Dreams an' Visions

Dreamt the dream of a thousand sleeps last night but still woke up disturbed. I was in a hospital, holding a baby that was having a heart attack or something like that. Wires and tubes all sticking out of the baby who had big eyes and was familiar to me in a way that made me think I knew that I had met him before, maybe thousands of years ago, maybe less maybe more. Beautiful baby in my arms, oh man I was so in love with that baby, that dream baby, that I would have done anything to make sure that he lived, that he survived. I pulled him off the table in the room he was in and carried him out into the corridor wires and tubes still attached to him, shouted to the nurses there was a baby in trouble, a baby whose life needed saving. They took over and as far as i knew he was OK. Strange dream. Face so familiar, so awake, even thought it was Padmasambhava.

Other night meditated and went to the hill where I call the guru, asked the guru to come. The guru was there, sitting on the grass in a patch of sun. If you meet the guru like that there is no contrivance or wasting time, you just see what is real, presented to you in an unmistaken way. Yeah, in my meditation, took a trip to the hill, saw the guru, sang his song. Padma guru, lotus one. Knew he would come as he has to, that is his vow, his deal with infinity, and for that reason he will never let me down. Sang his song, got the present I was searching for; ordinary body meditation melted away, just wasn't necessary anymore. Above me, below, and to the side the space was everywhere, stretching out of me... luminous colours full of energy strong enough to last forever and ever. Unbelievable.

Needless to say meditated again last night and it was like wading through mud, stuck in the dark. No sign of the guru or the wonderful bliss from the night before that at the time was burstin' outta me so strong it reached over every conceivable horizon. Try to repeat things and you soon find that things don't work that way. You can never return to what once was, so don't delude yourself by even tryin'.

Seed Bleedin' an' Other Stories

Know the quality of the thoughts sometimes swillin' round my mind ain't what they should be. Seedy thoughts, some people go through rigours to flush 'em out, to purify their minds, to become clean. I just don't make that much of an effort I guess, think it is pointless to a degree, so they stick there like shit to the side of a bog bowl, slowly becoming more and more a part of me, maybe. Idleness. Feel a bit lazy, washed out, washed up, whatever you wanna call it, over these last few days. Been working a lot, what with Wisdom and Tamdin but lately seemed to have slowed a little and it feels like it. Off the pace. Getting a bit too comfortable. Looking around at the same old things and thinking just what is it I am supposed to do? Confusion delusion. Cold weather. Everyone talks about the cold, on the news all the time, but it is late November, more or less winter time, so what is so shocking about it? News on TV, news on the net...talk of blizzards, snow records, low temps... as if these are exceptional things and that they are as scary or as unusual of flying to the moon. Stupidity of man. Inability to just get on with things without making comments every 5 minutes.

Cracks on my hand, back of my hand. Right hand has a crack on the back of my middle finger. Skin dry, crack through the middle. Skin hard, feels rough. Don't know what causes it. Rub some cream on it I guess and then it will get better. So, the seediness of my mind, think that was where this all started. Lying in my bed in the mornings, these dark mornings, I wish I could flush out some of those tired old thought patterns that offer nothing in the way of construction or creation...maybe we always have to descend to ascend as the guru says...ascend with conduct, descend with the view...think i believe that is true. Not managed to meditate much this weekend either. Well, did some on Friday night but not much yesterday, not that it matters so much to me. I mean my whole life is meditation right? Or should be.

Still got a pleasant physical sensation of energy resting in a space above my head showering down on me warmth and well being. Psychic world. Luminous map of the profound ways of the invisible. Guess I believe in that stuff more and more although it is impossible to explain, to map out with any sense of coherence without people looking at you strange and thinking to themselves, well, what exactly is he on to come out with stuff like that? Gets you imaginin' all kinds of things like UFOs flyin' above my head, like being watched over by aliens, like being an alien myself who has just taken cover in the body of this Philip Bradley. That behind all this lies the real ghost eternal...space travellers, masters of the speed of light. After all, the problems of visiting other worlds are all solved once we figure out how to go faster than the speed of light if ya ask me but no one will of course because I am just a punked up nobody livin' out his life in the 'scapes of east London but if you did ask me that then what I would say is that if ya really wanted to go to other worlds, the countless other worlds that exist out there in our galaxy, in the wider universe and beyond then what ya have to do is delve into the realms of the non-atomic.

