Thursday 29 November 2007

Ra Six Yogas Of Naropa!

Thursday 1:50 p.m.
And, yea, though I did go to the pub last night to watch Celtic put the cheating basturns from the Ukraine to the sword in the dying seconds of the game, and did get verily steamboats, the meditations this morning in the lobby were once again wonderful. The effects of the vase breathing have moved on. Apres luncho, I can't wait to get the hut, but thought I'd comment on a report in the Times yesterday about the Dalai Lama offering a vote on whether or not he should be reincarnated.

I am the expert on all non-doctrines and lack of beliefs in the Amazing Bloggy Church of the BadBoyBlissheid, being the sole member, but I make no claims to knowing much about Tibetan Buddhism. Still, march on. Eh, Jack?

"The Chinese government in August claimed exclusive rights to approve all Tibetan lamas' reincarnations ... to establish control over the region's clergy" The Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said among other things: "The Dalai Lama's statement is a blatant violation of religious practice and historical procedure."

The Chinese government can give you a good laugh, so they can!

They're all going to hell, Jack!

"The Dalai Lama said there was a historical precedent for a lama being reincarnated while still alive.."

I think the most distinctive thing about Tibetan Buddhism is the Six Yogas of Naropa and the whole vajrayana, the juju of jujus! One of the yogas is the projection of consciousness into another residence. This can be a newly dead body, or a living body. You are supposed to be able to give your body to someone else's consciousness as well. This goes back to Marpa who brought the juju from India in the first place, and you can't get more historical than that!

The Times says : "Buddhism teaches that the soul is reincarnated as another being .." No, it doesn't! There aren't any souls in buddhism. No God creator, no soul, vast emptiness. No sentient beings either. We're smeared across infinity like electrons when no one's looking!

I'm not too sure about that last bit yet, but I do hope the Chinese don't assassinate the Dalai Lama. I consider him to be one of my gurus and getting annoyed isn't good for you.

To the hut!

THIS POST WAS WRITTEN BY JOHN McKENZIE WHO HAS TEN BOOKS ON KINDLE. THE ONES CLOSELY CONNECTED WITH BUDDHISM, MEDITATION, BLISS, VASE BREATHING, TUMMO, ETC., ARE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buddha-Big-Bad-Wolf-ebook/dp/B005AIP7QE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319126284&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buddha-Big-Bad-Wolf-ebook/dp/B005AIP7QE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319126284&sr=8-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Land-Demon-Masters-ebook/dp/B004XJ7OEO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1319126424&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Real-McCoy-ebook/dp/B0054H4MO4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1319126490&sr=1-1

Tuesday 27 November 2007

Rem Quantum Sums!

Tuesday
So there was a teevee show on last night featuring Hugh Everett's son. Mr Everett seems to be the boy who posited the idea of parallel universes, or the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics.

You don't know bugger all about this, Hotboy. I know, Jack. If I knew anything about sums, I wouldn't be two grand in debt, but what the hell? Here's how it seemed to go.

There's a particle wave duality. Subatomic particles seem to exist as waves and particles at the same time. BUT if you look for particles, you find particles. If you look for waves, you find waves. Niels Bohr has the Copenhagen Interpretation which seems to be that the "fact that a human being had observed some event changed the reality of the event."

Let's let that one sink in, Jack. That's a beauty! Has this strayed into the area of consciousness? Consciousness is awareness of something surely.

Then along comes Schrodinger's Cat. The pussy is in a box and it's life depends on the behaviour of a sub-atomic particle. Unless you look in the box, the cat is alive and dead at the same time. Maybe it's half alive and half dead at the same time. Brilliantly absurd. This is a contadiction it is hard to live with. So you've got to sort that one out somehow. Or else there seems to be some kind of border or barrier where this quantum stuff operates and the classical physics stuff doesn't. Along comes Hugh Everett.

He posits the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics which seems to imply parallel universes where every story has a plot. It's harder for me to get this ... maybe the cat's alive somewhere and dead somewhere else.

