It's getting too hard again. I'm thinking monastery again. It was almost one year ago that I left Deer Park feeling lost on my path, that I didn't want to ordain, but I didn't want to rejoin material life either. But I can't do nothing.

After seven months of doing nothing I ended up here, and four months of doing this, as minimal and low stress as it should be, I'm struggling, suffering and hating it. I look at the people around me as mirrors, and I don't want to be doing what they're doing. I can't do what they do. I don't have the tools.

The annoyances of modern material life are huge. The negativity is huge. Everything is so petty and inconsequential. Why are people doing what they do? They have their answers, and that's great, but their answer is not my answer.

I'm not blaming or attributing my suffering or negativity to anything outside of myself, separate from myself. The triggers may be external, but my feelings are not to be mistaken as being innately caused by those triggers. The feelings are all me and my reality.

Throw a rock into a pond and it causes ripples. The rock is the triggers. The water is me and my reality, seamless and one and the same. The ripples are the form the negativity of my reality takes when triggered by the rock. They manifest and become apparent.

The annoyances and the frustrations are ripples in my reality, but the substance of the ripples is of my reality. This is most important in understanding my reality and the nature of my feelings.

The impact of the ripples on my psyche may as well be that of a tsunami. And this sensitivity is my karma. So what am I going to do? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why would I want to? What's so great about this living this life? I've well documented that it isn't. Even if that isn't fact, that my reality dictates that is what I write about and document.

The ball is rolling again, and so momentum is starting for me to leave Taiwan after this term, and go to Plum Village to ordain. Why this feeling of deja vu? Fuck me.

3:28 p.m. - default shot

Oh shit, my $700 bike was stolen!

OK, maybe it wasn't stolen, I "lent" it to a stranger. Most likely I didn't lock it because I didn't expect to leave it overnight. If I had locked it, no one would have taken it.

Oh, that's NT$700 – about US$20 at the time I bought it. Over the three months I had it, I kept track of roughly how much money it was saving me in bus and MRT fare, and it easily paid for itself.

I'm hardly upset that someone took the piece of shit, except now I have to deal with the minor inconvenience of not having a bike, which is almost offset by the inconvenience I don't have of having the bike.

You know, whenever I got on my bike in the U.S., I often acknowledged the possibility of not getting home safely that day. San Francisco was better than New York, and New York was better than New Jersey. Riding in Taipei was a completely different dimension of insanity. In New Jersey, drivers were just stupid, like they'd never seen a bike before on a road. In Taipei, they don't care.

In Taipei, the heightened possibility of getting hit on my bike often made me wonder if I would get on my bike that day if I knew I'd get hit. Of course not. And of course the reason why I always do get on my bike is because I don't know whether I'll get hit or not. Ooh, now there's a deep thought.

If you knew that you were going to do something today and were going to die in the process, would you still do it? Of course not. Right? So we absolutely can't go about our days thinking that what we do will end in our demise. Which is weird considering the focus of my personal life exploration is all about my demise.

Often when I hear about someone dying in unfortunate circumstances, I think about how they woke up that morning without a glimmer of thought that they might die that day. They go about their daily business as usual. And then they die. What would they have done different if they knew about it? And if they knew about it and changed something, what does that change about the meaning of our daily living?

I don't know why I think this is weird. Anyway, good riddance to the bike I dubbed the "P.O.S. Enterprise". The chances of my getting hit on my bike just dropped to zero, and my chances of getting hit as a pedestrian just went up.

5:54 p.m. - the re-colorization of Da'an Park footbridge continues

I put this moment....here
I put this moment....here
I put this moment.... over here
- "Jig of Life" (Kate Bush)

Razor's out.

Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super.

Sun's out. Hot days ahead.

I think this is shooting into the distance north from an upper floor at school. If so, that would be toward the Yangmingshan range, the highest peaks in the Taipei area. 

