Ranother Wednesday!

1:30 p.m.
It was hard to stop smiling as I left work today. The best time to be a job share joe is when you get to walk away on a Wednesday.

I emailed Julia Churchill of Darley Anderson on Monday. It occurred to me that the Egors and the half wit children of the aristocrasy manning her slush piles might not have given her the book I sent last week. There was nothing marked on the jiffy bag. But it seems she has it and will read it this weekend and tell me something next week. You can't ask for better than that. This is a very quick bit of business really.

Then I got an email from Isobel Dixon of Blake Friedmann, another agent. It seems I sent her an email when she was dead busy during the Frankfort Book Fair (isn't that in October?). I cannot remember sending her the email. Spontaneous emailer me. Or no office skills at all. So she wants to look at three chapters. I'll send them this afternoon. She says she's up to her neck in backlogs at the moment and won't be able to read it for weeks. So if Julia Churchill wants the business, I'll email her and tell her not to waste her time. And if Julia Churchill doesn't want the business, there's another one in a million chance out there.

I was thinking if any agents had actually read Light in the Dark today. Maybe none. Nobody asked to see more than three chapters anyway. What a business! Now that someone is actually going to read it, I'm trying to keep cool. I think I made £1500 out of City Whitelight (but I got a radio play as well!) and £1,000 for Are You Boys Cyclists. Hardly life changing. But you just never know.

You've got to remember what you really want. I want to be able to raise inner heat. Sometimes I have doubts. Recently, I've been feeling some heat sometimes by just sitting still. What if I start getting really hot? The lama who wrote The Bliss Of Inner Fire says he couldn't go out in the sunshine or sit near fires when he was doing this juju. The heat must be tremendous. So lets keep hold of our bottle, keep off the weissbier and do ra heat.

I'm away to sit in my hut!

1:20 a.m.
I asked a question at an open session with Lama Yeshe Losal when I heard him first talking. I asked if it was okay to meditate before you go to sleep late at night. Or would it waken you up? He said, "When we were in Tibet, we were told that sleep is useless."

I jumped about in the kitchen to an old tape I made for boxing training about eighteen years ago. Some of the music was old then. Full Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle, the moveable sauna. Then watched David Attenborough's new show on the telly. It's about bugs. When I'm given the black spot and have to take to the morphine drip, I want to have David Attenborough shows running continually on the telly. Sound could be down. Then onto ra bliss. Think I'll sit here for a bit and get blootered by ra bliss again.

3:30 a.m.
I wonder what time it is where Adolf is in the Unheard of Islands.

After the lama said about sleep being useless, he said he allowed his students three hours sleep a night, but that was sitting up in a meditation box in a lotus position. I assume these students were doing the three year retreat. There was a nice nun asked about this regime and she said she got too tired and had to curl up in the bottom of the box. I feel right now as if I could fall in love with her. My concentration could be a lot better, but this is spade work. I'm a bit tired, but quite enjoying myself, I must say. I could actually sit in this living room and blog and bliss till Monday, couldn't I? One of these days! Even if a few eons away in a different galaxy. Hurray for the kid under the pipal tree in Nepal.

Under the Bo-tree
Joy without passion
Love without desire
Radiant light
Off the wall. The middle lines might be mixed up. Always liked the last one. That was from Shiva.

4:40 a.m.
Where did the time go? But I'm not nodding off. Usually, I can't keep my eyes open past ... I can't spell passed ... eleven at night. I'll do a dog pose then go again. Here comes ra bliss!

5:20 a.m.
What can you say about ra bliss? Ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss. That's a lot of bliss. But dozy now so off to beddy bys.

Fancy being able to stay up till after five on a Wednesday night investigating ra bliss and it not being illegal in any way at all. What a fortunate creature!

Ra Day After!

Sunday 12:40 p.m.
I counted the bottles. 15 bottles of weissbier. I counted them in and I carried the empties out to the rubbish bin earlier. He had print-outs with him about buddha families. I showed him the breathings and he is now my agent for everything; web cams; custom built hut; tee-shirt concessions; the woiks. The Pet Bereavement Counselling with the eyeball rolling juju man will be available to you soon. I looked at the clock at one point and it said 6 a.m. I counted my fingers and toes shortly after arising. One head, two arms; just like Dorje Sempa. What a fantastic night's boozing! I am now for hire. I know several folk and I've known them for 30 years. I'll refuse to speak to them in future unless they give me money. Most of them are well off, but I have memories and I will not share them with them unless they give me £200 up front. This is until I get expensive.

But it was great! It's a man thing. Bonding. In a wee while I'll go down to the rubbish skip and get him out of there and put him in a taxi for home. I hope he has his own dialysis machine and some starving person to swop livers with. Otherwise, the boy will never be right again. But what a wonderful evening! Right now I'd like to lie on the floor and listen to Sister Ray by the Velvet Underground at full volume, but I can't operate the music thing with the three CD revolver thing and all the confusing buttons. Still, wouldn't have missed it for the world!

7:50 p.m.
A bit tired today of course, but really alright. Good, in fact. Weird. I didn't start meditating today till six o clock, but it was as if I'd never stopped last night. A further sense of development here. Heat and bliss. You feel as if everything is going to work. Really felt wonderful. I've spent next month's beer money, so I'll just have to make do with ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss. What a fortunate creature!

Ra Saturday

Saturday 12:30 p.m.
Just back from the allotment. The rain on the roof sounded good, and the way it dampens the other sounds is good as well. Got up there about half ten, desperate to meditate since I slept in this morning due to the beers last night. Bad boy! But the beers were so expensive I don't feel bad at all today. In fact, very good indeed! The meditations were really great. An awful lot of bliss and heat.

I wouldn't mind if folk just showed up. But making appointments with flatheids to go out drinking ..... when you really don't want to drink, when you know you should be with the kid under the pipal tree. I haven't even got the time to write my book. My precious, precious time. I've got some errands to do today, but I'll be back up the allotment about three o clock.

I could put a flight to Nepal on the plastic. Get to the kid under the tree and start poking him with a stick. Hey, kid! Do you want to go for a drink? Why not? Come on, becoming a buddha is a waste of time. You can't sit under that tree all day!

Emptiness. Got to do the emptiness on the crabbitness! But sometimes I wish they would all just fade away. Somebody else just came to visit us. Where's the rowing boat?

