I scan the landscape of my possible futures. There's nothing there. They all fade out. They're all desolate.

This is not depression. This is not negative. This is not giving up. This is not anything anyone can do anything about.

The best case scenario is getting committed again, have my freedom, my ability to choose taken away from me. Being told this is what I'm going to do, and I don't have to do anything. But to get committed again, I have to create a reason for it. And survive it.

All scenarios that involve happiness are unfeasible. It is not true happiness, and I'm more and more convinced that I'm incapable of sustained happiness that depends on outside factors, all of which seem to depend on desire – the primary cause of suffering.

Ironically, I am a believer that happiness can be learned, it can be cultivated separate from outside factors. In fact, I don't believe in happiness dependent on outside factors as true happiness.

Happiness is subjective, and there was some study, I don't know if it was bogus or not, but it made sense to me, that compared the happiness of a paraplegic and a lottery winner a year after they came across their circumstance, and the factors they used to determine their happiness level found that they were about equally happy.

That is to say the paraplegic was happier than expected, and the lottery winner was sadder than expected. The cause of this is because when placed in dire circumstances, we make do. We manipulate our feelings and count our blessings and find a happiness despite our circumstances. But when given a great benefit, our expectations and euphoria are such that happiness really can't be fulfilled, and we're left wanting more of something or another.

And then there is that joy generation meditation I came up with before. I still believe in that, I still think it's valid, but it takes too much energy for me to sustain it. To this I add my karma, which I think makes it not in my nature in this lifetime to be happy.

So I have to take that tool of the joy generation meditation and tweak it to my circumstances, and what I'm finding sustainable is that I've made the meditation, instead of joy generating, negativity cleansing. Two sides of the same coin.

When the negativity arises, the anger, the frustration, the annoyance, the hatred arises, I use this tool like a torrent of water pouring on me from top to bottom, clearing it out as insubstantial, as fleeting as happiness.

And through all this, I arrive again at suicide as a practical inevitability. I'm not going to try to justify anything, I'm not going to try to convince anyone of anything. It's just that I know what I know, and no one else can know what I know. No one else can be me, and whatever choice I make has nothing to do with anyone else. If it did, where are they?

Ironically, they were very cagey about getting their picture taken. I'm not sure they really got the spirit of the Free Hugs movement.

From beginningless time, without end, I have roamed throughout cyclic existence -
Led astay by the momentum of my mistaken past actions and improper past behaviour,
I have mistaken the path and become lost on the path.

I regret with powerful remorse the negative past actions I have committed, of any kind.
Drawn by the momentum of momentary yet violently resonant past acts,
I have sunk into this ocean of suffering, the sea of cyclic existence.

The fires of blazing hatred have unabatingly seared my mind,
The dense darkness of delusion has blinded my discriminative awareness,
The ocean coasts of desire have drowned my consciousness,
The mountain of fierce pride has entombed me in the lower existences,
The cruel whirlwind of envy has sucked me into these turning worlds,
Where, entwined by the tight knot of egocentricity,
I have fallen into the pit of desire, this chasm of blazing fires.

Unbearably brutal misery has poured down on me like heavy rain.

Damaged by such extreme and unbearable suffering,
Seared by the blazing ferocious fires of my negative past actions,
The shoots of my consciousness and sense faculties have been blunted.

If my body, this illusory aggregate, can no longer withstand all this pain,
How can you bear to witness this, O Compassionate Lord of Loving Kindness?


Plaintive Confession of Rampant Egohood, Natural Liberation Through Acts of Confession

I don't know if it's this three weeks off in the isolation of Taipei. If it was the rejection of family in Kaohsiung. If it's the enduring drear that is Taipei. The lack of friends? Slowly discovering the annoyances of my new apartment?

Waking up continues to be one of the hardest things to do. Depression gently washing over me in waves, like lying on a shoreline.

I think of my path and the dead ends and failures after dead ends and failures, and that this is my karma that I'm living out and perpetuating, instead of definitively doing something about it. The two steps forward, three steps back.

