Ra Last Samye Morning!

Monday 10:21 a.m.
The lama was still here this morning! Hurrah! I've just finished two hours in the temple. Great, great, great!

Two very good things about this wee visit. One was being in the Medicine Buddha shrine. I've just been speaking to Temple Dave (I haven't spoken to anyone else!)who says he'll open the shrine for me any time I want to use it. Sometimes if the back temple is being used and tourists are all over the main one that'll be handy.

By the way, Temple Dave asked if I'd be back down in July and I said I'd like to, but I'd have to hit the plastic if I did. I could see that the expression 'hit the plastic' meant nothing to day. So I said: I'll need to use my credit card. Oh, yes, says Dave. Dave won't have a credit card. Dave probably didn't get annoyed about the last Iraq war or the first one. He might not have heard much about them.

We don't believe in any things, especially thoughts. I don't want to believe in rebirth partly because I must have been a bad basturn or made some terrible mistake previously. How come otherwise I've got to hang about with flatheids to the left, right, back and front, and Temple Dave just gets to meditate and clean the temple? I think Temple Dave will live for a very long while and become enlightened. He's got a better blinking chance than me anyway!

The other good thing was the only bit of teaching the monk did on the course. He was talking about the Four Limitless Contemplations. The third one is: May they never be separate from the sacred happiness untainted by suffering.

The sacred happiness is, he says, the stuff that arises spontaneously. I have had wee bits of this. You don't get it if you pollute your mind with drink and drugs. The Butterball Boy exhibits this. He can hardly get through making an announcement (he's an assistant to Dr Akong, I think) without going into a high pitched giggle as he's trying to get out the words. The Dalai Lama giggles all the time as well.

Anyway, if it wasn't for the flatheids where would we be? If they weren't doing all the work, I wouldn't be on holiday for the next six weeks. So hurrah for the flatheids!