Maybe this deals with the absurdity of the quantumy world, but it's still sounds crazy and impossible, etc. Hmmm.

The boy in the programme kept saying, well, why can't human beings exist in two different places if atoms (he didn't say sub-atomic particles!), electrons and such like can exist in two different places.

Of course, there have been claims forever of Christian and Hindu saints being in two places at once. Also, isn't buddha nature supposed to be in everything, everywhere. I think someone said electrons can be everywhere and not just in two places at once. Maybe if you were to become a buddha you'd be able to kind of jump the quantum border or barrier. The answer to all this nonsense must lie somewhere in consciousness surely, or the level of consciousness you can attain. Do buddhas then embody the unified theory that answers the problems of the real life and sub-atomic dichotomy?

Probably not, but there you go. Stuff like this just nips my heid!!

Sunday 25 November 2007

Ra Differentiation!

Sunday 2:10 p.m.
I had to explain to someone on Friday night that I was a Christian as well as a Buddhist, and of course I am. For the last couple of years I've adopted the head on the Turin Shroud as the iconic image of altruism and compassion for the Amazing Bloggie Church of the BadBoyBlissheid, of which I am the sole member and single representative.

Of course, you can count yourself a Christian and not believe in the creator god, or that he was the son of God.

We embrace our ignorance.
We don't believe in any things,
Especially thoughts.

It's time to reclaim Jesus Christ from the flatheids!

I'm not really interested anymore in labels like Christian or Muslim. I don't care what you call yourself. What I want to know is whether you're a blissheid or a flatheid. You could refine that a little bit. On the one hand, you have the Forever Flatheids.

The Forever Flatheids don't meditate, will never in a month of Sundays get ra bliss, will always go around with their heads jammed up their bums, and will talk nothing but complete crap about anything you care to mention. Apart from doing all the work, they are completely useless.

The only folk I won't make disparaging remarks about who don't meditate are the ones who go schizophrenic when the see someone else smoking cannabis.

On the other hand, we have the Budding Blissheids. The Budding Blissheids all meditate, but some of them do not as yet get ra bliss. This is probably because they haven't been meditating for long enough or do it often enough. If you only meditate for twenty minutes a day, you probably won't get ra bliss, but what do I know? Maybe I had to meditate a lot more than most because I am so bad. If you meditate like moi, you will get ra bliss if you do it three times a day for half an hour a go. I regard myself as the average joe on this one.

People who want to kill other people because they believe something other than the crap they believe in, of course, are flatheids of the worst order. I assume all sensible people subscribe to Christian ethics (which are the same as Buddhist ethics, etc., etc.) since this seems to be the best way to get about this world.

I meditated straight through from eleven till two today. Superbo!!

7:50 p.m.
I did my longer run today as it was beginning to get darker, around 3:30 p.m. Most reaffirming! Felt fit and loved doing it. I thought it might be six miles, but it can't be that long. Was running for about forty five minutes. Blissed out then dozed off in the bath. The meditations just finished have been exceptional, but I haven't done any work on the kidbook since Thursday. Well, I did have my tooth extracted on Friday, went to Bellshill, then had to go out in the evening for emergency missionary work. On Saturday I had a most enjoyable visit with out friend with the MS at Liberton Hospital and the Dom Bliss and I had an evening last night watching the telly. Everything is looking up!!

Friday 23 November 2007

Ra Teef!

Friday 4:45 p.m.
In defence of the literal truth of the bible... The preacher says: There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth! (Matthew 24:50-51)The gumsy joe asks: What if you aint got no teef? The preacher: Teeth will be provided!

What a nice visit I had to Bellshill today! Same people and circumstances as last week, but a completely different mood. Everybody was dead cheerful and no diseases were mentioned. Also, I had two co-codomil from the auld maw's stash and ache from the tooth extraction just disappeared.

