Abstention

Sunday 10:35 p.m.
I haven't had any drinkies or smokies since last Sunday. I am no longer (so) crabbit.

Diggings Again!

Saturday 5:30 p.m.
One of the photies is what you see when you open your eyes in the hut these days, or this afternoon. The other is how much of it I dug today. I have never dug some much of it at one time before, and it only took me about an hour and a half. I take my hat off to anyone who makes their living from manual labour. Brutal, so it is.

I had a dream this morning. I was in a balloon of bliss, or there was a balloon of bliss. It popped, so there were no edges to the bliss.

Just been listening to Obama's eulogy to Ted Kennedy. Brilliant.

The Pizzaman should call within the hour. I'm still a wee bit crabbit from the struggle with the Nicotine Dragon, but there isn't a hope in hell of me smoking any of this pizza. And there's not a hope in hell of me drinking tonight either.

Apart from the sensei and reverend, I don't think any regular visitors to this bloggy meditate. As for the rest of yous, if you think the body has a mind, you're funged! If you think the mind has a body, you're still funged! Such is life and death for the flatheids. Sorry about that, but there it is! Allah Akbar!

Friday Night!

Friday 9:25 p.m.
I was going to have a quiz with the photie of the training mitts palms up, but I didn't think it was fair, so I took two to give yous a chance. The question is: What are they? I was willing to let them go for a hundred grand with cloning rights over the DNA included, but I've had to bin them tonight. I think I bought the training mitts circa 1983 for boxing training at a school I used to work at. What fantastic value! I got twenty six years use out of them! Beat that!


I was meditating with that view up the allotment this evening and came home with those apples.


I did a skipping and shadow boxing session (with fresh mitts!) this evening and that's the first such exercising since the schools went on holiday at the start of July. Happy days are here again!


I haven't had any alcohol or tobacco or bob hope or anything since Sunday. Amazed at how crabbit I've been. Before the holidays, when I'd been a bad boy, I might be a bit knocked off for two days, but five ...It's all down to going to Skye and the aftermath. Anyway, I don't have to leave town tomorrow and I have no events lined up with flatheids at all now.


"Experiences are preceded by mind ... and produced by mind." The first words of the Dhammapada heard at the auld maw's today. So I'd better get my mind right, Jack. It's okay if anyone wants to come and see me. They know where I live. But I'm not moving off my butt and neither shall I provoke any frolickings or cavortings.

Oh, what can we do, Great King, when old age and death come rolling in? Stick to the juju and perform virtuous deeds, Oh Hotboy! There's bugger all else you can do!

And, yes, the first photie is of the lobby. The kiddo returned triumphant after four years at college with great treasure in enough cardboard boxes to fill her large room completely and also the hall! She's so like her mother it's ridiculous!!

The Season Ends!

Thursday 3:30 p.m.
The photie with the produce was taken last week, the rest today.

This www.obooko.com site boy keeps sending me encouraging emails. He seemed to like xxxBugtown. He liked it. I liked it. The kids who read it liked it. Nobody else gave a ... Anyway, today is the day I start the re-write of Bomber, completely change the dynamic, add the humpings and land on the money! Hurrah

Thoughts

Thursday 11:30 p.m.

We embrace our ignorance
We don't believe in any things
Especially thoughts

A deep dear friend asked me how could I possibly not believe in thoughts. Some thoughts are trustworthy. One plus one equals two is a trustworthy thought. I hate the basturn, or I love the basturn, or any thought with an emotional edge to it at all is not a trustworthy thought. I'm starting to come round to the conclusion that all emotions are afflictive.

Nothing exists in the manner of it's appearance, and this includes thoughts. They seem to be singular and independent of other thoughts. This is not true. This morning my meditations have been brilliant from the bliss side, but the thoughts, which are bound to sometimes intrude, have been tinged with crabbitness. More on the side of "I hate the basturn" rather than "I love the basturn" kind of thoughts. These thought have been conditioned by my ongoing struggle with the Nicotine Dragon.

