Managed a couple of days down in Wales at the w/end. We had to take our chances as the the weather was iffy and so on Sunday it turned out to be, when it rained the whole of the day without a break. You just don't get that kind of weather up here. Saturday was good though and that was what I was banking on. Saturday was the day that I had planned for us to all go up to the Brecon Beacons and take a walk in the hills. A couple of showers on the way up in the motor on the Sat morning made me fear for the worst but as luck would have it by the time we got there the skies were cloudy but bright and we got away with it.
Me, Tamdin and a couple of Tibetan friends, Pema and Tashi. The sight of the hill we walked up as it lay on the horizon was to make me dream that night of Mount Kailash. The clear of air of the hills blew the dust of the city out of my head and left me feeling pure and clear. Not very often it is possible to feel like that these days but at the w/end I did. Plenty of people around walking too. Mostly Welsh and mostly faster and fitter than us. No matter, it would have been a plaesure even if I'd have crawled up.
The visibility was excellent, you could see for miles and miles. The pasture country to the north around Brecon where there must be hundreds of dairy farms, the Black Mountains to the East and the Welsh valleys and the sea to the south. Done that walk a few times before and it is a good one. Five miles of good solid walking. Maybe 20 years ago or even more I remember going up there, looking around and feeling it was all too familiar, it was Wales and what was so special about that? I was dreaming of bigger mountains at the time, maybe the Himalayas. Coming back now after over 20 years living and working in the East End of London I see things differently and can appreciate those hills in a way that previously was just not possible. Simply to be out there walking in them, enjoying the air, the silence, the sight of the sheep on the grasses was enough for me. No dreams of always wanting something better, bigger, now.
Dream is a funny old word. I think it can be defined as being the narcotic of reality. The r, e & a are shared by both words but with dream you have the d and the m tagged on at either end. Dm. Those two letters make a big difference. Dream. Guess I would call myself a dreamer. Yes, definitely.The whole of my life I have dreamt about how things might be without necessarily seeing the gap between the picture in my mind and the reality of where I actually am in my life. Under the influence of dm in other words.
This weekend down in Wales I had another kind of dream appear to me and that was the thought of how nice it would be to return to Penarth and open a bookshop there called Books of Wisdom. Kind of got the feeling it would do quite well. I would simply stock it with all books that I liked. I have worked with books in regard to Wisdom Books for the best part of 20 years so I kind of get the feeling I know what it is I am dealing with. I think the thing that inspired me was going down to Penarth and quite by chance stumbling across an organic food shop at the top of the town. Just had never noticed it before and inside I was amazed at the range of stock it carried. They had some amazing stuiff in there. Far better range than many organic food shops that you get in Lodnon. Inspired me. Someone had clearly been doing their homework. Made me realise that if they were expending so much time and energy in getting all that stock in from all over the place they must be selling it. In other words the market was there. So maybe it would be the same if I opened up a really cool bookshop.
Dreams, dreams, dreams. The dr makes them the narcotic of reality.
Wed now. Cloudy and possibly going to be wet. Temps have come down a long way since April which was a record month for heat and sun in this country. Been struggling with a stiff neck these last couple of days. Tamdin gave it a good massage last night and that has certainly helped but all the same it is still uncomfortable. Think I got it from driving down to Wales on Friday night when it took a lot longer than expected due to the heavy traffic both on the M25 and then on the M4. Traffic. There is not much that you can do about it. In this country it is only going in one direction in terms of weight and intensity. There is no real overall plan, that is clear. Things are just going to become ever more congested and clogged up. More and more there will be scenes of complete and utter frustration as people realise their plans for a nice drive somewhere have turned into a nightnmare. We all have cars these days and who is to say who should have one and who shouln't? It just cannot be done, we are all in the same boat, and the boat is slowly sinking.
Thurs eve now. Nice and bright, lot warmer than what it has been these last few days. Going to go up and do some meditation soon. It has been a couple of weeks now and I know I'll be rusty.
Final words. Just done my meditation and it was good. Better than I had any right to expect.
Guru Padmasambhava Invocation Hill
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
No News
Mon morn, grey and unspectacular. I don't know what the weather is going be like at the w/end which is a bank holiday but I am thinking of going down to Wales with Tamdin to spend a couple of days in my parents flat by the sea. Well, not right by the sea but pretty close, a walk down the hill.
Got down to a bit of meditation yesterday. Couple of solid sessions where the mind remained relatively focused. For sure thoughts float in and out, that is unavoidable, but in the main I kept my attention on the breath as it was the main object of concentration. Consequently things were nice and fluid, for a change.
Meditation was good but despite it all I ended the day wondering just how honourable a thing the act of suicide was in the Roman tradition, and what the reasons were under which it could have been sanctioned. I remember reading one account not so long ago of a senator who sat around chatting with his friends whilst he slashed his wrists and his life blood slowly drained away. Guess it was a question of honour back then, also one of punishment as well. People were ordered by wrathful emperors to do themselves in if they put themselves on the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe have to find out a bit more about that.
Sitting here writing this but really feel like I have should have got up and done some meditation this morning. Lingered in bed a little bit too long. All the meditation books that I read say when you wake you should get up straight away. Don't lie around. Well I guess today I first woke at around 5.20 am and then again at 6.00 am. At neither point did I take the opportunity to haul myself out of bed, splash some cold water over my face and go and sit on my cushion. From the horizontal and in the half dark it all seemed so complicated when of course there is really nothing to it at all, only thing that is needed is an injection of the necessary motivation.
This means I can hardly have anyone to blame but myself if I feel bad now for not doing any meditation. The chance was there and I blew it. Simple as that and there is really little more to say about it. Tomorrow, will it be any different? Well I kind of doubt that very much. There is always the fear in me of getting up too early and then ending up feeling tired for the rest of day after the initial couple of hours of early morning get up and go have worn off. The fear of falling apart I guess.
Sleep for the last few nights has been patchy. Each time I have got up in the morning feeling that I have not really slept very well at all. Light sleep, full of dreams unremembered or half remembered. Been getting a bit preoccupied with the condition of the skin on my face these last few days, maybe that has something to do with it. Tamdin thinks my skin is the way it is because I do not drink enough water. That might be true, although none of the guys at Wisdom have a face like mine and they drink less water than I do. When I was younger spots on my face would turn into puss and then I would be able to squeeze them. Splat on the mirror they would go. These days the spots never fully break the surface of the skin but leave parts of my face looking red and patchy. Trying to force them out is a nightmare and pressing them often only inflames the area, making it appear more red, and inflamed.
Wed today. Fine day. Now decided that we are going down to Wales this w/end. Hope and pray the weather is going to be OK. Forecast looks good for Sat but not for Sun so we shall just have to cross our fingers. Don't want it to rain, I certainly know what it is like to have wet weekends in Wales where the skies just open and the rain never stops fallin' down. Don't want that, no, no, no, but at the end of the day it is in the hands of the gods.
Been drinking more water these last couple of days, trying to get my face back in order. Nothing worse than being 45 and looking in the mirror to see your face spotty, blotchy and generally pretty rough. Is it an indication of a state of mind? Is the face an accurate reflection of what is inside? Maybe, guess there is no definitive answer to that.
You know, I have got to stop reading the papers, the newspapers, the online papers, all those things. Thought yesterday how good it would be to begin to ignore the news as much as I possibly could. I am going to do that. I don't have to go to extremes, just gradually loosen my ties to them. Began the process yesterday by deleting all the online newspapers that I have stashed away in my favourites on the Net at work. That was a good move. Nothing worse at work that continually flicking onto one of the online news pages if only for a couple of seconds. It is bad habit and one that I have had for a couple of years now, more than a couple in fact. This time I am determined to do something about it, determined to cut it out. No good, no good at all, just glimpsing every hour or so throughout the working day. Hoping to find what exactly? Waiting for a disaster or something like that?