4:42 p.m.
I was up at Princes Street to get my bus pass renewed. There's an ice skating rink, and a big wheel, and lots of other stuff. Very Christmasy.

Then I put on the Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle minus the bin liners and went for the longer, flatter run. Revivifying. Took about 50 minutes today, but I wasn't caring about the pace, just sweating out last night's beer. Since last Sunday I've done 108 jumpings (Sunday), a Tai Chi class (Tuesday), a boxing training session (Wednesday) , the shorter, hilly run (Thursday) and the longer, flatter run today. Also, I've probably drank 30 bottles of delicious German beer. As Adolf says, it all balances up.

The joe who was coming to get me pissed tonight has just phoned to cancel. Though I complain like hell, I was actually starting to look forward to it! Haven't seen him since January. Hmmm? He could have sent a cheque and I'd have gone and got pissed myself. So what about all the feelings I've expended on this now non-event. I knew at the time they were empty. Useless, wasted, stupid emotions. Nice guy yon joe. Been having a bit of a hard time recently. I don't think he could face the prospect of watching the human sponge guzzling gallons of Guinness while talking incessantly about ra bliss. The women wouldn't have been wearing overcoats. What a shame! Brian Wilson has asked me to go out boozing next Saturday. I was dreading it. Said no. What an idiot! I love going out on the piss. A bit of a rampage. Bring it on, Brian Wilson! Get the pig's face out the freezer! Unleash the pink, sticky stuff! Thank God for binge drinking!

7:55 p.m.
Setting the scene here for some real time blissblogging. The Domestic Bliss has gone out. It's not nice to cheer. The donning of the viking het has been cancelled due to the boy losing heart. I've just made some weak, black tea since you get to enjoy sipping stuff for a while after you've had the Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle out on the road for a bit. So to ra bliss.

Meditated for about forty minutes just before this. Usually, ra bliss is white and blissy. Sometimes there's a hum in your ears. Sometimes it's thick and white. You know it's developing when it starts to get warm. Did a vase breath earlier on and it just blew me away. I'll sit sometimes with my eyes closed here with the photies of my guru, Lama Yeshe Losal, on the screen. So it's hold onto your bottle for the next two hours. All I can say beforehand is that I don't really deserve this. Let's do ra heat!

9:40 p.m.
It started with the eyes shut and you're very quickly in King Penguin country. It's dark outside and forty below and the wind blows at a hundred miles an hour, but it doesn't matter a damn because inside it is perfectly warm and delectably cosy. You could just do that. But focus on the navel symbol and do a vase breath. The aftereffects are astonishing. I'll just do one and see if I can describe it. No, I won't. Can't believe it. The boy who lost heart has just rung the doorbell. Here comes another open grave!

Ra Blizzards are Here!

Friday 9:15 a.m.
Still much inspired by the 15 year old kid under the tree in Nepal. In the account I read, his maw was asked if she was worried about him. (Has there ever been a mother not worried about something?) She said sometimes at mealtimes (the kid hasn't eaten for six months), but then she thinks "God has taken him into the forest and God will feed him."

So I'm getting into the rowing boat and just about to head off for the Unheard of Island to get into some serious meditating when the telephone rang. I sit in the lobby when I'm meditating because the telephone sometimes rings and it's bettter to be there beside it. Almost always it's for the Domestic Bliss and it was this time. You can hear the person leaving a message. You think you might be able to help with this, so you pick up the phone. Bad mistake. There should be a flashing light attached to the phone. It should flash up: FLATHEID INTRUSION. So the josephine hands the phone over to her partner, an old friend of mine. You're funged right there. He's coming to see me tomorrow night. The first thing I need is a gun. If I shot any flatheids that came near me, I'd get into solitary confinement.

Although only Jack the Spam Robot and one Masai Warrior now visit this blog regularly, it will today breach the 3,000 visitor mark since it was set up in February. The webpage has taken over 365 hits as well.

I started meditating this morning at quarter past six, which is just about right for a Friday. Heat was there and lots of bliss. What a shame I let the flatheid in! What a great shape this weekend could have had! Today I give to ma maw, but I don't have to go out tonight since the Domestic Bliss has something to do. I could have meditated all day tomorrow and by tomorrow evening .... Here comes an open grave! Visitors make me nervous. Why are they there? What are they doing there? What do they want? If they don't want to meditate, why are they bothering me? It's because they're flatheids and they don't know anything about ra bliss, and they will never get it either. So where's my gun? I should go and stay in America. They keep you on death row for years and years and then give you a specific time to die. Brilliant!! Die as deity and arise as a deity!

I was half expecting the big elbow from Julia Churchill to be in the emails yesterday. I don't care as much now. By Monday I won't care at all. Anyway, if she reads the book to the end, her head won't be quite so flat. There's almost a description of how to do deity yoga in that book. The kid makes a monster. You make a deity. Then you get it over you head, into a white line and absorb it down through your body. I think that's the technique. I don't meditate for long enough usually to get enough time or calmness to do attempt much 3D stuff. But there surely lies the transcendence!

I've lost four pounds in the last two weeks. The snow is falling outside. I'm away to Bellshill.

11:30 p.m.
Did ra bliss from six till about nine tonight. Maybe seven hours today. Three hours before Bellshill and three hours after. Watched this BBC2 show about Adolf Hitler. From a Fruedian point of view, this guy Langer in 1933 did a Fruedian profile of Adolf... so, left to die from the beatings from his dad. Totally distraught from the death of his mum. Anyway, Langer got the prediction of the end right. But it gave me a round view of Frued, or Freud, or Fried Eggs. Rounded view. Like the application of something to something. Which shape is this? I liked that. But I was so sorry for all my deep dear friends, most of whom have recovered very well from the awfulness of the parenting.

So stand up you protestant basturns and say, just one of you funged up people, that you really liked your parents and really, really liked them until death. I'm dead sorry for mocking people who've been beat up. We were empowered. I'm sorry, we were. But soon I will go to Tennesssee and take refuge with the sensei and reverend and be amazed by all this. Hotboy

However, Joe Stalin told the pigs to beat people because that was the worst thing. Getting beaten. Nobody did that to me.

Nobody ever beat me up. But I am not a source of refuce. I'll go to see Barry first. He is a source of refuge to me. In the midst of ra trees. So, that's the first money stop. To the break.

