Swami

Tuesday 9:50 p.m.
                            I was going to go back to the Tai Chi tonight as I haven't been since the start of July, but the Domestic Bliss convinced me to go and see a swami instead. It was in the Quaker's Meeting Hall, not much of a place to get into a fight, I shouldn't think, and you can sit there in a half lotus with your eyes closed during the swami doing his swami stuff, and no one is going to think that's all that odd, what with the joe being a swami and that. He looked a wee bit like Karl Marx, except a bit browner, which I found quite reassuring. After talking for twenty minutes, he had a ten minute break, and then had everyone meditating for twenty minutes. I started doing the bliss almost as soon as we got seated in the best place, at the back with the bench and cushions, and so it was good when he got everyone meditating, so it wasn't just me.
                           He didn't mention the bliss. The Domestic Bliss told me he'd had a message for me, but I never heard it. Luckily, she'd remembered it afterwards. There's messages and there's messages. I got a message from Teresa yesterday.
Dear Hotboy,

Thanks for your email/letter.  I'm not exactly sure what to say about your meditations as I don't have much related experience myself.  I mentioned it to Lama Yeshe and he says that it is best not to mix traditions but didn't say you should or shouldn't do any particular practice.  So I guess it is up to you to find what you feel more or less comfortable with and what seems to work for you, without taking risks (I've talked to a few people who have had trouble with kundalini).  The Lama's advice is only advice (not a command) and he definitely doesn't expect you to follow everything to the letter if it makes you feel bad. 
Anyway, I don't know if this will be much help but I hope your practice goes well and that you are able to get down to Samye Ling in October.

All the best,

                  Teresa.
                   I sent her a message back saying everything was going fabuloso now and thanks very much.


                   My facebook account has been disabled. I don't know why. I was using it to keep track of the prostration count. It's dead modern, so it is.Brian Wilson seems to think I could sell a copy of Ancient Futures (available to you for 86p from Kindle Amazon!) if I tweeted. I have no time to tweet. Tweet, tweet. I think the consiglieri should get someone to tweet as moi for a deferred percentage of a percentage of the eventual vast fortune which will accrue.
                   Only a half day at the jobbie tomorrow. Hurrah!

Diggings

Sunday 7:00 p.m.
                          I've eaten all the cabbages. There must have been about twelve of them. I've consumed them at a rate of two a week. The photies are of the diggings. All I've got to do now to stop the council terminating me is clear up the weeds covering the tattie mounds at the bottom and dig a couple of wee bits at the other side.
                          The consiglieri looked up the Amazon kindle sales report last night. According to Amazon, Ancient Futures hasn't sold any copies at all. Lying basturns! I know it's sold two copies. Do you think they're trying to rip off my twenty pence in royalties, Jack? Could be, Hotboy. Every little bit counts. I'd sue the basturns if I'd anything to sue them with.
                           Since I got away from the jobbie on Wednesday, I've been having a really lovely time. Hours and hours spent just arising, abiding and declining in the bliss. I feel as if my practise is much improved now.
                    

Newmains and room

Saturday 7:08 p.m.
                             If you sit meditating under the big black birch tree, you can see these two views. This was yesterday. I sat meditating there for most of the time I was house sitting. It was easy to sit there because of the amount of bliss. And the weather being so good. The other photie is of my room, which, as you can see, has been tidied up!
                             I've loved Thursday. I loved Friday. Today has been very good indeed. The consiglieri is coming over tonight so I'd better be off for some last minute meditations.