Thurs morn, fine day. Hot. Problem is the temperatures look set to drop from tomorrow onwards and that is when we are going down to Wales. That means a hot day at work and in the city and then rain when we get a rare chance to be out in the country. Why does it always seem to be like that?
Slept better last night. Full eight hours. Needed it. Yesterday I was helping Tamdin post out a load of medicine and pretty much throughout I felt absolutely shattered. By the end of the day it was as much as I could do to crawl upstairs to bed. Couldn't even bothered to stay up to watch Desperate Housewives.
You know I think my big idea to try to avoid the news as much as possible is going to be a tough one to follow through. This morning for example I have fired up the laptop and there right away set as the home page is BBC News. Instead of skipping right past it and onto here I couldn't help but click on a story or two and then from there I was soon on Telegraph Online reading articles from there. As I said, all newspapers have been deleted from my favourites at work so that at least is one step, but I have to make sure that all access to news is kept to a minimum; that includes not logging onto online news sites at home as well.
Training will also be required in the car when it is so easy to push the button to listen to the news on Radio 4. I will have to be aware at home as well, here BBC News 24 can also be accessed at the flick of a button. All this stuff must be avoided as much as possible from now on. No point in thinking I am never going to watch, read or hear anything again because that is just not practical but I am sure it is possible to drastically reduce my intake, and at the same time observe whether or not it has a correspondingly positive effect on my state of mind.
Got down to a bit of meditation yesterday. Couple of solid sessions where the mind remained relatively focused. For sure thoughts float in and out, that is unavoidable, but in the main I kept my attention on the breath as it was the main object of concentration. Consequently things were nice and fluid, for a change.
Meditation was good but despite it all I ended the day wondering just how honourable a thing the act of suicide was in the Roman tradition, and what the reasons were under which it could have been sanctioned. I remember reading one account not so long ago of a senator who sat around chatting with his friends whilst he slashed his wrists and his life blood slowly drained away. Guess it was a question of honour back then, also one of punishment as well. People were ordered by wrathful emperors to do themselves in if they put themselves on the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe have to find out a bit more about that.
Sitting here writing this but really feel like I have should have got up and done some meditation this morning. Lingered in bed a little bit too long. All the meditation books that I read say when you wake you should get up straight away. Don't lie around. Well I guess today I first woke at around 5.20 am and then again at 6.00 am. At neither point did I take the opportunity to haul myself out of bed, splash some cold water over my face and go and sit on my cushion. From the horizontal and in the half dark it all seemed so complicated when of course there is really nothing to it at all, only thing that is needed is an injection of the necessary motivation.
This means I can hardly have anyone to blame but myself if I feel bad now for not doing any meditation. The chance was there and I blew it. Simple as that and there is really little more to say about it. Tomorrow, will it be any different? Well I kind of doubt that very much. There is always the fear in me of getting up too early and then ending up feeling tired for the rest of day after the initial couple of hours of early morning get up and go have worn off. The fear of falling apart I guess.
Sleep for the last few nights has been patchy. Each time I have got up in the morning feeling that I have not really slept very well at all. Light sleep, full of dreams unremembered or half remembered. Been getting a bit preoccupied with the condition of the skin on my face these last few days, maybe that has something to do with it. Tamdin thinks my skin is the way it is because I do not drink enough water. That might be true, although none of the guys at Wisdom have a face like mine and they drink less water than I do. When I was younger spots on my face would turn into puss and then I would be able to squeeze them. Splat on the mirror they would go. These days the spots never fully break the surface of the skin but leave parts of my face looking red and patchy. Trying to force them out is a nightmare and pressing them often only inflames the area, making it appear more red, and inflamed.
Wed today. Fine day. Now decided that we are going down to Wales this w/end. Hope and pray the weather is going to be OK. Forecast looks good for Sat but not for Sun so we shall just have to cross our fingers. Don't want it to rain, I certainly know what it is like to have wet weekends in Wales where the skies just open and the rain never stops fallin' down. Don't want that, no, no, no, but at the end of the day it is in the hands of the gods.
Been drinking more water these last couple of days, trying to get my face back in order. Nothing worse than being 45 and looking in the mirror to see your face spotty, blotchy and generally pretty rough. Is it an indication of a state of mind? Is the face an accurate reflection of what is inside? Maybe, guess there is no definitive answer to that.
You know, I have got to stop reading the papers, the newspapers, the online papers, all those things. Thought yesterday how good it would be to begin to ignore the news as much as I possibly could. I am going to do that. I don't have to go to extremes, just gradually loosen my ties to them. Began the process yesterday by deleting all the online newspapers that I have stashed away in my favourites on the Net at work. That was a good move. Nothing worse at work that continually flicking onto one of the online news pages if only for a couple of seconds. It is bad habit and one that I have had for a couple of years now, more than a couple in fact. This time I am determined to do something about it, determined to cut it out. No good, no good at all, just glimpsing every hour or so throughout the working day. Hoping to find what exactly? Waiting for a disaster or something like that?
Thurs morn, fine day. Hot. Problem is the temperatures look set to drop from tomorrow onwards and that is when we are going down to Wales. That means a hot day at work and in the city and then rain when we get a rare chance to be out in the country. Why does it always seem to be like that?
Slept better last night. Full eight hours. Needed it. Yesterday I was helping Tamdin post out a load of medicine and pretty much throughout I felt absolutely shattered. By the end of the day it was as much as I could do to crawl upstairs to bed. Couldn't even bothered to stay up to watch Desperate Housewives.
You know I think my big idea to try to avoid the news as much as possible is going to be a tough one to follow through. This morning for example I have fired up the laptop and there right away set as the home page is BBC News. Instead of skipping right past it and onto here I couldn't help but click on a story or two and then from there I was soon on Telegraph Online reading articles from there. As I said, all newspapers have been deleted from my favourites at work so that at least is one step, but I have to make sure that all access to news is kept to a minimum; that includes not logging onto online news sites at home as well.
Training will also be required in the car when it is so easy to push the button to listen to the news on Radio 4. I will have to be aware at home as well, here BBC News 24 can also be accessed at the flick of a button. All this stuff must be avoided as much as possible from now on. No point in thinking I am never going to watch, read or hear anything again because that is just not practical but I am sure it is possible to drastically reduce my intake, and at the same time observe whether or not it has a correspondingly positive effect on my state of mind.
Friday, May 18, 2007
3 Dull Days in da Middle O' May
Tues nite now. Raining outside, much needed rain. Got Dylan Unplugged on the Pod. Yeah man, poddin'it to Dylan an' when the time is right there aint nuthin' better than that. I know this might sound kinda incredible but I have hardly listened to Bob's Unplugged since I bought it when it was released over a dozen years ago. Amazing really 'coz it is only recently that I have realised that is not half bad. Think I must have been influenced by all those jackass so called Dylan experts all those years who gave it an almost instant thumbs down. In it thoroughly deserves an emphatic thumbs up, so there ya go.
Work just as full of stuff as ever. Worries about going bust, down the fuckin' tube one minute, then thinkin' about ways of making a killing by buying in a shit load of stuff from the States the next. Crazy stuff and I really dunno what or where it is all gonna lead to. Maybe all this work distraction shit is what is keepin' me away from bloggin' it proper. Yeah man, just seem to have fallen outta fluent valley recently an' I aint go no clue of the way back. Y'know when all the words just run right out of ya. Keep getting blocks, head blocks, and they just stop me in my flow, before the flow even. Leave me hanging round, scratchin' round for things to write about and yeah I guess it shows. Stop an' start. Maybe the fires of enthusiasm just aint burnin' as bright as should at the moment and as to why that might be I just ain't gotta clue.