Now of course I don't have a clue as to where to start with all that but maybe some other bright soul out there might like to consider the possibilities. Non-atomic research, scraping the invisible. People will look at me when I say that as if I am truly deluded, but the psychic body I feel, especially now with the light shining down from above my head, filling me up with bliss inexhaustible...it convinces me more and more that the answers to the mysteries of life and existence lie more in what is not there than in what is. The spaces in between are what we have to watch out for. Anyway, enough of this speculation, this puffin' out of air, this far out junk about space, aliens, visitations from other realms, got to get back to the here and now so here we are; sunday morning. Flushing out the seed of the my mind, those minds seeds that make me feel like a junkyard dealer gone wrong, an asparagus charlie on the rumage. Staring at the cold back garden with the leaves on the ground, maybe good in a while to go outside get a blast of fresh air and sweep clean the patio.

cold time
leaf sweepin
plain geezer
such as me
able to do it
up an' down
10 minutes
maybe more
sack those leaves
stand back
gaze the scene
happy jack

Solar Bathin'

Afternoon now, writing this at work, beautiful sunlight shinin' through our little office here in Ilford, down the back streets on the edge of town, the mighty smoke. Blue November sky, clear as a bell outside and cold. Atmospshere. East London, place of power to me, Ilford yes and further out Romford too, places on the eastern edge of the vast city where deep knwoledge of earth magic from long ago staked out all salient points. Life on earth, how can you ever beat it? Seasonal changes rollin' on, mortals like myself slowly gettin' older, tiny creatures slowly requiring a little bit more time to get things done. Sets me weepin' over our fragility.

Just the ticking of the clock, office quiet, just two of us and the sun illuminatin' the wall. Solar pulsin' so many millions of miles away causin' this experience for me to ponder. Not much in the way of calls, customers must be busy some place else. Even though I can see the beauty of the sun the day when there is no action in terms of orders and business always leaves me sitting here wanting more more more to do stave off the despair of thinking it is all going to go bust. How the anger and the disgust of people will have to be waded through if the whole thing goes belly up. Such petty thoughts, like flies buzzin' round inside my head, can't get rid of their buzzin' at times. Destiny. Clearly this is how it is meant to be...but then again surely I don't have to just sit back and let it all roll over me? Maybe not but so far after a good solid 48 years on this planet I haven't quite found the knack of exterminating that fly buzz.

Guess that is it. Fear. It is not so much the end which causes the fear and consternation but the process of getting to the end. Maybe a mind of mindfulness can just see the whole process through and not feel like it is a process of moral and personal disintigration... must be like death...process of dying. As the Buddha says, death is an experience of pain and suffering; no way to avoid that, no one gets out of here alive. I mean look at the Buddha, laid out flat he was by the side of a dusty road in the Ganges sticks over 2000 years ago in a land far away. Dyin'. Nuthin' has changed there, in fact it has only probably got worse. Unless you get pumped up full of drugs then a painful end is almost certain. But after that... maybe then you break through the clouds and like today, this beautiful day with the sky so blue in the late November London light, you reach clarity where there are no borders, no obsatcles, and in that infinite space you glide into a new reality.

sittin at my desk
morning sun
warming me up
very nice!

planet child
sometimes woeful
but that is just
karma machinery
spittin' out the
inevitable
and it ain't
nuthin' special

