Photies of things growing

          The top photie is what you see if you sit in front of the hut. The other photies are of things growing. In between the things you want to grow, other things grow. You're supposed to kill them. Kill, kill, kill. Gardening might be mostly about killing weeds. Anyway, I have laid out my stuff so that I can get a rake down between just about anything, I will control the weeds this time, mabye. If I can be bothered. You can always put a plank down and move it around a bit, but I don't have enough planks. But the screaming for life onslaught of weeds in all its wriggling fecundity is only just beginning ...

          I'm going to buy a new hut. And I'm not going to let anyone else in it. But if someone comes in, I will kill them and eat them, and put their bones under the tattie mounds. And that's just the ones with the fags. I couldn't begin to describe what might happen to the ones who ventures into my hut without fags.
         

The New Obscurists

          They're maybe called the New Obscurists because the Old Obscurists were so obscure than no one had ever heard of them. It's on this week in Hamilton Place. Fabulous stuff. You should go and have a look. The Medicine Medusa in the bottom photie is one of about eight, but the computer won't let me upload them here for some reason.

Ìn the Words of My Perfect Teacher.

          "Only by doing nothing will you do all there is to be done." - Partrul Rinpoche.

           In the morning, I'm meditating in my room. In the afternoon, I go walkies - up to the allotment and onto the Botanics. The first photie is from where I was meditating on the log section (in the second photie.). I took the photie of the blue flowered bush because I don't know what that is. Do you? The bottom photie is from where I was meditating in the Botanics.

          Because I was reading the commentary on Patrul Rinpoche's poem, I bought "Words of My Perfect Teacher" because Patrul Rinpoche is involved in that too. This came about because this boy had a vision of this other joe who'd been dead for hundreds of years, and the other joe gave him some juju. So the boy perfected that, and then taught it to some other folk. One one them taught this other guy, who went off to practise and lived not in a hut, or a cave, but in a depression in the ground! He lived off wild plants and roots. Eventually, folk showed up and lived nearby in tents. One of them was Patrul Rinpoche. He didn't own anything either.

          All samsaric activities are futile. It's hard to find the time in a day like today to write.

Back Home

          I got home feeling really quite tired and crabbit. I usually get home from the Samye Ling feeling like that for some reason. So the tired, crabbit thoughts are there when I sit down for a meditate and almost immediately I'm into the most wonderful bliss. You can't buy something like that. I have tried.

          I checked my reports on the Kindle thing and the books sales, which collapsed completely when I went off-line at the New Year, have still not picked up. The books are not selling at all. A couple of weeks ago I reduced the prices of the eight books which hadn't been published in the traditional way and it's made no difference. So far I've made about eighty quid off Kindle, but I guess that's about it. I'm glad those books are available somewhere, but I guess I should just forget about the Kindle thing. Any financial reasons I had for hoping publishing there might be successful have disappeared anyway. When I can be bothered, I'll probably put the prices back where they were, at about two quid instead of seventy seven pence.

          I have been giving the occasional thought to what I want to write about with the traffic warden book, but a big part of me can't find a reason for bothering, not when I'm spending three days going to the Samye Ling. Mnnn .... I might start tomorrow just to keep my eye in!

          I went up to check out the allotment when I finished the wonderful meditation. I was very pleased with the cabbage patch. Whatever was eating them seems to has stopped. In fact, the allotment looks fine. I checked the hole when I put the two wee ratty things and they were gone. At least, there were no bodies. Hopefully, the parents showed up and removed them to a safer place.

         

Going home again!

          Yesterday I did nothing other than read my book, eat and meditate. That's the way to do it! But it's only one day. You need to put days and days, months and years into getting rid of your flatheidedness. Still, it is quite a break really staying a couple of nights a week here, especially when the place is so quiet. Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting back home!! May all sentient beings be happy!

Samye time again!

9.20 a.m.
                It's the same as being here last week, except better! This is because I was here last week and due to further purifications of the nervous system. I was smoking last Monday and that made last Tuesday a bit wired. Anyway, it's going to rain all day so that's great for meditating!

                 I bought another book from the shop yesterday. I've got more money than I've had for years and years, but I'm still not comfortable just buying a book. Anyway, I was looking for something inspirational and bought a book called The Life of Gampopa. If it wasn't for him, there might not be a Samye Ling here.

                 When Gampopa's family was killed by plague, he got into the juju big time. He is a great inspiration alreadys! Anyway, some of the odd things that are happening in my body I'vebeen trying to relate to channels opening and such like, but when you read about Gampopa's experiences ... well, I don't know what the hell is going on. Interestingly, Gampopa had visions and such like and when he told them to his guru, Milarepa told him it was due to various things happening with this energy system. Like, this kind of vision meant that the "winds" were entering the central channel and whatnot. I'm obviously nowhere near anything opening!!! I haven't meditated anything like enough.

                  Anyway, I'm away up the the back temple till lunchtime.

The Terminator!

          There's a wee patch of the allotment that has got a mixture of stuff in it, and I have no idea what, and I only like to grow things you can put in the soup anyway. But it's all getting covered in weeds and couch grass and suchlike, so I digs, my solution to all gardening problems.
          The earth is rock hard and dry. By the looks of the cabbage gulag the aliens that eat you up in the night haven't shown for a while. Anything crawling past the defences deserves our respect... because how do they do that? Outwitted by a mollusc.
         
          So I'm digging away and just sod busting on the grass weediness when I spots this small wriggling thing, like a mousey baby or a rat or something. Then I saw another one.Before I got there, no problems. One of them was a wee bit further on than the other, and made squeeky noises as I fetched it out of the giant  chasm that must have opened up before it. Yes, hello, this is your life, you tiny rat thing. The first noble truth for rats and all is the truth of suffering. The other wee rat thing was not so far on, and I do not know if that was a blessing or not, and I finally put the two wee whatever into a bit of a hole. The one who wanted just to be left alone and make no noises seemed like the one for me. The other one with all its frolicksome was just going to get into troubles. Where were their parents? That's what I want to know.

