Another summer gone. Still alive. I noticed this year how quickly summer ended in Taiwan. I don't know if I noticed it before.

Summer for me in Taipei is when the thermometers in my apartment read 88-89 degrees, regardless of what it is outside. Air conditioning gets used, usually timed for an hour at a time, and otherwise the fan is on all the time, and is on all night. Showers are cold.

Summer ended when thermometers started reading 83 degrees. No more air conditioning, but still electric fan action, but not all the time. Timer turns it off after I turn off the lights to go to sleep. Showers are still basically cold, but with some hot water to take off the edge.

A typhoon is just brushing the eastern edge of Taiwan, not expected to hit, but has brought clouds, rain and a stiff wind, adding to the feel that summer's over. It's a super-typhoon. A few days ago when it was in the Philippines, the winds were blowing precipitation down on mostly sunny days in Taipei.

It perplexes me that I'm still alive, striving along with no reason to.

I read the entire Lord of the Rings this summer. I read it because I haven't found any new "meaningful" reads, i.e. relevant to my existential situation, and I'm just killing time now. I read it because HBO aired all three films over the course of three nights and I wondered how different the films were from the books and I recalled seeing them in the public library.

There are, indeed, significant differences in the first and third parts, but the second part, The Two Towers, is pretty faithful. Oddly, The Two Towers, in my opinion, was the worst of the films. Muddled and scattered, but works fine in written form. Go fig.

Since finishing the book, only the first film, Fellowship of the Ring, has been aired again and I watched it again, and I realized how clever the dark arts of adaptive screenwriting is. Mind you, I think the films are instant classics just because of the scope of the damn thing. And the books are very long-winded with paragraph upon paragraph of descriptions of Middle Earth geography and meals and lore that were kinda lost on me.

But the screenwriters were ingenious in sticking in bits that were described at length in the book as mere tidbits that only a geek who lives and breathes Lord of the Rings or someone who just read the book would notice. It's out of necessity, I know. Otherwise the films would be impossibly long. Large swaths are left out of the films, but when possible, if the screenwriters were able to insert some tiny detail, they did.

I'm waiting for HBO to air The Two Towers and The Return of the King again. The third part was the least familiar when I was reading the book, whereas whenever I hit a portion of the first two parts that was covered in the movies, the visuals from the movie immediately took over. That's how effective the movie visuals were.

I didn't note how long it took to finish reading the book, but it was a pretty long ass time. Just a few hours a day in the library. And, mind you, the book and the films are better considered different entities. The films are sumptuous and grand and epic, but are no replacement for reading the book.

After Lord of the Rings, it also occurred to me to read The DaVinci Code because that also aired on TV, and I thought if scholars on the gnostic gospels are mentioning it, I should check out what this popular novel says about them. I don't know why, but I've been surprised that even many of my college peers have no idea what the gnostic gospels are.

I thought maybe that work of fiction could be a fun introduction to the topic, but . . . no. First of all, the film is a verbatim adaptation of the book. If you saw the film, you don't need to read the book, if you read the book, you don't need to see the film. And simply put, the addressing of the gnostic gospels is not at all scholarly, but appropriate for a thriller.

And that's what I did this summer.

Westward bikeways (Erchong)

Running out of steam on this getting-back-into-cycling-thing-because-now-I-have-a-GPS. I've started shying away from climbs (which was the thrill of cycling when I first started), ergo this quick and completely flat bikeway ride.

And after this ride, I won't ride for nearly three weeks despite numerous perfect days for riding, and by the time I go for another ride, summer will be officially over and it will show in the weather and temperatures. A typhoon will also stymie any attempt to ride through that third week.

Perfect weather days, I plan to ride, but then I just can't bring myself to drag my ass and my bike's ass out of the apartment.

I've noticed that these Garmin maps don't always load properly on the first try and require reloading to appear. The mildly perplexing part of that is that when they don't load properly, the default map is Manhattan, which includes my childhood stomping grounds in New Jersey, including Fort Lee.

It's a map that's immediately recognizable and as my childhood stomping grounds, has a hint of "home". Certainly more home than any map here in Taiwan.

