The Diggings!

Saturday 8:15 p.m.
It was actually hot today at the diggings. It was. The photie at the bottom is what I dug today. The window photie is because you can send three photies in a message, and I only had two.

The diggings totally funged me, but with a kind of satiation.

The bliss in the bath was amazing. The bliss as I half-lay, half-sat, knackered on the bed was amazing. I don't even have to sit upright these days, thinks I. I could just lie here all night. But the kiddo and her boyfriend are going to the Fatherland for ten weeks tomorrow morning, so I'm going to sit in the living room from here on in, noise blockers, eyes closed. You can't call me anti-social!

Friday

Saturday 11:30 p.m.
I'd told her about the time of the train. We'd been gabbing longer than usual. The auld maw said: Won't we have time for a meditation then? Brought me up sharp, it did. Nobody else but the auld maw has ever said that to me.

I went up to the diggings just after six and sat at the side of the allotment and gave manual labour the elbow. There was nobody around. Great bit of meditation. I feel a bit frustrated that I'm not getting much of a run at it just now, but there's always tomorrow.

The tree photies were taken up the park this evening. The flowers are from the allotments, the daffs outside the hut and blue flowers, called I know not what, from an allotment just up from ours.

I ran the five hills tonight and thoroughly enjoyed it. The new running shoes make all the difference.

Thursday

10:00 a.m.
My wonderful Thursday disappears at one o clock when I have to do things for other people. I hate that!

The first meditation of the day was great!!

Every now and again, the "buddha boy" comes to mind. The Jim Morrison of the Juju! He's inspirational, so he is. Anyway, at the start of most of the first of the day meditations, I try to visualise a list of gurus, built up over the years. When I told the lama this when I was asking him to by my guru, he rubbed his forefinger against his breast bone and said: Concentrate on me. So I do, but I go through the other ones as well. You get the image in front of your face, then on top of your head, then try to get it into a white line coming down through your body (with much bliss!) and say to yourself: Please give me your wisdom mind. This starts with the lama and ends with the lama. In between, we have Dr Akong Tulku Rinpoche, Ringu Tulku, Teresa, The Dalai Lama, Kalu Rinpoche, Lama Thebten Yeshe, The Sixteen Karmapa, and, finally, The Seventeenth Karmapa. After I do the lama again, I then go onto Christ's face from the Turin Shroud.

Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world, grant us peace.
When the Shroud face is visualised over the head, I say: Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison ...

I could fit the Buddha Boy in there somewhere, but it's crowded enough really.

I've only got till one o clock, so I'd better crack on!

11:10 p.m.
Just about then, mid-morning, Albert showed up. He looks as if somebody has just dug him up. When I saw Albert about six years ago, I thought he looked really terrible then, and was coming round to see old friends for the last goodbye. He looks just as bad now. I wonder how long he's looked that bad. Can't have long to go now, not looking as awful as that. At least, he's got some hair on his head which is more than you can say for some people.

He said he didn't want to disturb me. Sometimes if you're sitting in the temple at the Samye Ling, tourists come in and say, "It's awful quiet in here" in a loud voice. He only stayed five minutes. Just enough to completely unsettle me. You see your demise in the collapsed, prune-like faces of your contemporaries. I doubt if he's going to make it up the stairs again anyway.

I got my life back about six o clock and had a wonderfully reassuring meditation then for over an hour. Then the skipping, jumpings and shadow boxings. Felt clean after that. Cleansed. Then another great meditation.

The bliss today has been at times extraordinary. I'm into the extraordinary bliss now, Jack. Sometimes it was almost whao scary. The whao scary bliss. Shame the basturns took my wonderful Thursday away from me, but there you go. Win some, lose some.

The photies were taken in the good mother's back garden this afternoon.

New Frontier!

Wednesday 10:08 p.m.
I seem to have emerged from a very hectic week somehow on a slightly different level with the bliss and heat and all. Some slight negative vibes due to being stoned a lot of the time of late.

What if the wee fat baldy guys wrapping the cold sheets around themselves just want to cool down? What if that's a good reason to be wandering about the Himalayas in your underwear? You're roasting.