Opposite of shooting into the distance. Lives and families occupying horizontal floors stacked in vertical building after building. Each with individual characteristics that their neighbors have nothing to do with and can hardly even comment on.

Mandarin Training Center is in session in late June, but it's the end of spring semester for Shida University (NTNU) and students are clearing out of the dorms.

5:08 p.m. - Pavilion in Da'an Forest Park.

5:44 p.m.

June 20, 2:51 p.m. - I think I'm getting a reputation for being a shaved ice addict, as that's always my first suggestion for "what to do next?". This was one go-to place called, I think, "Orange" on Shida Road.

I think I've found my "Sadie" of Taiwan. More important than the discovery is the identification of a pattern that I'm calling "Sadies", whether it be real or imagined. Most likely imagined, or created by myself to be perpetuated.

So a Sadie is a person with whom I click, who I really like, and were it not for a pre-existing significant other, I might be "interested" in.

I was never really "interested" in the original Sadie because of my "red flag" system. Red flags indicate diminished interest in someone, and unlike other people who identify red flags and run right through them in pursuit of base attraction, no matter how unwise or destructive, I take my red flags seriously. Mostly because reciprocation has never been significant enough existent for me to ignore them, no matter how unwise or destructive.

Pre-existing significant others is as red as a red flag can get. They are simply not an option, not a consideration. I don't care what their relationship is like, if they're in a relationship, I won't meddle in it.

In addition to the red flag of the pre-existing significant other (S.O.), the original Sadie (O.S.) constantly laid her woes about her attraction to her bandmate on me, which if I were really interested in her would amount to insult to injury. The only distinguishing point about a Sadie is clicking and her being unavailable, but still clicking. And therefore creating "wondering".

Hyun Ae made things difficult by not making it clear to our circle of friends that there was a S.O. It was such that two of our group were betting on whether she did or did not. Previous to hearing about their bet, I had gotten into a line of discussion with her in which I unintentionally "forced" her to confess that, yes, there was a S.O. (maybe I should have been a lawyer).

So I knew the answer, but her concealment of this S.O. was so confounding that I didn't feel at liberty to settle their bet. If it didn't come out of her mouth to them, then I didn't know any better. In fact, I actually contributed an argument that she didn't have a S.O. based on her behavior, completely ignoring my actual knowledge that she did. I'm nutty like that.

But that's the backdrop to her. She has a S.O., but she behaves like she doesn't. Push and pull, if you know what I mean. And strangely, as she's been recently a little more explicit in referring to him as her "boyfriend" (as opposed to "friend"), to me at least, her pull has been a little more strong. Amongst our circle of friends, it's obvious we're closer to each other than with the others, and we have "rituals" more than "friends" should.

I do enjoy the pull. I enjoy the time we spend together, and her company has lasted beyond the point where I usually get antsy spending time with other people, which was characteristic of the original Sadie as well. I still get antsy and want to go off on my own, but it's not compelling enough to make it happen. Well, it does, but later; my tolerance level is much higher.

Bottom line, I'm comfortable with Sadies. I'm glad there is a S.O., and I wouldn't want it any other way. In any scenario that I can think of where something happens, it ends up with me realizing that it's better off that nothing happens. I'm fine being pulled with the pulls, and I'll provide the pushes myself if they're not forthcoming themselves.

As for the original Sadie, we lost touch while I was at Deer Park. We had one last conversation when she laid in me about what a bad friend I was. I was too busy applying the monastic practice of deep listening to respond, and thereby possibly maintaining contact. And in the end, her accusations didn't fit my reality enough for me to be able to respond anyway.

The bottom line of her tone was, "Why aren't you the way I want you to be?", and if that is accurate, then it enters my ears as "Why am I friends with you?". I'm sure not going to change drastically for someone else. And then there were inexplicable things like her accusing me of not being open to her, for example not telling her more about my scars, when I know we had discussions about my scars, and she knows more about them than anyone else. There was not much more to tell.

