I know I said I was done with running, but I didn't mention a mitigating circumstance surrounding the re-injury to my Achilles. That one run that caused the injury, the first run after returning from the U.S., was on a pair of new sneakers that I bought when I was there.

It was a pair of "natural running" branded Nike sneakers. My brother and sister-in-law knew I was shopping for sneakers and after I bought them I told them I went back to the "evil empire", and they both went "Nike?"

The appeal was that I had been reading about "natural running" and I had been experimenting for several weeks or months with shifting from my natural heel-strike to a "natural running" mid-sole strike. I knew I had to be careful after previously trying the "Pose method" (forefoot strike) to disastrous effect on my Achilles.

Whenever I shifted to a mid-sole landing, I only maintained it for about 20 steps before going back to my natural form, but I was eventually convinced of the inefficiency of heel-strike running. There were times when another faster runner would pass me and I would switch to a mid-sole strike and I was able to maintain that person's pace until I laid off to prevent injury.

The Nike were very comfortable, snug and light, and they are, I maintain, a very sweet pair of sneakers. But after the injury, I wondered whether they were the problem in that my feet may need the cushioning and support that my previous Asics Gel-Nimbus 16 provided and kept me from injury the past several months.

So it's possible my telling myself that I was done with running was a psychological measure to keep me from even trying to run before I gave my Achilles enough time to heal. Today, more than three weeks since the injury, I bought a new pair of Asics Gel-Nimbus 18.

I'm still wary. I ain't gonna get my hopes up. I'm gonna get started by just walking three miles daily for a while, and when I'm confident enough I'm gonna go through the same regimen as before: slow and easy. Three miles daily, easy jog or plod and build up from there to see if I can avoid injury.

Since the injury, I have gotten on my bike three times in December anticipating no more running. I'll try to continue getting on my bike; I won't not ride in order to run like I did before. I'll do both now with the main doubt about riding being whether I'm bored with Taipei area riding. I might be.

Back in Taiwan. Back to reality. Back to my world.

(I - Nov. 25-present)
I got sick while I was in New Jersey. That makes this the third year in a row that I've gone and visited New Jersey and come back sick. Going to New Jersey to visit means getting sick.

It didn't feel too bad, truth to tell. I got it just as I got the house all to myself for the week. It was all just relaxing time. It's not like I had to go to work or tend to a family or raise kids, like my brother and sister-in-law. It felt like a great week. I remember it as a great week. I did what I wanted, ate what I wanted, went over to my brother's for dinner every evening.

Just in time for my flight home, the cold morphed into a nasty cough that at times was like I was either going to cough up a lung or wanted to cough up a lung. Or puke trying. I literally bought maximum strength cough suppressants at the Walgreens at Washington Bridge Plaza before hopping on the shuttle to JFK from there.

(II - Dec. 4-Dec. 6)
Aside from the cough, the flight home couldn't have gone more smoothly. Less than 24 hours from door-to-door. My brother drove me to the shuttle in Fort Lee which was ready to go just after I bought the cough medicine, no traffic to JFK, non-stop 16-hour on-time flight to Taipei, my luggage unbelievably came out almost right away, bus to Taipei proper, MRT to home. I left after dinner on Sunday night, and by the time I got home Tuesday morning here, my brother's family were probably having dinner on Monday evening.

My father on the greatest adventure of them all, godspeed his journey is as smooth.

(III - Dec. 7)
Cough notwithstanding, I wasn't feeling sick anymore otherwise and I went for a three mile run the day after I returned. My left Achilles tendon pulled within 50 meters of the end of the run.

I think that's pretty much it for running. It's over. The frustration of dealing with a running injury is not something I'm going to accommodate or deal with anymore. And it was going so well making it through the entire summer and even improving beating all expectations.

I don't know what that was all about. All that striving, all that nursing. Hopes arising, hopes dashed. Story of my life. Everything I've written about running since June is now simply negated.

(IV Nov. 17-ongoing)
Insomnia kicked in as soon as I got to New Jersey, but it wasn't a bother. Same as being sick. If there's nothing to bother (aside from the sleep itself), then it's not really a bother. Sleep was all bad the whole time I was there. There was a lot of waking up shivering cold soaked in a heat generated sweat.

No jetlag going there or coming back. Insomnia makes jetlag a non-issue, irrelevant. Maybe it's there, but it's completely overshadowed.

(V Dec. 12-13)
As long as everything else is going wacko, why not add a bout of epic hiccups? The most screwball of all the things that could possibly ail me. I know it's a bout of epic hiccups when I can't suppress them right away by my tried and true method of holding my breath.