Rem Miracles!

Thursday 9:50 p.m.
Froggie McDuck phoned me up about the story of the 15 year old kid reportedly sitting under a tree for six months. Of course, I'd be favourably inclined to such a story. Anyway, he doesn't believe in miracles. Neither do most sensible people. Once I was meditating not too long after I started, when I realised I wasn't breathing very much. A lot less than I'd been expecting. And I didn't believe in miracles until then. I think they might be called siddhis. As in, all together now, Om Ah Hung Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hung.

Inspired by the kid ... some cats got it, some cats aint ... I managed to sit in the lobby from just before nine this morning till about two o clock. Maybe a half hour break there. Then I went for a run.

Tee shirt; three sweatshirts; woolly jumper; ski hat; sleeveless crocheted woolly jumper (yes, we're talking class here!) and I set off in the cleanest, light bluest light into the teeth of the sycthing wind. I was wanting to do the longer and flatter and more pretty in the sunshine eventually run. But right through the outer garments did this wind bite. So I did the shorter up the hills run.

Though sometimes I enjoyed the run ( and got warm once the Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle got a chance to check in) , afterwards sometimes I felt a bit crabbit. So what of these th0ughts? These crabbit, useless thoughts? From Beer Monster exhaustion.

First tenet has to be: WE DON'T BELIEVE IN THOUGHTS!

I did start feeling a bit crabbit around nine this morning, but by eleven ra bliss had really checked in. Then there was a lot more of that coming, but not very much of ra heat. You have to do it a bit longer for that. This is poor on my part. I should be better at it by this time. I should be able to dry stuff off. It's not doing it enough and laying off the pollution. But slowly slowly catchee monkey, I'm still getting there, I hope.

Because he's got nothing to do after the ignominy of the nudie photies, Adolf has chopped his head off. He's managed to put it back on again though. He says it all evens up. That would be good.

Ra Weekend is Here!

Wednesday 1:35 p.m.
I haven't had a peep out of the four publishers I sent the package to ... the same one that went to Julia Churchill at Darley Anderson. But Julia Churchill sent me a nice email telling me how to sharpen up my submissions to agents. Unfortunately, she also said she'd been reading this blog. Reading stuff like this would put anyone off!! Who would want to buy a used car from some middle aged guy who calls himself Hotboy and whose ambition is to emanate as a deity? Maybe if I was going to get an agent, the first thing I should do is to stop writing a blog about not getting one!

You tell yourself it doesn't matter. You really don't care. You can apply the emptiness analysis to all the false hopes and fantastisies that naturally arise. It's back to the golf shot. What do you feel when you miss it and what do you feel when you hit it? What use are either of these feelings? Getting rejections is not why I write. I don't feel comfortable with this little break that's opened up.

I'd like to get Light in the Dark published for several reasons. For one thing, it's not like the other two books I've had published before. It is a different kind of book. Also, some kids love books. Doing readings for kids would be fine. I could modify my Pet Bereavement Counselling, the tricks anyway. I could grow an enormous beard again and wear an expensive cowboy hat for the photies. Also, I'd really like to write a sequel to it.

I remember looking at the letter from Element Books saying they wanted to publish The Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf. I was cool then. I showed it to the Domestic Bliss. Look at that. What do you think? I remember thinking, we'll see. When I got the letter from them saying they'd gone into administration, I smiled a little wryly and tightly. I was cool then. I'm going to be cool about Julia Churchill reading Light in the Dark. It is impossible to tell the difference between good and bad fortune.

One thing I am sure of is that my meditations over the next few days will be bloody wonderful. If any of the Masai Warriors or Spam Robots who visit this blog want to get their heads stuck in ra bliss, they should go here to find out how.

The Daily Telegraph carried the report of a 15 year old in Nepal who's been sitting fasting and meditating under a pipal tree for six months. You can't do that if you've got a job share. That's why I'd like an agent. To get some money. To get my time back so I could ... do what I liked! Right now I'm off to the allotment to meditate in my hut until it get dark. No pipal trees, but what the hell!

Ra Giving Up Kidbooks!

Monday 6:10 p.m.
A couple of posts ago, I wrote about giving up on getting the kidbooks published because I couldn't get anyone to read them, no one in the book business anyway. Well, that's not the first time I've given up. Probably the third time!

I must have sent an email to Julia Churchill of Darley Anderson asking for some free advice about the kidbook business. If you can't get anyone to read anything .... you can't do business with anyone obviously. Well, how does it work then? How do these books keep appearing in my library? Somebody must be reading something. Whatever transpired, I had an email this morning saying there had been a mistake maybe and she had the three chapters of the two books and was waiting to read them. So that was good. Then I got another email saying she didn't fancy Bugtown, but seemed to like Light in the Dark. The email said this:

Light in the Dark I enjoyed. You've created a magical world that is convincing, Shantha sounds like a great heroine and I was interested to know how Yuketsbava's story connected with hers. An exciting intro too and in terms of narrative it looks like by far the more commercial and engaging of the two. I'd certainly like to look at the rest of the ms. Please do send along.


It was hard not to feel pleased by this turn of events. All it means is that she will read the book, but that's the first time anyone has asked for more than the three chapters. That's one little chink of light after maybe five years. Of course, I'd just given up hustling.

Being unemotional about business is the difficult part. It's hard not to feel pissed off by rejections. It's hard not to feel pleased with some petty little triumph. I've a feeling a thick skin and perserverance are the tools people like me need. I'm sure some of the best books ever written never got published. A well balanced person would have given up years ago.

I spent an hour re-writing my new book last week. At this rate I will have to live an awful long time to finish it.

Ra End of Times!

Sunday 8:40 p.m.
Came to this blog in some trepidation today. Did I write in RaBlissBlog when I was pissed again? Dearie me. Must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

Just to show it's not all beer. On Thursday, Shiva phoned and we arranged to meet today to do 108 times the yogic jumpings. I can't remember the name. The first time we did this, I was completely trashed after 54 of these buggers. Sprays of sweat over the nice furniture. So Shiva wants to do the whole thing; 108. So I had a go on Thursday night and had a twenty minute meditation after doing about 75 of them. Then I finished off the 108. It's like your body is so clever. You remember.

