Ra Hogmanay!

Saturday 3:30p.m.
Despite being a bad boy again and again and again, what a year it's been for ra bliss! I spent most of the last hour in extremis blissimus. This is clearly not fair. Why should I get oddles of ra bliss and no one I know gets any? Actually, the reason is that I meditate a lot. I meditated a lot before I got any bliss, before I even knew there was bliss. Clearly if you do not meditate, you will not get ra bliss.

The boy says it's like a river. It starts as a trickle and sometimes it stops completely, then it starts again. Then it becomes a stream. When it becomes a big river, it's journey to the ocean seems unstoppable.

I must be at the last bit. The only thing stopping ra bliss is my bad habits!

Sometimes at the start of the year I was having a bit of bother with the vase breathing. Occasionally, I felt as if I'd pass out, or go into a fit or something. Sometimes a juddering feeling. That seems to have gone now.

Ra bliss can come on now when I'm lying flat in bed. This is definitely from this year. This is a wonderful development and bodes well for the future. Maybe some day I'll not have to sit up straight. What you want to have is something that can't be taken away.

I'd like to say Happy New Year to the people I know who are regular visitors to this blog: Adolf, The Anagram Man, Samsaramom (and Eric!) and Lee Ann.

My buddhist name is Karma Dorje. I took refuge three years ago tomorrow. What a fortunate, fortunate creature I am!

Ra Year Gone!

Friday 8:10p.m.
I had a cosmic experience last Hogmanay. I'd given up ra beer again and had been teatotal all Christmas. Purification is the name of the game, I'm afraid. Anyway, the Domestic Bliss had dozed off on the couch and I was in here, the room. There was an inner heat thing happened. I thought then that if I stayed off the drink and drugs, I'd be able to change my body temprature by August. This isn't getting off your face on air. This is changing your body temprature so you can dry off wet teeshirts. It didn't happen. Though I'd managed to give up drink at least twice before for two whole years, I had a few relapses before August, but was really on the straight and narrow unless the flatheids got too close in. Then I went on holiday and what can you do on holiday? Drink beer.

So this year has been a half and half year. Half with and half without beer.

The Domestic Bliss wakened up last Hogmanay and I went out to enjoy the most miserable New Year imaginable. Completely sober with folk too old and too drunk. Well, it's not going to be like that this year. Oh no! Just wait.

Rapres Santa!

Thursday 3.p.m.
Hello there, Jack the Spam Robot! The Masai warriors don't visit here anymore, but did you miss me, Jack? Well, I was a week off-line because I moved this computer to my bedroom, and it stopped connecting to the internet. Today we set up a new computer in the living room. It does connect to the internet. Then I tried this one again. It connects to the internet. There is no reason for anything.

The last week just disappeared. The kid came home from college with the flu. Now she's got mumps. I enjoyed my Christmas dinner. I can remember what I was trying to do before my Christmas dinner, but it's gone all fuzzy since. They probably put stuff in the food.

Despite being a bad boy, the meditations have all jumped up a notch. I say this kind of thing all the time. Everything just got better. Well, it did.

Ra Thursday: Early Doors

Thursday 8:10 a.m.
I'm waiting for the dawn so I can get into the rowing boat and take off for the Unheard of Island, and the hut.

Julia Churchill didn't fancy Bomber. This was no disappointment. Bomber starts with the view from a guy who's been taking amphetamines for three days. Julia did not find the central character very attractive! This did not surprise me at all.

At the moment, there are four packages (without chapters) out with four kidbook publishers. Not a peep out of any of these for over a month. The Egors and the halfwit children of the aristocrasy manning the slush piles of these illustrious publishers must be scratching their heads. How do we reject something we haven't seen? When they do send the rejection slips back without having seen any of the books at all, this might make me laugh. Otherwise, Isobel Dixon is having a look at Light in the Dark sometime. I was just thinking of leaving things like that. I can't contact anyone else about Light in the Dark while Isobel Dixon is looking at it, and I don't think any of the other books on the webpage speak up for me right now. It's all so long ago.