I recently re-bought the Robert Thurman translation of the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead. There are four translations. The first I think is marred by Western-centric chauvinism, the second by Francesca Fremantle includes an incredible introduction by Chogyam Trungpa, Thurman's is the third and is very scholarly and professor-ly (he writes in an open-minded way, sometimes muddled, that really encourages "getting" the ideas from one's own point of view), and the fourth one is currently the most complete and comprehensive translation of the available cycle of literature.

I think I first picked up a used copy of this translation at some bookstore on 16th St. in San Francisco some 9 or 10 years ago. It was my introduction to Tibetan thought and methodology.

Robert Thurman ordained as a novice monk in the 60s, but before fully ordaining, he returned his robes (not an uncommon occurrence) and returned to the States and became a scholar on Tibet; professor of Tibetan Studies at Columbia University and founder of Tibet House, based in Manhattan. Father to Uma.

It was pretty mind-blowing back then and I marked up that book real good. I gave that copy to my cousin in 2004 or 2005. The last I heard, she hadn't read it and I'm predicting she won't until I die or disappear, presumed gone for good.

It's not quite as mind-blowing this time around as the ideas are pretty standard Dzogchen teachings, which I've repeatedly been exposed to through the years. I've also gotten more acquainted with Robert Thurman's distinct style, and I'm reading that more in the book now. Although there's still a lot to appreciate, there's very little I'm marking this time around.

There is an aspect I've been delving into that makes re-reading it now very timely. I don't always like Robert Thurman's choice of terminology, but there are concepts that I've been exploring that are clearly the same as what he explicates in his book.

The Tibetan methodology on death studies I might describe as personal scientific. It has been referred to as "science of the mind", but I don't think many of the insights can't be objectively verified scientifically. They can, however, be subjectively verified, following the methodology, but even as such, they cannot be dogmatically insisted upon as being some truth. It's an aspect of faith that instructs, "go figure it out yourself".

Another book I've recently read and found illuminating is the Dalai Lama's Advice on Dying and Living a Better Life. Tibetan methodology on death sciences focuses intently on the nature of consciousness and meditation on it.

On the most basic level, it's important to separate gross consciousness, which is the result of our physical senses feeding information to our brain which processes the information to form what we call consciousness, from suggestions that other processes are involved which define our being and are important.

When we die, those physical senses fail and that gross consciousness which is the result of our senses becomes irrelevant. And it might be the other processes, perhaps described as inner winds or subtle winds, that carry our karma through to whatever's next for each individual.

It's suggested that our adherence to gross consciousness is the deepest form of karma there is. It's what keeps us in the cycle of life, death and rebirth because it has become habit to live according to these perceptions which create what we call consciousness and reality.

As Robert Thurman puts it: The "presence-habit" is the deepest level of misknowing conceptualization, which maintains the sense of "being here now" as something or someone finite . . . supporting addictive and objective instincts of self-preservation, and blocking awareness of the primal bliss-wisdom indivisible of the eternal reality of enlightenment.

So what else is there? I don't know if the Dalai Lama used the phrase, but the phrase I got out of his book was "energy body". Thurman mentions a "magic body" which might be the same thing, although that's an example of his terminology that I don't like. There's nothing "magic" or magical about it.

But it suggests we're not just living corpses. Take away the senses that we identify as providing our living aspect and we become corpses. There's more to our consciousness than what we grossly perceive through our senses. There's a lot going on with our bodies that we can't perceive through our senses and this comprises an "energy" body that carries subtle "winds" of our being that are just as important as sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.

On a physiological level, there's an analogy with electrical impulses of our nervous system, neurons firing in our brains, cellular formation, blood creation in bone marrow, skin dying, hair growing, etc., etc. It includes our heart beating and digestion and the functions of our major organs. We're not consciously aware of these things, but they are happening, and they are of great importance to our being alive.

The meditation starts with these functions, realizing them or imagining them or imagining being conscious of them, even though we don't know the particulars of what they are doing at any given moment.

But the energy body also contains emotions and impulse thoughts, intuitive thought and instinctive reactions. Humor is an example of one of these energy elements. As well as desire and hostility. Focusing on different elements can help different people start to be aware of and identify this "energy body" and the winds that carry aspects of our being we're otherwise unaware of or don't care about.

This is just the starting point. And there's a whole nother aspect of investigating it which involves sexual energies. It's something I'm certainly unwilling to go into. I don't think there's anything written down in terms of specific teachings because it can't be taught.

