A Favourite Spot!

 

                    I get stuff from the Samye Ling landing on the Facebook page and as I was clicking through some photies, I found this one. Just had to put it somewhere since it's probably my favourite place in my favourite place.

                    If you walk through the Samye Ling and get down to the river, there's a path that goes up to your left. It's probably not a hundred yards before the path runs out beside the wee water fall. In the summer, just below this there's usually a this wee island. If the river is low, there's sometimes some big stones you can jump over to get to the island. For most of the winter it'll be submerged.

                    If you get onto this wee island and sit facing the far bank, you can hear the birds and the river and the wind in the trees, but little else. I used to try sitting there for most of the afternoon. I'll be down that way when I'm at the Samye Ling in October, but then you have to sit on the stones at the edge, depending on how full the river is.

                    This photie did spark a little joy when I saw it yesterday!

The Lama

 

            Some guys have all the luck. Lama Rinchen came to stay with me last night on her way to the Samye Ling. We had a very long talk. No teevee, no music, just talking. I don't do enough of that. I never do that.

            She was at Nantes University in 1968. A big number. Stuff would be thrown about, Bliss it was that dawn to be alive. To be young was very heaven. The Sorbonne in 1969. These are times of big uproar. Then to Amsterdam, London, and finally the Samye Ling circa 1972, two years after Trungpa left. You could still feel the reverberations two years later. 

            She asked me if I'd taken cocaine. I said yes. She said when. I said two, maybe three weeks ago. I was glamping with the Bellshillbillies.  I think being told to just say no has perverted my response systems. I always just say yes. Anyway, she didn't regret the acid, but the cocaine wasn't to her taste. Too self asserting.

            Knowing this person is the best thing about me. This morning over breakfast we found out that the Samye Ling is open, under some obvious restrictions, at least from the anniversary of Dr Akong's death, October the 8th. Oh, how I have missed my visits to the Samye Ling over the last few years! Can't describe how pleased I am to be able to go there again.   

            I've written about 24,000 words of my latest book. This is supposed to be a blog about writing. I've had something else to occasionally look at since I got back into my kindle account, the free downloads. About 18 downloads this month and at one of each of the eleven books downloaded. Right now, somewhere in the world, someone might be reading one of my free ebooks and saying, what a pile of shite!