I was sitting.

In a visualized space, there was a dark spot way off in the distance. So way off it didn't concern me until it was moving towards me at what must have been an incredible speed. When it got to be about the size of a U.S. quarter, it was distinctly a black sphere (black hole?), and I recognized it as my hatred. It was that feeling that only I know and can't describe of growing up here. It was a seething, pulsating, snarling, spitting, sneering hatred; an electric, vibrating tension over the whole surface my skin that teetered on the brink of imploding, but never did.

The black sphere continued getting closer at a slower speed, and as it got closer, it became clear that it was really a black hand grenade. I reached out and grabbed it. What am I supposed to do with this now? I don't hate anymore. I don't want to hate. But I have this hate. The path is not easy to get on, much less follow. Sometimes the fabric of your being prevents. Does this hate prevent, even though I don't hate anymore, and don't want to hate?

I sent an email out to Deer Park Monastery today, trying to get in touch with one of the monks who should remember me from last October. Try to find some words of encouragement to go.

I'm going to visit one in upstate New York tomorrow just to see what I find. It's an "American" monastery, but I'm afraid it might be like the system of San Francisco Zen Center and its affiliates – still attached to exotic Japanese cultural affectations and putting out that image to outsiders who might perceive that as being Buddhism.

I don't doubt that the monks have cut through such mundane physical manifestations, but for chrissake, stop banking on the exotic and make it truly American, truly rooted in a tradition of this place where Buddhism is sprouting. For some reason, Americans just love to exoticize things Japanese, so it's note to self: avoid monasteries with Japanese roots. We have words for those things in English, yo!

But while sitting, intense pangs of not even wanting to do that. It's just running away, filling and killing time. What a weird path this is turning out to be.