Saturday 22:34 p.m.
(Sorry about the line break problem in this post. I can't work out what's the matter, so I just cut the first bit.)
I really should say something about ra bliss, Jack. At last! At last! Tell us spam robots about ra bliss!
Sometimes dharma books just arrive when you're dead ready for them. The Dzogchen juju from the Richard Gere book seemed most timely. So you're not supposed to cling to ra bliss. Hear that, Jack! Not supposed to have an attachment to ra bliss. Very bad for the rest of the juju.
If you were surprised that there was any bliss at all, and then found great oodles of it, you might be allowed to cavort around in some abandonment for a while. A pause on the path. I think that's got to be allowed.
So the boy says you don't hang onto ra bliss, and you don't hang onto the clarity, and you don't hang onto the no-thought, or the nowness, or anything of the subject/object thing whatsoever.
I was giving this a go today. Sitting in the hut in the wonderful
weather. Reading the book. Smoking a joint. Bad boy! And doing ra bliss. There were different bits in ra bliss today. The boy says the mind is empty (no centre, no
circumference), knowing, and unconfined. You've got to rest your bum on
ground luminosity, no thoughts there, no concepts, one assumes. Can you
find it? Does it just unfold? Anyway, I had a good go at this today.
The gap between thoughts.
I didn't know what time it was today. I was a hippy
just once. I'd been in the lobby meditating then went up to the
allotment, but when? I later found out that I'd left the flat at 1:15,
as written on the note, and didn't get back till twenty past seven.
Just smoking dope and sitting in the hut really. Everything has jumped
forward as usual.
There's a plank that you've become affixed to. It's holding you up. Sometimes the envelope ra bliss seems to manifest in becomes kind of flattened and hard, and it's holding you up.
I was getting held up in the hut today in the easy posture i.e. just simple cross legs. This posture might be quite hard to keep a straight back position in, for most people anyway. If you're in a lotus, you back kind of wants to be straight. It's less stable with just crossed legs. But today I was getting held up in that, for ages.
What is it that's holding you aloft, Hotboy? I have no idea, Jack, but it is a force upwards stuck onto you. What more can I say?
How's about trying to differentiate ra blisses, HOtboy? Well, there was a difference in ra bliss today. The effects of the ra breathing were more straight into nothingness and great bliss accompaniments. Lots of bliss in the nothingness. Even if there's nothing much happening except ra bliss and the whiteness, and some heat, you're still in subject/object land. Thank god for that! I'm not ready to leave this planet yet, Jack! Maybe next week. Ask me again.
Saturday, 31 May 2008
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Ra Hotboy Dialogues No. 4
Wednesday 10:21 p.m.
I got paid today. I had to work overtime. I've bought four bottles of Erdinger to compensate for trying so hard with the juju and meditations over the last wee while. Since I cut up my credit card last week, ra bliss has hit much further and greater heights. To celebrate, here comes another slightly drunken dialogue with little Jack, my deep dear friend, in the great vastness of bloggydom.
AFTER THE REVOLUTION!
(The curtain opens. In the chair, Hotboy is bound hand and foot, and gagged. Little Jack, the Spam Robot, is sitting on Hotboy's knee. He has the black beard on a stick in one hand, and in the other a bottle of Erdinger beer which he drinks from throughout. Little Jack is covered in badges which say Library Assistant and Library Monitor)
JACK: We, the Spam Robots and I, do not want to hear any more about emptiness! We do not want to hear about suffering. All that crap about emptiness is for the eggheads. All that stuff about suffering is for the flatheids! Of course, the flatheids suffer because they don't even start meditating; they are sweetie sucking evil basturns, and all deserve to be reincarnated in the worst possible imaginable hells because they have completely funged up on being human beings. The only decent aspect of human beingness that we spam robots can discern is ra bliss! So, Hotboy, tell us something about ra bliss!
HOTBOY: I don't think ra bliss, Jack, is the point of all this.
JACK: Fung off! Can you get down to ra bliss, or can't you?
HOTBOY: Over the past wee while, I think, Jack, that I have almost got down to the thoughtless bliss, the great globule, the envelope, the unfoldingness, the indescribable to flatheids or anyone else, ra bliss that takes you away from the concerns of this world, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
JACK: And has this been of any use to anyone else, Hotboy?
HOTBOY: It has been absolutely bugger all use to anyone I know, Jack. I am surrounded by flatheids, Jack. I don't like being amongst these people, Jack. I keep thinking they might start crying and never stop. Can I go to hospital now, please?
JACK: What? We're here to talk about ra bliss!
HOTBOY: I'm getting pissed. I'd like to go to hospital now, please. Why can't I buy some decent drugs on the street around here? If I can't go to hospital, can I go to the jail? I'd be so happy in solitary confinement!
JACK: I thought you were going to tell us about ra bliss.
HOTBOY: I can't get away from flatheids till Friday. Till then, just fung off! Fung off! Fung off!
(Little Jack the Spam Robot then jumps of the prisoner's knee and before the audience says:)
JACK: So, ladies and gentlemen, it's not about ra emptiness, and it's not about ra suffering, and it's not about ra bliss. It's about ra afflictive emotions! Yes! The fung afflictive emotions! That is ra problem!
(The curtain closes!)
HOTBOY: (off stage!) Dearie me! Thank God, the off-license is still open!
I got paid today. I had to work overtime. I've bought four bottles of Erdinger to compensate for trying so hard with the juju and meditations over the last wee while. Since I cut up my credit card last week, ra bliss has hit much further and greater heights. To celebrate, here comes another slightly drunken dialogue with little Jack, my deep dear friend, in the great vastness of bloggydom.
AFTER THE REVOLUTION!
(The curtain opens. In the chair, Hotboy is bound hand and foot, and gagged. Little Jack, the Spam Robot, is sitting on Hotboy's knee. He has the black beard on a stick in one hand, and in the other a bottle of Erdinger beer which he drinks from throughout. Little Jack is covered in badges which say Library Assistant and Library Monitor)
JACK: We, the Spam Robots and I, do not want to hear any more about emptiness! We do not want to hear about suffering. All that crap about emptiness is for the eggheads. All that stuff about suffering is for the flatheids! Of course, the flatheids suffer because they don't even start meditating; they are sweetie sucking evil basturns, and all deserve to be reincarnated in the worst possible imaginable hells because they have completely funged up on being human beings. The only decent aspect of human beingness that we spam robots can discern is ra bliss! So, Hotboy, tell us something about ra bliss!
HOTBOY: I don't think ra bliss, Jack, is the point of all this.
JACK: Fung off! Can you get down to ra bliss, or can't you?
HOTBOY: Over the past wee while, I think, Jack, that I have almost got down to the thoughtless bliss, the great globule, the envelope, the unfoldingness, the indescribable to flatheids or anyone else, ra bliss that takes you away from the concerns of this world, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
JACK: And has this been of any use to anyone else, Hotboy?
HOTBOY: It has been absolutely bugger all use to anyone I know, Jack. I am surrounded by flatheids, Jack. I don't like being amongst these people, Jack. I keep thinking they might start crying and never stop. Can I go to hospital now, please?
JACK: What? We're here to talk about ra bliss!
HOTBOY: I'm getting pissed. I'd like to go to hospital now, please. Why can't I buy some decent drugs on the street around here? If I can't go to hospital, can I go to the jail? I'd be so happy in solitary confinement!
JACK: I thought you were going to tell us about ra bliss.
HOTBOY: I can't get away from flatheids till Friday. Till then, just fung off! Fung off! Fung off!
(Little Jack the Spam Robot then jumps of the prisoner's knee and before the audience says:)
JACK: So, ladies and gentlemen, it's not about ra emptiness, and it's not about ra suffering, and it's not about ra bliss. It's about ra afflictive emotions! Yes! The fung afflictive emotions! That is ra problem!
(The curtain closes!)
HOTBOY: (off stage!) Dearie me! Thank God, the off-license is still open!
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Ris time of year!
Tuesday
Once when I was in North Africa, a long, long time ago, we were walking to this campsite in the twilight zone. It was a bit strange because objects became very blurry, and distances were hard to judge. You had to watch your step, so you did. No, it wasn't the dope! Twilight is different in different places.
Particularly auspicious times to meditate are supposed to be dawn and dusk. Apparently, it's at these times that the breathing becomes equalised between the nostrils, and that's what you're looking for anyway.
In the wintertime when it gets dark about five or six, you can sometimes feel a difference in your body if you're sitting reading or whatever. (Of course, this doesn't apply to flatheids!) Then you can think: Oh, it's getting dark! I'll go and meditate. This is a very good thing about the winter because I've been missing this recently. The sun might be down by nine, but it doesn't get dark for ages and ages. When it gets dark, then's the time to give it laldy with the vase breathing. But I'm just about ready for beddybys by that time these days.
During the last week, I've only had 3 bottles of Erdinger. Nothing else. I get paid tomorrow. Time to switch addictions. I think I'll buy myself some soapbar.
I suppose due to being a good boy, I've been getting into amazingly blissy states recently, and my understanding has been enhanced by reading this book by the Nyingma boy. After trying to do the visualisations and whatnot, sometimes you should stop trying, let go, just be in the amazing bliss. I knew I should be doing that from other sources, but sometimes you forget and it's nice to get a reminder.
I've done some kind of training every day for the last fortnight apart from Sunday, when I went a walk with Poisonous. Fee, fi, fo, fum. Look out, Cassius, here I come!
Once when I was in North Africa, a long, long time ago, we were walking to this campsite in the twilight zone. It was a bit strange because objects became very blurry, and distances were hard to judge. You had to watch your step, so you did. No, it wasn't the dope! Twilight is different in different places.
Particularly auspicious times to meditate are supposed to be dawn and dusk. Apparently, it's at these times that the breathing becomes equalised between the nostrils, and that's what you're looking for anyway.
In the wintertime when it gets dark about five or six, you can sometimes feel a difference in your body if you're sitting reading or whatever. (Of course, this doesn't apply to flatheids!) Then you can think: Oh, it's getting dark! I'll go and meditate. This is a very good thing about the winter because I've been missing this recently. The sun might be down by nine, but it doesn't get dark for ages and ages. When it gets dark, then's the time to give it laldy with the vase breathing. But I'm just about ready for beddybys by that time these days.
During the last week, I've only had 3 bottles of Erdinger. Nothing else. I get paid tomorrow. Time to switch addictions. I think I'll buy myself some soapbar.
I suppose due to being a good boy, I've been getting into amazingly blissy states recently, and my understanding has been enhanced by reading this book by the Nyingma boy. After trying to do the visualisations and whatnot, sometimes you should stop trying, let go, just be in the amazing bliss. I knew I should be doing that from other sources, but sometimes you forget and it's nice to get a reminder.
I've done some kind of training every day for the last fortnight apart from Sunday, when I went a walk with Poisonous. Fee, fi, fo, fum. Look out, Cassius, here I come!
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Ra Confusing Path!
Sunday 11:45 a.m.
Every time I read something about the juju, or dharma, Buddhism, or anything like that, I realise I know bugger all about it. I heard recently that you can't practise meditation. It's like practising sleep. Try to sleep and you'll never fung go to sleep. Or the boy in the Richard Gere sponsored book is going on about shravaka meditation. Had I heard of that before? Then there's ground, path and fruition. Path is defined by this Nyingma practitioner as confusion. You're on the path with your head jammed up your backside!
As if we weren't confused enough, Jack. It's all in the mind, Hotboy. All in the mind. Well, what's mind then, Jack? Dualistic mind? Non-dualistic mind? The latter is definitely a tricky one. As soon as you start thinking thoughts, you've got subject and object; a kind of frozen reality. I immediately thought of Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Principle ... or was it the Copenhagen Interpretation, Jack? Anyway, thank God in the midst of all this confusion that we in the Amazing Bloggy Church of the Bad Boy Blissheid don't believe in thoughts.
