Medicine Buddha Meditations!

Sunday 11:18 a.m.
It was thinly overcast, without much wind, so it was not too cold when I sat down yesterday at the edge of the allotment, on the section of log covered with a newspaper. It was about three o clock. I fixed my eyes on a white mark in the middle distance. As it became dark, I fixed my eyes on a little yellow glow from a streetlight in Arboretum Place. There was no problem sitting there for a hour and a half.

I think that was maybe what was in the post that was here and disappeared somehow.

I'll take a spanking for my bad habits, but I'll get some rewards for my good habits. The good thing about buddhism is that these things don't balance up. You get retributions for both. Here are some of my good habits.

1) I meditate a lot. I probably did about seven hours yesterday and was well into the wobbly weirdly weirdly zone.
2) I do a lot of vase breathing. These days more and more. Vase breathing is supposed to be extremely good for your health and prospects of a long life.
3) I really enjoy keeping fit. For the last thirty years I've usually been the fittest person I know.

I try hard. It is very windy today so I may just stay in the lobby. The Domestic Bliss is out today. I'll come back here after I stop a session and describe it if I can.

1:19 p.m.
That, the first meditation of the day, took about an hour and twenty minutes. If you're too dumb to meditate, the rest of this post won't be of interest.

I take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The Great Buddha Lama Yeshe Losal is my guru. May I gain enlightenment, etc.

Then I go through my list of gurus, visualising them in front of me and then over my head, going into a light beam and dissolving that through me, asking for purification and wisdom.

Lama Yeshe Losal, Dr Akong Tulku Rinpoche, Ringu Tulku, Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Kalu Rinpoche, Lama Thubten Yeshe, The Sixteenth Karmapa (do purification lights onto symbols with him), The Seventeenth Karmapa, Lama Yeshe Losal. Finish with Jesus Christ from the Turin Shroud.

Visualise all the folk I know, relatives, friends and one or two complete basturns, who are now snuffed.

Then dedicate the merit to whoever is getting it these days. At the end of this I've been practising a bit of tonglen with Peter Ballock, whose photie is on the web. Peter Ballock has been very good for me.

First of all, I don't know him, but I got the last bit of dope he was going to get. As I ate and smoked it, I thought this was at least some kind of karmic link. Also, it is very good for your aspirations to think about dying a lot. Unless you're very fortunate and just drop dead, you're going to get handed the black spot at some point. So you might be sick for quite some time.

I don't think at my stage of the mind game that I'd be able to access the bliss if I was going through a terminal illness. When you're dying what you need is the realisations of emptiness. At the moment, I'd die just like Peter Ballock and I don't want to die a flatheid. I want to die happy, joyous. I want to think that a whole new adventure might be opening up for moi. So Peter Ballock is being a big help.

Then, after thinking about the dedication, I go through the after death process and try to arise and the Medicine Buddha, placing the channels and symbols first of all. So you visualise yourself as the Medicine Buddha and then with the Medicine Buddha before you. Basically, I busk my way through the generational stage of the juju.

This was all done with my eyes shut and in various degrees of bliss almost as soon as my eyes closed. Soon, I'll go back to the lobby and carry on.

3:11 p.m.
Did the second session with my eyes open. The Dalai Lama says you should keep your eyes open, or, in my case, gazing down at the Medicine Buddha postcard. I get more bliss with my eyes closed, but I think you get more emptiness with them open.

The second session was mainly completion stage juju where you're going up and down the central channel, visualision symbols, vase breathing, etc. With my eyes open, I was still getting terrific amounts of bliss.

Did a bit of the analytical meditations there as well. Lots of bliss and some little intimations of emptiness ... how can nothing exist outside your own mind? ... but not much heat at all. This is probably the wrong time of day to expect much, but I started late today.

Now I'll have a break before the night starts to close in.

6:04 p.m.
The last meditation started at five past four and finished at ten to six. The Dom BLiss's sister gave me an opaque glass ball which has a red light under it for my Christmas a couple of years ago. It's good for gazing at. So I fixed on that and tried to do what I think the lama calls mahamudra meditations. You don't use an object to concentrate on, but just observe the thoughts and let them go. When I had to move into the easy posture due to the aching legs, I closed my eyes and did the vase breathing using the channels and symbols. Tons of bliss, especially towards the end, and some heat but not much.

Just when you're getting it to really work, you have to take a break!

9:00 p.m.
Did some physical jerks, had a bath, and started the last meditation at quarter to eight and finished at half past. Tons of the bliss, but, funnily enough, not much heat. More heat but still not much.

I ate a cannybliss yogurt about half an hour ago, but today and yesterday have been nicotine free. Tommorrow nicotine thoughts should not arise.

When I raise my head from gazing at the Medicine Buddha postcard, I'm facing a photie of the lama. (I look at these photies quite a lot. I've got two, mirror images, which is quite cool somehow!)

Sometimes the smile seems to be really beaming out of the photie. Sometimes it doesn't seem to beam out so much. There seem to be variations in the smile. Common sense tells us that this is not true. The smile doesn't change on the photie. So there must be some kind of projection working here.

I know the magic soup and the toast and banana can't taste as delicious as I think it sometimes tastes.

I'm not being nihilistic here. I know there's stuff out there though I'm definitely not sure what kind of stuff it is.

'The world, as so understood, contradicts itself and is, therefore, appearance and not reality.' F.H. Bradley. The wall.

How much projection would it take to make everything you ate and drank taste like ambrosia and nectar? Maybe it would be the same amount, only you'd have changed your view.

Samsara and Nirvana are the same reality
In the state of ultimate awareness. (If I remember right!) Milarepa.

The lama told me I'd get everything from calming meditation. If you just do that without trying anything else, maybe that's all you really need.

I've much enjoyed having this bloggy today! Someone has just come in.