Tuesday, 30 October 2007

Rat Tsongkhapa!

Tuesday 10:30 a.m.
I've been off work for the past two days due to feeling nauseated and going a bit woozy sometimes when I bend down. A typical case of jobbie-itis!

This is for the occasional visitor to this bloggie who comes looking for stuff on tummo, vajrayana, Deity Yoga, the Six Yogas of Naropa, or Tsongkhapa.

Regular readers of this bloggie (hello, Jack and the Alien Creatures from Outer Space!) may remember that Tsongkhapa is the 14th century predecessor of the Dalai Lama. This is straight from A Practice Manual on the Six Yogas of Naropa by him and translated by Glenn Mullin. It's from Readings in the Six Yogas of Naropa.

This is brilliant on emptiness. I'm going to get it printed out and stick it on my wall. Here goes .... if you're the normal perverts who come here looking for hotboys, this blog has been set up as police trap for paedophiles. You can run, but you can't hide!


All Appearances as Illusory

The practice here begins by examining the sense of "I" that we all have.
Examine this "I" to see if it is one with or separate from the psychological aggregates. Eventually you will develop a firm understanding that this "I" had no self-existent nature whatsoever. This is the training on the emptiness side.

However, the conventional existence of the self arises as an object of the mind. This is to say, we have the appearance of living beings as irrefutable conventional phenomena. There are collectors of karma and experiencers of the results of karma. Even though nothing has a self nature, all phenomena conventionally function with validity according to the laws of interdependent arising. Cultivate a definite realisation of how in this way all things are ultimately empty of self-existence but nonetheless conventionally function with valid presence.

Sometimes these two levels of being may seem contradictory. To dispel this illusion, contemplate the metaphor of an image reflected in a mirror. This will generate awareness of their non-contradictory nature. Consider how the reflected image of a face, including the eyes and so forth, are empty of existing in the manner of their appearance. Based on the presence of the actual image that is being reflected, as well as the mirror and the workings of the light, the reflection is created. When one takes away the supporting conditions, such as either the face or the mirror, the image disappears. The two phenomena are interdependent.

The situation with all appearing phenomena is the same. For example, not a single particle within a living being exists to represent a final self, yet living beings collect karmic seeds, experience the results, and take rebirths according to their previously collected karmic seeds and the presence of spiritual distortions within themselves.

Appreciate the non-contradictory nature (of emptiness and relativity) in this way. As soon as you have achieved stability in this realisation, extend the practice to include all objects that appear to the mind.

( This stuff is for monastics going into long retreats to do the Six Yogas of Naropa, so he goes on ... )

Take all forms as manifestations of the deity; because these lack any self-existent nature, see them as illusory appearances; and see the illusions as great bliss. Train in these three awarenesses.


Hmmmm. The Dalai Lama was asked if he'd ever read any western philosophy. He said he'd been given a book, but hadn't got round to reading it yet. He's supposed to be a rebirth of Tsongkhapa. Where's your Thomas Aquinas the noo?

You may be able to get realisations of emptiness through intellectually grasping this kind of stuff. You won't get ra bliss of course. Still, this might help flatheids who are smart, but still too dumb to meditate. May all sentient beings be happy, and that'll be ten percent off the top, please!

Sunday, 28 October 2007

Ra MahamudraToo!

Sunday 10:20 p.m.
In the mahamudra two posts ago, I was looking for the self, I think.

Suffering is caused by desire based on ignorance of your own true self.

The boy says if you have a false sense of self, when you get hit by the arrow, you get hit twice. The pain is the pain. Then there's the pain of trying to protect something that doesn't exist.

The first turning of the wheel of the juju denies the existence of the self in ... the self. There is no inherently existing self. Everything changes. Look for this in the skandas and it is very obviously true and rational though difficult as hell to realise.

The second turning of the wheel of the juju is ... about what seems to be outside the self... where is the chariot?

Is this a chariot I see before me? Well, where is the chariot in the damn chariot? Can you put your hand on the chariot? That's a wheel. That's a spoke. So where is the chariot in the chariot?