The two guys from San Fransisco invited us to Thanksgiving. We were going to leave the day before, but they really wanted us to stay for Thanksgiving. They couldn't leave because you had to pay for the campsite on the way out and they hadn't enough money. One of them was really hoping for fifty dollars to be sent from the States for his Christmas. They were a long way from home, near Tangiers in 1974.

The weekend before they'd been involved in some kind of rammy at the cinema, and got lifted by the polis along with a lot of Moroccans. They were kept in the yard at the back of the police station, but in the course of the night all the Moroccans were allowed to go home in dribs and drabs. Eventually, there were only the two of them left. They were bothered about getting beaten up by the polis, so one of them tries to make a break for it and he's half way over the wall when his pal starts shouting: He's escaping! He's escaping! because he was scared of being left to face the music on his own. Of course, both of them got beaten up.

I told the dentist not to worry if my eyes rolled up to the top of my head when he was doing the business because that happened when I started meditating. It's better to keep your eyes shut, but sometimes you don't notice if they open themselves. Once he paused and asked if I was okay when this was happening before. Who'd want to be a dentist?

Thursday 22 November 2007

Ra Diet!

Thursday 2:30 p.m.
Just interrupting the start of re-writing to blog this. I'm going to use this stuff in that book and also in the re-write of The Real McCoy. It's from the notes section of Tsongkhapa's Six Yogas of Naropa, translated, etc., by Glenn H. Mullin.


“The practice of chulen, or taking the essence … making essence pills from flowers and then abstaining from any food and eating only a few of these pellets each day. While living in India I knew several yogis who thus cut off intake of ordinary food for two or three years at a time, eating only a pellet or two a day for sustenance. They lost weight for the first three or four months, but after that even became quite fat.
The three main forms of the practice are: pellets made from flower petals; pellets made from certain minerals; and “stone essence,” in which a stone is put into a glass of water several times a day, mantras recited, and the water then drunk. The First Dalai Lama’s writings mention a fourth technique: breathing in the essence of starlight at night. Starlight is considered to be the essence of energy, and thus the most quintessential form of nutrient.”

Nothing like having a perfectly balanced diet, eh?

10:35 p.m.
Had a very good day today! Probably meditated for just under six hours, including an hour in the hut. Also, I worked on completely changing the beginning of Light in the Dark and that was must enjoyable. Had a joe breathing in the essence of starlight. That's the way to do it!

I need to get rich! Rich, I tell you! So I can give up this part time jobbie. Going to work is a complete waste of my time, so it is. I've got far too much to do!

Wednesday 21 November 2007

Rose Heroic Lives!

Wednesday 10:30 p.m.
The world is full of people who are much better people than me; people living lives of quiet heroism, like my friend whose wife is quite far down the road with Multiple Sclerosis. The world is full of them. Folk like my auld maw who was widowed in her mid-forties and left with two young adolescents, a pre-adolescent, and my sister who couldn't do anything for herself. There are people out there who don't complain and just get on with what they're supposed to do.

And here is moi, part of the generation - some of whom like me hardly worked and never wanted, who ate the planet, who never had to go to war with anyone, etc., etc., etc. It's almost embarrassing that someone like me has come to be 56 years old, experienced not a great amount of personal tragedy or even much disappointment, and I can put my mind into states of amazing bliss.

You can see why folk want to believe in rebirth, reincarnation, or whatever, because this life does not seem to be fair.

Trying to understand and then realise non-self and emptiness, or even just engaging in calming meditations should even the score a little, but almost nobody knows about buddhist philosophy and almost nobody meditates. Oh well!

The flatheids don't know they're flatheids. They think they're alright and I suppose they are. They're not going to fall apart and go about moaning and groaning to me when they get the black spot. They'll just do the usual denial, anger, acceptance, blah blah, and shuffle off their mortal coil they way they do.

I have been given a fantastic opportunity in this life. An unbelievable opportunity. For this I must thank the folk who took an interest in me a few years ago when I was regularly going down to the Samye Ling. I wasn't going to courses or really talking much to anyone. I used to go and meditate. If I had the money, I'd been down there meditating yet every time I had a holiday. But there are some special people down there and they did notice me, and they did help me, and they are helping me even as I write this.

