Ra Refuge Anniversary!

1:26 a.m.
On the 3rd of January, 2003 I took refuge with Lama Yeshe Losal, the abbot of the Samye Ling, and became a buddhist. What a wonderful Christmas and New Year I had then!

I received an empowerment the first time I was in the temple listening to a talk from the lama. The temple looks at its best on wintery nights. It's glowing in golden and red and yellow and brown. I'd written to them saying I wanted to take refuge so I could get an empowerment to do deity yoga. So I'm sitting in the temple with a couple of hundred other people and the lama is at the front on his high seat and he's talking about anything that comes into his head, as he seems to do sometimes. Most of the audience were there for a Christmas break doing a course for beginners.

Then the hair on the back of your neck kind of stands up when he starts to say: This is an empowerment to do deity yoga. He says pretend he's holding up this white globe and certain colours come out of it and into different bits of your body, etc. I couldn't believe I'd heard him say that. I looked around at the other punters and really wondered if they were hearing the same talk as I was. But that was great.

I think it was on the 4th of April when I had my first inner heat experience. That was a shocker at the time. Could hardly believe what had happened. Nowadays I think that experience might have been called a kriya or something; a cleansing: a quick roasting along the tubes.

My progress has been bloody slow, Jack. So it has! That's nearly five years ago. Dearie, dearie me! You'd have to live as long as Methuselah at this rate!

I'm not addicted to nicotine or alcohol anymore, but I'm becoming addicted to digging. How else to explain today's behaviour? It was dead cold so I spent the most of the morning meditating in the lobby. Then it started to snow quite heavily. After lunch, I sat at the kitchen window. You can see down onto some rooftops and there's a cricket ground over to your right. A great view for a blizzard. You fix your eyes on something on the roofs below and stay there until the snow goes off about an hour later.

The snow isn't melting. It's lying all around as I start digging. As long as the ground isn't frozen. You've to take your tammy off even if you've had a baldy because of the sweat lashing out your head. You're down to your shirt sleeves and it's kind of envigoratingly cold, but you're kind of hot at the same time from all the panting and sweating. Then it started snowing again and I went into the hut to stare at the candle. The breath was steaming in the cold air. Sitting in the hut might have been a mistake.

I seem to have an infection in my lungs. I can't go to see the auld maw tomorrow if I've got an infection in my lungs. I might have read that raising inner heat, ra tummo, might be good for your defences against bugs since going into a bit of a fever might be what your body does to fight bugs anyway.

Anyway, instead of going to sleep, I sat up in bed and did some vase breathing. In fact, I think I'll stop and do a couple just now. ... the heat thing worked much better than it's ever done!

Just when you get used to something, it turns weird on you again, Jack. You are asking for it, Hotboy. Now, you take a breath and hold it in, squeeze down while lifting and dipping your chin . . still holding . . so maybe half a minute or so .... close your eyes ... exhale ........ HAS THERE EVER BEEN ANYTHING ON THIS SWEET EARTH THAT HAS EVER FELT AS FABULOSO AS THAT?

St John of the Cross said you had to empty the soul of self and fill it with God. So I'm thinking he's a yogi anyway. Then he says that the soul has senses and faculties. (Well, it has to know it's dead, I suppose!) This is very close to the descriptions of whatever leaves your body with the Tibetans. Hmmm? It seems it can be extremely terrifying when your dead so you're probably just better being dead when your dead.

The vase breathing has done bugger all for my disease of course.