Milarepa

Sunday 7:00 p.m.
                          Not much point really in posting bits out of the Life of Milarepa for the too dumb to meditate, but sensei and reverend meditates, and this is for my dharma brother who's probably too busy reading Japanese sutras to spend time on this malarkey. But if you only read one book about Tibetan buddhism, the Life's got to be it!

                          Some hunters came by his cave and started giving him a hard time, picking him up and dropping him, etc. Then they left.
                          'Although I did not think of using sorcery, they eventually received retribution at the hands of my guardian deities. The regional chief punished the hunters.The leader was killed, and all the others had their eyes torn out, with the exception of the one who had said, 'Do not harm the hermit!''
                         Meditators, ya bass!
                         He gets enlightened much like the buddha. He gets fed ...'beer and food had completed the process.' (Free beer for the workers!)
                         'I understood that in general all things related to samsara and nirvana are interdependent. Furthermore I perceived that the source of consciousness in neutral. Samsara is the result of a wrong point of view. Nirvana is realised through perfect awareness.'
                          'During the day I had the sensation of being able to change my body at will and of levitating through space and of performing miracles. At night in my dreams I could freely and without obstacles explore the entire universe from one end to the other. And, transforming myself into hundreds of different material and spiritual bodies, I visited all the buddha realms and listened to the teaching there.'

                          This is my favourite bit!!
                          'Whoever wholeheartedly believes in karma and dreads the suffering of the lower realms, a great longing for illumination will arise in him. This will lead him to devote himself to a lama, to meditation, and to maintaining a deeper insight. It is possible for every ordinary man to persevere as I have done. To consider a man of such perseverance as an incarnation of a Buddha or as a Bodhisattva is a sign of not believing in the short path.'
                          Well, there it is!

New Teacher!

wedNESDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2010

The New Teacher!

Wednesday 11:25 p.m.
                                            I do not know what her shoes were like. She walked into my library in black. There could have been black shoes. She had on a pair of black strides, fully embellishing her wonderful buttocks when she turned round, and a black top. It was a vee neck, the usual black top, vee neck jumper kind of thing. Simple in its elegance. This person is ... I can't tell what age people are these days, but probably of child bearing age, and with two wee kids kind of thing.
                                            So the new school teacher comes into my space, with the vee neck, and I think, 'Are you here to show me your breasts, or, as I call them for the sake of blogginess, your bits? Are you going to demonstrate your bits to me, babes, I who have wandered far and wide with no one ever interested in demonstrating their bits to me?'
                                             As soon as she enters this space, I must say that this thought, or thoughts like that, did occur. So she ignores me. I am a menial, after all. But she takes up locations with other peoples' children. She's very good at being a schoolteacher, she really is. Most schoolteachers are crap at being schoolteachers.
                                              Sometimes in the too-ing and fro-ing, there is a little bit of cleavage.
                                              When you got up and got dressed this morning, missus, did you know that you would flash a little bit of cleaveage? Did you know that you would display this in front of thirteen year old boys, who would have difficulty in doing their quadratic equations once you have flashed your bits at them like this? Did you think of the school librarian? Did you think he was lonely and a wimp, and that maybe a little bit of flashing would do him good? For the sake of mankind?
                                                  So she moved around from location to location, usually doing this wonderful job with the kids, much better than they deserved or could have expected from the usual run of the mill crap schoolteachers they are used to.
                                                 Don't come near me! It takes five locations before she comes up to me and then leans down and starts talking to me about something. Fung knows what! The vee neck jumper is black and the bra is black. Her bits are not all that fantastic, just the usual bits. The bra is fascinating however. It's dead low cut, if I remember right, and I'm fixated by this bit in the middle, which is kind of clasped and holding the whole thing together. Some kind of middle clasped black bra, low cut to accentuate your bits.
                                                    Can I say, 'Stand a little straighter, missus! I am not interested in viewing your bits! Please take your bits away and cover them up in bandages?'  What am I supposed to say?
                                                   Well, Hotboy, what would you have liked to say? I would have like to say, Jack, that I've only got fifty pence on me and is that enough for ...
                                                  I'm sure she meant nothing by it. I'm sure she dressed as demurely as she could, but because she looked like ... strong, viking wummin, and tough, and a good tennis player, volley ball, squealing, and screaming and bouncing kind of superstar ... because you're that kind of babes, why don't you just go and bother someone else?