Then I realised that I'm skint. The book I'm working on just now won't be ready for probably a year and Isobel Dixon will probably not want Light in the Dark. I've got to get to the Unheard of Island! I want to go to Rumtek! I need enough money to get to my hut to practise vajrayana juju full time. So in the New Year I'll start hustling publishers for a while. But what'll I hustle? It'll have to be Bomber, I think, or Ancient Futures. The only person who's read both of these is, I think, Beef McDuck. I'll maybe ask him which he thinks is the better one. Well, which one is it, Beef?

The thread of work that I think is more me these days is Are you Boys Cyclists, The Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf, and the one I'm doing just now. These are written in the first person.

The sky has gone dark, dark blue. It's nearly half eight. I'm off to the hut!

Ra Sanity Holidays!

Wednesday 6:50 p.m.

There aint no sanity clause .... Marx (Brothers)

Great bliss with no attachment is continuous.... 3rd Karmapa

...."the after-practise activities, such as uniting with a karmamudra, eating and drinking, as well as residing with wild animals, and so forth. " ...Gyalwa Wensapa.

Peeked into Readings on the Six Yogas of Naropa. You just look at some of this stuff and you have to think it's nearly impossible to do these visualisations. Malleable, plastic, big, big minds involved in this juju. Tsongkhapa's Practise Manual asks you to do something right at the start and you think, well, what? The boys must have been in the cave for a good wee while before this stuff was practicable. It would be fabulous to be able to do it. The illusory nature of reality. There it is, right in your face.

I sit up in bed with my back to the wall and a duvet wrapped round my shoulders from six to seven most mornings. The difference between today and two weeks ago was very marked. Something has loosened, become unblocked, unstuck, freed up. One breath and you're into ra bliss right away. I had heat this morning as well. Delicious, gorgeous, blissy heat. You experience sensations with this juju that you don't seem to be able to get any other way. Wonderful new sensations over the last week. Falling in and out of ra bliss. More content to just sit. Still, little daggers of anger and irritation. Trying to notice and let them go.

This morning I didn't go for the shower at seven, but waited till twenty past. There was just so much bliss and the meditations were going so well.

Too blissed to be bothered!

Hello, Jack the Spam Robot. Hardly anyone else comes here any more, Jack. There's really just me and you. But I'm not scared anymore, Jack. I'm holding onto my bottle big time. Got off the piss and fell into ra bliss! Here comes ra heat! Here comes ra heat!

Ra Weekend End!

Sunday 10:35 p.m.
There a photie of me disguised as a matchstick head in Australia. You can actually see the effects of the heat on the top of the napper. I think I could use this photie when advertising the Pet Bereavement Counselling Service.

This is probably the first weekend I haven't had any beer since before August. Since leaving work on Wednesday, I've managed to do very little. I went to see Shiva on Thursday for a couple of hours. He doesn't work being a Hindu god. Socially, that was it. Perfect. I went on my shorter run, the one with the five hills, today, and felt good.

Everything on the meditation front has improved. I'm getting into the deity yoga a wee bit better, the emanating, and visualising. Little realisations of emptiness seem to be checking in. I had an interesting one concerning the emotions surrounding Julia Churchill asking for all of Light in the Dark, etc. Hopes, disappointments. If you look for your false sense of self, you can find it in there. It's part of the mix. Who's wanting what and what for? Usually, when you're doing the mahamudra stuff and looking for the object to be negated (the false sense of self!), it doesn't seem to be very evident. It seems to arise sometimes with the emotions. I'll need to think this out very carefully as I go along.

I don't think the Buddha could have been very emotional. I'm trying to figure out which emotions might not be afflictive. Contentment isn't an emotion, is it?