Almost all thoughts are conditioned by your false sense of self.

Almost all thoughts are not worth thinking. If you have to believe and cling to any thoughts, obviously stick with the "I love the basturn" kind of thoughts and try to let the other ones go ... even if sometimes these are the only ones you are getting!

Roll on the formless zone where there are no lying basturn mental formations, no thoughts, no wireless connectivities, and no bloody computery things!!!

By noon I will be sitting in my hut. Hurrah!

Recovery!

Wednesday 9:50 p.m.
On reflection, going to Skye with the flatheids was as disastrous as I had anticipated. I think I'm just getting over it. My ability to concentrate over the last few days has been very poor, but I've had nothing to drink or smoke, and I haven't done anything bad to myself since Sunday. Purification and accumulation. Dearie, dearie me! Anyway, I managed to stand up for my right to juju and will not be partying out of town this coming Saturday after all, cold shoulders notwithstanding.

It would have been so, so depressing. I think just about the happiest I can remember being was on the evening I last came back from the Samye Ling. I was joyous, so I was, Jack! Blissed out and full of joy! It's been downhill all the way after that, but now I feel as if I'm slowly clawing my way back.

I haven't got the slightest desire to smoke tobacco (and I have no bob hope), but I can't remember having such a crabbit response to stimuli for a long time. God help those poor basturns trying to give up fags with a real habit, like a twenty a day one.

Tonight I did some hatha yoga in front of the telly; standing postures, a handstand, elbow balance and crab. Been such a long time since I've done these! Probably years. My standing postures were actually not bad which was a bit of a surprise, but not as big a surprise as managing the handstand.

My heart was running at 58 beats a minute in Bellshill train station last Friday, but I haven't felt this unfit for years and years.

Tomorrow I should be up bright and early. I'll meditate, clean up my room and start work on the re-write of xxxBomber. Someone asked if he could put my books on a free books site called www.obooko.com and I said yes. I sent an email to my agent last week asking if the McCoy book was dead in the water and got no response.

The train from Bellshill was held up in West Calder. The story was that a bridge jumper had killed himself further up the line, but it turned out that a fourteen year old somehow got stuck on the tracks. Go to heaven, son! Go to heaven!

Tomorrow will be the start of better days! No jobbie till Monday and I get paid tomorrow. Hurrah!

This time it's personal!

Monday
When one of your friends has been cremated in Bali and another has been handed the black spot, and these bits of news coming within a week or so of each other, then you might be forgiven for thinking something is trying to tell you something. Tempis fugit. Thinking of the preciousness of human life and all that is quite an impetus to practise the juju.

I do practise a lot anyway, but the last two weeks have been very bad for drinking and smoking. For a future hell-being all this stuff might be regarded as being among life's pleasures, but they definitely don't help you practise the juju! Quite the opposite, in fact. Bad boy!

So today is the first day of the new moi! For a few days the new moi may be a bit crabbit, but this is the price we have to pay for wanting and doing the wrong things. Grief, sorrow, lamentations ... delusions, disappointments and despair ... suffering in this life. Ideally, I would like not to see more flatheids than completely necessary between now and Christmas, but the basturns are incorrigible!

On Saturday evening Lama Yeshe was giving a public talk in Edinburgh, and was probably going to talk about his seven week darkness retreat, and I was so looking forward to it .... I had to go to a family affair instead. How depressing! How completely depressing!

I would be much happier if I didn't smoke or drink, didn't spend any money on bob hope, and started paying off my overdraft and credit card debts. It might take a short period of adjustment, but I would become a far happier joe.

I hate having events involving flatheids sitting on the horizon. I thought I had cleared them all away, and that I could look forward to no open graves for months and months now, but is seems I have been booked into going to another basturn party next weekend!!!

I should just tell the flatheids to fung off, Jack. No, you shouldn't, Hotboy, but you should stop doing the bad stuff i.e. anything that reduces the clarity of your mind. Dearie me. Dearie, dearie me!