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.

Rhodies!

          Meditated under the tree shown in the first photie. The Nicotine Dragon  ...but that's a week off now. My wee cough has gone away, mostly. There's nothing quite like flowers, is there?

Getting started!

          To get the next phase of my life up and running, I've had to do several things. One of these was getting the allotment planted and that seems more or less done. I will plant some more cabbages and such like, but I'm holding back on that just now so that I can get a continuity with the croppings later. Also, I had to go and see my guru and stop smoking again.

          I started wrestling with The Nicotine Dragon last Friday after having smoked for about nine weeks. I'd tried and failed to stop over the previous two or more weeks, but I really stopped last Friday. This screws up everything. You can't even sit as easily. Your mind has difficulty focussing and jumps here and there with little notice. Couldn't believe the strength of the withdrawals, but I should be able to get down to see the lama next week and I should be able to start writing the novel after that. At the moment, this is how it starts.

          PROLOGUE

The detective was wearing a dark suit under an overcoat more expensive than you might expect, and he was flanked on either side by two other men of slightly smaller stature. None of the three men seemed seriously intent on their drinks and sat there quietly, and gave the impression of waiting for someone, or something. All of them, the detective and the two others, were too well dressed to be in such a bar. Incongruous clientele.

The walls of the Horse’s Head hadn’t been repainted in over forty years. The three men, the only patrons apart from the man asleep with his head on a formica tabletop, were sitting more or less facing the double doors. The bar was to the left of where the three conscious customers were sitting, and the bar man stopped rubbing on the beer glass he’d been rubbing on for quite some time, looked up at the clock again, then slipped through to the back.

The double doors burst open right about then and a traffic warden came running into the bar then stopped. He wore a false beard, which seemed on the point of falling off, and his face underneath was reddened, his eyes like saucers on stocks, the pupils hugely dilated. The massive dose of multifarious stimulants on top of the whisky had the sweat bursting, pounding out of him. Pulling a gun from inside his tunic, he started quickly towards the table where the three men sat, firing as he went.

Bullets went into the throat and head of the men on either side of the detective, and he was shot in the shoulder, but then the gun jammed and the man dropped it. He pulled a sharpened chisel with a custom made hand guard from inside his tunic and he grabbed the detective by the hair, knocking over the table as he dragged him onto the floor, stabbing him on the head and neck as he went.

The detective came to rest on his back, the head held down by the hair as he was stabbed in the throat, then many times in his face, then several times through both eyes. He was dead by the time his forehead was being stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and the stabbing didn’t seem to be ever going to end as a furious madness gleamed out of the face of the man in the traffic warden uniform, his lips pulled back, the gnashing teeth bared.

The traffic warden didn’t stop stabbing till the skull over the deceased eyes collapsed into his brain. There was blood all over the traffic warden, the corpse and the floor by the time the murderer finally stopped stabbing and scooped out a handful of the detective’s brains. He stood up and threw the brains, still as if in a mad fury, at the wall. Then he stretched out his arms, one hand still holding the chisel, and shouted in exultation.

Traffic Wardens, ya bass! Traffic Wardens, ya bass! Traffic Wardens, ya bass!

Two other traffic wardens came running through the door then, one with a red blanket which he threw over the killer’s shoulders. The other picked up the gun and the beard and all three traffic wardens rushed out.

The drunken man asleep with his head on the formica topped table claimed later that he never heard a thing and neither he did.

          Anyway, this event will now happen a third of the way through the book, at the end of the first act really.

More tattie plantings!

          I put more tatties in today. This involves raking up the earth in vee shaped mounds. You could plant dead bodies under there and that's what I'm going to have done at the end of the thriller I'm going to write. No word yet from Adrian Weston. That means I'll probably have to try someone else on Monday!

This wonderful life!

          When the sun shines and you don't have to go to a jobbie, and you are not skint, there can't be many better places to spend the afternoon than Stockbridge. I feel as if I'm living a wonderful life again!

           Since I was up so early today, I took a mid-morning break and walked to Home Base for stuff to kill clothes moths. You walk passed a great view of Fettes College. The photie doesn't do it justice of course.

           The main thing I did up the allotment this afternoon was transplant some strawberries and do a bit of weeding and digging.

           When I got back, I contacted Adrian Weston about Remote Control.

Agents for Remote Control!

          That's a photie of the spot where I was meditating this afternoon in the Botanics. Meditations really make life a thing of wonderment!

          Anyway, I sent off my first email to an agent today. He's called Allan Guthrie. He won't be interested, but he's a good place to start because he knows the business. Folk on Facebook told me to try Agentquery, so I'll check that out after I've contacted Adrian Weston who represented me before Dave got ill and worked really hard to get me published. He won't want it either of course, but I'll probably have to try for ages till I get someone interested.

Utter Tripe!

         Found this review of TheBlissBook yesterday. You've got to laugh!!

          1.0 out of 5 stars

 Utter tripe 5 May 2013

By anon1278

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The material on Buddhism, teaching and libraries is utterly unconvincing. All this book does is convince me that the author is in serious need of psychiatric help. I read to the end hoping I might see what the more positive reviewers saw, but I never did.
All I could think when I finished was that it was no wonder that his wife left him, his colleagues thought him strange and the pupils wanted to wind him up. Perhaps if he had been more friendly and less judgmental there would have been more help for him.
The bad language did nothing to improve the book either.
The author claims that he understands Buddhism as no others do. That is certainly true - however that does not mean his understanding is correct. The 'Buddhism' he espouses bears no relation to anything I have ever studied. The references he makes are unsupported by the scriptures in Theravada or Mahayana Buddhism, and he completely seems to have missed the point of the 'fierce' images he refer too, which are certainly not presented as examples to follow or in order to encourage violent thoughts.