Mornin' Snapshot

Meditated late last night, just seemed like i could go on for an' ever. Well, not quite, I mean I was sittin on my chair in front of the shrine with nite light in the holder burnin' low but otherwise dark, and there were the usual aches and pains in my body but somehow it was all under control. Sometimes I can sit down late night to meditate and within about 3 seconds flat I know it is a waste of time, that i will barely be able to manage 2 mins on the chair. Body knackered, body crushed. Miscalculations like that can happen all the itme, but when it is the right time to do it it can be good. Any time after 10-10.15, if I am not too tired, then I can usually sit for 45 mins or even 1 hr with not much problem, not much in the way of interference. In fact sitting at that time is way better than sitting say at 7.30 or 8, at those times my body and mind have still not recovered from the rigours of the day, livin' an' workin' on the edges of the Smoke, slowly drillin' down on my life energies. Meditation at that time can be just one long bore fest of constant dull pain which aint much fun at all. Sufferin'. I mean sufferin' is all around all the time but ya can pick an' choose to a certain degree on the levels ya wanna endure. Far better to eat, to rest for an hour or so, restin' in my case means watchin' something on the box with Tamdin which I enjoy, or doing a bit of this on the lap. Then later go and sit. Better, much better for me to do it like that. So that is what i did last and I felt the light stretchin' up above me, to the sides, front back and beyond. Then when I stopped I sat back on the little sofa next to our shrine and fell asleep beneath the open window, half moon on the wane shinin' through. Pretty good.

Blue Buddha Visions

Thoughts I have drivin' round the streets of East London in my Prius are strange I can tell you. Like i am bitin' off chunks of infinity an' puttin' them in my mouth. Ever tried to chew infinity by the light of the night of the I incredible? Well it will turn you up, spin ya round an' spit you out...and that is if you are very, very lucky. Other than that, well, welcome to my realms of madness. Yeah man, infinity and I dream the dream of the light incredible deep inside of me. Guess it must the time of year, late November and winter soon comin', winter needs to come more than ever these days what with all this talk, this chatter, this constant pontification of the world warming up, getting hotter an' hotter; means those cold north breezes on which you can feel the Arctic ice are gonna be as rare as gold in years to come.

Drivin' round with that whole kinda kaleidoscope wheelin' through my mind is, well, kinda dangerous I guess or could be...one false move round here and you could end up dead. Don't like it when the thoughts begin to spin, makes me move too quick, try to get too much done and then without realising it I take a step back and realise I am very tired. Energy so precious, so important to use it well, not just go at things all the time like a crazy china shop bull. Take a step back an' realise how tired I am...sensible if ya wanna stay in good health. Tamdin always says that that kinda busy for the sake of it activity is not good to see, that I am only driving myself closer towards death, bringing forward my own destruction. So the message is - don't try to do everything all at once.

Time of year, infinity thoughts, feelin' it inside of me, the I to the I of the light incredible. Meditatin' late at night with just the light of the moon shinin' through the open window. Maybe now an' again gettin' the faintest glimmer of the glory of what it is to be a human being on this planet. Planet earth. Alive, right now. Unbelievable. We can travel through the whole realms of space and never get close to a scene more perfect. Everything is as it is meant to be. Mantras in the morning, mantras and prayers, praise to the Buddhas, praise to those forces who watch over me. Early winter mornings when the day is clear and the sun sits low in the sky, beautiful winter sun, red rays hittin' my face as I sit there on my red chair in front of the shrine. Incense burnin', silver bowls full of water, nite light in the lamp holder. Close my eyes an' pray, mantra rate and meditate.

Last coupla days been getting the same vision of sitting in on a great Buddhist gathering somewhere deep in space and time, going on right now in the infinite Buddha realms of this universe. Gorgeous vision, faint but strong enough to make me happy. Sitting on the side of a hill with other disciples looking across the valley below. Minds full of confusion of course but that don't matter, just sitting there eyes closed and in the valley below a huge blue Buddha givin' out silent instruction, shoulders massive rounded with face and head reachin' up to the sky. Blue Buddha. Comes with medicine in the Tibetan tradition. Sitting there in my room on these mornings drinkin' in the wonder, gratitude flowin' outta me for bein' able to see such visions, however faint, weak or ridiculous they might be. Say my prayers an' slowly come out again, out of that state. End my mantras palms together at my heart. Then down for coffee and into the world. London livin'.

