THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2:55-3:04 p.m. - Banqiao township, Taipei County. Getting promo pictures taken for the band. I wish I took a picture of myself since I'm curious what I wore. I don't dress like that, I dress like a slob. I can't imagine someone didn't bring clothes for me. IXUS 860 IS.

FEBRUARY 29, 4:38 p.m. - The Living Mall (京華城). I've been around these parts before exploring, but now it's gonna be my new neighborhood.

It's so easy to move my hand from here to here. It's so easy to control it. But when I try to hold my mind in one place for five minutes, it's impossible. Within seconds my mind wanders and suddenly I'm somewhere else, in the past, in the future, certainly not sitting here on this cushion.

That was last October. Why is it so hard to control my own mind? Why is it so hard to still my thoughts? What is the nature of thought? What kind of energy is it that makes controlling it so elusive?

The zen training is to just let it go. When I realize I'm wandering, bring it back . . . at least for the few seconds before it goes wandering off again like cattle, meandering like Taipei pedestrian traffic.

Recently I try treating the wandering thoughts as stones. Words are a heavy thing, they weigh you down. They prevent me from lifting up, from flying, from liberating. The thoughts come as words, the words are stone, let them fall to the bottom, knowing they are weighing me down.

Everyone already is enlightened. That was resonating today as I was walking home. It's just mine and our minds that have this thing, maybe call it habit, of distinguishing this from that, me from you. When really there is no separation.

We are all formed from the same materials that formed this Earth, this solar system, this universe.

And the energy that forms our consciousness, our being, even more closely related. Everyone's different opinions, different beliefs are just illusion, thoughts, stones weighing us down. Separated by the trivialities of physical existence, habitual existence that makes us think we are physical.

They really are all the same, all reconcilable, and all correct. I can't disagree with anyone else's spiritual or philosophical belief. How can I? If they tell me their belief, it is mine. They can only tell me their belief if it was mine in the first place, or how else can it be formed.

Hiccups have been occuring more frequently, randomly. My gut feels hard as rock. Trying to finish this Motown mix for Hyun Ae. Starting tomorrow, I'm no longer drinking in the morning. I don't want to drink in the morning anymore. Anyone who wants this Motown mix is welcome to it. I'll post it when I finalize it.

Drop the thoughts like stones, and maybe I can rise like sky lanterns:
Sky Lanterns 天燈

The words "have to stop drinking" keep flittering across my mind, followed by "do I want to stop drinking? no".

I'm moving to Songshan District, pretty far from anything I do.

There's a direct bus that goes to school, and I think I noticed a direct bus that goes to rehearsals, but if I need to take the MRT, I have to walk to Taipei City Hall station. Not ridiculously far, good for exercise, but I certainly can't "hop on the MRT".

I'll be living just north of Nanjing East Road, and they are currently constructing an MRT line that goes under Nanjing East Road, but I checked their website and it's not due to open until 2013. Five years from now.

Five years from now. What if I'm still alive 5 years from now? If I'm alive 5 years from now, I can use the Nanjing East Road MRT line, that's what. And since when have I lived more than 5 years in one place? Especially in a city that I've vowed I can't live through another Winter.

Five years from now. Five years ago. Did I expect to be here now five years ago? I don't even need to go back and read, NO! shitfuck. Will I still be around five years from now? Probably. shitfuck. Unless I don't stop drinking.

I crave change. I need change. A karmic burden I should pay more attention to, as it is related to being in a monastery. And this change might have me staying in Taipei longer than if I just stayed put at my current place, where I'm ready to leave for Kaohsiung at anytime.

Audrey's aunt and uncle are giving me a no term lease, but just because of the change, I'll probably stay for at least a full year, unless everything keeping me here falls through, or something affirmatively pulls me there.

I fell off my bike today. It's like I'm practically not blogging anymore, and that's the topic I choose?! the hell's wrong with me?

I don't know if it was because I was drunk or because I hadn't had coffee for the first time in I don't know when. I don't think I was that drunk, I've been drunker, so I guess it must be the coffee.

It was really dumb, too. As careful as I am riding, drunk or not, this was the stupidity equivalence of falling off a sidewalk curb. I was riding on the pedestrian walkway crossing the Jingmei River, something I've done just about every time I left my apartment riding my bike, and my bar caught the railing and I went over, hitting my head on the railing on the other side.

Huge bruise and slight bleeding, visible due to receding hairline. The irony is that a helmet would have been perfect to protect from this injury. And recently I was even thinking of getting a helmet, finally.

When I was down in Kaohsiung for New Years, my uncle gave me a red envelope. Now, red envelopes are for kids, so it was a little weird, but I'm not married and I don't have a career, so I think I'm still considered a child. Anyway it was the gesture that counted, and I told myself that when I move to Kaohsiung, I'll wear a helmet.