All I've got to do is try hard, at least over the next few days. I've got to stay off the beer, the dope, the tobacco, in fact, pursue purification and accumulation. And stay away from my deep, dear friends because they are all flatheids and sweetie eaters, and they will never get ra bliss.

I'm on antibiotics. I get a tooth pulled on Friday morning. But tomorrow is all mine. Tomorrow belongs to me!

Tuesday 20 November 2007

Rat Escapism

Tuesday
I got an email from someone called Lynne Pema from Canada, I think. So hello, Lynne!

I really have a great desire at the moment to meditate. Last night, I had to sit with the Domestic Bliss and watch the telly. It was quite nice. If you were asked if you'd rather become blissed, get out of your face on air, or watch the telly ... if you're a flatheid, you'd probably want to watch the telly!

It's dark when I leave the house in the morning and it's dark when I get back in. Usually, miserable, horrible Scottish weather as well. I mean, who'd want to escape that?

Today I started to dread Christmas. It's not unusual for me to start dreading Christmas about August. Last year I had two really nice evenings over the horrible holiday fortnight. I was sitting in front of the telly with the Domestic Bliss and the kiddo, the noise blockers on, the eyeballs rolled up, investigating ra bliss. Two lovely evenings in the midst of a sea of engaging with the too dumb to meditate.

The two best Christmases I've had in the last ten years have been spent down at the Samye Ling. They don't have Santa Claus. There isn't a bit of tinsel in sight. You don't have to sit drinking yourself into a stupor wishing you were anywhere else but here. Last year I told the kiddo that we could go down to the Samye this Christmas (they run a beginners course then and show films at night in the cafe!) if I had any money. What a laugh! It's really unusal for me to have money at Christmas time.

But I've got a tooth abscess (just swelling, no pain. Hurrah!), a slightly knackered shoulder and I'm at work.

On the bright side, I'm enjoying re-writing the beginning of the kidsbook and I have a dental appointment at 4:50 p.m. tonight.

It said in the papers yesterday that you don't have to go to work if you're so obese, and have trouble walking, etc. Pass the Christmas pudding, please.

Later
I spent the best part of my lunch break hiding in the toilets. Sometimes I hide in the empty lecture theatre, but it was busy today. What bliss! How unexpectedly did the heat arise! Not many folk practise vajrayana buddhism in the toilets at their work. Mostly, it'll be practised in monasteries and caves and such like, but needs must!

Let's hope the dentist reels back in horror and phones emergency services. What I need is to be surrounded by medics dressed in space suits, shaking their heads and saying: You're a carrier, Hotboy, but you have no symptoms. You'll have to stay here under observation and in isolation for the next three years. What a fortunate, fortunate creature I would be then!!!

Sunday 18 November 2007

Ra Resume

Sunday 3:20 p.m.
I heard this story once about a joe walking among the Pentland Hills, eating magic mushrooms as he went along. Then there was fog, and whizbangs, and soldiers with bayonets all over the shop. Most unsettling!

Just at the sign which tells you the Pentland Hills are an army training environment, the boy's bike saddle came to bits. Hurrah! Does this mean we can go back home, says I? So I was only out and about on the nazi bike for about two and a half hours yesterday.

I meditate in the lobby mainly because the telephone is there. About half three I checked the calls, and discovered that my friend with the clinical depression wasn't up to getting visitors to watch the footie, which started at five. He's the husband of the woman with the MS I sometimes visit. You couldn't make it up.

The call-off really cheered me up. I could listen to the radio. I didn't have to go out. I'd really like to give up being concerned with the footie, but the Dom Bliss intervened and I, feeling doomed, went to see the footie elsewhere.... so I got a carry-out, smoked fags, and ended up eating a steak later on in a restaurant which probably didn't have a vegetarian option.

All that and a dose of the spongiform as well!

I've been meditating with breaks in the lobby since half eleven today. Thank God that I've run out of overdraft and won't have any money to waste till I get paid again!

