What's needed!

Friday or Saturday. 9:37 p.m.
                                            I need some stuff to make me a moi. I've got pots of money now. Well, I've got hardly any money in bourgeois terms, but far more money than I've ever had since I stopped working and the kiddo arrived, then about seven grand. A quarter century ago. So, somehow they gave me twenty eight grand for being sixty. I had an overdraft of fifteen hundred spots. I had to give the Domestic Bliss three grand for the sticking of the building together and whatnot. For myself I got addicted once again to tobacco and have been smoking soapbar like it's going out of style. Cranking down on the bevvying now, and waiting to withdraw into the bliss.
                                           When occasionally I used to be given some money, I always restocked the underwear and socks drawers. What do you need? Or what would be good? A good pair of shoes. Nobody wears shoes anymore. Once I bought some nice shoes in celebration of getting a jobbie. But what I should buy is

1) A nice leather jacket. I bought one once when I got into another jobbie and it lasted over twenty years, until the Domestic Bliss hid it, or more probably, destroyed it.

2) I need a recording device so that I can stock all the things that phantoms say to moi. It has to have a wire onto the computery thing. No bits and pieces. Straight into the cloud!

3) The telly I sometimes watched whilst abed does not work anymore because the Time Lords changed the signal.The basturns! No compensation. Nobody mentioned that. Anyway, I could get another telly for about a hundred and twenty spots, and that would be a comfort. But since I haven't had a telly in there, I've starting reading books and listening to radio four, and the noise has diminished.
                       I thought the Domestic Bliss was sitting behind me there. She's in Newmains. Do you think that's a good or a bad sign, Jack? I think forgetting what day it is is a much better sign! So is getting two isses in a row and being unable to understand that. It's the prime numbers of prose.
                       Other things I need:
4) I need someone to fall madly in love with me. Someone around nineteen or twenty with a very rich background. Just forget everything else. That's obviously what I need. I love you too, babes!
5) The other thing I need is a pair of good running shoes. The ones I got from a gift from my brother Popeye last birthday were still half price and a size too large. Sleek mechanisms of balance and beauty. The perfect shoe.
                       The sixty year old boy is going to buy himself a pair of good running shoes with his lump sum! Allah Akbar!
6) I'll need to leave the flat more often so that the gorgeous womenfolk can observe me.
7) A telly, a good pair of running shoes that fit, a recording device, a brilliant leather jacket like the last one, someone to fall madly in love with me, and ...
                     On top of all this, I reside in the beautiful, wonderful city. This was not planned. It just appeared around me. There is not a better place in this world to emanate in than right here and right now. Just as one's consciousness plunges towards the data, data, data, data-like oblivion ... much worse places to be, so there are!
                     I am so happy! I am so happy! I am a happy, happy Joe!
                 

Perfect Moments

Friday 10:40 p.m.
                           Sometimes over the last week or so there have been moments which have seemed pretty wonderful. These are moments full of bliss and clarity. I've been getting more of these than usual mostly because I haven't got a jobbie anymore. It makes a huge difference. I wouldn't recommend having a jobbie at all. Also, I had some perfect moments with the mother-in-law. We were in the back garden and I was sitting on a mossy banking, in the shade, doing the juju and overlooking the mother-in-law who was in the sunshine down below trying to read her book. Wonderful. Clarity and bliss. Ye canny whack it!!

