Friday 9:30 p.m.
Well, I managed till 9 p.m. That's got to be eight hours today anyway. What did I do today? Read a paper, a wee bit oftai chi, and meditated. Around nine I could have done with a magic giant of the juju to materialise in the lobby and hit me on the top of the head with a great big pit boot. Then I might have been totally zonked with ra bliss, unable to breathe, move or anything. Only complete paralysis would have kept me from the off-license! Tonight's dose is four bottles of Baltika, weighing in at 5.1%, and £5:67.
Ra breathe sheath is still trying to kick in, Jack! What an idiot you are,Hotboy! White sticky bliss, bodylessness and ra heat coming on and what do you do? Get up and go to the fung off-license!
Ra bliss seems to go into overdrive from about eight o clock at night. This is most inconvenient. I don't know if the meditations in the afternoon can be less valuable. If you're doing calming meditations, it shouldn't matter what time of day it is, you wouldn't think. The more you do them, the more calm your mind should get, so that by the evening .... pretty calm. Some people say it's best at dawn and dusk. Four till six in the morning, I've heard. I reckon it's all practise, like money in the bank. For the yajrayanistas, I think in the lama's book he says the fire element is low in the afternoon and you might not get many realisations then ..... what does that mean, Jack? What is a fire element? What is inner heat, Hotboy? For some reason you get warmer then maybe. In the evening. Well, it would be handy because as we evolved we maybe noticed that it was colder then. Who knows?
Revelations. This is a revelation for Andrew. After the necessary.
Alexandra David-Neel said that she thought after a while the adepts who could do the inner heat juju, these joes who were wandering around the subzeros in their underpants, had somehow hotwired their body temperature system so that the outside and the inside balanced. Like, automatically you're not too hot and not too cold. What a wonderful gift that is! I love this juju! I really do!
I have to pay off my credit card debt before the summer comes. Then I have six weeks holiday. Plans, plans. I'd like to divide my holidays up with four days camping at the Samye Ling and three days back here. After this I think I might have a chance of not doing any bad things for a while. Purification and accumulation.
All I have to do is stop drinking beer. Oh, there's nothing so lonesome, lonely and queer! What a terrible place is a pub with no beer!
A little later. Yes, the revelation, Andrew, was that there must be something in you that can be in harmony like this with the outside environment. Are there not some animals that perhaps do not feel the cold? Do whales feel the cold? Equilibrium.
Friday, 29 February 2008
Ra Flatheidless Zone!
Friday 1:50 p.m.
I'm not going to Bellshill to see the auld maw today. And there's nobody here, Jack. I'm all on my own until tomorrow. Hmmm? Had three fantastic hours in the lobby already and today's task is to be good for as long as possible. Ra bliss has been engaged with for over three hours today already. Fabulous bliss built on from meditating practically all day yesterday. Hmmm? I wouldn't mind being bad since I got paid this week, but .... we'll see!
I'm not going to Bellshill to see the auld maw today. And there's nobody here, Jack. I'm all on my own until tomorrow. Hmmm? Had three fantastic hours in the lobby already and today's task is to be good for as long as possible. Ra bliss has been engaged with for over three hours today already. Fabulous bliss built on from meditating practically all day yesterday. Hmmm? I wouldn't mind being bad since I got paid this week, but .... we'll see!
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Ra Samadhi
Thursday 1:55 p.m.
This is from Wikipedia: "In Nirvikalpa Samadhi, all attachment to the material world and all karma is dissolved. All awareness is withdrawn step by step from the physical, astral and causal bodies until self-realization or oneness with the soul is achieved. During this process, breathing ceases and the heart stops beating. Aware and fully conscious oneness with soul is then achieved in a most loving way, and all cells of the physical body are flooded with the Ocean of Divine Love and Divine Bliss for any period of duration—hours, days, weeks, until the individual shifts his awareness from the soul back to the physical body. "
As the juju process gallops along .... I mean, every blinking week, Jack, it seems to take a jump forward and sometimes one wonders where it is all going to end. So I was reading this stuff about enlightenment experiences off the net, and this joe is going on about getting into this nirvikalpa samadhi. The boy seems to be pretty dead really except this other joe recognises what's going on ...
This nirvikalpa samadhi seems to be what Naropa was after when he was following around after Tilopa a thousande years ago at the start of this Tibetan juju. Tilopa hit Naropa on the head with a shoe, I think, and that was that. Maybe days later the boy's still stunned into immobility by ra bliss. I think the guy in the story I was reading got hit on his third eye spot with a stone chucked by his guru. Anyway ...
So the joe in the story goes into nirvikalpa samadhi and maybe folk think he's dead. If you're not breathing and have no heartbeat people might be forgiven for thinking you're dead. But his pal knows he's not dead and occasionally hits him with a big stick until consciousness returns sufficiently so that the yogi can take some food. I assume his pal was also cleaning up the shit and piss, but this is less clear.
When masters of this juju die, they are supposed to go into an intermediate state for a couple of days when they appear to be dead, but rigor mortis doesn't set in. This must be similar to nirvikalpa samadhi. Paramahansa Yogananda said your guru was useless unless he could do this ... go instantly breathless. So it looks like it's something you can get some control of.
If something like this were to happen to moi whilst surrounded as I am by flatheids ... it doesn't bear thinking about.
Been a great morning for ra bliss. Must go back into the lobby now.
This is from Wikipedia: "In Nirvikalpa Samadhi, all attachment to the material world and all karma is dissolved. All awareness is withdrawn step by step from the physical, astral and causal bodies until self-realization or oneness with the soul is achieved. During this process, breathing ceases and the heart stops beating. Aware and fully conscious oneness with soul is then achieved in a most loving way, and all cells of the physical body are flooded with the Ocean of Divine Love and Divine Bliss for any period of duration—hours, days, weeks, until the individual shifts his awareness from the soul back to the physical body. "
As the juju process gallops along .... I mean, every blinking week, Jack, it seems to take a jump forward and sometimes one wonders where it is all going to end. So I was reading this stuff about enlightenment experiences off the net, and this joe is going on about getting into this nirvikalpa samadhi. The boy seems to be pretty dead really except this other joe recognises what's going on ...
This nirvikalpa samadhi seems to be what Naropa was after when he was following around after Tilopa a thousande years ago at the start of this Tibetan juju. Tilopa hit Naropa on the head with a shoe, I think, and that was that. Maybe days later the boy's still stunned into immobility by ra bliss. I think the guy in the story I was reading got hit on his third eye spot with a stone chucked by his guru. Anyway ...
So the joe in the story goes into nirvikalpa samadhi and maybe folk think he's dead. If you're not breathing and have no heartbeat people might be forgiven for thinking you're dead. But his pal knows he's not dead and occasionally hits him with a big stick until consciousness returns sufficiently so that the yogi can take some food. I assume his pal was also cleaning up the shit and piss, but this is less clear.
When masters of this juju die, they are supposed to go into an intermediate state for a couple of days when they appear to be dead, but rigor mortis doesn't set in. This must be similar to nirvikalpa samadhi. Paramahansa Yogananda said your guru was useless unless he could do this ... go instantly breathless. So it looks like it's something you can get some control of.
If something like this were to happen to moi whilst surrounded as I am by flatheids ... it doesn't bear thinking about.
Been a great morning for ra bliss. Must go back into the lobby now.