I need to put suicide back into the equation. So many developments have taken it out of the equation, and something is missing without it. People don't matter. No one matters. If anyone mattered, where are they?

I need to focus on why I didn't enter the monastery, I need to focus on my aversions and attachments, the things I can't let go of. The things I'm not letting go of. They are key, they are what keep bringing me around again.

I need to stop glossing things over in blog.

I'm being consumed by anger, hate, negativity, and isolation. I'm wallowing. I'm constantly glossing things over. After this, I will go and get something to eat.

I'm in Taipei, where else would I want to be? Spiraling existence, useless existence. On the molecular level. On the quantum level. Why existence? Why exist?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22,  5:04 p.m. - Rode down to the Bitan recreational area at the end of the MRT red line at Xindian station (NB: the MRT red line would later change as the system expanded, and the line going to Xindian would become the green line - future ed.).

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, Rode down to revisit beyond Xindian MRT station where I had explored earlier this month. Roosevelt Rd. in Taipei turns into Beixin Rd. after crossing the Jingmei River into Xindian city. Beixin Rd. goes about three miles to the Xindian terminus station, and beyond that it turns into Beiyi Rd and quickly becomes less urban-choked. A short way later there's a right turn onto Xinwu Rd. which is what I did. "Xinwu" is a combination of Xindian and Wulai, where the road goes.

3:08 p.m. - I shot this structure from Xinwu Rd. before, but this time explored down by river's edge. I don't know what it is, but it's an impressive structure. It may be for flood control downstream to retard the river's flow during typhoons and heavy rain, but can't totally block the river or else there would be flooding upstream. I don't know.

3:12 p.m. - River jacks!

3:30 p.m. - Urban Xindian to the upper left. Xinwu Rd., visible across the center, has this climb but it's not too rigorous.

3:48 p.m. - I had no idea the Xindian River looked so powerful upstream in a more natural setting.

3:55-3:56 p.m. - Quite a few river crossings. 

4:14 p.m. - Wulai border. I didn't make it to Wulai. This isn't so much a "photo" as it is a marker of how far I got before I decided it was too late in the day to continue and turned around. 

5:39 p.m. - Taking the Xindian riverside bikeway home.

I'm back in the wrist-slicing drear of Taipei. I decided to leave Kaohsiung early because the family thing peaked in annoyance. I guess it was a rash decision since it was only because of New Years stuff that started getting on my nerves. Family gatherings only emphasize how much I don't belong to any family unit. If I had stuck it out for just a few more days, it probably would've passed. But then there isn't any reason to stay down there for so long anyway. Hyun Ae isn't leaving and there's no need to purge Taipei with an extended leave. All in all, none of it matters. Hyun Ae doesn't matter, family doesn't matter, Kaohsiung doesn't matter, Taipei doesn't matter.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2:25 p.m. - I was at a family gathering that wasn't really my family. It was Audrey's family on her mother's side, and true I was her mother's nephew, but she died in 1993 and I had zero cultivated relationship with her family aside from Audrey, who is my family. I was antsy and awkward being there, not belonging there, couldn't even talk to anyone without more awkwardness, so I basically just left. This was a nice, little canal outside the place. I have no idea where it is. I was much more comfortable with the canal.

3:46 p.m. - Deciding I'd had enough of Kaohsiung and New Years (mostly New Years), I hopped on a bus to Kaohsiung Main Station and caught a train to the High Speed Rail station to get a ticket back to Taipei for the next day. Soon, I shouldn't wonder, long gone will be the days when you can lean out of a moving train like this. 

Crossing the Love River. The walkway from an earlier shot that goes under the TRA tracks was from walking along this left bank.

5:09 p.m. - Shin Zuoying TRA station. HSR ticket bought and heading back to Kaohsiung Main Station.

5:14 p.m. - Shin Zuoying HSR station abutting the TRA station. Huh-huh, huh-huh, I said butt. 

High Speed Rail "bullet" trains on the left, TRA train on the right. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

I decided to get out of wrist-slicing drear of Taipei for a week or so. The weather there was great for about 12 days until the end of class. Then it promptly got cold and dreary again, and I told myself once it seemed like that was the norm again, I'd leave.