Thursday 15 November 2007

Ra Best Laid Plans!

Thursday 10:00 p.m.
Two and a half hours of verbals in Bellshill today. The big sister was there, so there was no blissing out at the foot of the auld maw's bed. Two and a half hours of diseases, and calamities befalling people ... the awfulness that can occur in the ... grief, sorrow, lamentations ... suffering in this life! Dearie, dearie me. Phenomena are empty of existing in the manner of their appearance except in Bellshill. I can't say: I don't believe in anything! I don't believe in anything at all! Well, I can, and I do, but it just makes me seem a bit strange.

Tomorrow I'll have to take to the hut. I have won the day.

Wednesday 14 November 2007

Ris Wonderful Life!

Wednesday 11:22 a.m.
Whilst awaiting for my wonderful jobbie share partner to come and set me free!

I'm back, Jack! I'm well back in the game! No booze or nicotine since Saturday and I can feel the serenity, the equanimity begin to shine through ra bliss! Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss! You just close your eyes today and there it is: The great arisings and the great flowings of ra bliss!

Ringu Tulku said it was easy to open the channels, but you have to be careful to do things in their right order, or there might be difficulties closing them again. Tsongkhapa says in The Book Of the Three Inspirations that if you haven't got a clear view of the red, white and blue channels .... well, you're going to hell, Jack. No, it's not me, Hotboy! I'm a spam robot. It's you! It's you! It's you!

Bugger it! This afternoon I'm going to give it the gun! Pedal to the floor! Set your controls for the heart of the sun!

Hopefully, this will take place in my hut. It will grow dark. I will set fire to a week's supply of newspapers and watch them burn. On this day of days, there is no more fortunate creature in this wonderful, beautiful city than moi!!

If you were to ask yourself, dear reader, why you cannot go like Hotboy into a cold, dingy allotment hut and have the time of your life .... lay off the flatheids, Hotboy! Some cats got it and some cats aint!

Tuesday 13 November 2007

Ra Work!

Tuesday!
I've just had a message saying I'll be getting a package from my agent with a copy of the kidsbook with a lot of red ink all over it. The man thought the first couple of chapters were particularly awful, so I'll have to drop the re-writing of The Real McCoy and get on with that.

Some writer told a bunch of kids once that being a writer was like having to do homework for the rest of your life. It would be better than working for a living. I suppose I should be glad to contribute. I suppose I should be grateful that I only have to work for two and a half days a week. But I'd be very happy not working at all, especially since today I now feel fully recovered from the pollutions I was able to afford at the weekend due to having a half time jobbie. No beer or nicotine since Saturday. Wouldn't it be nice if I could have sat in the lobby and meditated all day today. What a time I would have had!!

Saturday 10 November 2007

Ranother Saturday Night!

Saturday 6:40 p.m.
The Domestic Bliss is away this weekend. After Brian Wilson has resurrected himself from the couch this morning and set off back to his castle in Portobello, there was a bottle of Budvar and two glasses left in a bottle of Plonko Collapso. There was also three fags left from the ten I'd bought to roll joints, now that I'm a nicotine addict again. So I started the day with a couple of glasses of wine, a bottle of Budvar, and a couple of joints. What a fortunate creature I am, I am! What a fortunate creature I am! Then I read the paper and had a wee snooze.

I think I might have been overdoing the self-mortification and asceticism lately.

So I didn't start meditating today till half four. What amazing amounts of ra bliss! How stunning it was! While I was engaging with this degenerate age, it seems to have continued with developments regardless. It just amazed me again. How could there be so much bliss? No wonder you can't get these yogi joes out of their caves! I mean, I can't even do this juju!

Thursday 8 November 2007

Ra Highlights!

Thursday 2:42 p.m.
When I was meditating down at the Samye Ling last summer, one time I got an image of the lama in front of me, asking me if I couldn't just be happy being there. I was trying and hoping, I suppose, and it wasn't working whatever it was. I've been using this image and admonition a lot recently. I really don't need anything else to make me happy than I have just now. Contentment coming through from the meditations is very welcome, at any time.