The chariot does not exist in the chariot. The chariot exists in your mind. It is a compounded thing. It is made up. Say you were a snake slithering past the chariot. Is it a chariot to you? No! A snake can see in hot and cold maybe. It's got infra red vision. You can eat hot things, so that's useful for a snake. But for the snakes there's bugger all chariot there. The chariot is there for us only as a name and function. It's called a chariot. You can ride on it and throw spears.

What else can you say about the chariot? It's kind of made up by you to have a name and a function. It has uses. Also, there is almost nothing there. We know this because that's what the scientists have told us. Neutrinos, or wee tottie things, fly straight through the chariot because in its atomic structures it is mainly space. Atoms and molecules, or whatever, are mainly empty space.

At a quantumy level ... well, I know bugger all about that, but ... it seems to be a chaotic whizzing around of almost bugger all... dualism per se!

Is there anything out there, Hotboy? Yes, Jack, there is something out there, but you can't really put your finger on it and say what it is exactly. It's kind of there, but lacking proper definition.

I think me and the chariot should arise simultaneously. Mind precedes experience. Does the computery thing come first, or does your mind come first. Your mind has to come first. Just getting down to mind and arising simultaneously is maybe the hard bit.

So, you've got to get out of your mind. Oh, I would not feel so all alone. Everybody must get stoned!

Ris Saturday Night!

Saturday 11:10 p.m.
It's a year since that man of great taste and perspicacity, Adrian Weston, became my literary agent and I must say I've been entirely happy with his tireless endeavours on my behalf. Considering I haven't made him a bean yet... I would entirely recommend this joe to anyone looking for a literary agent.

On Thursday I did my six mile run. What a lovely day! How reaffirming to feel so good while doing it! On Friday I did the boxing training with five minutes skipping and the six three minute rounds of shadow boxing whilst fully clobbered up in the Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle. Today two young men took me and the nazi bike cycling up the Pentlands. What a fabulous view we had of the city from way way up there! Fife and beyond. And what a wind there was at times! I nearly got blown off the bike once or twice. Then we went beyond the view and in amongst the hills; the rutted paths, the jaggy stones. The nazi bike is a hybrid with normal tyres and no suspension or anything, but I only fell off twice.

I was three hours on the bike. Both young men are very nice young men. I like young people. I have no problems with them. I wasn't meditating when I was twenty five, so why should they? The old flatheids bug me. Fancy being in your fifties, in the fall off the perch zone, and not being able to do ra bliss? It's not as if they don't know anyone who can do ra bliss. I didn't know anyone who could do ra bliss. But they do. What a bunch of morons!

But I'm not recommending that anyone blow their brains out anymore. Not anymore. The Big Jambo should be reborn now if you believed in some of the things the Tibetans believe in. I think he shot himself about eight weeks ago. The young man I didn't know today looked a wee bit like him. So we don't want anyone else to shoot themselves. The other young man was Shiva's son. He will do some good in this life even if he ends up being one of the ones too dumb to meditate.

He and his partner made us a fantastic meal last night. If you only eat home made bread and soup, and show up starving ... well, it was a sensuous delight, so it was! I had a great time though I drank too much as usual. Since Thursday night and including what I'm going to drink tonight, I'll have done in about eighteen pints this week. (Well, in the last three days!). Fortunately, this keeps me well within the healthy limits prescribed by the government. Hazardous drinking is now a bottle and a half of wine a week. Thank God I don't drink wine!

Anyone who believes that hazardous drinking amounts to one and a half bottles of wine a week ... well, some people will believe anything!

What about ra bliss, Hotboy? Us spam robots want to know about ra bliss!

I had four bottle of Erdinger on Thursday night, but Friday was special for ra bliss from the word go. The hour before the train journey; the hour and a half on the train. Sitting with the auld man was fabuloso. I can listen to the Dammapada and leave the planet simultaneously. But the auld maw is getting something great out of listening to this stuff in the lion pose. This makes me feel happy. Even after the night out last night, ra bliss was pretty full on today when I started doing the juju at the back of eleven. It made me not want to cycle. Tonight I did three hours sitting after doing an hour in the bath. Being able to do ra bliss in the bath!! I can do ra bliss in the bath! What a fortunate creature I am, I am! What a fortunate creature I am!

Thursday, 25 October 2007

Ra Mahamudra!