                                                 St Antony jumped into the nettles when the saw the babes naked and washing herself in the pool. I don't think eating the nettles had occurred to him!

Milarepa and the nettles!

Wednesday 6:45 p.m.
                                 The first two photies were taken at the bus stop this morning. The photie of Stewart Melville's was taken on my way home on Monday afternoon.
                                  Here's a bit of the Life of Milarepa. Translated by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa.
                                  These hunters show up at his cave and they want to get some food off him. He says he hasn't got anything good for them, so they say they'll eat what he eats.
                                   'Very well, make a fire and cook some nettles.'
                                    When they had made the fire and cooked the nettles, they asked for meat.
                                     I replied, 'If I had some meat, my food would be nourishing. I have not had any for many years. Use more nettles instead.'
                                      'Then we want bones.'
                                      'If I had bones, my food would not be so tasteless. I have done without them for years. Just use more nettles.'
                                      'But we cannot do without salt.'
                                      'Use the nettles as salt.'

                                       It's a dead interesting book!! I found that dialogue really funny, almost Pythonesque. Of course, the Buddha advised against severe asceticism. He probably advised against murdering tens of folk as well!

                                       The weather is now very cold. I have to get to Liberton Hospital tomorrow and, hopefully, Bellshill on Friday, probably Newmains on Sunday. Oh well! God preserve us from the flatheids!!
                            

The Wee Long March!

Tuesday 9:00 p.m.
                            On Sunday night, when I thought the weather forecast was for no snow, I pled to God to send the snow. And, lo, it was a bit of blizzard before you knew it. So I got to the jobbie and they finally shut it and sent us home just as the buses stopped running. I had to walk home. I had on my walking boots and long johns (is that too much information?), and a many layered top - well, tee shirt, shirt, woollen jumper, sweatshirt, body warmer and jacket. Really, you should be able to walk across the Yukon the way I was wrapped up. A wee bit over two hours I got home. I'd never felt wet, but my shirt was wringing in sweat and the woollen jumper was definitely damp. Sweating through three layers! That's the way to do it!
                             I've ran most of the road a great many times. I even switched up to what I knew would be a worse route because it was going down Ravelstone Dykes, which is sometimes lovely. And it was yesterday afternoon in the snow as it is when the cherry blossoms come out. Aye, it was okay for me. You wouldn't want to be an auld wummin waiting for a bus, neither your would.
                               Anyway, the photies are from the last couple of days.

Stir fever!!

Saturday 8:30 p.m.
                            From the Life Of Milarepa:
                            'In our midst, the lama showed the forms of Yidam Hevajra, of Chakrasamvara, of Guhyasamaja, and others ...
                            Then  he said; 'These are psychophysical transformations. To display them casually serves little purpose. I have shown them on the occasion of Milarepa's departure.'
                            Having seen the lama as a Living Buddha, I was filled with great joy. I thought I would also try to achieve such miraculous power through my meditation.'
                            Today I walked home through the Botties and it was quite beautiful sometimes, but I'm tired of the snow. I'm tired of the beer. I need a little change. I think I might go out for a pint with the Domestic Bliss!
                            

Bliss update!