We didn't say that was our last contact. When we hung up, I didn't assume it was our last contact. But as the weeks wore on and there was no contact, it just became reality that there was no way for me to respond, and that there would be no more contact. No bad blood, I still regard her fondly and miss her even. A lot even. I'm just fine with no more contact.

Hyun Ae is a Sadie, but I hope I can make sure nothing happens with her that happened with Sadie. Man, that was just weird.

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 10:10 a.m. - default shot

WordsCharactersReading time

I try to strengthen single-minded concentration. I’ve never been able to visualize the clear ball of light I read about somewhere and thought was nifty enough to try, so I work with what I can.

Instead, I try to concentrate single-mindedly on the space where the clear ball of light is supposed to be, right in front of my forehead, or in that general vicinity. It’s filled with all sorts of lights, different colors, different vibrancy, different sizes, different movement, different clarity. Occasionally I can get one to hold still and become the clear ball of light for a few moments, but then I lose it and let it go.

But the urgency is growing. There is nothing more important than putting my concentration there and holding it. Why? The universe depends on it. My universe. What in my distracted thoughts is more important than the universe?

The clear ball of light is compassion, it’s my outlook, it’s positivity, and if I can’t generate it, then that’s the end of the universe. Negativity wins, and then what’s the point? The negativity is desire, suffering, inability to be satisfied. Satisfied. Why am I not just satisfied at my point on the path?

Negativity. I tried taking an online course to get certified to teach English. Truth to tell, that course (Bridge-Linguatec) wasn’t very good. And what good would that have been anyway? I realized that as much as I dislike learning languages, I dislike being in a language learning environment, including teaching it. What if I got a student who was as miserable as me? Sucks.

Now I’m studying Mandarin at Shida University’s Mandarin Training Center, and truth to tell, it’s not a very good school. The teachers are hit-or-miss with a higher probability of getting a sucky one since there are so many. The entire admissions office, with the exception of Christopher, who happens to be a white American, needs to be fired or sent to multi-cultural sensitivity training.

And I still can’t learn this fucking language. Failure.

That’s negativity. That’s dissatisfaction. That’s the artificial reality created by it.

So if I’m able to generate that clear ball of light, and concentrate single-mindedly on it and work on this negativity and dissatisfaction, then I’ll be able to learn this language? Maybe not, but I’m sure stranger things have happened.

I've had dark circles under my eyes for the past two weeks. I thought they were from lack of sleep at the end of last term, but now things are back to normal and they're not going away.

They remind me of a poster that we had up in our rehearsal studio in San Francisco about the dangers of alcohol. It was a copy of an old Spanish language poster with a drawing of a "healthy" man, and then a drawing of the same person if he was alcoholic. I think it was supposed to be serious, which is what made it funny. Guess which one I feel I look like.

So I look in the mirror and tell myself that this is the result of years of constant drinking and I'm going to die soon. I try to face it like it was reality and not just wishful imagination. I push myself to think of it as reality and think about my existence and being and that it is coming to an end.

After all, eventually it's something all of us are going to have to face. And I'm not taking this lightly, it's not an easy thing to face. I cling, I desire, I don't want to die, I detach, I accept, I'm alright with it.

I'm afraid of heights. But I try to face it. I don't avoid heights. When I'm in a high place, I push myself to imagine myself floating, off the safety of the precipice, and the feeling of nothing solid below me. And falling, the moments of plunging that I know is the worst feeling in the world for me. Aside from being covered with spiders.

But I know no matter how I challenge my fear, no matter what I imagine or visualize, it is no comparison to the actual experience. It's probably the same with dying. I try to prepare myself for what might happen after death, but the letting go of this habit of being this person, this ego, this existence, is probably nothing I can prepare for.

WordsCharactersReading time

Went to the Dharma Drum Mountain Int'l Meditation Group (DDM-IMG) this morning.

Beitou Park

Beitou MRT station. Not a notable composition, but the architecture is interesting.