Reality

Monday 1:10 p.m.
                            I don't think Hindus or Buddhists want you to stick with a concrete view of reality. You have to realise that  your senses aren't telling you the whole truth, that you're not getting the full picture, that you are, in fact, the subject and product of misapprehension.
                            You have an ashtray. It's called an ashtray and it's for putting your roaches in. It has a label and a function. You can say other things about the ashtray, like it's made of glass and so on. You can say that ashtray has a label and a function, but once you start describing anything else, you might hit shaky ground.
                            It said today that they had strong hints of the existence of Higgs boson. This will explain why things are heavy.
                            How smart can we be if we don't even know that yet?
                            Once you go into the molecular level and sub-atomic level, nothing makes any sense. We have the mad stuff like particles spinning both ways simultaneously, being in more than one place, etc.
                            From the two slit experiment with the electrons, people seem to have surmised that things operate the way we see them operating when there is some kind of observer or measurer or maybe awareness would do. Scientists don't like this because they have to posit an observer outside the universe and that's just the deux ex machina stuff they had in the middle ages and whatnot. Like God looking down on us.
                            From the wee realisation I once had of non-self and emptiness, which involves your awareness expanding from you into everything else ... well, I've seen the awareness. Or an awareness. So it seems that the awareness would be inside the universe and not outside it.
                            You do see something that is flowing in and through everything and somehow the most important part.
                             That's all I can saw about it. I don't know if this bigger awareness is aware of itself. I don't think it has to be, or that it should be aware of itself. In some way we may have its eyes and ears, or some of its eyes and ears.
                             So we have the planets flying around and we have a good idea about how that's happening, and we have the wee tottie things and we can see that they defy all the reasonable things we've managed to find out about the big stuff and .... never the twain shall meet. Well, if you stick in the bigger self (which might not know itself) ... well, it works for me a bit when it comes to emptiness. Nothing existing in the manner of its appearance. It also might solve the problem of how can things exist only in your mind when you know the moon will still be there when you die. It is existing in mind, just not your mind.
                             Like images seen in a dream
                             Thus must we regard all things
Can't remember who said that.
                              Lovely day outside. I'll have to go walkies!
10:15 p.m.
                              Just noticed I've got the day wrong. I don't know what day it is. That's got to be a good sign!

Cyclical Existence

Monday 10.00 a.m.
                             There are maybe three things you should be trying for. Getting out of cyclic existence, gaining the altruistic attitude and developing a sensible view of reality.
                              As far as getting out of cyclic existence is concerned ... I don't really feel involved with this since I don't think I am in a cyclic existence situation. I think the person I think I am (which I am not) will die when I die and that's good riddance to him. If there is some kind of continuum where some other poor basturn (or dog)  has to take on the results of what I've done, we'll you've got to feel sorry for the poor basturn. He or she is probably going to have a hard time giving up stuff, like tobacco and the beer, since that could go on for eons and eons.
                              The altruistic intention is something you have to develop, and it isn't easy. Well, not for moi anyway. You have to develop an instinct to help people, especially help them with the suffering, I suppose. My instinct is to tell them to meditate or blow their brains out since they are such useless basturns, but I am working on it!
                              It's nearly 10:15 a.m. and I haven't meditated today yet. Can't seem to get out of my bed till after nine these days. What sloth!!

Porty!

Sunday 4:45 p.m.
                          We went to Porty last night for a walk along the promenade. It was sunny enough to look like a foreign country, but it started getting cauld when the sun was going down and a very Scottish breeze started the chill. I didn't have on my jumper for the first time in ages. Dearie me! On the way back along the promenade towards the city, the sun was setting like a fiery ball. I bet it doesn't say on the tourist brochures: Come to Sunny Porty and get your retinas burnt out!!
                          I had a chat to a flatheid about meditating. No point, Jack! No point at all. The flatheid thought they knew about meditating after doing five minutes a day for a week once. I know I don't know about meditating because I don't know how the Buddha Boy can sit under a tree without moving for weeks on end, but what I do know about meditating isn't worth trying to explain to flatheids. Flatheids just don't get the bliss.
                          Because the teevee in the bedroom is now broke due to the basturns changing the signal to digital, I have to read stuff when I'm sitting in there to maybe have a wee joint. Yesterday I was reading this book about the juju. The boy says there are six attitudes that will help you.
                          The first one is to believe that you are sick. So Buddhism, or rather meditation, is going to cure you. Most folk don't like to think they're sick when they feel alright. I think it's better to think that you are stupid or ignorant. Stupid, ignorant and sick! You can see why selling that to your usual sweetie eating moron is expecting a bit much!
                          Beautiful day today!

Some flowers!

Friday 7:30 p.m.
                         These are the photies that got lost in the machine yesterday, apart from the one of Brian Wilson's castle.
                          Sometimes I think that I'll never have to go to work again for the rest of my life and that never fails to make me feel really, really good.
                         I cycled to Portobello yesterday to beard Brian Wilson, but I could not cycle back because he hid my bike. There is no escape. Today I was in the pub in Bellshill with the Spango Yogini. I had four pints of Belhaven Best which seems to be practically non alcoholic. Nice to be having a drink with a more normal person. Or one who doesn't have a drink in both hands. Dearie me!
                         But it's been a lesson to me, Jack! No more drinkies for moi!

Meditation on Old Age!

Wednesday 8:50 p.m.
                                Losing track of the photies!! Only the second one down was taken today!