I cancelled today. Muggy from ra drink this morning. Shiva couldn't do the torture later in the day. At half two I started doing it myself with a modified version of the Beer MonsterReduction Vehicle; only two sweat shirts, a teeshirt, and two plastic bin liners. Splashes of sweat from the skull. The hat won't stay on. The noise in my head at the start of the meditation was full on. Heart pumping stuff. Really liked that. Felt like an animal.

I ran away from ra bliss yesterday. But even after I'd had a few drinks of home brew, I could shut my eyes and there it was. This must be a good thing. But it does stagger you a little sometimes. Lost it a bit today. Getting it back. Hotboy.

Ra End of times

Saturday 9:50 p.m.

I meditated for an about an hour and a half this morning then the Domestic Bliss and I went up to the UsherHall to see the Dalai Lama.

I don't do rodents, but I went to form a queue, waiting to wave. I want to make a DVD about ra bliss, and when that happens maybe I can ask the DL what is ra bliss, but until then I'm just in the queue.

Not far from there is the flat of Beef McDuck. I showed up to listen to Celtic putting the huns to the sword, and to drink some home made beer.
_
I'm supposed to be a buddhist. If Ra Beef phones me up sometime and asks me to cut someone's head off, I should just do this. Ra Beef McDuck has exactly the same brain as me. He is family. We are part of the same thing. He does not meditate enough to get ra bliss. I could not explain to him all about ra bliss and how you should get it. I would kill someone, and I would cut them up, and eat them, if Beef told me that was necessary. I would chop them up into little pieces and then eat them. Even although he is too dumb to meditate, he is still my nephew. Don't fuck with us. Just don't. At the end of the day, we are not bourgouis. You should have big families with lots of boys in them. And tell them how disgusting the bourgouis are, and how you can eat them if y0u like.

The middle class people. The protestants. The uselessness. Those fung basturns who tried to keep us down. Well, let's not mess about with these compassionateness fuckpigs. They're all going to hell.

If there is not a hell, we've just made one.

And maybe we can all sit in it together!
]
Such extremes of bliss today. You can stand in front of it. You can wave your arms. You can say, Oh no! You can say what you like. This is RaBlissBlog. Other powered! Full on! Ra bliss. Comment right now for a description of ra bliss!

10:10 p.m.
Hello, you Masai Warriors! How are you, Jack the Spam Robot? The blogpatrol has said that only half the people come here anymore. Well, let's get rid of some more of you!
I hate you middle class people. You think you're smart! Morons! Fung off! Go and read something else! I've always despised middle class people. You are the problem. Go and commit suicide.

Well, that's the end of the compassionate altruistic lesson for today.

1:00 a.m.
This wonderful stuff is called Paulaner Oktberfest Bier. Although I jibe Adolf about the genocide committed by those nazi friends of his, the German rules are wonderful. This is a gorgeous and wonderful beer and I will have few retributions from drinking it.

The only people who come to this blog now that I have been so rude are probably Adolf and Eric. I think we should take to the beach and sing drinking songs and look up at the starry starry night.

If any of my blood relatives read this and don't meditate .... I have to try where it counts. Ma maw. The kid. The Domestic Bliss. Further blood. You may be genetically pre-disposed. In fact, of course, we are. The I and I. So don't tell me you can't get ra bliss. Between me and you, that's too stupid for us!

And so is ra bliss. I've swooned into bliss today. Came home. Lay on the floor. Hard to remember what it looks like with your eyes shut when you're a flatheid. It wasn't like that. Huge expanse of bliss. The reverend and sensei must start getting this right soon, or I'm weird. Or weirdly lucky. Ra bliss changed today. It really did. Felt as if you could have stayed. Bliss and little noise. Almost no ideations. Just overwhelmed by this. It's 1:45 a.m. All my relatives should get ra bliss!

Ra Weekend Again!

Wednesday 6:30 p.m.
I worked three full days this week. I can't believe I did that job full time for five or six years. Never again. I'd rather eat grass. Well, I'd rather smoke grass and eat lentils, but you know what I mean.

One of the great things about the job is the kids. You should have lots of family as it makes things easier if you're a kid, if your brothers and sisters are nice kids. People expect you to be nice as well and it's good if you all look like each other a bit. Because I was working on Wednesday afternoon, I met some first year kids I've never seen before. I hustled Light in the Dark to one very nice wee girl. Know her sister. Knew she'd be smart enough. Told her all about Alison Main, who is supposed to be the author. Asked the kid which one she wanted; the one with the monsters or the one with the bugs. Monsters, she said. Being a kid's author would suit me. Writing the books isn't too tough and some kids really love books. Twelve years old is about my intellectual level these days.

Julia Churchill has put me off hustling these kidsbooks. It's really not going to happen. I'm just not going to get anyone to read them just now. But the books aren't time limited and I might get something later. You never know. It took nine years to get my first book published. Anyway, I sent an email to Martina Dervis of Imrie Dervis. Looking back, I've had nice contacts with these people, including Robin Jones, I think. Anyway, I saw somewhere that she was the agent for a former poetry prodigy and biker chick, and got her published by Serpent's Tail. They published Are You Boys Cyclists. So I contacted her about Bomber. Nothing should happen of course, but these agents do translation work so they're probably not thick.

Discovered that the Dalai Lama is coming to Edinburgh on Saturday to have a dialogue at the Usher Hall. Sold out. Once down at the Samye Ling, he stared at me for maybe four seconds. I was at the temple stairs with the kid and I was standing a bit apart (as I do!), not waving or anything. Better to take the stare. That man is definitely not normal. I've had two interesting dreams with him featuring. I think I'll go up to the Usher Hall on Saturday anyway. I'll wave and smile this time!! Maybe.

Ra Sun!

Tuesday 9:20 p.m.
I emailed the Sun newspaper today to tell them that the future Moderator of the Church of Scotland used to play his ukelele and be best pals with Adolf, the former nazi hiding out in the Unheard Of Island who has recently been banned for posting nudie photies of himself in compromising positions with fruit. The people have a right to know.

The sensei and reverend has an interesting link on his blog about the first proof that meditating causes physical changes in the brain. Yes, it stops your head being so flat!!

There's a full moon out tonight and the sky is clear. I had to come back from my Tai Chi along the Ferry Road and down through Inverleith Park. The castle was lit up on the skyline. The big sky and the full moon. It really looked great!