I'm now into re-writing the book. I'm beginning to really enjoy writing it. All I have to do otherwise is keep on doing what I'm doing. The beer was practically the only thing that was keeping my feet on the ground. After this week, I only have to go to work on Wednesday morning the next week, then Wednesday morning the next week. The flatheids can have me on Christmas Day and Hogmanay. If only .... I'm going to be amazed as I sit quietly doing nothing over this holiday. I'm going to try hard in 2006!

Numbers: 2006 adds up to 8. That's my birthday. I'll be 55 on February 8th. Five and five add up to ten. One added to nothing gives you 1. Does anyone know anything about numerology?

If you're head is completely flat, you could do worse than head for ra bliss! There's stuff about getting your head stuck into ra bliss here.

Ra Purification and Accumulation

Saturday 6:25 p.m.
I haven't had a beer for a week. Felt tired and crabbit when I got off the train from Bellshill this evening. At times like this .... beer. But I didn't. Instead I came home and fell into a wonderful, wonderful meditation. Everything was just cranked up a wee bit and it made me feel so optimistic. All I have to do is keep away from flatheids. Not the best time of the year for this, but it's great to be skint. Such bliss this evening. Such bliss.

When Brian Wilson snuffs it, as we all will one day soon enough, he'll probably not get wrathful deities on his case, but go towards the pearly gates where St Peter will be ecstatically waiting for him.
"Brian! Brian! What a fantastic thing it is to have been a human being! What did you make of ra bliss, eh?"
"Sorry, Rocky, but I didn't get any of ra bliss."
"What!" says St Peter. "But surely you must have heard about ra bliss. The whole point of being is to get access to ra bliss!"
"Well," says Brian, chewing distractedly on the pig's face. "I thought it was all about the drink and fags and the dirty videos. "
If there is a heaven, they must call earth something like Learning Difficulty Central. Where the mentally handicapped, those too dumb to meditate, go. Dearie me. Anyway, I'm away to meditate for a couple of hours. To ra bliss!

11:10 p.m.
I did some jumps tonight between meditation sessions. Ivengar jumps. They're a bit more brutal than the sun salutations I was doing with Shiva, but you don't have to remember which foot to lunge with since you bunny jump with your feet together. I used to do twenty minutes of these and stagger off knackered to lie in a bath for an hour. Counted twenty minutes worth tonight. Seventy jumps. Didn't feel too tired after that. But that's not because of doing more of the other ones, I don't think. It's road work. Running gets you fit.

I can remember feeling happy on several occasions. I mean, prolonged feelings of happiness. I had them all at the Samye Ling. On a week's retreat, I sometimes (not always) became very happy around day four. It's a kind of joyousness. It felt so extraordinary and it made me realise I'm not happy most of the time. I'm alright, but not joyous. If I could bring the discipline I have at the Samye Ling into my practise here in Flatheidland, I might grow into a real and sustained happiness. I hope so anyway. I felt a bit happy this evening. That's why I remembered. It's hard to see how anything could be better for you than meditating. I think I'll go do a wee bit more before crashing. Nighty night out there in bloggyland from a HotboyMadyamikaS.O.B.

Rawaiting for the delivery man!

Friday 8:55 a.m.
All is safe and well here on the Unheard of Island. I cannot row back to Bellshill to see my maw today as I have to wait for the delivery men to beach the new computer. Somehow I didn't really settle yesterday, but Thursdays are sometimes like that. I'll expecting to hit paydirt today alright. I'm away to do the juju and I hope these delivery joes don't come till late afternoon!

There is no one to bother me. I am on my own. I've got a guru (or two!), some juju to do and plenty of time. What more can a body ask for? Here comes ra bliss! Here comes ra bliss!
10:10 a.m.
Standing on my head in the lobby, I thought, post about Rome and stop thinking about it. It's my favourite thing on the telly for a long, long time. Brilliant acting, brilliant characterisation, great script, fabulously lit, erotic at times .... could go on. It's really grown on me over the weeks. Think of Hollywood doing Rome. Brad Pitt as Mark Anthony. Dearie me. The BBC has done the business here. HBO have put in some money. Smart boys! Only the telly can do something like this. Sometimes the BBC is the only good thing about being British!

