2024-04-02 16:21
I was… Read More
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Johnmckenzie Blog
johnmckenzie.blogspot.co.uk
This blog is supposed to support my writing. I have eleven books on Kindle, two of which were published by three publishers. I also has ten or so plays produced when I used to write drama. But it's also a Buddhist blog, about meditation, the six yogas of Naropa, and miscellaneous anything I feel like at the time.
2024-03-27 21:44
Seems somehow unexpected, but I put Cold Killing, a crime book sequel to Re… Read More
2024-03-12 14:27
` Luath Press don't want submissions by email. They want three chapters in hard copy. This is the first pu… Read More
2024-02-17 15:00
2024-01-30 13:34
Kate Nixon passed away the night before last in St Margaret's Care Home. I've been visiting Kate in care homes for at least fifteen… Read More
2024-01-12 14:33
I was delighted on Sunday when I found out that Lama Rinchen was going to t… Read More
2023-12-28 23:05
My wonderful big brother, Hughie, was cremated a couple of weeks ago. I can't really do justice to him here, but he was… Read More
2023-12-10 14:59
The photie was picked at random. It's from New York in a budget hotel around nine years ago.&n&hell…Read More
2023-11-04 16:55
I sent the first emails to London agents on the 7th of October. That might be four weeks ago. Must have sent maybe twelve emails … Read More
2023-10-07 17:17
About three months after finishing The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man… Read More
2023-10-04 15:19
I weighed in at nearly thirteen stone and that is one fat basturn, so I wen… Read More
2023-09-11 16:51
I gave Stan from the North till Friday and I still haven't had any word from him about The Bud… Read More
2023-07-28 19:19
Sometimes you think you should mark the day. There were two interesting things concerning the… Read More
2023-07-10 11:56
I got an email from LR Price Publications this morning. Last week I got one… Read More
2023-06-22 18:05
I've fed the fox a couple of times. Sometimes he walks by. I've given him dog food three times… Read More
2023-06-14 20:24
Daisy Chadley at Peter's, Fraser and Dunlop didn't reply to the first email I sent to anyone in this quest to find a literary agent. Wasn't it always thus! If they'd just look at it and then… Read More
2023-06-08 20:23
The Samye Ling is almost open again. I was there in February and was freake… Read More
2023-04-26 17:14
I'm loving having an allotment these days. Well, it's half an allotment these day… Read More
2023-03-22 15:31
It was great spending six nights at the Samye Ling during the Makhala Praye… Read More
2023-02-08 16:09
2022-12-19 21:14
This photie was taken this afternoon at ten to four up in my hut. It is only two days till the… Read More
2022-11-06 21:36
I was really looking forward to going back to the Samye Ling a couple of weeks ago after not being able to go there due to the pandemic for a couple of… Read More
2022-08-26 14:41
I get stuff from the Samye Ling landing on the Facebook page and as I was clicking through som… Read More
2022-08-23 20:09
Some guys have all the luck. Lama Rinchen came to stay with me last night on her way to the Samye Ling. We had a very long talk. No teevee… Read More
2022-07-26 21:02
There's a wee bit of me that thinks I should be somewhere else. It's always on my shoulder, whispering this in my ear. You know you should be somewhere… Read More
2022-05-28 19:37
2022-04-30 11:34
I was in the hut after dark last night.. It's eight years since I bought this new hut and this is the first time I've been there at… Read More
2022-04-27 20:08
I've just finished putting up new free book promotions. Makes me feel connected somehow, but who knows what with?… Read More
2022-04-25 23:12
This is a very good time. My allotment is about five hundred yards away. Now that I am healed from the plague and the weather is wonderful, well, what else c… Read More
2022-03-22 17:37
A little later this year, I've started the diggings. If I dig four rows at a time, it'll take… Read More
2022-03-07 21:24
I haven't cut my hair since Lama Rinchen took me all over North India looking in… Read More
2022-02-10 21:43
One of the good reasons I wanted to get bac… Read More
2022-02-02 18:41
Nothing but good stuff to report. On Sunday I picked up four hundred wee onions from the allotment shop and that felt great. Although ther… Read More
2022-01-25 17:55
I love fires. These have not encouraged up the allotment since the lockdowns, but I had a excuse for this one. I… Read More
2022-01-18 21:09
After about two years or so, today I managed to get access to my Kindle Direct Publishing account. When I was going ro… Read More
2021-09-17 15:19
The lama whose kindness to me over the last eight years, since I met her on the Holy Isle, has brightened my life, came to stay in my flat last night… Read More
2021-08-17 19:14
I read The Autobiography of a Murderer and was most surprised to see that Hugh Collins had been very complimentary about my brother… Read More
2021-07-12 12:03
2021-06-08 10:17
I haven't seen my brother Hughie for over a year. These days this is not unusual. I haven't seen my friend with the MS f… Read More