Still wakin' up quite often in the deep dark night. Kinda quite enjoy it in a shady kinda way. The deep night hours when memories of the past can come back so clearly, the long past of childhood, early childhood an' stuff like. Aint nuthin' wrong about that I gotta say so there ya go. Just roll with it. Wake up and let it all rock along. Maybe ya get back to sleep and maybe ya don't. If you're lying down it don't matter too much I don't think as ya body is still gonna be gettin' some kinda rest I'm pretty sure about that.
combing his hair back, his future looks thin
he bites the bullet as he looks within - for dignity
so many dead ends and I'm at the end of the lake
sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take to find dignity
Yeah man that's Bob Dylan. Still got Unplugged on the pod and it's flowing along quite nicely I gotta say. Nice to find it again after all these years.
Wed now. Early afternoon. Grey day with a dash of rain but tomorrow is supposed to be hot. Gotta go up me parents later on this afternoon and be taken for a meal in a pub. Boozer food. Well me old ma reckons it is a pub bistro so we shall see. Up in Harpenden where they live. Place supposed to be on the Luton side of town. Might set off early and take a drive through the country roads of Essex and Herts and get there for around 5.30. Go the slow way. See some fields and other country scenes, just ta remind myself that those places exist. Livin' an' workin' in London it is sometimes all too easy to forget that. Well livin' in Woodford aint too bad of course as it is on the edge of town and close to Epping Forest. Ilford though where Wisdom is a different matter. Full of people these days that are strange looking and look at you strangely in turn. Fall out from all our bossing the world around for too many centuries and decades I guess.
Tamdin still away in Sweden. Usually I'm at home all day on Wed but this week I have done the morning at Wisdom. Sitting there hoping a few more orders are gonna come along and rescue us from the money holes we are always so close to falling right into. Slept well last night, slept heavy. All the way through from 11 till 6.30. Needed it. Deep in the depths were dreams which of course now I can't remember but I can feel them and the feeling from them is pretty good. Another world.
Try to sit down and meditate this afternoon. Get down to it. Been going OK, slow but kinda steady. Nuthin' too enlightening but sometimes half the trick is just to be able to get to the position where ya can sit down and at least feel easy. Relax into the body and breathe. Watch the breaths, count the breaths. Don't let go but don't hold on too tight at the same time either. Concentrate but don't get wound up. Things will come and go. No point in trying to control them. Once they are seen they can be let go of and they will float away and if they don't then ya just have to be mindful enough to know that they really should be let go of if ya surely can.
Best not to sit though if the thoughts running through ya mind are particularly big ones. Big issues tend not to be solved by meditation, or at least on the level that I find myself they are not. They are just too overwhelming and yeah man it is fair enough to sit and contemplate them in a zone of peace as ya might get to find some kinda solution. But for me at least the big mental issues never go away if I take to the meditation cushion and then try to forget about them. All a question of knowing where the borders are. Of knowing where the lines are drawn. Some things you can do and some things you can't right now. Maybe later if all goes well I can rise to a bigger challenge.
Occasionally I will try to sit and meditate late at night and almost as soon as I have sat down on the cushion I realise I have not made the correct decision. Body too heavy, heavy enough to crush. Mind too tired, tired enough to fall asleep. Those situations you can come back to again and again but more often than not the answer will be pretty clear pretty quickly as whether you are gonna be able to stick with it at that particular time. Aint no shame in surrendering. It was a speculative attempt and it ended in failure. So what? No shame in that.
Best not to hang onto the kinda thoughts that make ya feel bad if things don't go right with meditation or don't quite go the way you think they should do. Reason why is that underneath you just don't know. Bad can be good and equally good can be bad. Processes can be at work that you just might not be aware of and on some deep level they might be making perfect sense even if on the surface all you are left with is disappointment and confusion. Have confidence that you surely are working your way through. Keep going back again and again and yeah man you will hit paydirt at some point down the line there just aint no doubt about that.
Thurs eve now. Think this is gonna be the final bit of this seg before I post it up. Three dull kinda days in the middle of May. Good name for the post I guess. Just nuthin' much happening. Went up to my folks last night where we went out for food at a gastro pub. Pretty good I guess. Great beer and if I hadn't been driving I think it would have been pretty great to have been able to sit back and drink down about six pints of Amstel in those cool tall Amsterdam glasses they served it in. Drove back in heavy rain late at night and I didn't like that. Kinda had the feeling if I didn't pay close attention I could end up in a car smash or something like that. Meant that by the time I got back home I was tired and edgy. It had been an evening with a lot of talking. Kinda mentioned to my old man I might need some cash to invest in Wisdom at some point in the undecided future. He was pretty cool about it I have to say, happy in fact. So there ya go, if I really wanna stick my neck in that particular area I guess have license to. We shall see, we shall see.
My folks had just come back after a couple of weeks up north staying with my sister, her husband and my little nephew. Couldn't help but feel touched when I listened to my dad describe to me how he played with my nephew every day and how he tried to spend as much time as he could with him. Seemed to think there was only a limited amount of time available with kids before their innocence was lost and he wanted to get as much of it as he could whilst it was there and also to cast upon the little boy his own influence. Ole grandad. Wanted to impress himself on my nephew's mind, leave his mark. Then when my nephew was older and maybe when my dad was no longer around at least he could have memories of him. Left me feeling kinda choked.
Fri morn now. Thought I was gonna wrap this whole thing up last night but I never got round to it. Last few evenings I have had to hit the sack 10.30 - 11.00 max and then when I've gone up have slept like a log. No more disturbance. Sleep and dreams in a heavy mix. Cloud and dullness still here as far as the weather is concerned and I guess that means it is gonna be like this for the w/end also. On and off. Tamdin says the weather over in Stockholm has been good. Those golden Swedes have got it sussed. Big country, not many people, Clean livin' and real weather. Completely the other end of the spectrum to good ole' dirty stinkin' London town. No point us in complaining though, it is just the way it is. Only person who can change things is yourself. If ya don't then shut it, simple as that.
Meditated each day this week but nuthin' too spectacular has come out of it and in many respects just sailed close to doing the bare minimum. Inspiration, dedication, motivation whatever the jazz is I aint had it in spades. Hard sitting at times. Nuthin' gentle about them. Powering my way through but all done with a heavy sense of obligation. Not the way it should be. No gentle slides from one state into another. More like an assault on the senses with the demand to be quiet. Too forced. That is why I haven't enjoyed them. Ya wouldn't wanna necessarily go back to that everyday I can tell ya. Need to find some kinda middle ground I reckon, tone things down and don't make them so scary. Otherwise it's just gonna end in some kinda Rambo hullabaloo where no one's the winner.
Work just as full of stuff as ever. Worries about going bust, down the fuckin' tube one minute, then thinkin' about ways of making a killing by buying in a shit load of stuff from the States the next. Crazy stuff and I really dunno what or where it is all gonna lead to. Maybe all this work distraction shit is what is keepin' me away from bloggin' it proper. Yeah man, just seem to have fallen outta fluent valley recently an' I aint go no clue of the way back. Y'know when all the words just run right out of ya. Keep getting blocks, head blocks, and they just stop me in my flow, before the flow even. Leave me hanging round, scratchin' round for things to write about and yeah I guess it shows. Stop an' start. Maybe the fires of enthusiasm just aint burnin' as bright as should at the moment and as to why that might be I just ain't gotta clue.
