I guess this is safely what may be called a "lull" in my life. Nothing going on. Nothing planned. Turning around and shining a flashlight of skepticism on the past eight months to scrounge out what was real and what was clutching at straws.

Everything I believe in is real, as it should be. To the extent that what I believe in had to be couched in religious terminology is merely unfortunate. Religion is just so problematic when it comes to human application.

I used to bridle at the disparagement that Buddhism is not a religion, but a philosophy. It was mostly Christians asserting the superiority of their hegemony. But all things equal, I'm fine with Buddhism as a philosophy, and I'd sooner take offense at it being called a "religion".

I'm all for "Westerners" taking Buddhism as a philosophy and applying the principles that make sense to them to the religious tradition in which they were raised. That's better than pretending to be "Buddhist" and falling for all the exotic trappings of Asian cultures because it's new and different from their own traditions.

The concept of religion is so emotionally charged and imbued with competitiveness, judgment, heirarchy. Holier than thou. Righteousness, implying someone else's wrongeousness. We're going to heaven, you're gonna burn in hell. Now with philosophy, it's all good to proclaim and debate one's philosophy being better than someone else's. At the end of the day, we're all just human.

Philosophy is about how we live our lives each day. My philosophy regarding riding my bike is: "Don't get hit!". When I head out on my bike, that's not an abstract concept in the back of my mind like a religion. It's practical reality regarding how I ride and negotiate traffic. And believe me, from what I've seen, it's obviously not everyone's philosophy.

I'm perfectly comfortable saying that I don't have a religion. My philosophy inspired by Buddhism fits perfectly well on a practical level. Even the mystical and metaphysical parts for me, because for "me", not just as this simple individual entity typing this, those are practical.

It's not an easy philosophy. It requires transformation. Being able to transform. Transform my life, my being, my environment, my reality, by tapping into something more than just the physical manifestation that we call reality.

It might even mean suicide; it means breaking through the barriers of our normative lives and perceptions. If I think suicide is what most people seem to think it is, then it's wrong. But if it is what I think it is, then it's transformation, in conception and execution. This is just an example.

But Buddhism does require a transformation. It requires a radical way of looking at the world where the interest of the self does not prevail over the interests of everyone else. Where we treat everyone we meet as members of our own family, and we treat the members of our own family very, very well. With love, understanding, compassion, and equanimity. Screw all the imagery and religious sounding mumbo jumbo and nirvana and enlightenment. And you don't have to be Buddhist to implement that transformation.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
One Who Waits: Do you recognize this place?
Ed: Uh, I don't think so.
One Who Waits: This is where you were welcomed into the tribe. There is an old saying that if you come back to the place where you became a man, you will remember all of those things you need to be happy.
Ed: I, I don't remember anything.
One Who Waits: That saying never did make sense to me, but I thought it was worth a try.

After two weeks of existential delirium, I finally caught it physically and am nursing a low-grade cold and hating it as the weather turns nice. I don't hate it, actually. Whenever I get sick I get the urge to tax myself by going for a ride or something. Which can't be good for it.

Actually it's when I'm recovering, and it feels good because it feels like recovering, like I got all this energy stored up while being sick and need to let it out. But then I try, and end up bonking and making a beeline for home. I think I'll be wise and not go.

Suffering comes and goes, but if you attach to your suffering, that's worse because it never goes. Maybe it's better to not look at the suffering, but look at the attachment. What am I, talking to myself here? Go look!

*achoo!* bleah.

I'm trying to read through the Qur'an again. This is what I do for fun. Is that at all interesting to anyone?!! Geez.

It blows my mind that Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship the same God (or concept of God, rather). The spiritual texts and the teachings aren't the problem. The problem is the people; the human characteristics make people do what they want in their own interest and use spiritual texts and teachings as means of yielding power, expressing pride and arrogance, and judging and oppressing other people. As such, it's probably better if these texts were never created in the first place.

I don't think it matters either way, power acts as power does, whether it's the Crusades, jihad, imperialism, or colonialism, it's just unfortunate. I have trouble believing that religion was ever the sole reason for committing crimes and atrocities against humanity.

Religion, or spirituality, is only about one person. Oneself. By nature of the self, no one has a relationship with god or the spiritual that is the same as anyone else's. When one person reads a spiritual text that resonates, the automatic response, I believe, is not to go next door and make your neighbor believe the same thing.

It's when people start banding together, thinking their shared beliefs are the basis of something more concrete, that heirarchy, power, and judgment emerge. It's a human characteristic, not a religious one that threatens other people or feels threatened by others and reacts accordingly. It all snowballs into an agenda and people start doing things "in the name of God", when really it's power, psychology, fear, ideology, whatever.