I rode to school and went on with my day, but at the end of the day, my head still hurt and whenever you fall off a bike, your confidence is shaken for at least a short time. And I just had a premonition that I shouldn't ride, so I walked home. The impact was so hard, my top teeth were aching. Oh and I've found falls bring on bouts of melancholy. I should eat a chocolate bar.

And I'm not sure of the significance, but I'm moving next Sunday. I'm moving and I finally have a fall. No significance. This all started two weeks ago, when my cousin Audrey told me her aunt on her mother's side had an apartment available. I'm not exactly sure what's compelling me, since I really like my current apartment, but eventually I took it.

It's back in Taipei, but pretty far from anything I do. I'm currently living in Xindian, just across the river south of Taipei, and the new place is all the way on the east side of the city. I'll still have a river close by with arguably nicer parks and bikeways – the Key Lime River (基隆河).

Riding to school will be much more dangerous, all major streets, and will probably take no less than 30 minutes, more as the Summer comes around, as I'll probably ride slower in the heat. Same thing with rehearsals, all major street riding at night.

I can take the Key Lime River to the Saturday meditation group, and getting to Dazhi, where Hyun Ae lives, will be that much easier, too. She verbalized not minding meeting up more often than we had been this past year, so I think I'll take advantage of that. See if I don't get bored with her first.

Her little sister just arrived from Korea to start language classes for a semester at Taida. That was a surprise she dropped on me last week. I don't want to meet her little sister. When she and I interact, I don't know, I feel pretty close to her. The way we used to interact, of course, was totally inappropriate of someone who has a boyfriend, but she's toned it down since then, but there's still a feeling of closeness inappropriate for little sister to witness. Even if it's just in my mind. Especially if it's just in my mind.

Audrey's aunt and uncle reduced the rent since I'm kinda considered family, even though Audrey's mother, my aunt, died a long time ago. And they're allowing me no lease term, so whenever I want to move to Kaohsiung, I can. But if living there is nice enough, I just might live here longer.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 3:55 p.m. - Where I'm moving.

4:52 p.m. - Taipei Grand Hotel from the Dazhi Bridge over the Keelung River.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 6:12-7:56 p.m. - Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival. I'd ridden to Pingxi before, but getting there for this involved taking the MRT brown line all the way to the terminus at Taipei Zoo Station, then taking a shuttle bus to Pingxi which took close to an hour on the same road I rode to get there. I tried to take quite a lot of pics but most would qualify for being "artsy" and "impressionistic". This was when I decided that as great as the zoom capabilities were on the Ricoh Caplio R4, I'd had enough of the poor low-light performance and needed a new camera.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 9:08 p.m. - Rehearsal room in Ximending.

Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 5:48 p.m. - Celebrating Lunar New Year, the character for "spring (春)"  is often depicted upside-down. We cornily like to say "spring has sprung". In Mandarin they say "spring has arrived (春到了)" but a homonym for "has arrived (到)" is to "turn upside down (倒)", like turning a bottle upside-down to pour a drink. So the character turned upside-down captures the whole idea of "spring has arrived". A clever people them Chinese. Then the Communists took over and began an ongoing campaign to dumb everything down. Canon IXUS 860 IS.

FEBRUARY 25, 11:15 a.m. - My current apartment, which I love but will abandon because of the asshole white guy who moved in next door. Story of my life. It's hard to make out, but the box of my new Canon DIGITAL IXUS 860 IS is on the shelf. Canon IXUS 860 IS.

1:57 p.m. - Jingmei River default shot. Quite possibly right before I went over. IXUS 860.

I guess my blog is having an identity crisis after six years. Maybe it's trying to feel too big. Maybe it needs to stay small. Geez, how much smaller can it get? I'm sure this is not the first time it's had an identity crisis.

It's not me with the identity crisis. Goddammit. Well, what is this blog supposed to be doing? Is it supposed to be about me learning a language? No. Boring.

Is it supposed to be about the people I meet or know in Taiwan? No. Boring. Any social interactions whatsoever? No. Is it supposed to be about my failed and failing musical endeavors? No. Boring. My failed and failing whatever? Oh please.

Crap no well what?

What do I want to say? Or what do I want to leave?

Ah yes, of course, leaving. This blog is definitely about my leaving or wanting to leave. And I guess what I've learned and encountered in that process.

I'll never have kids. I see my relatives having kids, and I look at these wonderful, innocent little mites, and just looking at my life, I would never want to create one of these things to go through anything like I went through. And not the bad stuff, the whole damn thing.

And it's not that I think any of them are like me or would be like me, god forbid, but if they're just like these other people, then why bother? Why would I bother? You put them on Earth, for what? To go through the whole life thing? To be trapped in this normative matrix, thinking it's something like reality, what life is about?

