Photies at an exhibition.
Sunday 5.35 p.m.
                           We attended the opening of an exhibition last night, one with two panels from the kiddo and some paintings by her partner Andrew; both rather talented people really. It runs for a fortnight.
                            I've been thinking over something Ringu Tulku was going on about earlier in the week about accepting the world for what it is and not expecting or hoping for it to be any better than it is. This will lead to disappoint, or .... grief, sorry, lamentations ... disillusionment, disappointment and despair ... suffering in this life.
                             There is nothing I can do about people living like morons and dying like dogs. That's just the way it is and, unfortunately, I'm not really any better. And after speaking to the consiglieri recently I've realised that there is no point in talking to folk about non-self and emptiness, or any of that. If folk aren't going to meditate, they're not going to meditate and knowing about non-self and emptiness is useless if you don't meditate. So it's time to shut up about all of that. This will make me even more withdrawn with people - partly because there's hardly anything else I want to talk about -but that's probably a good thing.
                              I was reading Chapter 11 of the Tibetan Book of the Dead yesterday. Yogis go into a very weird state for a while after they die. I've often wondered about this because I assumed you'd have to die sitting up to accomplish this state. I didn't see how it might occur when you died doolally or while sleeping, or when you were too weak to sit up or move your head even. Well, I think I know now and that's the way I want to die. I want to spend the rest of my life making sure that happens and when this kerfuffle going on just now ends, I'll try to see Lama Yeshe and ask him how I  can manage this.

Of all elaborate plans the end.
She said that she didn't want it to be me doing it when it came to being there, and I said that she was giving me the chance to increase and develop my compassion, and it was an opportunity for me. And I'm now so sorry about all the anxieties I had, and all the stupid resentments I fermented about being there, and how it should have been someone else shouldering this burden, and all of that because she was just a wonderful person, and now she is dead. What a great help my mother in law was to me! And all the things she'd known and thought about me for the last forty years are all gone. Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar!

Thursday 12.40 p.m.
                               The photies were taken yesterday when I went out to try to hide, just before things fell apart.
                                I found the dharma talks and the guided meditation from Ringu Tulku so inspiring that yesterday started with great aspirations. I was going to stop drinking and doing anything bad at all. Totally resolved.
                                Then who shows up out of the blue but Brian Wilson, El Grosso himself, with the half chewed pig's face sticking out of his jacket pocket, the bottle of gin, the cigarettes coming out of every orifice. He was just back from China with a new liver. He's a big supporter of the Chinese government now though the liver they gave him was a bit singed since the Tibetan who had it last torched himself. After about five hours in the pub, I managed to lever him into a taxi and send him back to Portobello.
                                 One of the great things about Buddhism is that guilt is regarded as morbid. You dust yourself off, resolved not to make the same mistake again, and walk on. The meditation I just had was fabulous!!! Everything is cranked up again despite El Grosso showing up.

Tuesday 9.50 p.m.
                            I had a wonderful day today. Meditated in the morning and then I went to the Dzong for a guided meditation with Ringu Tulku. He is a fabulous teacher and said stuff about tonglen I didn't know about before. Then I went home and had lunch, a nap, and then went up the allotment. Then I went out to the second half of the teachings from the Rinpoche. Loved it!! Some cats got it, but I won't go on about how  great it was because you'd have to be there and yous aren't really interested in this juju anyway. Oh well!

Saturday 7.53 p.m.
                            I went up the allotment this afternoon and then on to the Botanics. The last three photies are from meditation spots.
                            I was lying in bed this morning and I heard, or thought I did, some pennies falling onto the floor from a bag of pennies on top of the wee bookcase at the bottom of the bed. This has definitely happened before, a year or so ago. Then it happened again. When I got up, I went to look for the pile of pennies and there weren't any pennies. Neither was there a bag of pennies. I moved them all months ago when I cleaned the room up a bit. This noise, or series of noises has then happened three times after the original set of noises.
                             What do you think, Jack? If it happens again, Hotboy, resist the temptation to put on the light and have a look. There be wee monsters down there!!

Tuesday 5.18 p.m.
                            I have dug up at the path, apart from a tottie wee bit at the hut where I can put the log section for the sitting on top of and meditating. But we don't have a path down the middle of the allotment anymore and that's a bit awkward really. You could break your neck trying to scramble over the big clumps as well. I'm not to sure what I'm supposed to do now. Turning it into a path would be a good idea.
                            Goosegogs!

Monday 4.36 p.m.
                            Saw some of Scotland's finest marching up and down for the Queen's jubilee and was so inspired I just had to get myself a union jack mug! They used to play the national anthem in cinemas before the picture came on. They should bring that back. One reich, one folk! God Save The Queen!

Sunday 11.50 a.m.
                            Everything at the moment is pretty abysmal what with the great grannies both being on the ropes and a friend of mine in hospital as well. Dearie me! Also, it turns out that I've to go to Lanarkshire again today. The only good thing is the meditations. The one this morning was fantastic. It's just so wonderful that such bliss is there and at hand.
                             But only for you, Hotboy. I know, Jack, but it's not my fault they're too dumb to meditate. Oh, I bumped into the Edinburgh nun on the bus on Friday and told her I'd go back to the Monday night meditations. Hope I do. Be nice to be in a room full of folk who weren't total flatheids.

Friday 8.06 p.m.
                         It was a relief to get to the allotment tonight and do some digging. I'm digging up the central path and that's as far as I've planned. Once you've dug up a path there's no path anymore and you'd break your ankle trying to get down there over the lumps and bumps now.
                         You'd wonder what was keeping the mother in law alive. Life. Life doesn't seem to like going away. The poor woman is totally exhausted and can hardly string a sentence together now. She still sleeps an awful lot, and she is not happy. So I sat in her kitchen yesterday and till after one today. She asked me when her girls were coming.
                         Usually, I leave Newmains at the back of eleven so I can go and see the auld maw, but the auld maw is in Wishaw hospital just now. She'll get out soon. She ended up in a bed next to the woman who lived upstairs from us when I was a kid, who was in with the same thing.
                          My meditations this week seemed to hit a new plateau, but I see how amazing it would be to realise non-self and emptiness and think it is so obviously beyond me in my current lifestyle that I thought I should really start writing again.
                          I always wanted to have the chance to write full time and that was what I told myself all through my life when I couldn't do that. I'd like to be a full time writer. However, this desire ebbed over the years of having to go and do a stupid job. The meditations were taking centre stage. When I got an agent, I stopped writing practically altogether, which is the opposite from what you're supposed to do. Anyway, I didn't want writing in my head when I should be meditating, but I think I'll have to consider starting writing again.
                          They won't let you meditate around here, Jack. The phone rings. Flatheids land on you. They used to do that to me when I was writing as well, but if you say you are writing, it is easier to tell them to just fung off.  Anyway, every time I want to write it's because I don't think I got what it takes to do the juju.