Meditating after doing a Tai Chi set ... well, it does affect your chi alright! I was sitting slightly apart at half time and could feel this stuff moving around the front of my chest and below my jaw. I think I'm living with a wraith.

No one at home just now. No beers of course. Guess what I'm going to do. That's right. Here comes ra bliss!

Rem Basturn Agents!

Monday 5:15 p.m.
Got the knockback from Julia Churchill of Darley Anderson. Rejections on your mat just as you get home from work knackered .... well, rejections aren't good anyway. So I sent this agent a pile of nice reviews from books and plays, and the questionnaires from the kids who'd read it all saying how bloody wonderful the two kidsbooks were. I didn't send them any chapters, but asked them to look at the webpage and see if they'd like to see the book. Got an email back from Julia Churchill saying she'd look at three chapters. Of what? So I sent off three chapters of both kidbooks last Monday. Back today comes the standard rejection. Of course, it's not signed by Julia Churchill. She won't have seen it. Actually, I'll email her tomorrow.

So I failed to get either of the two kidsbooks read by an agent again!! They say they get two hundred submissions a week. What? From folk with books published, plays produced, testimonials from the target audience saying how good the product is? I don't think so. Still stuck in catch 22. You need an agent to get a publisher to read stuff, but you can't get an agent to read anything. The kidbook business really sucks. However, if I'd managed to get passed the Egors and the half wit children of the aristocrasy manning the slush piles and landed on some money, I'd think somewhat differently!

Otherwise, the day was brilliant! Fantastic bliss during this morning's meditations. My mood was ten percent improved on any other time since the school started back. It's not drinking any beer. You really need your nervous system to be tuned up and squeaky clean. Which is a great shame!

10:50 p.m.
Noticed a quote from Tennessee Williams on the back of my room door. "I was still always falling down during this time, and I'd always say, before falling, "I'm about to fall down,' and almost nobody, nobody ever caught me. " I really like that sentence. It's from his autobiography, I think. Anyway, when I first saw it, I thought it was so lonesome.

Still, no beers since Wednesday last. As I came home this evening, I could see the alcohol in the off-licences alright, but no real desire. A little winsome longing perhaps. Well, it's goodbye to all that. And here comes ra bliss!

Ra Sunday Post!

Sunday 11:05 p.m.
Beautiful winter's day here in Edinburgh. To the right from here, out the window along Comely Bank Road, the trees have shed their leaves and the sky is crystal clear.

Last night the Domestic Bliss took us to see A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Lyceum. Brilliant production. Why are all the playwrights I like American? I used to like French absurdists when I was trying to find out about drama, but I'm stuck on Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams. Odd shape, A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but still brilliantly written. Brilliantly played last night as well. I should check out who directed it and make sure I go to see more of that.

I haven't had a beer since Wednesday. I like to say I've felt the benefit, but I haven't. I seem to be sleeping longer, not less. This might be due to having a very slight cold (thanks Lee Ann for the good wishes!) and still banging out the physical jerks. I always feel as if I'm chasing the day if, like today, I don't get up till nine o clock.

Been fretting a little about writing my book of course. Yesterday, one of the days I've got to myself to write, I managed an hour! Meditate for four or five hours, do the training, have a bath, and that's it if you don't get up at seven. Didn't even have time to read the paper yesterday. Won't have time to read the Sunday papers either. But at least I won't be going out tonight. Hurrah for that!

This is RaBlissBlog! This is about ra bliss! I started my first real meditation of the day just before writing this and ra bliss is coming through stronger and faster. This is why the beer monster had to go. The Domestic Bliss has just gone out. Yippee! I've got two hours before any flatheid intermissions. What bliss! Then, if she can't organise something, I'll get to go to the hut and meditate till it gets dark! Then I could light a fire and see the castle lit up through the trees, and welcome the winter. Then back here. More meditating, some yoga ..... when have I got time to write my book? Sometime this evening? Who cares! This is RaBlissBlog! Let's do some bliss!

6:30p.m.
We went for a walk round the Botanic Gardens. It was cold in the wind. On the way back, I went to meditate in the hut. Did about an hour and then lit a candle. Stared at the candle. Very nice indeed. Nostradamus used to do that before making a few predictions. Edinburgh looked great when I came out the hut. It was too dark by then to think of lighting a fire, but the castle through the trees looked wonderful. Picture book winter's evening. But really great sitting in the hut with the candle and the cold and feeling very good and nobody knowing you were there. Let's have a good cold winter with lots of meditating in the hut by candelight. Long johns, a woolly hat, a body warmer, a brolly, and what could be more wonderful than sitting for hours in the cold looking at a candle. Flatheids just don't get it!

9:00 p.m.
Managed to do a couple of hours on the book, so that's just rounded off the weekend nicely. I think I'm going to really be able to get into this, but the weekend has not been great. Transitional. Getting into the book and getting off the beer. Underlying anxiety is what makes things difficult sometimes. I thought I'd have a horrible time giving up the beer. The craving and the clinging! Don't know what happened there. I just stopped. But with the writing sometimes you might have to wind yourself up a wee bit. To get a wee head of steam. But now that I've really started all I need is a routine to take the emotion out of it. It's ten past nine. This is always a great time to meditate. Here comes ra bliss!

10:30 p.m.
It's all in the zones after the vase breath. Or after what's called shooting the breath, when you breathe out. Teeshirt for advanced blissheads: It's all in the zones. After a vase breath, your head is in a completely different space. You get off the beer for four nights and you get another zone or two. Maybe I was there before the beer started in August, but I doubt it. Anyway, new zones of bliss!
Sometimes you might ask yourself, do you really want it? Can you handle it? Everytime you see that little tendril of anxiety supporting anything .... I think Bloggy is cutting out. I think things are going to get weirder. Keep hold of your bottle, as they say in these parts.

Ra Books!

Friday 9:30 p.m.
I've not long finished doing a wee bit of work on my book. Not wholly productive, but I enjoyed it.

I started writing City Whitelight when I was twenty six and it got published when I was about thirty four. Then I got another book published about ten years later, called Are You Boys Cyclists. That was published in 1997. I'm due another one. Once I used to think that no one wrote more than three good novels. Well, you could write ten good novels all kind of the same, if you know what I mean. Antony Burgess used to write different kinds of novels. I like that. It's clever. It would be nice just to be able to write one good one. Maybe I should get out a book about what a novel is and then I'd start with a better idea. You're always making it up as you go along. Even how to do it and I've written plenty of crap novels. You should always be able to do them badly a different way.

