I wish I had been writing about sitting and meditation all these years to maybe somehow track the process and progress. But for some reason I've always felt it was this very private thing, and talking about it would be like a touchy-feely, hippie thing.

I hate people talking about meditation, and even guided meditations, at the monastery, whenever I knew morning sitting would be a guided meditation (retreats usually), I sat on my own in the small hall.

It's just not something I can write about, it's so intangible and big, but...I dunno, something. I know it started as something. How did it get to where it is now? How is it so different now from when I started? The only big benchmark is when I first went to the monastery and found I could sit for 45 minutes, which is now the ideal length of time.

At this point, it is emotionally and mentally involving, if not draining. In a good way. Sometimes right before a session I'd have to brace myself mentally, a little anxious about where my mind will go this session.

I still think sometimes (grasping at thoughts), but not often. And it took a long time to get to the point where I don't think. I'd say after almost 15 years, it has only been recently that I'm not "chasing after thoughts", having something come to my mind and attaching to it by thinking it through.

The mental flow is always there, and it may be a very subtle difference between attaching to thoughts and not attaching to thoughts. Sometimes I will follow a thought, but I won't be attached to it, I won't be thinking about it. I'll just be "riding" it. It's hard to describe.

Random mental images come and go, and I pay attention to them in that they are manifestations of my mind and thoughts; "what is this and where is it coming from?". Again, I don't attach to them. When some mental formation forms, not even an image, sometimes just abstract colors and shapes coming together, I don't stay with it, just observe and when it dissolves or changes, I just let it. No control.

As far as I know at this point, I'm not committing suicide. I'm also not entering a monastery. I think the path left to me is a solitary hermit path. Go to Taiwan to teach English, but live simply, don't save any money, continue practicing and cultivating.

Take the middle path like God says he does in "South Park" because he's Buddhist (shit, that was so funny I nearly crapped myself. That and that "the Mormons" was the right answer (to get into heaven), in the same episode). I won't practice asceticism. I won't be miserable, just try to find what true freedom means to me.