Unwise Firestorm

I am the light fantastic, what burns in me will last forever, changin' & re-arrangin' by the light of a thousand solar seas...infinity lies within, sometimes feels like that, can really feel connected to something that provides an immense source of power. Trouble is with that kinda thinking of course is that you end up turning into some kind of horror show if you are not careful, end up thinking that you are the master of the universe and stuff like that. Don't mean it that way however, just difficult for it to look right I guess.

Last night woke at 4.45 am deep from a dream that I guess was close to being a nightmare although not quite coz it was not a feeling of terror that I had, more like a feeling of dangerous excitement. There were people in the dream and they were falling out of the sky, thrown on the crest of some horrific wave, huge rollin' horrific wave. Falling out of the sky naked and all about my head, I could hear the bodies splat upon the ground, I had to crouch down underneath a stone slab set diagonal to try to protect myself from the falling bodies but still they kept raining down...just when it got to the point where I was certain I was going to be killed I woke up. Panic. Always happen like that doesn't it?

Back to work. Monday, chasing the dime. Have now come to the conclusion there is inherent dissatisfaction in what I do. It is always gonna be the case that there is never enough. However much is sold one week will only lead to you wanting to sell more the next. That is the way I see it and that is the way it is. Craving; the desire to prove, locked into this cycle, forever and forever, ain't never gonna stop. Targets that you set yourself, and for what? Where is it all going to go? We are in the here and now, is that not enough? No chance! What am i doing this for? So that one day I will have enough money so that I can go and retire on some golden island full of bliss? No, don't think so. What is it that motivates me to get up everyday and go chasing the dime? Mystery.

All those times in the office I feel anger and frustration when things don't go right. I can feel it, can breathe it deep down into my lungs... anger, frustration dissatisfaction, never get to that point where I can close my eyes with a feeling of contentment and say to myself, well, that is enough, time to move onto to something else, something new. Point is of course that I don't really have that much else to move on to. Think we have been here before, going over this kind of ground. Locked up for the rest of my life in this occupation. All those things we buy and sell, books on Buddhism, supposed to make you feel nice, or not nice exactly but supposed to at least bring you to the point where you are a better person, where you become a better person. Am i anywhere near close to that? You gotta be joking. Just got to keep my eye on the ball and the eye on the ball in this particular instance means that really it does not matter what my feelings are; feelings are feelings, emotion is emotion. No point in feeling bad about them whatever they are. No point in lashing myself over the head with that little voice goin' "well asshole what else did you expect from doing what you do?" Far better, if at all possible to let those feelings come and go however ugly they might be, however uncomfortable, watch them sail across the mirror of the mind...star struck, sun-speckled...they do of course fade away and get replaced by other feelings...should know that by now.

So easy to get completely hung up on the idea that all should be peace an' light due to the simple fact that we are buying and selling Buddhist books, that somehow the material of those books should rub off on us. It is an illusion. Let us be clear, none of us in the office or the warehouse at work are ever going to be able to present ourselves in front of a bunch of other people and be able to offer them anything useful in the way of advice as to what to do with their lives in terms of Buddhism or meditation. No, when it comes to that kinda situation then we at Wisdom Books are spiritual midgets. Nuthin' wrong with midgets mind, just small. Basically I think it is as much as we can do sometimes from keeping the hole thing from exploding in out faces. Work, Wisdom, Buddhism, work, bills, money...why? We are all so sick and tired of each other deep down, underneath, that if we each were placed at a crossroads on a vast and empty plain, told to walk in different directions and to never look back then I am sure that is exactly what we would do.

