What I Do

Lay in bed till 8 this morning. Dark outside and cold, so I just did not want to get up. Under the covers nice and warm, dreamin', drifting in and out of sleep. Series of dreams which I now don't remember, never did remember in fact come to think of it. Up at 8 then and after a stretch ready to live another day. Down the stairs to fill the jug with water for the offering bowls. Before that though, wash my face, rinse my hair in water, clean my teeth those slowly yellowing gnashers, gel my hair. Water jug then a little bit of tidying things up here and there. Spray the lounge table and give it a quick wipe to take away the stains from the day before. Squat down and brush the kitchen tiles, all those little bits of food that have fallen on the floor, all the dust that so quickly accumulates from London livin'. Brush them up and put them in the bin, the swing bin. Those things done it is back upstairs with the jug full of water and into the shrine room. Take the upturned offering bowls and put them in my hand, seven silver bowls, give them a wipe with a duster from the drawer. Pour water into one of the bowls and then from that bowl just filled tip a little water into each of the other bowls as I place them on the shrine all the time saying prayers, saying mantras trying to think holy thoughts, feeling bad when I catch myself thinking something most definitely not holy. When all seven bowls are lined up on the shrine with a little water in them and each bowl separated from another by no more than a couple of millimeters I take the jug and pour the rest of the water from the jug into each of the bowls. More prayers, more mantras said as I do so, filling those bowls up to the brim. Then, when done, set the empty jug down on the floor at the side of the shrine. Stand back and take a card from my card holders that hold all my Buddha cards. Take the card of Vajrasattva - purification Buddha. Place the card in front of the nite light holder so that it is facing me as I step back from the shrine and sit on my chair in front of it, rosary mala in my hands. Close my eyes, take some breaths, observe the flow. Begin the mantra recitation for Vajrasattva, 21 recitations of the 100 syllable Vajrasattva mantra, trying to fix in my mind some sense of all negative thoughts being flushed out of me. Trying to fix some sense of owning up to my sins, confession, coming clean in my mind acknowledging I have done wrong generating a sense of repentance. Something like that. Try to visualize the Vajrasattva Buddha sending out white beams of purifying energy into me, white beams of energy from his Buddha heart. This is what I do just about every morning of my life, and it is only occasionally that I don't do this. What is my state of mind then? Well to be honest, many times when I do it, it is little more than an empty ritual as I might very well be only half awake, still shaking the sleep, the 48 year old heaviness, from outta me and hardly on the button to really generate any strong feelings over the matter of really trying my best, my hardest to make myself good. Anyway. Get up from my chair after that is done, replace the Vajrasattva card on the shrine with another card, this time of the Medicine Buddha. Sit back down on my chair, say a prayer to Guru Padmasambhava, maybe more than one if I feel so inclined, an invocation prayer for him to be with me, in my life in my practice (and hey baby, guess what? It works!) Then after that it is on to the recitation of 108 Medicine Buddha mantras, again attempting to generate appropriate thoughts in my mind, healing thoughts, blue Buddha thinkin' if you like. Difficult not to let my mind wander whilst I'm doing all this, of course this should not be the case, more often than not it is. Mornings are the times when you often begin to think about the day ahead, what it is you have to do, how you are going to handle certain situations, stuff like that, the usual shit in other words. Time of hopes and fears, hoping that all those things I gotta do will turn out right and fears that they may not turn out right at all but blow up my face. Those kinda things often in my mind, every day, on and on. Guess the secret with regard to all this might be to get up earlier when it is still more like night and not like daytime. Be like the Dalai Lama who gets up at 4 am each morning. Problem with that is that you have to have a disciplined and well trained mind in order to keep up that kinda schedule and you also have to go to bed quite early. After Medicine Buddha mantras I get up from my chair again and replace the Medicine Buddha card with a card of Manjushri the youthful bodhisttava of wisdom. When I sit back down on my chair again I say a quick prayer to the wrathful protectors - Vajrapani, Hayagriva, Garuda - and then begin my Manjushri mantra recitation. Fast recitations to accumulate wisdom. When the Manjushri mantras are completed I have done all my daily spiritual practices outside of any sitting meditation. Sitting on the rise belly, fall belly. All these mantra recitation practices were committed to by myself after I had taken the initiations for each of them from the Dalai Lama. Even though on many occasions I do these with at best only half an eye on the ball I hope that I can continue doing them for as long as possible as there are times when I feel so happy that I have these practices in my life, and when certain circumstances occur they really do make a difference to my state of mind - in a positive way. Yeah baby many people might think it's just powder puff stuff and not worth the time to fill ya head with such mumbo jumbo but I for one love all this abracadabra. Guess it is a funny thing, this 48 year old guy huffin' an' puffin' in the morning an' doin' these things in a half assed ritualised way. Don't get me wrong, it ain't anything special and compared to the many spiritual professionals out there what I do is hopelessly amateurish for sure, but there ya go, we are where we are and as long as that don't involve going around making other peoples lives a misery there not too much in the way of harm attached to it.