Thursday 10:55 p.m.
Normally, on Wednesday afternoon I spend the time getting over whatever annoyance has been engendered by the jobbie, but yesterday I spent the afternoon at the jobbie as well, so this morning my mind is a little less calm than it usually is on a Thursday morning.

My main afflictive emotion is anger, Jack. I think us spam robots had worked that one out, Hotboy!

Whilst trying to calm the mind and cause the anger to abate .... you search for the idea of self in the skandas, the compositional factors of which you are composed. Is it in the name and form; the body? Naw! Is it in the senses, or the sense bases, or the sense awareness? Naw! Is it in the perceptions? They're just that which is perceived. Naw! Is it in the consciousness, or the conciousnesses? Naw.

You can simply go around denying it's existence. You can say: I am not the body. I am not the senses. But this false sense of self is in there somewhere, Jack! Where could it be? Of course, it exists in the mental formations, the ideations which, of course, include volitional impulses.

Suddenly wanting to strangle the numpties at the jobbie might be regarded as a mental formation with a volitional impulse. Of course, the computer could also be regarded as a mental formation. Anyway ...

When you're trying to do the juju and you drift off into thinking and relishing the prospect of mass murder, well, this thought might be regarded as a mental formation.

Tell me it's empty, Jack. It's empty, Hotboy. What might that mean, Jack? It might mean that it, along with everything else you perceive while your head is jammed up your backside, is misapprehended. It might appear to be one thing when in fact it is a composition of a great many things, but mainly powered by that old afflictive emotion: anger. Since it can seem to be a single thing, or a single sequence, this murderous thought, you might ask yourself from whence did it arise and where it is going?

It arises in mind. It abides in mind. It declines in mind.

I think the hinayana maybe just stops with this stuff. It's not looking outside your individual mind at the outside world, but you can see aeons of endeavour spent in doing just that. Dealing with the impurities in your own wee mind.

I've hoped against hope that my wonderful writings would magically take me away from the jobbie, but this seems as unlikely as ever. However, yesterday I applied for another jobbie and if I don't erupt at the interview, I might even attain gainful employment elsewhere. If I don't, I think committing murder would be the best option for me. I could spend the rest of my life in solitary confinement working on the mental formations. What a wonderful jobbie that would be!!

Who would I be murdering, Jack, if there are no sentient beings, if at the end of the day, it's just a lot of old photons? Hotboy, you know what you have to remember, don't you? Yes! Get your retaliation in first! No, compassion and altruism is the basis of the path. Like images seen in a dream; thus must we regard all things! Time to go back to the lobby.

Sunday, 21 October 2007

Ra Weekend!

Sunday 8:55 p.m.
The auld maw went to the high school for a day. It was run by nuns. It was called Elmwood, in Bothwell, a single sex school for the smart catholic girls from Lanarkshire. My two sisters were educated there. When my auld maw went there, during the first day the nuns lined them up and said that the kids who could not afford the uniforms, the gym kit, etc., should not bother coming back. So my auld maw only went for one day. Her old man paid for my eldest sister's uniform when she went ... some kind of restituting family business going on there maybe.

They're all going to hell, Jack! The evil bourgeois basturns are all going to hell!

The highlight of my weekend was listening to the Dhammapada with the auld maw. When I got there, she had the Old Firm game on the radio, but she put it off so she could put on the second of the three CDs. She lies on top of her bed, and I sit in a juju position on the floor with my back to the wardrobe thing. The auld maw is lying in the lion pose, which is the position the buddha died in, but she doesn't know that.

There are Pali words, wee bits of Sankrit, and the buddha is going on about skandas, and the twelve links of dependent origination on the second CD ... stuff that anyone is going to have difficulty getting their heads round ... and sometimes I wonder what the auld maw is making of all this, what with her elementary education and all that.

The second CD takes about an hour and a half. I'm right off the planet during most of it. When it finishes, the auld maw seems almost transformed. She's so lit up! She said she was expecting the hand that supported her head to go numb, but she said she felt such strength going through it, as if she could hit someone with it.

I suppose she was thinking about her arm and it filled up with chi. Hmmm?

Last night I had to go out partying with some flatheids the Domestic Bliss knows. So I got pissed. It feels like you might as well. This joe I've never met before told me he'd seen Busted performed at the Fringe. It was sixteen years ago, or thereabouts. A play what I wrote.

