Almost Leaving the Samye Ling

          I'll be heading home in a couple of hours after spending four nights down here at the Samye Ling. The retreat was sometimes challenging as you'd expect. There are no drugs, drink, sex or tv down here so all you have is your mind really.

          It's supposed to be like a river. It starts as a trickle, sometimes stops and starts. After a long time, it's river and it feels like it's going to the sea and all you have to do is meditate and purify, hold onto your bottle and try to enjoy the ride.

          I can do the bliss lying in bed in the morning, on my back and on my side, though that's not so strong. I can do the bliss in the bath and that is sometimes like the best because there's no effort really. You focus and it comes on.

          Most of the meditations over the past four days have involved mainly doing mantras and just observing the show. There won't be a whole lost of consistency if you are doing this for most of the time, but whenever you get back the focus, the show starts up again. And it changes a lot. There is a lot of warmth arising in the meditations now. Learning how to get better control of all this is really the task now and I don't know if I can do that in Edinburgh if  I'm living like I do just now. Too much drink and drugs. I want to go back to being a sober potheid who goes on retreat a lot. Doing this stuff isn't easy, but when you look at how fucked up the flatheids are, there doesn't seem much choice. I've been handed the keys to kingdom, but I'll need to work like hell for the rest of my life. Which is what I want to. You might think this is a terrible waste of time when I've got time and money and could be "enjoying" myself, but flatheids just don't get the bliss. What a shame! But it's not my fault.

February is here!

         
          So pleased that February has arrived. The last couple of weeks,  as we've pulled away from the New Year, have been excellent in many ways. January, February and March were not great for me last year, or the year before, so it's nice that this year seems better. Spending November on pilgrimage in North India has really helped. The meditations move on.

          This morning I wakened up in my own bed. When I waken in my own bed especially, if I close my eyes I can bring on the bliss almost straight away. This is really a big sweetie to get and I never imagined that repeating mumbo jumbo to myself would give this kind of result. It works better when I'm on my back than on my side and is a good indication of what the first meditation will be like.

          I don't know what it is. The more I meditate and the longer I've spent at it, the less I think I know about it. So you're lying on your back in bed and it's a wonderful cocoon of bliss before you have to move, and I ask myself if this is meditating. For sure it's a very good way to start the day and the only downside is that your day probably won't get any better.

          The novel - working title Cold Killing - should be finished this year if I can be bothered. But I'm trying to be bothered and write more this year. I'd like to get this thriller out of the road by the time some advance has occurred in the meditations so I can write something about that again. No one I know meditates and that's a shame, and no one wants me to write about the juju, but I feel that I should tell folk somehow. If something happens ....

          I was at the Botanics yesterday. I love living in Stockbridge.