                                So the mother in law sits in her seat, and sometimes doses. Usually, she's trying to read a book. Every now and again, she makes the long, long trek to the toilet and back. Sometimes the BBC news channel is on, and sometimes it's not. I sit at the kitchen table reading a paper, or a book, but usually meditating. We talk sometimes, but not a lot.
                                What's happening to the mother in law is what happens to a person lucky enough to have good health all their life. They have a very long old age.
                                 I'm at the beginning of my old age and I'm looking at what will happen to me if I'm lucky enough to have good health. John Betjeman said there wasn't anything you enjoyed worth giving up for a few more years on the geriatric ward. Just as I was on the brink of giving everything up, this has come as a good reminder.
                                 She's still got the being awake and the being asleep. That's all. No bliss to sink into. Fortunately, she's kept her sweet nature. Most of the flatheids I know are going to end up right crabbit basturns, so they are! Aye, them that dies will be the lucky ones!
9:20 p.m. It's not my fault the photies are going wonky! It's them damn machines again!!

Betwixt and Between!

Sunday 12:45 p.m.
                            Going this way that way, backwards and forwards, over the Irish Sea. A bottle of rum to fill my tum and that's the life for me!
                            Once one has gotten away from the clicky clicky, beep beep world, one finds oneself loath to return, so one does.
                            I'm on Newmains tomorrow and Tuesday, but back here again this Wednesday. By Wednesday more than half of the last fortnight will have been spent in Newmains. Man with a suitcase, but I'm getting more relaxed about it. One day last week I went for a short jog. Another day I skipped and did a few shuttle runs round the back.
                            My monies ended up in the same account on Friday. So this is kind of the start. I don't have to go to work for the rest of my life and I have some money. This is kind of  like heaven to me. Going to Newmains is fine as well for the moment anyway. Onwards and upwards.
1:00 p.m.
              The photies of the sky might not have been taken yesterday. The bottom photie is out of the Vue at Ocean Terminal. I saw my first 3D movie there last night. Harry Potter and the Stormy Gallows, or something. Couldn't understand it at all, but the cannybliss yogurt went well with the 3D specs. You'd really need some mushrooms and acid and .... I couldn't understand the plot. I think the joe with the head like a worm must have been a baddie!
                       

Newmains again!

Wednesday 10:15 a.m.
                                   Well, I should be heading back into Newmains by early afternoon. It is a far, far better thing you do .. than you have done before that last thing you did which wasn't all that good really at all. Anyway, I couldn't do it if I couldn't meditate. Oh well, once more into the breach, dear friends!

In the money!

Monday 10:27 a.m.
                             This is a photie of my ISA savings book. I'm not long back from a visit to the bank. The girl I was speaking to was drop dead gorgeous, probably from Malawi, called Aggi. I would have asked her to marry me, but I had already told her I was retired so had already given the game away, though I don't look a day over fifty nine. Anyway, they let me take out five hundred spots and will sort out the mistake the council made over the next few days.
                             I'm giving up the drink today and will commence my alternative addiction by lunchtime. Hurrah!
12:20 p.m.
                             Turns out it was my fault and I gave them the wrong number!! Just as well I got out of the jobbie when I did as I'm obviously far too old and doddery for gainful employment!

The hut and the pictures of the hut!

Today about eleven.
                              There is the evil, and the impressions on the flatheids, and the suffering, and sometimes there seems to be nothing else but that.
                               I watched a wonderful film last night, mainly about this joe called Serge Hovey, and how he loved, and loved, and loved, Robert Burns, and strange it was, and kind of wonderful, so it was. It was shown on an unironed curtain at the Samye Ling, and of course a wee tear came to my eyes when I heard Jean Repath singing Auld Lang Syne. http://www.we7.com/#/song/Jean-Redpath/Auld-Lang-Syne
                              Scotthishy stuff mixed with the Tibetan stuff.
                               Monet painted his garden. I must learn how to do that. Like, sit in the hut and then sit outside the hut. I never should have tried to write a book other than Alma Mater. I should have written it again and again and again. You change and it changes. All the rest is just a lot of making money, or not. So I'm going to live for a long time and become a painter. And all I've ever paint is the hut. I'll sit in the hut, or I'll paint the hut.
                              This would be perfect. Because nobody would care and neither would I. Spontaneous emotional singing in colour. Or black and white.Allah Akbar!

Back home!