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Ra Tilda Swinton
Tilda Swinton came climbing up the banked seats at the old Traverse towards where I was sitting, trailed by her boyfriend. It was a bit late on and she stretched out on the seats beside me maybe hoping for a wee rest. It was one of those brilliant after hours parties Jenny Killick put on while she was Artistic Director. Being pop eyed on speed, I tapped the future Academy Award winner's foot and proceeded to tell her what I thought of her acting performances. It was probably about 1984 or thereabouts.
She'd acted in several plays by then after coming up from Cambridge University with Jenny Killick, Peter Arnott, and some others. In a play by Peter Arnott, called White Rose, about women flying planes for Russia against the Nazis, she had been brilliant. She later brought a one woman show to the Traverse about a woman pretending to be a man in inter-war Germany. She was brilliant in that as well.
Great to see her picking up the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress the other night. No crying either! Gone yoursel', hen!
She'd acted in several plays by then after coming up from Cambridge University with Jenny Killick, Peter Arnott, and some others. In a play by Peter Arnott, called White Rose, about women flying planes for Russia against the Nazis, she had been brilliant. She later brought a one woman show to the Traverse about a woman pretending to be a man in inter-war Germany. She was brilliant in that as well.
Great to see her picking up the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress the other night. No crying either! Gone yoursel', hen!
Monday, 25 February 2008
Ra Rebel!
My brother Grizzly liked dogs and poaching with tinkers. I think we had a succession of 15 lurchers in my house when I was a kid, but the first one and the last one was called Rebel.
The last Rebel stayed with us from the time it was bought from an advert in The Exchange and Mart until I buried it with my wee brother down the back garden one wet and stormy night about 12 or 13 years later. When the dog was still young, my brother went off to Birmingham to work for a while on the building sites and stopped running around with the tinkers then.
We had a big back garden. Right at the bottom of it, my brother had built a huge kennel, like one you could stand up straight in until you were a teenager. There was a mattress inside it. Tarpaulin lined the outside walls and the inside walls and the roof. When my brother went to Birmingham, the place became completely infested with fleas.
We knew there was a lot of fleas on the dog at this time. My wee brother and me used to get stopped by dog fanciers wherever we went, and they would sometimes pat the dog, and we would try not to snigger.
It was thought that the fleas might have come from hares and rabbits the dog had once caught. But they loved the mattress and the hut must have been some kind of flea heaven because you could see them jumping all over the shop just by peeking in.
The dog didn't scratch much, so I thought the fleas might not have been bothering it too much. Then one day when I went down to the kennel, the dog stepped out of the hut and said: Hotboy, you are going to have to do something about the fleas!
I must have been about nine or ten, or maybe a little older. My wee brother was nearly three years younger than me, but it was us who went down the back garden one dark night and dragged the mattress out of the hut and onto the grass in front of it. We set the mattress on fire. What a sight! Millions of fleas leaping everywhere.
When we got back to the kitchen, my maw told us to get into the bathroom and get stripped off and into the bath. So I'm sitting in the bath with my wee brother and we're watching the fleas pinging here and there all over the bathroom, hundreds of them peppering the walls.
The auld maw didn't bat an eyelid about the state we were in. Boys among the heroic working class of Bonnie Scotland were expected to get covered in muck and scabs and fall out of trees. This is in marked contrast to the progeny of the evil bourgeois who were always polishing their shoes and marching up and down.... by the left ... def dight, def dight, def dight! And wasn't it always thus!
The last Rebel stayed with us from the time it was bought from an advert in The Exchange and Mart until I buried it with my wee brother down the back garden one wet and stormy night about 12 or 13 years later. When the dog was still young, my brother went off to Birmingham to work for a while on the building sites and stopped running around with the tinkers then.
We had a big back garden. Right at the bottom of it, my brother had built a huge kennel, like one you could stand up straight in until you were a teenager. There was a mattress inside it. Tarpaulin lined the outside walls and the inside walls and the roof. When my brother went to Birmingham, the place became completely infested with fleas.
We knew there was a lot of fleas on the dog at this time. My wee brother and me used to get stopped by dog fanciers wherever we went, and they would sometimes pat the dog, and we would try not to snigger.
It was thought that the fleas might have come from hares and rabbits the dog had once caught. But they loved the mattress and the hut must have been some kind of flea heaven because you could see them jumping all over the shop just by peeking in.
The dog didn't scratch much, so I thought the fleas might not have been bothering it too much. Then one day when I went down to the kennel, the dog stepped out of the hut and said: Hotboy, you are going to have to do something about the fleas!
I must have been about nine or ten, or maybe a little older. My wee brother was nearly three years younger than me, but it was us who went down the back garden one dark night and dragged the mattress out of the hut and onto the grass in front of it. We set the mattress on fire. What a sight! Millions of fleas leaping everywhere.
When we got back to the kitchen, my maw told us to get into the bathroom and get stripped off and into the bath. So I'm sitting in the bath with my wee brother and we're watching the fleas pinging here and there all over the bathroom, hundreds of them peppering the walls.
The auld maw didn't bat an eyelid about the state we were in. Boys among the heroic working class of Bonnie Scotland were expected to get covered in muck and scabs and fall out of trees. This is in marked contrast to the progeny of the evil bourgeois who were always polishing their shoes and marching up and down.... by the left ... def dight, def dight, def dight! And wasn't it always thus!
Sunday, 24 February 2008
Ra Hobbies!
Sunday 2:23 p.m.
Men need hobbies so they can find a safe environment to discuss stuff with other men. For instance, once I was asked if I'd like to join with some joes in flying about remote controlled model aeroplanes when I was doing some research on how to blow folk up. Or you could go fishing together, something like that. A hobby or some other common interest.
Poisonous told me once that he thought people who had hobbies were sad basturns, so yesterday, lacking a common hobby, we found ourselves boozing in the Cumberland Bar. I really shouldn't walk out the door. Binge drinking in the most popular hobby among the folk I know. And being skint doesn't help. I only had six quid left till payday and Poisonous went teetotal after those times when he got lost, but none of it mattered. Caledonian 80 Shilling. Very good indeed.
No smoking though and early to bed. So I'm lying in bed this morning doing this yoga nidra stuff and thinking how wonderful ra bliss is and how I don't deserve all this bliss when I'm such a poor advert for the juju.
I suppose you could say in the physical sheath one is stumblebumming all over the shop, careering from one open grave to the next, while in the breath sheath things are still remorselessly heading for glory. Today the meditations have been fantastic and they were yesterday as well. I wish I could adequately describe ra blissinesses, but as the boy said:
'For only he who passes this way can understand it, and even he cannot describe it.' St John of the Cross. The Wall.
Men need hobbies so they can find a safe environment to discuss stuff with other men. For instance, once I was asked if I'd like to join with some joes in flying about remote controlled model aeroplanes when I was doing some research on how to blow folk up. Or you could go fishing together, something like that. A hobby or some other common interest.
Poisonous told me once that he thought people who had hobbies were sad basturns, so yesterday, lacking a common hobby, we found ourselves boozing in the Cumberland Bar. I really shouldn't walk out the door. Binge drinking in the most popular hobby among the folk I know. And being skint doesn't help. I only had six quid left till payday and Poisonous went teetotal after those times when he got lost, but none of it mattered. Caledonian 80 Shilling. Very good indeed.
No smoking though and early to bed. So I'm lying in bed this morning doing this yoga nidra stuff and thinking how wonderful ra bliss is and how I don't deserve all this bliss when I'm such a poor advert for the juju.
