Clear light.

Pristine cognition.

These are two ways the same concept has been translated from Tibetan. It's good having these two, kind of disparate, translations of the same abstract concept. It stops me from thinking about it concretely and forces me to just try and get a sense of it, knowing the words are flawed.

Staring out the 8th floor window at school, I think of all reality manifesting from this pristine cognition, this dark energy, 'dark' in that it's unknowable. Reality rises out of it and fades back into it moment to moment, transforming, fluxing.

April 27, 5:06 p.m. - From the Mandarin Training Center on the Shida annex campus off Heping E. Rd. with the curved main library building.

There is no path to look for, this is the path. This is the ground of enlightenment, and enlightenment doesn't stop anything, it doesn't change anything.

Life and death don't matter, either, because it's the same thing happening, it's the same path. From one life, traveling and practicing through the death bardos, into another life, it's a continuum.

Death doesn't matter. How or when doesn't matter. However, splitting qualitative hairs is valid. I still think the Tibetan view of human life being uniquely endowed with liberty and opportunity for furthering one's practice is valid.

However, the full spectrum of taking advantage of our liberties and opportunities requires not turning the idea into a dogmatic, moralistic proscription against suicide. Suicide is also part of the pristine cognition, it is also part of the path. People commit suicide, therefore it is part of their path. The opportunity for anyone to commit suicide is always there, therefore it may always arise out of the pristine cognition.

What the hell? Why am I all of a sudden talking about suicide? Oh yea, blog url (old url: suicideblog.blogspot -ed.). But damn it's old, I think I've written everything I want to about it, and until I come with anything knew, I'm bored. Stop boring me.

12:19 p.m. - Main gate of Shida University (NTNU), not the annex campus where Mandarin Training Center is.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Countdown (John Coltrane)
2. Our Time ("Merrily We Roll Along" - Sondheim)
3. Mouths of Babes (Smashing Pumpkins)
4. Sango Jyugo Ya (Chitose Hajime)
5. It's Only Love (The Beatles - Anthology)
6. Check It Out Ch'all (Paris)
7. Assassination on X-Mas Eve (Archers of Loaf)
8. Peel Away Velleity (June of 44)
9. Warning Sign (live) (Talking Heads)
10. Last Exit (Pearl Jam)