When it's epic hiccups, I expect them to last for about 48 hours. Fortunately, this bout dwindled after about 40 hours. But what a reminder of how shit things can get. When it's epic hiccups, I consider it being sick. It's a feeling. It feels like something's wrong. It feels like being sick.

(VI - epilogue)
It doesn't bother me that my father died before me. I even think I'm benefiting from the experience. In the past, I maintained that I wanted to die before my parents, but actually it's just my mother. She's the one I think needs to experience the death of a child, not necessarily my father.

I don't mean that callously. It's an old discussion that I don't want to rehash. For some reason it may sound odd that my mother would ultimately benefit from experiencing the death of a child, but in the totality of considerations, it makes perfect sense to me.

I don't think my father would have benefited any from my dying before him. I don't think he would have been affected profoundly by my dying.

On the other hand, I'm glad to experience the death of a parent if only to confirm that I wouldn't get bent out of shape by the death of a parent. I never thought I would be affected by their deaths, and now I know it's true.

There wasn't any big turn around or revelation or realization what I lost or took for granted. Par for the course, dad. He didn't ever do anything to mean anything to me, and when he died, it didn't mean anything to me. It's an intellectual exercise to mull and contemplate.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

I'm not doing a recitation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead for my father. He wasn't spiritual at all as far as I know, much less did he pay any mind to Buddhist teachings or mindfulness practice. There's no proscription against reading it for non-Buddhists or atheists, but the times that I've done it were for people far distant from me.

In my thinking, having no guidance or instruction whatsoever, the concern is to not disturb the consciousness of the deceased, and with someone distant there's reason to think there would be minimal affect anyway. Even if there was a mental impression from their name being called repeatedly and then exposure to the teachings, there's no personal connection to disturb the consciousness.

In my thinking, if there's a personal connection, the deceased could be distracted or disturbed by the recognition, which could lead to feeling negatively, wondering what I was doing. I wouldn't do a reading for my brothers if they died, either, because it might be an affront to their sensibilities.

I am, however, taking advantage of my father's death, since it is so proximate, to track the stages of the recitation to get a sense of what goes where and when; what makes sense to me. For me it is mindfulness practice to meditate on and visualize the death process, even though I have no formal training in the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The first few (about three) days are focused on various root and aspirational prayers and introductions to the death-point bardo. The reality bardo recitations begin on the fourth day, and the injunction that the recitations be done "three to seven times" is fulfilled (in my thinking) by staggering the daily recitations so that each day/section is ultimately done three times total.

So on the first day I recite day one. On the second day I recite days one and two. On the third day I recite days one to three. On the fourth day I recite days two to four, etc. Each "day" gets read three times. I don't know if that's the way it's supposed to be done. It's almost assuredly not right, but that's what I do.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead mentions that a source of distress for the deceased may come when the family gathers for meals but doesn't set a place for the deceased and the deceased feels despair and abandonment.

To counter that, the practice is to set a place for the deceased and to provide meals. The important part of the practice is not only to ease their despair or sense of abandonment, but to help the deceased realize that he or she is dead.

The experience in the death bardos is described as being very confused and turbulent and the deceased may not even realize he or she is dead. Setting their place at meals and even calling them to come for the meal can help them realize they are dead when it occurs to them they cannot partake in the meal.

We did that until yesterday. I got a sense that he had already realized he's dead a few days earlier and has moved on, but we did it for a whole week just in case. I mean you never know and too much practice is better than too little.

I continued sitting meditation every morning when I was in New Jersey, partly helped by back-end insomnia, whereby I never got a full night's sleep when I was there. There were two days in those initial days after my father died where I got the sense to help him move on.

On those occasions during sitting, I clapped my hands loudly to get his attention and called out aloud, addressing him as I normally would (and would be familiar to him) and said, "Ba! You are dead, you have died. You have nothing to fear so do not be afraid of anything you are experiencing now. You must move on, you can't come back. Focus on being reborn in a human life".

The Tibetan description of the experience of the consciousness after death resonates with me as being possible or plausible. After the consciousness is released from the body and the concrete sensations that informed the mind and existence cease to function, it enters a state of being (maybe an energy state) whereby it is buffeted by confusion and disorientation. Mmm, buffet. Oh, but of confusion and disorientation. Ixnay on the buffet.

Deeply ingrained habit senses kick in and the consciousness is drawn to what was habitually familiar, so it is drawn to places and people that were familiar. In my father's case, he would have been habitually attracted to the house and to my mother, and since that's where I was staying I was in a unique position to intervene if I sensed the opportunity. That's what I was doing.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

There was no funeral. He went straight from deathbed to morgue to oven in three days flat, including the mandatory 24-hour postmortem in-hospital waiting period.

