Ra Kopan Monastery

10:08 p.m.
Sober and straight! Last night I was lying in bed in the corpse pose, doing yoga nidra with a big grin on my face. Such bliss! I sat up and don't know how long I did that for. Was up at seven, but I'm tired now.

After meditating in the lobby all morning (I'm so used to that now on a Thursday morning since I've been part time for a year and a half!), I went up to the allotment for some time sitting in the hut. Then I walked out the gate of the allotments and crossed Inverleith Park , over the road and into the Botanic Gardens. Everybody should live in Stockbridge.

I was going to have a coffee there and start re-reading Glenn Mullin's translation of Tsongkhapa's Six Yoga's of Naropa, which is the juju I'm practising. In the introduction Mr Mullin goes on about how he translated this tantric stuff, etc.. Kopan Monastery in Khatmandu is mentioned several times.

Me and Shiva visited Kopan Monastery about a decade ago. There was an old monk in the cafe wearing black robes. I don't know what it means to be wearing black robes. He was very old and bent, with a stick, but you can tell when some cats got it and some cats aint. He asked me to stay in the monastery. I told him I'd come back when we got back from Darjeeling. I didn't go back.

I've regretted that ever since. Both the not going back and not staying in the first place.

Some people are just totally, effortlessly impressive.

There was a wee memorial garden at Kopan Monastery to Lama Thebten Yeshe, who is the author of The Bliss of Inner Fire, a book that changed my life. I mentioned Lama Yeshe to some people, meaning my (now) guru from the Samye Ling, but everyone had heard of the other one. I remember vividly looking at the wee stupa and wondering who this Lama Yeshe could be.

All this was flooding back as I read the introduction lying very comfortably on a park bench in front of the big house at the Botties.

I was on the other computer, the new one in the living room, before I came to this older one here. I looked up Kopan Monastery on google and tried to send them an email asking who the monk might be and what it meant to have a black robe. This was really the first thing I'd tried to do all day. So it can't send the message, which took a wee while to write, because it doesn't know who the outside server is or something. I mean, come on! How am I supposed to know that? Do the geeks who design this stuff think everyone's ambition is to be some kind of tv mechanic? Only bad vibe of a very good day. I was trying to have an hour off before the Domestic Bliss came home. I should have stayed meditating in the lobby!

Tomorrow I go to Bellshill to see my maw and my auntie Kathy. It takes an hour and twenty minutes on the train. I usually close my eyes and meditate for at least an hour of it. Tomorrow this journey will be wonderful and amazing. I expect ( y0u shouldn't expect anything!) to fall into a deep, profound bliss. Yes, I do!

My sore knee is healing quickly. I can sit easily in a half lotus with some support. After meditating for about three hours this morning, I went through the 1o8 moves of my tai chi set. Boy! Feel the force! Feel the force, Hotboy!!