On Thursday, I got a letter from the Traverse Theatre asking if I wanted the two free tickets for the opening night of their new production on the 30th of October. I phoned up to say yes. The box office always say the same thing. You say: Yes, I'd like two guest tickets for the opening night. They say: Which organisation are you with? You say: None. They say: Which newspaper are you with? I usually say: None. They say: Are you with the media? I usually say: No, I'm just me. This time I said: I'm a friend of Philip's, although I am not. For the past ten years I've wanted to say: I was almost famous, "famous long ago for playing the electric violin on Desolation Row." Philip Howard, the artistic director, put me on some list ten or so years ago and I've got free tickets for opening nights ever since. This is his last production. The end of an era for me and the kiddo. Since she was fourteen, we've been there in the first or second row.

The agent said he'd see the boy from Legend Press in Frankfort about getting the book published. Frankfort is over. I've heard nothing. It's embarrassing that I am bothered about this. It shows how far I have to go.

Friday, 19 October 2007

Ra Tummo!

Friday 10:00 p.m.
Just in case someone ever comes here who is interested in the great vajrayana, I should say something about tummo, or raising inner heat.

After lunch today, I felt like having a wee snooze, but sat down in the lobby to meditate again. Closed my eyes. You're right into ra bliss straight away. The sheath thing seems to open, or be there. There is a bit of light and some of ra bliss. This is very nice. After a wee bit, ra heat, a kind of over-all warmth fills the sheath. This is even nicer.

This is the kind of stuff that keeps you warm in the cold. It's warmth, but not really like any warmth I've ever experienced outside meditation. If I'd sat down with my hands being cold, they wouldn't have been cold anymore. There was nothing uncomfortable about this warmth. I know you can get all kinds of heat, but there was nothing at all unpleasant about this. (I've had bits of heat just under the skin before and that feels a wee bit like sunburn.)

I've had this kind of warmth before, but not quite so much or so pleasant. I hadn't done any vase breathing.

When I had my first inner heat experience about four years ago ... just four months after I'd taken refuge ... well, I expected to be drying off wet sheets by this time, but the whole heat thing has come on very, very slowly. I think there may be two factors in this. One: my discipline is far from exemplary. Two: I haven't done enough meditations on the navel symbol. It may be that I don't do enough vase breathing. Of course, I've no one around here to talk about this stuff and I don't like to bother Lama Yeshe unless I encounter some problems. Hmmm.

I did a great shadow boxing session tonight. Still a fat basturn, but getting fitter.

There's no one in just now, so I'll go and sit in the lobby again and await developments!

11:55 p.m.
What can I say about ra bliss, Jack? Oh, so wonderful! Warmth came on like it did today, but everything was a bit more eccentuated. I've told you before about ra bliss that whooshes up your body sometimes when you lean over for a bit then straighten up. Fantabuloso! I'm a bit tired now, so my concentration isn't what it should be, but the Domestic Bliss isn't in yet, so I'll sit up a bit longer. Sober and straight on a Friday night, and off my face on air!! What a fortunate creature I am, I am! What a fortunate creature I am!

Unfortunately, I'll have to break off from this sequence of two wonderful days of meditations to go to Bellshill tomorrow. It would be fantastic if this was the start of a long, long retreat. God preserve us from the flatheids! It's night night from RaBadBoyBlissheid!

Ra Mentally ill!

Friday 12:45 p.m.
Hello, Jack the Spam Robot, the Masai Warriors, and the Alien Creatures from Outer Space who may happen upon this bloggie! This is RaBadBoyBlissheid, here to tell you about developments with ra bliss!

I haven't been to Bellshill today since I had to wait in for a mattress to be delivered. So I've been able to concentrate on meditating for two days in a row. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss! No flatheids apart from the one who lives here. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!

I've been meditating all morning till just now and it's been bloody wonderful. During an interval, I went into a headstand from the straight leg position, and it's a while since I could do that. It's kind of surprising when you legs just go WHEE, and up they go! What a fortunate, fortunate creature I am!

But it has come to my remembrance that meditation might not be suitable for everyone. The people who go schizophrenic from smoking dope should probably not meditate for one thing. Some people have very fragile minds.

As far as I'm concerned the stronger the dope the better. If it's really strong, you don't have to smoke much of it. One toke of a pipe in Morocco circa 1974 and you were in California already.