Still wakin' up quite often in the deep dark night. Kinda quite enjoy it in a shady kinda way. The deep night hours when memories of the past can come back so clearly, the long past of childhood, early childhood an' stuff like. Aint nuthin' wrong about that I gotta say so there ya go. Just roll with it. Wake up and let it all rock along. Maybe ya get back to sleep and maybe ya don't. If you're lying down it don't matter too much I don't think as ya body is still gonna be gettin' some kinda rest I'm pretty sure about that.
combing his hair back, his future looks thin
he bites the bullet as he looks within - for dignity
so many dead ends and I'm at the end of the lake
sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take to find dignity
Yeah man that's Bob Dylan. Still got Unplugged on the pod and it's flowing along quite nicely I gotta say. Nice to find it again after all these years.
Wed now. Early afternoon. Grey day with a dash of rain but tomorrow is supposed to be hot. Gotta go up me parents later on this afternoon and be taken for a meal in a pub. Boozer food. Well me old ma reckons it is a pub bistro so we shall see. Up in Harpenden where they live. Place supposed to be on the Luton side of town. Might set off early and take a drive through the country roads of Essex and Herts and get there for around 5.30. Go the slow way. See some fields and other country scenes, just ta remind myself that those places exist. Livin' an' workin' in London it is sometimes all too easy to forget that. Well livin' in Woodford aint too bad of course as it is on the edge of town and close to Epping Forest. Ilford though where Wisdom is a different matter. Full of people these days that are strange looking and look at you strangely in turn. Fall out from all our bossing the world around for too many centuries and decades I guess.
Tamdin still away in Sweden. Usually I'm at home all day on Wed but this week I have done the morning at Wisdom. Sitting there hoping a few more orders are gonna come along and rescue us from the money holes we are always so close to falling right into. Slept well last night, slept heavy. All the way through from 11 till 6.30. Needed it. Deep in the depths were dreams which of course now I can't remember but I can feel them and the feeling from them is pretty good. Another world.
Try to sit down and meditate this afternoon. Get down to it. Been going OK, slow but kinda steady. Nuthin' too enlightening but sometimes half the trick is just to be able to get to the position where ya can sit down and at least feel easy. Relax into the body and breathe. Watch the breaths, count the breaths. Don't let go but don't hold on too tight at the same time either. Concentrate but don't get wound up. Things will come and go. No point in trying to control them. Once they are seen they can be let go of and they will float away and if they don't then ya just have to be mindful enough to know that they really should be let go of if ya surely can.
Best not to sit though if the thoughts running through ya mind are particularly big ones. Big issues tend not to be solved by meditation, or at least on the level that I find myself they are not. They are just too overwhelming and yeah man it is fair enough to sit and contemplate them in a zone of peace as ya might get to find some kinda solution. But for me at least the big mental issues never go away if I take to the meditation cushion and then try to forget about them. All a question of knowing where the borders are. Of knowing where the lines are drawn. Some things you can do and some things you can't right now. Maybe later if all goes well I can rise to a bigger challenge.
Occasionally I will try to sit and meditate late at night and almost as soon as I have sat down on the cushion I realise I have not made the correct decision. Body too heavy, heavy enough to crush. Mind too tired, tired enough to fall asleep. Those situations you can come back to again and again but more often than not the answer will be pretty clear pretty quickly as whether you are gonna be able to stick with it at that particular time. Aint no shame in surrendering. It was a speculative attempt and it ended in failure. So what? No shame in that.
Best not to hang onto the kinda thoughts that make ya feel bad if things don't go right with meditation or don't quite go the way you think they should do. Reason why is that underneath you just don't know. Bad can be good and equally good can be bad. Processes can be at work that you just might not be aware of and on some deep level they might be making perfect sense even if on the surface all you are left with is disappointment and confusion. Have confidence that you surely are working your way through. Keep going back again and again and yeah man you will hit paydirt at some point down the line there just aint no doubt about that.
Thurs eve now. Think this is gonna be the final bit of this seg before I post it up. Three dull kinda days in the middle of May. Good name for the post I guess. Just nuthin' much happening. Went up to my folks last night where we went out for food at a gastro pub. Pretty good I guess. Great beer and if I hadn't been driving I think it would have been pretty great to have been able to sit back and drink down about six pints of Amstel in those cool tall Amsterdam glasses they served it in. Drove back in heavy rain late at night and I didn't like that. Kinda had the feeling if I didn't pay close attention I could end up in a car smash or something like that. Meant that by the time I got back home I was tired and edgy. It had been an evening with a lot of talking. Kinda mentioned to my old man I might need some cash to invest in Wisdom at some point in the undecided future. He was pretty cool about it I have to say, happy in fact. So there ya go, if I really wanna stick my neck in that particular area I guess have license to. We shall see, we shall see.
My folks had just come back after a couple of weeks up north staying with my sister, her husband and my little nephew. Couldn't help but feel touched when I listened to my dad describe to me how he played with my nephew every day and how he tried to spend as much time as he could with him. Seemed to think there was only a limited amount of time available with kids before their innocence was lost and he wanted to get as much of it as he could whilst it was there and also to cast upon the little boy his own influence. Ole grandad. Wanted to impress himself on my nephew's mind, leave his mark. Then when my nephew was older and maybe when my dad was no longer around at least he could have memories of him. Left me feeling kinda choked.
Fri morn now. Thought I was gonna wrap this whole thing up last night but I never got round to it. Last few evenings I have had to hit the sack 10.30 - 11.00 max and then when I've gone up have slept like a log. No more disturbance. Sleep and dreams in a heavy mix. Cloud and dullness still here as far as the weather is concerned and I guess that means it is gonna be like this for the w/end also. On and off. Tamdin says the weather over in Stockholm has been good. Those golden Swedes have got it sussed. Big country, not many people, Clean livin' and real weather. Completely the other end of the spectrum to good ole' dirty stinkin' London town. No point us in complaining though, it is just the way it is. Only person who can change things is yourself. If ya don't then shut it, simple as that.
Meditated each day this week but nuthin' too spectacular has come out of it and in many respects just sailed close to doing the bare minimum. Inspiration, dedication, motivation whatever the jazz is I aint had it in spades. Hard sitting at times. Nuthin' gentle about them. Powering my way through but all done with a heavy sense of obligation. Not the way it should be. No gentle slides from one state into another. More like an assault on the senses with the demand to be quiet. Too forced. That is why I haven't enjoyed them. Ya wouldn't wanna necessarily go back to that everyday I can tell ya. Need to find some kinda middle ground I reckon, tone things down and don't make them so scary. Otherwise it's just gonna end in some kinda Rambo hullabaloo where no one's the winner.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Ruzzle Punx
Late night sat. Waiting for Tamdin to come back from a Tibetan function down in Islington, fund raising for something. I was half expecting to have to go down to Islington to pick her up but as it 'appens she is getting a lift back with our friends Pema and Tashi.
Long w/end this w/end as it is a bank holiday. Been painting most of the day. Painting the upstairs landing, something which has been on the cards for a while. Had a late night meditation where believe it or not I actually felt quite good. Body not too heavy,instead pleasingly light. Mind OK. That don't happen too often I can tell ya that. Stayed pretty focused as I did a 108 breath sit, drifted a bit towards the end. Dunno why. Probably just tired. Thoughts of playing a Quo download from itunes crept into my mind towards the end I have to say. Yeah bought a couple tonight on the cheap. That was after spending the best part of an hour trying to figure how to back up my itunes library onto a portable back up drive. Should have been straight forward but believe me it wasn't. Finally figured it out after mucho frustration which was enough to nearly make my blood boil and send me off into a rage. Dunno what it is with computer stuff but I have to admit I get the willies almost immediately when things don't go right, now it has come to the point where I show almost zero tolerance when things don't happen when they should or do happen when they shouldn't if ya see what I mean.