I suppose you could say in the physical sheath one is stumblebumming all over the shop, careering from one open grave to the next, while in the breath sheath things are still remorselessly heading for glory. Today the meditations have been fantastic and they were yesterday as well. I wish I could adequately describe ra blissinesses, but as the boy said:
'For only he who passes this way can understand it, and even he cannot describe it.' St John of the Cross. The Wall.
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Ra Second Time I got Arrested!
Wednesday 10:07 p.m.
This post is for Ion.
It was about the Christmas holidays in 1969. My girlfriend had just packed me in. She was the best friend of the girl in the back seat of the motor who was with my best pal, Tony. The three of us were pretty drunk, having been scooping up in the Derby Inn in Mossend before the designated driver was taking us back to Renfrew to drop the girl.
Naivety, naivety, naivety!
Before I'd gone out, I was with Mrs Boyd. She said watch yourself in Glasgow. Several policemen had been shot by an ex-policeman that day after a bank robbery.
The girl was hustling my friend to get engaged. I was sitting in the front seat laughing like a drain. I started singing The Bladden Races in the front of the motor.
It's the usual horrible wintery night in Glasgow with the dark and the damp and the desolate emptyish streets. Then this Jaguar comes screaming passed the front of motor and cuts us off. Suddenly everything had turned a bit surreal. So I stumblebums out the motor and looks down through this tunnel and there are pigs everywhere. Like, five polis coming down one side of the street, five on the other. So they arrive on us, pigs piling out this jaguar. I'm thrown up against this wall with my chummie Tony thrown against the wall beside me.
Then I'm standing there with the fat florid Glesga cop in my face arresting me for breach of the peace.
So we pled not guilty. Tony got off . I said I was singing. He wasn't. He was trying not to get engaged in the back of the motor.
I can't remember what I got fined. Maybe fifteen quid. We'd driven straight passed the end of the road where the poor folk got shootied, unbeknownst to us. Anyway, that's one count of malicious damage and one of breach of the peace so far. I think confession is good for the soul. If I could be bothered, I'd tell you about the scenes in the court. Also, folk from my background have to get arrested. There are five brothers in my family. We have all been arrested.
This post is for Ion.
It was about the Christmas holidays in 1969. My girlfriend had just packed me in. She was the best friend of the girl in the back seat of the motor who was with my best pal, Tony. The three of us were pretty drunk, having been scooping up in the Derby Inn in Mossend before the designated driver was taking us back to Renfrew to drop the girl.
Naivety, naivety, naivety!
Before I'd gone out, I was with Mrs Boyd. She said watch yourself in Glasgow. Several policemen had been shot by an ex-policeman that day after a bank robbery.
The girl was hustling my friend to get engaged. I was sitting in the front seat laughing like a drain. I started singing The Bladden Races in the front of the motor.
It's the usual horrible wintery night in Glasgow with the dark and the damp and the desolate emptyish streets. Then this Jaguar comes screaming passed the front of motor and cuts us off. Suddenly everything had turned a bit surreal. So I stumblebums out the motor and looks down through this tunnel and there are pigs everywhere. Like, five polis coming down one side of the street, five on the other. So they arrive on us, pigs piling out this jaguar. I'm thrown up against this wall with my chummie Tony thrown against the wall beside me.
Then I'm standing there with the fat florid Glesga cop in my face arresting me for breach of the peace.
So we pled not guilty. Tony got off . I said I was singing. He wasn't. He was trying not to get engaged in the back of the motor.
I can't remember what I got fined. Maybe fifteen quid. We'd driven straight passed the end of the road where the poor folk got shootied, unbeknownst to us. Anyway, that's one count of malicious damage and one of breach of the peace so far. I think confession is good for the soul. If I could be bothered, I'd tell you about the scenes in the court. Also, folk from my background have to get arrested. There are five brothers in my family. We have all been arrested.
Monday, 18 February 2008
Ra Sheaths!
I am Hotboy. I come from Bellshill.
That's where I found this booklet on Friday. God knows where it came from. It's by Sri Swami Satchidananda who invented Integral Yoga. I read a book by him about this once and was most impressed. But the booklet was like a wonderful hidden gift. It was at the back of something now long gone and no one really knew how it got into the house.
'Quite other than this physical sheath which consists of food and interior to it is the energy sheath that consists of breath. This is encased in the physical sheath ....' Taittiriya Upansishad.
From the booklet: The Breath of Life. 'Yoga texts describe five bodies or sheaths through which the human being functions. These are known as 'koshas' and include the body of physical elements, the vital body, the mental body, the intellectual body and the bliss body. Yoga practise leads the student from the grosser levels (i.e. physical body) up through the more subtle levels until bliss is reached.'
Well, there it is. Until the kiddo showed up with her boyfriend for a meal around seven last night, I spent most of the day meditating. I wondered if I had ever had more bliss. I was amazed again, Jack. I was a bit amazed again this morning. That's why I'm writing this post. To tell you how amazed I am. Looks from here that the 'energy sheath that consists of breath' is the one you want to play in. Soon I'll start being good and then we'll see what happens!
That's where I found this booklet on Friday. God knows where it came from. It's by Sri Swami Satchidananda who invented Integral Yoga. I read a book by him about this once and was most impressed. But the booklet was like a wonderful hidden gift. It was at the back of something now long gone and no one really knew how it got into the house.
'Quite other than this physical sheath which consists of food and interior to it is the energy sheath that consists of breath. This is encased in the physical sheath ....' Taittiriya Upansishad.
From the booklet: The Breath of Life. 'Yoga texts describe five bodies or sheaths through which the human being functions. These are known as 'koshas' and include the body of physical elements, the vital body, the mental body, the intellectual body and the bliss body. Yoga practise leads the student from the grosser levels (i.e. physical body) up through the more subtle levels until bliss is reached.'
Well, there it is. Until the kiddo showed up with her boyfriend for a meal around seven last night, I spent most of the day meditating. I wondered if I had ever had more bliss. I was amazed again, Jack. I was a bit amazed again this morning. That's why I'm writing this post. To tell you how amazed I am. Looks from here that the 'energy sheath that consists of breath' is the one you want to play in. Soon I'll start being good and then we'll see what happens!
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Ra Coup!
Saturday 20:47 p.m.
Hotboy Madyamika S.O.B. today succumbed to schizophrenia while watching some lucky basturn smoking skunk on the telly and this bloggie is now being written by me, Grey Wolf. I come from the Happy Hunting Ground.
My church is the Disbelieving Congregation of Christ the Buddhist. Whereas Hotboy might have said that bliss was there for everyone, somehow hard wired into the whole caboodle, now it comes from me. You don't get into bliss unless you get it through me. I'll tell you what to do and when to do it. If you don't do everything I say, you will get chucked out of the church and go to hell.
The great selling point of this church is that you don't have to believe anything, or you can believe whatever you like.
How easily one slips into the third person!
Grey Wolf says there has to be a change of festivals. No more Valentine's Day, or birthdays, or Christmas, or Mother's Day, or Father's Day, or wedding anniversaries for you sad basturns who ever got married. We'll go back to feast days. Saturnalia. Like anything goes days. Also, you can't become pregnant from one sexual encounter, it takes months. Children are everyone's responsibility. The state isn't there to stop you getting out of your face.
This is also the start of my bid to become the President of Europe. Grey Wolf for Pres. Vote for Disbelief!
