I'm feeling no better about this place, and I'm temporarily feeling hypocritical putting out that I'm thinking about becoming a monk here. It's not that I'm not, but I'm experiencing the proverbial "Great Doubt" about the practice here.

I don't even know what happened, what snapped that made me go from 100% certainty to 95% doubt. Why didn't I see these problems before? Why did I consider this place pretty much perfect for me?

It's me, the problem is me, and it's ugly. When the darkness I'm dealing with overwhelms me, there is not a place on this planet, inside or outside of me, where I'm safe, and I don't think there are brothers in the world who can support me, despite their best intentions. And concurrently, I don't even want their support. I want to be consumed. I want the void.

It's strange how all this is going down. Last week, I rushed out a letter to the community to submit before my mentor left for Australia. It wasn't a very good letter, I was still non-committal about becoming an aspirant, and I've heard no response regarding it. I probably shouldn't have submitted it and waited until just before they left for Vietnam. It didn't make a difference that I submitted it through my mentor.

Then after submitting the letter, I told my parents that I was thinking of becoming a monk and they expressed no opinion about it, and that made my decision more solid. And now with this crashing doubt, and no one in the community acting as a liaison to tell me what the community is thinking, and with their Vietnam trip coming up, I'm just flapping in the wind.

I heard through the grapevine that I wouldn't have to pay for staying at the monastery while they were in Vietnam, but I didn't hear it from my mentor or any other of the Dharma Teachers, and so as far as I'm concerned, I've heard nothing. Which means I would have to leave anyway for financial reasons, and if nothing attaches me or attracts me to this community, why would I come back?

Why is this happening? It's me. This is all my creation. It's not happening to anyone else. If I reject this monastery and attempt Plan A again, that would be my creation as well. So what's really going on?

Actually, I don't know what the 'rents are thinking. A few days after I told them I was going to join this community, they started pushing me to go to Taiwan for the three months while the monastics were in Vietnam, instead of spending time in New Jersey visiting them.

Now I'm considering taking them up on the offer. I don't know why they are suggesting that I go to Taiwan, there's no reason for it. I have no connection with family over there. I haven't talked to my cousin Audrey in years and her English is probably non-existent by now. Any love from before was lost and I would go there detached and impersonal.

But maybe I could do a tour of monasteries over there. Maybe I could do some family research through archives. I wonder what the 'rents are thinking. What is their ulterior motive, because I know they have one? But as always, I will use their ulterior motive only to my own ends.

You have no idea how close I came to declaring my intent to become a monastic aspirant. If not in so many words to the community, I was close to presenting them my full feeling from the heart that I was going to become an aspirant, not might become an aspirant, but that I was sure about it and that it was imminent.

It didn't happen. The opportunity never manifested. Almost, but no. And then the whole edifice of my being here collapsed, and now I'm picking through the rubble to see if it's just a feeling that will pass, or if the collapse is substantive. And if the collapse is substantive, does Plan A go back into effect?

The practice here might be way too advanced for me. The ideal here is to maintain mindfulness at all times. Unlike any other Zen monastery, sitting is not central to ground the practice here, and reliably happens only once a day, first thing in the morning. Evening sessions are only scheduled when a brother raises a fuss about it, and there are no periods of intensive, extensive sitting.

Furthermore, an environment conducive to mindfulness is not required or promoted. That means the monastics here are so advanced in their practice of mindfulness that they can maintain it without even a mindful environment. When mindfulness is maintained within the individual, the environment is inconsequential.

For me, that leads me to ask what the hell is the point of the monastic environment? And that's where it differs between them and me.

For them, the monastic environment exists for the community, both monastic and lay. Just this morning, one of the Dharma Teachers giving this morning's Dharma talk was talking about how people from all different backgrounds come here on Sundays to practice. He said that he hoped people didn't think of this place as a Zen Buddhist monastery, but just a place in the mountains to gather and support each other.

Touché.

We are all each others' jock straps and bras.

For me, monasticism means renunciation. A contemplative life. I don't mean asceticism. The philosophy behind this school is "engaged" Buddhism, which means we remain aware of and involved in social issues in the world and that we maintain significant interaction with the lay community. But the way it is implemented at this monastery feels to me to be just "social".

Even if the practice here is pretty laid-back and isn't into artifice like hierarchy, I think a certain solemnity should be presented on public days and when lots of guests come up. An air of contemplation and reflection should be maintained and a certain amount of discipline should be expected in regard to lay practitioners' children. They shouldn't be allowed to roam free treating the place like a playground.

Mindfulness. We use that term roughly equivalent to the Christian "holy". Our being mindful, I think, is close to their being holy – to have in mind acting under God's will and God's presence. We just don't have the external deity to worship, so it's internal. Awareness, contemplation, presence.

When lots of people come up here, I find it a struggle to maintain mindfulness. I struggle with frustration and disillusionment. I don't feel a part of the community, I don't feel supported. I don't feel like I'm at a monastery, and if I'm not at a monastery, I'd rather be somewhere else. Like . . . a monastery.

I don't know what this means for my future. This could just be a passing feeling, a learning experience that I will adjust to. If I don't join this community, I don't expect to go looking for another. If I don't join here, it's another shot at Plan A, and if I fail at Plan A as miserably as I did in June, then I don't know what. Crawl back to San Francisco and do . . . Plan C?

I'm making a prediction. I am predicting that I will not become a monk. Yup, here I am making predictions about my life. Predictions about things I'm supposed to exercise control over. That is all.

Let it go, let it go, let it go. I know I can be a monastic. I think I can be a pretty darned good monastic. I think I'd be a boon to this community, and they should be doing everything they can to keep my interest, just as I'm doing everything I can to show them I'd be right for this community. But since they aren't me, since they aren't in my brain and in my personal history, I have to show certain things to them to convince them I'm right enough for this community.

But fuck being judged. I thumb my nose at being judged. I'm not going to bend over backwards to show them my original face. I'm not going to sell myself to them. I'm just going to continue being myself. Which is the point, after all. If they're not satisfied with me not planting a flag on my forehead with "monastic aspirant" on it, so be it. If I run out of money and have to leave, so be it.

I depend on their encouragement and whatever signs they send me to keep my morale up and momentum on the monastic path. And as is particular with me, I also depend on the flow of time moving forward, and what happens when. I also depend on any discouraging signs and the lack of encouragement, as well.

Plan A is still here. It's still my trump card. I still see signposts indicating turn-offs for Plan A. So I'm not going to sweat any judgments. I'm not going to sweat over becoming an aspirant or money running out, or how who thinks what of me.

I just continue to sit, continue to keep pulling myself back to my practice, continue to renounce the material life and trying to come to terms with that. On my own terms.

The way I'm saying it now is that I've made the decision to enter the monastery and become a monk. Now it's a matter of the causes and conditions manifesting and presenting themselves to make it an actuality. I leave it to fate. I won't do anything affirmative to make it happen, that has never been my style. Nothing has happened in my life as a result of me making it happen. Hm, that came out wrong.

Being bounced around like a pinball is more my style, and I see no reason to stray from my lifelong patterns. For what I'm doing in life – my search for meaning and living true to myself – monastery is the only (living) choice here. It's so clear. I just seem to have trouble getting that through my thick head. So come on, world, sock it to me.

A lot has already happened without my instigation to push me affirmatively to becoming a monk. Little things the monastics have done to make me feel included and at home and part of the community. Things like putting me into the daily work rotation without any fanfare, and giving me a couple of sets of monastic clothes to wear in order to fit in and be comfortable.

On the home front, I haven't mentioned anything to the parents yet. They didn't ask what my plans were or when I was flying back. We did have an in-depth conversation, or as in-depth as we could possibly have, though. I got them pretty darn close to outright saying that money is more important than family.

I got them there in a roundabout fashion, talking about my brother raising his baby, about them and how they raised us, about their relationship with my grandparents, about my mother's relationship with her younger brother who lives just an hour away from them in New Jersey, and with all of the answers, it was innocuous and natural when I asked, "So is money more important than family?". "In some ways," was the answer.

Well, OK then.

Your parents die, but that's OK because you still have the money you made while not spending more time with them. You don't visit your younger brother more often, even though you realize neither of you will be around forever, because you're too busy making money, and so is he (or so you say). And when either dies, the money is still there. Your son commits suicide, and that's OK because you still have money.

Then you die, and it doesn't matter that all you lived for was money; sacrificing family, relations, and meaning in the process, and it doesn't matter that you can't take the money with you – because you're dead. To your dying day, you lived with the security that you always had money in the bank in case of that emergency.

I'm telling you, they are Zen Materialists.

Time relentlessly hammers on. Causes and conditions manifest to signal and suggest courses of action. None of them definite; signposts pointing off into hazy mists.

At week six at the monastery, the "demons" have started to emerge. Added to that is overload. Burnout. Making sure none of it shows on the outside. Story of my life.

