Brian Wilson's betting strategy was to work out who was certain to win by studying the form all morning. He put double rings round this horse in the newspaper and it did indeed win. But he didn't bet on it. He bet on horses that might have been owned by protestants or folk who might have voted NO in the Scottish referendum. Nags with monikers like HunsRUs, and WeRthick. After he lost all his money, he stole some off me and lost that too. Then I had to give him a tenner to get a taxi home. But it was a very successful day really. Normally, at some point when I'm out boozing with Brian Wilson, I have to pretend to the bog and run away.

           Spending all afternoon sipping beer that tastes like piss is a good way to put you off the off-license in the evening. So I spent the evening sobering up and around eleven I was sitting in my hard back seat watching Match of the Day, as you do. Sometimes when I'm like that, I take a wee, inadvertent vase breath. That might have happened then .... wow! What was that? This channel opening shit suddenly seemed to have opened further, again.

           So I was in a different zone once more!! Couldn't believe it. The warmth and bliss were delicious and the space it was happening in was somehow expanded. I was a bit shocked and surprised. Then I thought I should blog about it and sit up into the wee hours meditating, but I thought it would be better to get an earlier night and march on today.

           It's less than a week since my girlfriend packed me in. The events of last night during Match of the Day were very, very encouraging. I have had more time to put into the meditations, especially in the evening, and that's already paying dividends despite the emotional eddies resulting from the relationship aggravations. The next part of my life could be really wonderful ... all I want is for everything to calm down, for me to have time to settle into my life in Stockbridge and have the time to fix my flat. Just sitting quietly doing nothing gets the lollipop, but it would be a big help if I can manage not to be a sitting target for the afflictive emotions of the too dumb to meditate. Pay attention to your friends, but don't be too available. That should do it.

           I really feel as if I'm going to have a great day today. May go to the allotment or the Botanical Gardens this afternoon. Doesn't matter. Every day in every way I'm getting better and better and better.

9.50 p.m.
          Just finished meditating. Must have done over seven hours today which is quite good considering I also did some digging, some shadowboxing, some writing and had a lovely, lovely long bath. But I've got four bottles of weissbier which I'm going to start necking right after writing this!!

          In the hut today, there were two incidents of  a feeling of much bliss a great expansion. I remember being in the Zen Mountain Monastery (three years ago now!!) with Winnie and she was telling me about sitting in the zendo, feeling really achy and tired when .... kazoom, there was the wonderful expansion and bliss and she wasn't feeling tired or achy at all.
          I really wish there was some kind of explanation for all this stuff. It isn't enough to say stuff like this happens to folk who meditate a lot. There must be causes that result in these sensations, something going on in your body/mind or whatever. So you concentrate and repeat mumbo jumbo to yourself or whatever, and this happens .... not enough of an explanation!
          I'm tired now. Come on, the beer!!


       

        

Where to go? The pub!

          For most of last year, Saturday was usually the best day of the week. There were green spaces, rivers, beaches, castles and a lot of being driven about nice places in Chilly Jockoland.

          Today I will be spending the day with Brian Wilson, aka the Old Toothless One. This is not a cause for future happiness in that it will involve lots of beer, but is a way of making up some of the social capital I lost by being exclusively with someone else over the weekend for the last couple of years.

           The Old Toothless One has been wearing Union Jack underpants since the Scottish Independence referendum. He only wants to talk about cricket and the Beach Boys, but he is a good example of what happens to the evil bourgeois when they are too dumb to meditate.

            For he took the plunge in his twenties with the TM people. They give you a secret, magic word. Because I wanted to learn how to meditate and because Brian Wilson refused to reveal his secret magic word, I had to invent my own secret, magic word and learn to meditate on my own.

            My secret magic word was Sussquehanna. I used that for nine years and sometimes still default to that in my meditations.

            I discovered that the TM folk recommended two twenty minute sessions a day. Maybe one before you go to the jobbie and one when you come back. Anyway, I always reckon the meditations really start to work during the third one, but twenty minutes twice a day doesn't seem like a huge burden for anyone.

           So you are invited to become a blissheid and they say two times a day should do it. You are being invited to join the bliss feast and you have been given two chopsticks. Faced with this sumptuous feast, Brian Wilson threw away one of the chopsticks and tried to eat the sumptuous feast with just one chopstick. Of course, I don't think from my experience that you will make much progress behaving like that and you will in fact end up throwing away both chopsticks, which is what he has done.

           But at least he had a go of some kind, and he did stimulate my interest in meditation, so here comes an afternoon with One Chopstick Harry. Thank God the Aussies were caught cheating at the cricket recently. Something to talk about that isn't how stupid and greeting faced the Scottish people are and how we should all be really happy to let the Conservative Party in England take all the decisions for us because we are too stupid to govern ourselves.

Where to go?

          If you do not get it from yourself, where will you go for it?

          I was reflecting on such as this today. It's a zen quote I wrote on my wall about thirty years ago. The problem I have with going away and probably being dead virtuous on a retreat is that I'd have to come back. And come back to all my bad habits.

          Well, my habits are no worse than most people's, but most folk aren't wanting to try to do the Six Yogas of Naropa. Anyway, I'd like to feel more settled in this flat before I go anywhere else and I've said before that I've got everything here that I need to meditate. If I've habits to alter, I should be able to do it here.

           I depends on where you think you are in your practice as well. When I first lost Rowena, well, my practice then wasn't up to spending so long on my own in this flat, and coping with the quiet evenings and all that bereavement stuff. But I think it's up to it now.

          This blog then will be used liked a bliss diary. I'll write in it often and write down what my practice has been like. This might be no use to anyone else, but it might be useful for me when I have a chance to look back on it.