Sunday 7:25 p.m.

                           I always come back from the Samye Ling feeling completely knackered! I don't know why I am this time since I was only there for two nights, and had a room. But knackered I am. Of course, I was up and raring to go at half five in the morning ....

                           The weather was surprisingly good, especially last night when the Domestic Bliss and I went for a walk. Heard that the rest of the country was half drowned. Well, that was the right way round for once.

In the War Against the Machines Part 6

Hi Hazel!

              I was more than a little disappointed to discover that my pension lump sum had not been deposited in my current account yesterday, Friday 8th of July. I found this out while visiting my mother-in-law in Newmains. She does not have a computer. There is no Bank of Scotland branch in Newmains. Later in the morning I was contacted by my branch in Edinburgh since there had been an attempt to deposit over £28,000 into an ISA savings account which I did not even know I had since the last time I drew money from there was about four or five years ago. Anyway, it seems that you cannot deposit more than £5.000 into an ISA account in one year. I think this is why my bank tried to contact me.

              After several hours on the telephone to various helpful people in the telephone banking world, the lump sum was still not transferred to my current account by the time I was due to depart from Newmains for a weekend here at the Samye Ling Tibetan Centre in the Borders. Fortunately, I was able to borrow money to cover my expenses for this weekend.

              On Monday I will go to the branch of the Bank of Scotland which holds my accounts and will attempt to get access to my lump sum.

               I will contact you again about the demand I received for a salary overpayment of over £39 which I received when I was expecting at least two weeks wages at the end of June. You said you would suspend this overpayment until I received my first pension payment on the 15th.

               I will be very interested to see if I get any pension money on the 15th. At the moment, I wouldn't bet on it.

               I assume this is nobody's fault. If it is somebody fault, I know I will never be able to find out whose fault it is. I think it's probably my fault for getting a job with Edinburgh council in the first place.

                Hazel, you did ask me to inform you if I didn't get the lump sum by Friday. Well, there it is. No lump sum. Nothing but hassle after hassle after hassle. When I think that the government right now is complaining about public sector pensions, I ask myself what the hell have they got to complain about?

                I'll get back to you sometime on Monday when I hope I have better news.

                                             Yours in the Buddha,

                                                         Hotboy.

               I just sent this email. I had twenty eight grand in the bank supposedly on Friday and hadn't the money to buy a newspaper!! Somebody must have pressed the wrong clicky clicky thing, eh, Jack? Well, Hotboy, this is probably a karmic consequence of working in an education system for thirty years which, after at least eleven years of education, manages to send kids out into the world who cannot read, write or count. 

But it is not raining here and I will go down by the river for a bit of meditation!!

                 

 

The Lump Sum!

Tuesday 9:00 p.m.
                            I phoned up the rest and be thankful pension people today and the boy says that my lump sum will be in the bank by Friday! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Freedom! Freedom!
                             Of course, I'm supposed to drip feed the lump sum into my pension, which is about £300 and a bit a month, so that I end up with the same amount of money as I had when I was working, and it would then run out just as my state pension comes on stream, and then I'd have the same amount as I was making while in the jobbie share, until I die.
                             I ask myself: Hotboy, is this a heroic way to live? What do you think, Jack? Say your prayers, Hotboy. Ask God for help and say your prayers. How much is this lump sum anyway?
                             Well, once you take off my share for stapling the gable end back onto the building, and for the decorating thereafter, and pay off the overdraft, I guess we're looking at about twenty five grand.
                              Did they give you twenty five grand to walk off that jobbie and never to work again, Hotboy? Yes, they did, Jack! Unbelievable, isn't it? If I only had a grand, I could be a millionaire!
                              For those of yous who are maybe interested in a bit of juju history, a joe called Atisha came to Tibet, and he was asked because he had developed the altruistic intention, something that took him twelve years to achieve studying with his guru in Indonesia. The Kadampa tradition comes from this joe. Anyway, Gampopa who was a kadampa monk, and could do the bliss for four days straight, went to Milarepa to do the juju with him. Milarepa had the tantric stuff! Atisha knew about the tantric stuff alright, but he did not teach it in Tibet because when he got there, he found that the tantric stuff that was getting practised was getting misused or abused.
                                What do you think this means, Hotboy? I think it might be the case that the tantrayana practitioners there were bonking each others brains out because this inner heat juju, the kundalini arousings, are a bit susceptible to that. This might be one of the reasons why the vajrayana, the juju of jujus was kept secret. How has this got anything to do with you getting your lump sum, Hotboy?
                                 Well, here's how I make my fortune, Jack! I write a book about the juju and why it was a bad move to have any of it published after all. Because nice shy boys like moi would not have thought of this. So I hammer in a couple of months in the hut and then get a plane to Bangkok. I believe they have a serious methamphetamine problem in Thailand. Once you've found out who to get that off, buy the Viagra, and find some very friendly nice professional girls.
                                  That kind of travel book would sell, Jack!! Juju, drugs, travel, and tons of sex!
                                   What do you think the Domestic Bliss would make of this cunning plan to gain fame and fortune, Hotboy? Well, Jack, we have to realise that the problems between men and women occur because they had a few big eggs and we have lots and lots of wee eggs. Now, her big eggs have all run out, but I've still got oodles of wee eggs. Oodles of them. And I'll probably be dead by the time my state pension kicks in. Like Andrew Carnegie, I think dying rich is a disgrace!
                                   What do you think, Jack? Give all the money away, go to the hut, and do ra bliss!
                                    Meditated wonderfully today for about six hours before hitting the off license for a bottle of red collapso, recommended retail price £13. I've paced the remnants of my wages perfectly. Got about twenty quid left. Get twenty five grand by Friday. Such joy! Now is the perfect time to die. If I were to seriously broach with the Domestic Bliss my most recent cunning plan for fame and fortune, I think dying might be on the cards anyway!
                               