Tue morn now. Grey day, looks like the hot spell has come to an end. Long w/end was spent painting and sorting stuff out. Simple as that. Yeah but I have to say that sometimes it feels like my life is just one continual round of sorting. Couple beers on Sun and Mon as a reward in the evenings but that was it. Heineken Export. Yeah, getting back into the habit of speaking a bit of Heinekenese. And I have to say when the time is right and ya have a thirst it is a pretty good language to learn. Gluggy gluggy glug...aaahhhh!!!
Site went down yesterday at work so got an agitated phone call from Leigh who sounded off to me on the blower "It's raining, it's a bank holiday and we aint making any fucking money". Classic if wasn't so desperate. Sounded just like Alan Sugar from out of The Apprentice. Looks like it was down for around six hours or so but by four it was up an running again which is better I guess that it still being down right now I as I write this. Frustrating. Just when it look like we are picking up a bit of momentum stuff like this comes along and throws it all sideways. Leigh gets extremely agitated by it I know that for a fact and he comes close to getting violent although I don't think he realises it. The lad just can't help it, irrespective of the fact he works for a company distributing Buddhist books.
Aint much I can say to him really. It's the ruzzle punkin' deal for sure when stuff like that 'appens but we have to get on with it as best we can. Yeah mean, just a load of ruzz puggery sent ta test us. Ya can look to skies an' the heavens if ya wish but that isnae goona change much if ya want the truth 'coz required to fix it don't live in our domain.
Wed now still grey. Kinda lost the track of what it is I have to write about. Dunno why, life goes on I guess and in between sometimes not much can happen. Nah, not much at all. Well that aint strictly true of course 'coz there are always things goin' on, it's more a question of whether ya have the energy to sit down an' notice them. Something like that.
Tamdin goes away on Fri for a week to Stockholm in her capacity as a Tibetan physician where she will see lots of people who will come to her for help. On Sat I will be going out for a meal with Leo Boy from Wisdom to talk business. He's been agitating for it for a long time, just ta see where we are and what avenues of opportunity are possibly gonna be open for us if we wanna continue. Or maybe if we wanna continue is too strong a way of putting it, maybe what I mean is if we can continue given the current economic circumstances of the company and the fact we are havin' to fork out 15 friggin' grand for a boiler an' heating system we don't particularly want.
Dunno what it is but some people can irritate ya more than others an' in my case Leo Boy definitely falls into that category. Dunno why, really dunno why. Guess it must be 'coz of some kinda threat I can't necessarily explain. For example at work if I compare the things that come out of Leo's mouth and the things that come out of Mikel's mouth when we are in the office it is almost certain that even if they are saying exactly the same thing it will be Leo Boy who winds me up. Just his manner, just his tone. I gotta really concentrate, really watch myself to make sure I don't blurt out something really stupid an' disgraceful in relation to whatever it is he might be sayin'. Why is it? Just the certainty of belief he displays maybe, yeah man the belief he has that he is right...something like that. He always has irritated me and I think it is fair to say he always will. Many a time he has sat there and gone on about something and I have just wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up but either out of cowardice or politeness I have not down so. Cowardice probably.
Often tried to analyse these feelings in meditation but it doesn't really seem to have done much help. Or maybe it has. Maybe it is unrealistic to ever expect them to go away, better just to let them sit and do what they have to do with me watching 'em.
Yeah man, at the end of the day it is the same old situation between us. Irritation on my part over stuff that comes out of his mouth, wanting ta shoot him down but not knowing how. Totally unfair I know. Guess he plays on insecurities I have. Whether consciously or not I really dunno, but I feel it, I feel it. Leo Boy's comments about work and things happening in relation to the biz can really wind me up at times, lead me up the path of thinking whether what I'm doing is correct or not, whether or not I could be doing more or could be doing things different. Stuff like that. All the time. In some it is good to have that kinda check but in other ways it is not when I'm finding myself in a position of having to bite my lip.
Definitely plays on my insecurities. Makes me think I'm not proactive enough as far as work is concerned. That is things on the one hand. On the other I just kinda think that sometimes Leo Boy is too interested in business and making money. That there is an air of desperation about things sometimes because he is so obsessed with things that he sees should be done in a particular way. It's dangerous, after all at the end of the day what we are doing is dealing with books on Buddhism and there is an argument that is no doubt made by some that Buddhism should never be sold at all, in any way whatsoever. Yet there we are, selling it.
Often the both of us run on emotion and that can lead to both of us movin' too fast, then if we collide there can be a clash. Yeah man, makes me think I am not doing enough as far as work is concerned, which might be fair comment I guess in some regards. After all I am only there 3 and half days a week and Leo Boy by contrast is there all the time, Mon-Fri 9 ta 5, or more like 8.15 ta 5.30 with hardly any break. I guess that does mean to a certain extent he sees a fuller picture than me.
Important I guess to just accept work is always gonna be unsatisfactory. There are always gonna many things about it that just aint quite right and you have to live with it an' just do the best you can. In the case of Wisdom Books we also have to do the best we can within the constraints of what out budget will allow. Things are sometimes decided for when we aint got the money. Main thing is just to keep it all together enough so that we don't end up going bust. But as for it being a vehicle to realise your dreams...well as far as that goes I really aint so sure.
Guess from my side there is a bit of jealousy there as well as far as Leo is concerned. Sometimes he is very busy in the office, he has managed to cultivate a good base of contacts that he uses on a frequent basis. When I look at myself in comparison I see that I am almost a hermit and it is as much as I can do to raise my head from the behind the screen of my computer. Bottom line is I just don't find it easy to get on the phone and talk to people. Not that I necessarily prefer to work in silence, just that I get locked away in my own thoughts. Introverted maybe. Leo Boy is not like that at all, there is a constant stream of noise coming from his corner of the office and even when he aint on the blower to other people he is talking to either me or Mikel or to himself. I like to keep my mouth shut if I can at all help it. Sometimes it feels like it is such an effort to say things to people, it can almost physically hurt. In comparison to me Leo Boy is really chatty little chappy.
Fri now. End of the week. Short kinda week this week as far as Wisdom goes aint no doubt about that. Mon was a holiday, Wed I was with Tamdin and today I am off as I am taking Tamdin to Heathrow in the middle of the day and then going into town to do some shopping. Looking to get the new deluxe version of Don't Look Back on DVD. Bob Dylan circa 1965 in case you're wondering...
Sleep been kinda so so this week. Couple of middle of the night wake ups but nothing for too long. With Tamdin going away for a week to Sweden I hope I can use the time to get down to some meditation. Need to find the spark again. Going off the boil. It was going well for a little while but tiredness took over a coupla weeks ago and it has been as much as I can do to get near the cushion since, in fact more often than not I just haven't managed it. Mental wall in front of me, high and wide.
May weather more like May now after a hot an' steamy April. Things just keep goin'. All this bullshit talk about carbon awareness and stuff like that is senseless when at the same time it is announced there are now more flights being taken in the world than ever before. Fuckin' millions of 'em. Just don't stack up do it? People have gotta realise things will just keep on going in the way they are until we are all forced to stop because circumstances in some shape or form will have become so goddam extreme that we just can't go on further down the line without some kinda radical change in our behaviour. Until then, forget it.
All this crap about limiting industrial production and trying to keep within certain self-imposed limits are never ever gonna be fully adhered to. We are not masters of our own destiny when there is such an unholy scramble to try to get along the road of capitalist consumerism. We are just a race, the human race, on a tiny planet in the depths of space tryin' to survive, trying to get along and in all honesty not really having much of a clue about the bigger picture. We're small. Life is vast, too fast for us to really sit back and think of future generations an' holding back a bit of beauty for them. OK a few comfortable white middle class folks deep in the comfortable West might give themselves the luxury of thinking they can do it, thinking that they really can make a difference. But that just don't take into account the billions in places like Asia on the other side of the world where the race is very much on. Depressing? Nah, it's life an' life only.
