It's coming yet for aw that!

                 Lama Rinchen Palmo got me here to Le Jardin de Meditations in Beaumont on Saturday, so I've spent three nights here and one morning. It always takes a couple of days to settle in, but this time was easier than the last time in June ... well, I know the place and some of the folk here recognise me.

               I'm staying in the cabin in the photie and it's hard to think of a better place to do a wee retreat. There's a small porch and the wifi reaches there from the big house and you can sit here when it's raining due to the over hanging roof. It's unbelievable really that I've landed here in such a place. The charge is 50 euros a night, but you don't spend any money otherwise, so it's only really costing me about 20 euros more than I'd have spent at home. Of course, if you haven't got twenty euros, it's a lot of money, but it's affordable for me.

            I feeling a wee bit exhilerated just now. I managed to meditate for three hours before lunch, and it's far easier to meditate than it used to be. It's like long distance road running. If you're not fit, it can be murder, but if you're fit, it's quite enoyable. But these meditations have been much better than that!

             The inner heat is definitely coming on. I can't believe it because I don't feel like I deserve it. I'm basically a moron stumblebumming about the place, but supported by geniuses. Lama Rinchen Palmo has been a fabulous help.

             To get this Deity Yoga business right, you have to eventually feel as if you are a deity in a mandala, and I think that's not going to be possible for me. For one thing, I don't believe in deities, but I am trying my best! I suppose you'd have to do a proper long retreat and hide away from the world for some time.If I don't make any more progess with the bliss and the heat I got this morning, that'll be fine. I am a very fortunate creature!

            The only bugger is that I'm 74 years old already. It must be a much better life if you get all this done when you are young. But c'est la vie. I'm not complaining. I've been getting loads of bliss for over thirty years.

            Even if I wasn't making much progress, or any, doing retreats is just so good for you. In the last day or two, I've felt that all my anxieties and worries are being shed. Also, I'm sleeping much better (definitely helped by the lack of booze!!)

             There's a statscounter thing on this blog, so you can see if it's been hit. I only come here when I see that Michelle has landed on it from Spain, but for the last few days there's been a ton of hits from Singapore. There's too many for it to be a person. What could a machine want with this blog?

            I've got seventeen days to go. Hurrah!

              

And then there was Heat, Tummo, and some sense of satisfaction.

            So, it was on the Ist of October, 2025, when on the outbreath, there was .... a bit of a surprise, maybe a wee bit of fright. Something is happening which is a little unexpected and you feel yourself pulling back as if a fire had suddenly ignited in front of you. Wow! What the fuck!

            It made me think of the passage in a book by Alexandra David-Neel where you talks about raising inner heat to dry something off. I can't remember what. She said, I think, there there was nothing sacred about inner heat and you could use it to do what she was doing, which wasn't something sacred either.

            It's like a wavy wind of heat roiling and rolling up your body. A few years ago, my mentor, when we were discussing doing these meditations, asked me if I was scared. I thought this was a very odd question to ask, but I understood what she meant when this incident occurred. I can't say this heat stuff was something I was in control of.

            Once, probably about twenty years ago, there was something weird happening on the outbreath of vase breathing, and my arms would shake a bit and I'd wonder if I was going to have a fit. I felt that I had  to be careful for a while, and it passed.

             I'm being careful now. They tell you not to force it. I wouldn't dream of forcing this! I'm going on a three week retreat soon and I'll see how it all goes then.

            Two interesting things about this. One is that it occurred at dusk. They say the best times to meditate are at dawn and dust because the air goes evenly up both nostrils then and, it seems, that's what the meditations are trying to do anyway.

              The other is that I haven't given up cannabis and alcohol. A dose of cannabis coffee I ingest most days was coming on when this thing occurred. 

               I always contended that you didn't have to be a saint. And I'm just your usual Joe. I'm not even a proper Buddhist. I could call myself a humanist, or a super-humanist, or a pantheist, though I don't think there's much difference between pantheism and buddhism.

                Most of my meditations are done in the morning and afternoon. Milarepa says in the 100,000 Seongs that "in the evening there was always tummo". I heard once that the "fire element" was more pronounced in the evening. Well, during this upcoming retreat, I might find out if that's true!!

                 The photo is of where my mentor lives. I'll be going back there with her this weekend coming. Beaumont, here we come!

Monkfish

 

                       I was looking at the blog yesterday, which I don't often do, and found out that I was getting comments I didn't know about. One of them suggested that I try getting in contact with Monkfish Publishing. 

