Negativity still clings to me and burns me from the inside like a demon.

I've managed to alienate everyone who was in my life, and I keep everyone in my life at far arms distance.

I bet just five minutes in my shoes and you wouldn't want to be here, either.

My movement on this path of life is a haunted house hall of horrors.

I still sit every morning. I still go through the Tibetan Book of the Dead in a circular read. I'm still trying to focus and cultivate what I think is most important. Music's not that important anymore. I still listen and hoard obsessively, but playing music isn't that important, despite being in a band. A humiliating joke of a band. I still ride.

I rode up into the mountains thinking I would finally do the Wanli ride.

One of my short-term goals is to ride Route 2 along Taiwan's north coast in its entirety, from Taipei north to Danshui, then Route 2 to Keelung, east of Taipei, and back to Taipei. I'm sorta haphazardly "training" for that. I'm not sure what the mileage is, but to Danshui is 13 miles, and to Keelung is 14 miles. So from Danshui to Keelung is at the absolute very least 27 miles, so the total ride is at the very least 54 miles since it's roughly circular. Doable, but how much more than 54 miles is the actual ride?

Anyway, before that attempt, I first want to do a Wanli ride and a Jinshan ride. Wanli is north of Keelung, and Jinshan is north of Wanli, so each would incrementally increase my range. Both of those rides entail big climbs and a return route through Keelung, which I'm already familiar with. I'm hoping there are no big climbs on Route 2. Relatively flat along the coast, I hope.

I finally found the mountain route to Wanli several weeks ago (maps in Taiwan are quite unreliable) without actually doing it. So anyway, I decided to attempt the Wanli ride, and headed up to get to the "Wanli pass." It's not really a mountain pass, strictly speaking, but it's where the roads converge onto the road at the peak of the climb to descend down to Wanli.

My energy level was low, and I wasn't really into it, so as soon as I hit the base of the climb in Neihu District, I immediately went down to my granny gear. I noted the sky was overcast, but didn't think it would rain because the weather maps showed any clouds were remnants from the typhoon and were pulling out northward.

What I forgot was riding up to 2,000 feet quite possibly puts me into those clouds.

As I approached the top of the climb, it was wet, but not quite raining. Water wasn't precipitating on me, rather I was riding into the moisture that was already there. I'm not a wet weather rider (think wet cat), and it was miserable enough for me to abandon the Wanli ride. I did, however, complete the climb, going further into the wetness, so that I could come back down a different route on this same side of the mountain, but would put me into Xizhi, between Keelung and Taipei.

But there was more to the experience than the ride.

I was above the "street lamp line", sort of an urban equivalent of the "tree line" in mountains, so I was riding in near darkness. The moisture was bearable, but not making me happy. There was also a wind blowing something fierce up there.

October 9, 2:39 a.m. - Xizhi route up to the "Wanli pass", above the "streetlamp line", probably more or less around "2,000 feet" in "elevation".

The surreality wasn't being wasted on me as I miserably approached the summit, but then Shiina Ringo came on my iPod. I've mentioned before that when I die, I want to be wrapped in a shroud of Shiina Ringo's music, not knowing what I meant by that. I still don't, but there she was hauntingly in my ears, and I began the descent.

The darkness was disorienting. The isolation was total. The rain was frustrating, exasperating. The wind was roaring. The speed was frightening, riding my brakes all the way down, riding in the center of the road keeping my headlamp on the glass cat's eyes to guide me through turns. Shiina Ringo.

October 9, 3:05 a.m. - Keeping forward light on the cat's eyes and staying in the center of the road, bike cables illuminated. No rain (or wind) when these were shot a week later.

My way of coping was to envision the experience as a virtual imagining of the death bardos.

There was a point as I neared the peak where I emotionally "cracked", like my stomach opened up and spilled out. I gasped and it turned into a laugh of awareness and that was the start of it.

I went down the mountain telling myself to practice death, let myself be overwhelmed, let myself be consumed, let myself go, but keep my consciousness, keep my concentration on the cat's eyes to guide me like dharma, like hearing a recitation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I need to recognize it and keep my senses even in the cacophony of the thundering straits of the bardo experience.

Shiina Ringo in my ears was a faint echo of my past life and emotions. I felt my attachment to my life and I thought of all the things that comprise me, my life, and my identity, and I didn't want to let them go, I didn't know how to let them go, they are all that I knew. But that's why I had to let them go – grasping onto all that I knew is wallowing in ignorance. I'm willing to let my life be taken, but I was acting like I wasn't ready to give it up. I need to be.

The difference between enlightenment and non-enlightenment is recognition of awareness in the death bardos. Awareness is there, but it's like being in a tempest, sense overloaded – the last thing you think of is recognizing your own awareness. It's just experience and fear. But recognition of awareness, which can only manifest with cultivation and practice, is a hallmark of enlightenment.

Shooting through the straits of the bardo and hearing something familiar and forming an awareness around it. Like lucid dreaming, maybe. I hope I can hone in on a recitation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. If anyone is reciting it, I think I will recognize it and move towards it. I just hope someone will be reciting it. For me.

5:15 p.m. - Now I just need to find one of those auto repair shops with Authorized Service Station signs nearby.