                           

Too darn hot!

Monday 3:35 p.m.
                            I'm supposed to be up the allotment pulling weeds and whatnot, but it's too hot!! Not often you can say that in Chilly Jockoland, but it was. I collected some tatties and onions, sweated too much over a wee bit of weeding, ate a strawberry and called it a day. Brought the food home and emptied the camera. You can't see out of the viewfinder at all in this light.
                           Oh well, might as well go fishing! Or my equivalent which is sitting under a tree in the Botanical Gardens. Well, somebody's got to do it!

Dreams

Sunday 10:05 p.m.
                            In the first dream I was probably chatting to some friends in the old Traverse bar, and then went outside to the Grassmarket. There was some kind of stushie going on with the polis and one got knocked off his horse.
                             I've never sat on a horse. So I jumped onto this horse's back and didn't really know how to make it go, but the horse was very big and strong, with great flaring nostrils and wide eyes, and it galloping around that part of town like the witches are after us. At one point we're galloping through  the junction at Tollcross and cars are smashing into one another and all kinds of mayhem is going on, just like in the movies. And I'm still not really in control of the monster, but I'm slapping it to keep away from the polis who are trying to get me off the horse. Another authority figure in a suit tried to get me off the horse, and managed to get up behind me, but I pushed him off the back. Finally, the horse stopped and I got off and mingled inconspicuously with the crowds around Victoria Street and went back into the old Traverse. I saw someone I once had a lust for and she looked serene.
                            What do you think that's about, Jack? It's about passion, Hotboy. About passion and controlling passion because, though you do not mention it in the bloggy anymore, the juju of jujus is somehow inexplicably most libidinous. It makes you notice women. But it also makes you notice trees and clouds.
                             I dozed off on the couch a few hours later.
                             I'm on a trapeze swing and I'm clinging on in some fear because it is flying through the sky. Then I tell myself I'm there to practice the yogic flying and that I shouldn't be afraid because I know I can do the yogic flying. My wee brother can also do it. All you have to do is let go. So I let go, and fly.
                             Then I go into the kitchen and my wee brother is there and I'm going to talk to him about the yogic flying and notice that Teresa from the Samye Ling is in the kitchen and she says she'll sort my back (I've been getting a wee ache getting out of bed recently due to back bends too far). So I turn around and she pushes the sacroiliac bits and this amazing surge of bliss goes up my spine. Then she's sweeping the floor and asks her not to do that because if she did it, I'd have to do it.
                              What do you think that one was about, Jack? Holes are appearing in your brain, Hotboy. Give up everything!

The famine is over!

Sunday 10:00 p.m.
                            It's always a red letter day when you get your first tatties from the allotment.Grabbed a couple of onions as well. Due to having a fairly basic diet - breid and soup - any meals you make tend to taste ....yummy. Fried eggs in olive oil, fried tomatoes, fried onions... a deathless delight, so it was!