Hotboy Madyamika S.O.B. today succumbed to schizophrenia while watching some lucky basturn smoking skunk on the telly and this bloggie is now being written by me, Grey Wolf. I come from the Happy Hunting Ground.
My church is the Disbelieving Congregation of Christ the Buddhist. Whereas Hotboy might have said that bliss was there for everyone, somehow hard wired into the whole caboodle, now it comes from me. You don't get into bliss unless you get it through me. I'll tell you what to do and when to do it. If you don't do everything I say, you will get chucked out of the church and go to hell.
The great selling point of this church is that you don't have to believe anything, or you can believe whatever you like.
How easily one slips into the third person!
Grey Wolf says there has to be a change of festivals. No more Valentine's Day, or birthdays, or Christmas, or Mother's Day, or Father's Day, or wedding anniversaries for you sad basturns who ever got married. We'll go back to feast days. Saturnalia. Like anything goes days. Also, you can't become pregnant from one sexual encounter, it takes months. Children are everyone's responsibility. The state isn't there to stop you getting out of your face.
This is also the start of my bid to become the President of Europe. Grey Wolf for Pres. Vote for Disbelief!
Friday, 15 February 2008
Ra Breidheid!
Friday 9:36 p.m.
A man (the fourth one!) finally fixed our cooker on Wednesday. The oven has been out of action for nearly two months and this is the longest time I can remember going without home made bread for about thirty years.
Even when I was in Australia during the eyeball bulging hot days, I still made my own bread.
This didn't start as some quaint hippy notion like spinning your own wool or something like that ... I started making bread when I was 26 years old because I was on the dole. Make bread, thinks I. It must be cheap. It's called the staff of life by someone so it's probably good for you as well, or at least could help you live on ...the ... breadline.
The Roman army marched on bread.
Water, teaspoon of salt, dried yeast, touch of sugar, wholemeal. Nothing else.
There should be German rules about bread. They have them for beer. This is the best law ever. There's only about five things you can put in kraut beer. Erdinger, a weissbier, has as ingredients: water, wheatmalt, barleymalt, hops, yeast. I'm on my second one at the moment and can heartily vouch for this product.
In the paper today there was a story about some unfortunate swans. They've got the swan equivalent of ricketts, which was a disease of malnourishment prevalent in the slums of Chilly Jockoland in the 1920s and 30s. The guardians of the swans have asked the humans to stop feeding the swans white bread and to switch to brown bread since there is no nourishment in the white bread, or not much.
The white bread is like candy floss. I used to love it. Once it was regarded as much better, kind of posh. Refined. Anyway, it's rubbish. Brown bread as you buy it in the shops is also rubbish. Anyone who has ever made bread might have a problem even thinking of these things as being bread.
You can buy a loaf of bread like mine around these parts for just under three quid. What? You can buy a loaf of "brown" bread for just over a quid, but god knows what they'd done to that, and they will go to hell for it, or something bad will happen to their ovens in another lifetime, but it's just not right. There's something unpleasant underlying all this. I think it's capitalism, or consumerism, or packaging, or ... I know food has to be cheap, but the bread product on display could do with having some food in it.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake bread that feeds but half man's hunger. Kahil Gibran. The Wall.
Half ten on Saturday night! I'm starting to feel good. I'm doing this with my arms folded. Fabulous trick. I did this in a previous post and wondered if you'd noticed. Hmmm? Time to go time.
A man (the fourth one!) finally fixed our cooker on Wednesday. The oven has been out of action for nearly two months and this is the longest time I can remember going without home made bread for about thirty years.
Even when I was in Australia during the eyeball bulging hot days, I still made my own bread.
This didn't start as some quaint hippy notion like spinning your own wool or something like that ... I started making bread when I was 26 years old because I was on the dole. Make bread, thinks I. It must be cheap. It's called the staff of life by someone so it's probably good for you as well, or at least could help you live on ...the ... breadline.
The Roman army marched on bread.
Water, teaspoon of salt, dried yeast, touch of sugar, wholemeal. Nothing else.
There should be German rules about bread. They have them for beer. This is the best law ever. There's only about five things you can put in kraut beer. Erdinger, a weissbier, has as ingredients: water, wheatmalt, barleymalt, hops, yeast. I'm on my second one at the moment and can heartily vouch for this product.
In the paper today there was a story about some unfortunate swans. They've got the swan equivalent of ricketts, which was a disease of malnourishment prevalent in the slums of Chilly Jockoland in the 1920s and 30s. The guardians of the swans have asked the humans to stop feeding the swans white bread and to switch to brown bread since there is no nourishment in the white bread, or not much.
The white bread is like candy floss. I used to love it. Once it was regarded as much better, kind of posh. Refined. Anyway, it's rubbish. Brown bread as you buy it in the shops is also rubbish. Anyone who has ever made bread might have a problem even thinking of these things as being bread.
You can buy a loaf of bread like mine around these parts for just under three quid. What? You can buy a loaf of "brown" bread for just over a quid, but god knows what they'd done to that, and they will go to hell for it, or something bad will happen to their ovens in another lifetime, but it's just not right. There's something unpleasant underlying all this. I think it's capitalism, or consumerism, or packaging, or ... I know food has to be cheap, but the bread product on display could do with having some food in it.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake bread that feeds but half man's hunger. Kahil Gibran. The Wall.
Half ten on Saturday night! I'm starting to feel good. I'm doing this with my arms folded. Fabulous trick. I did this in a previous post and wondered if you'd noticed. Hmmm? Time to go time.
Thursday, 14 February 2008
Rambitions!
Thursday 12:45 p.m.
And, yea, as this bloggie goes heading in a new year towards its fourth birthday, now might be a good time to weigh up and access the progress of my cunning plans.
I do not have a massive organisation of fellow travellers, all sitting in huts wearing jimmy wigs, Groucho glasses and moustaches, connecting in cyberspace through the big portal to each other and all meditating their socks off for only ten percent off the top. There is no hut committee overseeing commercial operations, such as, the selling of tee-shirts, jimmy wigs, homeopathic cannibal soup, or even Beer Monster Reduction Vehicles. Unfortunately, there are no Rolls Royces parked outside the hut and the Australian Ladies Volleyball Team have suspended the alfresco training sessions until further notice. And also no books published, no literary prizes and no fung money either!
All compounded things are subject to dissolution. Pursue your salvation with diligence. Walk on.
At the end of the day what it comes down to is this: Can you or can you not, do ra bliss?
Ra bliss went ballistic again last night. Happy Valentines Day to all you modern lovers!!
And, yea, as this bloggie goes heading in a new year towards its fourth birthday, now might be a good time to weigh up and access the progress of my cunning plans.
I do not have a massive organisation of fellow travellers, all sitting in huts wearing jimmy wigs, Groucho glasses and moustaches, connecting in cyberspace through the big portal to each other and all meditating their socks off for only ten percent off the top. There is no hut committee overseeing commercial operations, such as, the selling of tee-shirts, jimmy wigs, homeopathic cannibal soup, or even Beer Monster Reduction Vehicles. Unfortunately, there are no Rolls Royces parked outside the hut and the Australian Ladies Volleyball Team have suspended the alfresco training sessions until further notice. And also no books published, no literary prizes and no fung money either!
All compounded things are subject to dissolution. Pursue your salvation with diligence. Walk on.
At the end of the day what it comes down to is this: Can you or can you not, do ra bliss?
Ra bliss went ballistic again last night. Happy Valentines Day to all you modern lovers!!
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Rem Good Vibrations!
Tuesdsay 8:30 p.m.