We embrace our ignorance
We don't believe in any things
Especially thoughts
It's been no bother not drinking or taking drugs and just meditating for as much as possible. I must have put in about eight hours yesterday. But not polluting your mind gives you a ringside seat on the emotional changes, like going from happy to crabbit, etc. I've been training a lot so I've been a bit tired sometimes and that always makes me a wee bit crabbit... if I can't eat some soapbar or have a drink in time.
Someone who used to land on this bloggy using the nomme de bloggy of Sandy Buchandyke has started cycling across America. You can find here en route blog here.
I've got a lot of time for that, Jack. What cycling across America, Hotboy? No, Jack. I'd be tired and crabbit all the time. No, I mean cycling across America as in funging off. That's what I'm going to do as soon as someone gives me some money. Fung off to someplace where nobody knows me.
What's the point of discoursing with one's chummies if you don't drink or take drugs, and you have no hobbies to talk about? I arranged to cycle to Cramond this evening with Poisonous. Well, that's like a hobby and you can cycle passed the pubs. See some flatheid on the safe side. Poisonous just phoned up and says he wants to go for a walk ... a walk? I've known Poisonous since I was a teenager and I've never gone for a walk with him. Not straight anyway. Basturns! Basturns! Basturns! I was going to go out cycling after seven so I could come home and luxuriate in the bath. He's going to phone me to go a walk about half two. I've got just over two hours to meditate till then... lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Basturns!
10:01 p.m.
Beautiful day! We walked along the Water of Leith to the Gallery of Modern Art, and Poisonous bought me a bottle of Stella Artois. He had a cup of tea. Then we walked back. He did not say: Do you want to go for a drink? So I walked home. Basturn!
But I dipped into the food fund for three bottles of Erdinger (had one already), so that'll show them! Before that I spent a couple of hours meditating in the hut, and didn't get back here till twenty to ten. The four days of no beers, and no nothing else, and trying hard have moved us on, Jack. They certainly have. Yesterday, I was trying to do calming with object, without object, etc., but today I just closed my eyes and went for ra bliss. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
Because thou art saved, shall there be no more cakes and ale?
Well, there's nothing so lonesome, lonely and queer. What a terrible place is a pub with no beer!
Ion sent me a very nice email about the new book, the one about the floating Presidential candidate. I think she might like it better than moi, so that was nice. Since, as usual, it's not a proper novel, without proper chapters and all, it won't get published, but it's nice if someone likes it. Yes, it is!
Every time I read something about the juju, or dharma, Buddhism, or anything like that, I realise I know bugger all about it. I heard recently that you can't practise meditation. It's like practising sleep. Try to sleep and you'll never fung go to sleep. Or the boy in the Richard Gere sponsored book is going on about shravaka meditation. Had I heard of that before? Then there's ground, path and fruition. Path is defined by this Nyingma practitioner as confusion. You're on the path with your head jammed up your backside!
As if we weren't confused enough, Jack. It's all in the mind, Hotboy. All in the mind. Well, what's mind then, Jack? Dualistic mind? Non-dualistic mind? The latter is definitely a tricky one. As soon as you start thinking thoughts, you've got subject and object; a kind of frozen reality. I immediately thought of Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Principle ... or was it the Copenhagen Interpretation, Jack? Anyway, thank God in the midst of all this confusion that we in the Amazing Bloggy Church of the Bad Boy Blissheid don't believe in thoughts.
We embrace our ignorance
We don't believe in any things
Especially thoughts
It's been no bother not drinking or taking drugs and just meditating for as much as possible. I must have put in about eight hours yesterday. But not polluting your mind gives you a ringside seat on the emotional changes, like going from happy to crabbit, etc. I've been training a lot so I've been a bit tired sometimes and that always makes me a wee bit crabbit... if I can't eat some soapbar or have a drink in time.
Someone who used to land on this bloggy using the nomme de bloggy of Sandy Buchandyke has started cycling across America. You can find here en route blog here.
I've got a lot of time for that, Jack. What cycling across America, Hotboy? No, Jack. I'd be tired and crabbit all the time. No, I mean cycling across America as in funging off. That's what I'm going to do as soon as someone gives me some money. Fung off to someplace where nobody knows me.
What's the point of discoursing with one's chummies if you don't drink or take drugs, and you have no hobbies to talk about? I arranged to cycle to Cramond this evening with Poisonous. Well, that's like a hobby and you can cycle passed the pubs. See some flatheid on the safe side. Poisonous just phoned up and says he wants to go for a walk ... a walk? I've known Poisonous since I was a teenager and I've never gone for a walk with him. Not straight anyway. Basturns! Basturns! Basturns! I was going to go out cycling after seven so I could come home and luxuriate in the bath. He's going to phone me to go a walk about half two. I've got just over two hours to meditate till then... lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Basturns!
10:01 p.m.
Beautiful day! We walked along the Water of Leith to the Gallery of Modern Art, and Poisonous bought me a bottle of Stella Artois. He had a cup of tea. Then we walked back. He did not say: Do you want to go for a drink? So I walked home. Basturn!
But I dipped into the food fund for three bottles of Erdinger (had one already), so that'll show them! Before that I spent a couple of hours meditating in the hut, and didn't get back here till twenty to ten. The four days of no beers, and no nothing else, and trying hard have moved us on, Jack. They certainly have. Yesterday, I was trying to do calming with object, without object, etc., but today I just closed my eyes and went for ra bliss. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
Because thou art saved, shall there be no more cakes and ale?
Well, there's nothing so lonesome, lonely and queer. What a terrible place is a pub with no beer!
Ion sent me a very nice email about the new book, the one about the floating Presidential candidate. I think she might like it better than moi, so that was nice. Since, as usual, it's not a proper novel, without proper chapters and all, it won't get published, but it's nice if someone likes it. Yes, it is!
Friday, 23 May 2008
Ra Richard Gere!
Friday 5.46 p.m.
Just got back from my Friday visit to see the auld maw. Number one son, my brother Silvest, was there for a bit. He's nearly seventy. Being number four son, I'm but a pup.
Had an email from my secret agent saying the joe he gave the book about the Presidential candidate to had given it a 'rave rave'. The secret agent will read it this weekend. But it's good that somebody has liked it.
All I know about Richard Gere is that he's rich, handsome and very talented. He also has to take sneery flak from some journalists about being a supporter of Tibetan Buddhism. I was reading a dharma book up the allotment yesterday. It's called Carefree Dignity and seems to be transcripts of talks given by Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Read the first chapter. Excellent. At the very end of the acknowledgements (and who reads them?)(well, the sensei and reverend probably reads them, but he's a book freak!), it says print sponsor: Richard Gere. I guess he paid for the book to get published. Fair play to the boy! He's been a help to me!
Saturday 00:09 a.m.
Since I cut up my credit card, I haven't had the slightest desire for beer. How weird! So I've had no beer and no bob hope since Wednesday (i.e. no bob now for about five or six weeks!). I expect to see God at this rate by next Friday.
I did the Ferry Road and five hills up Dundas Street run tonight in the full Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle minus the bin liner. It took 41 minutes. The last time took 45 minutes. At my best, I did it in 28 minutes, but I'd be happy with 35 minutes. When I was running regularly, but not long distances, I used to go round in about 32 minutes, but I was not a fat basturn then.
Just got back from my Friday visit to see the auld maw. Number one son, my brother Silvest, was there for a bit. He's nearly seventy. Being number four son, I'm but a pup.
Had an email from my secret agent saying the joe he gave the book about the Presidential candidate to had given it a 'rave rave'. The secret agent will read it this weekend. But it's good that somebody has liked it.
All I know about Richard Gere is that he's rich, handsome and very talented. He also has to take sneery flak from some journalists about being a supporter of Tibetan Buddhism. I was reading a dharma book up the allotment yesterday. It's called Carefree Dignity and seems to be transcripts of talks given by Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Read the first chapter. Excellent. At the very end of the acknowledgements (and who reads them?)(well, the sensei and reverend probably reads them, but he's a book freak!), it says print sponsor: Richard Gere. I guess he paid for the book to get published. Fair play to the boy! He's been a help to me!
Saturday 00:09 a.m.
Since I cut up my credit card, I haven't had the slightest desire for beer. How weird! So I've had no beer and no bob hope since Wednesday (i.e. no bob now for about five or six weeks!). I expect to see God at this rate by next Friday.
I did the Ferry Road and five hills up Dundas Street run tonight in the full Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle minus the bin liner. It took 41 minutes. The last time took 45 minutes. At my best, I did it in 28 minutes, but I'd be happy with 35 minutes. When I was running regularly, but not long distances, I used to go round in about 32 minutes, but I was not a fat basturn then.
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Ris Fortunate Creature!
Thursday 10:52 a.m.
I got out of bed about half an hour ago feeling so happy. I'm still feeling happy. I haven't started meditating today yet, but I know that ra bliss ... Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
I seemed to spend all night falling into and out of wonderful dreams. I was lost in Peru or was it Brazil? I sometimes asked, I didn't care what the answer was. I had my wonderful friends with me. I was on holiday. The views were magnificent. Gorgeous women kept smiling at me.
And I got out of bed feeling so happy. Buddhism is essentially about making you feel happy and I feel really happy right now. Once I start meditating, today I will sometimes be bursting with happiness.
Though I enjoy winding up the flatheids, I do owe this feeling of being permeated with happiness to other people, especially my family and friends for not being horrible to me, and especially the juju masters like Ringu Tulku and the buddhas in the south west.
I discovered yesterday that the week long gong bashing festival down at the Samye Ling isn't till August. I'll have the money for that. I'm so looking forward to it. I'll have an even better time than I had last year!
I'm so pleased I cut up my credit card. I'll phone them up this afternoon, so I won't get another one till after I get paid on the 28th. Hurrah! Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
What a fortunate, fortunate creature I am! What a fortunate creature I am!
I got out of bed about half an hour ago feeling so happy. I'm still feeling happy. I haven't started meditating today yet, but I know that ra bliss ... Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
I seemed to spend all night falling into and out of wonderful dreams. I was lost in Peru or was it Brazil? I sometimes asked, I didn't care what the answer was. I had my wonderful friends with me. I was on holiday. The views were magnificent. Gorgeous women kept smiling at me.
And I got out of bed feeling so happy. Buddhism is essentially about making you feel happy and I feel really happy right now. Once I start meditating, today I will sometimes be bursting with happiness.
Though I enjoy winding up the flatheids, I do owe this feeling of being permeated with happiness to other people, especially my family and friends for not being horrible to me, and especially the juju masters like Ringu Tulku and the buddhas in the south west.
I discovered yesterday that the week long gong bashing festival down at the Samye Ling isn't till August. I'll have the money for that. I'm so looking forward to it. I'll have an even better time than I had last year!
I'm so pleased I cut up my credit card. I'll phone them up this afternoon, so I won't get another one till after I get paid on the 28th. Hurrah! Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
What a fortunate, fortunate creature I am! What a fortunate creature I am!
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
Ra Soup!
Wednesday 7:15 p.m.
Just got back from Mr Akrams, the local grocer. Here's what you get for £5:75 around these parts.
1 turnip
1 leek
4 carrots
4 tatties
1 head of broccoli (big)
4 onions
2 500g packets of lentils (these cost 99p each)
So it's about £3.80 for the veggies. That would probably make three pots of soup; easily a week's supply. Just add spices.
Just got back from Mr Akrams, the local grocer. Here's what you get for £5:75 around these parts.
1 turnip
1 leek
4 carrots
4 tatties
1 head of broccoli (big)
4 onions
2 500g packets of lentils (these cost 99p each)
So it's about £3.80 for the veggies. That would probably make three pots of soup; easily a week's supply. Just add spices.
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Rat Ringu Tulku!
Tuesday 9:11 a.m.