What I'm so-calling "demons" aren't bad, they may easily be a truth of mine. They may be the same old things that have driven my life this far (hint: the content of much of this weblog), but now they're being re-contextualized. Now a viable alternative has appeared and they are in opposition to it. They've been marginalized.

A new reality may be forming around me, but I'm still asking myself what my truth is. Will it be this new reality, or can I jump down the black rabbit hole of my old one and bring it to fruition? That used to be my entire reality. Now a new reality has formed in the space around me, and the old one is just an escape hatch.

Dig deeper, there is no difference between committing suicide and ordaining as a monk. Everyone will tell me otherwise. Who are they to dictate my truths to me?

My feeling towards my own death is like waiting on line for a ride at the amusement park. I'm excited for it and I can't wait. I want to experience it. But the line moves so slow. And sometimes all these schemes and fantasies feel as real as smoke lazily blown on a breeze.

I heard that to be a monk, you have to more than 100% sure.

I heard that there are people who say they have to become a monk or they feel they will die.

I've been feeling more on the lines of "If I don't die, I'll become a monk".

And sometimes not.

It would require a transformation to become a monk, and the transformation continues after becoming a monk. It would require transforming suffering. It would mean becoming a very different identity.

It would mean transforming my suffering. Delving way back and digging in the dirt to uproot problems and deal with the seeds of that suffering. Back into problems that are of no more significance to the living of my life, but have nevertheless shaped who I am.

Why do I even need to do that? I could easily just leave the past behind. In secular life I could do that. In secular life, I'd have to do that. The only way I could even attempt to do that in secular life is by committal into a mental hospital. Ha, so my secular equivalent of a monastery is a mental hospital.

But as a monastic, those things would eventually have to come up. It would be required to truly transform, which is the aim of this monastic practice.

The seeds of suffering need to be dug up and dealt with to transform the suffering. Transforming the suffering is necessary because we can't help others transform their suffering if we are still suffering ourselves. It is a monastic vow to help others transform their suffering.

It means transforming my identity, since my identity has been formed by suffering. That's why we get new names when we ordain. I'm not so attached to my identity that I'm not willing to let to go. I'm only still attached to my DVD collection.

I called my parents back after I ignored their phone calls all weekend. I don't want them thinking they can talk to me every week just because of the cell phone they provided. But I need to be more compassionate to them. Talk to them as often as they like. A foundation needs to be laid. Foundation for what, though, I have no idea.

They reported on what I see as suffering in their lives; what they see as life. My older brother and his wife are going to fire the nanny that my parents found to take care of the baby. The wife is having trouble getting along with the nanny.

That's suffering for my parents because of the wife's rejection of their choice for a nanny, who they consider perfect. Suffering for my brother and his wife as they search for a new nanny. Suffering for the baby who, although still an infant, directly experiences this wrenching change in nurturing. Suffering for the baby who is not being raised by his parents who are bent on their dual-physician income. Careless parenting.

My eldest brother – as my parents report, which is patently unreliable – is close to proposing to the woman he's dating. Suffering for my parents who can't help but meddle in none of their business. Suffering for my brother who might feel rushed and is looking down the barrel of serious life changes, responsibilities, and challenges.

And my parents suffer from the insatiable appetite of a hungry ghost. Well into their old age, they cannot stop working because however much money they make is never enough. This is not interpretation, I got them to say as much. Work and making money is all they have. They do take vacations and when they work, they look forward to their vacations. When they're on vacation, all they have to look forward to is coming home and working for more money.

But if they all think they're happy, who am I to say otherwise? Besides, what do I know of their lives?

For example, I go to Philadelphia to visit my brother who has the baby, I ring the doorbell, he lets me in, and we interact the way we always have. He says things, I observe him, I have opinions, I make judgments, but I know nothing about his day. I know next to nothing about his experience in the past ten years. I don't know if he just experienced a life-moving event in his job as a cardiologist. So who am I to point at his suffering?

I'm still working on disciplining my practice. This is not a vacation. This is to see if I want to be a monk for the rest of my life. I don't think I have a problem with that concept. I don't have a problem with wanting to be a monk. I think the issue is "rest of my life". Anything for the rest of my life is not something I want made final. 

But that's a separate issue from disciplining my practice. This monastic tradition is pretty low-key and relaxed, emphasizing compassion and connection over strict contemplation and self-realization. Strict contemplation is manifested in mindful living, and self-realization is a larger transformation that comes out of the overall practice of compassion and engagement. 

I'm not saying I get the practice yet, I'm sure I don't, but I do know that I need to discipline my focus, remaining mindful in social interactions and being strict about what I'm doing when. Hmm, that said, right now, in this moment, I need to get off the computer and get to bed. Tomorrow another week starts.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

After being cancelled in October, Thich Nhat Hahn's trip to Vietnam is back on, so it looks like most of the monastics here will be gone from January 8, 2005 to mid-April. I have to consider what that might mean for me, even though it depends on what the monastics decide for me, too.

Someone mentioned that it's possible that I might be declared an aspirant before then and invited to go on the trip expenses paid (there's no way I can afford to go otherwise). That means I would not only be definitely on the road to monkhood, but I would feel somewhat indebted to become a monk. I don't feel so great about that, commitment-phobe that I am.

I might be told I can stay at the monastery with the remaining monastics, continuing on as a paying guest. If that happened, my money would run out by late February at the latest, calculating in a little bit of buffer to get back into secular life. If that happens, that happens. But if monkdom is out and leaving becomes inevitable, why would I continue staying for so long, why wouldn't I leave on January 9?

But what am I talking about going back to secular life at all? Becoming a monk is supposed to be my only living option. What about plan A? If plan A goes back into effect, might that be implemented on January 9? Might I stay beyond late February and let more money run out before implementing plan A? I confuse myself on this one.

I might be told that I can stay at the monastery, but also be declared an aspirant, meaning I wouldn't have to pay anymore. In that case, I suppose I would just continue on this path investigating monasticism on my own terms. I would be least averse to this happening because it involves the least for me to do or think about.

Does anyone still believe that I'm suicidal (plan A)?! Doubt it. I'm sure there are people, maybe experts in the field, who if they read this would easily determine that I never was suicidal. I just don't fit the profile. That's fine, bully for them. As for my entertaining the thoughts, I realize that as I go on, my life touches more people, and so would my suicide. Bully for them, too. I'm responsible for my life, they're responsible for theirs.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

I have to be careful not to get too comfortable with my stay at the monastery and settle into the rhythm of life here. I need to remember I'm here for a reason, that there is a purpose to this. I woke up this morning thinking that I'm at the monastery, this is not my bed, this is not my room, this is not normal, and every day needs to be walked in single-pointed mindfulness that I'm figuring out if I really, really, really, really, really, really, really want to be a monk. Really.

There's a movie I like called Bagdad Cafe. There's a character who has only one line in the entire movie. In the third act of the movie, she's standing outside the door of her room with her bags all packed to leave. The rest of the characters gather around wondering what's going on, why is she leaving? She says, "Too much harmony".

I've never fit into a group. And almost every group I've been a part of eventually fell to pieces. Point being I'm just not a group-oriented personality.

On Sunday evening, the community gathered to watch a two-hour video of the community's visit to Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park this past August. They went for five days at the invitation of the YMCA, who donated their facilities for the visit. The video was edited down from six hours of digital video they shot with one camera, and one of the monks skillfully and tastefully added music.

I was prepared to watch maybe 30 minutes of it, thinking it would be like a home video type of thing, but I ended up staying for the whole thing. It could have been shorter, and the editing did get sloppy towards the end, and personally I would have slam-dunked the ending with abbreviated shots of the entire trip to recap the experience to leave the viewer with the warm and fuzzies.

It was really moving, and it led me to feel that there really is something magical about this community and the joy that they generate and bring. There was a moving scene in the video where the monks and nuns formed a ring around one of the Giant Sequoias in a mass hug. The editor humorously cut to a shot of one of the nuns hugging a tiny little sapling.

And these monks have fun, too. At one of the waterfalls, one of the monks climbed up a precipice and was sitting cross-legged like a mountain sage, and the camera caught another monk reverently going up to him and performing prostrations, both of them ending up chuckling. And another shot of two monks getting into heated martial arts posturing at each other and then ending in a spontaneous hug.

The end sequence was the final meal and the YMCA director who invited the community and donated the facilities for five days (at an estimated cost in the thousands, more than you think), and she was crying through the speeches and the singing because she was so moved and touched by their visit. It's a strong community. And I'm not sure I'm ready for it.

I can't envision myself being a part of something this special. If it's magic, I'm more on the witnessing, interpreting end, not the generating of it. (The children in the film Hook, Maggie and Jack = magic = Peter Pan's happy thought). But it's a real possibility that if I start down this path, I will be accepted and supported to succeed. I just need to take the first step, and I'm still balking while the community waits and watches.