The weather here is much better. Even too hot maybe, which is not something I say often. Kaohsiung is tropical, and when it gets hot, it's a listless, energy-draining hot. Still better than Taipei any day. And in February I can go on extended photostrolls without worrying about the heat. I would be more careful about doing that in the Summer.

Two years ago I spent two months here between time at the monastery. It's incredible that after only a few days here, I feel like I'm right back in that mode/mood. Taipei seems unreal. My life in Taipei is completely separate from any history or reality of having family in Kaohsiung.

With the exception of my uncle occasionally coming up to Taipei for business and inviting me out to company dinners, there is nothing about Taipei that has mixed with anything Kaohsiung. It makes me think I shouldn't stay here very long, maybe not even for the full week I was planning.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 8:37 p.m. - My aunt's dog looking at me like I never rubbed his belly before. Or maybe I went too far south last time.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1:52 p.m. - So I was walking along and came across this line of police buses and they looked an awful lot like an old photograph I took on a visit a long time ago. I tried to take as close a composition as I remembered the other photo, and when I got home I looked up the previous photo:

January 6, 1997 - The differences are obvious, but the similarities are uncanny. The building in the upper left of the old photo looks vaguely similar to the building on the upper right of the color. The buses all have numbers on the upper left side of their windows and #17 appears in both photos. They're the same fucking bus! Even though the siren on top has been removed since 1997, the headlight configurations are the same and the license plate numbers are the same (if it's not clear in these photos, I confirmed it zooming into them). Ten years apart, I'm taking the same solo photostrolls in Kaohsiung. Or not. That I take solo photostrolls is the same.

1:54 p.m. - Taiwanese political graffiti. The first three characters are the KMT political party. I think this is critical of them.

2:15 p.m. - Walkway under the TRA railroad tracks which cross the Love River here.

2:25 p.m. - Approaching the Zhongdu Bridge.

2:32 p.m. - Crossing the Zhongdu Bridge. Love River turns to the east and I'm gonna head a little further north. 

2:49 p.m. - Not sure if it's political.

3:31 p.m. - Park around the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, a bit north of Love River.

3:35 p.m. - Public container art on display on the museum grounds.

 Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super:

Games along the Love River to pass time.

Wow! Hyun Ae is staying for at least another term! That was a surprise. There were a bunch of reasons why she decided to go back, one of which was her mother's bad health, but in the end, her mother told her to stay here for the same reasons I used to convince her to stay. But all of this is coming from her, so it might not be coincidence. What her mother said and what I said might have combined in her head, so that when she told me what her mother said, it sounded exactly like what I said.

Too bad, since I was getting used to the idea of her leaving and starting over again in Taipei, not knowing anyone here. And after all, has she really been that good of a friend? It's all mucked up.

Human relations are so mucked. I was reminded of this when Sadie got back in touch with me last month. We exchanged a few emails, and I was reminded that even as she was my best friend in San Francisco in the end, and I think of her fondly, there was muck in our human relations.

We met when I auditioned for her band. They rejected me but still wanted to be friends with me. The basis of our friendship was her rejecting me from her band. When our emails started talking about music, I was reminded about that, and it didn't feel good.

Especially when our last phone conversation before we cut off for almost two years was her telling me what a bad friend I was because I wasn't open enough. I don't think that was the substantive issue, though, and I don't hold anything against her from that conversation.

What I do hold against her is the idea that I've always been pretty low priority for her. Her value in my friendship has always been below her boyfriend, understandably, her band, her bandmate, all band related matters and people, and no doubt other things I don't even know about.

I don't feel like our friendship was separate and had its own value, I definitely feel that my value was below all those other things. The reason is because music is central to both of us, was central to our meeting, and was a component even within our friendship.

I should keep in mind that I was referring to Hyun Ae as a "Sadie" here. Both of them I consider in my mind as being really good friends. The reality of both is probably that they're not. Story of my life.