Yesterday afternoon the Dom Bliss and I took in a talk on Guru Yoga from Ringu Tulku. What a brilliant exposition! Without notes, he talked for about 50 minutes and then took questions for another 40 minutes. I've heard talks by Ringu Tulku before and I've never listened to anyone who can explain the juju better. His answers to the questions at the end were sometimes funny as well. He's obviously got something I wouldn't mind having!
I was getting blissed out sitting there on the floor of the Theosophical Society room in Great King Street. You just have to sit for a while with a straight back these days and something starts happening. Progress, progress, progress! I wakened up about 4. a.m. this morning and after a wee while, I was lying on my side feeling absolutely wonderful, in a cocoon of such bliss! It just kind of overcame me. This is a fantastic way to start the day!
Since I've spent all my money this month already (on beer!), I could only go to one of the Ringu's talks, which is a great shame. Opportunities to listen to guys like that shouldn't be missed!
11:20 p.m.
I haven't been going to the Tai Chi for the first four months of this year ... partly the capsulitis, partly being skint, etc., but I've been going back now for three weeks. I've grown fond of the wummin who teaches me this. The Tai Chi has been great for me on ways of slow increments. Subtle improvements. The wummin has got to be 78 years old anyway. She's like a little bird. But there are stretches in that wummin ....
I drank four bottles of Erdinger tonight and then cut up my credit card. After the Tai Chi, I went to my hut and meditated for a bit, then drank the four bottles of beer. More and more I feel as if I am on the cusp of wonderments, but I slow myself up and pull myself back, and try to stick with normal things ... like drinking beer. Well, I'm not normal. I haven't been normal for three or four years. I was never nice, but I always told myself I was normal, the norm, the usual joe. Time to hack into the habitual tendencies.
They do not give you the credit cards to help you, Jack. It is a great convenience for the better off, the retentives. I wanted to keep it because with two grand in credit you could always run, or pay for somebody's funeral. What did I do before I had one? Time to find out!
Yesterday afternoon the Dom Bliss and I took in a talk on Guru Yoga from Ringu Tulku. What a brilliant exposition! Without notes, he talked for about 50 minutes and then took questions for another 40 minutes. I've heard talks by Ringu Tulku before and I've never listened to anyone who can explain the juju better. His answers to the questions at the end were sometimes funny as well. He's obviously got something I wouldn't mind having!
I was getting blissed out sitting there on the floor of the Theosophical Society room in Great King Street. You just have to sit for a while with a straight back these days and something starts happening. Progress, progress, progress! I wakened up about 4. a.m. this morning and after a wee while, I was lying on my side feeling absolutely wonderful, in a cocoon of such bliss! It just kind of overcame me. This is a fantastic way to start the day!
Since I've spent all my money this month already (on beer!), I could only go to one of the Ringu's talks, which is a great shame. Opportunities to listen to guys like that shouldn't be missed!
11:20 p.m.
I haven't been going to the Tai Chi for the first four months of this year ... partly the capsulitis, partly being skint, etc., but I've been going back now for three weeks. I've grown fond of the wummin who teaches me this. The Tai Chi has been great for me on ways of slow increments. Subtle improvements. The wummin has got to be 78 years old anyway. She's like a little bird. But there are stretches in that wummin ....
I drank four bottles of Erdinger tonight and then cut up my credit card. After the Tai Chi, I went to my hut and meditated for a bit, then drank the four bottles of beer. More and more I feel as if I am on the cusp of wonderments, but I slow myself up and pull myself back, and try to stick with normal things ... like drinking beer. Well, I'm not normal. I haven't been normal for three or four years. I was never nice, but I always told myself I was normal, the norm, the usual joe. Time to hack into the habitual tendencies.
They do not give you the credit cards to help you, Jack. It is a great convenience for the better off, the retentives. I wanted to keep it because with two grand in credit you could always run, or pay for somebody's funeral. What did I do before I had one? Time to find out!
Sunday, 18 May 2008
Ra Weekend So Far!
Sunday 2:40 p.m.
Friday was wonderful. I'd probably put in about three and a bit hours before I got on the train from Bellshill back to Edinburgh. I was doing ra bliss as usual on the train, but started dozing off now and again. You go out in the brightness and come back in the same way, which is very nice indeed. Pulling out of Wester Hailes, I came to again, and soon was amazed by ra bliss. I checked my breathing to see if I still was breathing. Most subtle. Bizarre to be even considering this at all.
I was really tired from the shadow boxing when I was at Iron Man, a movie, en famille. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, and WoW! Such bliss! That was yesterday. Couldn't get enough time away from the flatheids yesterday, but you have to stay engaged.
Then on the way home we stopped at the traffic lights at Haymarket. A buxom wench in a low cut top opened up the window of a flat the sensei and reverend used to live in, the one just above the pub, or the flat just next door. Maybe sticking out her head to have a fag. Across the road, two drunk guys were coming down the pavement and one shouted over: Get your t*ts out for the boys! The girl stuck the fag in her mouth and duly obliged for a few moments. I wonder why that stuck in my mind.
Friday was wonderful. I'd probably put in about three and a bit hours before I got on the train from Bellshill back to Edinburgh. I was doing ra bliss as usual on the train, but started dozing off now and again. You go out in the brightness and come back in the same way, which is very nice indeed. Pulling out of Wester Hailes, I came to again, and soon was amazed by ra bliss. I checked my breathing to see if I still was breathing. Most subtle. Bizarre to be even considering this at all.
I was really tired from the shadow boxing when I was at Iron Man, a movie, en famille. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, and WoW! Such bliss! That was yesterday. Couldn't get enough time away from the flatheids yesterday, but you have to stay engaged.
Then on the way home we stopped at the traffic lights at Haymarket. A buxom wench in a low cut top opened up the window of a flat the sensei and reverend used to live in, the one just above the pub, or the flat just next door. Maybe sticking out her head to have a fag. Across the road, two drunk guys were coming down the pavement and one shouted over: Get your t*ts out for the boys! The girl stuck the fag in her mouth and duly obliged for a few moments. I wonder why that stuck in my mind.
Saturday, 17 May 2008
Ra Hotboy Dialogues No 3.
Saturday 6:30 p.m.
(To balance the force ...after the whole of Scottishness was disgraced by the behaviour of the hun supporters in Manchester last Wednesday night, their title challenge imploded today against Motherwell F.C. Jack the Spam Robot, a Celtic supporter, is heard drunkenly singing The Wild Colonial Boy offstage. The sounds of a scuffle and drunken obscenities are heard then Hotboy comes onstage with little Jack trussed up and with an elastoplast over his mouth)
Hotboy: Okay, Jack. Are you going to behave?
(Jack nods. The elastoplast is removed)
Jack: (Singing) Armoured cars and tanks and guns came to take away our sons ...
(The elastoplast is put back on)
Hotboy: No sectarian songs, please!
(Hotboy whispers in Jack's ear and Jack nods again)
Hotboy: Ladies and Gentlemen! Jack the Spam Robot has agreed to behave if I allow him to
give you a little song at the end.
(Hotboy removes the elastiplast)
Jack: I was so happy before you showed up!
Hotboy: You know that happiness is an afflictive emotion, don't you, Jack?
Jack: Fung off! How can happiness be an affliction?
Hotboy: I was thinking this out in the bath just before we came onstage. All emotions must
be afflictive because they are part of the suffering of change.
Jack: Those buddhists are worse than the greetin faced calvinist basturns. The first
noble truth is the truth of suffering. And you get the usual suffering that everybody
understands, the suffering affecting being happy since you stop being happy, and
all pervasive suffering which you are always trying to dodge, the suffering inherent
the punishment and reward of the whole gig! Fung suffering contaminating even
joy of watching the huns getting put to the sword! What a bunch of miserable
basturns these buddhists are!
Hotboy: You might have something there, Jack. But perhaps there's the chance of
having a good feeling that doesn't change into a bad feeling. Perhaps you can get your mind into a kind of solid state serenity, or equanimity. Maybe you can be a happy , smiling basturn all the time.
Jack: (cries) I never got my badge! You're a rotten basturn, so you are.
Hotboy: I'll give you another badge next time, Jack. It's a Library Monitor badge. When the library assistants see you with a badge like that, they'll all turn green.
(Jack springs off Hotboy's knee and though trussed up sings The Fields of Athenry. Since catholicism is a bit Irish around these parts and is known as The Great Bridge to buddhism, many of the audience have Irish connections. The sad song about the Potato Famine brings tears to many an eye and Jack's performance brings riotous applause at the end.)
(To balance the force ...after the whole of Scottishness was disgraced by the behaviour of the hun supporters in Manchester last Wednesday night, their title challenge imploded today against Motherwell F.C. Jack the Spam Robot, a Celtic supporter, is heard drunkenly singing The Wild Colonial Boy offstage. The sounds of a scuffle and drunken obscenities are heard then Hotboy comes onstage with little Jack trussed up and with an elastoplast over his mouth)
Hotboy: Okay, Jack. Are you going to behave?
(Jack nods. The elastoplast is removed)
Jack: (Singing) Armoured cars and tanks and guns came to take away our sons ...
(The elastoplast is put back on)
Hotboy: No sectarian songs, please!
(Hotboy whispers in Jack's ear and Jack nods again)
Hotboy: Ladies and Gentlemen! Jack the Spam Robot has agreed to behave if I allow him to
give you a little song at the end.
(Hotboy removes the elastiplast)
Jack: I was so happy before you showed up!
Hotboy: You know that happiness is an afflictive emotion, don't you, Jack?
Jack: Fung off! How can happiness be an affliction?
Hotboy: I was thinking this out in the bath just before we came onstage. All emotions must
be afflictive because they are part of the suffering of change.
Jack: Those buddhists are worse than the greetin faced calvinist basturns. The first
noble truth is the truth of suffering. And you get the usual suffering that everybody
understands, the suffering affecting being happy since you stop being happy, and
all pervasive suffering which you are always trying to dodge, the suffering inherent
the punishment and reward of the whole gig! Fung suffering contaminating even
joy of watching the huns getting put to the sword! What a bunch of miserable
basturns these buddhists are!
Hotboy: You might have something there, Jack. But perhaps there's the chance of
having a good feeling that doesn't change into a bad feeling. Perhaps you can get your mind into a kind of solid state serenity, or equanimity. Maybe you can be a happy , smiling basturn all the time.
Jack: (cries) I never got my badge! You're a rotten basturn, so you are.
Hotboy: I'll give you another badge next time, Jack. It's a Library Monitor badge. When the library assistants see you with a badge like that, they'll all turn green.
(Jack springs off Hotboy's knee and though trussed up sings The Fields of Athenry. Since catholicism is a bit Irish around these parts and is known as The Great Bridge to buddhism, many of the audience have Irish connections. The sad song about the Potato Famine brings tears to many an eye and Jack's performance brings riotous applause at the end.)
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Ra McCoy!
Thursday 1:50 p.m.
Just sent the Presidential candidate book off to my secret agent. I hope he likes it. Just watched film of the Rangers fans rioting through Manchester on the news. Also, there was a report of Tommy Burns, a Celtic man, dying of cancer at 51, which is six years younger than moi.
No, we are not guaranteed the time, Jack. So I'm going to meditate my socks off today!
Just sent the Presidential candidate book off to my secret agent. I hope he likes it. Just watched film of the Rangers fans rioting through Manchester on the news. Also, there was a report of Tommy Burns, a Celtic man, dying of cancer at 51, which is six years younger than moi.
No, we are not guaranteed the time, Jack. So I'm going to meditate my socks off today!
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
Ra Hotboy Dialogues No2 (Try Again!)
Wednesday 10:13 p.m.
Ra bliss hit another level in the allotment today, but I had to watch the footie this evening, and as a Rangers supporter I had to go to the off-license when they unfortunately lost two nil. This is three beers in.
(During the first performance of the Hotboy Dialogues, Hotboy fell off his stool and had to be helped to his dresssing room due to feeling somewhat tired and emotional. The ventriloquist dummy, Jack the Spam Robot, will be speaking to his agent if any more embarrassing scenes like this occur again. Jack isn't happy with this gig!)