I'm nowhere near that of course, Jack, but it creepith uppith or leapith uppith.

I've got the wonderful hot stuff wreathing up the currents of whatever it is circulating in your "body". I'm not getting hot symbols and heat moving up the central channel. I'm nowhere near visualising that. But that was the kind of thing I got on April 6th, 2003.

Everything just got a lot more of everything. There's just a whole better feeling about all that there is to do with these meditations.

I always have cautionary voices in mind during these little jumps in the juju; little warnings. But everything so far has worked out fine. I just get more fortunate the more of it I do. Oh, what a fortunate creature I am, I am! What a fortunate creature I am!

The black dog lay down in front of me at the bus stop. I was very pleased to find some worms at the diggings today. Thought I'd share. The trees were irresistible this evening. I will remember the Menzies Hotel for a while. The daffodils are outside the hut.

I tried to dissuade the rat tonight by sticking burning newspaper down the gap under the hut, but the hut started to go on fire. Later on, the kiddo visited the hut and has a plan of action. Hut renovations will begin at the start of July. Hurrah!

All the folk I know with hammers and saws who did not offer to help moi in my time of need are not getting a seat on the spaceship waiting on the dark side of the moon no matter how much they cough up.

Back to the Bliss!

Sunday 6:30 p.m.
I must have been looking for the toilet. But I'm outside the hotel room, walking down the lobby. The lobbies all look the same. I don't know the room number. All the room doors look the same. I have to go to the desk and ask for assistance. I'm wearing black socks, underpants and a tee shirt as I walk across the foyer. I must commend the staff at the Menzies Hotel in Irvine. Very unflappable in a bit of a tight squeeze.

I didn't have any bliss from about half ten yesterday till nearly four o clock this afternoon when I lay down on the bed. Straight into the bliss!! It seemed amazing that all these folk I know get by without the bliss. They don't dip in and out of the bliss. They don't ever close their eyes and succumb to the bliss. Flatheids just don't get the bliss. It's a terrible shame, but it's not my fault, Jack. It's not my fault.

My Saturday!

Saturday 2:00 p.m.
I've been waiting for today. Lost Thursday and Friday. Had some folk round for food last night. But not today. The flat is empty all day now and I'm going to set the controls for the heart of the sun. What a day I'm going to have!

As soon as the first meditation started, I knew I was onto a winner. The bliss. Wisps and wreaths of thought arising from the bliss, and descending into the bliss. Sometimes great towerblockos of thought arose, but finally descended. You're supposed to mix the bliss with the emptiness. If everything can be seen to arise from the bliss and descend back to the bliss .... including yourself of course ... you are getting into emptiness a little anyway. Intimations of what it might be like. Wholeness in flow. I'll keep you posted, Jack!

10:09 p.m.
I closed the curtains over in my room and lit a candle in front of the Medicine Buddha postcard. Meditated with breaks all day from ten thirty this morning. Just stopped for a bit. It takes all day to get into the heat, but I could feel the heat come on as the whatever got more and more open. Maybe it would have come sooner if I hadn't been smoking bob hope, but I don't think so somehow. Boom Shiva!

Tomorrow I'm going to the wild west for a wedding. Once more into the breach, dear friends!

Rejection for RC

Thursday 1:00 p.m.
My conciglieri forwarded this rejection from Little Brown:

"Following up on R.C. Short version: I’m going to pass. Longer version: I do (sic) so fully aware that you’ve got a very talented author on your hands. The writing is crisp and clean, the dialogue distinctively edgy, and the plot very smoothly engineered. That said, I wasn’t especially taken with the protagonist, who seemed to me rather difficult to like, and I worry that some of the book’s more serrated edges would rub a broad readership the wrong way.

While I’m going to pass, I wish you much luck with the project, and I can’t wait to see where Hotboy lands. Thanks again very much for letting me take a look."

I guess slipping in the gratuitous sado masochistic sex scenes might have worked against me there after all.

Well, Hotboy has landed in the lonely financial zone once again! Thank God I get a free bus pass next year!