         So I wakened up today and lay in bed for about half an hour doing the bliss. What a great start to the day this is!! No aggravation from anyone and perfect peace. Sometimes you think the day can only go downhill!! Anyway, I did a two hour sit no bother after breakfast and did another two hour sit after lunch. By then I'd done a backbend, tai chi set and stood on my head. So after four, I did the six three minute rounds of shadowboxing in the Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle, but was too tired then to run up and down the stairs, which I have been doing a bit of recently. Then after dinner, I wrote for a while and then meditate again. At nine I stopped and went to the off licence for three bottles of weissbier. I'll have to get rid of the beer sometime, but not yet!

         That is more or less what my days are going to be like then till August. I'm going nowhere. If I don't reach out, I could be left alone here and that's what I need. I can meditate for about seven hours a day and with the writing and the exercising, I might have a couple of hours to write in. And that's it. The whole day.

         When it comes to seeing folk, I'll see anyone who wants to see me. I'll make sure I give priority to the folk I know will come to my funeral. As far as friends are concerned, that's only about five or six folk, so no bother really.

         So I think that's what I shall do, given that I can stay single, for at least the next four months. By that time I expect .... god knows! But it's now a great opportunity for me to really get going on the Deity Yoga. Of course, this is not an easy path to follow. It's easy to be a slob. Sometimes some things are maybe worth a wee bit of deferred gratification. Maybe I have three good years left till I am seventy. If I can sit on my arse doing the juju for eight hours a day, what a wonderful three years they would be!!!

        This is my tao. Now I feel comfortable. I'm taking inspiration from Milarepa. In his biography, he says he doesn't mind dying in the cave all alone because he is happy to die a yogi joe. All through the biography you find that his outer circumstances look terrible with the hunger and deprivation and all, but there is bugger all about what is going on inside that makes him stay there in the cave despite everything.

       I really think I am just starting on the best time of my life. I'm getting heat. I get so much bliss, I don't even go looking for it anymore. The visualisations are coming on. What more can a body ask for? What a wonderful life! What a fortunate creature I am, I am. What a fortunate creature I am!!

Future Prospects

           This year has started off not very well. Didn't manage to get to the Samye Ling or the Holy Isle and I'm still dedicating merit from my meditations to my nephew Malk, much missed. Things in my social life have been very stressful, but now the relationship seems to be over, the Spring has arrived and now is the time to look forward to better things and better times.

           I tried to put a photie of Dilgo Khyentse on top of this post, but couldn't get it to work. During my first meditation of the day, I go through a list of eminent religious folk, trying to visualise them, etc. Dilgo Khyentse has been on that list for a while, ever since I read a commentary he wrote. He said in it that if you wanted to help people, you should do the retreats and get siddhis. Dilgo Khyentse, according to a biography I came upon, spent seven years in a cave with books, etc., within reach so that he didn't have to move much. Most folk would think that this is a complete waste of life, but flatheids just don't get the bliss. I have a complete admiration for folk like Dilgo.

          So what am I going to do?

          Since I am solo again, I can do almost anything I want. But I am sixty seven years old and we are not guaranteed the time. Before I die I would like to have completed the meditations given in The Bliss of Inner Fire. I spoke to Lama Rinchen about this the last time I saw her. I told her I was getting some heat, which surprised me since I thought it wouldn't happen unless I could do the visualisations, and wondered if you could gather the four blisses described in the book when you couldn't visualise properly. She said you might get spontaneous happenings, but you couldn't control it properly unless you did the ... time, really.

         There has been a lot of shit hitting fans over the past few weeks, but throughout it all my meditations have got better and better. By this I mean that there much expansion and more bliss and some heat. It's hard to describe, but it looks like things are really accelerating. Of course, it often feels like this!! Then you kind of habituate to the new plateau. But this time it really does seem to be accelerating.

         So what am I going to do?

         Khenpo Karthar is still alive and well in the Catskill Mountains. He was the first one to  bump brows with me. He said: I am happy to make a connection with you. His people said I could go there to meditate, so I could go to the Catskill Mountains for a couple of years.

         The last time I spoke to Lama Yeshe, about five years ago, he said come and see me when you want to start meditating. I was meditating about six hours a day at the time. I mentioned this to Lama Rinchen. She said but you know what he means. I've had a hankering to go down to the Samye Ling for a month or so with a tent. Keeps recurring that one.

         Lama Rinchen has invited me to Belgium. I could go there.

         What I would really like to do for the next few months is meditate right here. Apart from my ex-girlfriend showing up on Thursday, no one has visited this flat for months and months. I would prefer to do all this stuff here because if I go away somewhere, I'll have to come back and all my addictions are here waiting for me. So I've got a hut, a lobby, and plenty of time on my hands.

         I could do all of these things though not at the same time!!

         I told myself about fifteen or so years ago that I would count myself a "proper practitioner" if I prevail against the cold. In this afternoon's meditation it came on more than ever before. So I can count myself as some kind of practitioner, if not a very good one! The best thing is the bliss in the bath and first thing in the morning. Wakening up and becoming conscious then very soon having the bliss is the best thing. Such as that should make staying sober at night very worthwhile.

        If  I did nothing, everything would still turn out great. I've only been doing about four hours a day recently, and much less when I was with my ex-girlfriend. Just by having that time back will make all the difference.

        I couldn't handle being on my own all the time before when I wasn't on a retreat. I didn't like the evenings, but over this weekend the time in meditation has been sailing by and on two out of the last three evenings I've had the best meditations of the day between eight and ten.

       I hope the best of times are just ahead of me. I think my practice these days could handle a bit of solitude. This might be hard, but you don't get the lollipop if you don't give it a go!

       As the man might have said before he passed:
       All compounded things are subject to dissolution. Pursue your salvation with diligence. Walk on.