(The curtain rises. Centre stage we have Hotboy Madyamika S.O.B. and on his knee is little Jack)
J: Why do we have to keep going on about the moon?
H.B. It's emptiness we're going on about, Jack. The moon is just a kind of illustration of that.
J: Why do we have to talk about empitness?
H.B. Good point, Jack. Ra bliss today was fantastic. I think I could just stick with ra bliss, but it seems that you have to do analytical meditations to feel good about the times when you're not blissing.
J: Well, why don't you just bliss all the time? If you can hit huge amounts of ra bliss, it will make you grin like a monkey and everything will be engaged with through ra bliss surely.
H.B. They say analytical meditations will help me with the afflictive emotions ... like not liking Celtic supporters.
J: The Dalai Lama says it will take you eons and eons to deal with the afflictive emotions, Hotboy.
H.B. In that case, we'd better hope we started a while ago and get on with it. You have to remember that sometimes I'd like to kill people and that's not a bodhisattva thing.
J: Okay then. This is even although your root guru told you that you'd get everything through calming meditations ...
H.B. I used to write plays, Jack. You can brown study plays, like go down the road with them in your head in some kind of way and make lateral connections whilst absorbed in thought. When I'm not doing ra bliss, I want to think about things like emptiness because that's the way I got the cosmic revelation about twelve or thirteen years ago. It's doing your head in, Jack. It's dealing with the contradictions, like HOW CAN NOTHING EXIST OUTSIDE YOUR OWN MIND? Alright.
J: Okay, Hotboy. Let's go again. Dearie, dearie me.
Hotboy: Okay, Jack. Just tell us what you know about the moon.
Jack: Fung sake! The moon is up in the sky. It presents itself as one thing though it is made up lots of little things, which we do not really understand fully, like glue-ons, and Klingons, and upside down-ons. It does not exist in the manner of its appearance and yet nonetheless conventionally functions with valid presence. In order to dispel this illusion, contemplate the metaphor of an image reflected in a mirror. Imagine the moon reflected on water. Thus shall we regard all things.
Hotboy: Hmmm?
Jack: Do I get the badge that says I'm a Library Assistant then?
Hotboy: If you get the badge, you'll have to keep the library books tidy and in order on the shelves.
Jack: Fung improvement on this gig.
Hotboy: Okay, I'll give you the badge if you can tell me about chariots. What can we say about chariots, Jack?
Jack: I'd rather talk about stagecoaches.
Hotboy: Okay, stagecoaches, Jack.
Jack: All you can say about stagecoaches is what we know about them from the famous film by John Ford with John Wayne making his debut. A stagecoach is made up of things and exists in your mind, but has a valid presence perhaps. It has a name, stagecoach, and it has function. You sit in the stagecoach and red indians ride alongside and try to shoot arrows into you. There's not really much more you can say about stagecoaches.
Hotboy: Okay.
Jack: Can I get the badge then?
Hotboy: I'm afraid I gave all the badges away to charming Polish kids.
Jack: Are you telling me the badges only existed in your mind?
Hotboy: In the next dialogue, Jack, we will talk about how emptiness should affect attachment, alright?
Jack: Fragging currants! Basturns! Basturns!
Ra bliss hit another level in the allotment today, but I had to watch the footie this evening, and as a Rangers supporter I had to go to the off-license when they unfortunately lost two nil. This is three beers in.
(During the first performance of the Hotboy Dialogues, Hotboy fell off his stool and had to be helped to his dresssing room due to feeling somewhat tired and emotional. The ventriloquist dummy, Jack the Spam Robot, will be speaking to his agent if any more embarrassing scenes like this occur again. Jack isn't happy with this gig!)
(The curtain rises. Centre stage we have Hotboy Madyamika S.O.B. and on his knee is little Jack)
J: Why do we have to keep going on about the moon?
H.B. It's emptiness we're going on about, Jack. The moon is just a kind of illustration of that.
J: Why do we have to talk about empitness?
H.B. Good point, Jack. Ra bliss today was fantastic. I think I could just stick with ra bliss, but it seems that you have to do analytical meditations to feel good about the times when you're not blissing.
J: Well, why don't you just bliss all the time? If you can hit huge amounts of ra bliss, it will make you grin like a monkey and everything will be engaged with through ra bliss surely.
H.B. They say analytical meditations will help me with the afflictive emotions ... like not liking Celtic supporters.
J: The Dalai Lama says it will take you eons and eons to deal with the afflictive emotions, Hotboy.
H.B. In that case, we'd better hope we started a while ago and get on with it. You have to remember that sometimes I'd like to kill people and that's not a bodhisattva thing.
J: Okay then. This is even although your root guru told you that you'd get everything through calming meditations ...
H.B. I used to write plays, Jack. You can brown study plays, like go down the road with them in your head in some kind of way and make lateral connections whilst absorbed in thought. When I'm not doing ra bliss, I want to think about things like emptiness because that's the way I got the cosmic revelation about twelve or thirteen years ago. It's doing your head in, Jack. It's dealing with the contradictions, like HOW CAN NOTHING EXIST OUTSIDE YOUR OWN MIND? Alright.
J: Okay, Hotboy. Let's go again. Dearie, dearie me.
Hotboy: Okay, Jack. Just tell us what you know about the moon.
Jack: Fung sake! The moon is up in the sky. It presents itself as one thing though it is made up lots of little things, which we do not really understand fully, like glue-ons, and Klingons, and upside down-ons. It does not exist in the manner of its appearance and yet nonetheless conventionally functions with valid presence. In order to dispel this illusion, contemplate the metaphor of an image reflected in a mirror. Imagine the moon reflected on water. Thus shall we regard all things.
Hotboy: Hmmm?
Jack: Do I get the badge that says I'm a Library Assistant then?
Hotboy: If you get the badge, you'll have to keep the library books tidy and in order on the shelves.
Jack: Fung improvement on this gig.
Hotboy: Okay, I'll give you the badge if you can tell me about chariots. What can we say about chariots, Jack?
Jack: I'd rather talk about stagecoaches.
Hotboy: Okay, stagecoaches, Jack.
Jack: All you can say about stagecoaches is what we know about them from the famous film by John Ford with John Wayne making his debut. A stagecoach is made up of things and exists in your mind, but has a valid presence perhaps. It has a name, stagecoach, and it has function. You sit in the stagecoach and red indians ride alongside and try to shoot arrows into you. There's not really much more you can say about stagecoaches.
Hotboy: Okay.
Jack: Can I get the badge then?
Hotboy: I'm afraid I gave all the badges away to charming Polish kids.
Jack: Are you telling me the badges only existed in your mind?
Hotboy: In the next dialogue, Jack, we will talk about how emptiness should affect attachment, alright?
Jack: Fragging currants! Basturns! Basturns!
Ra Hotboy Dialogues No. 2.
Wednesday 10:00 p.m.
Just after watching the footie. In the spirit of ecumenicism, I've been trying to support Rangers in Europe this year, but the sight of their fans streaming in their thousands and tens of thousands towards Manchester in the news today ... it was the Union Jacks hanging out of the car windows... it was like a National Front rally! Every country in Europe in the 1930s produced a fascist party, but only in Scotland was the fascist party directing its venom towards catholics. As someone brought up a catholic in the west of Scotland where the bigotry is at its worst ... how pleased was I when the St Petersburg team put them to the sword with a second goal in the last minutes! I am sorry for the management, the owner (who has done wonders for that club), and the players, but not for those knuckle dragging bigoted morons ... I was really supporting the Manchester Police and like all neutrals hoping when the shit hits the fan that they do not run out of baton rounds.
Dearie me, Hotboy! What is the matter with you? It was the Union Jacks what did it, Jack. Made me see red they did!
Just after watching the footie. In the spirit of ecumenicism, I've been trying to support Rangers in Europe this year, but the sight of their fans streaming in their thousands and tens of thousands towards Manchester in the news today ... it was the Union Jacks hanging out of the car windows... it was like a National Front rally! Every country in Europe in the 1930s produced a fascist party, but only in Scotland was the fascist party directing its venom towards catholics. As someone brought up a catholic in the west of Scotland where the bigotry is at its worst ... how pleased was I when the St Petersburg team put them to the sword with a second goal in the last minutes! I am sorry for the management, the owner (who has done wonders for that club), and the players, but not for those knuckle dragging bigoted morons ... I was really supporting the Manchester Police and like all neutrals hoping when the shit hits the fan that they do not run out of baton rounds.
Dearie me, Hotboy! What is the matter with you? It was the Union Jacks what did it, Jack. Made me see red they did!
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Ra Boy is called McCoy!
Tuesday!
I've just finished the re-writes and corrections to my book about Presidential elections and obsessions and God and death. I am so happy with this! This is the great thing I get out of writing, that feeling you sometimes get at the end. Something akin to exhileration. Completion. Satisfaction. I loved writing this as a radio play and I loved it when it was first done as a novel about twenty years ago, and I just love it to pieces just now.
Who cares if no one likes it? Who cares if it never gets published, which it probably won't? I just feel like it's been my best shot and I feel great about it and you can't ask any more than that!!
If anyone wants a look, just leave a comment or send an email and I'll get it to you.
How did you ever get to be so fortunate, Hotboy? I just a jammy basturn, Jack, so I am!!
I've just finished the re-writes and corrections to my book about Presidential elections and obsessions and God and death. I am so happy with this! This is the great thing I get out of writing, that feeling you sometimes get at the end. Something akin to exhileration. Completion. Satisfaction. I loved writing this as a radio play and I loved it when it was first done as a novel about twenty years ago, and I just love it to pieces just now.
Who cares if no one likes it? Who cares if it never gets published, which it probably won't? I just feel like it's been my best shot and I feel great about it and you can't ask any more than that!!
If anyone wants a look, just leave a comment or send an email and I'll get it to you.
How did you ever get to be so fortunate, Hotboy? I just a jammy basturn, Jack, so I am!!
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Ra Blissheid Status Report!
Sunday night. 23:35 p.m.
The emotional bit comes first. Then I'll do the development of the juju bit, but it might not work out like that since I don't really edit this stuff.
Since the Domestic Bliss went out of town to the singing and dancing competitions on Friday morning, all I've really done is meditate, then drink. Still, there were ...
Yaroo! Yaroo! sounded the giant horns of the longships as they came into the Firth of Forth and nestled beside Portobello. I heard them three times and thrice did I reach out for the viking helmet and wish to rush forth and perform the drunken cavorting manouevres on the beach with my fellowship.
I was young once and walked by myself, and lost my way. I knew myself rich when I found a comrade. Man's joy is in man. From Sayings of the High One. The Wall
In my confusion, I landed out at the bus stop with my twenty pound note, but the gods told me to go home and stop being an asshole, or at least not that much of an asshole. And so I stayed in last night.
I don't do so well when the Domestic Bliss buggers off for the weekend. I kind of just lose the plot. There is not a sufficiency of calming down beforehand.
This rushing out into the street happened ... after the emotional bit.
I'd been meditating on Saturday for about four or five hours before I set of for this memorial service for someone I'd never met. Every day for about seven weeks I had tried to think of this person and ... well, this takes it out of yourself, like it's not really for you, etc. Anyway, I went to this celebration of Steve Engelman's life, and embarrassed myself by how emotional I felt.
A foundation practise might be to consider the preciousnness of human exsistence, considering how unlikely it is, and how wonderful it is to partake of such a thing.
I can't speak in public, but people spoke up for him, and as the personality unfolded, the tears kept welling up.
Anyway, I'm completely useless at these things. So everyone has to stay alive so I don't have to go to anything like that again.
It was Ion's dad's memorial thing. I hadn't met Ion before, but I knew she'd go outside for a smoke afterwards, and I waited there, but I felt too upset to cadge a fag off her, which is what I usually do when I interact with smokers.