Anyway, people who are really fragile should stick to the fruit gums and if they tried to lose their false sense of self ... well, they're hanging onto any sense of self they can manage, these poor unfortunate creatures.

We know who you are. It starts with the severities of the calvinist toilet training regimes employed in the closed door homes of the evil bourgeois. If that's not bad enough, these poor children are then subjected to years of rigourous cleaning up regimes; they all have to have shiny shoes at all times; and are not allowed to get the slightest bit dirty, or messy, or anything like that. Before they are even adolescent, they are forced into uniforms and told to march up and down. Dearie me! These unfortunate creatures are mostly distinguished by their fantastic sense of smell, a direct result of the severities inflicted on them whilst still in nappies.

There is no point in telling these folk about ra bliss because as soon as they started to meditate, they'd burst into tears, and cry, and cry, and cry. Their only hope is to train as hut managers. The Amazing Bloggy Church of the BadBoyBlissheid may be on the look out for a hut manager next week once the Frankfort Book Fair is over. On the other hand, it may not.

We're not scared about going schizophrenic, are we, Jack? Certainly not, Hotboy! We're looking forward to being a lot madder than we are just now! Time for lunch!

Wednesday, 17 October 2007

Rose Difficult Times!

Wednesday 11:11 a.m.
I think there's a lot of folklore and folktales about the buddha in buddhist countries. This might be one about how the boy started off on the path to enlightenment.

The buddha's in hell. He's on this awful hot floor and him and this other boy are supposed to stand there pushing this immoveable dead hot chariot.

It sounds like one of the hot hells, eh? There's all kinds of hells! As many kinds as you can imagine!

So the buddha and other boy are pushing at the chariot and the buddha stops for a bit and turns to the hell guard. (I assume this joe looks like one of them not very handsome mutanty folk from the Lord Of The Rings movies.) Anyway, he says to the guard: Hi, Jimmy! This is fung stupit. Why don't you let this other guy go and I'll do the pushing for him?

Enraged, the hell guard knocks the buddha out with a tolchock to the bonce. When the buddha wakens up, he's not in hell anymore.

Compassion and altruism is the basis of the path.

Ion's old man doesn't sound in very good shape. If you had any kind of religion in you, you could say a prayer for him. Or you could do a bit of meditation for him. Or you could just in your mind wish him well. This might not do him any good, but it would probably be good for you.

Monday, 15 October 2007

Ra Beginnings!

Monday 9:30 p.m.
I started re-writing The Real McCoy tonight. It's hard to believe how badly written the first half page was. Added later. Got rid of that. It's always the same with stuff you add in. Now it starts with the Robert Kennedy assasination, except it's not Robert Kennedy. The newsman shouts: Do you think you are the son of God?

Robert Kennedy was a great loss.

I'd re-read the original, which I wrote 20 years ago, twice, but that doesn't count as beginning the re-write. Tonight is the beginning. I don't care how long it takes me. If it gets published and makes some money, I'll have to give most of it away. I think I should keep writing because I enjoy doing that.

The book is essentially about trying to find God, so I hope I'm old enough now and have the time to focus on it.

I'd been trying to avoid starting something like this for a year so I didn't have that in my head at all. But now I feel okay about it. I know about this God stuff. I can do that!

Sunday, 14 October 2007

Ra Pailis

Sunday 10:00 p.m.
There's five big rooms in this flat and only me. Two of the rooms I'll never go into. No wonder the world is full of homeless basturns!

When I was about seven, we moved from Mossend to Bellshill. This meant moving from an upstairs downstairs with three bedrooms to a one of four flat with four bedrooms, round the corner. There were nine folk living in this council house. We moved because my sister with the MS needed a room on her own. There was another sister so that was the second bedroom gone. Then the maw and da had a room. The fourth bedroom was for us, the five boys. I'm number four son.

This was on the ground floor. One night some poor unfortunate drunken creature came into our front garden and climbed in through the window into the bedroom I shared with my four brothers.

My three elder brothers had all attended the boxing gym run by Joe Gans, Walter McGowan's da, at some point. Walter ended up being the Flyweight Champion of the World and his da had been a booth boxer. Joe Gans was a kid-on name. Thank God Joe Gans wasn't running his boxing gym when I was a teenager because I would have probably attended this gym and I would have been quite good at boxing. Boxing is not a good thing to be good at. Well ... I could qualify that, but sometimes you can take too many punches to the head.