We have all been at work way too long in terms of the number of years it has taken out of our lives. Now we are all too old to ever be able to go out and find any decent alternatives, not that there was ever much chance of that anyway. So we hang on now until the bitter end. Somehow managin' to still put up with to greater or lesser degree our peculiarities and other weird characteristics; the anger of one colleague, the constant arrogant restlessness of another who sits there at his computer and talks to himself whilst thinkin' he is a master of the universe, the lies and laziness of another. Somehow we accommodate all this and keep on going, but it is not brave and there is no honour in it, more it is just what we do because we are too chicken, too feckless to come right out with what we might actually be feeling.

What we should be doin' is saying to the other person in an open and honest way..."look, this is what you fucking well do to me with your behaviour, the shit that pours from outta yer mouth, would you please stop it because is is destroying me! Really, you must know just how so fucking painful it is to be with you!!"... no, there really is none of that. We simply do not have the capacity to address these issues in a way which would avoid the whole sorry thing from exploding in our faces. There is a question of how much it is the other person and how much it is oneself, we can never be sure of course unless we Buddha wake up, and if that is the case then how far do we let things ride for the sake of company harmony? Good question. I know myself that there are many, many things i see in the daily behaviour of my colleagues that I just can't stand and which makes me sick but I keep most of it in, don't let it out because I know that if i did I would be on a hidin' to nothing and that it would all end in tears, floods of hatred, objects smashed. So there we go, the merry ship, all of us wrapped in work, hungry for the work to keep comin', worried like shit that the whole meanin' of our lives would disappear without it. Like being in an institution. A madhouse really. One day it will end for sure and I am sure it will not be a pretty end... that is written in the stars. Until then we carry on with our sentence, on and on we row until we are eaten up by the monsters.

where are we?
here we are
nuthin' much changed
far as i can see
same dream
same breath comin'
in an' outta
my big fat mouth

struggle is nature
twist an' turn
accommodate
an' don't fall
outta the tree -
stone nose
simplify
yer rose patch!

Starless Calculations

Funny how you can see things clear but then can't articulate that to words on the page, what buggers up the transition? Drove home in the car last night and thought, just what is my job doing to my brain? I mean at the end of the day all that i am is a guy with a bunch of stuff who is continually makin' calculations as to how to get rid of it all without losing any money and, even better, makin' as much money as possible from each and every transaction. That is what i do. I don't save lives through any kind of medical or mystical knowledge; I don't educate people; I don't have skills to pass on to people from far flung places of the world who might not have much in the way of their own resources. No, I don't do any of those things. Nuthin' to give, nuthin' to pass on. What I do is just sell stuff and look for ways all the time of continuing to sell stuff, the illusion that i give myself is that because the stuff happens to be Buddhist related and therefore connected with things such as meditation and renunciation of the world and all of its wicked desires then somehow that means I am engaged in a holy, worthy, occupation. Bollox. Fact of the matter is that i ain't. I only have to look at the regular day to day seediness of my mind and the mental states that I inhabit to know that it is a stone cold certain fact that leadin' this kind of life just ain't really doin' me any good. Heart of flesh and blood or heart of stone? Well i really don't think there is much contest. Anyway, all those calculations, those myriad calculations day in day out must do something to me, something way beyond my capacity to ever figure before I end up dead, before I reach the end of the line so to speak, and have to face whatever lies beyond. Let's face it, even though I have been reading the kind of books for years an' years which purport to provide the answers to such questions, I personally haven't got an effin' clue... might be heaven, might hell, might be more of the same, might be completely nothing at all...really have no answer to that. Clueless, completely and utterly clueless so don't come to me lookin' for salvation, it will be as much as I can do to help myself.

