Ani Rinchen Palmo

           The lama whose kindness to me over the last eight years, since I met her on the Holy Isle, has brightened my life, came to stay in my flat last night on her way back to Belgium. She stayed on her way to the Holy Isle a fortnight ago so I've been twice blessed.

           She was on holiday, I suppose, and went to the Holy Isle to re-visit the "pod" she lived in for sixteen years. I wish I'd taken a photo of it the last time I was on the Holy Isle. It's kind of cut into the hill with a turf roof which fits in with the surrounding ground. She told me the view from the front door is etched forever in her mind. 

            I'm stuck for words. A very impressive person!!

Hugh Collins

 

             I read The Autobiography of a Murderer and was most surprised to see that Hugh Collins had been very complimentary about my brother Malcolm in it.  My brother was a prison officer in the Special Unit in Barlinnie Prison and Hugh Collins did some time there. Anyway, I thought it would be nice for my mother to get a signed copy of the book so I contacted Hugh Collin's publisher and asked them to get a message to him about this.

            If I hadn't been an author myself, I wouldn't have dreamt of doing that, but I got a response and agreed (through his partner, I think) to meet him in Shambles, the name of a pub (now called Hector's) in Stockbridge. He never turned up and I thought fair enough. Then I got another message from his partner saying he'd been standing across the road for a bit and had been too anxious to come over. So another meeting was set up and he showed up this time.

           I hardly said a word for the next two hours. He was high on something. I don't know what, but I looked like something I might have liked myself. So he talked and talked and it was great just listening, but I never got him to sign the book which I'd brought along. So outside the pub I thought that was that, and was prepared to go home without the signing, especially since I'd forgotten to bring a pen.

          A taxi pulls up outside what's now known as the Stockbridge Tap and this big, big guy gets out of cab and Hugh asks him if he can borrow a pen. So the guy, who has been drinking, has a pen and lends it to Hugh who starts to write something nice about my brother in the book. I says to the guy from the taxi that this is typical Stockbridge, having some author signing a book on the pavement. And the guy asks what the book is called. The Autobiography of a Murderer. Hugh is handing the guy his pen back and the guy jocularly asks if he's a murderer. I got out after serving sixteen years for murder, said Hugh. I'll never forget the look on the taxi guy's face. Loved it.

        He wrote some fiction too, at least two crime books. I really enjoyed them, particularly The Licensee was very good. It's about the smack trade in Glasgow, written obviously by someone in the know. Definitely worth a read.

        I'm writing this because I read his obituary in The Times today. I dedicated the meditation this evening to him. Real shame to hear about his death. He was the same age as me. Brilliant night in the pub though!!

First draft of Cold Killing finished.

                        

                         In the middle of last week I finished the first draft of a novel I've been working on for ages. Of course, I'm not writing much these days, not compared to the amount of time I used to spend writing. But it felt very good to reach this milestone. I'd forgotten how good such things could be.

                         It's called Cold Killing, and it's the second thriller I've tried to write. I finished the first draft of Remote Control about 1981 and didn't complete it till about 2000. Then the agent I was writing it for turned out to be a crook and the book only sent out to one publisher. The same fate will probably fall to this Cold Killing. But it's good to have something I can footer with every now and again. 

                          The pubs near where I sometimes stay in Newington exploded onto the street with much joyousness when England lost the Euros in the penalty shoot out last night. Hurrah!! They played the whole of the 1966 World Cup Final on the telly the night before. If they'd won last night, we would never have heard the end of it. 

Garden visit to the care home

 

                    I haven't seen my brother Hughie for over a year. These days this is not unusual. I haven't seen my friend with the MS for over a year either, but yesterday me and my brother Davy and nephew Kevin had the first "garden" visit with brother Hughie in the Highgate Care Home in Viewpark.

                     Davy drove us there which was a relief when I saw how completely different the road from Bellshill to Viewpark has become. Too much traffic and too many roundabouts and I'm glad I didn't try to cycle there. 

                     There's a statue to Jimmy Johnstone, the amazingly good Celtic football player, in Viewpark. I first saw Jimmy Johnstone when he took his girlfriend to watch a Bellshill Athletic match in Brandon Park. He'd just got into the Celtic first team. And now there's a statue of him on the road through Viewpark. Who'd have believed it!!                   

Another Open Grave

 

          Yesterday, I was in a restaurant for the second time in over a year. The first time was about ten days ago and they weren't selling alcohol inside then, so I thought it was safe to meet the old toothless one, the baldy Brian Wilson for lunch.