In the words of Nigel Tufnel, "mucky-muck".

I'll still have to head north to go to school, but living in Xindian opens up exploring south. I rode south all the way to the Xindian MRT terminus station and kept going along the Xindian River and found it surprisingly beautiful and almost rural. Black & whites Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super.

3:43-3:47 p.m. - Xindian River from Beiyi Rd. 

Exploratory foray up Xinwu Rd., after which I'll go home and look at a map and find it goes to Wulai township (← in literary circles, that is called "foreshadowing").

4:22 p.m. - Open Sky Temple (開天宮) on Xindian Rd. off Beiyi Rd. 

Xindian Rd. A very cinemagenic road. Would be surprised if no local filmmaker shoots here.

4:53 p.m. - Taking the riverside bikeway home, passing Bitan bridge.

Close to 5:00 p.m. based on a digital shot also taken here.

"Are there Buddhists who believe in God?"

I nicked this story off a friend's fotolog:

Buddha was gathered together with his disciples one morning, when a man came up to him.
"Does God Exist?" he asked.
"He does," replied Buddha.

After lunch, another man came up to him.
"Does God exist" he asked.
"No, he doesn't," said Buddha.

Later that afternoon, a third man asked the same question:
"Does God exist?"
"That's for you to decide," replied Buddha.

As soon the man had gone, one of his disciples remarked angrily:
"But that's absurd, Master! How can you possibly give such different answers to the same question?"

"Because they are all different people, and each one of them will reach God by his own path.
The first man will believe what I say.
The second will do everything he can prove me wrong.
The third believe in what he is allowed to choose for himself."

Going backwards. In a good way. Not that there is any "good way" any more. But shaking myself down about mindful breathing also reminded me that it also needs to be proactively implemented during sitting. Practice.

I've kept up sitting since the monastery, even though I've had to adjust habits to accommodate not being at the monastery. For a while now, it has been distracted, unfocused, and just . . . flowing. The "just letting the mind flow" brand of sitting is a good one, I'm not knocking that. But the quality of the flow and what's in it is important. Dirty flow of water or clean flow of water. Different.

Turns out maintaining sitting since the monastery is not a big accomplishment. Maintaining breathing would have been much better.

My new building has an outdoor area upstairs. I'd call it a deck, but it's totally undeveloped, used for drying clothes or smoking or chilling. I can use it for walking meditation. If breathing meditation is about being, walking meditation is about practicing being at peace, moving peacefully, with other things and other people on the outside.

Taiwan has really brought out the hostile in me. No where else in the world has made me want to punch random people on the street in the fucking face. Pretty bad sign. I've fallen pretty far off the path. Fortunately guilt isn't in my personality make-up as I acknowledge my recent state of being as clear mistake.

Unfortunately, pride is in my personality make-up, and I have to make the effort to drop the pride and acknowledge this being and these feelings are mistakes, and that I don't want them. They aren't naturally forming things that I have no control over. If I cling to them, that's an indication that I want them for some reason or another, probably pride.

So it's a proactive step to admit that I don't want them, which is hard because in some ways I do "want" them. I own them, they're mine, I have a very personal relationship with them. They are also attached to pride which is a very seductive and (falsely) empowering feeling.

Once and if I can admit I don't want them, then I have to proactively do something, instead of just stewing in the feeling and the admission that I don't want them. That's where breathing and walking need to come in. I'll see where this takes me.

class:
Classes ended yesterday with a disappointingly boring class. We had class, even though our final exam was on Thursday. So even with the teacher's improvements over the last month, this semester counts as another bad semester in this supposed attempt to learn the language. It was more bearable because I liked her personally, and I recognize the effort she put in to teach us.

She focused too much on grading. When teaching a language, grades don't matter.

visa:
Having the exam on Thursday allowed me to go extend my visa on Friday morning. I decided since I was officially moving out of Taipei, I should go for the extension at the county seat in Banqiao, instead of at the Taipei Police Station, even though I still "officially" have my apartment in Taipei.

