This is hard. And there really is no point. I don't know if I'm going to wait to hear from the monastics. Even if I do, I'm not sure that the result will be positive.

I'm even less sure of what to think about positive result or negative result. They're just ideas, concepts, not real. I'm not sure I'm into this "waiting" thing either anymore. Damn slowest and fastest month ever.

But this is hard, this every day and what I'm trying to do with my every day.

I'm reading a book that my cousin Audrey gave me several years ago by a Tibetan teacher* she follows. The only comfort I can get from it is that I'm finding that I understand enough to realize how little I understand.

But even these doubts and discouragement is attachment. This book has truths I agree with, but it is still a source, an external source, and not as holy, in my conception of things, as the book itself professes.

But it resonates that what I'm doing is deluded, or wrong, or "impure". It all swirls around me, sometimes clear as a bell, sometimes muddy as a swamp, and my software can't handle the information, and my hard drive is getting stuck and jamming, and every emotional impulse in my nervous system wants to push "restart".

It is almost two in the morning and it is raining in San Francisco. I can't tell you how very strange that is.

* This teacher turned out to not be a real teacher, and it was more like a cult. I think everyone around Audrey got that sense before she did. I also got that sense from the book - very negative with twerns of a brain-washing feel to it. The experience has tainted Audrey's credibility to this day, along with previous experiences, and every step she takes off the path, she gets watched like a hawk. She still has a very susceptible mind, prone to delusion.