It might be within a category of intuition meditation where individuals have to figure it out themselves because any external teaching is suspect of being perverse or prurient. You can only learn it when you're ready, and when you're ready, you'll figure it out yourself, and no one else can know if you're ready and have the proper discipline to separate instinctive, animalistic sexual urge and lust from transcendent, "divine", sexually instigated understanding and wisdom. Wisdom not derived from consciousness based on our gross senses.

I've said too much already, meaning I've displayed too much of my ignorance already. Although Thurman's use of terminology such as "primal bliss-wisdom" and "orgasmic ecstasy" to describe the experience is specifically chosen and not unrelated to this, I shouldn't wonder.

I got together with an acquaintance today. I may have mentioned her before, her name is Tako and she was a co-worker from the China Post several years back. I never attributed much to our acquaintance, although we did converse a bit, even a little bit after our time at the newspaper, and seemed to have some bit of a connection.

Friend? No. Nothing elevated our interactions to the point of being able to call it friendship, despite having shared a lot, including a lot of music.

For the past year, she has been in Australia. Before she left for Australia, she asked if we could meet up. I declined. We're not in such constant contact that I was willing to meet up just to say goodbye, and I told her as much.

If our acquaintance was of any meaning, then we would have been meeting up regularly anyway. I would have known she was thinking of going to Australia! We hadn't been, so if she suddenly wanted to meet up because she was about to leave, fuck that. It's not worth my time or effort. I told her I'd welcome her when she came back.

After a year, she came back for a visit and asked if we could meet, and I expressed that I would not miss an opportunity to meet with her. So we met.

Meeting up with her affirmed any connection we had during our conversations before. She's a special person and I gave as good as advice as I could on life. Is she a friend? No. We met up, we parted and went our separate ways and she won't be occupying any mental space. If I never heard from her again, it wouldn't make any difference.

We spoke freely about anything that occurred to us, and one topic was about my penchant to walk away from any relationship I had; a self-destructive behavior that I don't recommend to anyone who wants to do anything with their lives, and I told her so. She asked me, as a request, not to walk away from her, and my response was easy. No.

My explanation was that I knew myself too well to not be able to promise that, but the truth is, despite whatever connection we seemed to be making, she doesn't come anywhere close to what I have considered a significant friend. If I made a list of the important people in my life, it would be an insult to the other people on the list, from my perspective and reckoning, to include her on it.

Xindian->Rt. 110->Dahan River east bank

This was a revisit of a ride that I used to do when I lived in Xindian, south of Taipei. Now I live in east Taipei, and the rides I discovered while I lived in Xindian require the extra ride of going to south of Taipei, so I haven't done any of them in quite some while.

Although I knew this ride could be of considerable distance, I knew this ride didn't have any challenging climbs. As it turned out, at 35 miles, it wasn't even of considerable distance, although there were a couple of ways I could've extended it well beyond 40 miles.

This ride had 3 sections: the urban ride through Taipei and down through Xindian, then the significant portion of the ride on route 110, which is pretty rural and contains the only modest climb, and then the return home which is almost all on riverside bikeways.

Towards the beginning of the route 110 section, I caught up and passed another cyclist who was decked out in full cycling gear, riding a fancy bike. I wasn't trying to be dominant or drop him, I was simply riding faster than him at that point.

It didn't bother me when he got on my wheel and got in my draft. Sadly, many Taiwanese riders I've encountered aren't aware of cooperative drafting and their responses to me drafting them have been pretty variable and some silly.

Basically drafting is when you ride right behind someone else. The person in front is doing all the work of cutting through the air, and the person behind benefits from being in the slipstream and not using as much energy to maintain a certain speed.

In professional cycling, a person takes a turn in front and then peels off and goes to the back to let someone else take a turn. In hobbyist road cycling among strangers, it's not that organized or certain that they have the concept, and if someone gets on someone else's wheel, instead of the person in front peeling off, the person behind will push forward to let the person in front know they are taking a turn.

And with this guy, I thought I found someone who knew drafting etiquette; he got on my wheel and then pulled in front to take a turn, then I pulled in front to take a turn, but then he pulled in front on a hill and dropped me. He even looked back to see if I was going to challenge him. Fuck no, you keep your Tour de France fantasy, I'm too old for this shit.