People talk of wanting enlightenment, not realizing that if they're shown what it takes to be enlightened, they'd probably pass. Even if it's distinctly possible. People talk of heaven as if they had any idea what heaven is, but if they stood at the gates of heaven and were given the option to come back to earth, they'd probably choose earth.

I look around me at this great community. I recall my path getting here, my life, why I'm here, what my life was, my identity, my desires, my attachments, my death. I look ahead at going to France for ordination and training, eventually hoping to be sent back here after the two years required stay at Plum Village (sometimes one). And that would be it. My new identity, my new name, I'd be a part of this. So what's stopping me? Too much harmony.

Aaaaugggh! It's another retreat weekend. The third one in four weeks. People are pouring in and I'm providing hospitality, getting people to their rooms. In return, I'm able to have extended internet time in the office. However, I just want to run away from all these people. I need to retreat from the retreat!

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

I'm pretty comfortable that I might be "monk material", but that's not important. I'm not heading towards ordination as a goal, I don't care whether I'm considered an aspirant or not. My view of my path is still the same, it just might lead to being ordained as a monk. Or it can end up being very wet.

Or it might just lead down the mountain road one day for the last time. Maybe I'd find my way back to San Francisco, Inc. Crash at friends' apartments, plumb my connections to see if I could land another job as a paralegal.

If not, anything really, any modest job would do. I would look for cheap housing. Just a room in a shared situation would be fine. Live simply, modestly, humbly. Close to a practice center so I can get to morning sitting easily enough, Lower Haight, the Castro, or the Republic of Berkeley. I would lead a semi-disciplined, reclusive lifestyle; perhaps a secular monasticism of sorts.

For starters, I wouldn't have much, just basic necessities like I had at the monastery. I'd live close to the ground in my modest living space, have basic clothes, toiletries, sleeping bag. I'd keep my hair buzzed short, failed monastic. I'd have to learn how to cook, simple vegetables, although I wouldn't consider myself vegetarian. It might look lonely, but I'd be happy. I'd be free (psst, so why don't you do it?).

The feel of my life might be something like Episode 19 of the anime, RahXephon, when Ayato leaves Tokyo Jupiter with Hiroko and they try to run away from all the confusion and insanity. They just live life simply compared to what they've found reality to be, living out of a hotel room, Ayato gets a job, and all they have is each other until the situation catches up and comes crashing down on them. It's a beautiful, melancholy episode, narrated from the point of view of Hiroko's diary.

With a job and settling in somewhere, I wouldn't be quite so ascetic, but I would buy only what I needed with a few well-defined luxuries. No rampant accumulation of stuff. I'd allow my computer, worthy DVDs, CDs, and books, but only if reading in book stores and borrowing from the library just don't cut it. One of my bikes for getting around, but no more "cycling". Probably one acoustic guitar.

I would avoid seeking out any social scene. Time spent with other people would be well-defined, but I wouldn't be anti-social. I wouldn't necessarily avoid friendships or relationships, but as the past six years have shown, my outward demeanor isn't one that has people dying to get to know me, and I wouldn't try being more socially attractive. Any social situation where I couldn't maintain mindfulness would be out.

A diary-narrated life. A dream. A fantasy. John Lennon might say it'll be just like starting over, but Modest Mouse says starting over ain't what life's about. Besides, here at the monastery is my diary-narrated life.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

I talked more to the person I mentioned before who was turned down for novice ordination after spending nine months at this monastery. I'm not so worried about my prospects now. It didn't take any mystic insight to see that he clearly is not ready. One day he might be a monk, he might even be a great monk, but right now, even I can see that he's too immature, too impulsive, and not clear enough on his path.

He hit upon a revelation that he didn't need the approval of the Deer Park monastics to go straight to the root monastery in France to continue his training towards ordination. And he's right about that, but that was true all along. As a revelation now it's pretty weak, but he was hyped up and rarin' to go like Luke Skywalker in 'The Empire Strikes Back' on speed.

He can go to Plum Village without the blessing of the Deer Park monastics, but the results will be the same – they will also see that he's not ready. And how will that feel? The happiness he thinks he will gain by becoming ordained is false. It's the same happiness that people get when they land a new job, move to their dream city, or buy a house. You can hate your job or get fired, find out your dream city isn't all it's cracked up to be, or your house can burn down.

Of course, you can love the job, love the city, and live in the house without ever anything bad happening, that's not the point. It's the attachment to some idea to find happiness which is counter to this practice. He is attached to the idea of this practice to find happiness, and being a monk requires more than just being able to do this practice. It requires all the causes and conditions for a seed to bloom into a beautiful flower.

He is definitely a seed, but he's a seed on dry sand. And he can be a happy ordained seed, but without the life experience and personal development the Deer Park monastics seemed to be hinting at, i.e., the shit life throws at us to become fertilizer, he won't grow or bloom into anything. He will just be a seed doing the practice.

Escondido, CA

I'm down in town again typing this, even though I have permission to use the internet at the monastery for one hour on Friday afternoons for communications, which blogging arguably is. 

My request for an extended stay at the monastery was approved last week, and I asked for one hour of internet per week. It's not a lot of time, I was exercising self-restraint and it got summary approval, but it should be enough to upload postings that I can compose on a community computer during the week. 

It has all been a blur, for blog purposes, not expecting to have any internet access, then finding this internet cafe, then getting access at the monastery. I'm still figuring out how to focus and redefine the direction of this blog. The whole monastic thing is new ground and warrants description, but this blog has been so much internal space, so much darker stuff, that I don't want to just start taking it in a totally different direction. 

And man, already so much internal space has been covered in the past three weeks, and there's no way I even want to try to recount it all. Like I said, lots of great conversations, lots of like-minded people, sparks and wind energy flowing, and hugging other men like I've never hugged other men before! 

The nuns scare me, though, for some reason. I just feel that they are due a higher amount of respect and decorum, even though that's probably wrong. I avoid them and always bow to them politely when I can't. 

Three weeks. OK, maybe just a bit on the situation: 

I had been reading so much that when I arrived at the monastery, I had all this head knowledge. But then as I walked up the mountain to the monastery, *zoop*, it just all went away, my brain wiped clean. Every time I tried to think some concept through, I just couldn't do it – a good sign, really. Slowly, it has come back, though. 

Another thing I felt early on was that I realized I had no heart. I couldn't find it anywhere. It made me think of how I told Madoka that she was a role model for being for me, but couldn't explain what that meant. I think part of it was me projecting on her having a big enough heart for me, too. 

Life here is pretty varied. Sometimes it has been slow and peaceful when I was the only guest. Right now, there are several guests who will be here for up to several weeks. Weekends often see groups of people coming up for one reason or another. 

I live in a guestroom with six beds, but I have some say as to who gets put in with me, since one of my impromptu duties has become hospitality for guests. I've been able to reject long-term guests in my room, but I'm totally open to week-long guests and over-nighters. I try not to abuse my authorita. 

Daily schedule includes waking up at 5:30 and sitting for 45 minutes at 6:00. Three meals a day with rotating duties. Other blocks of time are spent in working meditation, Dharma talks (lectures by Thich Nhat Hahn that are sent same-day over the internet from the root monastery in France; they have a pretty sophisticated production facility to burn CDs and DVDs that are also sold in the book store), in-house lectures, and other monastery-related things one might expect. I also have a lot of down time to go exploring and hiking in the surrounding mountains. 

It's just a great, loving, compassionate community. Very laid back, very permissive. The practice here focuses on mindfulness and developing awareness of every moment at all times. It is both very simple, and very subtle and sophisticated at the same time. It's also very deceptive because the insight and wisdom of the monks and the community is jaw-dropping. 

What does this all mean to my life? I don't know. I don't need to know. From time to time I go back and forth between thoughts of becoming a monk, which would mean being shipped off to the root monastery in France for at least a year for training, and not, but I just let these thoughts come in and wander and then leave when they want to, because ultimately, I think my decision will just manifest itself. I'll just know. The decision will be there like an arrow shot straight and true. 

I'm not confused about any decision. Either I become a monk or not. I'm still me. I do hope to encounter some demons along the way. If I don't hit some dark times between now and making a final decision, I'd be concerned about being numb. But maybe I won't need to, I've had my share of dramatics in the past. 

I do have a mentor now that I've been accepted for an extended stay and expressed interest in a monastic path. I don't expect to burden him at all with problems. I think we're a good match because I'm not needy and I don't think he wants to mentor someone who is needy (that's probably wrong). 

We've had a good rapport all along, ever since last year, and we may play spiritual racquetball every once in a while and he can shed some insight on my path and give me direction here and there, but I anticipate our sessions will be casual. The joke is that he's my tormentor, being tormented by his tormentee.

Wooha! Internet cafe! I'm being a bad boy.

Monday is "lazy day" at the monastery and I hitched a ride to town (Escondido) and found this internet cafe. I'm not sure it's within the spirit of my stay at the monastery, but I don't think there are explicit prohibitions either. I might be making regular trips to town on Mondays! It's a six mile walk, but I think there is a bus line that goes half the trip.

