Wednesday 5.57 p.m.
                                 Yesterday I peeled back the carpet which was laid down along the central path in the allotment to kill all the grass a couple of months ago, and dug up the wee bit that you can see in the photies. I felt fine walking home and told myself that I would be able to go for a run later on. Later on, I was dead crabbit and completely knackered. Couldn't believe it.
                                  The sweat was running down over the front of my glasses and my tee shirt was so wet with sweat that I had to take if off before going home. Dearie me. Still, it's not even an hour's steady work. Thank God I never had to do a proper day's work in my life. You'd really be exhausted at night, so you would.
                                 

Monday 8.50 p.m.
                            Poisonous rang my mobile phone today. Anyone ringing my mobile phone is unusual. Poisonous says that he cannot see people properly. He cannot remember what they look like. This would be a problem is you were trying to visualise the Medicine Buddha. I have this problem as well. I cannot visualise the Medicine Buddha. So we're all on the spectrum, of folk who cannot visualise other folk. I cannot play the piano. I'm sure if I tried quite hard I'd be able to hammer out Chopsticks after a while. Rachmananov, maybe not. The trouble with folk is that they don't even try. Stuck with it and too dumb to even try. Dearie me!

Dodging the black spot!
Thursday 9.21 p.m.
                             The top photie hardly does justice to the lovely spot I meditated in at the Botties this afternoon. The branches swooping down in front of you and all. The tatties were what was in front of me this evening when I went up to the allotment to meditate a little. I took the two bottom photies coming home. The sun shone today. When the sun shines ...
                             So due to the Domestic Bliss inflicting her anxiety onto my leprosy, I went to the Doctor's today to give some blood for testing. I did not want to do this. This is how they get you and then hand you the black spot. If you don't give them any blood, you have to wait until you're half dead, and then they say we could have helped you more if we'd got to you sooner. Oh aye? Helped me with what? Are you going to cure me of dying? Anyway, the boy said they were going to check my folic acid levels and whatnot, but they're bound to check it for all other kinds of things. Have a seat. Yes, sit down. The leprosy is fine, but we'll have to cut your goollies off. Due to the dirk wart succubus, otherwise known as here's the black spot.
                              That would be the last time I'd want to have anything to do with doctors except that they  can give you a prescription for shampoo, and prescriptions are free in wonderful Caledonia. He prescribed me two bottles. They are sitting now on the kitchen table. I do not have any hair. All the folk I know are baldy. One of them bought me a hair cutting device, like the barber uses anyway, and now I'm usually as baldy as them. I think this makes them feel better. But it has saved me about £60 so far.
                               I hardly spent any time at all meditating up the allotment this evening, but it was very affirming. A sweetie. Great bliss making you realise there were far more vastnesses of bliss to surf than previously imagined.

Wednesday 21.29 p.m.
                                   Today was the best day so far this week. Been hard to settle. The training sessions sometimes knock the crap out of me and next day I'm a bit flat. But I meditated this morning and in the afternoon went out into the wonderful weather, and walked to the Botanic Gardens. So I'm meditating under this tree when his cat comes upon me and spends some time. I loved that somehow. Dogs aren't allowed in the Botanics. I don't suppose cats are allowed either, but it's got to be cat heaven if no dogs are allowed. On the way to the allotment, I stopped in the middle of that quarter of the park and did a tai chi set. Then I sat on my jacket and meditated there for a bit. I went to the allotment and meditated there for a bit, then watered the plants. A perfect afternoon. Tomorrow I want to get up at six. I've been having great long sleeps since I forsook the bevvy for the cannybliss yogurts.
                                    The toolbar is stopping me 'publishing' this crap. Somebody is trying to tell me something!
                                 

Tuesday 5.14 p.m.
                            Went for a walk in the Botanics today since it was so sunny and my day had already been disrupted. Then I had to go to the library for someone, so I went to the Botties as well.
                             I took the bottom photie to show the problem with the allotment. The meditation block is about a foot higher than the actual growing area due to the soil having been stolen by the old and evil bourgeois who allotmenteer alongside me!