I now feel completely recovered from the impromptu birthday party down at Brian Wilson's on Saturday, though I still have Beach Boys music intruding sometimes into my meditations.
I'd like to tell you spam robots about ra bliss, Jack, but I'm really lost for words. As I sit here lost for words with my arms folded, I can feel a very nice, warm feeling coming into my upper body. Sometimes little bits of heat come with the vase breathing, especially in the evening, and sometimes little bits of heat just warm the envelope as you sit there. I haven't really got much control of it, but it's not happening that often.
A great variety of good sensations occur in this envelope. Maybe it's add a wee bit of dopamine here, a wee bit of seretonin there. I don't know what it is, but sometimes the combination in the sensations tell you something new is happening, or something has developed, moved on and up a little bit. But it keeps changing, keeps progressing and is sometimes just fabulous though I cannot really descibe a sensation or a combination of strange waves and ridges moving in your body. If this sounds weird, it is weird.
I don't really know what I'm doing, Jack. Hotboy, you are the progeny of the heroic working class in Bonnie Scotland and you're trying to do some tantric 12th Century Tibetan juju, so why should you expect to know what you're doing? I'm keeping on doing it anyway, Jack. Because it is working!! How wonderfully bizarre!
I now feel completely recovered from the impromptu birthday party down at Brian Wilson's on Saturday, though I still have Beach Boys music intruding sometimes into my meditations.
I'd like to tell you spam robots about ra bliss, Jack, but I'm really lost for words. As I sit here lost for words with my arms folded, I can feel a very nice, warm feeling coming into my upper body. Sometimes little bits of heat come with the vase breathing, especially in the evening, and sometimes little bits of heat just warm the envelope as you sit there. I haven't really got much control of it, but it's not happening that often.
A great variety of good sensations occur in this envelope. Maybe it's add a wee bit of dopamine here, a wee bit of seretonin there. I don't know what it is, but sometimes the combination in the sensations tell you something new is happening, or something has developed, moved on and up a little bit. But it keeps changing, keeps progressing and is sometimes just fabulous though I cannot really descibe a sensation or a combination of strange waves and ridges moving in your body. If this sounds weird, it is weird.
I don't really know what I'm doing, Jack. Hotboy, you are the progeny of the heroic working class in Bonnie Scotland and you're trying to do some tantric 12th Century Tibetan juju, so why should you expect to know what you're doing? I'm keeping on doing it anyway, Jack. Because it is working!! How wonderfully bizarre!
Rem Flatheids!
Tuesday
After my peregrinations around the sick and aged over last weekend, I have to reconsider all the reasons why I'm glad I'm not a flatheid, or at least not completely flatheided.
Flatheids get being asleep, being awake, dreaming, and that's that. There's at least four hours of my day which doesn't fit in there. That's when I engage with ra bliss and try to determine the real from that which appears to be real.
What's really horrible about flatheids is that they haven't got much control of their minds at all. Thoughts appear in the minds of flatheids and this makes them think they know something .... I'm not going to write a post about why I don't want to be a flatheid after all. Flatheidedness is so depressing.
It's okay being a flatheid when everything is going well. When you're young, have a job, some money, and your aspirations to join with the evil bourgeois are uncontaminated by any value judgements. Who would want to sit and meditate then when the world seems to be at your feet?
They haven't dealt with their angst, Jack. Is it waiting to bite them on the bum, Hotboy. You bet, Jack. You bet.
And then they are given the black spot! Dearie me! Enormous waves of emotion and thoughts, which you will unfortunately give some credence to since flatheids do not realise that most thoughts are lying basturns and really not worth having. They have not understood emptiness and certainly won't have had any realisations of it. Here comes the abyss! Here comes the personal annihilation!! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!
Though we may have to suck up some of that, here on this bloggie we'd prefer to avoid as much of it as possible!
So I'm now 57 years old and had a life expectation of 52 years old. While this is five years in the gravy, I'm not expecting a long life. Only fools do. Say I had another three years. That would take me up to 60 years old, which should be enough for anyone.
Already I have intermittent access to huge amounts of ra bliss, but that might not be so available under black spot conditions. What must be useful is serenity. Serenity, serenity, serenity. This makes me think I should hammer into the analytical meditations; the denial of the false sense of self in the self, the object, then the where and what is mind meditations.
I've had wee bits of serenity over the past couple of months. Serenity is very nice. My chances of achieving serenity are in inverse proportion to the time I spend with flatheids. There is really no point in talking to these flatheids about ra bliss. No point in talking to them at all really. Flatheids don't get ra bliss. They're too dumb to meditate and they don't get ra bliss. They just don't.
After my peregrinations around the sick and aged over last weekend, I have to reconsider all the reasons why I'm glad I'm not a flatheid, or at least not completely flatheided.
Flatheids get being asleep, being awake, dreaming, and that's that. There's at least four hours of my day which doesn't fit in there. That's when I engage with ra bliss and try to determine the real from that which appears to be real.
What's really horrible about flatheids is that they haven't got much control of their minds at all. Thoughts appear in the minds of flatheids and this makes them think they know something .... I'm not going to write a post about why I don't want to be a flatheid after all. Flatheidedness is so depressing.
It's okay being a flatheid when everything is going well. When you're young, have a job, some money, and your aspirations to join with the evil bourgeois are uncontaminated by any value judgements. Who would want to sit and meditate then when the world seems to be at your feet?
They haven't dealt with their angst, Jack. Is it waiting to bite them on the bum, Hotboy. You bet, Jack. You bet.
And then they are given the black spot! Dearie me! Enormous waves of emotion and thoughts, which you will unfortunately give some credence to since flatheids do not realise that most thoughts are lying basturns and really not worth having. They have not understood emptiness and certainly won't have had any realisations of it. Here comes the abyss! Here comes the personal annihilation!! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!
Though we may have to suck up some of that, here on this bloggie we'd prefer to avoid as much of it as possible!
So I'm now 57 years old and had a life expectation of 52 years old. While this is five years in the gravy, I'm not expecting a long life. Only fools do. Say I had another three years. That would take me up to 60 years old, which should be enough for anyone.
Already I have intermittent access to huge amounts of ra bliss, but that might not be so available under black spot conditions. What must be useful is serenity. Serenity, serenity, serenity. This makes me think I should hammer into the analytical meditations; the denial of the false sense of self in the self, the object, then the where and what is mind meditations.
I've had wee bits of serenity over the past couple of months. Serenity is very nice. My chances of achieving serenity are in inverse proportion to the time I spend with flatheids. There is really no point in talking to these flatheids about ra bliss. No point in talking to them at all really. Flatheids don't get ra bliss. They're too dumb to meditate and they don't get ra bliss. They just don't.
Sunday, 10 February 2008
Ra Brian!
Sunday 3:13 p.m.
As part of my missionary work with the sick and aged, I took a bus down to Brian Wilson's castle in Portobello yesterday. I hoped it might be safe since he is supposed to be ill. Also, I body swerved the off-license. But hardly had I sat down when there was a bottle of Erdinger sitting in front of me. Since he normally drinks yon petrol based Danish lager firewater that drives you mad, I knew he'd made a special effort with the Erdinger and it seemed churlish to refuse. Dearie me. Another open grave! Still, I must say I had a most enjoyable time and it did not cost me any fingers and toes since they were all there when I checked on regaining consciousness.