Recent highlights: 1) After having a great visit to Bellshill on Saturday, when I got home I did fifty yogic jumpings; the two kinds of sun salutations I know. The Iyengar sun salutations are brutal. Before I started them, I ate a bit of cannybliss yogurt. I spent two hours in the bath afterwards. What a wonderful time I had in there! First you're doing ra bliss and combining it was the exhaustion. Then the cannybliss comes on. I gives you a chance to daydream. I was daydreaming about emptiness, and doing ra bliss, and drifting off into snoozes, and coming out in ra bliss!

2) I got a visit at the jobbie from the josephine I was really horrible to about eighteen months ago, but all the anger and frustration I've had with this jobbie had almost entirely dissapated. These are all ego and false sense of self generations. So I was dead calm and very nice to her. I left the jobbie yesterday feeling better than I can remember. Everything seems to have moved up and on.

3) After dozing off for an hour on the couch, I went up to meditate in the hut. It wasn't that cold. I was in the hut from half three till six. So it's dark when you get out. You can see through the trees again at the castle lit up on the skyline.

4) This morning I was sitting with our friend with the MS. She said she wanted to read the paper and I sat there meditating for close on two hours; the eyeballs sometimes rolled up, the woiks. The flatheids never see me like that. What a great time I had!


It's very hard to see how I could be having a better life right now. In fact, it's hard to see how anyone could be having a better life right now.

Monday 5 November 2007

Ra New Developments!

Monday 8:10 p.m.
You just close your eyes and the sheath/envelope becomes fuller and is caressed by ra bliss!

Things have moved on a little bit again, Jack, and I just thought I'd better let you know. But it's so hard to describe it. Regularly, I tell the other person living here that there have been developments with ra bliss, but I can't really say how that can be so. I've experienced the kind of bliss I'm getting when I close my eyes just now, but it's never been so consistent, or felt so easily accessible.

I think the winds are supposed to enter the central channel, become stable, then dissolve. As they dissolve, you get the four blisses and the simulation of death. Or maybe it's life, Jack, but not as we know it.

Sometimes I feel so happy to be doing this juju, the great vajrayana. I'm in my mid-fifties. What else could give me experiences like this? The sweetie eaters, those Evolutionary Tails, them Prehensiles .... fancy missing ra bliss! It's amazing there's all this bliss in a world full of the too dumb to meditate. Human beingness is completely wasted on flatheids, so it is!

Saturday 3 November 2007

Ra Not Django Rhinehart!

Saturday 00:15 a.m.
I bought a guitar once - a copy of a Humingbird - about 1975, when I got a tax rebate. The only new guitar I ever bought. A thing of beauty. The Domestic Bliss stalked it everywhere, and knocked it over, and dropped it, and finally killed it circa 1993. Better than the executioneer's axe, it fell perfectly onto an edge and the head flew off it. Hmmm. If I had put that guitar on a guitar stand in the middle of Hampden Park and let her loose in the blindfold without telling her about the guitar being there, she'd have gone to it like a homing pigeon and knocked it over.


I cannabilised a part from what was left of it last night to fix the guitar I use just now and, instead of putting it back on top of the cupboard, I decided to burn it up the allotment.


The train to Bellshill was cancelled today so I was meditating for a couple of hours up the allotment this afternoon. As it was getting dark I rolled up, twisted and knotted two plastic bags fulls of newspapers, and then put the guitar on top of that to stare into the flames, the fabulous flames.


I started to learn how to play the guitar when I was twenty one and staying in a room in a student house with a very good guitar player. I couldn't tune it. I have no musical ability at all; my sense of pitch is lousy.


In those days I knew that all drugs were bad and when anyone ever offerred me one of those funny smelling cigarettes, I always said no in case I immediately came down with the schizophrenia. However, I was lying in the dark somehow, probably having succumbed to the dense, smokey atmosphere the progeny of the evil bourgeois used to inflict on me, when I heard Albert the Bavarian picking out a tune on the guitar I had then.