I rushed out with my twenty pound note, which I'd stolen from the food money supply, and the gods opened the heavens and drenched me before I even got to the bus stop. Then the bus was going to be another twenty minutes, so I ran back home.
After I'd calmed down a bit, I sat in the lobby and did the juju.
Oh, what bliss there was! And heat! Not as much heat as the first time the heat ever occurred, but heat, the heat that prevails against the cold. This is, despite everything else I do, on the money, major juju, yogic fung trance heat. So, afterwards, I got up from the seat in the lobby and got pissed again, watching the boxing on the telly!
Oh, you're going to crash and burn! You're going to crash and burn! Ee Aye Ahdio, You're going to crash and burn!
I read the book and it asked me if I'd like to get the gold medal for meditation ... already I'd had such wonderful bliss, etc, ... and I said yes!
So when you can raise inner heat ... which I can' t do yet... when you can raise inner heat, and do the breathlessness, and have included the descending blisses in your juju .... remember, Jack, that the first bliss of the four blisses is the extraordinary and totally amazing and wonderful bliss, and they just get better from then on in ... that when y0u can do this, every time you start to meditate, the bliss you start with is the first bliss.
Hotboy, are you anywhere near this first bliss? I do not think I am anywhere near this first bliss, Jack, but I would get a fung of a lot closer to it if I ran out of money and stopped drinking beer.
I will not cycle to work tomorrow due to being pissed just now and not caring about the environment that much. I will sit in the bus instead. I will close my eyes and notice the improvements in ra bliss since the last Monday I sat on the bus going to work. Though I am a disgrace, and a feckless basturn ... I have lots of bottle and am very brave. To be a solitary realising foe destroyer takes a bit of bottle. The heat, you can't believe the heat. Ra bliss!! The whole thing is completely bizarre. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
The emotional bit comes first. Then I'll do the development of the juju bit, but it might not work out like that since I don't really edit this stuff.
Since the Domestic Bliss went out of town to the singing and dancing competitions on Friday morning, all I've really done is meditate, then drink. Still, there were ...
Yaroo! Yaroo! sounded the giant horns of the longships as they came into the Firth of Forth and nestled beside Portobello. I heard them three times and thrice did I reach out for the viking helmet and wish to rush forth and perform the drunken cavorting manouevres on the beach with my fellowship.
I was young once and walked by myself, and lost my way. I knew myself rich when I found a comrade. Man's joy is in man. From Sayings of the High One. The Wall
In my confusion, I landed out at the bus stop with my twenty pound note, but the gods told me to go home and stop being an asshole, or at least not that much of an asshole. And so I stayed in last night.
I don't do so well when the Domestic Bliss buggers off for the weekend. I kind of just lose the plot. There is not a sufficiency of calming down beforehand.
This rushing out into the street happened ... after the emotional bit.
I'd been meditating on Saturday for about four or five hours before I set of for this memorial service for someone I'd never met. Every day for about seven weeks I had tried to think of this person and ... well, this takes it out of yourself, like it's not really for you, etc. Anyway, I went to this celebration of Steve Engelman's life, and embarrassed myself by how emotional I felt.
A foundation practise might be to consider the preciousnness of human exsistence, considering how unlikely it is, and how wonderful it is to partake of such a thing.
I can't speak in public, but people spoke up for him, and as the personality unfolded, the tears kept welling up.
Anyway, I'm completely useless at these things. So everyone has to stay alive so I don't have to go to anything like that again.
It was Ion's dad's memorial thing. I hadn't met Ion before, but I knew she'd go outside for a smoke afterwards, and I waited there, but I felt too upset to cadge a fag off her, which is what I usually do when I interact with smokers.
I rushed out with my twenty pound note, which I'd stolen from the food money supply, and the gods opened the heavens and drenched me before I even got to the bus stop. Then the bus was going to be another twenty minutes, so I ran back home.
After I'd calmed down a bit, I sat in the lobby and did the juju.
Oh, what bliss there was! And heat! Not as much heat as the first time the heat ever occurred, but heat, the heat that prevails against the cold. This is, despite everything else I do, on the money, major juju, yogic fung trance heat. So, afterwards, I got up from the seat in the lobby and got pissed again, watching the boxing on the telly!
Oh, you're going to crash and burn! You're going to crash and burn! Ee Aye Ahdio, You're going to crash and burn!
I read the book and it asked me if I'd like to get the gold medal for meditation ... already I'd had such wonderful bliss, etc, ... and I said yes!
So when you can raise inner heat ... which I can' t do yet... when you can raise inner heat, and do the breathlessness, and have included the descending blisses in your juju .... remember, Jack, that the first bliss of the four blisses is the extraordinary and totally amazing and wonderful bliss, and they just get better from then on in ... that when y0u can do this, every time you start to meditate, the bliss you start with is the first bliss.
Hotboy, are you anywhere near this first bliss? I do not think I am anywhere near this first bliss, Jack, but I would get a fung of a lot closer to it if I ran out of money and stopped drinking beer.
I will not cycle to work tomorrow due to being pissed just now and not caring about the environment that much. I will sit in the bus instead. I will close my eyes and notice the improvements in ra bliss since the last Monday I sat on the bus going to work. Though I am a disgrace, and a feckless basturn ... I have lots of bottle and am very brave. To be a solitary realising foe destroyer takes a bit of bottle. The heat, you can't believe the heat. Ra bliss!! The whole thing is completely bizarre. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
Saturday, 10 May 2008
Ris Precious Human Life!
Sunday 00:12 a.m.
I loved this post. And it disappeared, just like that. Oh, well. As NedKelly said: such is life! I did get a lot out of writing it!
I loved this post. And it disappeared, just like that. Oh, well. As NedKelly said: such is life! I did get a lot out of writing it!
Friday, 9 May 2008
Ra Hotboy Dialogue No. 1.
Friday 11:56 p.m.
Jack the Spam Robot has been following the Five Step Programme on How to Get Out Your Face On Air. This is a record of his first test. If he passes this test, he gets a badge. The badge says Library Assistant. This is the first grade as a preliminary to entering novitiateness giving one a chance in a future lifetime of becoming a member of the Amazing Bloggie Church of the Bad Boy Blissheid.
Now that moi has finished moi's life work as a novelist, I would like to be best known in future as a ventriloquist act. The following constitutes the first draft of the script. Imagine the lights come up and sitting on stage is moi with little Jack sitting on my knee. Since I cannot do the ventriloquism, I will have a big black beard on the end of a stick which I will raise in front of my face whenever Jack has to speak, thus enhancing the illusion.
Blogging isn't writing, so to justify wasting all this bloody time, I should re-draft this script again and again until I get it right. So the first draft will be very rough, and is really just for moi since no one comes here anymore anyway. And I used to enjoy writing dialogue.
(The curtain opens. On stage is HotboyMadyamikaS.O.B. and on his knee is little Jack, the Spam Robot. )
H.B: Hello, Jack.
J.: Hello, Hotboy.
H.B. Where is the moon, Jack?
J: It is up in the sky, Hotboy.
H.B. What is it made of?
J: Everyone knows that the moon is made of cheese.
H.B. What is cheese made of?
J. I think it comes from milk, at first anyway.
H.B. And what is milk made of?
J. Milk must be made of big molecules, which must have a lot of carbon and stuff in them.
H.B. What are these big molecules made of then?
J. Atoms.
H.B. What are these atoms made of?
J. Um. Electrons and protons?
H.B. What are these electrons and protons made of then, Jack?
J. I think they are supposed to be made of wee-er tottier things, like glue-ons, and lots of
other names for wee things.
H.B. What?
J: Well, glue-ons, and upside down-ons, and right-ons, and left-0ns, and Klingons. Stuff
like that.
H.B. And what are all these wee tottie things supposed to be made of?
J: Um? Wee string things.
H.B. And what are they made of?
J: Okay. I don't know what the fung anything is made of.
H.B. Say you landed on the moon, Jack. What would you say?
J: I'd say: I have landed on the moon. I am the second Scottish person to land here, the first being Neil Armstrong.
H.B. Is the moon in your mind then when you land on it, or independent of your mind, or a mixture of both.
J: Since it seems to be made of rocks and dust, and that's not true ... it is made of half-ons, half-offs, and underside down-ons ....
(next morning: around about here the moon and the mind and the half bottle of plonk I found kind of just added to the general confusion already induced by the four bottles of beer! But I've deleted it now whatever it was!)
Jack the Spam Robot has been following the Five Step Programme on How to Get Out Your Face On Air. This is a record of his first test. If he passes this test, he gets a badge. The badge says Library Assistant. This is the first grade as a preliminary to entering novitiateness giving one a chance in a future lifetime of becoming a member of the Amazing Bloggie Church of the Bad Boy Blissheid.
Now that moi has finished moi's life work as a novelist, I would like to be best known in future as a ventriloquist act. The following constitutes the first draft of the script. Imagine the lights come up and sitting on stage is moi with little Jack sitting on my knee. Since I cannot do the ventriloquism, I will have a big black beard on the end of a stick which I will raise in front of my face whenever Jack has to speak, thus enhancing the illusion.
Blogging isn't writing, so to justify wasting all this bloody time, I should re-draft this script again and again until I get it right. So the first draft will be very rough, and is really just for moi since no one comes here anymore anyway. And I used to enjoy writing dialogue.
(The curtain opens. On stage is HotboyMadyamikaS.O.B. and on his knee is little Jack, the Spam Robot. )
H.B: Hello, Jack.
J.: Hello, Hotboy.
H.B. Where is the moon, Jack?
J: It is up in the sky, Hotboy.
H.B. What is it made of?
J: Everyone knows that the moon is made of cheese.
H.B. What is cheese made of?
J. I think it comes from milk, at first anyway.
H.B. And what is milk made of?
J. Milk must be made of big molecules, which must have a lot of carbon and stuff in them.
H.B. What are these big molecules made of then?
J. Atoms.
H.B. What are these atoms made of?
J. Um. Electrons and protons?
H.B. What are these electrons and protons made of then, Jack?
J. I think they are supposed to be made of wee-er tottier things, like glue-ons, and lots of
other names for wee things.
H.B. What?
J: Well, glue-ons, and upside down-ons, and right-ons, and left-0ns, and Klingons. Stuff
like that.
H.B. And what are all these wee tottie things supposed to be made of?
J: Um? Wee string things.
H.B. And what are they made of?
J: Okay. I don't know what the fung anything is made of.
H.B. Say you landed on the moon, Jack. What would you say?
J: I'd say: I have landed on the moon. I am the second Scottish person to land here, the first being Neil Armstrong.
H.B. Is the moon in your mind then when you land on it, or independent of your mind, or a mixture of both.
J: Since it seems to be made of rocks and dust, and that's not true ... it is made of half-ons, half-offs, and underside down-ons ....
(next morning: around about here the moon and the mind and the half bottle of plonk I found kind of just added to the general confusion already induced by the four bottles of beer! But I've deleted it now whatever it was!)
Ra McCoys ra boy!
Friday 8:23 p.m.
I've just come to the end of the re-write of xxxThex... of the book all about God and the Presidential candidate. I'll just have to read it a couple of times now and make minor adjustments. 47,389 words. Most satisfying to be at this stage in the game. And its a wee gem, so it is!!
I've just come to the end of the re-write of xxxThex... of the book all about God and the Presidential candidate. I'll just have to read it a couple of times now and make minor adjustments. 47,389 words. Most satisfying to be at this stage in the game. And its a wee gem, so it is!!
Thursday, 8 May 2008
Ra Black Spot Not!
Thursday 10:35 p.m.
I went to the Anne Ferguson Building at the Western General Hospital to pick up a friend of mine who was having colonoscopy. There was a plaque about Anne Ferguson on the wall beside where I was standing waiting. She passed away a year younger than I am just now, the same age as the joe I was waiting for. Sometimes it seems that if it wasn't for bad luck, this joe wouldn't have any luck at all, but they gave him the all clear and didn't hand him the black spot, not this time, Jack.