Since one's meditations always start off a bit wonky after such behaviour, I should point out that getting blotto in the middle of the afternoon plays no part in the 5 step programme on how to get out your face on air. Certainly not! Since there doesn't seem to be any penances (yet!) in the Amazing Bloggy Church of the BadBoyBlissheid, I'll just go and sit in my hut for a bit.
I've done about three hours on the cushion today so far and the last hour was a beaut!
As part of my missionary work with the sick and aged, I took a bus down to Brian Wilson's castle in Portobello yesterday. I hoped it might be safe since he is supposed to be ill. Also, I body swerved the off-license. But hardly had I sat down when there was a bottle of Erdinger sitting in front of me. Since he normally drinks yon petrol based Danish lager firewater that drives you mad, I knew he'd made a special effort with the Erdinger and it seemed churlish to refuse. Dearie me. Another open grave! Still, I must say I had a most enjoyable time and it did not cost me any fingers and toes since they were all there when I checked on regaining consciousness.
Since one's meditations always start off a bit wonky after such behaviour, I should point out that getting blotto in the middle of the afternoon plays no part in the 5 step programme on how to get out your face on air. Certainly not! Since there doesn't seem to be any penances (yet!) in the Amazing Bloggy Church of the BadBoyBlissheid, I'll just go and sit in my hut for a bit.
I've done about three hours on the cushion today so far and the last hour was a beaut!
Saturday, 9 February 2008
Ra Anniversary!
23:58 p.m.
At the end of the day, it can't be about moi! Thank you, you spam robots, you Alien Creatures from Outer Space, you Masai Warriors, and all the perverts who have landed on this bloggie.! Thank you!
At the end of the day, it can't be about moi! Thank you, you spam robots, you Alien Creatures from Outer Space, you Masai Warriors, and all the perverts who have landed on this bloggie.! Thank you!
Friday, 8 February 2008
Ra Birthday Boy!
Friday 6:54 p.m.
Let's hear it for the fortunate creatures! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday, dear Hotboy! Happy birthday to me! And it is three years to the day since I started blogging. How things had progressed since then! What a fortunate creature I am, I am! What a fortunate creature I am! HotboyMadyamikaSurfingTheOceansOfBliss!
Let's hear it for the fortunate creatures! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday, dear Hotboy! Happy birthday to me! And it is three years to the day since I started blogging. How things had progressed since then! What a fortunate creature I am, I am! What a fortunate creature I am! HotboyMadyamikaSurfingTheOceansOfBliss!
Thursday, 7 February 2008
Ra Erdinger Post!
Thursday, 21:52 p.m.
Couldn't settle though ra bliss was even more extremis than usual. Did a cannybliss yogurt and went out for four Erdingers. Because we don't have broadband, that was about an hour ago. Hmmm?
I was a bit tired. That happens to me a lot, caught out by exhaustion. If you take as much exercise as me, you have to plan your exhaustions. It's best to be exhausted about nine, but these days it's dark still by half five, so you're disinclined to go out running and my shoulder has been a wee bit knackered for the last wee while.
What kind of post is this going to be, Hotboy? Well, Jack, a drunken bum rambling one.
I tried to cycle from Stockbridge to Liberton Hospital last Sunday. I only had £20 left of my overdraft limit so there were several good reason to be on the nazi bike. Also, it is paid off this month. I own the nazi bike. I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like .... So I was riding the bike up Kirk Brae and got off because this pedestrian had just passed me. There are a lot of fung hillls between here and Liberton Hospital, but Kirk Brae is a big hill.
When I got to the hospital, my friend with the MS had disappeared. I wondered if the Alien Creatures had taken her away, but it turned out to be her husband. But she was in today.
I take it that she doesn't like being in this place. She would rather be at home. But she doesn't want to count the days till she gets back home. She contends with being here. Or there. The sensei and reverend's blog is far more use to you than anything you'll ever read about in this one as regards that. It was dead zenny. Apart from that, I talked at her about ra bliss.
The Domestic Bliss has just landed in, so I'll see ya!
Couldn't settle though ra bliss was even more extremis than usual. Did a cannybliss yogurt and went out for four Erdingers. Because we don't have broadband, that was about an hour ago. Hmmm?
I was a bit tired. That happens to me a lot, caught out by exhaustion. If you take as much exercise as me, you have to plan your exhaustions. It's best to be exhausted about nine, but these days it's dark still by half five, so you're disinclined to go out running and my shoulder has been a wee bit knackered for the last wee while.
What kind of post is this going to be, Hotboy? Well, Jack, a drunken bum rambling one.
I tried to cycle from Stockbridge to Liberton Hospital last Sunday. I only had £20 left of my overdraft limit so there were several good reason to be on the nazi bike. Also, it is paid off this month. I own the nazi bike. I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like .... So I was riding the bike up Kirk Brae and got off because this pedestrian had just passed me. There are a lot of fung hillls between here and Liberton Hospital, but Kirk Brae is a big hill.
When I got to the hospital, my friend with the MS had disappeared. I wondered if the Alien Creatures had taken her away, but it turned out to be her husband. But she was in today.
I take it that she doesn't like being in this place. She would rather be at home. But she doesn't want to count the days till she gets back home. She contends with being here. Or there. The sensei and reverend's blog is far more use to you than anything you'll ever read about in this one as regards that. It was dead zenny. Apart from that, I talked at her about ra bliss.
The Domestic Bliss has just landed in, so I'll see ya!
Ra Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Thursday 11:02 p.m.
I've taken the piss out of TM before and I might as well do so now that the Maharishi died this week. Fair play to the boy though. Last night there was a photie of him on the news with the subtitle Blissed Out. A couple of week's ago a disciple, David Lynch I think it was, was going on about ra bliss on the radio. First of all, I'd like to take my hat off to the Maharishi for promoting ra bliss. His business took a week's wages off quite a few flatheids I know and gave them a secret magic word, and without this stimulus I might never have taught myself to meditate.
I asked some holders of these secret magic words what they were once. There were about four of these flatheids with the secret magic words at a dinner I was at one night about twenty five years ago and, though they had all stopped meditating, they were definitely not going to tell me what their secret magic words were. Well, they had paid the equivalent of a week's wages for them!
I'm not really a very nice person and sometimes I find contempt comes easily to moi!
So I searched for a sound and came up with susquehanna (the first syllable sounds like in suspicious) which I still hear as a wonderful sound and would recommend to anyone who didn't believe in anything and wanted a mantra which had worked at least once.
I didn't use anything but that mantra for probably ten to twelve years and my ten seconds of non-self and emptiness resulted. I only moved onto the Tibetan mantras when I went on a buddhist pilgrimage with Shiva (The Buddha and The Big Bad Wolf on my webpage). These days I've fast tracked onto the great vajrayana, but my root guru did tell me once that I'd get "everything" using just the straightforward calming meditations, which is what repeating susquehanna to yourself is.
Meditation isn't hindu, catholic, moslem or the property of any religion. You don't have to be religious to meditate. You don't have to be at all religious to engage with ra bliss. If you don't meditate, you will always be a flatheid and a moron, but you will have plenty of company.
I discovered this week that my agent, Mr Adrian Weston, that man of great taste and perspicacity, has agreed to try to flog a kidsboook I would love to get this book published because there is always hope for the young and if you can get through the first chapter, you'll know what meditation is alright. A very dharma kidsbook!
The meditations last night and today were amazing. I will try to write something about this later though it is hard to express the inexpressible.
11:37 a.m.