I reckon I've got about a year before the pain digs in from the part time employment. I could be a part time writer during this period and work like hell two and a half plus days a week. I've been working half time since a year past last August and most Thursdays and Fridays I meditated. That was not a waste of time. There lies ra bliss. I've just have to do ra bliss and the book, and just stay off the piss. Also, things are changing around here since the kid has gone. That seems to have freed up a lot of time.

I had a great time writing Are You Boys Cyclists? Of course, I did not expect it to get published, but the actual writing of it was most enjoyable. I'd never tried to write graphic sex scenes before. Well, not that graphic .... so I'm going to get into the whole writing this book thing. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it. I haven't had this much space to write in since 1981 when I spent a year on the dole. I've got a whole three days to myself a week. That's not been donning on me till right now when my thoughts turn to writing schedules. How long will this take me, etc.? And I could maintain this life of writing and ra bliss indefinitely just as long as I didn't spend any money or go anywhere. The best times of my life have been spent like that, usually on the dole. I don't know why I wasn't scared, but neither was anyone else.

I think I probably wrote my best prose on a typewriter. The technology changes the product. Is that Marx? Anyway, if you haven't much paper and have to make your own ink, you probably think a lot before commiting anything to paper ... anyway, with cut and paste I need a screen that holds four pages of text, not one. I need a big, high screen.

The worse thing I write in is this box. It's just all wrong. There's nothing right about it.

I seem to be coming down with a cold. Funnily enough, I haven't missed the beer. That shocks me. I was expecting to have trouble sleeping, sweating, nightmares. Shows how much I used to drink once. The home brew is deadly. You just can't tell! Anyway, God has given me the cold because I stopped drinking the beer. Because thou art saved, shall there be no more cakes and ale? I knew the beer was doing me good! So, God, if you'd just send me some money instead of giving me the cold, I'll have a few pints of Guinness with you or somebody very like you toute suite.

Ra Bye Bye Beer!

Thursday 9:30 p.m.
On the first evening of the NoBeerNoMore, it's all quiet here on the Western Front. Had more or less the day I'm supposed to have. Did two short sessions on the book and I could sort of almost remember why I used to like writing books, so that was good. I sat in the hut for a couple of hours in the late afternoon. Did the physical jerks when the Domestic Bliss went out and lay in the bath. I've got lying in the bath down to a tee! Then another hour's meditation and here we are. Don't miss the beer at all. Though I truly have deeply fallen in love with it this time. Every time you start on the beer after a long absence you learn something. This time I learned about Weissbier. A truly wonderful product. Though I don't miss it. Certainly not. No way! Good boy!

It was a miserable, wet afternoon. I love that. If you've got a brolly, you're unstoppable. The allotment is great when it's drizzle, wet or otherwise horrible. The earth stealing old men go away. I've been keeping my eyes closed a lot these days due to getting such oddles of ra bliss. So outside the hut it can be as miserable as it likes. Cocooned in ra bliss, I was.

The difference between the level of the allotment and the level of the paths seems to have changed a little. It seems as if my earth has grown, or swelled up. Maybe the earth stealing old men have taken pity and put some of their stolen goods back. It might be the rain. Does the earth swell in the rain? Is my allotment starting to breathe? With water? The earth's breathing in and out rain? Get away!

Ra Good Intentions!

Wednesday 1:35 p.m.
Capn Jambo, who lives in Louissiana surrounded by nukes, is going to see the Dalai Lama on Saturday. The DL is talking to some neuroscience conference and I think the Capn should stick in a question for the question and answer session. What is ra bliss? But I doubt if there's an answer to that. It's maybe like asking what is happiness?

Capn Jambo is a supporter of the Hearts Football Club, which has just appointed someone on the sex offenders register to be manager. Hearts are also known as the Jam Tarts. The gymslips will suit them!

We went to the Traverse last night because I get free tickets. I was speaking to this blind person. We were talking about living in different cities. She said she wouldn't move now. Too confusing. She didn't come from Edinburgh either, but she went blind here. Some of us have got nothing to complain about.

On Monday I sent off a big envelope to Julia Churchill of Darley Anderson. It has the first fifty pages of the two kidbooks from the webpage. Don't expect she'll want to see more, but you've got to make an effort... especially if you're supposed to be blogging about not finding a literary agent!

I'm almost at the edge of my overdraft limit. Tomorrow I must give up the beers and abandon myself to ra bliss!

Ris is the end!

Sunday 12:15 p.m.
I feel as if I've been on holiday for days and days. Of course, I have, but I don't usually feel like that on Sunday afternoon. Since Wednesday I've seen Shiva and Brian Wilson, immediate family members, and the people who sell the beer. What an excellent break! The meditations have come on a storm. Yesterday in the allotment, I just sat down and thought Wow! Here we go! Then followed an hour and a half of wonderful bliss. The evening meditations before the beer were extraordinary! Such an amount of bliss!

Today we're doing a granny tour of Lanarkshire. Close proximity to flatheids for hours and hours at a stretch. Driving down country lanes with Toad of Toad Hall. What larks!

8:05 p.m.
We picked up the first granny in Edinburgh. There's a garden. Sat on the bench and closed my eyes. Straight off, fabulous bliss. Meditated in the car going to Newmains. In the back seat. The granny is in the front and the kid is in the back with me, listening through headphones. With your eyes closed you can think you're in a spaceship. Rocking and rolling, jerking then screeching. Bang! Body parts everywhere. Love travelling in cars. But tons of ra bliss once more. This is getting blissed out of your face in public. Little moments of ra bliss arising throughout the day a wee bit spontaneously, like when you found yourself sitting up straight. I've done an hour's writing of the book since leaving work on Wednesday. Maybe twenty five hours meditating. Well, I got that ratio right! Maybe drank twenty beers. So I'm meditate for a while now and then drink some beer!

Ra Saturday's Child

Saturday 10:05 a.m.
Wakened up today and couldn't believe it was still the weekend. What a life! All I've got to do is stop spending money and everything will be wonderful. Much enjoyed blogging while drinking weissbier last night. Time to start meditating!
11:20 a.m.
Just got phoned up by Brian Wilson. They're after me. Here's some stuff about the practise I'm doing just now.