Long w/end this w/end as it is a bank holiday. Been painting most of the day. Painting the upstairs landing, something which has been on the cards for a while. Had a late night meditation where believe it or not I actually felt quite good. Body not too heavy,instead pleasingly light. Mind OK. That don't happen too often I can tell ya that. Stayed pretty focused as I did a 108 breath sit, drifted a bit towards the end. Dunno why. Probably just tired. Thoughts of playing a Quo download from itunes crept into my mind towards the end I have to say. Yeah bought a couple tonight on the cheap. That was after spending the best part of an hour trying to figure how to back up my itunes library onto a portable back up drive. Should have been straight forward but believe me it wasn't. Finally figured it out after mucho frustration which was enough to nearly make my blood boil and send me off into a rage. Dunno what it is with computer stuff but I have to admit I get the willies almost immediately when things don't go right, now it has come to the point where I show almost zero tolerance when things don't happen when they should or do happen when they shouldn't if ya see what I mean.
Tue morn now. Grey day, looks like the hot spell has come to an end. Long w/end was spent painting and sorting stuff out. Simple as that. Yeah but I have to say that sometimes it feels like my life is just one continual round of sorting. Couple beers on Sun and Mon as a reward in the evenings but that was it. Heineken Export. Yeah, getting back into the habit of speaking a bit of Heinekenese. And I have to say when the time is right and ya have a thirst it is a pretty good language to learn. Gluggy gluggy glug...aaahhhh!!!
Site went down yesterday at work so got an agitated phone call from Leigh who sounded off to me on the blower "It's raining, it's a bank holiday and we aint making any fucking money". Classic if wasn't so desperate. Sounded just like Alan Sugar from out of The Apprentice. Looks like it was down for around six hours or so but by four it was up an running again which is better I guess that it still being down right now I as I write this. Frustrating. Just when it look like we are picking up a bit of momentum stuff like this comes along and throws it all sideways. Leigh gets extremely agitated by it I know that for a fact and he comes close to getting violent although I don't think he realises it. The lad just can't help it, irrespective of the fact he works for a company distributing Buddhist books.
Aint much I can say to him really. It's the ruzzle punkin' deal for sure when stuff like that 'appens but we have to get on with it as best we can. Yeah mean, just a load of ruzz puggery sent ta test us. Ya can look to skies an' the heavens if ya wish but that isnae goona change much if ya want the truth 'coz required to fix it don't live in our domain.
Wed now still grey. Kinda lost the track of what it is I have to write about. Dunno why, life goes on I guess and in between sometimes not much can happen. Nah, not much at all. Well that aint strictly true of course 'coz there are always things goin' on, it's more a question of whether ya have the energy to sit down an' notice them. Something like that.
Tamdin goes away on Fri for a week to Stockholm in her capacity as a Tibetan physician where she will see lots of people who will come to her for help. On Sat I will be going out for a meal with Leo Boy from Wisdom to talk business. He's been agitating for it for a long time, just ta see where we are and what avenues of opportunity are possibly gonna be open for us if we wanna continue. Or maybe if we wanna continue is too strong a way of putting it, maybe what I mean is if we can continue given the current economic circumstances of the company and the fact we are havin' to fork out 15 friggin' grand for a boiler an' heating system we don't particularly want.
Dunno what it is but some people can irritate ya more than others an' in my case Leo Boy definitely falls into that category. Dunno why, really dunno why. Guess it must be 'coz of some kinda threat I can't necessarily explain. For example at work if I compare the things that come out of Leo's mouth and the things that come out of Mikel's mouth when we are in the office it is almost certain that even if they are saying exactly the same thing it will be Leo Boy who winds me up. Just his manner, just his tone. I gotta really concentrate, really watch myself to make sure I don't blurt out something really stupid an' disgraceful in relation to whatever it is he might be sayin'. Why is it? Just the certainty of belief he displays maybe, yeah man the belief he has that he is right...something like that. He always has irritated me and I think it is fair to say he always will. Many a time he has sat there and gone on about something and I have just wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up but either out of cowardice or politeness I have not down so. Cowardice probably.
Often tried to analyse these feelings in meditation but it doesn't really seem to have done much help. Or maybe it has. Maybe it is unrealistic to ever expect them to go away, better just to let them sit and do what they have to do with me watching 'em.
Yeah man, at the end of the day it is the same old situation between us. Irritation on my part over stuff that comes out of his mouth, wanting ta shoot him down but not knowing how. Totally unfair I know. Guess he plays on insecurities I have. Whether consciously or not I really dunno, but I feel it, I feel it. Leo Boy's comments about work and things happening in relation to the biz can really wind me up at times, lead me up the path of thinking whether what I'm doing is correct or not, whether or not I could be doing more or could be doing things different. Stuff like that. All the time. In some it is good to have that kinda check but in other ways it is not when I'm finding myself in a position of having to bite my lip.
Definitely plays on my insecurities. Makes me think I'm not proactive enough as far as work is concerned. That is things on the one hand. On the other I just kinda think that sometimes Leo Boy is too interested in business and making money. That there is an air of desperation about things sometimes because he is so obsessed with things that he sees should be done in a particular way. It's dangerous, after all at the end of the day what we are doing is dealing with books on Buddhism and there is an argument that is no doubt made by some that Buddhism should never be sold at all, in any way whatsoever. Yet there we are, selling it.
Often the both of us run on emotion and that can lead to both of us movin' too fast, then if we collide there can be a clash. Yeah man, makes me think I am not doing enough as far as work is concerned, which might be fair comment I guess in some regards. After all I am only there 3 and half days a week and Leo Boy by contrast is there all the time, Mon-Fri 9 ta 5, or more like 8.15 ta 5.30 with hardly any break. I guess that does mean to a certain extent he sees a fuller picture than me.
Important I guess to just accept work is always gonna be unsatisfactory. There are always gonna many things about it that just aint quite right and you have to live with it an' just do the best you can. In the case of Wisdom Books we also have to do the best we can within the constraints of what out budget will allow. Things are sometimes decided for when we aint got the money. Main thing is just to keep it all together enough so that we don't end up going bust. But as for it being a vehicle to realise your dreams...well as far as that goes I really aint so sure.
Guess from my side there is a bit of jealousy there as well as far as Leo is concerned. Sometimes he is very busy in the office, he has managed to cultivate a good base of contacts that he uses on a frequent basis. When I look at myself in comparison I see that I am almost a hermit and it is as much as I can do to raise my head from the behind the screen of my computer. Bottom line is I just don't find it easy to get on the phone and talk to people. Not that I necessarily prefer to work in silence, just that I get locked away in my own thoughts. Introverted maybe. Leo Boy is not like that at all, there is a constant stream of noise coming from his corner of the office and even when he aint on the blower to other people he is talking to either me or Mikel or to himself. I like to keep my mouth shut if I can at all help it. Sometimes it feels like it is such an effort to say things to people, it can almost physically hurt. In comparison to me Leo Boy is really chatty little chappy.
Fri now. End of the week. Short kinda week this week as far as Wisdom goes aint no doubt about that. Mon was a holiday, Wed I was with Tamdin and today I am off as I am taking Tamdin to Heathrow in the middle of the day and then going into town to do some shopping. Looking to get the new deluxe version of Don't Look Back on DVD. Bob Dylan circa 1965 in case you're wondering...