Walter might have dementia now. Ah could have been a contenda, Charlie. Walter McGowan was much better than a contender. Walter McGowan was the best boxer I ever saw.

When I was teaching kids to box at a school in Falkirk, I did something my brother Grizzly told me about from Joe Gans gym. Walter was obviously wonderful so he would stick two sparring partners in with him at the one time. You're not allowed to hit from the back. This does sharpen you up!

In one of the Alien movies there's a bit where some joe or josephine realises that they're standing in a nest of monsters as they uncurl from the walls, etc.

So the drunk man is standing in the middle of the darkened bedroom. My three elder brothers are all in their late teens or early twenties. I wake up due to the racket and this guy is standing there in front of the fireplace. It is a commotion in the darkened room. My brother Silvest was a very good amateur boxer, but it was Grizzly who banjoed the boy. The boy's head bangs off the wall; he collapses. By this time me and my wee brother have our heads well poked out the bedclothes.

The old man had a motor so we could take my sister out. They seem to have discerned that the unconscious person was from the Pailis, known officially as Bothwellhaugh, a derelict ex-mining village half way to Hamilton. They put him in the motor and left him lying out on the pavement down the Pailis. I think Grizzly wanted to find out where he stayed, but my brother Silvest, row of forty medals on his chest, big chest, wanted him dumped.

Where the Pailis was in now under a pond in Strathclyde Park.

My auld maw told me the reason why I don't have more brothers and sisters is because of Adolf Hitler who caused the old man to go shooty shootying for six years. It's great to be part of a big family, even if they're all flatheids!

Saturday, 13 October 2007

Ra Chinese Whisper

Saturday 10:05 p.m.
I spoke to Beef McDuck last night about the malaria or septicemia or whatever disease he had. He told me something, but I half forgot it and searched for something like it on Google. Colitis. Colonitis. Chlamydia. You can hear the Bellshill voices:

"Ah thought you had to be a wummin to get chlamydia. Naw, Jessie, ye can get it if you're a man if you've had the malaria first."

I spoke to him today on the phone while I was searching for someone with the right satellite to watch the Scottish game. He had cellutitis.
I watched a game in a pub because no one I know had the channel. What a blight on the consumer all these bloody satellites have been! We didn't drink, partly because you couldn't get to the bar. Closest thing to being on the old terraces at Scottish football grounds before the brought in the seats. The wee bowlie legged dwarves and cock eyed zealots who are my countrymen murdered the bums 3-1. The pub rocked. Sometimes it is great to be a Scottish person, so it is!

Thursday, 11 October 2007

Thursday 8:10 p.m.
The beer is Tyskie from Munich, weighing in at 5.6%; four bottles for £5. After giving up tobacco for about five years, I'm going to smoke some Silk Cut joints. This is very stupid and I have no excuses.

I ended up in Bellshill today so I could devote the whole of the next three days to the juju. Usually, I go on a Friday so I can meditate for six or seven hours on the Thursday and be in a suitable frame of mind. I thought I was ready for it today, what with the huge amounts of ra bliss I've been getting, but maybe not ready enough.

There were two siblings, two neices, the auld maw, and my auntie Kathy. In Edinburgh most conversations are just about passing information really. There is no - what is referred to as - "crack". People are constantly taking the piss, or being provocative deliberately, laughing, joking ... I just wasn't ready for it, Jack. What they're lousy at is simply passing information. It's like visiting the looney bin, so it is.

The sister takes me aside immediately and wants to know about Beef McDuck. It seems he's in hospital with malaria. They think he must have been bitten by a mosquito when he went to Seville to see Celtic not winning the Cup Winner's Cup a couple of years ago. Froggie McDuck had phoned me yesterday to tell me he'd septicemia from in ingrown hair and he was probably out of the hospital already. You think: Why can't these people talk to each other? Then they all arrive and they're talking to each other so much that I had to make my excuses and leave. It's much worse if you visit a pub in Bellshill. Overwhelmed you are.