You take refuge and go from the principal guru down the list. You imagine them in front of you and then over your head. Then the image goes into a white line and that goes down your body purifying it. Jesus Christ comes last in this list once you've got to the end and did your principal or root guru again. This white line stuff is fantastic, by the way. You can feel the spaces getting whiter and brighter as you go down.

After the Jesus Christ bit, you try to give something to all your dead relatives and the folk you know who are dead. So you visualise them as well.

May all sentient being be happy. That's the first part of the routine.

After a wee bit, you start going through the inner signs of dying after the last breath. When you get to the absolute body of the Buddha, the beyond conceptualisation juju, it may seem like limitless space, or space without edges. You can stay there for a bit. I think that's where the big juju people stop and fix when they really die. That stops rigor mortis setting in for three days plus, I think.

Anytime after this, go blue line. Then red triangle at the the bottom. Then you might fill in the other symbols. This is the enjoyment body of the buddha, or your astral body, or the Holy Ghostie Men. You've been doing the occasional vase breath throughout, but you should go for it now.

I think when the truly weird effects of the vase breathing are occurring, you might try to manifest as Dorje Sempa in the mandala with Dorje Sempa also visualised in front of you.

By that time you have to get up and move.

This is what I need to get into. The three dimensional visualisations with Dorje Sempa. I explained how that is done in Light in the Dark when the wee girl has to create a monster, not a deity.

St Teresa says when she was visualising Jesus Christ in his glorified body, she started with the hands. So in the cave I assume you do the same with Dorje Sempa ... until Dorje Sempa seems to be there. This must take a terrific amount of time and effort.

I told Brian Wilson it was raining here, but he doesn't believe me. I'll have to go and sit in the lobby now and try to repel flatheids when the phone rings. Of course, you would not have a phone in your cave.

1:35 p.m.
Brian Wilson showed up and tried to get me to play goolf. I explained that I only spent money now on beer and what with the sore leg, the dodgy bi-focals, and the tennis elbow ... anyway, he went away again. So I think I might go and do some more meditating.

The three kayas you kind of collect when you go dead - the dharmakaya, the sambhokakaya, the nirmanakaya - seem to correspond with parts of other religions. The hindus have the causal (dharmakaya?), the astral (sambhokakaya) and the material (nirmanakaya). The christians have God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Ghostie Men. Something a bit similar anyway. Syncretism? More meditations coming up!

10:45 p.m.
Fabulous bliss this evening. It's when it gets dark. This is one for the human beings. Say it was cold and dark for the whole winter and you had no telly. The juju is your telly. The bliss, ra rapture, ra ecstasy is there for you though you be ever so humble. Imagine you were so unfortunate as to be washed up on chilly Jockoland and you do not have a telly, or a radio, or not access to ra bliss. Dearie me. It's better to be more.

If the bliss is there and it's really dead easy to reach it over a lifetime anyway, it's terrible that folk don't have access to it at all. That must be a tragedy. I think that is why I'll just get the rowing boat out and set off for the Unheard of Island. It has still been a great day. Ra bliss, ra bliss!

Ra Fridays Child is a Complete Disgrace!

Friday 1|:45 p.m.
I had a good look at my hair last night later on and couldn't believe the bad condition it was in. I felt forced to rush down to Peckhams for some beers.

Despite this total failure of purification, today's meditations have been top drawer! I can't think of when they've ever been much better. Huge bliss and light, but not a lot of heat. Because of the beers last night, this has confused me a bit.

However, today I'm usually in Bellshill visiting my mother, but couldn't go as I've an appointment to get my ears syringed this afternoon. Before then, I might write the book or train, or just go back into the lobby. I think I'll do that first. Go back into the lobby and investigate the amazing bliss of this morning. Close your eyes and you're right there. This is ra bliss!!

8:55 p.m.
Lee Anne doesn't know what getting your ears syringed is. First time I went a bit deaf was when I was in my mid-twenties. I had a wonderful doctor at the time called Sam Lipetz. Stereotypical. Well, this boy was from central casting. You want someone to look like a wee jewish doctor with the brain the size of a planet, just call Sam. So he gets the syringe out. It's about the size of a regular bicycle pump. He's going to stick this in your ear and push tons of warm water from the syringe into your ear hole. I found this difficult to believe. So he gives it the gun and you've suddenly got stereophonics again. What was in the kidney bowl is hard to believe. Nobody ever pushed as hard as Sam. This was like getting your brain sand blasted. Brilliant though.

They've got a new thing now. You should get one. It's got a wee thin stick thing with warm water scooting out of it. It felt as if it was vibrating the last time. Maybe that was just me. The nurse has her thigh pressing against your arm and she's poking this thing into your orifice, and it feels really ... well, it's kind of sensuous because there must a lot of nerves round your earhole, or whatever. Also, the nurse is dead discrete so you don't see what's coming out of your head. That's good. Then she wipes your ear and everyone is happy. You can hear again.

It's really nice when folk help you like that.

The first time I got my haircut by a woman was in Majorca. She was very good looking. It was kind of outside under the awning. She kept touching my arm with her thigh, then moving round and doing the other arm. Best haircut I've ever had.

Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier. There's a new drug in town called HNT. Adolf's been taking some. It reaches the parts other drugs don't. And makes them edible to monkeys. Stay well clear!

After posting earlier, I went back into the lobby. So much bliss. Your brain goes alpha apparently so that time seems to pass quickly. You've got no time for anything else. That was the writing time. Then I decided to do some physical jerks. Last night I had six beers. I am 54 years old.

Jack Dempsey eat your heart out! When you put in a lot of yin, you should get out a lot of yang. I felt great. Sometimes physical jerks are so enjoyable. Sometimes maybe not. But today it was superb. I found it hard to believe. I was expecting a bit of a spanking for being a bad boy with the beers last night. It's so re-vivifying and reassuring. This is the fat basturn, beer monster reduction vehicle, exhilerating training benchmark. It's six twos. You've got on the ski hat and the teeshirt, three layers of sweatshirts, two bin bag liners (plastic bags), and a crochet kind of woollen jumper on top.

When the music thing worked, there used to be loud rock and roll. You get the room warm.

Shadow boxing earlier in the day, figured I was ready for Cassius Clay.

Was anyone ever as wonderful as Cassius Clay?