Tuesday 10.25 a.m.
                              My morning of wonderful meditations has been ruined by a visit to the doctor, which was organised by the Domestic Bliss, to see about my leprosy. He prescribed some shampoo and some cream to stop my nose falling off. I wondered aloud in the chemist about how much this would cost.
                               Prescriptions are free in Scotland, she said. Hurrah! The buses are free already. Soon the electricity will be free and the beer will be free, and the creekit will be banned from the telly and all will be well in this wonderful country.
                                I bought batteries for the camera. £4.29 for eight wee batteries. I'm counting the photies. That's the first two. Down the right hand side of the top one you can see where I've put down the carpet to kill the grass. This summer I will dug under that though I am not too sure why. The little hillock I've made will be covered in carpet then and all the grass in there will be killed. And then ... it's earth sculpture, Jack. That's what it is.
                                I knew there was no point in talking to flatheids about meditation and that's why I started blogging. Or one of the reasons. Now it is obvious that there is no point in talking to the too dumb to meditate about non-self and emptiness. Though this is rational and can be understood by anyone, it is pointless to hear about this stuff and not meditate. Knowing that it's true won't be any use to you when the chips are down. You have to have realised it, or gone some way towards this. Then the notion has infected your mind and will alter the way you think. Until then, it's just a lot of words.
                                So good luck with that flatheided stuff! What a great day I'm going to have! First of all, I'm going to meditate till half twelve. That is going to be wonderful!!

Sunday 9.27 p.m.
You think you can communicate quickly with the computery connections!

Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I inadvertently downloaded your toolbar one night whilst not in my proper senses, and I now it is blocking where I put the title on my bloggy. Over the times I have viewed your toolbar while trying to type and correct in the title space of my bloggy, I have always admired its design. But it is designed for a younger person, I think. Could you please let me know how to get it off my computery thing? I would be most grateful. Thank you.

Here's three old photies. Trying to get the bluetooth thing to work proved impossible for me. I'm still resisting paying for batteries since I do not think it is right that one battery only seems to last for four photies!

     
          The joe made, I think, a bit of a heroic effort to get out and come over here for his bit of the pizza. It was this pizza stuff and such like concoctions that bonded us in our youth. The search to get out of your head and the folk to search therewith. But I don't even know how much of a heroic effort to get up our stairs was because I do not know how it feels to be that ill. And he still looks more or less okay. He left half way through our conversation to go to the chemist for some liquid morphine. Since he is my pal, he offered me a dose and said I'd hardly feel it. 15ml.
           I've been a bit crabbit today, Jack. I think it might be from the joints we smoked yesterday because the tobacco is pure poison to your wonderful thoughts. Of course, I ate a bit of pizza. Then the 15ml.
           Albert would know what that meant, the 15ml dose. But although he knows everything, especially stuff about computery things, and he cannot stop banging on about that time he almost invented the internet and all,  he won't fung tell us, will he? No, he won't. He doesn't give a damn about my toolbar problems! But this is important, Albert! Should I ask for two doses the next time? That's 30ml. It's called Oralmorph, I think. Must have had Shelley working in the office that day. Anyway, what's the lethal dose? Two bottles? What?
           We can do Lenny Bruce here, so we could, if we wanted to. But it just takes you away from the bliss. The bliss takes you away, at least for a bit, from the First Noble Truth. When I first heard of the First Noble Truth, I thought that's the kind of miserable crap you'd expect to come out of a country that was continually swept through by hordes of tinkers. Later, I surmised that the Indian sub-continent might not be quite like that. But it is a miserable, miserable one. The First Noble Truth is the Truth of Suffering.
           I'm going to try and try to meditate my way out of my view of myself, but sometimes, it seems, we are sent here to take a bit of a spanking. And meditating your way out of the First Noble Truth might be take you quite a while. And I felt really crabbit today and I slept for about ten hours last night.
 