Sleep been kinda so so this week. Couple of middle of the night wake ups but nothing for too long. With Tamdin going away for a week to Sweden I hope I can use the time to get down to some meditation. Need to find the spark again. Going off the boil. It was going well for a little while but tiredness took over a coupla weeks ago and it has been as much as I can do to get near the cushion since, in fact more often than not I just haven't managed it. Mental wall in front of me, high and wide.
May weather more like May now after a hot an' steamy April. Things just keep goin'. All this bullshit talk about carbon awareness and stuff like that is senseless when at the same time it is announced there are now more flights being taken in the world than ever before. Fuckin' millions of 'em. Just don't stack up do it? People have gotta realise things will just keep on going in the way they are until we are all forced to stop because circumstances in some shape or form will have become so goddam extreme that we just can't go on further down the line without some kinda radical change in our behaviour. Until then, forget it.
All this crap about limiting industrial production and trying to keep within certain self-imposed limits are never ever gonna be fully adhered to. We are not masters of our own destiny when there is such an unholy scramble to try to get along the road of capitalist consumerism. We are just a race, the human race, on a tiny planet in the depths of space tryin' to survive, trying to get along and in all honesty not really having much of a clue about the bigger picture. We're small. Life is vast, too fast for us to really sit back and think of future generations an' holding back a bit of beauty for them. OK a few comfortable white middle class folks deep in the comfortable West might give themselves the luxury of thinking they can do it, thinking that they really can make a difference. But that just don't take into account the billions in places like Asia on the other side of the world where the race is very much on. Depressing? Nah, it's life an' life only.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Overcoming Shadows
Tue morn, another fine day and 1st May. Is this wonderful weather ever gonna end? Yeah probably only when the world does... Last two posts have been a bit sticky, bit of a trip into Doomsville as far as de old slaughterhouse called work is concerned so I will try to keep off it if I can. Ya gotta have stuff to write about though and if there aint any then I'm just gonna go back to work at the moment...aint no doubt about that. Made some notes the other night about meditation. With the mental stresses and strains of the last few days that have been coming through it is probably not the best time to dive into a bout of sitting and meditation on de ole breath but that is what I have done, well not to any great or wonderful degree but a little nonetheless. On Sunday in fact, which followed on from Sat as being a low key kinda day. I took the opportunity in the afternoon to do a bit of meditation. Pulled down the shades yeah an' got down to it. Tamdin was out attending her Tibetan dance group practice session so I had the house to myself.
Meditation on Sunday afternoon was hard. Didn't think it was gonna be but it was. Following instructions given to me by Akong Rinpoche that he gave me in the Toyo a coupla weeks ago when I drove him back into Central London for an early evening drop in Chinatown before he went off to see Casino Royale. Yeah man, trying to follow those instructions.
Thought on Sunday in the early afternoon I would be feelin' nice and light, mentally supple and that the energy would be good. I was way wrong, couldn't have been further wrong in fact. It was as much as I could do to stay even remotely focused. Thoughts were as heavy as lead and instead of floating down the river once they had been observed they just hovered in my mind like heavy clouds an' then they pissed on me. Effect on my body was punishing, aches an' pains appeared up an' down my back, hot patches, tense spots, whatever ya like to call 'em.
My legs were also in a constant state of discomfort. The little thought that was continually floating round in my mind was to move a couple of inches this way, a couple of inches that way and it meant the object, the supposed object of the meditation, was as faint in my mind as an evening star in the brightness of the daytime. Noticeable, this discomfort, this distraction. Usually my concentration on the breath is firm and strong, joyous even, an' yeah man, I might even say I am master of my own little universe. The boss planet around which those little baby satellites of thoughts and emotions roll. Not this time however. The breath was as faint as a star in early evening against the western sky. It was there, the ole' huffa puffa, but it was not powerful. The effort required to keep it in view wore me out, exhausted me. When I was done I felt crushed an' crumbled and it was as much as I could do to stay awake, stay focused on getting through the rest of the goddam day.
First session that afternoon went on for about an hour then I had a break and used the time to take a drive in the Toyo and get down to Sainsburys in South Woodford. Needed to get out for a breather though driving around in the Toyo hardly constitutes that in the strictest sense of a healthy time out but there ya go.
Object of the trip was to take a bag of small change to pour into the small change machine in Sainsburys an' to get credit with which to buy some stuff. Just love the ritual of doin' that. The machine takes 7.9p in the pound for itself, it's a hungry little mugga trucka there aint no doubt about that, but all the same it still meant that by the time I had poured in the bag of coins that had been steadily accumulating for the last couple of months at home I got a voucher for 12 and half squids to spend. Cool. Can't tell ya what a thrill it is to get something like and as far as I'm concerned 7.9p in the pound to da mugga trucka is well spent.
Meant I had enough creds to stack up on a bit of this anna bit o' that from Sainsburys. Usually we shop at Waitrose but there are one or two things it is good to get from time to time at Sainsburys like Silvo polish which I use to clean the water bowls on my shrine an' Sainsburys premium blend filter coffee when it is on special offer which it just happened to be on Sunday. Bill for the groceries after a quick whizz round da stacks came out at 15 and half quoo but with my voucher it meant I only had cough up three which felt like a dirty great bargain indeed I can tell ya. Coin machines. y'all watch out for them I tell ya.
Back at the house I had a cuppa and 15 minutes with the Lordys before going back to my meditation. Thought the little trip outside might have given me a bit of life but I'm afraid I was wrong. Things were just as tough as before and it was one of those sessions where any position I forced my body into felt almost immediately uncomfortable and compromised. I soldiered on to complete the session but I was wasted by the end. Totally an' utterly splatted.
Thoughts were so heavy in places they almost sent me to sleep and there aint nuthin worse than the realisation that you are about to nod. It is as if the thought gives a signal out to the body that it is time to give in and ya really have ta rally yourself to stay conscious. So that was that. Going in and thinking about it during the course of the morning I was full of hope and anticipation but when it came down to it, it was as hard as fuckin' nails and it left me wrecked for the rest o' de day. Never harbour undue expectations of reward. Maybe that is the lesson there. Check ya motivation, if it is one of desperation you will only get caught out, and I think in this instance that might have in fact been the case with me. I was ambitious but for the wrong reasons, I was chasing a crazy kinda dream that I would never be able to even put into words and I paid the price. Big time.
Wed morn now. Nice and bright. Looks like its gonna be like this for the next few days. Bright sunny weather. Sizzlin' London. Woke in the middle of the night last night, well 2 am in fact, and had to go to the bog for a great big shit. Kinda thing that happens not very so often I have ta say. The depth and silence of the night. Sitting on the pan with the light off and having a good movement whilst the rest of the world is asleep. Great. Sometimes that is what life is all about.
Felt tons lighter when I went back to bed but by then my mind was wide awake and it took me ages to get off to sleep. Ages and ages. Lay there thinking an' staring into the dark, thinking about the negative attitude I have been having towards work and how I have to try and change it if I can. Yeah man, what is real in the outside world sometimes don't bare any correlation to what is inside ya head, an' ya have to try and remember that. My solution sometimes is ta get lost in dreams...think that I'm gonna win a million quid and my problems will be over because of that. Kinda shanty town mentality I guess. Expecting something from on high ta reach down and save ya. Real world aint like that. Just aint like that at all. All down instead to hard work and perseverance. Gotta remember that if I can, really gotta remember that.
Yeah my head was full of thoughts whirling round and it took me the best part of an hour to remember to meditate an' to calm things down. Finally got into a rhythm of breath counting as I lay there in the dark with the first birds of day already beginning to sing and by the time I got up to 80 or 90 breaths I was losing it and nodding off which I guess is kinda what I wanted. Next thing I know it is 7 am so I did manage to get a few more hours kip but it was a long time in the dark before rest came along, staring into the shadows of the night.
