A Just-so Update

No, there is not going to be anything profound in this little update. In fact, in some regards it will even be trivial, if not ridiculous. But to be honest, quite often very little happens from one day to the next. There is nothing much to cause or create much to be different. Other than maybe the weather. Wow, how exciting. Oh well, who said life had to be interesting let alone exciting? But last night it started raining slightly, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Yeah, it rains here in Scotland on most days, and I was glad that it was raining again? For the past about a week to ten days it had not rained much at all, and especially the previous two days were quite hot and unpleasant. Not hot by South African standards, but hot in comparison to what it is usually like here. In addition it was also largely wind-still, the preferred weather by various flying nasties.

I had previously mentioned midges, and they are now just rearing to go, in addition to the countless other little flies and insects and things that are dying to make a nuisance of themselves. At least I am not an animal which can not do much about or against these little nuisances, so I can at least apply various repellents, or dress more appropriately to make things difficult for them. Personally I reckon midgets is as correct as midges is, as they are really like miniature mossies (for the non-South Africans: mosquitoes). When the locals mention that certain burns (rivers and watercourses here in Scotland) are very low, then you know that things are dry. Or when they are concerned that the sea in the bay has been very calm for such a long time, and that it is not right, then something is certainly amiss. But what? I can’t say, I have not been here long enough. All I have been told for certain is that these nuisances, the midget mosquitoes, love warm wind-still weather, and that is what we had been having. But today it is very foggy, misty, and rainy, so hardly many little flying thingys going to be around.

On the more unfortunate side, we may be having our first ‘casualty’. One of the guys has indicated that he wants out. This is strange in a way because he did the previous four-year retreat, so it is nothing new to him. But maybe it is precisely for that reason that he wants out. I can’t say as I have not spoken with him, but I do not blame anybody who after six months wants to throw in the towel. It is not easy by any measure to spend day after day without particularly much changing around you, just ‘looking’ at your mind. It is you, and a few others, but essentially you with yourself day after day. There are preciously few other sensory, or mind, stimulations - just you, your practise, and time.

In a week or so the first part of the retreat comes to an end, in the sense that the foundation practise of Ngondro will have been completed. That is when one does four different individual practices consisting of making prostrations, doing a purification visualisation (Dorje Sempa), making Mandala offerings, and finally guru yoga. At some stage I will go into greater detail about this part of the practise, but you can always Google it. In essence it consists of completing 111,111 of each one of those four aspects. Thus you start off with doing 111,111 full-length prostrations while reciting a certain prayer, and that over time accumulates merit in order for you to be better enabled to ‘achieve’ the following aspects of the practise.

!O-3|-W;-