Tuesday 11:25 p.m.
Doing the channels and the drops and the vase breathing is such a part of my meditations these days that today I was a wee bit lost after being told to lay off these things.
Somehow after seeing the lama I expected to be enthused and hit the hut big time.
I'm a bit confused now. What I'm going to do is enjoy my holidays.
I thought today of the times when I made up my own mantra, the great sound of sussquehanna, which I used for nine years before I went to Nepal and got into involvement with the wee fat baldy guys. I got ten seconds of non-self and emptiness with that sound and I've never had anything as mind funging since.
I can feel myself starting to walk off the park. I'll give it a few days and try to mull over what he said to me. I've no doubt the lama is right, by his lights. I'm obviously concerned that he was giving me the party line and not attending to moi ... I feel a resistance. I have humility issues to deal with.
I was saying sussquehanna to myself as I walked home from Waitrose today. This is the sound of mental calming to moi! I've tried to run too fast too early. The lama told me once I'd get "everything" by calming meditations. I think they're trying to keep folk safe because this inner heat shit is a deep, deep heavy juju.
I was slightly pissed off today, and thought I might as well attend to things, like writing. Maybe cut down the meditations to about four hours a day, and write a bit. Attend to samsara! Somehow I do not think this is going to happen. I'm going to start by stopping trying and watching the time pass.
I meditated in both the photie shots today. The photie with the grandad in it was taken in a cafe in another place a long, long time ago!
10 comments:
I've been to the Susquehanna River it is lovely. Good choice for a mantra, lots of flowing water to carry off all those thoughts.
I'm sorry you are disappointed by what the lama said to you. I can understand wanting to be further along with things and then getting told you need to slow down. It can be frustrating.
One thing I know about Buddhism is that you are encouraged to question everything. But if you have faith in your teacher, maybe the questions need to be towards yourself.
I think there is a lot of merit in concentrating on calming meditations first. They help me gain control over the craziness in myself.
I understand wanting to escape samsara and be done with it. I'm damn tired of it lately. But there are lessons that need to be learned here.
Lovely pics.
Marie! Thanks for the kind words! Tsongkhapa says in the Book of the Three Inspirations that if you try to raise inner heat before you can clearly see the three channels, you are going to hell. I thought somehow I could take a short cut since I can't really do a three year retreat in current circumstances. I think in the long ago your lama would have made sure you could visualise the mandala and yourself as a deity before they even told you about the channels and the vase breathing. I can see now why the folk at the Samye Ling didn't like the publication of the Bliss of Inner Fire. I think I've been saved from doing myself damage by meeting the lama and I've got to thank him for that. Too much ego was sending me the wrong way!! He said I should keep doing the Medicine Buddha sadhana. This is generation phase, if I remember right, and doesn't mention channels and whatnot. I'm going to have to find some way to vase breathing though as this pranayama was very good for my lungs and health generally. Maybe I can get away with that if I don't think of symbols or channels while I'm doing it. Yesterday here was lovely. it's overcast today and looks like rain!! Hotboy
Marie! I took the Susquehanna River mantra from Robert Louis Stevenson's Amateur Emigrant, about his travelling across the states. He asked what the river was called and when the boy told him, he said: What a beautiful name for a beautiful river. The susque were an indian tribe, I think. I pronounce the beginning in the same way as suspicious. It is a lovely sound!! Hotboy
I say!
Is that a cricket pitch in the background of the first snap?
MM III
Mingin'! No, it's a different colour because of the martyrs' bones buried there after the Guard of the English Imperialist Creekiting Alliance mowed them all down for speaking the Gaelic. But chucky ar la! Hotboy
The grandad photie seems to be in 3D. What a shame I threw out the red and blue glasses that came with the 3D issue of Razzle.
The lama guy was only recycling my long-standing advice to you. Hasn't he got any ideas of his own?
Re the humility issues. Presumably a problem of excess.
Albert? We're all middle way advocates and never do excess. Hotboy
Dear this is hell and there are no short cuts out of it. The best advice I've ever gotten is "When you are walking through hell, keep walking."
I suspect the retreat is an essential part of the learning process. When you are ready to do it, I believe the means will present themselves so you can.
When I bring your plants in a couple months, I'll say it the American way for you. I expect it is just as beautiful with your Scots accent.
Marie! Be great if you can get the plants to work up there. Then they'll work in my weeds! I think what I need is a lot more humility. Maybe I should add prostrations to my workouts! Hotboy
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