There's going to be a clearer elucidation of this in the future, I shouldn't wonder. Reason or no reason, the idea of having kids is just no where in my reality. It's almost offensive to it.

And also speaking of leaving, I'm going through a bottle of liquor every two or three days, which must be hastening the process. I'm starting to notice shifts in my health, if not my mood. I don't know if they're related.

The meditation on dying is always poignant, and not black and white. And there's gotta be something I can say about it and that's what this blog is supposed to be doing. I guess

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 12:52 p.m. - Jingmei River default shot.

week in review:

what was this week? in the grand scheme of my life, what was this week? huh, punk?

came back to taipei from kaohsiung one day later than planned because the high speed rail was totally booked from kaohsiung to taipei on monday. there were lessons to be learned from that. or not. honestly, i didn't care. obviously, because if i really cared i would have gone earlier to get a ticket, as i've done in the past.

lunar new years was a total frenzy of feeding. i kept my social avoidant behavior in check and did my best to . . . i did my best. it was a necessary test if i plan to move down there for a year before returning stateside.

i had a lot of fun with the kids of various relatives. children and art. the only things we can really leave behind.

i'm still close to audrey's kids, pie and gracie, even though i can't say much about my relationship with audrey herself. we're cordial, even pleasant, but very simply, our closeness in this lifetime is pretty much done. but i'm not knocking cordial and pleasant, sometimes it's the best we can do, and sometimes it's enough.

in addition, there's sunny and bob, my cousin peter's kids, and jill, my cousin sally's daughter, all older than pie and gracie. sally and peter are siblings, and those are their english names, which I don't think anybody uses.

i met sunny three years ago when she was seven and she was delightfully radiant, a beautiful girl. she still is and will be in the future, but she also seems really insecure, and . . . kind of a spaz, which is really funny. she's just getting comfortable with me. she has terrible posture, and this time i found i have enough standing to tell her to straighten her shoulders. i told her i have the same problem and she could point out to me when i'm slouching.

she and bob are learning english, and when i perused photos on their computer of family trips to california, where their aunt, another of my cousins, lives, they wouldn't shut up. a sure sign they're comfortable with me. i'm kidding about the not shutting up part, it was terrific hearing them make such an effort to apply their english.

But enough about the kids. This is my blog, it's about me. So what was this week for me in the grand scheme of things to review that didn't deserve being blogged at the time.

Band: it's OK, not necessarily my cup of tea. The bar where they had weekly Saturday night gigs is closed temporarily so we lost that gig. I'm hoping to at least earn back what I'm putting into rehearsal time before I quit or get fired. I'd prefer the later because I'm just not that proactive about my life.

Friends: I'm slowing making friends through an international meditation group, under the guise of language exchange. Unknown potential.

Language: I'm taking next semester off, too, to focus on my poor listening comprehension. I need to be more self-motivated and diligent. Much more. I think after two years of classroom study, the immersion method doesn't work for me. I'm thinking a saturation method would be better for me, but I need to be more diligent. That was boring.

This is boring. I'm boring myself. I need to stop.

Kaohsiung:

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 12:36 p.m. - From a lower floor in my uncle's building. KMRT construction and Lunar New Year market stalls setting up around it.

5:49-5:52 p.m. - Unknown location, probably outside Kaohsiung proper. Probably for dinner. Probably a place my aunt knew about and chose. 

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 11:43 a.m. - My cousin Peter's wife and Jill, their direct niece (Sally's daughter). This was a place where families take their kids to build their own rock ovens to cook snacks and have a picnic. It's a supposedly fun activity solely for the kids as adults wouldn't do this otherwise, as the effort required and the quality of the eating would not make it worth it.

12:04-12:21 p.m. - Fahr!

4:19 p.m. - Afterwards the ovens are dismantled for another day. Picnic area in the background.

Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super:

Other recreation in the area.

Jill with Sunny and Bob.

Hi Audrey,
I hope this is your email address. It was good talking to you this past time, it felt like we were mutually connecting better than we have in a long time.

I just want to let you know that I support you in eventually getting back to being vegetarian. It's most important to understand or be mindful about why be vegetarian or not, the cycle of life, the creation and destruction, but being vegetarian is a worthy goal to strive for.

The basic energy of life that is in plants, I think, is the same energy of life in so-called "sentient beings". Separating compassion towards sentient beings and vegetable beings is dangerous. After all, even the Chinese language has adopted the Western word for human beings who have a limited range of sentient being mental activity - 植物人 - vegetables.

Buddhists who are vegetarian and think they are so great because of it because they are doing less "harm", I think is good, but need to develop their perspective more.

I tell myself one of the practical reasons I eat meat is for "health" reasons. I think I told you before that a Western/Chinese doctor in San Francisco told me I had to eat more red meat for protein for my health. I asked if tofu and fish weren't enough and she said, "no, red meat".