Been working quite hard these last few weeks what with one thing and another - trying to get Tamdin's website up and running, trying to find ways of making sure the great and glorious Wisdom Books stays in business, but hey, think I've just mentioned that. Guess there comes a point where I find myself in situations where I am not really showing great mindfulness, saying things for the sake of winding other people up, there might be some kind of dim glimmer in the back of the mind that my attitude in some particular kind of situation might not be that helpful but that does not seem to be enough to stop me from saying things that are bound to provoke, bound to be the cause of further argument. No good, not helpful. For example me and Tamdin have been bickering and disagreeing lately over quite a few things, mainly things to do with her website and stuff like that, visions clashin' over how it is going to end up being, the site that is. Two minds locking horns. Steam risin' and then all kinds of strange things can start flyin' through the air. Guess it is fair to say she must be getting more than a little sick of the sight of me at times, especially when I open my big mouth and shoot down in flames some idea she has had which she thinks is great. Shoot it down in flames...my speciality is to always be negative it seems, always me who is the destrictive one. Maybe she aims too high, maybe I just suffer from a crushing lack of guts but whatever it is, it has caused conflict between us over the last few weeks of that there is not a doubt.

ridin' the rocky seas
how to navigate?
where are the right stars
to guide by?
ain't gotta clue,
blind leadin' the blind
hope it works out
but there is no gaurantee

Steam Box

Crazy mixed up mind, crazy mixed up stuff sometimes I feel the anger so strong in me it is a wonder that I don't turn round and kill someone. Think I'm exaggerating, well I think not. Dunno what it is...things come along. You think life is a plain sail but before you know it you are in stormy waters. All that you have done before this point is all that can equip you for getting through this point, and that is a fact, all those countless rights and wrongs committed whilst livin' an' breathin' in the light of the sun.

Anger. Sometimes can feel it so strong. Situations can come about that you simply have not been able to anticipate, always going to be the case, you can never stay ahead of the pack. Things go against the way you want them to go, you feel suffocated and therefore try to kick and shout in order to get out. Stuck inside yer own steam box. What is it that makes us so incapable of being able to see into the future? Must we always blindly stumble from one scene to another at the mercy of the winds of fate? That at least is how it feels to me, like I'm a blind stumbler...some things occur and when I look back at them, when I reflect, I feel that my ears are burning, burning because I feet so hot. Flushed with feelings of frustration which I was a million miles away from being able to adequately explain or express.

Only possible thing to do is to try and take a step back and reason, or see that whatever it is that has come along is in fact completely in keeping with fate, karma or whatever you want to call it. The wheels of destiny are rolling in exactly the direction that they are supposed to do, and if destiny decrees that you are to undergo an uncomfortable experience in which you feel that you are burning up and suffocating in some kinda box of frustration which you are a million miles away from being able to adequately express then so be it, that is just the way it is supposed to be.

So let off the steam inside yer head boy, see that it is all coming back to you, all those times when you thought you were a superman... all coming back to you now in the sense that you not in fact who you thought you cracked yourself up to be; when the crunch of the truth of any particular situation slams you in the face then you see, or rather, then you crack.

Menial level of existence...just stumbling along, that is in fact closer to the truth of the situation rather than in fact being a ruler of the world; that is only what your fantasy mind hopes you to be. Coming back down to reality can be painful, can be excrutiating in fact, but it is also probably in your best interests even if you would never be able to believe it at the time when all ya wanna do is scream like a banshee. Well that at least is the compensatory thought that I give myself; whether it is true or not or whether I am just further on my way to booking myself a first class ticket to hell I just don't know. But then again hell is not some place under the ground is it? Not a physical place with boiling pots and a man with horns givin' it large is it? Hell is more like in the here and now when you feel so unable to express yourself in any way that comes near to baring your soul to people. Not that that is necessarily a problem in itself of course, the inability to express that is, I mean it simply is what it is and therefore nuthin' more than an object of observation. Just gotta learn to accommodate the physical sensation that go with it, once that is under wraps then the problem really ain't so large.