Thursday 12.24 p.m.
                                I can't put titles on these posts now because I tried to download something for the bluetooth thing and ended up with a toolbar across where you used to be able to type the title. Anyone know how to remove a toolbar? Oh, well!
                                 The auld maw sometimes says to me that I cannot meditate all the time. This is very true. The reason why I cannot meditate all the time is because I am not good enough at it. The Buddha Boy ... well, if you were interested in meditation you would have looked at the youtube film by the Discovery Channel a long time ago. Anyway, he can sit in the one position for months.
                                  To do this juju you really need solitude. I was very taken by a wonderful story in the Alexandra David-Neel book, Initiates and Initiations. This boy stays in a hermitage without seeing anyone for twenty years. That's the kind of thing I admire.
                                   Once, when I still had a jobbie, this guy who retired but came back to do supply teaching said that it was a terrible thing to waken up and not knowing what you were going to be doing all day. It's a shame about flatheids, but they deserve all they get really. Prehensile tails.
                                    Anyway, some folk who are even older than me go days and days without speaking to anyone. That's the kind of thing I'm preparing myself for these days. Being a hermit and being happy that way would be wonderful!! Of course, Jack, we are not guaranteed the time!
                                     Did a straight two hour meditation this morning. If the rain goes off, I'll get up to the allotment this afternoon.

Wednesday 9.40 p.m.
                                  I still can't get the bluetooth thing to work on the mobile phone, so these are some old photies.
                                  The top photie is of the path going down the middle of the allotment. It's had an old carpet covering most of it for a couple of months to kill the grass, but the carpet didn't cover it all. Bits stuck out the sides and great clumps of grass were growing there until today. I dug most of them out and soon I'll take up the carpet and dig whatever is under it. The problem is that the allotment is no longer even since old people have been stealing the soil, or it has been eroded, or it has left on the tatties and such, or on my shoes, or whatever. Anyway, I'm trying to even it out, but digging down the middle might not do that. But one is making an effort.
                                  I was awake at four in the morning again today, and had some wonderful meditations throughout the day. The one I had up the allotment after the digging was phenomenal. The only fly in the ointment is that I'm putting on weight again due to sitting immobile for hours at a time and then downing a bottle of  collapso with lots of eat in the late evening. However, I'm changing addictions at the weekend, so we'll see what happens then. I've hardly smoked anything since last October and my lungs are better than they've been for years.
                                   Today, I did a backbend, stood on my head, did a tai chi set, some diggings and a hundred prostrations, but most of the rest of the time I was sitting immobile. And it is a wonderful world, so it is! What a fortunate creature I am, I am! What a fortunate creature I am!!
                                   I won't be going to Newmains tomorrow since the Domestic Bliss's sister is up from London. Hurrah!

Old photies, newer meditations!

Tuesday 11:30 p.m.
                              I wakened up about half past three and this is not as bad as you might expect because I didn't have to go to work later on. But it wasn't great. Possibly drink related. I got up around five and sat and meditated till seven when I could go for a paper and have breakfast. So you are always going to be a little tired during the day, but that's not the problem it would be if you had to see folk.
                               So I meditated for a couple of hours and then had breakfast, saw the Domestic Bliss as she went out to her work, and then lay on the bed and did the yoga nidra to fall asleep.
                                I cannot explain to flatheids how good this feels. I waken totally relaxed and in the bliss, and hang on in there for a bit. Then I get up and sit beside the bed and meditate for two hours, until lunchtime. After that, I lie down again, and then get up and go up to the allotment. More meditating, and then some gardening.
                                  I leave that and go to Costa's for a cup of coffee and to read the Times. Then I do some book promoting, and have a wee sleep again. Then I start to meditate again and everything is fine until the Domestic Bliss comes in around nine in the evening. She's tired and fractious, and this makes me realise how tired I am, so I dash out to the off license when I would have done the hundred prostrations and lain in the bath otherwise. You have to accommodate people.
                                   I wish I had some dharma chummies so I could try at least to explain and describe what the meditations were like. But it was a different kind of thing today. I'm trying not to be scared of the heat, and march on regardless, and remember what I can remember of what Tsongkhapa said about the different kinds of heat, and which kinds are the better kinds.
                                    But I was tired and it was kind of wonderful today to be alone and just not bother about all the crap folk bother about, and just observe the varieties of bliss, and sometimes just sitting there without the bliss, and sometimes wondering where all this was going. It doesn't really matter when you are  as old as I am. I've got nothing to lose. I've got everything to gain. Thank god I learned to meditate!!