Anyway, I'm sure you're dying to hear about monastic life.

After staying for two weeks, I submitted a letter to the monastic community informing them of my desire for an extended stay, and my intentions and aspirations and what I might contribute to the community.

Someone told me it was a good letter and there should be no problem, although as a mental exercise I pondered what I would do if I got rejected. Where would I go? What would I do? You can probably guess what would cross my mind, though.

In the same vein, when I visited this same monastery last year, there was another long term resident on a possible monastic path. Eventually, he asked if he could be ordained and they, in the most nicest, wisest, compassionate way, turned him down, telling him he wasn't ready.

It's incredible the insight these monks have. He didn't feel rejected at all, and in the end, he feels they were right. So becoming a monk isn't a shoo in. After however many months I'm here, I may ask what they think and they might also tell me the monastic path isn't for me, and I implicitly trust their insight. What I would do then is another discussion and I don't have time now since this internet cafe closes in fifteen minutes.

It's been an incredible two weeks. The first two weekends I was here, there were retreats, and I made some great, if temporary, connections with people passing through. Great conversations. I have more to say about that, too, but alas, no time. Next time I come to town, I'll try to come earlier.

November 1, 2004; 5:03 P.M.

and this loss isn't good enough for sorrow or inspiration
it's such a loss for the good guys afraid of this life
that it just is
cause everybody dies
- It Just Is (Jenny Lewis - Rilo Kiley)

I wish . . .there's so much I wish. I wish I had more time. I wish I knew you better. I wish I wasn't so stressed right now. I'm trying to calm my nerves by having the Schoolhouse Rock DVD on shuffle play in the background. It ain't helping. Although everybody does need a little elbow room.

It all changes tomorrow. I know you wish me luck even if you don't agree with what I write all the time, so thank you. I mean, if you tolerate my rants, you must be a kind soul, and what do kind souls do? They wish people luck. Logical.

Tomorrow I start figuring out the rest of my life, an idea that I'm still having lots of trouble with. I don't know if I'm ready, but too bad, gotta go. I'm going here, so if you're in that neck of the wood, stop in for a day of mindfulness.

Use it with an adjective, it says much more
Anything described can be described some more
Anything you'd ever need is in the store
And so you choose very carefully every word you use
Use it with a verb it tells us how you did
Where it happened, where you're going, where you've been
Use it with another adverb at the end and even mooooore
How, where, or when, condition or reason
These questions are answered when you use an adverb

I sent out a change of email address email last week. Most of the people on the list probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't informed them, but there were some surprises.

Most notably, Pasha happens to be in the U.S. and will be in New York on Thursday. I'll do what I can to meet up with him, although it being the day before I leave, it may not be wise. Pasha was one of my best friends in college and we fell out of touch for 8 or 9 years. His memory is incredible, but his information on me is outdated. He still thinks I can't stand my parents, and that's just a completely different reality now.

Madoka and I shot several short emails back and forth, maybe more than we have over the entire past year; certainly more substance. Our relationship has changed and I don't think we're special to each other anymore and that's settling in as the new norm.

Before, we always addressed each other in emails, always signed our emails, and always preceded the signature with an affectionate. It might seem formal, but I did it because she was exceptionally special. It was letter-like, and letters will always be superior to email.

I don't know why she did it, and maybe she did it with everyone. For me, it didn't feel appropriate anymore, so eventually I didn't bother with any of those conventions and sent her quick and easy responses, no addressing, no signature, no affectionate. Who knows? It might improve our relationship, but I doubt it. There's not much left to improve at this point. And it's fine as is.

October 27, 2004; 12:26 P.M.

I tend to write only the negative and angsty aspects of what's going on, mostly because that's what stands out in my day to day experience of it. It's also easier to focus on to express. In calmer moments, it doesn't occur to me to post about it.

That says something in itself. Maybe people who are more truly at peace and more comfortable with it would be more likely to post about that, and less comfortable posting about the negative and angsty.

An invisible part of me is looking forward to implementing what I've held in principle for all these years – that I want to be in a setting that investigates the nature of my being more closely, not attached to distractions and attractions of the physical manifestation of some "more real" reality.

The reason why I haven't taken this step yet is because I am strongly attached to this physical manifestation of life. I face and have to admit to this attachment most clearly when I'm lying in bed, looking at the ceiling, stressed and confused about this decision. But in the end, it's something I have to at least investigate. It's a reality I have to face.

There's nothing wrong with being attached to life, life is wonderful in all it's beautiful and ugly, happy and sad, varied aspects. I just decided for myself that I believe human experience goes beyond that and it is time for me to investigate it more thoroughly.

I don't want to float through a life of striving and yearning for something bearable, or comfortable or even wonderful, only to die, even though the end result is the same – I die. Ultimately, all religions are about that death-point and the meaning you bring to it. But ultimately, no one experientially knows what that's about.

Life is for living, and it's probably good enough just to be a good person and do good things. Know what makes you happy and enjoy your experiences, and suffer through your trials and just do your best. You don't need to make outward expressions of faith that, no matter how benignly you express it, is bound to offend or threaten someone.

It's all very nice. I could do it. But it doesn't make sense to me to do that. It makes sense for me to investigate beyond this physical experience of reality, even if it ultimately all becomes a big nothing in the end, my beautiful friend, the end.

So a part of me is looking forward to this part of my journey, my inquiry, my investigation. But going to a monastery is really no different from joining a rock band, getting a good job, getting further degrees, moving to the desert, becoming an astronomer, becoming a train engineer, or being a father, brother, son, brother-in-law, uncle. And, of course, committing suicide, even though that would lose anyone left on this train of thought.

I obviously don't put much thought into getting old. The idea of it has never really been a consideration or an option. But there's a possible path in front of me where I go to this monastery, end up staying, and end up getting old. What getting old means and the specifics that path entails are varied and diverse (hint: the options include leaving the monastery).

On the most general level, it would involve a transformation where issues regarding suicide and existence are definitively resolved. No small thing, mind you, basically a re-working of my very premise of being, but in a monastic setting it's a distinct possible reality.

I think of this because I re-watched one of my favorite recent movies, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...And Spring. I highly recommend it because it's a great film, but I should also warn that it's paced . . . contemplatively. I wouldn't call it slow, but the dialogue is sparse, and it's a story told mostly through images and ideas.

It's easier to watch than Wings of Desire, another of my fave films that I've watched multiple times, arguably because it's hard to stay awake for the whole thing.

Anyway, the film depicts a spiritual human journey in seasonal segments, and the segment I related most closely to was the Winter segment, when the main character is old (late 50s; hey, that's the best I can do in contemplating "old"). There's a sense of accomplishment, of settling, of maturity perhaps. A sense of being done with all the distractions and strivings of youth.

So even though I feel old on the inside, I never thought about realistically being old in age. I'm thinking it might not be all that bad. If I were given the option of aging 20 years right now, I might seriously consider it (taking into consideration the two other options I usually consider).

One week left. I think it's high time for me to start freaking out. No, not freaking out. But feel the same way as when, well, you know. Except in a week, I'll just be getting on a plane. It's so much easier to get on a plane than, well, you know. 

And it's supposed to feel the same, even if it's not the same. Because they're supposed to be the same. And if they're the same, then it's what I want. I'm done. I'm checking out. Right? Right. I'm giving up this life, doing these things, being pulled through this life of habits and illusions. 

There's nothing wrong with just living life, enjoying it for whatever it brings, and dealing with the hardships as they inevitably come. But it's not for me. What a waste it would feel like. 

Entering the monastery is suicide, and it's what I want. I'm not telling myself that just to convince myself. There are differences. Living is one thing, existing is another, and I've always had a harder time with existing than living. I can give up this life by committing suicide or by going to the monastery, but at the monastery I still have to deal with existence. And these theoretical "people", lord knows who they are, can be spared the outrage, pity, and condemnation they'd spit at my killing myself. Whatever. 

I am feeling it. And walking through the airport, getting on the plane, and getting to the monastery will be the same journey and will have the same mental imprint as locking my apartment, taking the 9 San Bruno, transfer to the 23 Monterey, and walking to the beach with the bottle of whiskey and sleeping pills and boogie board. 

I swear once I'm doing it, it won't sound or seem so dreary and morbid. It's just the torment we put ourselves through to find a little peace.

What ever happened to that sense of home? That familiarity? How do I even know what it is? I sure didn't learn it from my family. All I want to do is commit suicide. That would make me happy. That's the only being that feels familiar. 

I'm going to the monastery next week, but there's a sheen across my brain thinking it's not permanent, that it's a trial period that will end in deciding that it isn't for me and I'll leave. But then what? 

There's a reason I packed up my life and left San Francisco. My perspective of my life keeps bouncing around and looking at it from all these crazy unfamiliar views, and I just want it to stop and focus on where I am and why I'm here. It's either monastery or die. I'm not dying, so I'm going to the monastery with the full intention of staying. Easy. 