A lot of people in my family have the same Christian name. Once I got a phonecall from my sister. She said Beef is in hospital. He's been stabbed through the heart and lung. You take this in as best you can. There is a pause in the conversation. You say: Which one? I was hoping for the other one, my brother, because he was older and you always half expected some atrocity with him. I assumed that getting stabbed through the heart and lung meant that you were dead or dying. I picked the wrong one. Through good fortune he was out of the hospital in about a week. He was up at the door with a gigantic carry-out in a fortnight.

When I tell people I'm the normal one in my family, they don't believe me.

But they're all flatheids! I thought when I started this blog about two and a half years ago that once you told people about ra bliss they'd all start meditating. The reason why they didn't meditate was because they didn't know about ra bliss. There are many other reasons for meditating, but ra bliss is the big sweetie and the world is full of sweetie eaters.

Deferred gratification and sweetie eating are two direct opposites, Hotboy, and the reason why they don't meditate is because they would rather have a wee drink and a joint or two. Or five. Correct, Jack! What would I do without you? I'm a flatheid as well!

I asked Froggie how Beef was doing in hospital. He said he was fed up and bored. His leg was violet, but I think it had been beeling purple at some point. An ingrown hair. Anyway, when I get taken to hospital, which I hope will be quite soon, I think I'll just lie back and do ra bliss. There are no off-licences in hospitals. People maybe come and give you food. Or MRSA. He's in a hospital in Glasgow which is getting famous for it. Maggie Thatcher gave the cleaning contracts to the lowest bidder and now we're scared to go to hospital. It's pre-Crimean War, so it is. But I think I'm looking at the mental wards where, hopefully, there will be no open wounds and you can speak in a language you've made up just for you.

When I started saying Sussquehanna to myself, I read a book that said you should try to say the mantra all the time. Incessantly. It makes you smile this idea at first. Seems like a very stupid thing to do. So then you're standing at a bus stop and who knows when a bus is due. You can kick your heels, walk around, sink into torpor, lose the will to live entirely ... but if you start saying your little mantra, the nice feelings will arise. Boredom doesn't come into it anymore. I stopped doing boredom a long time ago.

You have to stick with this stuff. It's the shape of your life. What would like like it to be towards the end? You knew it was going to get boring when they started talking about mortgages, and washing machines, then babies and nappies. Now, they talk about diseases, things that can take you out.

Conventionally, there are flatheids, walking around with their heads up their bums, talking complete crap. Ultimately, it's just a lot of old photons. The problem is thinking about flatheids. I shouldn't let them wind me up. It would be good if they could do ra bliss though. It would be much better for everybody.

Wednesday, 10 October 2007

Ra Syringe!

Wednesday 9:10 p.m.
Doctor Sam was sent straight from central casting. He was my jewish G.P. Like the jewish G.P. from a Walt Disney cartoon. He'd been recommended to me by the daughter (herself a G.P.) of one of the founding members of the British Communist Party. Now there's a touch of class!

So Doctor Sam suddenly produces the syringe, which looks like some kind of exotic Victoriana, like the hypodermic for the sperm whale. It was a metal giant, thicker than a bicycle pump and almost as long.

He was going to syringe my ears. This used to involve blasting hot water at high pressure into your earhole ... the way Doctor Sam did it was never to be repeated. He'd obviously had never burst an eardrum. It felt amazing. What he got out of those ears was beyond belief! But suddenly after months of being half deaf, it had all come on stereophonic again.

Nurses do this now. You have to see the doctor first so you can tell him you need your ears syringed. Then I've got the appointment to get the ears syringed four days later. Dearie me. Anyway, it'll never be like Doctor Sam again. Once I had to exhort this doctor to give it the gun. Hammer it, pal! What are you worried about? Give it the gun!

The nurse sticks a vibrating thing in your earhole now. Warm water skooshes out of it. It's fabulous, so it is. Tickily in a nice kind of way. I'll like to get one of those for Christmas.

The allotment was a nice place to be today. The leaves are turning brown, but the sun was oddly warm. I meditated on the newspapers burning and ate a lot of raspberries. I read a wee bit of the book I was pretending to read when two flatheids came down between the plots and walked passed. ..."Thus the jewel-like practitioner who engages in the profound path of Naropa's Six Yogas in this way has entered into a complete and unmistaken path for accomplishing enlightenment in one short lifetime, even in this degenerate age." Sixteenth century self improvement pamphlet.