Anniversary of Retirement!

Tuesday 8.33 a.m.
                            It is a year ago today that I gave up gainful employment. This is just about the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm delighted not to have to go to that jobbie!!
                            But I worked out this morning that I've only ever worked for about twenty five years in total, and thirteen of them were part time.
                            How did you ever manage to get a pension out of that, Hotboy? Well, Jack, I don't know really. I didn't realise I'd get one so soon until the day before I walked off the jobbie. But I've always been a fortunate creature.
                             Of course, I wrote about twelve books and ten plays, and I might write some more!

In the war against the machines again!

9.33 p.m.

              I tried to take a photie yesterday and this wee LOW BATTERY message came up. Eventually, this message ends up with the camera saying GOODBYE, and switching off. When I was down at the Samye Ling, I got this message. You can take a quick snap sometimes at the beginning of this before it switches of, and that's why I had only a few photies of down there. So when I got back, I put in another three AAA batteries. I had noticed that I was doing this quite a lot, but trying to ignore it. It costs about a pound a battery, or four for £3.49.

              Since I got back from the Samye, I've posted twelve photies here. Twelve. That's over twenty five pence a photie!! And the bloody thing doesn't even take a decent photie of a flower! There's nothing much else to take photies of if you're a Johnny Appleseed kind of an allotmenteer guy except blinking flowers.

              I've got a mobile phone photie taker, of course, but this one doesn't have a cable to the computery thing. It does have a Bluetooth thing. If someone shows me how to work that, I'll still put photies on this blog, but otherwise, I'm afraid, that's it. 

              Why are all these gadgets so time consuming and such total crap?!

               Albert tried to send Brian Wilson a photie of a woman having sex with an elephant, but Brian Wilson is in China just now and before it got to him, the Chinese censors had deleted it. The Chinese probably don't allow their twelve year olds to spend hours every day accessing porn. Communist/Capitalist swine that they are!

Lovely skies this evening!

Saturday 8.55 p.m.
                             I traveled in the rain yesterday, but that was okay. Today the weather was lovely. In the late afternoon the skies over Inverleith Park were very beautiful. What wonderful clouds!! The photies don't do them justice.
                             I didn't see the good mother last week and I won't be seeing her next week, so I'm thinking of taking the tent down to the Samye Ling towards the end of the week. The good mother is very tired these days. She can hardly stay awake in her seat by the fire for any length of time at all. It looks like life in old age is all about running out of steam. The auld maw was a bit sick a couple of weeks ago, but she's back to getting out again and is still as sharp as a tack. Allah Akbar!

Money for old rope!

Thursday 6.15 p.m.
                             Amazon sent me £11.64 yesterday; money from January and February! I'm going to be rich! Rich, I tell you! That's about £35 I've made from Kindle since the ten books started going up about this time last year. I've put the money aside and when I gets to about £100, I'll buy myself a guitar. Not a Kindle!

Less aggravation!

