Ra Samye Day 6
Saturday 9.15 a.m.
Just in here for a quick cup of coffee to help me stay awake all morning. At the start of the 8 o clock meditation in the temple with everyone else I felt really tired, but gradually became a lot livelier!
Emptiness. Doing a lot on the emptiness. Well, a lot more than usual. You can't sell emptiness to flatheids. Actually, you can't sell ra bliss to flatheids either. Well, if people don't want to meditate, that's up to them.
Everything should be seen as waves on dharmakaya, it seems. I was doing the meditation on emptiness I mentioned in one of the previous posts and started to try to fix on the experience of non-self and emptiness I had ten years ago. It's in the Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf. That might have been an alright book if the publisher hadn't gone phut and I'd got to write it another fifteen times. Anyway, I've seen emptiness and that makes me obviously confident in doing these mind on mind meditations. The lama told me to mahamudra meditations a couple of years ago, but I didn't know what he meant. I'd understood a different interpretation of the word, or was just a bit thick about it. Anyway, being doing a bit of that today. Here come ra emptiness! Doesn't have quite the same ring as here comes ra bliss!! I'm supposed to be combining bliss and emptiness. So I'll just go and do that then!
3 p.m.
Just another cup of coffee, Jack! I've been listening to the Sherab Ling boys giving it laldy again up at the temple. Yesterday, I asked one of them for the time as the joe was going by on the way out the door.
I haven't got a watch. I've brought a travelling alarm clock with me. I think I got two of them for two pounds out of Woolworths ages ago. Anyway, it hasn't got a proper back piece and the battery keeps coming out, so I waved it at this joe and gestured for a look at his watch. Three o clock, it said.
What a nice watch! A gold job. Expensive looking. I don't know anything about buddhist monks really. Do they take vows of poverty? You're supposed to be practising non-attachment. You could do that with a gold watch. I could have asked him to swop it for my old travelling alarm. It's not really what you think it is, Popeye! It's a co-emergence of appearance and emptiness. Oh well!
Speaking of poor basturns, I noticed this morning that the sensei and reverend has put out the begging bowl. He must have pawned his gold watch. If someone doesn't cough up with a bag of beans, some fat Tennessean is going to go missing in the woods soon! Another one!
I wrote in my diary in big letters just before lunch yesterday. RED LETTER DAY. This means there's been a big advance that day. I went to the back temple this morning after being here and, well, you can't write that in your diary every day! Fabulous bliss and visualisations! If I'd just had that, the whole week would have been worth it.
Trying not to go to sleep after the gorgeous lunch (the food here is brilliant!), I went into the front temple to listen to the gong bashing. Tried not to doze off at first and then it all just carried on! I'm getting hot, Jack! The bliss if off the scale and visualisations of the deity and the mandala are vastly improved. I've been doing more vase breathing than normal as well, really giving it the gun this morning. I don't really know where I'm at, but the navel chakra symbol is starting to look like the red on traffic lights, very bright!
Now that my lunch is probably settled, I'll go back to the back temple (there's never anyone in there usually but me. What luxury!) and get on with this joining ra bliss to emptiness. What larks!
I was in the back temple (middle temple now, they'd spilt the placei into three) and lay down for a bit of a relax. Dozed off in yoga nidra. Came to in ra bliss. Very nice.
I'm blogging just now because I think I've just spent one of the most wonderful hours of my life. They'd done the Chenrezig prayers and they usually all leave. I was gazing on one of my favourite images: the blue medicine buddha. It's a postcard. Brilliantly vivid in it's colours. The rest of the lights in there are golden and brown. As you gaze on the image, everything kind of merges into a golden glowing.
The Big Indian stayed on and he and two nuns started playing the ritual instruments while the Big Indian sang songs of .... realisation? ... songs from old Tibet. He doesn't speak English. He's been a long time out of Tibet. I'm a big fan of the Big Indian!
How far back does this music go? Anyway, I'm doing this emptiness stuff ... the image, myself, then mind like space with knowing. Everything appearing in mind and empty.
Then I start doing the deity yoga. The deity inseparable from my guru, of the same nature, etc. You try to be in the mandala and do the offering and then get the deity to dissolve into your through the top of your head.
I can't begin to explain to you, Jack, how wonderful this feels. Even if you weren't a spam robot, it would be way beyond the scope of your poor, flatheided experience.
As you do the vase breath, you go into an awareness of the three channels with the red mantric navel symbol at the bottom. The heat feels wonderful, ra bliss unbelievable. All the time the Venerable Big Indian is making ancient music. You can take your awareness into the blue channel and try to become the symbols starting from the top white one and moving down. You try to become the red mantric symbol.
As you're doing the breath, you can move into the mandala, then the three tubes, then into the blue channel. A real practitioner would be able to the this just like that. I'm still vague, but the feelings, the feelings, Jack. I just can't describe the feelings.
It's a gift, Jack. I've been given a great gift from these people. The most wonderful of people. £15 for a tent and £1:85 for a coffee and half an hour on the machine. It's the deal of a lifetime, Jack. Maybe the deal of a great many lifetimes!!
The machin is about to close. It's goodnight and sweet dreams from RaBlissBlog!