           I noticed folk in the restaurant downstairs drinking inside a couple of days ago, and I tried to get out of going for lunch with Brian Wilson, especially when he booked us a table outside some joint I'd never heard of. This is when it was pouring outside and in the coldest May anybody can remember.

          I tried to organise a visit to my brother, who is now in a care home in Viewpark, but it seems that I have to wait for a slot in two weeks. The old toothless one is not in a care home yet, but it can't be long now, and I thought I'd better go to the lunch since I did promise him a couple of weeks ago.

          Brian Wilson was incapable of doing anything without an app, so I called The Roseleaf, a very nice bar restaurant in Leith. They have a blackboard and chalk in the bog. When I went in there, someone had written Brian rules on the blackboard. So I wrote,

                ALL COMPOUNDED THINGS ARE SUBJECT TO DISSOLUTION. 

           I don't think I was trying to be funny with the spelling when  I wrote,

                PURSUE YOUR SALVASHION WITH DILIGENCE

          I think it was another time when I wrote,

                WALK ON.

           I should have taken my own advice. I fell asleep (passed out) on the bus and wakened up in Bruntsfield. At the start of this afternoon, I donned the Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle (bin liner, sweat shirts, sleeveless woollen jumper, simmit) and sweated some beer out. I feel good now and will go up to the allotment to meditate.

          The quote is from my wall. It's my version of what the Buddha said before he died. I think he's supposed to have said the last two lines.

           Brian Wilson sent me the photo today. I haven't had a haircut since before I was in India a couple of  years ago now.

The end of digging and planting

 

          

                    The allotment looked like the bottom photie on the 15th of March, but by yesterday it had been dug over twice and there's not really much room to plant anything else. It started with some leeks from last year, but not it's got brassica, onions, tatties, turnips, and I've put in some carrot seeds.

                    I tried to get into my Kindle publishing account just then and that's the first time I've tried that for .... well, it's probably two years since I could access it. I jumped through a few hoops until it asked me the time limit on a debit card I lost a while back. Then it said I'd have to phone someone and there might be international charges involved. The main thing is that I didn't get annoyed!! 

                     So I'll have another go tomorrow. I got a landline put in because I tried to phone kindle in Seattle when I was shut out before and it drained my mobile phone of all credit. I'd charged it up with thirty quid too. We'll see. I'd like to get back into the account.

                     

Deer

           We usually go out to see some countryside, trees at the weekend because my friend works from home and never gets out. The trees, rivers (usually with Esk in the name somewhere) are good for your head, just being out there and hearing the birdies and all that.

             Today was typical. We went to Musselburgh beach, Inveresk Lodge Garden, and Newhailes Estate. 

              In the lodge garden we saw a deer. This is the third deer I've seen around the Central Belt in the last couple of years. In fact, we saw two at Mavisbank a month or so ago. Last year or the year before we saw on up by a reservoir near Polmont. I thought all the deer in Scotland were in the Highlands, but obviously not. The one in the middle photie is just behind the tree and almost invisible on the photie, but it was a stand out in real life. 

              The bluebells were in a wood on the Newhailes Estate. That's the house in the top photie. 

Allotment photies.

           Been weird trying to remember how to navigate around this bloggy thing, considering it's nearly two years since I could get into it. But I remember why I wanted to use it. I have to delete photies from my OneDrive thing every now and again due to it being full, and them asking money for more storage. So I can stick the photies on my blog

           I finished planting my tatties today. I planted the tulips last year because I spent a lot of the lockdown staring at three tulips in my allotment when the weather was reasonable. Loved having the allotment last year. At the start of the lockdown, I didn't have a face to face conversation for six weeks, but I really liked the lockdown. Stared at the tulips for about an hour just about every day then. Great!

In the war against the machines

 

          Don't know why, or how, but this is the first time in over a year since I was able to get into this blog. 

           Now, I don't know if I want to keep writing in it or not. None of the folk who looked at it before will be doing so now, and ..... anyway, this is a photie of my guitar. I made about £300 from Kindle when I first put my books on it and I kept the money, meaning to buy a guitar with it at some point. £300, eh? Who said writing doesn't pay? 

           The guitar cost £289 and is the same one I bought in my mid twenties, round about the middle of the seventies. Then it cost £25 or thereabouts. This model is better though and I bought it just before the lockdown.