we are spirits
we dance
contort our shapes
like trees in the wind blowin'
only usually with less
in the way of beauty
or dignity
than those trees

we are spirits
we dance in tune
we dance possessed
excommunicated from
the land of no confusion
the pyschic blind
in bliss unaware
of the dangers
which we store
for our futures of
treasure days gone bust

Excerpt from Nullabor Song

This is an excerpt from Nullabor Song, my stream of consciousness poem I wrote whilst travelling across the Nullabor Plain, Australia on the Trans-Pacific Railway in September 2010. I read to myself to cheer myself up from time to time because it speaks a different reality than the one I usually inhabit in London, England. Here's a taste for ya -

join the places
dot to dot
lines on empty
plains of nuthin’
plenty of empty
rock upon rock
too much here
to know what is what
rocks in heaps
single rocks
rocks like sheep
with pure breezes
rollin’ in
from the east -
winds on face
and wisdom fires
whip those rocks

There's plenty more from where that came from but that is enough for now.

Busy Fool 2

Some things can go outta motion. Caught myself last night trying to be busy just for the sake of being busy, feeling that I had to be doing something. It is like some kinda disease, and all the while there is the sad forlorn hope that somehow you are gonna be able to push back the wheels of fate, make your life into something else, become a superstar overnight. What kinda superstar I really dunno; spiritual, financial? Crazy mixed up things all together no doubt. These kinda things are thoughts I have quite often...So, the tyranny of busyness. Makin' tracks, supposedly makin' tracks to findin' my way, my place on this planet. I run around, dance in circles so to speak, looking for things to do as if they are somehow going to lead me somewhere. It was just like that last night early evening when I got back from work and...then I just dropped it, the busy dance, guess I felt a dark kinda tiredness come over me which made me just wanna sit down and forget all this messing around I continually do, trying to make myself busy. A dark creeping tiredness was what it was, not unpleasant but maybe a warning, a hint to slow down and for once I was able to take the hint my body was giving me.

So I just sat down with a book on the couch and read, lay down on the couch in fact and read a Buddhist book, the Dhammapada, a new translation of a sacred text Buddhist text, an old text that has been kicking round this planet for hundreds of years, thousands now in fact. It has been translated into English many times over the last coupla hundred years since it was unearthed by explorers, Orientalists, colonists, god knows who, and it has recently been translated again. This is the copy I am now reading, this new translation, made by a woman scholar who is also a meditator and I think that really helps, the translation needs to be made by someone who meditates, not an academic who might have a brilliant mind but who knows jack shit about sittin' an' practising...the rise belly, fall belly. The text is lean, trimmed to the bone but it is beautiful and powerful because of that.

Guess if push came to shove I would have to say that is has always bugged me a little bit that I have been into Buddhism and meditation for so many years but never really got to grips with one of the basic classic Buddhist tetxs, got to grips in the sense of reading it from cover to cover, time and time again. Always felt there has been something missing because I have never been able to do that. To find that book that I can just pick up any time and always find something in it to connect with. This time it might be different because I love this translation, the words used are to the point and make sense in a way that you can carry them around in your head, those words on the page, and feel that they have relevance. Nothing worse for me that sitting down, trying to read a sacred book, a religious book, a Buddhist book or whatever you might wanna call it and then after a little while feeling bad because the it is so goddam boring it is as much as you can do to stay awake...ya just ain't making that connection with the words of the page. No, nothing worse than that. You end up walking away from an experience which you had hoped would bring light into your life but which only ends up making things, those life questions, that little bit darker. So, if you are interested the name of the book again is the Dhammapada the translator is Valerie Roebuck, the publisher is Penguin Books, the year of publication is 2010 and the ISBN for the book is 9780140449419.

Words of the Buddha

Not to do any evil;
To undertake what is good;
To purify your own mind:
This is teaching of the Buddhas.