I was amazed at how fit I felt tonight during the shadow boxing session. I was jumping out of my skin. Someone told me yesterday that this joe they knew used to dig his garden continually when he was getting ready for a boxing contest. Never heard of that before. Heard of John L. Sullivan chopping logs, but never heard of anyone digging. Anyway, I felt great over the six three minute rounds and didn't even feel that exhausted in the wonderful bath. Gratifying but puzzling.
I haven't had any cannybliss yogurts for about a month. This is the first time in about twelve years that I haven't bought any when I've had the money to. But I really need to pay off my credit card debt to spend much time at the Samye Ling this summer.
Had another fantastically vivid dream this morning. The Domestic Bliss and I escaped from the underground and stood on tall buildings watching the other tall buildings explode. No fear or anything though. Just spectacular views, totally spectacular, better than in the movies. Must have been New York because when we looked down at ground zero, you could tell it was the aliens what done it because bodies were hovering a few feet above the ground in a green light beam force field.
I'd like to tell the Alien Creatures from Outer Space who land on this bloggie that I don't hold it against them at all.
The Domestic Bliss is away for a few days as from tomorrow. Hmmm?
I went to the Anne Ferguson Building at the Western General Hospital to pick up a friend of mine who was having colonoscopy. There was a plaque about Anne Ferguson on the wall beside where I was standing waiting. She passed away a year younger than I am just now, the same age as the joe I was waiting for. Sometimes it seems that if it wasn't for bad luck, this joe wouldn't have any luck at all, but they gave him the all clear and didn't hand him the black spot, not this time, Jack.
I was amazed at how fit I felt tonight during the shadow boxing session. I was jumping out of my skin. Someone told me yesterday that this joe they knew used to dig his garden continually when he was getting ready for a boxing contest. Never heard of that before. Heard of John L. Sullivan chopping logs, but never heard of anyone digging. Anyway, I felt great over the six three minute rounds and didn't even feel that exhausted in the wonderful bath. Gratifying but puzzling.
I haven't had any cannybliss yogurts for about a month. This is the first time in about twelve years that I haven't bought any when I've had the money to. But I really need to pay off my credit card debt to spend much time at the Samye Ling this summer.
Had another fantastically vivid dream this morning. The Domestic Bliss and I escaped from the underground and stood on tall buildings watching the other tall buildings explode. No fear or anything though. Just spectacular views, totally spectacular, better than in the movies. Must have been New York because when we looked down at ground zero, you could tell it was the aliens what done it because bodies were hovering a few feet above the ground in a green light beam force field.
I'd like to tell the Alien Creatures from Outer Space who land on this bloggie that I don't hold it against them at all.
The Domestic Bliss is away for a few days as from tomorrow. Hmmm?
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Ra Writings!
Wednesday 9:55 p.m.
I had another vivid dream last night and wakened up before 5 a.m. After meditating for an hour or so, I had a wee think about the writings.
It won't be long before I've finished re-writing a novel about God, obsession and American politics. For ages I've wanted to re-write this novel since, by the year 2000, it was out of date. I had a webpage once. I used to be able to say in this bloggie what the novels were called and stuff like that. Apparently, this is not a good thing to do if you want to sell the fungers.
It's about having a body of work, Jack. When the joe from Fontana books bought me lunch when the kiddo was not a year old, and said what you do is write and get published four books like that .... I said, books like that? The same? He said, not exactly the same, but kind of like that. Although being a full time carer for the kiddo meant that I couldn't write books 'like that' every eighteen months, the given time frame, I didn't want to anyway. Had the kiddo not been there, I could have written what I wanted in the morning and written 'books like that' in the afternoon.
What I wanted to do in my life as a writer was appreciate that nobody writes more than three good plays and three good books. Mostly, writers don't even write one good play, or one good book. What most people do is write one book, and write it ten times. This is what the business wants. If you're a playwright, you're lucky if you write one good play. Arthur Miller wrote several good plays. So did Eugene O'Neill. Tennessee Williams wrote several good plays. Oscar Wilde wrote one good play.
Although I will never write as good a book as someone really talented, or write even one good play like Oscar Wilde, I wanted to give that kind of thing a bash. I wanted to try hard to do that.
Mostly my friends and contemporaries settled for sweetie eating existences among the evil bourgeois, and they will be able to spend their retirements going holidays in Majorca during the winter, and good luck to them.
I wanted to be able to write different kinds of books. A crime book, a travel book, etc. I did have seven or eight plays produced and you'd think in the ten years I had a go at that .... but I always thought there was a permanence, more substance somehow in prose.
Such a fortunate creature I have been that I don't really have to earn a living. After I finish this book about the boy in the desert, I will go back to scanning stuff and go back to working out how to set up a webpage again. And when James Bond, my secret agent, have realised what a mistake he made in taking on the unpublishable, I will have the webpage with all the stuff on it, published and unpublished, and if no one ever accesses it apart from the spiders from cyberspace and the alien creatures, well, folk have better things to do surely than waste their time reading that kind of crap when they should be meditating on emptiness anyway.
It's great to be 57 years old! We are not guaranteed the time. You can have the perception of living from conception to death, and all that's looking great just now, the shape of it. You also have the moment by moment. And, sometimes, I can surf the oceans of bliss. What a fortunate creature, I am, I am! What a fortunate creature I am!
I had another vivid dream last night and wakened up before 5 a.m. After meditating for an hour or so, I had a wee think about the writings.
It won't be long before I've finished re-writing a novel about God, obsession and American politics. For ages I've wanted to re-write this novel since, by the year 2000, it was out of date. I had a webpage once. I used to be able to say in this bloggie what the novels were called and stuff like that. Apparently, this is not a good thing to do if you want to sell the fungers.
It's about having a body of work, Jack. When the joe from Fontana books bought me lunch when the kiddo was not a year old, and said what you do is write and get published four books like that .... I said, books like that? The same? He said, not exactly the same, but kind of like that. Although being a full time carer for the kiddo meant that I couldn't write books 'like that' every eighteen months, the given time frame, I didn't want to anyway. Had the kiddo not been there, I could have written what I wanted in the morning and written 'books like that' in the afternoon.
What I wanted to do in my life as a writer was appreciate that nobody writes more than three good plays and three good books. Mostly, writers don't even write one good play, or one good book. What most people do is write one book, and write it ten times. This is what the business wants. If you're a playwright, you're lucky if you write one good play. Arthur Miller wrote several good plays. So did Eugene O'Neill. Tennessee Williams wrote several good plays. Oscar Wilde wrote one good play.
Although I will never write as good a book as someone really talented, or write even one good play like Oscar Wilde, I wanted to give that kind of thing a bash. I wanted to try hard to do that.
Mostly my friends and contemporaries settled for sweetie eating existences among the evil bourgeois, and they will be able to spend their retirements going holidays in Majorca during the winter, and good luck to them.
I wanted to be able to write different kinds of books. A crime book, a travel book, etc. I did have seven or eight plays produced and you'd think in the ten years I had a go at that .... but I always thought there was a permanence, more substance somehow in prose.
Such a fortunate creature I have been that I don't really have to earn a living. After I finish this book about the boy in the desert, I will go back to scanning stuff and go back to working out how to set up a webpage again. And when James Bond, my secret agent, have realised what a mistake he made in taking on the unpublishable, I will have the webpage with all the stuff on it, published and unpublished, and if no one ever accesses it apart from the spiders from cyberspace and the alien creatures, well, folk have better things to do surely than waste their time reading that kind of crap when they should be meditating on emptiness anyway.
It's great to be 57 years old! We are not guaranteed the time. You can have the perception of living from conception to death, and all that's looking great just now, the shape of it. You also have the moment by moment. And, sometimes, I can surf the oceans of bliss. What a fortunate creature, I am, I am! What a fortunate creature I am!
Ra Cannabis Reclassification!
Wednesday 1:50 p.m.
The fuzzy faced old Moroccans sat around the cafe verandah in their jellabahs playing snakes and ladders, or draughts. Now and again, they would bring the small bowled clay pipes with the long stems into view and take a puff.
It was the best dope I ever smoked. They wouldn't sell it to you, but the boy making the coffees or mint teas would give you a puff when he was taking your order. One puff was all you could really take. I think it was called kef, or keef.
If the dope is strong, you don't need to smoke so much of it. The less you have to smoke, the less you damage your lungs. Because they say skunk is stronger than ... I'm so agitated by these stupid basturns I can't concentrate enough to vent the spleen.
I got so annoyed watching the news that I couldn't settle into my normal Wednesday afternoon post-prandial kip. It's called following the tabloid agenda. The government say they are going to reclassify cannabis from Class C back to Class B, reversing one good thing the Tony Blair government did. Basturns! Basturns! Basturns!
Of course, we're awash in booze. The Times said today that 40% of murders are alcohol related. Six people die in Scotland every day from drinking. Our sclerosis of the liver count is going through the roof. Wasn't these New Labour basturns who were going to bring in 24 hours drinking licenses?
It's enough to make me go out to the pub and get sloshed, so it is, Jack. The news had a hidden camera with a reporter who bought some skunk in Camden Town in London. Right in the middle of the street. In full view. I wish I lived in Camden Town. Within a five minute walk from my front door, you can buy drink from about twenty outlets easy. Basturns! Basturns! Basturns!
I had high hopes for that Gordon Brown basturn! I was at a party Gordon Brown was at when he was shadow chancellor. Two of his friends from uni were there and I know they both smoked dope. What a rotten stinking currant and basturn he turned out to be! Resign! Resign! Resign, ya useless basturn that you are!
If I can't vote for someone on the left somewhere, I should just stop voting. It just encourages the stupid, useless basturns!
The fuzzy faced old Moroccans sat around the cafe verandah in their jellabahs playing snakes and ladders, or draughts. Now and again, they would bring the small bowled clay pipes with the long stems into view and take a puff.
It was the best dope I ever smoked. They wouldn't sell it to you, but the boy making the coffees or mint teas would give you a puff when he was taking your order. One puff was all you could really take. I think it was called kef, or keef.
If the dope is strong, you don't need to smoke so much of it. The less you have to smoke, the less you damage your lungs. Because they say skunk is stronger than ... I'm so agitated by these stupid basturns I can't concentrate enough to vent the spleen.
I got so annoyed watching the news that I couldn't settle into my normal Wednesday afternoon post-prandial kip. It's called following the tabloid agenda. The government say they are going to reclassify cannabis from Class C back to Class B, reversing one good thing the Tony Blair government did. Basturns! Basturns! Basturns!
Of course, we're awash in booze. The Times said today that 40% of murders are alcohol related. Six people die in Scotland every day from drinking. Our sclerosis of the liver count is going through the roof. Wasn't these New Labour basturns who were going to bring in 24 hours drinking licenses?
It's enough to make me go out to the pub and get sloshed, so it is, Jack. The news had a hidden camera with a reporter who bought some skunk in Camden Town in London. Right in the middle of the street. In full view. I wish I lived in Camden Town. Within a five minute walk from my front door, you can buy drink from about twenty outlets easy. Basturns! Basturns! Basturns!
I had high hopes for that Gordon Brown basturn! I was at a party Gordon Brown was at when he was shadow chancellor. Two of his friends from uni were there and I know they both smoked dope. What a rotten stinking currant and basturn he turned out to be! Resign! Resign! Resign, ya useless basturn that you are!
If I can't vote for someone on the left somewhere, I should just stop voting. It just encourages the stupid, useless basturns!
Sunday, 4 May 2008
Rat Dream Yoga Again!
Sunday 10:34 a.m.
So I was falling into and out of dreams for a couple of hours this morning. This is perhaps partly a consequence of drinking four beers last night. Even with that amount, you're not going to be sharp as a tack and jumping out of bed at six or seven in the morning.