            I haven't been able to get into my Kindle publishing account for a couple of years now. Someone seems to have been hacking it, or some such. Anyway, I can't get into it. Also, I can't buy anything from Amazon for the same reason. My debit card was deleted a fortnight ago because of fraud as well. Isn't the internet just great?

Auntie Kathy

          My Auntie Kathy was born in 1926 and passed away at the age of 93 last Monday at around half five in the evening.

           My auld maw's first memory was of standing under a banner in Mossend during the General Strike and that's the year that Kathy was born. I thought I'd relate some of the things she told me when I visited her nearly every Thursday I could since she stayed in a place called Corson Court on the Liberty Road in Bellshill. She stayed there for about seven years, moving in right after my maw passed on.

            She remembered when she was a kid going to watch the procession of kids going round the church after taking their first communion. She said the No Surrender Unthank Boys started throwing bricks and my maw grabbed her and her brother Dan and rushed them away. She said she worked in a pub called Bigginses in Mossend. I knew some of the pubs up that way, but don't remember that one. It was near what was known as Stevie's corner where demobbed me gathered and they used to buy ten woodbine between them. She told me Peter Manuel, the notorious serial killer, used to help pick up the bins. One day she said he came in and he was very handsome and well dressed. She said he was twirling one of these watches you get on a chain, a fob. The pub was empty. She said he asked if she was on her own and she said Mr Biggins was in the office. But he wasn't.

              She often liked telling about going to Northern Ireland on holiday with one of her orange neighbours. She stayed in a village with no catholics in it, but she said the folk were great and the doctor offered to take her to Sunday mass. On th way back to Bellshill, she walked behind  an orange band  that was coming to Scotland and which her pal was involved with.

            She worked in a picture hall called the Alhambra in Bellshill. She seems to have enjoyed working in the Maternity Hospital in Bellshill and in Kirklands which seemed to be for folk with learning difficulties. I'm sure she was very kind to people there. Did sound like it from the stories.

            She was fine till about two weeks before she passed away. I saw that she had had a wee shock when I saw her a couple of weeks ago and she was in hospital for a week or so, and then back to Corson Court for a week or so, and then back to Wishaw Hospital.

             I was in  chalet in Kettle, Fife, when she passed away. I was so pleased that my nephew Kevin went to the hospital and sat with her. The time I spoke to her when she'd had the shock she reminded me of my father telling her she would always have a place with us when her father died. I did like that.

             I'm surprised at how affected I've been by her passing. I did visit her nearly every Thursday over the past seven years, but she was ninety three, the same age as my maw passed, and she just ran out of road.

            That's Auntie Kathy, Malk and Fiona all in about a year. Talk about intimations of mortality. I really would like a avoid rebirth. I want to meditate more.

         

          

Samye Ling visit.

                   I spent three nights down at the Samye Ling and got home on Saturday. Felt really exhausted. Three nights is not enough really. You've just settled in, but I'd gone down on a kind of whim (there are no off-licenses at the Samye Ling).

                   Someone in the cafe told me the abbot, Lama Yeshe Losal, was retiring at the end of the Kagyu Monlam on the 17th of  June. I went up to the temple after that for my last meditation before lunch. Quite often in these last meditations (this is a few years ago now!) I've felt something a wee bit special, as if I was getting a sweetie to send me on my way. This time, however, the gift was massive regret. I couldn't help but think that I'd blown it. I was given a fantastic opportunity to make something of my connection with him and I just spurned it, though I didn't really know what it was I was spurning then. Time marches on. Be nice to have some realisation of non-self and emptiness before I snuffed it, but if I'd been able to cement my connection with Lama Yeshe all that would have been done by now.
 
                    C'est la vie. I can try a wee bit harder. I've booked into the Samye Ling for this weekend and I'm booked in for a week for the Monlam in mid-June, but I'll have to miss the first couple of days since I'll be on holiday in Kettle.

                     Once I had what can only be described as a "telepathic" message, asking me if I wanted to see the lama, and I replied that I'd like to see the lama, but didn't think I had anything to talk to him about. So that's really where I blew it! He appeared inexplicably on the path somewhere in the last photie. Most of the trees are gone now, but I took the photie when I was leaving the Samye Ling on Saturday.

                     The photie above is of a dipper, but you might not be able to see it. Pheasants have started hanging about the Samye Ling. One stalks the path leading to the riverbank.

Allotment days!

         The last photie is of a dog called Fergus. He had to go to the vet, where the photie was taken.  I did not think he was getting out of the vet's, which is why I took his photie. Anyway, he is still breathing, but I do not know for how much longer. Intimations of mortality everywhere.