My school's information on where the office is was wrong, and the police station there could do no better than give me a slip of paper with an address on it. This came close to qualifying for the final straw that will send me back to the U.S., but I eventually found the place using my available resources, and I attribute my success only to what I consider my better than average sense of direction.

So now I'm good until April when I will have to extend my visa one last time before being able to qualify for an "alien residence".

moving:
After class, I found out that there is someone who wants to move into my apartment, so I decided to move out right away. I had already moved several small loads, so the bulk of the move was filling the two larger pieces of luggage I brought from the U.S. and taking a taxi. I still have to make one more bus trip to get the last bits out, and then clean the place, but I'm officially moved.

I'm liking my new neighborhood. I love that I'm right across the Jingmei River from Taipei and that I cross this small river every day. I like that the Jingmei night market is just a block down from crossing the river. It feels more like a Taiwan night market than the Shida night market, which caters more to students and foreigners. The advantage of Shida is still that it stays open pretty late.

I love the rooftop area of my building where I can check the weather since the window of my apartment faces another building. I'm looking forward to see what kind of routine I form here.

Ugly intersection closest to my building. My building is just around the corner to the right. Turning around 180 degrees I go to the bridge crossing the Jingmei River:

Jingmei St. day market.

1:01 p.m.

When I left the monastery, I knew the most important thing I was taking away was the practice, the mindfulness practice. At its core, the mindfulness practice there stresses breathing. We practice breathing, that is, awareness of breathing, the act of breathing, so that when we get into various situations, mostly disagreeable or progressively difficult, the practice can be implemented for practical benefit.

When I left, I thought it would be no problem maintaining the practice. I practiced well at the monastery, and breathing is always here, how difficult can it be to maintain the practice? There should be no problem implementing it either. It was a bit arrogant.

It occurred to me recently that I can't even remember the last time I consciously practiced breathing. As a topic, as an abstraction, "mindfulness" will pop into my head every once and a while, and that breathing is important, yadda-yadda-yadda. But I've stopped practicing it. I've stopped realizing that to be good at something, you need to practice it. Set some time apart for practicing it, and putting effort into it, rather than just thinking it will come naturally when I need it.

It was good that I dropped the ball, because now I'm putting an effort into practicing mindful breathing, and as a result, I can feel more of the mechanics involved.

Mindful breathing is awareness of self, it's being, or "self-being". While in Taiwan, I've progressively let myself get more and more annoyed by outside circumstances, some big, some small, I'm only dealing with the small ones now, the majority.

I've noticed a feeling when I get annoyed that my awareness is outside of me. It's with the thing annoying me, it's out there. Once I catch myself with this negativity, I stop what I'm doing, come back to my breathing and follow it slowly in and out, and I realize my awareness is now back with me, it's inside of me with the air that I'm breathing, and I'm not so annoyed anymore.

Imagine that.

It's as if allowing my awareness wander around outside of me and letting it be affected by external stimuli is the basis of dichotomy. It's part of that whole conundrum about only being able to persecute or oppress other people by first making them the "other". Once you've separated them from you, it is the beginning of being possible treat them poorly.

Focusing on breathing and on the self is more an emphasis on oneness. I was annoyed by some external stimuli, but focusing on breathing makes me realize myself as a whole, and as a whole I can take them in and not be so annoyed.

Not that it's a problem letting my awareness wander around outside of me to be affected by external stimuli. That can't be helped. But it's the step after that, the attitude towards it.

Feb 3 - Feb 6

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3 - Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super.

Da'an Park footbridge from Xinsheng S. Rd.

3:49 p.m. - I call this "Girl Staring at Wall". It is allegory for what girls can hope for when looking to a dismal future in a patriarchal world. (In the next shot she's starting to walk to her mother patiently waiting for her).

8:24 p.m. - I call this "Walking Through Jingmei Night Market On My Way Home After Bringing Some Stuff Over To My New Apartment". It, too, is allegory. Or not.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 5:20 p.m. - Construction of riverside bikeways on the Jingmei River. Anticipating my move to Xindian, my explorations are already more directed southward.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 12:49 p.m. - Taida campus right outside the Mandarin language building. Taipei 101 still visible, and those three buildings at the right have figured in my shots before.