Friday 9:20 p.m.
                         What with it being the start of the month, the snowing, but mainly because there is no soapbar, I've been drinking far too much! Every night  I think I should be like Milarepa and stay meditating, but every night I've been going to the off-license instead. I had been drinking the plonko collapso, but I'm really a beer drinker at heart.
                           I got four tonight. Just poured the first one. Peckham's have stopped stocking the Erdinger I like. This one is called Schneider Weisse Tap 6. It weighs in at a very impressive alc. 8.2 % vol and costs an atrocious £2.79. I bought two of those and two Grolsch Wheatbeer which costs £2.45 and weighs in at a less impressive alc 5.3% vol.
                          After four of these I know I will waken up slightly muggy, but more or less intact. It's worth it to buy the dear stuff. Anyway, this post was supposed to be about ra bliss and not about ra piss!
                           I couldn't go to see the Auld Maw today because the snow has stopped the trains. I started meditating  just after ten. This is late and because of the beer dose from last night. Anyway, I could tell right away that the bus had moved on considerably. I put in a lot of meditating yesterday before I hit the beer and it showed alright. Also, I wasn't at work on Monday or Tuesday, and only did the half day on Wednesday, so I've been hammering the meditations all week really, maybe doing about six hours a day.
                            This is not enough, Jack! I know, Hotboy. You should be doing eight hours a day if you're not writing and not going to the jobbie! Oh well!
                            Anyway, this morning was just fabulous. Tons of bliss, some heat, things opening and whatnot. But it's ridiculous that I'm drinking. I'm acting as if I'm going to live forever, or have no faith in this juju; just idling along with the pollutions and all. The thing is I don't have any faith in anything. The Dalai Lama says he's not a buddha, so what bloody chance have I got?
                            There's a boy on a video I stuck on facebook who says you have to endure the hardship, and I'm afraid I'm just a wimp when it comes to that. Doing six hours a day is quite easy and enjoyable. I don't know if it would be enjoyable to be walled up, never sleeping, sitting with a butter lamp on your head ...
                             Of course, it would be wonderful, Hotboy!! Remember the bliss! Remember the visualisations you might achieve! When you were tired and sore, it might be horrible, of course, but it would be worth it. So it would. You just have to get your head into that determined space maybe.
                             Alexandra David-Neel said she loved it when the snows came and the passes were blocked and she could sit in her hut meditating until the spring. I think she did a twelve year stint with her guru who was in a hut a bit further up the slope.
                              It's got to help if you don't believe in the thoughts you're having. Thoughts like, I don't like this. Or, I'd like to go for a beer. Or, this would be much easier if I was a sadhu and could smoke a chillum, and not one filled with fung soapbar either!
                              Anyway, I did the hundred prostrations around four and then did the six three minute rounds of shadow boxing in the full Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle, so I might be a bit dehydrated. Whoa! But it is strong beer. Hmmm? I'll go for another one now.
                              I have to apologise to folk who read anything I write at any time after nine o clock at night. It isn't me, is it, Jack!? No, Hotboy, it's the booze! Be nice to change addictions soon and get into the soapbar. I've a feeling there's a drought coming up. Three weeks since I smoked anything though. Lungs like a great tree, so I have, Jack! Fung sake! That was just one beer. Three more to go! Hurrah!
                            
                            
                            
                          
                      

The Winter Wonderland!

Thursday 7:50 p.m.
                             The photies were taken yesterday on the way to and from work; in the Botanic Gardens this afternoon; and coming home from the hut this evening.
                              The kiddo and I went for a walk to the Botties this afternoon. Very beautiful in the snow, but my camera doesn't work right in that light.
                              So I got to the hut just before four and left just before six. I had on a pair of long johns, and a pair of track bottoms, and a pair of jeans, so the legs were okay. I had on two hats. I had, I thought, a better pair of gloves, but my fingers still got cold.
                               Milarepa meditated in caves near the top of Everest. God alone knows how he managed that! I had his biography with me today for inspiration.
                               Once he's done the first eleven months walled up, Marpa comes to see him and then he goes and walls himself up again. But he gets a message from a dakini and has to bust out and go to see Marpa again.
                               ' ... a young girl appeared to me one night in a dream. She was as blue as the sky and beautiful in her brocade dress and bone ornaments. She said to me .... 'But you do not have the special teaching concerning the Transference of Consciousness to Dead Bodies, which leads to Buddhahood in one moment of meditation. Ask for it,' she said, and she disappeared.'
                              That seems to be going into dead bodies and occupying them. Hmmm? Now there's a party trick!!