2021-05-26 14:45
Yesterday, I was in a restaurant for the second time in over a year. The first time was about ten days ago and they weren't selling alcohol inside th… Read More
2021-05-20 16:42
The allotment looked like the bottom photie on the 15th of March, but by yesterd… Read More
2021-05-08 18:25
We usually go out to see some countryside, trees at the weekend because my friend works from home and never gets out. The trees, rivers (usually with… Read More
2021-04-29 19:32
Been weird trying to remember how to navigate around this bloggy thing, considering it's nearly two years since I could get into it. But I remember w… Read More
2021-04-27 17:52
Don't know why, or how, but this is the first time in over a year since I was able to get into this blog. Now… Read More
2019-06-13 18:44
My Auntie Kathy was born in 1926 and passed away at the age of 93 last Monday at around half five in the evening. M… Read More
2019-05-20 12:52
I spent three nights down at the Samye Ling and got home on Saturday. Felt really exhausted. Three nights is not enough r… Read More
2019-04-29 19:48
The last photie is of a dog called Fergus. He had to go to the vet, where the photie was taken. I did not think he was getting out of the vet's, which… Read More
2019-04-17 09:48
Appreciating the drawbacks to samsara is supposed to be a good way to turn your mind towards practice. Every since I was in India before Christmas, I've fe… Read More
2019-04-12 19:52
I say the winter is okay, but it isn't. Right now is okay. How fortunate to live here in Stockbridge! And everywhere life burst… Read More
2019-03-16 14:41
I was supposed to go to the Samye LIng this week, but I screwed up the booking and I've been at home instead. The opport… Read More
2019-03-04 21:59
I think it starts with the snowdrops, then come the crocuses and then the daffodils. After that, come hail or snow, I don't care. Everything is getting bet… Read More
2019-02-15 11:33
I'll be heading home in a couple of hours after spending four nights down here at the Samye Ling. The retreat was sometimes challenging as you'd expect. Th… Read More
2019-02-01 16:46
So pleased that February has arrived. The last couple of weeks, as we've pulled away from the New Year, have been e… Read More
2019-01-22 16:11
This feels like a great time of the year. It's such a relief, such a weight off the shoulders, when there is no more Christmas and New Year looming. Now ev… Read More
2018-12-02 17:59
These were the folk who had to put up my Scottish accent for a month. They are from the back left:Joachim, Marieanne, Me, the wee lama Rinchen Palmo, Eric… Read More
2018-11-30 05:23
This is the last day in India. We don't have to leave the hotel till four in the afternoon for a flight at seven, and I am very happy to spend most of that… Read More
2018-11-29 16:46
This blog is not supposed to be a repository for photies, which is what it really is, but is suppose to be something about writing, and keeping some kind o… Read More
2018-11-29 16:13
We went to a temple complex beside the Deer Park yesterday. A bit of a tribute to the Sri Lankan guy who revived the Buddhist places. Below is a photie of… Read More
2018-11-27 07:10
Varanasi seems like a long time ago, but it was only yesterday. We went for a dawn boat ride. We did not see any bits of human beings floating passed, but I did see an almost submerged dead… Read More
2018-11-26 06:36
The bed in the Monastery. Brilliant bed! Hard and so is the pillow, and the blanket you put over you must be some kind of classic.Out the bedroom window.Getting the shrine sorted in the Deer… Read More
2018-11-25 10:01
This bottom photie has most of the pilgrims in it. From the left, Eric, Francoise, the German Catherine, Olaf, Catherine, Alexandre, Cecilia, Natalie, Brig… Read More
2018-11-23 07:41
If you get bothered by ants or flies or mosquitos, well, you've got an excuse to move. I saw this monk at the stupa with one of these mossie nets that fit… Read More
2018-11-21 14:10
We spent most of the day in the big marquee beside the Karmapa's Temple, the place where I spent so much when I was here last, during t… Read More
2018-11-20 16:27
What can you say about Bodh Gaya? Well, if your thing is meditating, you can't really find a better place for that anywhere else on earth. &nb&hell…Read More
2018-11-18 16:25
It's Sunday so it must have been Nalanda today. The hotels look the same, almost, and there are similariti… Read More
2018-11-16 14:23
These hotels being much the same and the journeys by minibus being much the same ... well, it's the same but different and it's kind of hard to remember wha… Read More
2018-11-13 13:10
We're in Kushnigar. The longer I am away from off-licences and all that jazz, the happier I am becoming. Last night we got to Kushnigar after visitin… Read More
2018-11-11 15:52
We arrived in Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, yesterday after about eleven hours in the minibus. It was interesting crossing the Nepalese border. On… Read More
2018-11-08 14:28
Well, shame about the photies as usual. Say no more. I set off for Brussels at four in the morning of last Saturday and s… Read More