Religion is not only nothing that anyone should kill for, but it is nothing anyone should harm any other living person for in any way. It is also nothing that anyone should die for either.

I do want to get around to reading more of the Bible, but Pauline Christianity is so different, I believe with the minority in academia, from what Jesus taught. And that the New Testament was compiled by the Roman Empire makes it prima facie suspect as a spiritual authority by my definition. Imagine what the Bible would look like if the Bush Administration got a crack at compiling it. Or any political authority. And why.

More so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead:

There's this passage in the book that always makes me laugh and I think it should be changed. It is in the Existence Between, after a being has failed in the Reality Between to recognize that all objects of perception are a reflection or projection or are him or herself, and is in the process of being re-born into the world. It reads:

"Conditioned by that, you enter the path of the womb . . . Your body develops through the embryonic stages of "custard," "gelatin," and so forth. Eventually you will be born outside the mother's womb. Once your eyes are open, you realize you have been born a puppy. Having been a human, now you are a dog." (Thurman translation, p. 184)

Never mind that it's curious that something so specific should be recited to a between-being. It's just an example to the between-being how things might turn out. One could be re-born as any living thing, as determined by karma.

Anyway, the part that I would change is the end part, which I think should read: "Eventually you will be born outside the mother's womb. Once your eyes are open, you realize you have been born a puppy. Cute! Having been a human, now you are a dog." And yes, that is how I recite it.

I did take note of the mention of custard or jello, since I mentioned pudding earlier. Mm, custard.

I feel like lashing out. I'm dropping Madoka, friend and confidante of yore. I wouldn't if she hadn't dropped me first. Or would I? 

I'd like to say that I can take a hint, but truth to tell, I don't think "a hint" was even given. Is it worse to be dissed, or not even worth being dissed? Just non-entity; persona non grata; persona por patronaciones. But it's a matter of what goes around comes around. So many people I didn't diss because they just weren't worth it for me to even diss. So I'm OK with that. 

No hard feelings. We are what we are, and dropping each other doesn't change the connection. Just the relationship.

All these twists and turns and I've lost my identity on this weblog. From a week ago, from a month ago, from three months ago, from five months ago, from six months ago, I can't keep up. I got psychic whiplash. I need to land some time. I need something real. Anything. Or do I?

exorcise
I love how this weblog page is so neat and organized. The words so well groomed. Lovely complementary colors that I chose but don't know why. Fonts and links deliberated and orderly. Clean and shiny, albeit virus-laden misbehaving, glowing box.

No one can see how the page is slashed and cut-up and gouged, the words ripped and strewn, stained, wrinkled, and dripping. The holes betraying some other twilight zone dimension that you stand at the threshold and have second, third, fourth thoughts about wanting to go into, knowing you won't. I'm in there, watching you, knowing you won't.

Me and my sword and armor. Battle again? I never even wanted to win. I don't ever recall winning.

High school
They take you out and the light burns your eyes
To the talking room - it's no surprise
Loaded questions from clean white coats
Their eyes are all as hidden as their Hippocratic Oath
They tell you how to behave, behave as their guest
You want to resist them, you do your best
They take you to your limits, they take you beyond
For all that they are doing there's no way to respond
Hold on . . .
"Wallflower" - Peter Gabriel

I remember college; Luyen, I tried. All I could do was be there, and I tried to be whenever you needed and didn't let you walk away. And you were me. Where I had been. I was on the outside and I knew what you saw from the inside – that I was on the outside.

San Francisco? Remember Lake Merced and John Muir Drive? Josephine? Haha, of course not, how could I? Between the hallucinating and waking up in the back of that pickup truck and apparently face-diving into a patch of poison oak?

The doctor said it looked like poison oak contact dermatitis. He let it slide that I had no idea how it got all over my face and neck. If only hallucinogens were involved that night. There weren't. Just a bottle of sleeping pills and a bottle of gin. I never even got near the ocean. I couldn't even find it.

How I got home or avoided getting picked up by police is beyond me. I do remember scraps, though, shreds, all after the sky got light. Pissing buckets down an embankment by the police shooting range. I vaguely remember the hallucination when I was in the back of the pickup truck. It makes me laugh now, I don't know why. And I remember the feeling as clearly as if it were right now.

I'm not letting this pain in my head or this nausea go away. I found out how to maintain it. I want it for now. I went out again today. I was even at the ballpark again when Bonds hit his 661st homerun. I saw it go into the water. I'm making sure I get out every day. I know how to still look normal to other people. I still know how to make sure that things no one else knows stays things that no one else knows.

