Even More Solitude!

Tuesday 9:50 a.m.
I've cancelled the jobbie for this week so I don't have to speak to anyone.

The guy who might have come to sit, but wouldn't have, has ripped a muscle in his chest from playing golf, and couldn't have anyway. Some guys have all the luck!!

1:10 p.m.
Both meditations this morning exhibited qualities - this is really in the internal movements in the sheath thing - which I hadn't seen before. As I was trying to focus on the movement and developments in the bliss, it did occur to me that if this stuff happened to you suddenly, you might be completely freaked out by it. Oh, well. That's flatheids for you! The nicotine withdrawals are due to kick in today, but so far so good!

10:20 p.m.
I eventually finished the bob hope today about twelve hours ago, and was expecting severe retributions which, fortunately, didn't really occur.

Looking forward with anxiety is stupid. I try to notice that. Anxieties. Stupid anxieties.

This afternoon I was a bit jumpy, but after the shadow boxing and skipping, I was much better. During the afternoon, I thought I was getting a taste of being old and not liking it.

Hotboy, you are old. I know, Jack, but I meant older!

Anyway, when you're old, your partner will be dead and you will be on your own all day with nothing that really needs doing most of the time. It's okay then if you're not getting nicotine withdrawals and you can succumb to the bliss and whatnot. Otherwise, you are just waiting for the time to go in.

I don't want to be the kind of old person I see the flatheids becoming. That is completely brutal. I don't think old people should live on their own.

How long would you like to live then, Hotboy? Well, Jack, I'd like to live long enough to be able to voluntarily exit my body, which is one of the Six Yogas of Naropa. They say you can use this when you are dying if you haven't got the rest of the juju sussed out. They say it is not cool to voluntarily exit your body too soon, but bugger that, Jack.

When I read how old the old lineage joes became in the long ago, I was well impressed. Of course, the buddha died when he was eighty four, I think. You should stay alive as long as you can be a help, but these days I've reversed my opinion of the deaths of the 16th Karmapa and Paramahansa Yogananda, who were younger than me when they died. I thought they had died far too young. But I assume they believed in some kind of rebirth. Also, they would have lost this false sense of self .....

Where the thoughts are just thoughts that arise, abide and decline. They are not owned by you, these thoughts. If there is one big thing, surely it is better to associate yourself with that than with the stupid thoughts you have personally. The stupid, lying thoughts!

So ... birth, ageing and death.. grief, sorrow, lamentations ... delusions, disappointments and despair ... suffering in this life. That's the end of the 12 links of dependant origination. You should be able to stop it at the ageing. You don't get to choose when you die unless you top yourself.

One of the amazing things I've seen on the telly over the last ten years was the first buddhist monk to immolate himself in Vietnam when we were fighting for democrasy and not allowing a free vote. He clearly wasn't there when the fire took hold. Other, younger monks set fire to themselves and showed evident pain and reflexive behaviours, like curling over and rolling on the ground. The old boy just sat and didn't move. Somehow he wasn't there between sitting down and going on fire. Looked like a voluntary exit to me.

I've just drank the first bottle of home brew. Maybe I'll have another one!

Hope everyone is getting on with it excellently out there. Hello, whoever you are from Mountain View in California. Hello, to the folk in Finland! Allah Akbar!