Glad that's off my chest! Now back to investigating ra bliss! The visual imaging today is sharp. Good sign of the mind clearing. When you imagine it, how immediate is it? Can you see it, or are you trying to see it? Anyway, a good two hours till lunch. I'm in the trenches this morning, but that's where I should be. You only get what you put in. Otherwise, everyone would be getting ra bliss, wouldn't they?

1:00 p.m.
Just stopped for lunch. Got out of the trenches after twelve. Into ra bliss! Took a couple of hours today really to bring it on. I don't know why. But ra bliss is suseptible when it's up to breath, of course, and movement. Don't understand that either. All you have to do if you want some more of ra bliss is to bow you head. Then straighten it. That itself will do it. Bend to the waist and whoosh!!

Got some heat this morning, but not much. Was really just getting going when I stopped. Tonight the house will be empty again. Hmmm? This evening should be interesting!

5:45 p.m.
The delivery man didn't show. Being Scotland, he was probably stabbed on the way here. For a while I was hoping he had been. Dukka.

Just as I was starting to write, the kid showed up. We watched a DVD. You have to do that in the kitchen here. And there is no curtain on the big window. Outside the window, there's the Grange Cricket Ground. At the back of that, there's a line of trees from the bit near the park. To the right, there are two storey brick built houses. It all seems pretty far away somehow and it doesn't really look as if you're in a city.

It was getting darker and the kid noticed the moon. The moon is supposed to be brighter than usual just now. There it was just above the chimney tops of the brick houses. Beautiful, brighter than usual moon. Reminded me of watching the moon rising the first night I was in Morocco, having just driven in from Algeria. I watched the moon rising. I've never been able to believe that. One day I watched it snowing in Edinburgh in June and I thought I'd never believe that, and somehow I don't.

Ra Thursday's Child was full of Grace!

Thursday 10:30 a.m.
Haven't had a beer since Saturday. Can practically hear the globules of fat splash off the ground. No money, no temptations.

I finished re-writing the first chapter of my book yesterday. Now I've got to hack my way through the rest of it and tidy it up, add stuff. This re-write is a wee bit unusual for me since normally I like to cut things back. Adding things means you'd got to do more re-writes, but the novel needs another 20,000 words anyway. I reckon there's another five drafts to go, but that's not the same as the benchmark: seventeen times in longhand. I'm sure it'll be the best thing I've ever written and once I get into it, the rejections from other stuff won't bother me so much. It's the creative bit I enjoy. All the rest is just crap.

This morning I meditated for about an hour and a half before I got dresssed. Hit a weird zone after a vase breath. I thought that I recognised it. I'd been there before, but I'd kind of forgotten it. Being there again was like recognising a long lost and forgotten friend.

This is RaBlissBlog! I should keep this blog partly because it might help someone someday who wants to investigate ra bliss, vase breathing and the Six Dharmas of Naropa, but I'm afraid I do not have the necessary descriptive powers. But I do have a hut. And I'm away to sit!

8:50 p.m.
Let's do some real time blissblogging! What have we got and what do we get? Just sitting here and the sensation around my chin and chest is the sensation I usually get variations of when I meditate. Now sometimes I just have to sit. Wee breath, close eyes. A great globule of bliss arises from the front chest area and lifts the shoulders back , and lifts. So you're typing and no mantras, but there's something going on when I'm just sitting here.

Today I came here to write and closed my eyes for a moment before starting. Forty minutes disappeared just like that. Straight into ra bliss. I can't do real time blissblogging. Maybe a jot between things. Bugger it! It's nine o clock and go and sit on the floor till ten.

Ra Weekend is Here Alreadys!

Wednesday 1:35 p.m.
Hello, you Masai warriors, perverts, and Jack the Spam Robot. I looked up the referrers pages in the Blogpatrol thing and we seem to have been getting visitors from something called Livejournal.com. This must have something to do with the sensei and reverend, who blogs on that site. Anyway, some of them are buddhists. Hello, you buddhists! I hope you're getting ra bliss or are going to get it soon.