June 16, 3:03 p.m. - Hyun Ae loves this South Korean actor. It wouldn't be for several years that I would get hit by K-pop and start to understand Koreans' love for their celebrities. By then I'd no longer be in touch with Hyun Ae.

11:04 p.m. - My spartan room. There's nothing behind me but the door off frame left. Off frame to the right is a wardrobe cabinet and a fridge.

Even though I switched to a regular two hour class this term, I still hang out with my classmates from the three hour intensive class. They have new classmates now, but the "core" group from last term clicked so well that we've been gravitating towards each other, while trying to integrate the new classmates.

There is one new classmate who is driving them nuts. Every chance they get, they complain about her. Being on the outside now, I've been preaching tolerance and patience. Give her chance, they've only known her a couple weeks. If we had judged each other so quickly last term, maybe we wouldn't be friends now.

But with my interactions with her, I have to admit that I'm asking a lot. She's pretty wack. They have to deal with her in class, and that is apparently bad enough. Outside of class I've witnessed quite a few of her "what the hell?!" behaviors.

She is ethnically Chinese, but she was adopted by a Swedish family and raised in Sweden. I'll call her "Emma" (not her real name). She is quite the princess, living in her own self-centered world. She aware of this. She says as much. She lives in a world where it's all about her, but she knows that there is a world around her that isn't responding to her demands to be all about her.

I sat with her at lunch yesterday, and she complained about the food in Taiwan. Taiwan, mind you, is a place where no one will ever starve. Unless you're an overprivileged princess from Sweden. And I don't know if she's overprivileged, she just acts that way, which in some ways is even sadder.

I feel most sorry for people who have gripes about food. Food, this sacred commodity, this human right, what we need to survive, what so many people in the world don't have enough of.

I generally make a point of not being picky about food. If it has been "offered" to me in any form, meaning that it's in front of me, I at least try to accept it, and avoid situations where the food may be too repulsive for my sensibilities.

In reference to practice, eating meat is not an issue for me in this lifetime. Maybe it was in a past lifetime, maybe it will be in a future lifetime, but in this lifetime, it is OK for me to eat meat. When I eat meat, I'm mindful of it, and when I eat meat, I'm aware of the sentient being it was and how it suffered.

When I eat meat, in my mind, I acknowledge its life and I thank it, and send a positive thought to the "soul" of the animal to wish it to a favorable rebirth. At the monastery, I had no problem that there wasn't meat, either. It didn't cross my mind. It was good food. So either way, it's not an issue.

Oh, but Emma. Our human interactions are an economics equation of suffering and pleasure. We try to maximize our pleasure and minimize our suffering. But in our daily being, we also create suffering and we create pleasure for other people.

The "core" group from last term, we stick together because the pleasure we get from each other is high, and the suffering we cause to each other is low. There were two others in our class who caused us more suffering than pleasure, and they're not here this term and we're not missing them.

Emma is causing much suffering to my classmates, but she also suffers for whatever reason we don't know. She suffers because of her princess perception of herself, one of the manifestations of which is her pickiness about food. Another manifests in the classroom and creates suffering to her classmates.

But I try to convince my former classmates that the suffering she creates for them is not an objective fact. There may be other people in the world for whom she creates great pleasure, and they would be dismayed at us and our negative view of her. They haven't done us any wrong, but we may be creating suffering for them by our negative view of Emma.

Isn't this true for all of us? We don't know why, but some people just don't like us, our personality, our background, our being. But we have people who love us who would be saddened by the animosity of these other people. And these people who love us might be perfectly amicable to these other people.

Ultimately, I think they will win and convince me that "Emma" is not worth the effort nor deserves the benefit of doubt. Which saddens me because I'm trying to not judge people like this, neither attachments or aversions. I'm doing well with not attaching to these classmates. I need support to not avoid people who annoy me. And, oh, yes there is one seriously annoying person in my class. Oy vey. He's . . . ok, I'm not going to say where he's from. He's from a place I'll call "Mongolia" (not a real country).