But I resist and I tell myself I don't want to follow someone else's spiritual path. I don't even want to walk along my own path with other people. I'm a loner. I feel I'm doing pretty well on my own, too. But what does that mean? Go back to secular life? Get a job? Why did I quit everything I had in San Francisco then? 

It's a feeling in the air. A season. The sound of someone's voice. Someone looking in my eyes and knowing. It's knowing someone. A stranger. It's a routine. It's a dream, a warm bed and a roof overhead. It's a smell, something burning in the distance at twilight. It's the first sip of coffee every morning that tastes like the best damn cup of coffee ever. It's the circumference of my brain. It's imagination. It's something not real, pretending it is. Breath. Lips. Intimacy. I don't want to make love to you, I don't want to enter you. I want to melt inside you, I want to inhabit your skin. I want to be continued.

Blasphemy: 

I always find it perplexing that there is a perception of Buddhism that there is no God. And I don't think "Buddhists" themselves have given it much thought, and have simply rolled over and agreed with that outside, colonial perception. 

I think it's more accurate to say that Buddhism doesn't actively worship, as a specialized practice, an anthropomorphized version of God. It can even be argued, at the risk of insulting them, that Buddhism practices what the major monotheistic religions preach – that God cannot be known or rendered in human understanding. 

Looking for the concept of God in Buddhism, God is all things, all phenomena experienced by humans, truly universal, truly omni, and worship of God is an every day, every minute, every moment practice. Theoretically, at least, since in all religious constructs there is a break between what humans are supposed to do and what they actually do. 

The logic would involve God being universal, all-knowing, all powerful. That's something everyone can agree upon. So the easiest conception of God is that God is the universe. What can be more universal than the entire universe, and God cannot be less than that. 

As the entire universe, God is all-knowing as the universe knows itself. If God is unknowable to humans, it is reasonable to suggest that the way humans "know" something is not the only way there is to know something. 

Or another way to think about it is to think of my body as the entire universe. I know my body, how it works, how it feels, how it is, as a whole, better than any constituent part of my universe could know it. I am, of course, God, and at this scale, a human being would be smaller than a String Theory string (if an atom were the size of the solar system, a theoretical String Theory string would be as large as a single tree on earth).  

Encompassing all forces in the universe, God is all-powerful. No force in the universe can be greater than the force of the universe itself and all it contains. 

But this is all very big and abstract. I wonder how many religious types delve on the universe as a practical matter. We get images from Hubble Space Telescope from billions of light years away, but they are just photos, snapshots, and viewing them on the internet is different from the stretches of creative imagination necessary to even try to conceive of these things as real. It is the height of arrogance to simply brush off the immensity of the universe, and the extreme forces involved in stellar, interstellar, and intergalactic interactions whose electromagnetic evidence happens to reach our miniscule telescopes. 

What we can do as humans is apply these big concepts to what we do know as a matter of practical course – our lives, and this planet. If God is all the universe, surely God is everything on this planet, every molecule, every quanta of being, every thought and every idea to the very edge of human consciousness and sub-consciousness. How can God be any less? 

And from there is where Buddhism splits from the monotheistic conception of God by not putting a face, personality, or gender on God, i.e., making God concrete and knowable. And distinctively worshipable. You can have a relationship with God and feel holy, but treat your neighbor like shit, even though as God is universal, you should be treating your neighbor with like reverence. 

As an entity with a personality, God can have enemies. There can be human beings that aren't part of the "universal" rubric of God, which is now conveniently redefined not to be strict universality. You have subjectively identified heathen and infidels; you have heaven and hell, all concepts that stray from an objective universality of God. God is partisan. God is political. God is something less than the universe. And only humans do that.

Suicide is not killing the self if there is no self to kill. 

I think there is a common misconception about the concept of "no self" in Buddhism. Nihilism gets attributed to Buddhism because of that concept, because I think the common conception is that "no self" means the destruction, extinguishing, or non-recognition of our dearly conceived selves. 

"No self" doesn't mean the snuffing out of identity. It's more of a spreading out, an extending of our understanding of self to encompass the universe beyond the outer edges of our skin. When trying to conceive "no self", you're not erasing you or any part of the mental or physical you. 

When conceiving no-self, it's looking deeply at the computer monitor and wondering about the relationship between you and this piece of matter. Thirteen and a half years ago, it was me walking back to my dorm at Oberlin and being struck, wondering about the relationship between me and this particular tree in front of Spanish House. 

Side story: An assignment for a religion seminar was to bring in an object that made us feel "closer to 'God'". I thought it was the stupidest, flakiest, new-agey assignment ever, and hardly appropriate to the skeptical inquiry process that an expensive liberal arts education was supposed to entail. 

I refused to do it and considered skipping the next class because the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a circle listening to someone explain how deeply they feel about their pet rock. But I went to class, and I just brought in my rumination about the tree and explained that the college grounds department wouldn't approve of me digging up the tree to bring to a seminar, which would have required a sizable crew of landscapers and heavy machinery. 

I don't think we were graded on that assignment, but I do remember the professor, who the Muslims on campus jokingly referred to as "the Sufi", staring at me with a surprised look on his face. 

But that's more what no-self means. It's easing the primacy we place on our ego-selves, it's extending and expanding our idea of self to encompass more, especially other people in our lives and around us. It doesn't mean we suddenly become saints, although it often entails becoming more understanding and looking at things from other people's points of view. 

It doesn't mean that we don't argue or get angry. It means that even while arguing or being angry, and in each moment of arguing or being angry, we are cognizant and not distracted that the other party is part of ourselves. Of course, if properly exercised that usually leads to the end of arguing or being angry, but theoretically, it is possible to do both. But that's non-attachment, another concept altogether. 

The thought that inspired this whole blurb was that entering the monastery should be conceived as the same thing as committing suicide for me, but I don't know how to bring it back to that, so I'm just stating it outright. 

If someone doesn't want me to commit suicide, they shouldn't want me to go to the monastery. If someone has no problem with me going to the monastery, they should have no problem with me committing suicide. If that someone doesn't get this, then I feel that my worth to them was missed. Not that I hold it against them if I'm missed.

The spiritual path isn't about congregating in groups. When you die, you go alone. You and another person, no matter how closely aligned your beliefs may be, will always be able to find something on which you disagree. My eating food will not satiate your hunger, nor my drinking quench your thirst. 

On the true spiritual path, you're in a world of your own. Not unlike certain mental illnesses. You stop knowing what's real. But with mental illness, you see things that aren't there. On the spiritual path, you're not seeing and trying to see things you know are there. 

I never considered going to a monastery because my soul was hurting, but at one of the places I visited, someone suggested the main reason people go to monasteries is to figure out some problem they have in their lives. I always thought my reason for going was an affirmative one, because I want to, because I'm driven to, and when I've gone the energy I got was electrifying. 

Problems notwithstanding. Problems are not a reason to go. That would just be running away or seeking temporary sanctuary. That's a good enough reason to go visit, but that's not what I thought I was doing. It's not an issue. I never even thought of how I keep my monastic aspiration separate from my so-called problems; there is just no connection. 

But recently, sometimes that barrier breaks down and I wonder what the hell I'm doing, riding a wave of my problems to the monastery. I don't want to go to the monastery feeling wrecked. 

Do you want to see crazy? See me talk about suicide. It's an art, and I'll make it look like you're the one that's deficient in the understanding.

I bought my plane ticket today and emailed my contact at the monastery. I fly out on the morning of October 29, scheduled to arrive in San Diego around noon, and then it should take a couple hours by bus and foot to reach the monastery, maybe stop somewhere for a final chicken burrito. Seriously, on the East Coast the best burritos are Taco Bell! Don't get me wrong, I like Taco Bell but prefer it not to be the best option available. 

After two weeks at the monastery, I write a letter requesting to stay on and expressing my intentions in doing so. After an indeterminate time after that, minimum three months, I can get on the path to become a novice to become a monk. Or I can decide it's still not time and, shell-shocked, return to society and start blogging again. OR, renewed I return to society, maybe backpack to Tucson and start blogging again (hey, it's a blog, gotta keep our priorities straight). 

I'm going in with the intention to stay and become a monk. I want the secular part of my journey in this lifetime to be over. But if that's not to be, it's not in my hands, I won't force myself to stay if I'm going to be miserable. 

I still have many attachments to secular life that make me question whether I'll actually become a monk, but I also think once I'm in a monastic setting those attachments will slip away like burnt flesh but without the pain; or like hands slipping off the hull of a capsized boat but without the dire consequence. Riiiight. 

The main attachment I have to secular life is progressive learning. There's still so much to learn and experience. What will I do without PBS, without bookstores, without DVDs and film? I don't believe progressive learning stops at the monastery, it will just take on a different form, I just don't know where the sparks of inspiration will come from. From within me? *yawn*, but maybe. 