Tired Dreams

Feelin' kinda tired, feels like I have been working on things too much. Gets to the point where i feel like i am walking round with my head full of dreams whilst ignoring the fact that nothing much has actaully changed in the circumstances of my life. Easy to dream, easy to inflate things and easy then to set myself up for a fall. If you keep thinking that the equivalent of world domination is just around the corner that is an example of crazy thinkin' gone wild.

Work at Wisdom seems as busy as ever and work with Tamdin is too, just difficult to know if it is all actually going anywhere. Over the last few months I think I have reached an accommodation with myself that it is just not worth resisting all these things, the flow of life that is, just dive into it and work until there is no more work to be done. So easy to fall prey to preconceptions about how you think things should be and then feel upset when you see that things are just not falling into that pattern. Simple fact of the matter is that things are just how they are and how they are is something over which you have no real control although you might think that you do.

Nullabor Song - maybe I will post this up onto the blog before it gathers too much more dust and I kind of half forget about it. Guess you could say it is the latest example of delusion; work which I have done and which I think it quite good when I know really in my heart of hearts if I dropped all the bullshit that I feed myself on, the cold objective eye of reason would flick through it all and think..."well, what a strange ole' loada rubbish this is!"

Row Solo

Not much in the way of hobbies, guess you could say that that is a bit of a problem. Like, just what the hell am I supposed to do with my life? People have many things to keep them occupied, I on the other hand don't really have that much. I mean I like listening to music but couldn't listen to it all day long, I like meditating and reading books on Buddhism but again I can't quite fill out my whole day with those things. I read other stuff but even that can only be done for so long. I write a bit but basically my writing is pretty crap as you can see. I write up my poems from time to time but even then the majority of people who would if they could see them and who have any kind of knowledge about poetry are not likely to even say that they are poems in the real sense of the word in regard as to what poetry is supposed to be. Other than those things just written above I really don't know what else there is that I find to do to occupy my time when that is I have any time. I am not much good at any kind of DIY so the house we live in is getting gradually run down as i don't have any of the skills needed to maintain things to any real degree. Mechanical problems and stuff like that just do not interest me in any way whatsoever and if they did it would not make much difference as I don't really have the brains to figure such problems out. When Tamdin is away then I will often go for long walks in London which i enjoy but i don't really undertake them because I am an expert on the city or anything like that, I mainly go on them as they are a good way of getting exercise without having to break out into too much of a sweat. I go on walks and I enjoy them at the time and I usually get back to Woodford feeling pretty tired. I never meet anyone in town and go for walks with them - it is always on my own. I guess I just let the sights of the city, the old city and down by the river, just let those sights soak into me, try to absorb the atmosphere of old London, shadow London, dark London, ghost London which is often how I feel the city to be. Not in a bad way but in a good way, a power packed way in terms of ghosts and history because the fact of the matter is that London has been around for a hell of a long time, easily 2000 yrs and countin' so I guess I could call it something like a ghost eternal. So, for me, there we go,a man in his late 40s going off for long walks through the back streets the quiet streets of London time after time... whenever time and space in his life allows him to. And there I am, always carrying round a head full of thoughts as I make my way to some hazily thought of destination that will be far enough for me to get to in order ot feel that I have walked enough. Funny old life I suppose when I think about it. Most people are much more comfortable if they are in company and if they have spare time it is usually arranged so they are in the company of others. Of course I am married and most of my time is spent with Tamdin my wife and that time together is perfectly fine as I enjoy her company very much, we get along pretty well, she makes me laugh as she has a great sense of humour but more importantly than that she has a great spirit about her and when she is not around and I am in the house on my own here in Woodford I can get to feeling quite miserable with myself as since the years have gone on I find that I am not so keen on just my own company when I am I at home on my own. The thoughts in my head can be more negative than postitive and when Tamdin is around she lightens those thoughts without a doubt. Nevertheless when I go out on walks through the city it is perfectly fine for me to do them on my own, headin' as I do into the big ghost eternal.