          And life springing out of the ground! I planted the cabbages (I think) which I grew from seed. That was yesterday. Today three quarters of them were still alive. I've been reliably informed that the wascally wabbits have been transposed to another sphere, but I'll be lucky to eat any of them brassicas.

          The old toothless one, in the days when he still had teeth and something for a comb, gave me a cactus. There's a photie of it there. Something weird is coming out of the top of it now. I must have had it for decades, and now ...it's a weird, weird living thing yon cactus... or is it a succulent?.. this pink thing is sticking out the top? I'm blogging about this because the only person who regularly reads this blog, the old toothless one, might know about such things.

          Remorselessly it seems, the meditations change, little by little sometimes, but change they do. Half the distractions are interrupted by my attention getting dragged back by the changes in the forces which seem to be moving about inside me. These are the little changes occurring within kind of changing parameters. I have nothing lined up for this week. I'm dying to meditate. The hut beckons. Depends on a dog called Fergus.

       
          

Scunnered with Samsara

          Appreciating the drawbacks to samsara is supposed to be a good way to turn your mind towards practice. Every since I was in India before Christmas, I've felt a bit scunnered. Richard Feynmann got a bit scunnered after helping to make the atomic bomb because he thought after that human effort was meaningless. Well, I wasn't helped by seeing how much pollution there was in northern India. If they can't fix the air folk breathe there, what chance do we have with climate change. Of course, climate change won't kill everyone, just an awful lot of poor people.

          I have a strong desire these days not to be reborn. India was good for that as well. Half the folk I knew in Edinburgh seem to exist in a circle of hell, and we're the lucky ones. I wouldn't mind so much if everything that happened to you was the result of your actions, but you're involved in all kinds of karmas and some of the shit that lands from a great height is not your fault.

          It's okay for me. On Saturday last we were in Dunfermline and the park there was really nice. Then we went to Kinghorn.

          I feel very confident about the meditations these days. Yes, it's okay for me, but when I look around, things seem completely fucked. 

This lovely Springtime!

                  I say the winter is okay, but it isn't. Right now is okay. How fortunate to live here in Stockbridge! And everywhere life bursts forth. Or it will once I've raked the earth and planted the whatevers. Anyway, it is better than it was.

                  Can't say how great it is to be meditating these days. Can't say. You think you should bear witness and the flatheids think you are a supercilious basturn if you try to explain the unexplainable. Who moi? A supercilious basturn? Moi? Well, life is complete shite for me as well, but at least when I sit on my bum, things do get interesting.

                    Flooded with bliss this morning. Stay away from the dark side. Mr Hyde lives there.

Stewing in retreat

                    I was supposed to go to the Samye LIng this week, but I screwed up the booking and I've been at home instead. The opportunity to retreat came about because my girlfriend has gone to the States for a wedding and won't be back till tomorrow.

                     I've loved being at home. Recently, I've only been here three nights a week and it has been lovely settling in here without any distractions. I haven't seen anyone. I had a wonderful day on Thursday because I didn't go to Bellshill. I went to see Kate Nixon as usual on Friday. She was very tired and only said three words in the hour I was there, but Kate is an inspiration in a way since she cannot move. I sometimes think of this when I'm in the lobby and want to get up. The mistake is not thinking that volitional impulse is just the same as all the other stupid thoughts that go through your mind. You can just let it pass.

                     The meditations have moved on, as they do. Most of the time I seem to be just stewing in my juices. I can't think of a better way to describe it. You're just doing calming meditations, I suppose. You just have to sit in the bliss and heat and try to stay focused. Otherwise, it's just guru yoga and deity yoga.

                     You walk the path and you might get some fruit. Sitting for hours and hours every day is still not always easy, especially in my environment, but I don't regret a moment I've spent trying to meditate. At the end of the day, what it comes down to is this: can you, or can you not, do the bliss?

                      The rhubarb is the first thing you can eat from the allotment in the new year. The rhodies are out in the Botanics as well, though not many yet.

                     

And the Springtime Will Come!

          I think it starts with the snowdrops, then come the crocuses and then the daffodils. After that, come hail or snow, I don't care. Everything is getting better: more colour, more light, more light.

         And I'm getting to feel like I'd just like to sit down in the lobby and meditate all the time. This might be because I've spent a long weekend drinking and taking drugs and behaving like an idiot all the time. This is the life I'm living, a not very sensible one!