You know what? This weblog is not a person. It is not a life. It is words. Ideas. Ideas don't do anything. They don't act. This is not me. This doesn't define me. It's not real. None of it lasts. It's fiction. It's a book that can be closed and put back on the shelf.

I'm toying with the idea of doing a week of pure confessional. No cryptic shit. No intellectualizing. Just the honest truth of what I'm doing, thinking, and feeling. How much more boring and trying than usual would that be? Left-turn shit, but it's my weblog and my expression and I can do whatever I want. We all can.

But it's April, and for some psychic reason Aprils are always hard for me to get through. I thought this year would be different, just by not believing in it. But not only is this year no different, this year is the first year that the start of Daylight Savings had absolutely no positive, mitigating effect. No "shit is spiraling out of control again, but at least there's more sunlight each day". This year I just haven't given a rat's ass.

I don't know how far I want to take this, I'll probably be out of the mood of doing this by tonight.

But so far, I haven't seen anyone this month. More than half of the days I haven't even gotten out of the apartment. I've tried going on some bike rides, but hills are killing me, and hills are the only thing I'm good at. My computer caught a virus which has been annoying and I just don't want to bother so I keep the computer off. And I'm getting over being sick for the past few days.

Yea, sick. I don't want to get into that just yet. Light-headed, dizzy, loss of equilibrium/balance, light nausea, low electrolytes, feeling bleah. It's my own doing, so this is no pity parade plea (save it for the computer virus). In fact, in the midst of feeling like shit, I'm wondering if I'm actually enjoying this (definitely enjoying it more than the computer virus). Through this all I'm maintaining my sitting regimen as best as I can, since that is the only thing that is real this month.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Joel: Holy cow!
Holling: It's changed, isn't it?
Joel: Changed? Holling, that doesn't even begin to describe this. I mean, this is, this is...
Holling: Pink! Careful you don't bump into those little glass unicorns.
Joel: Wow, Holling, Holling. I gotta tell you, I mean, this would bind me up. It would totally tie me up, my colon would be tied in knots. I mean...no man could move his bowels in here!

Spent 18 hours waiting stoned for space
I spent the same 18 hours in the same damn place
I'm on a road shaped like a figure 8
I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late
- "Interstate 8" (Modest Mouse)

I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I just know I'm not living it.

Intuit
Your extremities, although you only notice your fingers, hands, and wrists, go numb, like freezing. You can't feel them although you are aware of them. Your head feels like it has been drained, and your skin feels pulled taut on your skull; like life being squeezed out. Your body feels like styrofoam being crumpled, cracking and breaking. Your body's energies, its consciousness, like neural winds blow fiercely through channels unseen by scientific medicine, and it starts to breach your body's integrity.

*(timer alarm goes off)*

If no one remembers you, did you really exist? If no one really knew you, can they really remember you? If what is important is what they remember, then what did your existence matter anyway?

I'm still picking at the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead. In particular the second between, referred to as the "Reality Between".

The first between is the "Death Point Between", and involves what goes on surrounding the actual end of biological life; elements of consciousness, body, and perspective dissolving into a clear light. I really like that the death process is broken down into experiential components involving the dissolution of consciousness and reality awareness. That makes sense to me.

It may be a calm and peaceful transition, or it might be confusing and tumultuous, like raging fire, mountains crumbling, crushing tsunamis, and gusting winds. It does square with reports of near-death experiences of seeing a "blinding white light".

The third between is called the "Existence Between", and is the stage after a "soul", for lack of a better word, has missed the chances of attaining awakening/liberation in the Reality Between, due to negative evolution/karma and extreme attachment to physical existence, and begins the process of re-manifesting in the world.

The Reality Between is supposed to be extremely subtle, and most people are completely unaware of it and shoot right through it and end up in the Existence Between to be re-born. It's in the Reality Between that the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead is heavy on the Indian/Buddhist imagery/iconography/aesthetic that I mentioned last week and found potentially problematic.

And I'm thinking how the great adept Padma Sambhava mastered navigating the death between stages after numerous lifetimes of focusing on it, maybe even unaware that this was a process he was exploring lifetime after lifetime. In the end, he could accurately describe what he experienced in the Reality Between, and came up with the guide to be recited to aid the deceased to awakening there.

He reports that even though our existence is in the most subtle form in the Reality Between, our awareness, intelligence, and ability is extremely sharp, and uninhibited by our very limited bodily manifestations, senses, and perspectives. So attaining awakening in the Reality Between is relatively easy and instantaneous if we can realize ourselves in our subtle nature.

Anyway, Padma Sambhava's description of the Reality Between involves a bunch of mild and fierce Buddhist deities appearing, and one can attain awakening just by resisting reacting in a habitual manner – behaviors that were learned as habit as a human – and recognizing them as being creations of our own mind, no separation between them and you. BAM! Awakening.