Sunday, 7 October 2007

Ra Sunday night.

Sunday 10:00 p.m.
Will there ever be an end to this bliss? There's always another bit. I've not been doing much since Wednesday except investigating ra bliss, only to discover even more amazement at the multi-faceted blissiness of it all. You're not breathing all that much when you get the first giant lungful and go into the vase breathing routine. Totally off the planet and into the wabby dobbly universe of bliss waves and bright light. It's bliss chaos in the light sword sometimes, so it is.

The Domestic Bliss is out of town for the next ten days. I need to go to the hospital and get a sick note for the jobbie: This joe is so smitten by ra bliss that the only job he can do is one where he doesn't have to do anything at all. He might come back if you make him king, but otherwise he's not fit for work.

I just sit in the lobby all day, doctor, kind of staring into space. I'm obviously as mad as a hatter. I need a couple of weeks off work to investigate ra bliss, please.

These are truly the most wonderful years of my life. For several hours today I was transported by ra bliss into the realms of near ecstasy. And it does feel as if it's wholly good for you. Well, it would. It's like feeling as good as you could feel. Then the boundary moves a bit again. It's amazing that no one else I know gets this. They're all flatheids, the whole lot of them. But getting out of your face on air, eh? When the vase breathing seems to be working, it really blows your socks off. All endorphin freaks, or there's some kind of junk for everyone, as Wm Burroughs might have said. But air? I want a pat on the back for that one. Use the air to get off your face! It has a certain wonderful simplicity. The only trouble is you're usually so blissed off your face anyway that you can hardly be bothered breathing at all far less going in for all this bothersome huffing and puffing. But the huffing and puffing does work. It's the blissheid's bliss, but I don't do that much of it. I might get into it a wee bit more now that the Domestic Bliss won't be back home for ten days. I could easily be completely off my trolley by then.

Thursday, 4 October 2007

Ra Discourse on ra intercourse!

Thursday 9:00 p.m.
The meditations today started special, with deep, still bliss, and it was one of those days when you just wanted to meditate all the time. I spent a couple of hours in the late afternoon up meditating at the edge of the allotment. Lovely day. Quiet and beautiful. The sun was warm.

These two wee third year girls come up to the issue desk. One says: We hear you're bringing a book out. I deny this, but tell them something about having stuff published years ago. We heard it was about the library. More denials from me. We heard it was about you coming in and finding people having intercourse. What? Where? There, she said, pointing to a spot beside the issue desk. On the carpet. We were all looking at the carpet. Then they looked back at me. More denials from me.

That's what the punters want, Jack. A bit of romance.

Tuesday, 2 October 2007

Ra Serenity!

Tuesday 8:45p.m.
I was feeling serene yesterday and stayed feeling serene throughout most of my time at work. Serenity is most unusual. Once I felt very calm when I was going away from the Samye Ling after meditating down there for a few days. It's as if nothing is going to bother you, no matter what.

Why was that then, Hotboy? I don't really know for sure, Jack. Of course, the meditations continue to develop, becoming deeper and stronger all the while, or so it seems. The end result of all this juju is equanimity of course, not ra bliss, but I don't suppose I'm anywhere near that.

I had a chance to try to explain and maybe work this out for myself that evening since I was out sitting with my friend with the MS so her husband could go out to the pub. My friend with the MS isn't saying much back these days, so is a perfect flatheid to regale with stuff about ra bliss, and such things as the arising of serenity, and why thereof.

On the outside, everything, including thoughts and mountains, arises, abides, and declines in mind. There seems no point in trying to differentiate between your wee mind and any outside mind when you've got this to work a wee bit sometimes. It's just mind. Where else could anything arise? And this view seems to make it seem as if everything is going to be alright, no matter what it sometimes looks like. It feels like that.

On the inside, the more you sit, the more wonderful it becomes. You have ra bliss. Soon there may be even breathlessness and other astonishments. But the more you meditate, it seems the more wonderousness you unveil. We seem to rest psychologically on an ocean of ra bliss.

But the wee bit of serenity was very nice. What my friend with the MS made of all this I'll never know. It's a shame she never meditated. It's a shame about the flatheids, so it is.