I dunno. Did he think it was some competition? I sure didn't and didn't give a crap. Although the fact that I couldn't keep up with him emphasized the fact that I am old and I've gotten seriously weak, and should be wondering how long I'm going to keep this charade up just because the market has produced the bike GPS device I wish had existed more than 10 years ago.

It's all good and fine to do the best one can in tackling mindfulness issues, one of mine being negativity, with one push-button issue of (karmic) violence and aggression. I'm generally not violent or aggressive in any way. Even when I feel an instance of anger flare up, I'm quick to extinguish it.

That instance of anger is important and I'll come back to it, but as to violence and aggression, I'm wary about this part of my mindstream that runs through scenarios where I encounter a confrontational situation where I take offense and lose any mindfulness or equilibrium and go ape shit on the other person.

Part of me says not to worry about it, it will never manifest, I'll never act on it. But then yesterday morning I had a dream where I did act on it. I don't remember specifics of the dream except that a situation arose, there was a sense of either offense or threat, and I went all out and attacked with the intention to destroy.

I don't remember the result, except that I came out fine, and that the person was somewhat reminiscent of someone I knew in my first year of college. That person was someone I had no problem with and totally respected.

She was an upperclassman, a bass player and a bit of a bull dyke. I think she was an East Asian Studies major and spoke Japanese, so maybe she was a bit of a lesbian rice queen. No problem there. And in reality she could've kicked my ass, as I think she also had some military experience in her background. No idea there.

The point about the dream, and the rest of it was also filled with my own fear and being threatened, is that it was scary because it establishes that violent and aggressive nature in my karma in a definitive way. The way I see it is that as it manifested in a dream, it was proven that it is something real in my subconscious that I have to worry about and deal with.

That flaky mindfulness thing about "I'll do the best I can" is not good enough. And I think this may be an important point about enlightenment, where serious transformation must be faced and achieved. Where doing the best you can is, quite frankly, easy. How about doing what you can't. Open your eyes and don't see. I can't. Well, do it.

I'm led to believe my karma has issues of violence and aggression, and it's rooted in anger. I've gotten good at clamping down on anger flaring up. As soon as I encounter a situation where I react in even the mildest offense of "What the hell are you doing?", I shut it down.

That's no reason to pat myself on the back. That may be doing the best I can. The impossible is wiping out any mote of anger flaring up at all, and that's what needs to be done in the scan of my perception of reality. Wipe out that karma completely. How do you wipe out karma that was created by someone else (previous life/lives)?!

It has become instinctual and immediate. It is part of my fabric. How do I not get angry for even a microsecond, how do I not react? But it has to be done no matter how impossible it seems. That's what may be considered transformational.

泰安路 (Taian Road, 1,473 ft.), Cidu

Another example of the advantage of having GPS on a bike. I was planning on doing a tried and true ride out to Ruifang and Taiwan's east coast and looping back through Keelung and heading home. I recall the ride being long, but with only a little climbing.

But while heading out to Ruifang, I came across a road that had always intrigued me and made me wonder if there was anywhere worth riding. There was a bunch of signage at the intersection that led under a railroad overpass that made me think it was a tourist destination.

So I checked the GPS, found that it was a climb, but it was an out and back road. It didn't go anywhere. I decided to abandon the original ride and do the climb, knowing it was out and back, and having done an unplanned climb, I could just go home with a satisfactory ride.

The climbs I've been doing have been increasing little by little. I'm still convinced I'm cooked on climbs, due to age and/or alcohol. I just can't do them like I used to. I have yet to break either a 2,000 foot climb or 2,000 feet of accumulated climbing.

And there are limitations to the GPS because of human error. I found a certain bridge closed on my return home, and in plotting an alternate route to bypass the bridge, I didn't follow what looked on the map to be the most direct way to get back on the road to Taipei and went on what was familiar and "made sense" and ended up taking the long way just to backtrack to the exact opposite side of that closed bridge. I ended up riding several more miles than I had to, albeit the shorter way would've been through car and truck-choked urban streets of Xizhi.

Shortening miles isn't necessarily the point of rides or GPS, but sometimes it comes in handy when running out of fuel or time.