Since I've given up drinking beers at night, there's really only ra bliss and the pursuit of the heat left. Last night was very strange. Sometimes, a kind of whitish blurring film seems to overlay everything you're looking at. This usually happens anyway when I meditate with eyes open, but last night it came on quick. This is a very good basis for starting visualisations, it seems. Well, things don't look right anyway. Fortunately, you can snap out of the blurry visual stuff immediately. It got weirder.

Michi Regier has started blogging again and has a nice post about where her nose is. Maybe it's who belongs to her nose. It might be about the emptiness and the nose. Nice to see her back in bloggyland anyway.

Today I can row down to the Unheard of Island and just chill. There are no flatheid incursions that I know of anyway. Tonight I'm supposed to go out to hear carols, but I'm dodging that. I'm dodging everything. For the next four whole days I can do ra bliss and write the book. There's not much else I want to do. Right now, I'll send the three chapters to Julia Churchill and go to the allotment. It's a beautiful winter's day here. Cold, sharp, clear. Allah Akbar! What a fortunate creature I am!

Rem Imposters Again!

Tuesday 5:50 p.m.
The internet was off for a day or so and then it came back on. Google literary agents, thrillers, London. I came upon this passage which was praising the Darley Anderson agency. I've seen a couple of these and I wondered who there might specialise in thrillers. Of course, I got a knock back from Julia Churchill from Darely Anderson just yesterday, but it was all very civilised and I had her email address there, so I emailed to ask if there was someone in her office who'd look at a couple of chapters of a thriller.

So I got the name of someone who would look at the book and that someone was her. Really surprised, I thought, what? But that really cheered me up. At least, that's one agent I know how to approach since she told me how to submit stuff to an agent yesterday. I've not to tell them about my webpage or my blog, and don't send them press clippings. So I'll send her three chapters, a synopsis and a covering letter tomorrow, and keep mum about that other stuff. She almost certainly won't want it, but she'll know that I can write more than one kind of book, so you never know if that might help somewhere down the road.

The thriller is Bomber. I'm rather fond of that book. Before I re-wrote the novel, I adapted it for the Traverse Theatre so I've made some money from the idea already. Nice to have someone reading a bit of it. Anyway, if she asks to see the whole book, I'll know that doesn't mean money and after the Light in the Dark scenario, this whole interaction will be much better no matter how it goes.

If I'd been rude, or even felt like being rude, about Julia Churchill in my blog yesterday, I'd never have thought of emailing her today, and would not have had that little flicker of encouragement today. It's nice to be nice!

Ra Light Went Out!

Monday 5:55 p.m.
Julia Churchill of Darley Anderson said she didn't want to represent Light in the Dark. That was a wee bit disappointing because there was a bit of hope. But too good to be true: the kid leaves the house; I get an agent and book deal; I leave the job share. Anyway, I've no complaints at all. Julia Churchill was civil, pleasant, read the book and didn't fancy it in the end. It's just a shame that she wasted her time.

Also, she was nice enough to give me some advice on packages. Didn't like the cuttings or the questionnaires filled in by the kids. Straight letter with three chapters and a synopsis. The magic must be in the letter because the Egors and the half wit children of the aristocrasy who man the slush piles just send my three chapters right back. But I'll bear that in mind because it's not the first time I've heard that.

I contacted Isobel Dixon to say that there was no other agents now considering Light in the Dark. I'll stick with that and try to see if I can get anyone to have a look at Bomber.

But first of all I'll start re-writing the book for grown-ups, and march on!

Rem Good Resolutions!

Sunday 1:10p.m.
In the pub on Friday and Saturday. Dearie, dearie me. Bad, bad boy! Well, today it's all stopping. Everything out of a can or bottle anyway. This morning I found a message from the Samye Ling on the computer. It said, Hotboy, get off the piss and get into ra bliss!