The Nicotine Dragon.

          It's now about sixteen or seventeen days since I stopped smoking again. I have had three relapses. When the kiddo comes round I have to watch movies. Loved the Judge Dredd movie. Perfect nicotine withdrawal movie. Wonderful movie anyway. The slow motion shots of bullets bursting through brains  ... what will they think of next? I think I'd like to live just like this from now on. Get a big stick. Sit in the allotment dirt and hit anything living that dares to move.
         

Flowers up the allotment

         The first photie is of Dorje Sempa. If you can get that sitting above your head ... you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din. The last photie is of the meditation spot in front the hut door. Nobody can see you there. The rest are of flowers growing around the allotment just now.

Killing fields!

          The first two photies: sometimes you just have to take a photie out the window!

           The second two photies: when I got back from the Samye, I visited the allotment to discover that most of the cabbage seedlings and brussel sprouts seedlings had been eaten up by culprits, vermin or varmints, unknown. I had, against my better instincts, surrounded them with slug and snail repellent, but these did not repel whatever it was deciding the gobble up my plants.

          So I spoke to a gardener about this. It seems gardening is like some kind of war against nature. I asked him what to do with these wee white eggs you sometimes find in the soil when you are digging. Kill them. What about the white grubs with the brown heads? Kill them. In fact, you should put out a wee bit of carpet so the slugs go there during the day, and then you know where to find them, and, of course, kill them.

          The only vow I took to become a buddhist was not to kill anything. There might not be much difference really between a big life and a small life. It's life. You shouldn't kill it. Of course, you can't avoid killing things. I suppose if you rub your hands together, you kill lots of things. So if I'm going to grow cabbages, it looks like something has got to get it in the neck. If you buy cabbages from the shops, someone has already done the killing for you, and that's just like eating meat surely.

          I'm going to eat two boiled eggs a day while I'm in Edinburgh and surround a cabbage with eggshells thus.

           Gardening seems to me very suitable for those who have had to endure the strict Calvinist toilet training regimes of the evil bourgeois. You have to kill weeds immediately, according to the gardener. Classic stuff! Keep your room tidy! Keep your shoes polished! By the left ... def, dight, def dight, defdight!

            I don't believe there's anywhere I'd rather be than here in Stockbridge when the sun shines! Yesterday I went out on the bike and cycled down to Cramond. I avoided the Cramond Inn and cycled along to the falls, and meditated on a bench looking out at where the last photie was taken. I had my eyes closed. I heard something and opened them to find someone with a big fancy camera taking my photie. I said ti was okay when he asked. Such a sombre moment, he said. He'd stopped me meditating of course, but that's what flatheids do.
 
 

Samye snaps

      The last four are from the spot where I like to meditate down by the river.

Different attitude required

          Once upon a time, I thought there were three folk I should be particularly concerned about; folk I was very keen to get interested in meditation and maybe buddhism. Meditation anyway. These were my mother, my partner and my daughter.

          My auld maw meditated as much as she was able. Letting thoughts go and not clinging to them. My partner had no interest in meditation and her main interest was in trying to enjoy her life, which she did as much as she was able, and she died well, considering. That's maybe as much a character thing. But she never meditated and never had any access to a peaceful place in her mind, far less being able to do the bliss.

            My daughter is very like her mother in many, many ways. I would really, really like her to start meditating, but why should she? Apart from me, nobody she knows meditates, and I'm hardly an example of good practise.

             So I'll have to sort myself out and make myself a better example. If you haven't tamed your mind, you can't help anyone.

              I do have some campassion for flatheids, but mainly they irritate me. I think what I should do is keep away from them and try to develop the altruistic intention, my meditations and suchlike. At this moment, I don't think I can abandon drinking, smoking and wasting my precious time as long as I have to socialise with the too dumb to meditate.

               However, there may be a middle way!! I think I could come down here a couple of days a week and see my friends at the weekends. Something like that. Do more retreats. Stop acting like an asshole. Stop insulting the flatheids.

               Still having problems with tobacco and alcohol. Bugger it!
3.05 p.m.
               Funny the things you read which seem somehow dead appropriate. This is from a commentary by Dilgo Khyentse on a poem by Patrul Rinpoche. Here's the verse:
                Though you explain, people miss the point or don't believe you;
                 Though you motivation is purely altruistic, people think it's not.
                 These days, when the crooked see the straight as crooked,
                  You can't help anyone - give up any hope of that.

The commentary says, at one point: 'When, in broad daylight, a group of blindfolded people agree that it is dark, the problem is surely their mistaken perception. The attitudes that are current these days cut people off from their inherent sanity.'

          Well, there it is. No point in talking to the too dumb to meditate about the bliss. I have a few things I still have to do in Edinburgh, such as getting eight windows in the flat replaced, but after this time passes, I hope I can get into solitary retreats.

          

Samye bound!

          What a beautiful day to go and do a wee bit of travelling! Nothing beats Scotland in the sunshine! So I leave the allotment all done now. It's in better shape at this time of the year than it's ever been. If I was a viking, around about now I'd jump in my long boat and go off for some mayhem and pillaging. Well, I'm hoping to see my guru over the next couple of days. I'm not looking forward to speaking to anyone since you have to have some kind of acknowledgement of the bereavement, which is tedious and boring and, unfortunately, necessary. But the Three Jewels have been of great psychological help recently and I'll be so happy once I get into my room. Hurrah!
          When I get back, I hope to be clear of my addictions and ready to start my life again.