If I'd known he was gay at the time, I don't think I'd have felt safe wtih just him in the room, in the dark, as he picked out the Hall of the Mountain King by Peter the Gynt. I asked him if he'd ever played the guitar before and he said no, this was the first time. Amazing musical ability really, it seemed to me especially since I don't think I'd even heard of Peter the Gynt.


Only when reading his bloggie thirty five years later do I discover than, in fact, he was ukelele maestro from an early age. I mean, it's lying really by default sort of, but I can understand why he did not want to admit the bit about the ukelele. Because it might not have seemed all that cool at the time.


I use the start of the Hall of the Mountain King to see how out of tune my guitar still is to this very day. He must have shown it to me.


The cannybliss yogurt delivery man came half way through this post. What a nice man! Bring on the dancing girls!

Thursday 1 November 2007

Ra Clear Horizons!

Thursday 11:05 a.m.
Fair play to the jobbie-men for at last they've done something right! What an amazement! Partly due to this, I left the jobbie yesterday, after my half a day working week was over, feeling most exhilerated. Trying to realise non-self and emptiness is, of course, a full time job and I shouldn't really be doing anything else. An exhausting half a day it was too, but I felt great again after I had a wee lie down!

I can feel the happiness starting to shine through. I haven't had any beer or cannybliss yogurt since Sunday and, although that's supposed to be par for the course for most evil bourgeois basturns, it's still quite a stretch for me these days. A friend of mine once met a gurl, got engaged, and split up over an eighteen month period without ever having been with her when he was straight. I mean, that's normal, isn't it?

That description of reality/emptiness from Tsongkhapa given in the last post probably comes, more or less, from Nagarjuna, the Indian sage. I assume both these joes were fully realised buddhas. They're trying to describe reality for flatheids like me and you as a help to judder our minds into a better, newer way of thinking. What I mean is that I don't think this stuff starts with the descriptive thoughts. It's coming backwards, as it were, from the realisation. My guru told me once I'd get everything from the straightforward calming meditations, but I didn't listen to that of course. But I find that the descriptions of what emptiness might be does help me.

The meditations power on and the next few days might well be fantastic. I hope so.

3:45 p.m.
What a great day I'm having! At one o clock I was doing some sitting with our friend with the MS so her husband could go a message. What a great big smile she gave me! I asked her if she felt she was becoming intellectually impaired. Let's be frank. Some folk told me she was becoming doo-lally. She can't speak much, but she can still speak much better than my sister (who had the other type of MS) could speak. For years nobody could understand a word my sister was trying to say except us family members who'd listened while her language deteriorated. Nobody in our house ever thought the MS was making her any stupider. So I asked our friend with the MS if she could still follow a radio play or something on the telly. She said yes; she liked listening to radio plays. She thought her mind was fine. She gets tired. She can't speak properly. I asked if she wanted me to shut up, so she could listen to the radio, or would she like to hear about the three turnings of the wheel of dharma? She asked for the dharma.

It might have been at least as good for me as it was for her. Trying to tell someone something is one of the best ways of remembering and learning it yourself. It lasted about an hour and just at the end, the doorbell rang and the carers showed up to do the caring. Then her husband came back just as they were leaving. I cycled home. Whee!

Then I came in here to do some re-writing of The Real McCoy. I did about an hour on it last week. Last night I decided the introduction to Angus McSorley was really appalling bad and would have to be completely re-written. The character had no fung character! Anyway, I've just had a great idea on how to change the story and make it much better. Something just fired my rockets!

Where do you get your ideas from, Hotboy? I get them from thinking, Jack! Where the fung else would I get them from? They arise in mind; abide in mind; decline in mind!! I'm having a great life, so I am! What more could a body ask for? Oh, yes, I'm quite exhausted now after writing my novel for half an hour and I think it's best if I go for a wee snooze!