On the one hand, my natural habit energies tend towards the negative, the critical. I'm sucking at this language thing, I'm thinking of dropping out and just going to the damn monastery or exercising "other" options. I hate this class, I hate my classmates. The textbook is so full of typos I've begun keeping track of them. I kick myself for not studying more diligently, I'm blogging when I should be studying.
On the other hand, I watch my mind knowing these natural habit energies aren't real. They are just habits borne out of my past karma and what I've cultivated before. Why am I frustrated in class? What's going on there? Why can't I get this material? I feel there is a psychological block that I'm keeping myself from absorbing this material, to communicate in another language. What is so important about this that I'm getting all worked up about it?
So I'm not studying. So I might bomb on the test tomorrow. So I might bomb in our final project that I'm really not looking forward to working with the particular classmates I'll be working with. Two weeks. Two weeks and it will all be over. Maybe it will go OK, maybe it will bomb and I'll totally embarass myself. Nevertheless, in two weeks, none of it will matter. I've liked my classmates all term, in two weeks am I not suppposed to like them anymore? Why?
Bombing in this class will not go on my "permanent record". Even if it did go on my "permanent record", what would that matter in the end, according to my ideals, my emphasis on understanding existence? We all die in the end. What is this "permanent record"?
Through all this, I am doing my best to insist on not sacrificing my practice to academic stress. Maintain regular regimen of sitting, even to the detriment of studies. Maintain study and recitation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, because, goddam, I'm getting something out of it. Shit is . . . beyond description. Blow my head into the void. Truth hits everybody (Sting's actual lyric is "Blow my head in two, oh boy". I like how I heard it better).
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| 2:06 p.m. - Heping East Rd from the Da'an Park footbridge |
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| 2:07 p.m. - default shot |
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| 2:26 p.m. - artsy shots of inside the Shida main library |
1. The Show Must Go On (Pink Floyd)
2. Ticket to the Moon (Electric Light Orchestra)
3. Yesterday (The Beatles)
4. The Guardian's Prayer, pt. 1 (Longchen Nyingthig Buddhist Monks)
5. She's So Cold (The Rolling Stones)
6. As I Lie (J Church)
7. Digit (extended) (Echobelly)
8. Look At Little Sister (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
9. Sciuri Sciura (Blonde Redhead)
10. Giant (Throwing Muses)