Hearing that as a human, it's very difficult to realize that. Even being able to intellectualize or conceptualize it doesn't lead to awakening, because our fixation and belief in the matrix of physical reality is so ingrained. But in the Reality Between, if one hears it, it is much easier to realize to awakening.

I'm thinking that, of course, Padma Sambhava encountered Buddhist deities. He was a great Buddhist adept, so great that he was able to navigate the death betweens! No easy feat. And the time and the place and the people he wrote the guide for makes it logical that he wrote it the way he did.

Now I'm wondering about near-death reports of people who say their lives flashed before their eyes, like a movie. Where could that fit in? I'm thinking Reality Between. Keeping to Padma Sambhava's template of first encountering mild deities, followed by fierce deities if awakening is not attained, maybe a modern spin would be that first we encounter benevolent elements in our lives, which come to us like a film of nice moments in our past life, likewise followed by a film of the ugly moments and elements.

First we get the benevolent reel, and we encounter our friends, loved ones, mentors, family, and we have to resist our human habituated behavior of attaching to them, of desiring to be with them again, and we have to realize that they are creations of our own mind, reflections of our own mind, are our own mind.

If we don't, then we get the second reel/real, and we encounter all the nasty elements from our previous life, exes, bad parents, sadistic siblings, spiders, our worst secrets get manifested, our psyches get plumbed, the Spanish Inquisition (no one expected the Spanish Inquisition!) whatever, we all have something, and we have to resist being fearful, angry, or ashamed, or running away, and we have to realize that they are creations of our own mind, reflections of our own mind, are our own mind.

And that's exactly it, isn't it? We encounter these things from our lives in the Reality Between and all we need to do is realize that they are us, no separation. And that's exactly what, according to Buddhism, awakening is for us here in this world – to encounter the same people and elements in our lives and realize we're all one thing, we're all interrelated, there is no I, there is no you to the enlightened.

The book of the dead is just a flipside of the book of living.

Spring Forward:
A few hours ago, I was drunker than I've been in years. When I woke up, all of my clocks had been moved forward an hour! I'm a mean drunk!

No more projected dates.
No plans.
Just floating.
Feels like pudding fading.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day: The countess and the doctor hadn't planned things to work out this way. I guess we're all a little like John Casavetes after all. We just don't know the ending. Till we get there. - Ed

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Maurice: At forty-six five I had a moral compass, Chris, but at 55 I'm lost. Half of me says 'take the money, you fool', the other half says 'don't sell to these two guys!'.
Chris: Still hung up on that gay thing, huh?
Maurice: I don't care what consenting perverts do in their own home. I just don't want 'em doing it in my backyard, that's all.

This recent rash of Northern Exposure quoting is the result of a recent rash of Northern Exposure viewing, which is the result of recently finding out that Northern Exposure is to be released on DVD! I don't know where to begin gushing about how Northern Exposure is my fave TV show of all time.

Does anybody remember Northern Exposure? I wasn't really into TV when it originally aired, so I don't remember exactly how popular it was, but it did win a bunch of Emmy's. I don't hear many people referencing it these days, but I do know that there are fans out there as rabid as me.

It's weird. The show feels like a time capsule to me, capturing a very specific niche of a social, political, cultural, and spiritual philosophy. It arguably portrayed white liberalism at its pinnacle most enlightened, before it got flaky and PC-policed out of popularity (my earlier knock against white liberalism notwithstanding). After decades of social, political, progressive struggle, we finally had our eyes open.

Our multicultural, multiethnic, multipolitical, multieverything society could be inclusive and tolerant of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, education, social status, ability, background, etc. We could recognize and accept our diversity and differences, while always showing baseline civility to the people around us. It's really not that hard!

After decades of struggle and court battles, we had the philosophical groundwork for a non-self-destructive society that worked on the strengths of its citizenry, and didn't exploit and capitalize, literally, on its weaknesses, but also didn't try to artificially erase the difficulties of living in communities and the potential ugliness in the name of equality.

Northern Exposure showed this all to us in the quirky, metaphoric, and sometimes metaphysical and magical utopia of Cicely, Alaska, on the cusp of the Alaskan Riviera!

Socialized health care!

*ahem*

But the show was so much more than that. And less. If you're my friend, you'll buy this DVD when it comes out. Or if you've never seen it, you'll check it out, rent it from Netflix, borrow it from a friend. Heck, you can come over and watch it if you live in San Francisco if I'm still around. Or we can watch it at your place. And if you like it, you'd still have to buy it to be my friend. If you don't like the show, I'm sorry, but I really do not see how we can continue with this relationship. I'm sorry.