I was lost as usual, but it wasn't in downtown Freetown. It was a most gigantic and wonderful country mansion with rooms the size of Superbowls and fabulous vistas wherever you looked. This was the Potala Palace or the Gormenghast of country houses.
I was trying to get back to the Domestic Bliss so we could get on a bus, but with my sense of direction ....we were still there when it turns out that this place is some gigantic public school. I ends up walking along a bit with Boris Johnson, the old Etonian who has just been elected Lord Mayor of London (by the stupid Englanders). So I says to him: You're Boris Johnson! When he says he is, I tell him I must be dreaming then, and he says I'm not. This is a very vivid dream, but I know I must be dreaming if Boris Johnson is there, so I try to see if I can fly, and jump up and down a few times, but I don't fly.
I was so pleased when I wakened up after that one, and was looking forward to dozing off again.
Then I'm back in the country house and it's a huge and affluent public school place now. There's a huge staircase and it's got hundreds and hundreds of public school boys on it (they all looked too old to be at public school) and the crush of them is terrible and things feel as if the situation might get a wee bit out of hand, not that I'm particularly worried. I can see the Domestic Bliss's brother Chris round the curve of the staircase and up there a bit. Then I see him standing beside me. I look back and forth, and when I see that he's in two places at once, I say to the Chris beside me: I must be dreaming. I' m once again very elated by this even although Chris tells me that I'm definitely not dreaming.
I tell him that we can get out of this crush and to just hold onto me. I put my head down and, like a mouse under a tablecloth, I push against this stream of public schoolboys ... this normally would be like paddling up a waterfall ... and with feelings of great elation emerge with Chris behind me in the freedom of open space. This is the performance of the impossible in dreamland.
What a happy, happy start to the day!
If you wanted to look on this dream as a comment the Labour Party going down the toilet in local government elections the other day .... if the nowhere people from nowhere land think they can saddle Scotland with a government stuffed full of proto-Thatcherite, old Etonians, well, maybe not this time, Jack! If Labour can't win in England, the vote on the left is for the SNP.
9:20 p.m.
Since my partner was out all day, I stayed in and read the papers, investigated ra bliss. Fabulous meditations there were, Jack!
I haven't been running much recently, but soon after she came in, I went out running. I was getting a bit stir crazy after being in a lobby for most of the day, and jogging through the beautiful, wonderful city was such a tonic.
My head was just so right for it this evening. No anxieties. I wasn't really trying hard. I knew everything was going to be alright and everything felt alright. I was on the four mile run which takes you up the five sections of hill as you look up to the Scott Monument, up Dundas Street. Trying to move lightly on the earth, even on the hills. Kind of effortlessly gliding in a way. I am so fortunate to have these feeling from physicality at 57 years old, fortunate to have them at all. I just loved that run this evening. What a fortunate creature I am, I am. What a fortunate creature I am!
Telling yourself that you're dreaming when you're walking about awake isn't all that different, is really the same, as telling yourself that your reality is illusory, or that emptiness is all there is.
Like images seen in a dream; thus must we regard all things. Nagarjuna. The Wall.
Sweet dreams to one and all!
So I was falling into and out of dreams for a couple of hours this morning. This is perhaps partly a consequence of drinking four beers last night. Even with that amount, you're not going to be sharp as a tack and jumping out of bed at six or seven in the morning.
I was lost as usual, but it wasn't in downtown Freetown. It was a most gigantic and wonderful country mansion with rooms the size of Superbowls and fabulous vistas wherever you looked. This was the Potala Palace or the Gormenghast of country houses.
I was trying to get back to the Domestic Bliss so we could get on a bus, but with my sense of direction ....we were still there when it turns out that this place is some gigantic public school. I ends up walking along a bit with Boris Johnson, the old Etonian who has just been elected Lord Mayor of London (by the stupid Englanders). So I says to him: You're Boris Johnson! When he says he is, I tell him I must be dreaming then, and he says I'm not. This is a very vivid dream, but I know I must be dreaming if Boris Johnson is there, so I try to see if I can fly, and jump up and down a few times, but I don't fly.
I was so pleased when I wakened up after that one, and was looking forward to dozing off again.
Then I'm back in the country house and it's a huge and affluent public school place now. There's a huge staircase and it's got hundreds and hundreds of public school boys on it (they all looked too old to be at public school) and the crush of them is terrible and things feel as if the situation might get a wee bit out of hand, not that I'm particularly worried. I can see the Domestic Bliss's brother Chris round the curve of the staircase and up there a bit. Then I see him standing beside me. I look back and forth, and when I see that he's in two places at once, I say to the Chris beside me: I must be dreaming. I' m once again very elated by this even although Chris tells me that I'm definitely not dreaming.
I tell him that we can get out of this crush and to just hold onto me. I put my head down and, like a mouse under a tablecloth, I push against this stream of public schoolboys ... this normally would be like paddling up a waterfall ... and with feelings of great elation emerge with Chris behind me in the freedom of open space. This is the performance of the impossible in dreamland.
What a happy, happy start to the day!
If you wanted to look on this dream as a comment the Labour Party going down the toilet in local government elections the other day .... if the nowhere people from nowhere land think they can saddle Scotland with a government stuffed full of proto-Thatcherite, old Etonians, well, maybe not this time, Jack! If Labour can't win in England, the vote on the left is for the SNP.
9:20 p.m.
Since my partner was out all day, I stayed in and read the papers, investigated ra bliss. Fabulous meditations there were, Jack!
I haven't been running much recently, but soon after she came in, I went out running. I was getting a bit stir crazy after being in a lobby for most of the day, and jogging through the beautiful, wonderful city was such a tonic.
My head was just so right for it this evening. No anxieties. I wasn't really trying hard. I knew everything was going to be alright and everything felt alright. I was on the four mile run which takes you up the five sections of hill as you look up to the Scott Monument, up Dundas Street. Trying to move lightly on the earth, even on the hills. Kind of effortlessly gliding in a way. I am so fortunate to have these feeling from physicality at 57 years old, fortunate to have them at all. I just loved that run this evening. What a fortunate creature I am, I am. What a fortunate creature I am!
Telling yourself that you're dreaming when you're walking about awake isn't all that different, is really the same, as telling yourself that your reality is illusory, or that emptiness is all there is.
Like images seen in a dream; thus must we regard all things. Nagarjuna. The Wall.
Sweet dreams to one and all!
Saturday, 3 May 2008
Ris Wonderful Life!
Sunday 00:43 a.m.
"Shadow boxing earlier in the day, figured I was ready for Cassius Clay. Fee Fi Foo Fum, look out, Cassius, here I come!" The Inimitable Bob.
My arm feels okay until I try to put it into certain positions. I haven't stood on my head for about five months. This is the longest time for over twenty years. Still ...
I went for a jog yesterday and did the six three minute rounds of shadow boxing this evening in the full Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle. It wasn't too sharp, but I managed to go the distance. Thank God for the end of the diggings!!
You're still a fat basturn, Hotboy. Thanks for reminding me of that, Jack. You will stay a fat basturn unless you stop drinking beer, Hotboy. If you keep drinking beers every other night, you'll have to fight Two Ton Tony and not Marvelous Marvin. When I've had a few beers, I don't care who I'm going to figh, Jack!
Ah've never heard of da bums! Ah'll moida da bums whoever the are!
The wonderful day starts with the dreams. The dreams were very vivid, although not yet lucid at all. But they were so good that when you wakened up, you wanted to go to sleep to continue the dreams, the most enjoyable dreams.
I was talking to the kiddo about the shape of my life today, and how happy I am to be moving towards the black spot on the basis of so much bliss, the increments in ra bliss, and all the wonderful things that have been given to moi by ... it has to be a kind of grace, a something you cannot take any credit for. You've got to ask. The flatheids can take all the credit they like for the grief, sorrow, lamentations ... the suffering in this life, and the great spankings they will have to endure for being such ... flatheids.
Aren't you supposed to feel compassionate about the flatheids, Hotboy? I think you are, Jack. But eventually there is no this and there is no that. There will be no flatheids. But not if I keep hanging around with flatheids. It is a shame that they are so disturbed, funged up and bizarre, but I can't see how that can be my fault.
I wish I could describe ra bliss today, but I can't. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
"Shadow boxing earlier in the day, figured I was ready for Cassius Clay. Fee Fi Foo Fum, look out, Cassius, here I come!" The Inimitable Bob.
My arm feels okay until I try to put it into certain positions. I haven't stood on my head for about five months. This is the longest time for over twenty years. Still ...
I went for a jog yesterday and did the six three minute rounds of shadow boxing this evening in the full Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle. It wasn't too sharp, but I managed to go the distance. Thank God for the end of the diggings!!
You're still a fat basturn, Hotboy. Thanks for reminding me of that, Jack. You will stay a fat basturn unless you stop drinking beer, Hotboy. If you keep drinking beers every other night, you'll have to fight Two Ton Tony and not Marvelous Marvin. When I've had a few beers, I don't care who I'm going to figh, Jack!
Ah've never heard of da bums! Ah'll moida da bums whoever the are!
The wonderful day starts with the dreams. The dreams were very vivid, although not yet lucid at all. But they were so good that when you wakened up, you wanted to go to sleep to continue the dreams, the most enjoyable dreams.
I was talking to the kiddo about the shape of my life today, and how happy I am to be moving towards the black spot on the basis of so much bliss, the increments in ra bliss, and all the wonderful things that have been given to moi by ... it has to be a kind of grace, a something you cannot take any credit for. You've got to ask. The flatheids can take all the credit they like for the grief, sorrow, lamentations ... the suffering in this life, and the great spankings they will have to endure for being such ... flatheids.
Aren't you supposed to feel compassionate about the flatheids, Hotboy? I think you are, Jack. But eventually there is no this and there is no that. There will be no flatheids. But not if I keep hanging around with flatheids. It is a shame that they are so disturbed, funged up and bizarre, but I can't see how that can be my fault.
I wish I could describe ra bliss today, but I can't. Oh, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss!
Ra Yoga in Daily Life!
Saturday 22:09 p.m.
After complaining about having no one to meditate with .... the Domestic Bliss goes to a yoga class at St Ninian's Church and she says afterwards that they have a FREE meditation class. No use to her, of course, all that meditation malarkey, but I goes down today to check it out.
It was only an hour, but I couldn't have been more impressed at the way the boy did it. He's got a swami and everything, and is only about .... under thirty. But if that boy hasn't got down to ra bliss, he will be soon. A wee bit of pranayama, a stretch or two and about thirty five minutes meditation with him talking you through it. Very, very good way to spend an hour on a Saturday morning. A doddle for anyone, even someone with a dodgy shoulder!
I couldn't recommend it enough to folk from the beautiful, wonderful city! There were only three punters there, including moi. Much as I enjoyed it, I won't be going back. Cost £8.
I'm going out (of the room) now, and I may be some time. But I may be back! After giving up the Erdinger, the buggers put it on offer. Four bottles await! Hmmm?
After complaining about having no one to meditate with .... the Domestic Bliss goes to a yoga class at St Ninian's Church and she says afterwards that they have a FREE meditation class. No use to her, of course, all that meditation malarkey, but I goes down today to check it out.
It was only an hour, but I couldn't have been more impressed at the way the boy did it. He's got a swami and everything, and is only about .... under thirty. But if that boy hasn't got down to ra bliss, he will be soon. A wee bit of pranayama, a stretch or two and about thirty five minutes meditation with him talking you through it. Very, very good way to spend an hour on a Saturday morning. A doddle for anyone, even someone with a dodgy shoulder!
I couldn't recommend it enough to folk from the beautiful, wonderful city! There were only three punters there, including moi. Much as I enjoyed it, I won't be going back. Cost £8.
I'm going out (of the room) now, and I may be some time. But I may be back! After giving up the Erdinger, the buggers put it on offer. Four bottles await! Hmmm?