Yeah, came back last night from an early evening meeting in town and ended up doing a bit of meditation around 11pm. Amazing the difference after the other day. For some reason this time although it was late and I should have been tired, I actually felt mentally supple and quite full of energy. Result was that the thoughts rollin' round this old head of mine were light in texture and easily observed. They did not draw me in, like I was walking under a dark cloud, and they did not rain down their illusory shower of life an' death situations on me. Big difference to Sunday when I felt as heavy as a weight sinking to the bottom of the sea. Ya just can't explain it.
Met a woman in town from a publisher we sell books for. American publisher run by a Tibetan lama who has founded big charities giving books to Tibetans in India. Think maybe some of her good energy rubbed off on me. Kinda went there with zero expectation and I have to say I was surprised by just how much better I felt after sitting down and talking things through with her. Business things that is. Guess ya just can say that sometimes ya need to have a different kind of perspective on things, especially in relation to work right now. I think at the end of our talk I got it, the different perspective, and I was grateful for that. Just gotta stay open and recognise that what ya carry round in ya little head sometimes don't even come close to providing any answers, and ya need some kinda outside help.
Meditation on Sunday afternoon was hard. Didn't think it was gonna be but it was. Following instructions given to me by Akong Rinpoche that he gave me in the Toyo a coupla weeks ago when I drove him back into Central London for an early evening drop in Chinatown before he went off to see Casino Royale. Yeah man, trying to follow those instructions.
Thought on Sunday in the early afternoon I would be feelin' nice and light, mentally supple and that the energy would be good. I was way wrong, couldn't have been further wrong in fact. It was as much as I could do to stay even remotely focused. Thoughts were as heavy as lead and instead of floating down the river once they had been observed they just hovered in my mind like heavy clouds an' then they pissed on me. Effect on my body was punishing, aches an' pains appeared up an' down my back, hot patches, tense spots, whatever ya like to call 'em.
My legs were also in a constant state of discomfort. The little thought that was continually floating round in my mind was to move a couple of inches this way, a couple of inches that way and it meant the object, the supposed object of the meditation, was as faint in my mind as an evening star in the brightness of the daytime. Noticeable, this discomfort, this distraction. Usually my concentration on the breath is firm and strong, joyous even, an' yeah man, I might even say I am master of my own little universe. The boss planet around which those little baby satellites of thoughts and emotions roll. Not this time however. The breath was as faint as a star in early evening against the western sky. It was there, the ole' huffa puffa, but it was not powerful. The effort required to keep it in view wore me out, exhausted me. When I was done I felt crushed an' crumbled and it was as much as I could do to stay awake, stay focused on getting through the rest of the goddam day.
First session that afternoon went on for about an hour then I had a break and used the time to take a drive in the Toyo and get down to Sainsburys in South Woodford. Needed to get out for a breather though driving around in the Toyo hardly constitutes that in the strictest sense of a healthy time out but there ya go.
Object of the trip was to take a bag of small change to pour into the small change machine in Sainsburys an' to get credit with which to buy some stuff. Just love the ritual of doin' that. The machine takes 7.9p in the pound for itself, it's a hungry little mugga trucka there aint no doubt about that, but all the same it still meant that by the time I had poured in the bag of coins that had been steadily accumulating for the last couple of months at home I got a voucher for 12 and half squids to spend. Cool. Can't tell ya what a thrill it is to get something like and as far as I'm concerned 7.9p in the pound to da mugga trucka is well spent.
Meant I had enough creds to stack up on a bit of this anna bit o' that from Sainsburys. Usually we shop at Waitrose but there are one or two things it is good to get from time to time at Sainsburys like Silvo polish which I use to clean the water bowls on my shrine an' Sainsburys premium blend filter coffee when it is on special offer which it just happened to be on Sunday. Bill for the groceries after a quick whizz round da stacks came out at 15 and half quoo but with my voucher it meant I only had cough up three which felt like a dirty great bargain indeed I can tell ya. Coin machines. y'all watch out for them I tell ya.
Back at the house I had a cuppa and 15 minutes with the Lordys before going back to my meditation. Thought the little trip outside might have given me a bit of life but I'm afraid I was wrong. Things were just as tough as before and it was one of those sessions where any position I forced my body into felt almost immediately uncomfortable and compromised. I soldiered on to complete the session but I was wasted by the end. Totally an' utterly splatted.
Thoughts were so heavy in places they almost sent me to sleep and there aint nuthin worse than the realisation that you are about to nod. It is as if the thought gives a signal out to the body that it is time to give in and ya really have ta rally yourself to stay conscious. So that was that. Going in and thinking about it during the course of the morning I was full of hope and anticipation but when it came down to it, it was as hard as fuckin' nails and it left me wrecked for the rest o' de day. Never harbour undue expectations of reward. Maybe that is the lesson there. Check ya motivation, if it is one of desperation you will only get caught out, and I think in this instance that might have in fact been the case with me. I was ambitious but for the wrong reasons, I was chasing a crazy kinda dream that I would never be able to even put into words and I paid the price. Big time.
Wed morn now. Nice and bright. Looks like its gonna be like this for the next few days. Bright sunny weather. Sizzlin' London. Woke in the middle of the night last night, well 2 am in fact, and had to go to the bog for a great big shit. Kinda thing that happens not very so often I have ta say. The depth and silence of the night. Sitting on the pan with the light off and having a good movement whilst the rest of the world is asleep. Great. Sometimes that is what life is all about.
Felt tons lighter when I went back to bed but by then my mind was wide awake and it took me ages to get off to sleep. Ages and ages. Lay there thinking an' staring into the dark, thinking about the negative attitude I have been having towards work and how I have to try and change it if I can. Yeah man, what is real in the outside world sometimes don't bare any correlation to what is inside ya head, an' ya have to try and remember that. My solution sometimes is ta get lost in dreams...think that I'm gonna win a million quid and my problems will be over because of that. Kinda shanty town mentality I guess. Expecting something from on high ta reach down and save ya. Real world aint like that. Just aint like that at all. All down instead to hard work and perseverance. Gotta remember that if I can, really gotta remember that.
Yeah my head was full of thoughts whirling round and it took me the best part of an hour to remember to meditate an' to calm things down. Finally got into a rhythm of breath counting as I lay there in the dark with the first birds of day already beginning to sing and by the time I got up to 80 or 90 breaths I was losing it and nodding off which I guess is kinda what I wanted. Next thing I know it is 7 am so I did manage to get a few more hours kip but it was a long time in the dark before rest came along, staring into the shadows of the night.
Yeah, came back last night from an early evening meeting in town and ended up doing a bit of meditation around 11pm. Amazing the difference after the other day. For some reason this time although it was late and I should have been tired, I actually felt mentally supple and quite full of energy. Result was that the thoughts rollin' round this old head of mine were light in texture and easily observed. They did not draw me in, like I was walking under a dark cloud, and they did not rain down their illusory shower of life an' death situations on me. Big difference to Sunday when I felt as heavy as a weight sinking to the bottom of the sea. Ya just can't explain it.
Met a woman in town from a publisher we sell books for. American publisher run by a Tibetan lama who has founded big charities giving books to Tibetans in India. Think maybe some of her good energy rubbed off on me. Kinda went there with zero expectation and I have to say I was surprised by just how much better I felt after sitting down and talking things through with her. Business things that is. Guess ya just can say that sometimes ya need to have a different kind of perspective on things, especially in relation to work right now. I think at the end of our talk I got it, the different perspective, and I was grateful for that. Just gotta stay open and recognise that what ya carry round in ya little head sometimes don't even come close to providing any answers, and ya need some kinda outside help.
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