I've just remembered it's my birthday tomorrow, so the seven weeks of dedicating merit for Ro Patton should be over now. Might not have helped her, but it did help me. So gone yirsel', hen, as they say around these parts!
I've taken the piss out of TM before and I might as well do so now that the Maharishi died this week. Fair play to the boy though. Last night there was a photie of him on the news with the subtitle Blissed Out. A couple of week's ago a disciple, David Lynch I think it was, was going on about ra bliss on the radio. First of all, I'd like to take my hat off to the Maharishi for promoting ra bliss. His business took a week's wages off quite a few flatheids I know and gave them a secret magic word, and without this stimulus I might never have taught myself to meditate.
I asked some holders of these secret magic words what they were once. There were about four of these flatheids with the secret magic words at a dinner I was at one night about twenty five years ago and, though they had all stopped meditating, they were definitely not going to tell me what their secret magic words were. Well, they had paid the equivalent of a week's wages for them!
I'm not really a very nice person and sometimes I find contempt comes easily to moi!
So I searched for a sound and came up with susquehanna (the first syllable sounds like in suspicious) which I still hear as a wonderful sound and would recommend to anyone who didn't believe in anything and wanted a mantra which had worked at least once.
I didn't use anything but that mantra for probably ten to twelve years and my ten seconds of non-self and emptiness resulted. I only moved onto the Tibetan mantras when I went on a buddhist pilgrimage with Shiva (The Buddha and The Big Bad Wolf on my webpage). These days I've fast tracked onto the great vajrayana, but my root guru did tell me once that I'd get "everything" using just the straightforward calming meditations, which is what repeating susquehanna to yourself is.
Meditation isn't hindu, catholic, moslem or the property of any religion. You don't have to be religious to meditate. You don't have to be at all religious to engage with ra bliss. If you don't meditate, you will always be a flatheid and a moron, but you will have plenty of company.
I discovered this week that my agent, Mr Adrian Weston, that man of great taste and perspicacity, has agreed to try to flog a kidsboook I would love to get this book published because there is always hope for the young and if you can get through the first chapter, you'll know what meditation is alright. A very dharma kidsbook!
The meditations last night and today were amazing. I will try to write something about this later though it is hard to express the inexpressible.
11:37 a.m.
I've just remembered it's my birthday tomorrow, so the seven weeks of dedicating merit for Ro Patton should be over now. Might not have helped her, but it did help me. So gone yirsel', hen, as they say around these parts!
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Rem Skandas
Saturday 8:10 p.m.
The cooker man didn't turn up and the trains were cancelled today. Kind of felt like doing something or seeing someone. I went for a short but faster run to improve my speed.
The presenter on the Horizon programme on Monday said they had to set the clocks in the satellites to run faster because time doesn't run at the same speed as it does on earth. Time goes slower/faster on earth because of the greater gravity. To keep the clocks at the same time must take a lot of sums.
Anyway, to get my speed up I did a shorter run. Usually, you might not notice the Pentlands from Inverleith Park, but when I was running through it today they were a bit of a stand-out covered in snow.
Apart from the Domestic Bliss, the only person I've had a conversation with since leaving work at noon on Wednesday has been our friend with the MS, who is in respite care at Liberton Hospital. I saw her on Thursday afternoon and I'll see her again tomorrow afternoon.
In Extreme Pilgrim when the boy was with the Shaolin monks, they showed him the cave where the joe who kicked off the zen stared at the wall for nine years. He probably got up every once and a while, but he might not have.
Tilopa, the joe who originally compiled the Six Yogas of Naropa, had himself chained and is supposed to have sat there for twelve years staring at the wall.
If your MS is at the stage of our friend's, you can't go anywhere if you just feel like it. You are doubly incontinent and you can't make yourself understood because you can't get the words out properly anymore. The woman is an advert for coping with this, but when I go there I have to talk about upbeat stuff. I have to talk for about an hour or so. Tomorrow I'm going to talk to her about self.
Suffering is caused by desire based on ignorance of your own true self.
You can tell yourself the self isn't in any of the skandas. I'm not the body; I'm not the senses; I'm not the perceptions; I'm not the consciousness; I'm not the mental formations (which include volitional impulses.)
Volitional impulses are what tend to interupt the meditations. They can arise like jagged intruders. Sometimes, when I'm sitting quietly doing nothing, I get a bit fed up and get up and move, do something else. If you've got MS the way our friend has, this is not an option. You can't get up or do something else.
' What then am I? What is the self? It is in the body. It is in everybody. It is everywhere. It is the ALL. It is Self. I am IT. Absolute oneness.' Sufi poem. The Wall.
You can tell yourself that your false self occurs in the mental formations, ideations. You can tell yourself this and try to dismiss this false self, but when you have done all this, it'll still be there!
Tsongkhapa suggests you should investigate whether your sense of self is separate from or part of the psychological aggregates. You're supposed to come to the conclusion that it's part of the psychological aggregates. It's part of thoughts. Unfortunately, it seems to be part of almost all the thought you have. It's not there when you're in deep sleep, or doesn't seem to be. Apart from that ... it's everywhere.
After you have dismissed this false sense of self and settled down again, it's still there.
'However, the conventional existence of the self arises as an object of the mind. This is to say, we have the appearance of human beings as irrefutable conventional phenomena.' Tsongkhapa.
So you might find it a help here to get into dependent origination. The boy recommends looking at the mirror. The reflection in the mirror does not exist in the manner of it's appearance. It is not what it seems. Also, it depends on the mirror, the operation of the photons, and person standing in front of the mirror.
You can see how deity yoga fits in here superbly. You try to imagine yourself as a deity. You know this is one big mental formation. It isn't really real. It does not exist in the manner of it's appearance, for sure. But you might be able to convince yourself otherwise. It's just a false sense of self. Much like the other one you've convinced yourself about. Unlike the deity of course, you think that one's real.
You can wrestle for hours with stuff like this, but from whence does the serenity descend? The muslims might have an idea here. You might want to surrender .... your self. If God is willing. You have to think things are moving along just as they should. Don't worry because there's nothing to worry about. Go with the flow.
Hotboy, she's still going to be lying there when you go with the flow out the door and back home. Tell her about ra bliss! You might be right there, Jack! I'm the only joe she knows who could tell her about ra bliss. I'll tell her about ra bliss and say there is more than one way to stare at a wall.
That'll be ten pecent off the top, please.
The cooker man didn't turn up and the trains were cancelled today. Kind of felt like doing something or seeing someone. I went for a short but faster run to improve my speed.
The presenter on the Horizon programme on Monday said they had to set the clocks in the satellites to run faster because time doesn't run at the same speed as it does on earth. Time goes slower/faster on earth because of the greater gravity. To keep the clocks at the same time must take a lot of sums.
Anyway, to get my speed up I did a shorter run. Usually, you might not notice the Pentlands from Inverleith Park, but when I was running through it today they were a bit of a stand-out covered in snow.
Apart from the Domestic Bliss, the only person I've had a conversation with since leaving work at noon on Wednesday has been our friend with the MS, who is in respite care at Liberton Hospital. I saw her on Thursday afternoon and I'll see her again tomorrow afternoon.
In Extreme Pilgrim when the boy was with the Shaolin monks, they showed him the cave where the joe who kicked off the zen stared at the wall for nine years. He probably got up every once and a while, but he might not have.
Tilopa, the joe who originally compiled the Six Yogas of Naropa, had himself chained and is supposed to have sat there for twelve years staring at the wall.
