More Heat!

                  The change of view mentioned in the last post changed again, as it would, and not for the best. This is due to not meditating enough and being a moron.

                   This last week has been a very bad one for relationships, but very good for the heat. So really it's been the best of times and the worst of times. Last night I had far too much to drink and today was not a good day, but it's okay now.

                   Wednesday this week was a bit of a red letter day for the juju! More heat, more feelings of openness, etc. I was really happy with this and thought of how long ago it was that I read The Bliss of Inner Fire and wanted to practise this stuff. Wednesday was just different, as if my meditations had reached a different level.

                     Had news of a couple of deaths recently and though they weren't folk I knew well, it does make you think that you are no guaranteed the time. I need to stop drinking.

                     Anyway, I'm due down at the Samye Ling for a week from next Monday and it would be good to use that as a take off point for total sobriety from here on in. Well, I've said that before, but on the other hand, I haven't had any tobacco for nearly three years so it can be done!!

                     I took the top photie in Morningside last night. My friend Kate is in one of them. I visit here every Friday I can. The photies of the art work don't do it justice. Great exhibition in the Modern Art Gallery. What was the artist called again? An Indian guy called Rajid something.

A Change of View

          Things have been going so well with my meditations recently that something of a sense of contentment and satisfaction has occasionally intruded to the extent that I began to feel a lot more relaxed about life in general.

          I'm going to suffer and die and I won't ever be able to reach what is possible, but I have come far enough to be in the area of "unlikely". All I can do is meditate as much as I can without constantly aggravating myself to be something I'm not going to be, not in this lifetime. I want to be more  content and happier and this seemed to be the way things have been going, due to movement in the meditations over the last week or so. Hard to say how pleased this made me.

         I finished the plotline stuff for the novel and now all I have to do is write it. I have about a hundred and twenty pages at the moment and will need at least double that.

        It's not half eleven in the morning yet, and it is very nice looking outside, but I will write till lunchtime. That's much keener than usual, but now I know enough about what I'm doing not to waste too much time writing stuff I'll just have to edit out later.

       Everything is going very well right now. One of the photies is of a big hoose somewhere to the south. We tend to go somewhere every Saturday. New Hailes House? The bag of onions is this year's crop.

In Denmark in the war against the machines.

          I travelled to see my nephew Liam and nephew Neil with their families in Trige, Denmark. You have to get to Copenhagen and then get on a train to Aarhus, and it's decades since I travelled on my own. It's not the travelling that bothers me. Not at all. It's the machines.

           I was in the queue at the bank when the woman told me I didn't have to inform the bank that I was going abroad. This reminded me of  Poisonous telling me the cards worked in Ecuador. Well, after trying many banks, yes, the cards worked. So when I got off the plane in Denmark, I tried the first machine and it said bugger off. Well, I'd taken £300 out in Scotland and that's why it probably didn't work, but I was not surprised.

          Getting the ticket for the train was okay and this Danish machine was really user friendly and even I had not trouble with that machine. On the way back, it took me four goes to get the self service check-in to work. Trouble scanning the passport. But a wee boy helped me with that and it finally worked. Then the automatic passport control couldn't scan my passport either, and that took five minutes more than it should have.

           All the time I'm coming home, I'm thinking that I really don't want to go to India this November. I'm booked to fly to Heathrow from Brussels after flying from India. Nightmare.  Hopefully,  by the autumn I'll have forgotten how horrible air travel is.

           What I saw and heard about Denmark left a very good impression. Same population as Scotland, but no foodbanks and no beggars in the streets. The social services are apparently excellent. My nephew's daughter was doing hatha yoga out the back garden. She gets taught it in primary school. Makes one wonder why Scotland can't be just like that.

            The first photie is of a cabin where I slept. Perfect spot for meditating. Windows, heater and bed. What more could a meditater ask for?

Treading water.

          Last weekend we were out on Saturday, and went to see Craignethan Castle as well as stopping at a very dry looking reservoir on the Lang Whang. We also went to a glen somewhere, one of the Woodland Trust places that Heather somehow manages to find scattered here and there. The bottom photie might was taken to show the drop into the gorge, but it doesn't look so good. One of the photies is of the view I tend to have when I waken up at the weekend.

         The Festival has been on for a couple of weeks, but I haven't noticed it yet.

       

       

Arthur's Seat and Rain Bomb

                    I read about rain bombs. This is like a tropical storm, maybe the kind you get in West Australia, which happens after a hot spell. Well, I was waiting for the bus on Thursday around five o clock when the heavens opened for about fifteen minutes.

                   Today we were up Arthur's seat. The sky was very interesting. I lay flat on the grass and looked up for a while. This is a kind of Nyingma meditation, I think, though I suspect that's really for starry nights.  Mind like space.

Looking ahead!

                   Found this photie when I was, as usual, looking for the recent phone photies, which are still somewhere indiscernible within the machine, cyberspace, or whatever. The photie above is of Cambusnethan Church from the Bowman's back door in Newmains. Takes one back, so it does.

                   Even with the usual hassle with the photies, the machines have not been so back right now since I seem to have been successful in applying for an Indian Visa. So screwed up have I been with this visa that I am not investigating this until tomorrow when I'll have put in a whole day's meditation first of all. Maybe that particular .... just wait till I have to look at it.

                    Trying to book flights, get visas, etcetera, has really marred the last few weeks for me. It's not as if I'm actually looking forward to any of these events I'm flying to, but I think I don't have to worry about anything else for a couple of weeks. Next year I'd love to spend several months camping down at the Samye Ling. No flights, no visas, no bugger all!

                    I was thinking of old age and Mrs Bowman yesterday. She had a long and very normal old age. She lived alone and only had visitors occasionally, usually at the weekend when some of her children might show up. She told me once that she found the days to be long, and I can sympathise with her on that.

                    By contrast, I feel as if I'm on the, or a, path. I really do. When I get a grip on my bad habits, particularly, the meditations are a huge boon. It takes a lot of effort, but just the experience of the bliss without any concomitant effects, would make it all worthwhile. Sometimes there have been wee difficulties, but these were generally to do with lifestyle, beliefs, etc. The meditations work. It says in The Bliss of Inner Fire that you might experience "explosions of bliss and emptiness." I'm not there yet, but I do feel like I am on the path, and slowly but surely I'm a-coming!

                     

The Samye Ling again!

                    Shows what a screw up the start of this year was when I only got down to the Samye Ling last week for the first time this year. This is not good. After the first day of settling in, the quality of the meditations was way better than the usual around these parts. I really need a lot longer in retreat, but it was pretty, pretty good.

                    Funnily enough, I was only in the temple once, the first night I was there. This is really because the abbot was away on business. Most of my meditating was done down by the river. Due to the water level being lower at this time of year, the wee island made an appearance. Perfect place to sit!!

                  The meditations moved on a bit, but now I'm back here and already today I've had two incomings. I cancelled the Samye this weekend when Katen Lama is doing something, but I think I'll try to go back on Monday for three or four nights.

In These Sunny Days.

            Somebody bought the three buddhisty books on my kindle thing last weekend. I really like that. It's not the money. I think I'd get about 75p, not enough to even give away. But it's some kind of almost subliminal connection. Whoever it was, wants to know something about buddhism and all, and I'd like to do that too.

          The bug photies are because of the smart phone... for an old joe like me, the cameras are amazing ... like the first Bladerunner when the boy zooms in. The photie is because my friend likes bugs and asked me to take them. Damsel flies.

          Some of the photies are just the bit around where I was meditating today, sitting in the dirt in the sunshine. The weather has been hotter than it should be, but I always like it when the grass goes yellow and starts blowing away.