But nothing like the emotions and different perspectives of films, the easy access to ideas from books, magazines, and the internet; I don't know how I'll be able to keep up with the latest developments in cosmology and the Theory of Everything unless I can demonstrate to the monastery how it directly connects in with our practice and that I should be allowed to keep up with the latest research. I can do it. I can make that connection. But I can't make them care enough to deem it important. 

No, I suppose much of it will be coming from mindful living and living in the moment. Probing the inner recesses of my memory and consciousness for the spark for ideas. Living in the moment is a nifty thing in itself. But once you start doing it, you realize that it sucks recalling all those past moments when you didn't.

I know what I said, but I'm a liiiar: 

Besides, after driving my parents to the airport yesterday, I'm looking at three weeks with almost zero human contact until I get to the monastery. So unless you want to hear about and decipher my imaginary friends, and you really don't, let me rant what I rant. And since I'm monastery-bound, it just happens to be religion on my brain and why it sucks in general. 

Like faith. Isn't faith supposed to be about something intangible; that you can't prove or argue; that you can't convince someone else of with objective, empirical evidence? Otherwise it's not faith, it's reality. So why are there people who go about like their faith is reality and get all in everybody else's face about it? 

It seems to me that faith should make people humble and quiet about it since it is something that is intangible. How can you convince someone else of something when you have no evidence of it? If you found something intangible to have faith in, great, but the true test of faith is when you can shut up about it. Other people will find it if they were meant to. Show some faith. 

And that includes me. I don't even know who I'm ranting about anyway. My brother doesn't try to convert me. My sister-in-law (wife of my other brother) is what most people probably are, the opposite of what I'm ranting about; that is, she's apparently very religious but you wouldn't know it. Heck, my brother barely knows about it. I think he's kind of agnostic, but I don't know, I haven't asked him.

And people's blogs are people's blogs, they can write whatever they want, and if they're gonna write about their faith, why shouldn't they write about it as concrete? 

I'm closer to a concrete plan. I'm now thinking I won't take a train across the country, leaving on the 25th or 26th, to go to the monastery. Flying is just as cheap if not cheaper, so I think I'll just fly to San Diego the day I'm supposed to arrive, which is looking like October 29, and then take buses to Escondido and then walk or take a taxi to the monastery.

Absolutes

Man, I read a bunch of blogs of various religious content today, and I'm regretting posting anything about religion. I feel like what I've written is exactly like what they've written – just . . . something no one can agree on.

People won't even agree to disagree; they just think they are right and everyone else is wrong. So many people don't even want to accommodate a paradigm within their own belief that is inclusive. You can rationalize anything these days.

So no more anything regarding "other religions" or religions as a general concept for the next two weeks until this weblog goes on hiatus. It's my blog, I'll only write about what concerns me, including maybe what I believe in, but I won't fall into that fray anymore.

I'm going out of town for the weekend. I haven't been out of town since going to that upstate monastery back in August. I'm driving down to D.C. in my brother's Porschy to visit Meghan, and then to Philadelphia to visit my brother and meet my *cough* 6-month old nephew.

Just another blue-haired asshole with a Porshy.

I fully revoke my prior post and interpretation of my parents telling me I don't have to open the door to give out candy on Halloween while they are gone on vacation. This evening, he rambled on about something regarding the mail while they were gone. Basically that when the mail comes, I should take my mail out and put the rest of the mail in a pile. That's already standard operating procedure.

Even I can't find anything to be offended about with that one. It was so pointless, unnecessary and benign that he couldn't have been trying to offend me (which they often do without even trying).

If that is the case with this statement, it makes it possible that no offense was intended by the Halloween candy statement, which was equally pointless and unnecessary. I was reading control into that statement but now I'm thinking it may, too, have been benign.

I think both times he was just rattling off what happened to cross his mind at the moment. Both were considerations about things while they were gone, and all property owners are paranoid in absentia. Maybe in dementia in his case. It very well may be that he's just losing his marbles.

I've been all wiggins the past few days over the monastery decision. I'm better now. I actually think I'll be fine once I get there. I actually think it might be something I'm good at. You wouldn't know it looking into my brain these past few days. 

I was actually thinking of instead of taking the train out to the monastery near San Diego, to jump on a plane to San Francisco. No luggage. No one would be the wiser for at least several months. 

My parents leave for vacation on Monday. They'll be gone for three weeks. I'm planning to leave for the monastery before they come back. (Yes, they know (yet they still have no clue!)). 

My doubts are unfounded. My anxiety is about something totally else. 

Suicide and monastery are basically the same thing conceptually. That's a good thing. That's a good way to look at it. Although "good" is problematic, and betrays my rejection of judgments and what anyone else thinks. 

People read about suicide and insist that at the root of it must be mental illness. It behooves me that they totally ignore how much effort and energy I need to spend to maintain this level of mental illness. It ain't easy.

previous post afterthought: Carl Sagan IV
I feel I should thank Carl Sagan for the influence he had on me, as I realize that there is an aspect to my approach to religion and spirituality that relies on an inquiry akin to the scientific method, and not on a blind leap of faith or a superficial attraction to some unknown.

But that's what religion is – faith! And that's true, ultimately we're dealing with intangibles and unprovables that require a leap of faith. But while I do believe in an ultimate dimension that is the source of religious thought, I also think that it's important to consider the cultural, social, and political contexts of the creation and manifestations of any given religion in human societies. After all, they are applied in a cultural, social, and political context.

So it stands to reason that the background – the cultural, social, and political motivations of a religion – ought to be critically examined to contribute why it resonates and why it makes sense. If the doctrine of a certain faith resonates, fine, it's a starting point, but God gave us the power of analytical, critical thinking for a reason.

And with something as important as the foundational belief system on which we base our entire view of the universe, I think it's fair that every little concept, story, belief, teaching, etc. be scrutinized. Of course, even all this isn't infallible, as there are undoubtedly people who do this, or think they do this, and come to the conclusion that the final truth is the belief they started out with and it is immutable and applies to everyone else.

Carl Sagan III: 

Is it fair to describe him as the scientific analog of a religious fundamentalist? Probably not, the implications are totally unfair. But he was extreme. True to his dedication to the scientific method, he did engage religious questions, but unable to test answers and finding no consensus among the experts, he rejected them. This is my own extrapolation, not necessarily fact, mind you. 

He would have been even less impressed by this website, arguing the validity of the Qur'an by using scientific discoveries!!. Don't go there, I'm only linking it to prove it exists. 

First of all, validating Qur'anic scripture using science, or vice versa, is risky business, seeing as science will be the first to admit that it re-invents itself as more knowledge is gathered. Science understood the universe very differently exactly one hundred years ago, the year before Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity was published in 1905. A hundred years from now, who knows how much of the Einsteinian universe will remain unscathed? 

Second, reverse-engineering validation of the Qur'an using science by saying the Qur'an told of these things 1400 years ago is hardly validating when modern scientific concepts can be interpreted in Buddhism 2500 years ago, and in Jewish scripture and Hinduism even further back than that. 

Third, if the Qur'an has already said 1400 years ago what science is discovering now, why couldn't the Qur'an help science along sooner? We don't expect specifics, just point us in the direction where we might look. 

When physicists draw connections between discoveries and concepts in quantum mechanics with ideas long promulgated by mystics of all religions, the mystics aren't impressed. Science has just found another way to get to what they already knew, but the only reason to be impressed by that is if you enhance the primacy of scientific thought over mystical thought, and fine mystics they would be if they did that! 

Carl Sagan isn't even rolling over in his grave about that website, he's chuckling heartily. 

*incomplete entry*

Carl Sagan II:
Let there be no doubt, Carl Sagan was a hardcore agnostic, and his disdain for mysticism and superstition – practically code for "religion" – was very thinly veiled. Point taken. Not mincing niceties about true spirituality being different from how humans have used and abused spirituality for masked secular (ego-driven) or de facto political ends, religion, on the whole, has been disastrous for the progressive development of humankind and scientific inquiry through the ages.

Carl Sagan is probably one of my "heroes" in terms of the influence he had on my thinking, even though he probably would not have been impressed a decade ago when I was tying in parts of "Cosmos" with the Lotus Sutra that I was reading at the time. He was instrumental in impressing upon me the need for critical thinking when sifting through ideas, looking for resonant personal truths.

More importantly, he emphasized a perspective that looked at all of humanity. An alien visiting our planet might be more likely to hone in on our similarities, rather than our differences. So in developing my own spiritual worldview, it was important to have one that didn't exclude, condemn, or discriminate against other worldviews.

So any spirituality that promulgated an "us against them" mentality went immediately out the door, but paradoxically, one that I adopted also needed to be inclusive about worldviews that did exclude, condemn, or discriminate against other worldviews. That is, they couldn't be discounted on their face, but needed to be examined and incorporated in a functional way.