                    In the two years since I finished The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man, I must have sent hundreds of emails to agents, but I haven't tried publishers since in my previous experience they only ever talked to agents. Maybe this isn't true of smaller publishers. Anyway, I've just sent the book to them. Didn't get a reply from the snail mail I sent to Wm Clark and Associates in New York. Wasn't really expecting any!

                    I usually like to put a photo on these posts, and I quickly came across this one. I was taken ten years ago when I'd was in Central Park just after spending a month in the Zen Mountain Monastery. I can still stand on my head like that, but I'm about fifteen pounds fatter!! I've lost a half stone while I was away at the Samye Ling and in Belgium this summer, and I'd like the rest to come off before the end of the year. For this to happen, all I need to do is stop drinking beer!!

        Sent the book to Monkfish at about 2.30 pm, and got it rejected by the time I looked at my emails just now. This is the fastest rejection of all time. Half a day! 

       The boy said it didn't fit their list. It doesn't it any lists anywhere, so the best thing to do with The Dirty Old Man is just forget about it. Even if I got it published, it wouldn't make any money. It took two hours to send the email since I fucked it up at first, as usual, so I guess that's it. Loved writing it. I'll love writing the one I started about actually raising inner heat too. Shame I couldn't make any money for the wee lama, but she wasn't expecting me to. All is good. 

        Feel as if I've moved into a much better part of life, one without having to send emails to folk who don't want them, or asking folk to read a book that they'd rather not. Freedom, I tell you. I smells like freedom!

         I think five folk read it, prbably one too many! But I'm always going to love it!

A teaching in the Jardin

                 Ringu Tulku was here for two days over the weekend to give teachings on The Heart Sutra, which is just about my favourite thing. These teachings were just what I needed.

                   There were too many folk about to send any emails to agents, but I will send a couple today and I'm going to compose a letter to send to the agency in New York  headed by a man who is on the board of Shambala, the Buddhist publishers. The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man is definitely not suitable for Shambala, but Mr Clark will, at least, have heard of the Tibetan teachers mentioned in the text. If I was playing American football, this would be a Hail Mary, the last throw of the dice. I'll soon have spent more time sending emails than I did writing the book, and I can just forget about it now, and get on with writing the sequel.

Jardins de Meditations de Samye

 

                        This is where I'll be staying for the next couple of weeks, in the home of my mentor, Lama Rinchen Palmo. So pleased to be here!!

                         While here I am here, I have started sending out emails to agents again, which is probaby a waste of time, but you never know.

                         When I was sending out emails to agents about two young adult books about twenty years ago, I assumed I got no responses (I was working as a school librarian at the time and got kids to confirm through questionaires, etc., that the books were hitting the mark) because they were books for 10 to 14 year olds and JK Rowling had maybe made the number of books getting written for that age group soar.

                         Then I wrote TheBlissBook and got an agent almost straight away. Of course, he never sold the books, but what the hell. But I was just lucky. 

                         I now think I was incredibly lucky to get two novels published at all! I think the reason why no one ever replies to emails is because agents are getting hundreds of them every week. Easy to write a book on a word processor and easy to send hundreds of emails. I reckon people who know people don't have to send emails.

                         If I make any money from The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man I'll give it to Lama Rinchen. I don't need the money. I've never been better off!

Here comes the heat!

 

                  If the heat is coming, it's not here yet! But yesterday when I sat down for the first meditation and soon took a deep breath, I knew that something had changed. This feeling has been happening all year, maybe once every month. When this happens, you tend to feel a bit surprised and maybe exhilerated, but after a wee while you become habituated to this new state, and it all gets a bit humdrum again.

                So the meditations are developing nicely, and so I can have no complaints. But when I'm not meditating things are sometimes a little dull. Like today, when the weather is wet, windy and cold, and you don't really feel like going up to the hut.

               It's a bit of a trade off. The meditations work better when you behave yourself, but behaving yourself is boring, and you can't meditate all the time, not yet anyway.

                 I do feel I am bound for glory quite a lot, but life is also a little dull. I've been single since January, so this has made me more isolated. More isolation means better meditations, but it has a cost. This year I've been getting by on about one adult conversation a week ... I've been going to see my grandson and daugher most weekends. 

                  I haven't been sending out emails to literary agents since the New Year. Amazingly, someone actually replied to one and the book was sent to New York, but there's been total silence since. Anyway, I'll start sending the odd email from now on since there's nothing else for it.

                  This year is going to be special. The connection between the breath and the inner channels is firming up. Let's hope it's not a case of watch out what you wish for!!!