You skip for ten minutes. Shadow box for two minutes. This means simulating fighting. This is highly aerobic. You take half a minute to put your hands down if you like, but you don't stop dancing around the room. Do that six times. It's a benchmark. I think they brought in this standard of fight for ... where is the sensei? He knows about boxing! ... novice professionals maybe. Anyway, in my early forties, I'd been doing six threes with twenty press ups, sit ups and squat jumps between each round ... that was one of the times I tried to stop smoking in my early forties.

What I'm trying to say ... my shadowboxing isn't what you see professional boxers doing to cameras. I started doing it before my first fight in the lobby with Jared timing the rounds. Sex Pistols on the stereo. Today if you saw me, you might have thought: the fat basturn can box. But I can't box. I look as if I can box. With my shadow. It is a very good benchmark though. Not as good as six threes, etc. I love training. This guy saw me running round the park. He asked me about it. I said I was training. He'd played rugby. He said training for what? No, just training.

When I was speaking to Shiva yesterday, I realised it was only about a year and a half ago that I walked off the job and took to the allotment for most of the next ten weeks. And the breath became connected to ra bliss. At least, sometimes. The head spaces being investigated by the joe in the allotment aren't the same as the head spaces being investigated now. Despite being a pisshead for the last while, and loving that, I must say (We are the bad boys from Kham! We are not quite in balance yet!) the juju works, kind of by it's own accord. You can stand in the way by drinking beers and such, but I've sat doing juju today for about seven or eight hours. This is RaBlissBlog. You should get into ra bliss. Learn how to sit.

Ah'll be back! I wish I was calmer. I started off way off the scale. But I'm going to drink some beers. Bad boy! But this is the HotboyMadyamikaSurfingTheOceansOfBliss, but still trying to find the tao.

Ra Thursday's Child was Fair of Face!

Thursday 9:40 a.m.
This is going to be a great day. It's drizzling and damp outside. A great day. I wakened feeling not too bad and I've done about an hour's meditation so far. So I should be able to bang in three hours before lunch. Here comes ra bliss!

I got an email from Julia Churchill yesterday. She said she'd have a look at three chapters. This is almost a contact. If she'd looked at the webpage, and thought she'd like to read the books, or one of them, that would have been a contact. Then I'd have thought she was going to actually read the book, having become interested. That was what I was hoping for. What she's done is look at my letter and just emailed me with the usual request. How professionals in this business can look at the kind of questionnaires I've sent and look at three chapters and not ask to see the book is beyond me. But that's what happened before. Still, she did get back to me straight away and it only costs me a couple of quid so what the hell!

The meditations today I expect to be amazing. The vase breathing mechanism, whereby you get out of your face on air, continues to develop. In a way, I continue to run away from it by drinking beer and such, but I'm not running far this morning.

I read once that if a joe like me had an experience of non-self and emptiness as described in The Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf, the least you'd get when you were dead was a spell in the formless realms. Being dead and "existing" in the formless realms for an eon or two should be totally cool. You've just got to lose your false sense of self and then anywhere, anyhow, anytime and it shouldn't matter. All you'd lose was the fool conducting the interior monologue, most of which is complete crap.

Anyway, to ra bliss!

1:45 p.m.
Must have done about three and a half hours this morning. No wonder I've got no time to do anything else! Since I complained on this blog about blogpatrol's figures being too high to believe, the figures have just about halved. On 25th of last month, 80 visitors are supposed to have showed up here. Nothing over 30 since last week. Weird.

I'm here to begin working on my book. It's taken me half an hour checking mail and blogs till I could get this far. Now for the book!

7:30 p.m.

Around three I went to see Shiva. He's really the only person I know who is interested in the the juju and it was nice to talk. He knows about stuff being a hindu god. He said he'd read that the end point in the juju was an unsupported thought. Hmmm?

Unsupported means it's not connected, relating to much, I assume. Maybe not changing then. Since all the thoughts we have are supported, it's hard to imagine how you could get an unsupported one. |Do the supports dissolve progressively? Or do you just suddenly arrive in the unsupported thought zone? It must be timeless, or out of clock time anyway. Or else it would change and if it changes, how can it be unsupported? Hmmm?

On the way home, I passed an off-licence. There was an advert outside for Budweisser. I remember in Lee Anne's blog that Budweisser was good for conditioning your hair. My hair at the moment is only under a half inch long, but I think it might be in a bad condition. I thought of drinking a few beers, but on second thoughts it might have been drinking other beers that put my hair into a bad condition. So I walked on. Good boy!

Ra Happy Days Are Here Again!

Wednesday 1:25 p.m.
Outside it is damp, overcast and drizzly, but it is a fabulous afternoon because Wednesday afternoon is the start of my weekend. What a fortunate creature!

The sensei and reverend has written a brilliant personal column in his newspaper in Tennessee. He also seems to winding up the polis as well. Well, I've seen the movies when you fall foul of these small town cops. They shoot you, don't they? Of course, they might torture you first if you'd really pissed them off. So he'll get tortured and shot, and nobody will ever know what happened. Except us. And everybody else. That won't make any difference. You're still shot.

As I was joyfully exiting my gainful employment today, I started thinking about looking forward to being dead. That is the sign of a successful life. I told myself this when I was very young. If when you're dying, you think you're bound for a brilliant, new adventure then your life has been lived right. If you believed in stuff and were a Tibetan buddhist, there's lots of things to look forward to. You get to have a mental body for one thing. That seems to be a bit like being superman although if you have to take a spanking, it's a super spanking. All I have to do to enjoy being dead is to stop drinking beer and meditate more. What could be easier!

A fourth year girl handed back City Whitelight today, a book I got published about twenty years ago. Another pupil (the only other one I've given it to!) told her to ask me for it. She said the book was brilliant. Her mother read it as well and seems to have liked it. Things like that are very nice indeed.

I bumped into Dr Bob on the way home. One of the wonderful people, Dr Bob used to be prominent in the Playwright's Workshop, a brilliant organisation. They'd give anything a public reading. I had many scripts road tested there. If it still existed, I'd still write plays. I told Dr Bob to look at my webpage. Dr Bob is a medical doctor. He specialised in dead bodies because with dead bodies you can have a nine to five job. I should have asked him if he thought any of the dead people were having a good time being dead. It's probably hard to tell.