I meditated practically all day on Thursday. Well, from nine till nine at night. Yesterday, I sat in the hut from eleven till four. Then I had to get in my rowing boat and go to Australia to collect a consolation prize for an Awful Writing Competition. The first prize was a set of zoobies that shine like Sean Connery's, which I'll have to get when I get rich.

That might not be right away. Julia Churchill of Darley Anderson didn't get in contact with me last week about Light in the Dark. So that's not looking promising. If she'd wanted the business, I think I'd have heard. Of course, it is difficult to tell the difference between good and bad fortune. So I'll just go out for a walk.

3:30 p.m.
I was speaking to Brian Wilson recently. He's scared of going gaga and then dying. I reassured him. He might not live long enough to go gaga. He could drop dead at any time. What a state to be in! The boy's got angst. No point in going on to me about your angst, pal. Fear of personal annihilation upon death is the fate of the flatheids. Grief, sorrow, lamentations ... suffering in this life. Of course, now that I've given everything up again, I'll probably live long enough to have a changed my cells several times over, and be walking around with an almost completely new set of molecules. And people will think I'm the same joe! Flatheids don't get any of ra bliss at all. All neuroses and no bliss! Dearie, dearie me!

Habit is a great deadener. Samuel Beckett. The wall.

Giving everything up for nearly a whole day really worked. I can get to the heat zone now. The light is a nice add-on. Ra bliss, of course, is ... well, ra bliss. Blissy. The heat is going to be bizarre. But the sensations are fabulous. Rippling and pulsing upwards in this sheathy kind of thing. And there are extra special doses of ra bliss in the ripples of heat. And you just feel great.

The heat seems definitely to be better (hotter) at night. Seems to be switched off late afternoon as the lama said in his book. I think the fire element becomes more dominant at night. But what does that mean? It means it gets hotter at night, stupid. But why? Questions, questions, questions.

I'm going to start re-writing my book tomorrow. I'm very optimistic about this book. It's all about ra bliss. I could divide my evenings into one and a half hour sections. Bliss, write, bliss, write. Try to write on Thursday afternoons and the afternoons of the weekend. You've got a book in a year.

I won't have much time for the telly. The boy on telly tonight said that God told Abraham to be perfect. I'll settle for staying off the piss and getting into the freaky heat gig, and seeing how I get on. A bit of a middle way really.

Ra Here we go!

Wednesday 1:30p.m.
Hello there, Jack the Spam Robot. And you Masai Warriors. And Penguins. If you're looking for wee tee shirt competitions ... well, maybe a wee bit later.

This is the best feeling from leaving work I can remember. Ra bliss! Can hardly wait. This morning the head was stuck straight into ra bliss. But a little bit different again. A little bit developed. Huge oddles of boundless bliss are coming my way over the next couple of days and all I have to do is sit quietly doing nothing. Things are weird, but I'm so pleased I kept practising. So pleased.

No word yet from Julia Churchill. Be ridiculous to get a positive (Yes, you will land on some money) response to Light in the Dark. Everything else is going to be so wonderful. What do you want? I want to have access to ra bliss. When can you get it? I can get it now! What more can a body ask for? Here comes ra bliss!!!

8:10 p.m.
Trotsky once decribed progress as being like someone on a pilgrimage towards a sacred site. You get closer sometimes and sometimes you get further away, but over the course of time you're always gettting closer. Ra bliss is very like this. You hit peaks.
For instance, the end result of straightforward calming meditation is physical bliss and mental ecstasy. When you think you might have reached this condition you may allow yourself to think Wow! But the next time you meditate you might not be that far. It's as if you've reached out and touched a point, but once you've touched it you'll be back there sometime.

Ra bliss of course is compounded, made up of things and, therefore, changes. Since I first thought I was in physical bliss and mental ecstasy, I've revisited that spot again and again and sometimes it has even felt more intense, but the first time sticks in my mind. You can get used to anything.