7.32 p.m.
               I was bothered over the past couple of weeks by something going wrong with the uploading of one of my books on Kindle. The consiglierie has been totally wonderful when it comes to helping with Kindle stuff, but at the moment he's quite indisposed so I thought I'd ask one or two of the useless basturns who come to this bloggy for a favour. What I was asking for was for them to download the dodgy book and have a look to see if  it was sitting on the page right. I suspect - though god knows why - that it might be off centre, and jammed over to the right. There are various reasons why I cannot download this book myself. Well, I haven't got a kindle for one thing. I have got a kindle for PC, but the last time I tried to download something on that I couldn't get into my account because .... who knows why?
                Anyway, so that it wouldn't cost them 77p (and they're both practically millionaires compared to me, being the progeny of the evil bourgeois, recipients of inheritances, etc.), I made the book free for a day. Here is what happened.
                Albert,  who is so computery literate that he was once about to invent the internet until someone asked him for a favour, causing him to flee forever into the middle of  some desert down under, claims to have been totally confused by the Amazon page and couldn't find the CLICK HERE YOU MORON button, and therefore couldn't download the book.
                 Brian Wilson is in China at the moment trying to buy some more fresh livers off the prison authorities and claims that they don't have computers in China yet.
                 Working class people are very helpful. They'll do anything for you. They stick together through good and bad times. Brian Wilson and Albert are typical of the evil bourgeois. They live their lonely lives in their desolate citadels, clinging to their credit ratings, have no sense of communality whatsoever and are completely useless to either man or beast!
                  Fortunately, I no longer care about the dodgy book or any of that! Just as well. Today I managed to meditate from ten through till luncho at half twelve without moving my position. This is the bliss! This is the bliss! This is the bliss!

Nice day

Tuesday 9.20 p.m.
                            This morning I did a meditation that lasted three hours, from half nine till half twelve. This was in a half lotus. I think in a full lotus I'd have to change position. I was very pleased with this since I've never sat for three hours straight at home before. But I did a mega shadow boxing session last night and was knackered today. This was unfortunate since I'm just crabbit too much when I'm like that. I'll need to find a middle way with the physical jerks and not get too exhausted. I guess I'm getting too old for that malarekey!
                             But everything is getting a wee bit better.

Shortening the path!

Monday 9.40 a.m.
                            Just one time, for a few minutes in the temple, I think I felt the way you are supposed to feel when you are trying to meditate for longer periods. An hour is okay and an hour and a quarter is sometimes okay, but if you are going to sit for three hours, then sometimes you may be restive. Sometimes, it seems, you are bound to be restive, but just once over the couple of days I was there, I felt that I was just happy to be there. Engendering that feeling is what is going to make everything work. Even if you are sometimes restive, when you get back into the meditations, you will stop being restive. Whatever you are feeling isn't going to last for very long, whatever it is.
                            It's been cold recently and it's starting not to be so cold now. It's time to go and sit in the hut and try to sit there all day, more or less. In the evening maybe go back to hut and then go for a run later on, and then lie in the bath for a while.
                            This will be a very hard thing to do, but it is what has to be done. I'm only going to see the people I have to see.
                             The recent fiasco over the book that is about the future being ancient has scunnered me completely with this kindle thing, all the intermittent re-enforcement, all the clicky clicky stupidity. It looks as if my books will sell at rock bottom prices about sixteen copies a month, which gives you about £2 in royalties. The time it would take to boost that isn't worth the time. Basically, you're working at less than third world rates for Amazon.
                              I'm not saying the kindle thing hasn't been interesting. But if I'm going to shorten the path, I haven't got the time. When I can get the issues around the fiasco with the book resolved, that's it.
                               I'd actually like to keep away from this computer. I'd like to keep away from this flat because the phone rings three times a day and asks you to press button one if you need a rebate, button two if .... and although I never get up and answer it, it's a disturbance I don't find helpful.
                                I've got to try harder from now on and make a real effort. In a week's time it'll be a year since I gave up the jobbie and I hope things are clearer by then.
6.45p.m.
                                 I managed to sit for two and a half hours straight this morning and in the hut this afternoon. This is because I was doing that at the Samye. Couldn't have done that last week!!
                         

Back from the Samye!

Sunday 8.45 p.m.
                           I had some amazing meditation during the gong bashing and was most enthused! I felt very keen on spending a lot of the summer in my hut, but home and had a look at what was happening with the book about the future being ancient. Fung nightmare!!! I've had it up to here, or here, or even here with all this clicky clicky amazon publishing crap!! Anyway, the bottom two photies were taken from the wee island in the river, then I tried to access the further shore and fell into the river! Hurrah!