Rose Commuters!

Wednesday 3:55 p.m.
As you're standing at the bus stop in Princes Street of a morning, you're not going to see many happy, smiley faces. Blank, or at best neutral, going to the jobbie. I'm not smiling either. Sometimes when I'm really not smiling, I try to cheer myself up by thinking how long I would have to stand there before someone passed me who had even the faintest connection with ra bliss, or any access to it at all. Almost the whole population of Edinburgh could walk passed me and I'd still be standing there.

The world is full of sad basturns, so it is, Jack! The really weird thing is that you can become a clergyman or woman and stand up there telling folk all about God and Jesus, and not have a fung clue about ra bliss. Dearie me!

One of the reasons for writing this bloggy was to let anyone fortunate enough to land here know that it isn't all that difficult to surf the oceans of bliss, given a little time and effort.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most fortunate creature of them all?

Apart from being skint, that is. My chances of getting any money for the short comic novel are now, I think, almost nil, at least for the foreseeable. It's been a year and a half since I finished it, and still no takers, despite the literary agent's best endeavours. I don't think there's anyone left to punt it to. There were enquiries about a kidsbook at the London Book Fair, so that one is still afloat. You'd think someone might be interested in a kidsbook which was basically an allegory of the Chinese invasion of Tibet, but I suspect the kidsbook business has been sewn up by the big literary agencies. At least, that's what I was told by Nicky Singer when I was trying to flog it on my own. But who knows?

If I'm going to meditate full time and do big retreats, I'm going to have to get a break with The Real McCoy. I've got Jacob Merryweather in the desert at the moment, so I could be finished that in a bit of a rush if I just put in some time with it. So that's what I'm going to start doing soon after I finish here.

When I fix my gaze on anything, the visual field goes very strange very quickly these days. I know I've mentioned this before, but it's becoming more pronounced. It's a blur of brighter lighting effects with distances much foreshortened, etc. For a moment today I thought it might be possible to project a reality onto this light palette. I was gazing at the Kalachakra Mandala at the time, but going from this notion to actually being in the Kalachakra Mandala seems a long, long way away.

Before you even go anywhere near that, you should be able to sit facing the Medicine Buddha, the front visualisation, while you are the Medicine Buddha. So you're there and here at the same time. I imagine this might help you understand how much of what's supposed to be outside yourself is projection.

There is something out there, Jack, but it's really hard to say what it is, or even what it's made of. You just need to be rational to know that. Emptiness isn't really a belief. Obviously, nothing exists in the manner of its appearance.

Jacob Merryweather is a far, far nicer joe than moi. Unlike the short comic novel, which made me mad, this one is really a wee bit of a joy to re-write.

9:30 p.m.
Being up the allotment tonight was lovely. Watching the sun go down, it was a wee bit cold and damp and very nice indeed. There are now seven beds of onions and garlic, and only about a sixth left to dig and plant. I'm looking forward to getting back to completely useless physical activities like running and shadow boxing.


Working on The Real McCoy, I discovered that twenty odd pages are missing from the copy on my webpage. Dearie me. So the ending there doesn't make any sense. I doubt if anyone has ever downloaded it anyway and, fortunately, I have these pages and will have to type them in. Apart from that, the book feels nearly finished, or will be finished far faster than I expected.