9:59 a.m. - On my way to school. Looks like they're re-painting the Da'an Park footbridge. My apartment is just down the street going off to the left. I probably just used the footbridge to get from the corner across the intersection to this corner (northwest). From here I'd turn around and walk another 5-7 minutes to school.

I know I’ve had this thought before, that there isn’t a source to my stress and negativity. There isn’t a source that is a problem, there isn’t a source that needs to be eradicated that will solve "the problem".

The problem isn’t a source, the problem is the stress and negativity itself. As I move through this maze, the walls of which resemble city landscapes and building interiors, it is those walls that are also manifestations of the stress and negativity.

The stress and negativity exist because that’s my reality, it’s not because of this or that. I can blame it on all sorts of sources – studies, social anxiety, not getting laid, not doing what I want to, not knowing what I want to do, but if it’s not one thing, it will be another.

So what to do?

Maybe many people, I wouldn't know, just accept their circumstances without questioning its nature, even if the extent to which I do it is impractical and could be misguided in the inability of any of it to be proven scientifically.

But to me, if this thesis has validity, then simply accepting it means accepting the negativity and likely acting in accordance with it. When stressed, I will act stressed; when negative, I will spread negativity; when pressured, I will press back, perhaps creating (more) suffering for other people.

The other extreme is to proactively transform it. But it’s not in my karma yet to have the tools to transform it. I haven't cultivated it enough yet. Best case scenario is to go to a monastery to develop the karma to develop those tools for a future lifetime.

My stopgap measure for now is to try to just be constantly mindful of it, and try to not get sucked into it, even though I found in the last few weeks of last term, that is really difficult. I got sucked into it, despite being mindful of it. That sucked.

What a copout. Incomplete thought.

Yesterday I went to the Saturday international group practice session at Dharma Drum Mountain Monastery practice center in Xin Beitou. It's a 3-hour session of sitting, light exercise, walking, and discussion.

I stopped going in March or April when I started feeling my language studies were too hard to fit in the time to go. I'm hoping with my switch to non-intensive classes, I'll have the time to go.

When I first got there yesterday, I didn't want to go. Part of me wanted to bag it and head home. I was going just for the sake of going. There has been nothing resonant about this practice group – the people or the practice – I was going just because it's the only practice group I know of.

And there was nothing resonant about it yesterday, either. It was just familiar since I'd been there before and knew the routine. The coordinator (non-monastic) of the international group is a spaz, but he's good practice for me to not be annoyed. I need a lot of practice in that. I wish he'd shut up when other people are talking. Oops.

Afterwards, though, I felt that glow of feeling peaceful and relaxed, and recognized that it had done some good. As I walked down the hill, there was even a break in the clouds, and for a moment I saw the sun for the first time, literally, since Kaohsiung. That was almost two weeks ago. Taipei weather sucks monkey balls dry.

I think I will continue to try going to the Saturday sessions, even though my home solo practice has been more influenced by Tibetan stuff. Zen is still comfortable, and at the heart of the teachings, there really is no difference. I still think practitioners of either school who look down on the other school are not doing themselves any favors.

June 10, 5:52 p.m. - MRT tracks

No one else I know of has this huge weight or this urgency. No one else in my previous class that I know of felt the stress that I did. It wasn’t anything objective, it wasn’t anything real, it was just me. Both of these things.

My eye wanders to the right, to my own self-description. Inevitable suicide. It’s not that simple anymore, but the word inevitable has never gone away. It’s always been there. Inevitable. I don’t want it to not be inevitable. Inevitable gives me strength, it eggs me forward.

And no, it has never gone away, it has been continuous. The suicide has been ongoing. What does that mean anymore? I know, but I don’t. It’s more, and it’s nothing.