          I did a lot of work in the allotment yesterday, for me anyway. I cleaned the hut out in case the ratman comes to visit and wants a look. I also re-dug a bit and planted cabbages and brussel sprouts seedlings though they did not look well. The bottom photie is of two folk who do not yet realise they are going to end up planting a lot more than pumpkins. It was a beautiful day yesterday. There's a monsoon going on right now.

          The meditations this morning surpassed everything that has gone before. People who don't meditate don't know what they're missing! This is the bliss. This is the bliss. This is the bliss.

Rats!

          I had to scare a rat out from the back of the hut today. The rats are back! I grassed the rat to the council. I'd like to get a semi feral cat for my hut. Or a ferret. I was re-digging the ground in the photie at the top when rain stopped play. It doesn't take much rain. The bottom photie is of somebody working. I feel really sorry for anyone with a jobbie. As Harold MacMillan said of unemployment. There's nothing the matter with unemployment. Most of my friends have never had a job in their lives.

          I thought I should start writing again so I had a look at this play I left about twenty years ago. Jock Tamson's Half Hearted Transformation. I only read half of it, but it was truly awful. I had an idea that I might try to do it for radio, but it's too visual and also crap. I'd have to really start from scratch and if I tried to write scripts again, I'd have to go and see folk and that would just lead to a whole lot of grief, sorrow, lamentations .... disappointment, disillusionment and despair ... suffering in this life. So I'd better stay away from that.

          I'll have a look at the crime book I've done a wee bit of work on before. I know that'll be crap, but that's okay at this stage. I'd have to change it to the first person anyway. Third person would take me too long. But I don't know .... I could just footer about with it for years. Something to write.

Barfly again

             I re-watched the end of Barfly, the movie written by Charles Bukowski, with much enjoyment. I even liked the bits I didn't like. It reminded me a bit of The Moon in the Gutter by David Goodis in that the author does not seem to like the rich, the evil basturns that they are.

          Mickey Rooney is brilliant as Henry Chinaski. You never know how good some film actors are because most of the time they are paid to act in crap. The scene where the ambulance men arrive looking for his dead body will stick with me for some time. The boy is standing there drunk out of his mind with blood stains soaking in all the way down his simmit and a bottle of whisky hanging from his hand. At that moment I was so struck by his likeness to my pal Brian Wilson that I've contacted him and we'll meet for a coffee this afternoon.

Dave B.

          Dave didn't believe in having information about himself on the web, but I thought if I was going to start up this writing business again, I should start by saying something about agents, and Dave was my agent up until he passed away just over six weeks ago.

          I signed a literary agent contract with Dave three years ago now. This was maybe six months after he'd been handed the black spot and he wasn't expecting to live more than another year or so. Because he was no longer working, he asked to read The Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf and liked it so much that he asked me if he could send it off to a publisher who had just started up in Glasgow at the time. Although I had an agent then (a proper literary agent!), I said alright and Dave and I thought we'd sold these Glasgow folk the book. £750 and 16% off sales is what we shook on. Since my agent had failed for three or four years to sell anything despite his best efforts, I signed a contract with Dave. Of course, the Glasgow boys were never heard of again. And Dave didn't know anything about being a literary agent. That didn't really matter since signing the contract with Dave wasn't really a business decision.

           I'd known Dave since about 1972. Most of the folk I met at Edinburgh University were the usual progeny of the evil bourgeois; arrogant, venal, snidey basturns, making their little fuss at uni before growing up to become local government agents of some kind or another. But Dave was a very nice person. In fact, I don't think I've known a nicer person. I never saw Dave angry, or even being judgemental about folk. And he wasn't greedy. Just an extremely helpful, nice, iintelligent, clever and positive guy.

          Nobody else I know would have wanted to help me get books published  You have to have great generosity of spirit. Most people want other people to fail. It's really because of Dave that I'm writing this blog in more ways than one. It was because of Dave that my ten books are on Kindle. Dave put most of them there and helped with the proof reading.

          Anyway, I haven't got an agent any more.  It looks as if looking for an agent is what I should be doing to get back into this writing business. Funnily enough, I was just finishing a book for the other agent which I hoped he could sell. Crime pays, he says, so I re-wrote a crime thriller I had put aside from years ago. So I'd like to find a agent primarily for Remote Control, but also for the two books I have for 10 to 14 year olds. I'm sure they're publishable, but you need an agent because that's the way the publishers and agents have rigged the game.

         

       

Raking!

          For years I've been wondering about what to do about the missing soil at the edge of the allotment. Every year the old basturns must have been sneaking up and stealing my earth so that edges of the allotment looked quite precipitous. Last year I covered the edges with old carpet, thinking I'd kill the couch grass then them dig it out and replace it somehow. That didn't really work last year. But I think I've solved the problem now with the rake. You just move the topsoil a couple of feet and the cliff disappears. Voila!

Onions are in!

          Today I put the onions in.

           I haven't seen any of my deep dear friends - apart from  the one who passed away six weeks ago - since before Christmas. But I just got a phone call from the Wild West and a very old friend is coming to see me tomorrow night with a bottle of malt, he says. Most synchronistic since tomorrow evening marks seven weeks since my partner passed away and seven weeks is the kind of official mourning time I've been doing.

             Though I consider myself in the same religion as anyone who meditates, my guru is a Tibetan and they consider seven weeks as long as anyone spends between births.

               So what with being on the Holy Isle at the start of the year, going through the bereavement and the seven weeks of meditations  .... well, that's why I haven't been seeing anyone.

                 I'll start writing again, or at least do some writing business, from Monday, but I know these days that meditation is my obsession, so I'll just wait and see how I feel. I think living on my own I can probably write for three hours a day or so and still have at least six hours to meditate in. We'll see. Roll on Monday.