If your MS is at the stage of our friend's, you can't go anywhere if you just feel like it. You are doubly incontinent and you can't make yourself understood because you can't get the words out properly anymore. The woman is an advert for coping with this, but when I go there I have to talk about upbeat stuff. I have to talk for about an hour or so. Tomorrow I'm going to talk to her about self.
Suffering is caused by desire based on ignorance of your own true self.
You can tell yourself the self isn't in any of the skandas. I'm not the body; I'm not the senses; I'm not the perceptions; I'm not the consciousness; I'm not the mental formations (which include volitional impulses.)
Volitional impulses are what tend to interupt the meditations. They can arise like jagged intruders. Sometimes, when I'm sitting quietly doing nothing, I get a bit fed up and get up and move, do something else. If you've got MS the way our friend has, this is not an option. You can't get up or do something else.
' What then am I? What is the self? It is in the body. It is in everybody. It is everywhere. It is the ALL. It is Self. I am IT. Absolute oneness.' Sufi poem. The Wall.
You can tell yourself that your false self occurs in the mental formations, ideations. You can tell yourself this and try to dismiss this false self, but when you have done all this, it'll still be there!
Tsongkhapa suggests you should investigate whether your sense of self is separate from or part of the psychological aggregates. You're supposed to come to the conclusion that it's part of the psychological aggregates. It's part of thoughts. Unfortunately, it seems to be part of almost all the thought you have. It's not there when you're in deep sleep, or doesn't seem to be. Apart from that ... it's everywhere.
After you have dismissed this false sense of self and settled down again, it's still there.
'However, the conventional existence of the self arises as an object of the mind. This is to say, we have the appearance of human beings as irrefutable conventional phenomena.' Tsongkhapa.
So you might find it a help here to get into dependent origination. The boy recommends looking at the mirror. The reflection in the mirror does not exist in the manner of it's appearance. It is not what it seems. Also, it depends on the mirror, the operation of the photons, and person standing in front of the mirror.
You can see how deity yoga fits in here superbly. You try to imagine yourself as a deity. You know this is one big mental formation. It isn't really real. It does not exist in the manner of it's appearance, for sure. But you might be able to convince yourself otherwise. It's just a false sense of self. Much like the other one you've convinced yourself about. Unlike the deity of course, you think that one's real.
You can wrestle for hours with stuff like this, but from whence does the serenity descend? The muslims might have an idea here. You might want to surrender .... your self. If God is willing. You have to think things are moving along just as they should. Don't worry because there's nothing to worry about. Go with the flow.
Hotboy, she's still going to be lying there when you go with the flow out the door and back home. Tell her about ra bliss! You might be right there, Jack! I'm the only joe she knows who could tell her about ra bliss. I'll tell her about ra bliss and say there is more than one way to stare at a wall.
That'll be ten pecent off the top, please.
Friday, 1 February 2008
Ra Vajrayana!
Friday 10:39 a.m.
What a red letter day this is for ra bliss!! And also for those spam robots following the 5 Step Programme On How to Get Out Your Face On Air!
Not many vajrayana practitioners seem to keep bloggies. This bloggie will end up being an example of how not to do this juju, with an eventual crashing and burning at some stage. Or it will illustrate that even pisshead potheads with lousy self-discipline can aspire to the heights of the great vajrayana, the successful collecting of the four blisses by means of the inner heat meditations which seems to be the foundation practise for the Six Yogas of Naropa. Yahoo!
Panchen Lobsang Chokyi Gyaltsen in the Golden Key: A Profound Guide to the Six Yogas of Naropa (Translated by Glenn H. Mullen in Readings On The Six Yogas of Naropa) says: 'All highest yoga tantras are similar in this respect. They all advocate establishing maturity in the generation stage mandala meditations before entering into the completion stage practises.'
My generation stage mandala meditations are crap. You have to at least develope pride at being a deity and have the colours of the mandala radiant. Hmmmm? Maybe every once in a wee while.
Tsongkhapa says if you haven't got the three channels and the symbols clearly seen, you're funged. Or, I think he said you were going to hell, which is just another way of putting it. The channels are supposed to be like wheat straws and the symbols the size of mustard seeds.
I'm going to crash and burn, Jack! Crash and burn! Just hold onto your bottle, Hotboy. You haven't got crashed and burnt yet. Forward, forward! All my plans are simple!
So last night ra bliss and heat hit new levels of intensity. The sequence seems to be light, bliss then heat. But there so many components in the latter stages, so much meshing... This morning has been the same. Even moi, who is used to the extraordinary, thought it was extraordinary!
Thank God I'm not a flatheid! Thank God for making me one of the human beings!
I'll have to go out to the lobby now and await the man who's coming to fix the cooker. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
10:23 p.m.
Must have done about six hours when this lovely air of serenity descended. You can't force serenity. The things you're looking at in the lobby don't look at all normal. The brighter colours stand out more; everything is bit thicker and smudged, but that doesn't bother you at all. Then the serenity descending. Where did that come from? Very nice indeed. Then I put a vase breath in there and tried to stay serene and let go as the broiling warm in my adbomen ... hey, who switched on the porn channel? The Domestic Bliss has come home for the first time today. Must go! Have a nice weekend!
What a red letter day this is for ra bliss!! And also for those spam robots following the 5 Step Programme On How to Get Out Your Face On Air!
Not many vajrayana practitioners seem to keep bloggies. This bloggie will end up being an example of how not to do this juju, with an eventual crashing and burning at some stage. Or it will illustrate that even pisshead potheads with lousy self-discipline can aspire to the heights of the great vajrayana, the successful collecting of the four blisses by means of the inner heat meditations which seems to be the foundation practise for the Six Yogas of Naropa. Yahoo!
Panchen Lobsang Chokyi Gyaltsen in the Golden Key: A Profound Guide to the Six Yogas of Naropa (Translated by Glenn H. Mullen in Readings On The Six Yogas of Naropa) says: 'All highest yoga tantras are similar in this respect. They all advocate establishing maturity in the generation stage mandala meditations before entering into the completion stage practises.'
My generation stage mandala meditations are crap. You have to at least develope pride at being a deity and have the colours of the mandala radiant. Hmmmm? Maybe every once in a wee while.
Tsongkhapa says if you haven't got the three channels and the symbols clearly seen, you're funged. Or, I think he said you were going to hell, which is just another way of putting it. The channels are supposed to be like wheat straws and the symbols the size of mustard seeds.
I'm going to crash and burn, Jack! Crash and burn! Just hold onto your bottle, Hotboy. You haven't got crashed and burnt yet. Forward, forward! All my plans are simple!
So last night ra bliss and heat hit new levels of intensity. The sequence seems to be light, bliss then heat. But there so many components in the latter stages, so much meshing... This morning has been the same. Even moi, who is used to the extraordinary, thought it was extraordinary!
Thank God I'm not a flatheid! Thank God for making me one of the human beings!
I'll have to go out to the lobby now and await the man who's coming to fix the cooker. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
10:23 p.m.
Must have done about six hours when this lovely air of serenity descended. You can't force serenity. The things you're looking at in the lobby don't look at all normal. The brighter colours stand out more; everything is bit thicker and smudged, but that doesn't bother you at all. Then the serenity descending. Where did that come from? Very nice indeed. Then I put a vase breath in there and tried to stay serene and let go as the broiling warm in my adbomen ... hey, who switched on the porn channel? The Domestic Bliss has come home for the first time today. Must go! Have a nice weekend!
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