If I'm calling it a "world view", I want it to be expansive as possible, taking into consideration as much of the world as possible. So if I think my belief covers the world, it doesn't do to automatically eliminate huge swaths of representative views just because they don't conform to mine. Other people feel as strongly about their views as I do mine, so their views must have as much validity as I feel mine do.

The working theory is that if I can summarily, in a furry fit of self-righteousness, invalidate their views as wrong, then my views are just as subject to invalidation. If I can somehow incorporate their views into mine, at least take them into consideration, then my views might be that much stronger. But no summary invalidation, and at least respect that they feel strongly about their views.

It's hard, though, in a reality that is based on duality and discrimination – distinguishing between this and that. When it comes to religions or spiritual worldviews, we like to think our beliefs are taking in the big picture, that they are universal. What good is a God that only holds power and sway over one group and not another?

In order to accomplish our limited human perception of a universal God, we imbue ourselves with the right, in God's name of course, to condemn people who don't worship our God to hell. With that kind of discrimination, division is automatic, respect is impossible, and another person's different worldview is an offense, regardless of how harmonizing it tries to be.

Carl Sagan I:
Growing up, my oldest brother was the geeky science-y one, but it gave him the foresight to record the entire now-legendary and classic Carl Sagan "Cosmos" documentary series when it first aired on PBS in the early 80's. He recorded it on our cutting edge, state-of-the-art Betamax, which was the size of a small English sportscar.

About a decade later, I had the foresight to ask my other brother, who still had a Beta machine, to transfer the entire series to VHS. He not only obliged, but he had the foresight to record it at high speed to try to maintain the Betamax quality (historical note: Sony Betamax format was more compact and better quality than VHS, but due to poor marketing by Sony, VHS became the standard videotape format).

Now, a decade after that, I still have the VHS tapes, even though the series has been released on DVD. I don't know, doesn't that make me sorta hipster in a vintage pocket protector-geek sorta way, yo? I'm the real deal, homes, old school! *flashes slide-rule gang signs*

But, man, even with a few dated ideas and a Western-centric bias, there is no more poetic and elegant spokesperson for cosmology than Carl Sagan. I just watched an episode ("The Backbone of the Night", #7), about the journey of cosmological knowledge from its infancy in Ancient Greece to near maturity in modern times.

He nicely juxtaposes in his own journey of broadening knowledge with recollections of growing up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. And then to put a fine point on it, he returns to his elementary school to give a lecture to the kids on astronomy, replete with shots of eager, young, fresh faces, "oh, oh, oh!"-ing and hands groping for 70's-era photos that Sagan was handing out of images beamed back from the Voyager spacecrafts.

A fascinating bit in all this is when he explains theorized basic techniques for discovering planets around other stars. He impresses upon the kids that within your lifetime we would be discovering maybe hundreds of planets around other stars, perhaps having them all mapped out to several dozen light years!

And, as we all know, in the past several years, scientists have been regularly detecting extrasolar planets using those same basic techniques. Those kids were probably just a bit younger than me.

Like I said, I don't read overbearingly Christian blogs. I heard all I want to hear from them after the first time they said I was going to burn in hell for not believing what they believe in. The extent to which I'm still willing to listen to their message is in the form of the Flanders on 'The Simpsons'.

I have a thicker skin with blogs of other religions because I haven't had their dogma forced down my throat all my life, either through media or accosted in person, and can approach them on my own terms, looking for good ideas. Unfortunately, you get the same thing in any hegemonic religion, including Buddhism, Islam, and dogmatic atheism, that reduces humanity to concepts, and weighs "righteous" abstracts more heavily than the human beings who are their subjects.

My naivete had me engage in what turned out to be a fundamentalist Muslim's blog. The picture of the author, who allegedly lives in England, wearing a burqa didn't ring a bell, if you need to know how incredibly dense I can be. I didn't even clue in when I read her piece on how she has proof of Allah and that Islam is the only way to Him. My reaction: Well, she seems to have an interesting point of view, perhaps I could sit down for spot of tea with her. Yea, her, me, and Jimmy Swaggart.

I decided to leave a comment after reading her spiel lambasting the (liberal) idea that everyone's opinion has equal validity, and that post-modern thought is completely wrong in positing that humans and truth are social constructs. It would mean that everybody is right and nobody is wrong, and that can't be so. Of course, in this moral dynamic, she and her narrow, intolerant view bearing the flag for Islam and God are the "right".

I naively left a comment, ironically worded in a way meant to respect her opinion, pointing out that certain moral values she mentioned in her post were the same ones that George W. Bush would attribute to himself, suggesting these things are subjective.

Stepping into the vernacular, I mentioned that only God holds the truth, and it is only before God that the truth of Judgment will be known. Until then we should be mindful of our own intolerance and hate because those are ugly things to bring before God.

Her response was that my comment proved her original post exactly. See? That's what I'm talking about!

It didn't take too much longer for me to realize I had encountered firsthand the Islamic counterpart of the Christian conservative right, and that this was not a person with whom anything could be discussed. She called opinions the "bastard daughter of conceit" (and you'd think that would have clued me in to stop reading and get off that page, but NOOOO!).

So this was a woman posting an opinion piece, and I do remember she used "IMHO" in the first sentence, so she was at least nominally aware that it was only an opinion, criticizing the equal validity of subjective opinions. And maybe I proved her point by preaching tolerance instead of outright telling her that her opinion was full of shit and that she was a hypocritical idiot, like I should have. I don't know. The logic of fundamentalists confuses the hell out of me.

Sometimes I let my feelings almost catch up to me. Sometimes I think I should let them overtake and overwhelm me. Sometimes I wonder if that's going to happen during my trial period at the monastery, inshah'allah, anyway.

The suggestion is that it can't be pretty if it happens :\

I have to go to the monastery, I have to make this happen now, there is nothing left to pursue at this point in my life. Going to the monastery was the only living option as an alternative to killing myself, and since I failed miserably at that, this is what I have to do. I promised.

I wasted 11 years in San Franisco, blew all the relationships that I had, abandoned half of the people who meant something to me and got abandoned by the other half (all the same people, btw), fumbled all the opportunities that came my way, gave up, quitter, loser, moved back in with my parents, pathetic, I have nothing, no potential, no motivation, and a terrible haircut.

I don't know if I'm ready for the monastery. I felt so comfortable there when I was there last year, it was so right, it was so peaceful and I don't know if I deserve or if I'm ready for that. The community was so joyful and I still have these roiling rapids of issues careening through my psyche. I'm still looking backwards, looking over my shoulder, looking for what I want, looking for a line to grab onto, where did all my friends go? The friends who would have stood on the sand waving as I sank beneath the surf. Oh yeah.

The same "friends" who will wish me luck at the monastery. Not the ones who will ask me what the hell do I think I'm doing, and what the hell am I doing in New Jersey; to move back to wherever, move to wherever they are, I can stay with them until I get settled and until then they won't let me out of their sight. And not the one who will tell me to fuck whatever happened in past lives and tell me to marry her because, boy, were we meant for each other, spiritually at least.

why didn't i leave in june? why didn't i leave in june? why didn't i leave in june? why didn't i leave in june? why didn't i live in you?

Visualization meditation for anyone who condemns suicide:
Close your eyes until all you can see is just a crack of light. Concentrate on your breath as it enters your nose and exits. Follow ten breaths. Concentrate on your ears and notice everything you can hear. Maintain concentration for ten breaths. Concentrate on your mouth with your tongue gently pressed to the top of your mouth and the back of your upper teeth, and focus on your mouth's sensations for ten breaths. Likewise, do the same for your whole body (skinbag), and then for your mind and thoughts.

Now, visualize a dark space, a void. It's very quiet and calm. In the distance, visualize a person, just a speck, walking towards you. As the person gets closer, you discern it's a dude. When he's 10 paces away, visualize him as of Asian race, with a terrible haircut and an even worse blue dye job that has faded to a gross algae green. As he closes the distance, you notice in your visualization that he is holding a wet trout in his right hand, and as he comes up to you he smacks you across the side of the head with it.
End visualization meditation.

Thank you, I feel better now. Yes, keep moving forward towards monastery. Get to shave my head.

childhood living is easy to do:
So what's your reaction when your parents say to you, out of the blue, "For Halloween, we will still be on vacation. You will be the only one home. You don't have to open the door for anyone. Just ignore. Don't have to give candy"?

Family dynamics are funny things. Of course I thought to myself, 'what the hell?', but just dismissed it with, "uh-huh". Ignorable.

So why the random statement? Expression of power? Shot-calling? We set the rules around here. It doesn't matter how random it is, we can tell you what to do even though we can't enforce it and actually couldn't care less, and you probably will do whatever you'll do?

Possibly. They sure weren't making conversation. The subtext probably is "we can make these silly demands to mildly humiliate you because you don't have a job and have no value". Whatever they're insinuating doesn't bother me, that's not why I'm writing about it, but it's interesting to mull over the intricacies of family dynamics and consider the various and sundry ways that exchange could have escalated and become heated.