I've started moving my stuff to my new apartment. I'm going to make this a long, slow move, taking a few things everyday, aiming to be done maybe next weekend after this semester ends.

After the semester ends there are still some things related to moving that I have to do, mostly address change things, and I also have to extend my visa. After that, depending on when Hyun Ae leaves, I'm considering going to Kaohsiung for my entire break.

I dunno. I'm keeping the whole Hyun Ae thing in perspective, but maybe it's old habit – some feeling about her leaving and me needing to cleanse her being in my life from my Taipei experience. Leaving for an extended period is supposed to accomplish that.

Last night, riding the bus home after bringing over a small load of stuff and doing cursory cleaning of my new apartment, I watched Taipei out the window. The lights, the stores, the people, the traffic. What am I doing moving to Hsindian? Aside from getting away from allergies, I mean.

I suddenly felt really isolated. Like I don't know the city, that I don't belong in the city, that the city doesn't want me. I have no "memory" of this city, and without a memory, it can't be real.

I've been having trouble sleeping. Actually, no, I get to sleep fine, but I wake up early and then can't fall back to sleep to get the amount of sleep I need. The strange thing is also that I haven't been crashing midday and requiring a nap. I get to the end of my usual days just fine.

It caught up last night, and I got a little more sleep than I have been. I almost got to when my alarm clock was to go off. I had such a vivid dream, and it was all about isolation, cutting off from people completely, ignoring them, rejecting them.

I woke up and I wondered what I was doing moving. I didn't want to move, I didn't want to mock the little stability I've carved out for myself. But I have to move, my stupid unconscious is forcing me to.

But morning is the worst time for me, the time when I feel things that I don't normally feel. Like in San Francisco when I would wake up and get desperate feeling I didn't want to die. The feeling would be gone by the time I was taking a shower. The feeling washed away this time, too.

The isolation, however, is real. It's becoming the theme.

"Why Do Buddhists Not Believe in God?"

Buddhists don't believe in God? I think that's a hard statement to make, even though there are plenty of Buddhists and non-Buddhists who are perfectly comfortable making that statement. For me, it depends on what you call "God".

The question might be loaded with assumptions and preconceptions about God, and quite honestly, I don't think there is even full consensus among the major Western traditions through all of history about the nature of God.

Buddhist might easily believe in God. There are ideas and concepts in Buddhist thought that when described in particular words, match some of the descriptions of God by writers in the Western traditions! It's just that Buddhists might not call it God.

A short while ago I wrote about a discussion I had with a youngster from Berkeley who was over here converting the heathen and made the mistake of approaching me. He got an earful from me. At one point towards the end of our discussion, I think I asked him, "Do you think I believe in God?", and he thought for a few seconds and said, "Yes, I think you do".

I took that as high compliment, as well as a reason to respect him. He had just gotten a barrage of my alternative theological theories, none of which should have led him to think I believed in the Christian formulation of God, and here he was saying that we have this belief, for him a sacred belief, in common.

I think it was enough for him that I had given these ideas so much thought, and though I told him I was coming from a scientific background (I didn't mention Buddhism at all), there was obviously consideration of what he calls "divine" in my formulations.

I am perfectly comfortable with someone taking my formulations and interpreting them in a way that says I believe in God. Because in those interpretations, I do! It might not be my first choice of language, but if they're the ones saying it, then it's their language they're saying it in, and I believe in God! I have no problem with that.

As for Buddhists "who don't believe in God", and I'm trying to be careful as I would encourage them to be careful, I would caution about further believing that people who believe in God are wrong. I think that should be a hard statement for a Buddhist to make. What's wrong, what's right?

Are Buddhist views wrong or right? No, they're just views. If someone thinks you're wrong, fine, maybe they're right. Who knows who's wrong or right? You can only go by what you feel and what you believe. That's something Buddhists should cultivate and know because it is the more compassionate and peaceful approach. It is not compassionate or peaceful to think someone else is wrong.