So while surfing the oceans of bliss, you may find yourself sometimes in a hollow. The hollow will still be very blissful, but then here comes the surf. The surf's up! What kind of wave is this? It's a monster, a hugeness of ephemeral effervescense! Ra bliss!

Of course, most of the visitors to this blog are perverts. But perverts can still get ra bliss. If you're a pervert and want to find out how to get your head stuck in ra bliss, you could do better than to look here.

If you want to read my book called Light in the Dark, which will have Sean Connery playing the sage (It will! Someday!) , you should go to my webpage. If you like thrillers, download Bomber.

On April 6th 2003 I got the first real arousal of heat from the navel chakra. A most remembered event. Never been quite so like that since though sometimes ... tomorrow ... I won't have to see anyone tomorrow till about eleven at night. I think at some point you grow to love the solitude. That's why they don't want to come out and help the flatheids once they've been in the cave for a few years. There's nothing as interesting as your own mind. How could there be anything as interesting? I once wrote a good line: The mind game is the only game in town. How true!

Tee shirt winner: THE MIND GAME IS THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN

Ra Good and Bad Fortune!

Sunday 1:30 p.m.
The amount of time I put in on Wednesday and Thursday is still boosting things. The Domestic Bliss has gone out and won't be back till tomorrow, so I've no excuses for not banging in the meditations. Which so far have been very, very good today.

I got this story from reading it to my kid when she was child. Like it a lot. There was a peasant who had a horse for ploughing. The horse disappeared on day. Everyone said what a shame. The horse came back with another horse. Everyone said what luck. They used one horse for ploughing and the other for riding about in. The peasant's son fell off the horse and broke his leg and became lame. Everyone said what a shame. Then the emperor called up all able bodied men for the army and the lame son couldn't go. What luck to have broken his leg!

Are all emotions afflictive? Is equanimity an emotion? Or an absence of emotion?

They've been doing karma in Bellshill for ages. What's in front of you won't go by you. I'm good on the news about Light in the Dark, no matter what it is. Being rich and successful might be quite nice. Being cool is always nice.

5:05 p.m.
I meditated till the back of three and then put on the Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle minus the hat, which falls off. I was going to try and do 108 sun salutations, but I stopped after 54 and meditated again for half an hour. Then I did another 54 of the jumpings. Lay in the bath for an hour. I don't think I can do 108 jumpings without a break at the moment. It a pr0blem with the lunge. If you were knackered, the lunge could turn into an awful accident!

I know with what I've done today so far that tomorrow will be a very good day unless I lose the plot completely tonight. But I won't. The telly is good. The BBC have The Story Of God on at seven, which is right up my street. At ten there's a repeat of Rome.

I was watching the original screening on Wednesday. The only thing the matter with this show is that I remember I Claudius so well from nearly twenty years ago. Anyway, it's brilliant. Some great parts for women. This noblewoman is sending her rival gifts. There's a tortoise covered in jewels and a slave with a large penis. Her daughter says the household they are sending the slave to might already have a slave with a large penis. The mother says something like, "Surely, any household can find room for another large penis." They must have had a laugh doing that scene. How did they find the actor with the large penis? It was a non speaking part. He appeared twice. The second time he had garlands on his head.

Brilliant bliss today. I'll do another hour and a half before the God show comes on.

8:00p.m.
Recorded the God show so I could meditate instead. I'm going to stop now and pretend to be normal for the rest of the evening. Apart from eat, lie in the bath and do the jumpings, I've done nothing today but meditate. I've made a bit of progress since I finished work on Wednesday. Reckon I might have done about 30 hours of meditating since then. This is RaBlissBlog investigating ra bliss! Now, I will go and investigate the weissbiers!

Rem memoriam!

Friday night: almost midnight.
Ra grief, sorrow, lamentations, suffering in this life ... here comes the list of folk whom I try to give merit to at various stages of this juju every day. A roll call of impermanence ... but just some joes and josephines I have known.