Most of the time, like this one, it's not worth it, just concede, all the while knowing you'll be handing out candy (unless from years of experience and lore, neighborhood kids already know not to even try at this house). True, sometimes you need to fight for even a little bit of your pride in order to survive the ordeal of family, and then it's understandable, but make sure you're conscious of it. It's not substantive, and if you think it's substantive, you protect your pride at the expense of your soul.

I've repressed most of the memories (or just forgotten them – moving away and not having to deal with the 'rents for 11 years does wonders), but little bits and peeks have been reminding me that I think I perceived my father a tyrant while growing up, and that is what I was fighting against. It's weird to recall that because he's a feeble old man now. I think it would be weird for him now to know I might have perceived him as a tyrant.

And we're at the point where we're supposed to be looking back at it all and it's all supposed to seem funny.

Pushing that damn rock. It's already halfway through September and I need to move forward. Being here at my parents' house is the part of the journey where I fall into deceptively delicious circumstances and have to fight temptation. 

It's so easy and comfortable here. I pay no rent. I'm fed. I function on my own schedule. No one disturbs me. No one imposes on me. I sit twice a day for 45 minutes. I read to my heart's content. I'm memorizing the 10 novice precepts for Deer Park Monastery (and trying not to criticize them from my legal writing trained perspective). I go on bike rides on sunny days. I go watch matinees when there's a good one. I ride into Manhattan. I have my own room. I have a kick ass stereo. I watch sunsets and squirrels on the lawn. I practice guitar. I practice shakuhachi. I blog. 

But this isn't freedom, either. It's my parents' house where tension is a form of communication. I have to function within their parameters. I have to be sensitive to their wants and needs having no way of knowing or finding out what they are. I have no social life. I have no friends. I'm completely useless and unproductive. All take, no give. I'm worse than a parasite. And my parents know that. They're not interested in how I fill my days. All they know is that I don't have a job. 

It's come to a head. It's so easy to fall into entropy, to not move if nothing is moving me. I hadn't heard from my contact at Deer Park for a while, undoubtedly because he's been busy preparing for an extended retreat that starts this weekend. So I sent off a general email to the monastery trying to get information to plan out when to begin my trial period. I got a reply right back from my contact, and things are clearing through – not much left to stop me from going *starts hyperventilating*. 

It's a game of trust. Close my eyes. Hold my arms out. Shift weight backwards and start to fall . . .

Crap, I keep writing about religion, a topic which is blog poison. I, myself, can't get off a blogpage fast enough once I see "Bible study", "church group", or by anyone named Matthew, Mark, Luke and/or John. Folks who, I assume, can't get off a blogpage fast enough once they don't see those things.

I swear to god, I kid you not, I came across someone's page yesterday with pictures of a group of white girls in Oregon washing each other's feet in one of their parents' living rooms in some church related ritual. In gray, Rubber Maid basins! It was so freaky I didn't even get a link. Ran to the bathroom and washed my eyes with soap.

That was mean. I shouldn't have said it. It's growing up non-Christian in this Christian country that made me do it. I really have no problem with Jesus and his teachings, but the vocal American Christians are a scary lot (I realize many, if not most, Christians don't go around spouting it, on blog or otherwise, and I apologize if I offend).

Although I do have serious problems with Pauline Christianity, as it seems much more about Paul than Jesus, and apparently most Pauline Christians don't even really know who St. Paul was or how he re-shaped Jesus's message. If Jesus were resurrected today and said, "What's with all the goyim?", point to Paul. And if you introduce him to the Roman Catholic Church and he asks, "Wasn't Pontius Pilate Roman?", just shrug like you have no idea what he's talking about.

(Here was a good place to end this post, and it's still a good place to stop reading, but noooo, I just had to go on and walk out onto the thin ice.)

But even if you were kind enough to give me that, my issues with Christianity don't bother millions of Christians, why should they bother me? It's about their faith, and if it grounds them and guides them, so be it and respect it.

I did read through one Christian site that cited twisted facts and hateful interpretations trying to debunk Islam – where does that get anyone? Where does that get him? And debunking Christianity will have as much effect on Christians as Christians telling me I'm going to burn in hell has on me. They are going to burn in hell for being so self-righteous and having so little compassion for someone like me who's going to burn in hell (see ya there! I'll bring the hot dogs, you bring the grill, we'll have plenty of fire).

In the end, I think the Qur'an puts it best when it says (interpretation and paraphrased*) it doesn't matter what your faith is or what you do or think you did, God will decide. Emphasis on the "God will decide". Or using non-religious terms, it's not in your hands. But good deeds are good deeds. They don't stop at the borders of religions. And hate is hate. It's ugly in any interpretation of divinity.

Who amongst us is so arrogant as to belittle God so much to say that he or she knows God? Who knows the direct way to God? Show me the path, and it and your life better be pretty perfect and be able to account for the salvation of all humankind, because any less is not God's love. Of course the folks who wrote the "Left Behind" series are going straight to so many levels of hell simultaneously.

*I'll try to find a cite, but don't hold your breath.

Saying that I don't consider myself spiritual or religious probably needs to be qualified. Everything is spiritual. It's just reality. I'm not particularly spiritual. It might be like the fish being told to describe what water is. It also probably has something to do with my rebel-without-a-cause reaction to labels. 

Another reason I don't like being identified as Buddhist is because that describes a separation between the self and that most personal descriptive, whatever religion we affiliate with. It reminds me of that ironic scene in The Simpsons when Lisa is running around town proclaiming, "I'm a Buddhist!", a most "un-Buddhist" thing to be doing. 

I've always wondered if the writers knew enough about Buddhism to consciously put in that irony. I wouldn't put it past them, when their humor takes the high road, the references can be pretty obscure (lantanides and actinides, anyone? (from when Homer goes back to college)). 

I react against the "Buddhist" label because for some stupid reason in my mind that automatically registers the possibility of "non-Buddhist". And when applied to my core identity, there is no "non-Buddhist", and working backwards that means no "Buddhist" either. Opposites, duality, you can't have one without the other. The existence of one automatically creates the other. 

My core identity just is. I can't not be this core identity, I can't ever lose "faith", I can't ever not be developing from this core identity, I can't ever convert to it or renounce it. If you take the beliefs associated with this core identity and call it "Christianity" or "Islam", then I'm either Christian or Muslim. 

But no, our reference systems and language place most of what I say into the Buddhist category, so that's what I am, but that reference is not for me, it's for you, and you couldn't care less what I am or what I'm ranting about, so wtf? 

What does it mean anyway when someone says, "oh, that person is very religious"? Is it that they follow certain laws or precepts, certain proscribed behavior? How they behave towards other human beings? How much they study their canon and pray or chant? Is it internal or external and which is more important? Is outside perception important – that people see you "being religious", going to church, mosque, synagogue? 

The questions go on and the answers differ according to religion. Ultimately I find the inquiry meaningless and tedious. What happens to being religious when Christianity is associated with persecution and colonization and Islam is associated with terrorism? 

Buddhism isn't infallible either if you start buying into the Bush double-speak of bringing peace through war. It's a big world, there are undoubtedly pro-Bush Buddhists who buy into that. Better to renounce the whole concept of religion altogether. Focus on the self and the community, but once religion creates an "other" that's where the problems start.

I've been thinking a lot about the monastery option, trying to get clear and critical about it. It's not going to change anything, but . . . I'm procrastinating. 'Trying to get clear and critical' is what I do as long as I'm not making and implementing the decision. 

I visited that monastery last month in upstate New York, and their practice just didn't resonate, and I could tell if I stayed longer and was exposed to more aspects of their practice, it still wouldn't resonate (my imaginary alter ego says that's precisely a reason why I should try it out there – a good point, but one on which I shan't dwell). 

Even though the head honcho there is pretty incredible, and, mind you, not present when I was visiting, I was very critical, nit-picking maybe, about a bunch of aspects of their practice which was very distracting to me. But part of my consideration is taking apart and letting go of my criticisms of that monastery's practice, as well as being critical of any idealization or romanticization of the monastery I do want to go to near San Diego. 

And part of the whole consideration boils down to 'why become a monastic?'. I don't think of myself as being particularly religious or spiritual. I'm more into the metaphysical, even the psychological, and as far as the religion is concerned, the central attraction is the promotion of peace, understanding, and a wider, holistic view of the world and the people in it. 

Hm, damn. I thought there was a larger discussion in this, but it's easy to question monasticism while I'm sitting at my parents' house with no other human interaction or concerns, and I can't go on living like this much longer. I certainly have no desire to go back to secular life; get a job, get a life, make friends, get a relationship, ride a bike, play an instrument, buy music, buy DVDs, call friends, drink beer, lose friends, drink whisky, drink gin, blog my little heart out, on and on and on, no and no and no.