Just in here for a quick cup of coffee to help me stay awake all morning. At the start of the 8 o clock meditation in the temple with everyone else I felt really tired, but gradually became a lot livelier!
Emptiness. Doing a lot on the emptiness. Well, a lot more than usual. You can't sell emptiness to flatheids. Actually, you can't sell ra bliss to flatheids either. Well, if people don't want to meditate, that's up to them.
Everything should be seen as waves on dharmakaya, it seems. I was doing the meditation on emptiness I mentioned in one of the previous posts and started to try to fix on the experience of non-self and emptiness I had ten years ago. It's in the Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf. That might have been an alright book if the publisher hadn't gone phut and I'd got to write it another fifteen times. Anyway, I've seen emptiness and that makes me obviously confident in doing these mind on mind meditations. The lama told me to mahamudra meditations a couple of years ago, but I didn't know what he meant. I'd understood a different interpretation of the word, or was just a bit thick about it. Anyway, being doing a bit of that today. Here come ra emptiness! Doesn't have quite the same ring as here comes ra bliss!! I'm supposed to be combining bliss and emptiness. So I'll just go and do that then!
3 p.m.
Just another cup of coffee, Jack! I've been listening to the Sherab Ling boys giving it laldy again up at the temple. Yesterday, I asked one of them for the time as the joe was going by on the way out the door.
I haven't got a watch. I've brought a travelling alarm clock with me. I think I got two of them for two pounds out of Woolworths ages ago. Anyway, it hasn't got a proper back piece and the battery keeps coming out, so I waved it at this joe and gestured for a look at his watch. Three o clock, it said.
What a nice watch! A gold job. Expensive looking. I don't know anything about buddhist monks really. Do they take vows of poverty? You're supposed to be practising non-attachment. You could do that with a gold watch. I could have asked him to swop it for my old travelling alarm. It's not really what you think it is, Popeye! It's a co-emergence of appearance and emptiness. Oh well!
Speaking of poor basturns, I noticed this morning that the sensei and reverend has put out the begging bowl. He must have pawned his gold watch. If someone doesn't cough up with a bag of beans, some fat Tennessean is going to go missing in the woods soon! Another one!
I wrote in my diary in big letters just before lunch yesterday. RED LETTER DAY. This means there's been a big advance that day. I went to the back temple this morning after being here and, well, you can't write that in your diary every day! Fabulous bliss and visualisations! If I'd just had that, the whole week would have been worth it.
Trying not to go to sleep after the gorgeous lunch (the food here is brilliant!), I went into the front temple to listen to the gong bashing. Tried not to doze off at first and then it all just carried on! I'm getting hot, Jack! The bliss if off the scale and visualisations of the deity and the mandala are vastly improved. I've been doing more vase breathing than normal as well, really giving it the gun this morning. I don't really know where I'm at, but the navel chakra symbol is starting to look like the red on traffic lights, very bright!
Now that my lunch is probably settled, I'll go back to the back temple (there's never anyone in there usually but me. What luxury!) and get on with this joining ra bliss to emptiness. What larks!
I was in the back temple (middle temple now, they'd spilt the placei into three) and lay down for a bit of a relax. Dozed off in yoga nidra. Came to in ra bliss. Very nice.
I'm blogging just now because I think I've just spent one of the most wonderful hours of my life. They'd done the Chenrezig prayers and they usually all leave. I was gazing on one of my favourite images: the blue medicine buddha. It's a postcard. Brilliantly vivid in it's colours. The rest of the lights in there are golden and brown. As you gaze on the image, everything kind of merges into a golden glowing.
The Big Indian stayed on and he and two nuns started playing the ritual instruments while the Big Indian sang songs of .... realisation? ... songs from old Tibet. He doesn't speak English. He's been a long time out of Tibet. I'm a big fan of the Big Indian!
How far back does this music go? Anyway, I'm doing this emptiness stuff ... the image, myself, then mind like space with knowing. Everything appearing in mind and empty.
Then I start doing the deity yoga. The deity inseparable from my guru, of the same nature, etc. You try to be in the mandala and do the offering and then get the deity to dissolve into your through the top of your head.
I can't begin to explain to you, Jack, how wonderful this feels. Even if you weren't a spam robot, it would be way beyond the scope of your poor, flatheided experience.
As you do the vase breath, you go into an awareness of the three channels with the red mantric navel symbol at the bottom. The heat feels wonderful, ra bliss unbelievable. All the time the Venerable Big Indian is making ancient music. You can take your awareness into the blue channel and try to become the symbols starting from the top white one and moving down. You try to become the red mantric symbol.
As you're doing the breath, you can move into the mandala, then the three tubes, then into the blue channel. A real practitioner would be able to the this just like that. I'm still vague, but the feelings, the feelings, Jack. I just can't describe the feelings.
It's a gift, Jack. I've been given a great gift from these people. The most wonderful of people. £15 for a tent and £1:85 for a coffee and half an hour on the machine. It's the deal of a lifetime, Jack. Maybe the deal of a great many lifetimes!!
The machin is about to close. It's goodnight and sweet dreams from RaBlissBlog!
posted by Hotboy at 9:24 AM
1 Comments:
Evocative writing Hotboy.
Not much I can say, except I remember the food.
Do you help with the dishes? I would. A good entree.
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