Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Who am I kidding? Angry at either Madoka or my cousin for not being present in my life these past years? Not. Truth to tell, as I look at both of their lives now and notice parallels (more due to my perception than actual similarities), I can't say I could have been engaged in either of their difficulties as they were happening.

Would I even have wanted them to be involved in my own struggles leading to the monastery? With my own difficulty being honest with myself and the games I play with myself, who am I kidding? I can barely convince myself that it matters to them whether I'm here or not. Not that it matters.

Any divide is appropriate, and if things revert back after I head back to the U.S., that's OK, too. The important thing was that things were very cool with Madoka while I was visiting in Tokyo, and things are cool with my cousin as I'm visiting here. My stay here is limited and I must maintain my commitment to investigate monastic aspirancy.

The thing is . . . I'm not sure I want to go back to the monastery. When I think about it, I feel disheartened. Then I think I'm supposed to be disheartened, this is right. When I first got there in October, I expected things to get ugly and difficult, and things got ugly and difficult. By the time I left for hiatus, I was filled with negativity that I knew couldn't be right – it was me.

If it's right, I must stay on track and investigate it further, let it get uglier, immerse myself in it. Besides, when I think of not continuing monastic aspirancy, then what? What the hell, there is nothing else. The only thing left is this journey, this investigation. It's either monastery or investigating the death betweens.

How wonderful it would be to die. Drawing cards, suicide comes up every once in a while. Something came up, but it wasn't suicide this time. It was just dying. The card didn't say it's time to push the suicide thing again, it just said 'dying'. I'm not sure what that even means.