2018-10-24 14:08
About ten days ago I came back from a week long retreat at the Samye Ling. Drupon Rinpoche was the boss and the schedule seemed somewhat exhausting. The te… Read More
2018-09-28 16:31
The change of view mentioned in the last post changed again, as it would, and not for the best. This is due to not meditating e… Read More
2018-09-05 10:25
Things have been going so well with my meditations recently that something of a sense of contentment and satisfaction has occasionally intruded to the exte… Read More
2018-08-20 13:46
I travelled to see my nephew Liam and nephew Neil with their families in Trige, Denmark. You have to get to Copenhagen and then get on a train to Aarhus, a… Read More
2018-08-14 13:50
Last weekend we were out on Saturday, and went to see Craignethan Castle as well as stopping at a very dry looking reservoir on the Lang Whang. We also wen… Read More
2018-08-04 18:41
I read about rain bombs. This is like a tropical storm, maybe the kind you get in West Australia, which happens after a… Read More
2018-07-23 12:40
Found this photie when I was, as usual, looking for the recent phone photies, which are still somewhere indiscernible wit… Read More
2018-07-17 12:44
Shows what a screw up the start of this year was when I only got down to the Samye Ling last week for the first time thi… Read More
2018-07-04 21:31
Somebody bought the three buddhisty books on my kindle thing last weekend. I really like that. It's not the money. I think I'd get about 75p, not en… Read More
2018-06-28 16:57
Aye, it's a rough old game, this meditating! My alarm went off in another room after I'd been sitting in the lobby for bit. My legs had gone numb so I bum… Read More
2018-05-29 15:06
It was a bank holiday yesterday and the weather was glorious. I was at Newcastle Battle Abbey and the middle photie is of Borthwick Castle. You can see Cri… Read More
2018-05-20 17:38
I've started watching Russia Today over the last few days. It's referred to by our media as a propaganda news station an… Read More
2018-05-14 15:04
The top photie shows the view from the door of my hut these days, now that someone else is working the other half of the plot. I was up the allotment today… Read More
2018-05-06 16:17
Yesterday I was at Kailzie Gardens, a place near Peebles. Very nice it is too! … Read More
2018-05-01 18:27
First of all, I think I might have sorted the problem with uploading photies from my phone to this bloggy. So you share t… Read More
2018-04-24 11:16
I was hoping to download some recent photies - a main purpose for this blog - and, of course, Windows 10 is effing me around as usual and I only managed to… Read More
2018-04-10 21:48
About twenty five years ago, I decided to try and get up and meditate for an hour before I went to work. This is probably starting in January with the New… Read More
2018-04-09 12:31
This should be a pretty usual Monday. I'd like to record my practice these days, so here goes. 10:15 began the first medi… Read More
2018-04-08 20:58
Doesn't that look like a perfect spot to go on retreat? Anyone who knows anything… Read More
2018-04-07 10:33
For most of last year, Saturday was usually the best day of the week. There were green spaces, rivers, beaches, castles and a lot of being driven about nic… Read More
2018-04-03 20:53
If you do not get it from yourself, where will you go for it? I was reflecting on such as this today. It's a zen quote I… Read More
2018-04-02 15:38
This year has started off not very well. Didn't manage to get to the Samye Ling or the Holy Isle and I'm still dedicating merit from my meditations t… Read More
2018-03-06 18:29
My friend Heather returned from the States on Sunday and hasn't had a fag for a week! Great! No reason for posting the photie here except that things are l… Read More
2018-03-02 21:01
Today I was hoping to get through to Bellshill for the funeral of my wonderful nephew, my mother's first grandchild, Malcolm McKenzie. Unfortunately, there… Read More
2018-02-25 17:04
It was a bit weird seeing folk working on the other half of the allotment this afternoon. They said they'd been on the list for ten years. Anyway, I've now… Read More
2018-02-22 17:34
I'm half way through the book about quantum gravity, so it's already lost me. But still very interesting. I have worked out… Read More
2018-02-19 22:49
I got this wonderful book from my daughter and her man for my birthday. Most, enjoyable and landed right on the money for me now.  &hell…Read More
2018-01-18 18:23
Started work on the book again after a lay off over the holidays. Always takes a wee while to get into it, but I'll be there after this evening. &nbs&hell…Read More
2018-01-11 13:42
I stopped eating on Sunday night and didn't start again till this morning, so that's me done another three day fas… Read More
2018-01-08 11:31
The photies were taken at Newbattle Abbey College yesterday. Really nice place to go for a weekend walk especially yeste… Read More
2017-12-27 11:45
I found something on the kindle page that allows you to have a "historical" look. Quite interesting. My friend Dave (RIP)… Read More
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