Samye Day 7 Two

8:55 p.m.
Not long after I got here, I noticed with a little sadness that the old seat on the island before the stupa had disappeared. I was dedicated the a Mrs Millward, I think. I spent many, many hours meditating on that seat over the years. Gone ... like tears in the rain.

I felt happy today for a few moments while walking from the tent to the laundry, round the back of the temple. I recognised the feeling because the first time I felt it was when I first came down here to spend a week in the summer on my own. Probably early 90s. It's a kind of beaming sense of happiness. It just arises unattached to anything. It doesn't seem to be because of something. This is a very, very unusual feeling. I'm sure some people never feel it ever.

The hotboys, unlike some families, don't do headstones, or grave tending, or dedicated seats when one of us snuffs it. I'm fifty eight, so I should have been dead about six years ago. When I finally snuff it, I want my ashes thrown into the river that runs by here. If it's the summertime, I'd like them chucked into the water from the wee island that forms in the stream. Many, many happy meditations I've had on that wee island! Then if anyone wants to remember me, they can come down here and remember me because this is the only place I've ever felt truly happy. Like today.

Took seven days, no drink, no drugs, no flatheids. The Domestic Bliss will have to drive me out of here next Sunday. I feel really really settled now.

I've got nearly an hour left in the temple. Hurrah!