The urgency is that I’m supposed to have died already, and I can’t figure out why I haven’t. The obvious is that I haven’t completed what I’m supposed to complete, but I’m at an utter loss at what it is now. I thought I’d finished everything. I feel I’ve learned all I need to learn, and the causes and conditions surrounding me don’t support the continuation of my learning.

Unless

My time at the monastery was made frivolous by my attachments and desire. If I went again, the next time I go, I’m not taking anything with me not practice related. No computer, no internet, no non-practice related music, no coffee, no bike. What my mind did at the monastery, zipping around for what it wanted, what it revealed about me was ridiculous.

I look at my life around me now and I see the true extent of my attachments and desire. Can I give up my iPod right now? Can I stop going to the library for my internet fix since the wireless is down at home? I’ve weaned myself off my physical addiction to caffeine, but can I stop making that benign cup of coffee in the morning, that comfort habit?

Can I let everything go and go to the monastery?

Any monastery, it doesn’t matter which one now, it doesn’t have to be perfect. I’m in Taiwan now. I don’t know what brought me here or if something brought me here, but as long as I’m here, maybe it’s a Taiwanese monastery that I should look into, even though I feel the state of Chinese Buddhism has become an institution and lost the spirit of practice, which has nothing to do with institutions.

The basic habit energy to be liberated from is the habit of believing we are substantially here at all. Human perception and experience is itself the path. I would like a poppy seed bagel with cream cheese, toasted, and cut in half. And a coffee with cream, no sugar. What were you doing in the Summer of 1991?

Dragon boat races, part II: Xindian

Or not. I'd already shot enough of dragon boats so this is more like Xindian, part II. They were held all the way down at the southern end of the MRT red line where I had already shot before. Our Canadian classmate was participating with the Mandarin Training Center dragon boat team, so the Japanese goth chick, Hyun Ae and I went.

Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super.

11:57 a.m.

12:02 p.m. - ah, the black & whites were probably shot with a 50mm lens; more importantly a fixed focus lens, no zoom. Although I'm sure I had my zoom lens in my camera bag.

Confused reality, flux. Still working on the same old problem. Where's the progress? Where's the growth? It's not even funny anymore. No, it's still a little funny, just more pathetic.

I want to smack the people around me and ask them why the puzzle of existence doesn't bother them. What are you doing here? And their answer is supposed to give me mine. But they're just living their lives because they have it, because they're here, because they want, because they desire. That's not my answer.

Why should I even bother? They can't answer that. Not for them, not for me. Not like I'm seriously thinking of finding an answer in the people around me. Not like I'm seriously thinking of finding an answer.

Negativity is still a huge problem for me. I really need to compose that sixth mindfulness training for myself that deals with negativity. The idea was just a concept at the monastery, but in the material world it becomes real and gets out of hand and I need something more concrete to deal with it. And a new mindfulness training is concrete?

But I am understanding it more. I can't explain it, and when I try to explain it the description doesn't describe it accurately. It's not my negativity projecting out on the world around me. It's not perception like here's me projecting on the world out there, around me. It's non-dual, the negativity is my reality and my surroundings are not separate from me.

That makes dealing with it a lot more complicated, but not making it complicated to make it unsurmountable. Even though the better understanding makes it a lot more complicated, it's still a better understanding. When you're trying to get past a wall, it's better to be able to know where it is.

I'm not sure I can transform this negativity away when it's the fabric of my existence. Weird, as I write this, I feel like the answer is right in front of me, filtering through my keyboard. Anyway, I'm not saying I can't, as in "I cannot do this, it's hopeless". It's more of a I can't, it's reality. Every new word I write gives me more problems. As if words could express reality.

June 1, 11:14 a.m. - neighborhood park being renovated, shot from a classroom balcony at the Mandarin Training Center.

June 2, 1:22 p.m. - vacant lot. old structure reduced to rubble to build a new structure. there's probably a metaphor in all this.

WordsCharactersReading time