Vajrayana update

Saturday 11:51 a.m.
                              An encouraging thing about buddhism seems to be it's reasonableness. It's rational. All you've got at first is the four noble truths, the eightfold path, the skandas and the twelve points of dependant origination. You can find out what they are and think them over, and argue with yourself about them. If you start to meditate with this stuff on board, you don't really need much else. When you start hitting the bliss, you might become a bit puzzled as to what it is, why is it, etc., but it might be that some folk won't get the bliss anyway, and you don't really need it, I don't suppose, since non-self and emptiness is really what you're looking for.
                            The Great Vajrayana, the Juju of Jujus, does not seem so susceptible to reason. It is difficult to find a rational explanation and I think this might be because we don't have enough knowledge of psychology, physiology, cosmology and whatnot. With the great vajrayana, you will have to accept experience and get on with it. Experiental mysticism is the name of the game here!
                           Since I sent the email to Teresa last week, there has been a great deal of movement. I am back to doing quite a bit of vase breathing though I have given up concentrating on anything while I'm doing it  now. I hardly think of channels and symbols at all. I am doing a lot of generation stage stuff and not doing any symbols and channels completion stage stuff at all.
                           There are parts of the generation stage where you dissolve everything into nothing. This is like meditation without object. I've been doing some vase breathing in there.
                            You are supposed to do 100,000 mandala offerings. This is, I think, generation stage stuff. Because I used to whizz passed that to get into the symbol stuff .... anyway, now I'm doing repetitions sometimes where you are generating the deity, offering the mandala and everything else, and then having the deity overhead drop blessings into you. Dissolving everything, starting again. This increases the amount of mandala offerings you make and takes the bliss ... what can I say about the bliss, Jack? You can tell the unfortunate creatures about how the bliss is yet again even blissier, Hotboy.
                            This is ecstasy in the generation stage. This is supposed to be a mere bagatelle compared to the ecstasy of the completion stage. God alone knows what that must be like.
                             For those of you who were fortunate enough to hear about the Four Noble Truths and such like, but not fortunate enough to meditate, well, good luck to you. You are the author of your own misfortune.
                            I am  the patron saint of mediocrity. I absolve you, I absolve you, I absolve you.
                            What a great line that is!!!
                          

Photies

Thursday 10:17 p.m.
                              Sitting on the bed with the telly on and closing my eyes and doing such a wonderfulness of the bliss was the best bit of the day. But that was just the last bit. It might get better.
                              What a beautiful day! I was up just after seven and the weather was awful. By ten,  the sun was splitting the trees. I dug an eighth of the allotment before noon.
                               My usual dinner and lunch these days is still tatties and onions and cabbage, boiled then fried in olive oil. Sometimes two fried eggs. Lots of tomato sauce. Tons of that. This is the most delicious food! Usually, I just put the tatties into the soup, but this year I've really been pigging myself. Of course, I'm off the butter and cheese and milk still and this has made the boiled tatties fried in oil  something truly yummy. Appetite is everything.
                               I did not get too exhausted. I was digging for an hour, I think, and my teeshirt was dripping in sweat, but I was only a bit exhausted, so I managed to go and meditate in the Botanic Gardens during the late, lazy afternoon.
                              I took the photies of the flowers in the late morning sun. What a pleasant surprise today was!!

Something a bit peculiar!

Thursday 9:45 a.m.
                            Last night I was doing some yoga nidra before going to sleep. At some point I realised I couldn't tell where my arms and legs were. Usually, you have some impression. I had no idea whether my hands were resting on my thighs, palms down, or not. I couldn't really feel anything from my chest down. So I moved my arms a little and my hands weren't where I'd expected, but the hands were face up and a few inches from my body, just where I'd put them at the start of the yoga nidra of course.
                            I've had experiences like that before, but not so pronounced. I assume this is a stage of going to sleep. Anyway, I wondered what it would be like if you'd lost the upper half of your body as well. So you couldn't feel anything to do with your body at all. Consciousness in space?
                            Since this bloggie is mainly supposed to be about the wonderful writings, I'm going to hassle the consiglieri to get onto Wells Fargo about "building the author". That's what publishers are supposed to do. Build the author. We could build castles in the air on the basis that the Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf starts to sell shed loads.
                            Also, Albert thinks we should go with a tweaked version of Alma Mater. I think he could tweak it himself. After all those years wading through computer manuals, I'm sure he's just the man for the job!
                            The meditations are starting to go to new places again. What I've got to do today is make sure that I don't get totally exhausted too early on. Like, in the morning. But I think I should go up to the allotment now. It is a sunny day. If you wait to get exhausted from the diggings till evening, all kinds of little monsters come out then and bite you. That didn't used to happen around these parts.
                      

Diggings and Diggings ...

Wednesday 9:50 p.m.
                                 I prostrated to the council. I think that's always the best thing to do. Don't put up a fight. It was a fair cop. Now I have a goal. My goal is to go up to the allotment and spend all day there meditating and digging. In the evening, I expect to be lying on the floor propped up with pillows, staring at the telly. With the yogurt and the bliss.
                                 Since I sent the missive to Teresa on Saturday, everything has got much better. Tomorrow I going to have a wonderful, wonderful day.
                                 The Beer Monster disappeared in a puff of smoke on Sunday, Jack. Just like that. I've started prostrating to the Nicotine Dragon, of course, but sometimes she looks so seductive. Just for a little while, you think and hope. Shall we dance?