Friday, 2 May 2008
Ra Auld Maw!
Saturday 00:45 a.m.
I get to the auld maw's about ten to one. By just after half past one, she's lying on her bed and I'm sitting in a lotus at the bottom of her bed, and the CD thing is on. Today I put on the Dhammapada No 1 CD.
Mind precedes experience....
It really sounds a bit abstract compared to the last CD of the set from the devil worshipping, Dorje Shudgen schismists, which is really brilliant in its exposition, by the way. Got to hand it to the devil worshippers on that one.
I'm doing ra bliss. Because of the dynamic nature of the great vajrayana, the juju of jujus, ra bliss is a bit further on from the last time I was able to sit like this with the auld maw. We can't really leave the other family members, but have to chat in the living room when they show up when I'm there. Flatheids are just a pain in the arse. You can't just sit and do ra bliss with flatheids. They're a waste of human beingness, so they are!
The auld maw may not get ra bliss, but she lies there on top of her bed, and it seems she can do that forever. We're doing this, her listening or whatever, and me doing ra bliss for .... from the back of half one till ten past three. Hardly a word passes ..
During this ... I've had the most wonderful time. She's the only person I can do this with because everyone else I know is a fung moron!
Apart from the sensei and reverend, who sits around meditating with people ... so as soon as I win the lottery, I'll going to go to Arizona for a holiday. And I'm going to meditate with the sensei and reverend, and get a big shady hat and an umbrella and sit in the desert ... It's not the Nullabor Plain, but it is a desert. I could write this thing about Jacob Merryweather being in the desert much better if I'd actually been in one....
I'm giving up Erdinger. I've had IPA tonight, about four bottles, and at 4.4% I think I can sit up and meditate for hours and hours and hours. Because I don't have to do anything or see anyone who doesn't meditate, apart from the Domestic Bliss, till Tuesday. What a fortunate creature I am, I am. What a fortunate creature I am!
By the way, the buddha on the Dhammapada C.D. was most specific. He said if you cannot find a superior being to do the juju with, go for solitude. You just catch flatheidedness off flatheids. And wasn't it always thus!!
I get to the auld maw's about ten to one. By just after half past one, she's lying on her bed and I'm sitting in a lotus at the bottom of her bed, and the CD thing is on. Today I put on the Dhammapada No 1 CD.
Mind precedes experience....
It really sounds a bit abstract compared to the last CD of the set from the devil worshipping, Dorje Shudgen schismists, which is really brilliant in its exposition, by the way. Got to hand it to the devil worshippers on that one.
I'm doing ra bliss. Because of the dynamic nature of the great vajrayana, the juju of jujus, ra bliss is a bit further on from the last time I was able to sit like this with the auld maw. We can't really leave the other family members, but have to chat in the living room when they show up when I'm there. Flatheids are just a pain in the arse. You can't just sit and do ra bliss with flatheids. They're a waste of human beingness, so they are!
The auld maw may not get ra bliss, but she lies there on top of her bed, and it seems she can do that forever. We're doing this, her listening or whatever, and me doing ra bliss for .... from the back of half one till ten past three. Hardly a word passes ..
During this ... I've had the most wonderful time. She's the only person I can do this with because everyone else I know is a fung moron!
Apart from the sensei and reverend, who sits around meditating with people ... so as soon as I win the lottery, I'll going to go to Arizona for a holiday. And I'm going to meditate with the sensei and reverend, and get a big shady hat and an umbrella and sit in the desert ... It's not the Nullabor Plain, but it is a desert. I could write this thing about Jacob Merryweather being in the desert much better if I'd actually been in one....
I'm giving up Erdinger. I've had IPA tonight, about four bottles, and at 4.4% I think I can sit up and meditate for hours and hours and hours. Because I don't have to do anything or see anyone who doesn't meditate, apart from the Domestic Bliss, till Tuesday. What a fortunate creature I am, I am. What a fortunate creature I am!
By the way, the buddha on the Dhammapada C.D. was most specific. He said if you cannot find a superior being to do the juju with, go for solitude. You just catch flatheidedness off flatheids. And wasn't it always thus!!
Thursday, 1 May 2008
Ra Big Jambo Day!
Thursday, Ist May. 8:46 a.m.
The Amazing Bloggy Church of the Bad Boy Blissheid has declared the Ist of May to be Big Jambo Day. It was on the 1st of May, 1988 that the Domestic Bliss went back to work and I was left for the first time in sole charge of the kiddo. And it was on that day that the Big Jambo and Jeannie drove us down for my first visit to the Samye Ling. It was also the Big Jambo who introduced me to the Autobiography of a Yogi, which was very influential. Rest in Peace.
Of course, it's also Labour Day. Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we'll keep the red flag flying here!
10:58 p.m.
You can't explain about ra bliss to flatheids because they're flatheids, but ... when I got off the couch about four, it was pouring down and I sat in the lobby instead of going to the allotment. The Dalai Lama said that even when you are in the mandala, you will have to deal with the afflictive emotions.
Grieving and bliss. My face was wet with tears. I didn't mind. You have to grieve sometimes. It's cleansing. Such was ra bliss and the tears rolling down my face. So long as nobody's there to see you, it doesn't really matter. When someone you know commits suicide, there's such a sense of failure with the loss as well. All this during the startling bliss.
Filled with the spirit. What can you say? The priest once said that you're body was a temple of the Holy Ghost and that's why you shouldn't do bad things to yourself. The Holy Ghost, and kundalini and prana ...
I've been using as many Thursdays for meditation as I can since I became a part time worker four years ago. How they have helped! These days are my best days. The tears aren't a problem. Sometimes you're supposed to weep.
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up the remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains, an' go to your Gawd like a soldier. Kipling.
The diggings have all been dug, Jack! Apart from a little band where the strawberries are growing, I've dug the whole bloody thing over the last month. You can't win. It's my penance. The weeds will overtake you in the end, but in the war against the couch grass, today is one nil to moi. And it has become my little piece of heaven. Everything looked wonderful this evening. The sky, the grass, and the robin that sat on a post right behind me and swooped down on the odd brown, glistening centipede unearthed. The daffodils are fading and the apple blossom is starting to bloom. All I have to do now for ages is keep the grass borders in order. The digging always kicks the shit out of me, but the allotment has never looked better than it did tonight. There is a satisfaction in this completion.
The Amazing Bloggy Church of the Bad Boy Blissheid has declared the Ist of May to be Big Jambo Day. It was on the 1st of May, 1988 that the Domestic Bliss went back to work and I was left for the first time in sole charge of the kiddo. And it was on that day that the Big Jambo and Jeannie drove us down for my first visit to the Samye Ling. It was also the Big Jambo who introduced me to the Autobiography of a Yogi, which was very influential. Rest in Peace.
Of course, it's also Labour Day. Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, we'll keep the red flag flying here!
10:58 p.m.
You can't explain about ra bliss to flatheids because they're flatheids, but ... when I got off the couch about four, it was pouring down and I sat in the lobby instead of going to the allotment. The Dalai Lama said that even when you are in the mandala, you will have to deal with the afflictive emotions.
Grieving and bliss. My face was wet with tears. I didn't mind. You have to grieve sometimes. It's cleansing. Such was ra bliss and the tears rolling down my face. So long as nobody's there to see you, it doesn't really matter. When someone you know commits suicide, there's such a sense of failure with the loss as well. All this during the startling bliss.
Filled with the spirit. What can you say? The priest once said that you're body was a temple of the Holy Ghost and that's why you shouldn't do bad things to yourself. The Holy Ghost, and kundalini and prana ...
I've been using as many Thursdays for meditation as I can since I became a part time worker four years ago. How they have helped! These days are my best days. The tears aren't a problem. Sometimes you're supposed to weep.
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up the remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains, an' go to your Gawd like a soldier. Kipling.
The diggings have all been dug, Jack! Apart from a little band where the strawberries are growing, I've dug the whole bloody thing over the last month. You can't win. It's my penance. The weeds will overtake you in the end, but in the war against the couch grass, today is one nil to moi. And it has become my little piece of heaven. Everything looked wonderful this evening. The sky, the grass, and the robin that sat on a post right behind me and swooped down on the odd brown, glistening centipede unearthed. The daffodils are fading and the apple blossom is starting to bloom. All I have to do now for ages is keep the grass borders in order. The digging always kicks the shit out of me, but the allotment has never looked better than it did tonight. There is a satisfaction in this completion.
Rat Dream Yoga
Thursday 8:15 a.m.
Dream yoga is one of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Since raising inner heat, the tummo, is the foundation practise, you probaby can't do dream yoga properly until you're good at that. Still, sober and straight going to bed, I thought I'd give it a go.
The wummin who owned the Holy Isle sold it cheap to the Samye Ling after she was told to sell it to the buddhists by the Virgin Mary in a dream. The lama flew over it once in a lucid dream when he was practising the Six Yogas in America.
You might be able to get into lucid dreaming by telling yourself you'll dream and be aware of your dreams before you go to sleep. Otherwise, you can tell yourself that you're dreaming while you're awake.
I think Descartes of the pineal gland thought your first philosophical step was to ask yourself if you were dreaming or not. I think therefore I am. I am therefore I do.
Do be do be do. Frank Sinatra.
Anyway, not a very successful experiment. Vivid, yes. Lucid, no. In the first dream, a dark shadow at the foot of the bed was squeezing my feet (I fell asleep in the yoga nidra position) and I got a bad case of the heeby jeebies trying to waken up to fight that. Then, I was involved in some horrorshow between the jews and the nazis living next door. Oh, no! The bomb! The bomb! The last one of this heavy menacing trio involved straightforward working class sectarianism starting with a kickabout in the street. Ally McCoist, the assistant manager of the Rangers, made an appearance in this one.
After eight hours in bed, I still feel knackered as well! Back to the drawing board.
I should add that I will be supporting the huns tonight in their attempt to reach a European final. Gone are the days when the team management, owners, football players, et al were steeped in masonry and orangeism. So I'm supporting the huns tonight and just hope the orange basturns among their support get the good doing they so richly deserve from the Italian polis! Once they get rid of the Act of Settlement, there will be nothing much to be an orange fascist basturn about. God save the Queen!
Dream yoga is one of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Since raising inner heat, the tummo, is the foundation practise, you probaby can't do dream yoga properly until you're good at that. Still, sober and straight going to bed, I thought I'd give it a go.
The wummin who owned the Holy Isle sold it cheap to the Samye Ling after she was told to sell it to the buddhists by the Virgin Mary in a dream. The lama flew over it once in a lucid dream when he was practising the Six Yogas in America.
You might be able to get into lucid dreaming by telling yourself you'll dream and be aware of your dreams before you go to sleep. Otherwise, you can tell yourself that you're dreaming while you're awake.
I think Descartes of the pineal gland thought your first philosophical step was to ask yourself if you were dreaming or not. I think therefore I am. I am therefore I do.
Do be do be do. Frank Sinatra.
Anyway, not a very successful experiment. Vivid, yes. Lucid, no. In the first dream, a dark shadow at the foot of the bed was squeezing my feet (I fell asleep in the yoga nidra position) and I got a bad case of the heeby jeebies trying to waken up to fight that. Then, I was involved in some horrorshow between the jews and the nazis living next door. Oh, no! The bomb! The bomb! The last one of this heavy menacing trio involved straightforward working class sectarianism starting with a kickabout in the street. Ally McCoist, the assistant manager of the Rangers, made an appearance in this one.
After eight hours in bed, I still feel knackered as well! Back to the drawing board.
I should add that I will be supporting the huns tonight in their attempt to reach a European final. Gone are the days when the team management, owners, football players, et al were steeped in masonry and orangeism. So I'm supporting the huns tonight and just hope the orange basturns among their support get the good doing they so richly deserve from the Italian polis! Once they get rid of the Act of Settlement, there will be nothing much to be an orange fascist basturn about. God save the Queen!
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