That was a long time ago, and this might just be an excuse, and maybe I should just admit, like you, that I just like it!, but as long as I'm running or riding, I think I do need to be eating meat. And I am definitely convinced that the Chinese vegetarian diet (even Western) can't support high performance physical activities.

BUT, even though I keep making a note to get out and run or ride once the weather gets better, the weather isn't getting better, and I haven't been running or riding regularly since the Autumn. So in this down season, I think I should support you eventually getting back to vegetarianism, by also, as much as possible, opting for not eating meat. When I have the choice, when I really think about it, I will think of you eventually getting back to it, and choose a vegetarian option.

I think it must be very difficult for you to maintain an effective, regular practice in your situation. This isn't advice or a recommendation, just something to think about.

If I didn't know you at all, I would encourage someone to stick to the basics, and don't get too much into sophisticated meditations. Instead, focus on something basic, but also important and effective, like the Eightfold path and what it is and what it means, and trying to actively practice that.

I don't even stick to the 8 things the Buddha taught, and I created my own list to fit what I think I need to work on. I even changed the English translation because when I read "right thinking, right intention, etc.", it implies there is a "wrong", and the actual word in Pali, I read, actually means something like "complete", or "perfect".

I've settled for "mindful", something to strive for. So maybe that is something you can apply to your daily practice, each day try to focus on one, and ask yourself why. Like speech, what you say. All day whatever you say, you check if it's what you really want to say, and that it promotes something related to the dharma.

In your case, the dharma you want to promote is the happiness and well-being of the people around you. Know that what you say will affect other people's happiness and well-being, and if it affects other people's happiness and well-being, it also affects yours. When you say something, does saying it promote your own happiness and well-being, because your happiness and well-being is essential to promote the happiness and well-being of the people around you.

Each day you do something like that for all 8 "paths". Figuring out what we need to work on, the paths, is hard because oftentimes our pride and ego get in the way. But if that's the case, then we can just fall back on the 8-fold path the Buddha recommended to work on. And by telling you this, I'm not saying I'm anywhere near succeeding in "perfecting" any of them. But we have to try and keep them in mind, because only then can we effect our future karma.

take care, and much love, always if not obvious,
koji

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

G'dang. Posts getting sparse. I don't want this blog to become abstract and mysterious, or disjuncted and full of pseudo-philosophical ramblings. It's a common case of sitting in front of the keyboard wanting to put something down, and then in the end stepping away from a blank canvas.

The fabric is moth-bitten and threadbare, too many holes to pull something together into what's supposed to be a loose narrative of an ongoing life. The only way to get it back on track is putting the threads back together, bit by bit, and figuring out my reflection in this blog.

But it's like wandering in the rubble of a destroyed home, where do you start?

My oldest brother's one and a half year old daughter is on the verge of talking. She constantly babbles incoherently, but sometimes coherent language comes out, and sometimes it makes sense in context.

There was one time one of them was putting her to bed, and the other was out in the living room with the remote monitor on. Apparently she randomly babbled "God is my friend" and they both heard it clearly! I imagine them running to each other with stunned looks on their faces wondering if each other heard it, realizing they did, and bursting into laughter.

While I was there this past time, we were driving west on Route 4 in my brother and wife's Lexus hybrid, and I forget what we were talking about, but my brother pretended to be her and said something about String Theory being total garbage, and I replied in faux response, "But you have to admit that as a transitory theory, it's a pretty good and viable stepping stone", to which she herself blurted out, "No it's not!"

Dead serious, we all heard it. And burst out laughing.

Kaohsiung street shooting. Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super:

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5

That's how I found it, I didn't touch a thing.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6 - Construction of the KMRT station outside my uncle's building taking form above ground.

Visit to grandparents' grave Lunar New Year 2008

12:12 p.m. - Phoenix and dragon.

1:01 p.m. - Larger graves have a small altars off to the side for offerings, but I don't know what they're for. Protector shrines?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7

Aunt and uncle with Audrey's father-in-law in the middle.

FEBRUARY 8, 12:57 a.m. - Ending Lunar New Year dinner with a family snapshot.

asshole

Sometimes you meet a major asshole, and to assert your superiority you tell yourself you wish nothing bad upon this asshole. But really, deep inside, you do. The guy's an asshole. He deserves the worst. He brings it upon himself.

But really I don't believe that's the way it works. You really do have to wish nothing bad upon this asshole, and push and push yourself to wish nothing upon this asshole. Whether you wish anything bad upon this asshole won't affect anything.

If the guy is really an asshole, his asshole-ness is his own, will be his own doing, and has nothing to do with what I wish for. But, if deep inside I wish something bad upon this asshole, that affects me. That's me. That's me being the asshole.

If he's an asshole and I think asshole things will happen to him as a result, that's wrong. That's me being the asshole and asshole things happening to me. That negativity is me being the asshole.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.