Well, we've all got a big list. No bliss though. Not one. Brave, heroic, yes, but no getting anywhere near ra bliss. In fact, looking the wrong way entirely. Didn't even know which way to look. Flatheid. What a shame!

Ra Second Day

Thursday 10:55 a.m.
I got up today at 10 a.m., which was quite good since I didn't go to sleep till 6 a.m. I went straight out for a paper and to get my hair cut first. No 1. I'm now a slapheid. In character a bit.

I'm not even going to think about re-writing my new book till Monday at the earliest. I need to meditate. I want to arrive at work on Monday impervious (to an extent) to success or failure on the kidbook front. Take the emotion out of it. Appreciate emptiness. Success might be a bigger hazard than failure.

The wish that it be made known that I was the author is the thought of a man not yet adult. The wall.

Success or failure. Are we not supposed to treat these two imposters just the same? What a day it's going to be for ra bliss. Off to the lobby

12:15 p.m.
Superb first meditation of the day! Clearer mind as the weissbier cobwebs dissolve. Images arising sharper with better colours. The eeffects of the vase breathing stuff very marked. Into the zones. The air seems a little thicker. The visual field has added colour tones and distortions. You feel a bit other worldly. There is a lightness and floatyness about yourself. This is RaBlissBlog! We're doing ra bliss today alright! But I'm bloody starving now and need my lunch.

2:35p.m.
Did my Tai Chi set in the kitchen before lunch. Very chi-ed up! The food was great. How much I have appreciated my soup this autumn. Allotment fare. As I've said before, I live mainly on bread and soup, but this is not a penance. My bread and soup are fung delicious! Had the soup and a piece of bread with cheese and raw onion. I must have eaten nearly 300 onions since August.

After lunch the meditations settled into concentrating on the navel chakra. You are supposed to penetrate the mantric symbol, but I don't know what that means. Great vastnesses of bliss opened up though. Then I took a break and stood on my head, went into the lotus, curled down into a sitting position and ..... you're right into a white-out bliss job straight away.

If I were a younger man and had a partner interested in the juju, we could do this together and intermittently bonk our brains out. I think that's the beer wearing off!

There's a very nice photie at Lee Ann's blog and Adolf has one where's he's doing liposuction on his brain.

I could do the run or go to the hut. Or stay in the lobby. Try hard, but not too hard.

7:25 p.m.
I went to the allotment. I'd have liked to run, but went to the hut. Sat till it got dark, then lit a candle. It was mild. Then I went outside and lit the cardboard box I'd brought. It's about the four foot by three and is full of newspapers and other wee-er cardboard boxes. So you're facing away from the castle and into the dark. Light the newspapers and flip over the box so that the fire is underneath, and you're sitting there on the grass still doing mantras. A huge influx of air and the box flips over. Flames shooting into the dark sky. So good it looked corny. The flames were white and yellow, silken as if supported by air jets. But the heat. You're sitting there holding your position like it's a too hot bath you've got into. The brilliant fire only lasted about ten minutes. Fires are great. I love fire.

Back home I got on the Beer Monster Reduction Vehicle and did the six twos after ten minutes skipping. I tried to count. Maybe 160 skips a minute. Hardly seems possible. Sailed through the training session. One night off the weissbier and I feel like jumping over buildings already.

You get a lot of energy by staying still of course. The fire maybe looks so wonderful because of the relative sensory deprivation. Like, just the lobby. The constant gazing. Then the hut. Still, the pyrotechnics were superb.

I might get through tonight without a beer, but I might not. You feel like something to relax with; have a wee rest. Maybe went a bit early with the physical jerks. Tired now. Whatever happens, I'll have a good night!

11:15p.m.
None of ra beers. Lots more of the meditations. What more can you ask for? Nobody close has been given the black spot recently. I can spend all day investigating ra bliss. No complaints from me just now. Being slightly swayed by ra bliss as I type. I mean, come on. What could be better than bliss?