No announcement, no obituary, no gathering, no public grieving. no processions, no tributes, no old war stories, no beating of chests nor gnashing of teeth nor ripping of clothes. No need. My mother is making the deliberate point not to tell anyone. If people find out he died, it was not because of anything she did.

It's curious. He accomplished how I would ideally want to go: low impact, little to no notice, as anonymous as possible. One of my ideal scenarios is to just disappear. But it's taking an awful lot of effort to make any of it happen the way I want. My father seems to have hardly put any effort in at all.

It's as if there was little ego involved in his postmortem considerations. As much ego anyone else has while alive, neither legacy nor being remembered seems to have mattered at all to him. Me, I have a long way to go. Even my desire to be low impact and go without notice is eyeballs deep in ego.

When I go, I still have a few indirect or abstract contacts who might catch wind and go, "aw gee, well that's too bad". It might not be so, but it seems to me that there might be people in my father's past who upon hearing the news of his death would go, "who?". He may have been known for his professional standing, not for his social graces.

I've been detaching and distancing from people to lessen attachments. And come to think of it, that's exactly what my father accomplished. He was detached and distant from everyone except his wife, and in the end no one was particularly attached to him except his wife. That couldn't be avoided, he needed her for just about anything that involved . . . living.

At least I know the theory works. If you keep people at a distance long enough, eventually they're not going to be too affected when you die. I don't feel like I lost a father, I don't feel like I lost anything. It's the old cliche of you can't lose something you never had.

Not saying anything bad about him, but his functioning as a father was pretty bare-boned and basic. Otherwise he was just a presence with the nominal social identification of father. Really, Luke's reaction to finding Darth Vader is his father was so unrealistic. Luke should've been like, "So? What do I care? You were never around". Instead he got his panties all in a twist and his hand lopped off. Par for the course, dad.

As for my mother not telling anyone the news, I myself may have already been a leak. I mentioned my brother's initial email to me on fb and I'm "friends" with a cousin on my father's side. She's his niece, daughter of his younger brother who died a long time ago, but they have no relationship whatsoever.

Well, she knows what happened. She's hardly a gossip and I'm not sure to what extent she's in touch with the rest of the family, but if she mentions it to anyone, then everyone on my father's side of the family in Taiwan will know. Maybe there will be shitstorm backlash against my mother, or maybe they'll say, "aw gee, well that's too bad". 

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

I don't have any what can be called real memories of my father. Just mental snapshots or short video clips of daily life unintentionally gathered through the years. He was a presence, but that's about it. Nothing stands out. He didn't say much, he reacted minimally. We never had a conversation. He was a background character who never loomed large. Ooh, there's my toast if I had to give one.

The mental snapshot of him when I walked into the ICU room at the hospital Thursday was pretty grim. My mother repeatedly said he looked like he was sleeping. I had to take her word on that; to me he looked as dead as they get, aside from the ventilator doing the breathing for him.

He had a hematoma on his left forehead the shape of Devil's Tower in Wyoming rising about an inch and a half above the surrounding landscape. It was where he hit the ground with such impact that his cheek bone fractured. They said it was twice as big when he came in.

It was a massive stroke at about 2 p.m. the previous Saturday. The bleed out filled his skull and he was dead before he hit the ground, which is why he hit the ground with such force. He literally . . . dropped dead!

I imagine he might have felt the initial moment of the stroke, some sensation without processing it intellectually, but then lost consciousness within a second or two as blood drained in a cranial torrent, and dying by the time he was going down.

My oldest brother observed that if it happened 12 hours earlier or 12 hours later, he would have died "peacefully in his sleep" of what would be called "natural causes". Usually when that happens, it's the result of a stroke or a heart attack, so I don't know about the "peaceful". There's violence in there somewhere, even if no one experiences it. I digress.

No, he didn't look like he was asleep. He looked like he would never move again. He looked like a model for a death mask. He also had a black left eye, presumably also from the fall. It was grotesque, if I had to describe it. With a machine breathing for him.

The prognosis was that he would never regain consciousness. He was brain dead. There was discussion about the result of removing the ventilator and if he kept on breathing on his own. That was taken into account, but it was medical consensus that he would never wake up again.

Now that I had arrived, it was time to remove the ventilator and my brother drove up from Philly and an uncle from central Jersey, and finally my oldest brother after he finished up at his office. They're all doctors so they were the medical consensus.

It took several hours for everyone to arrive. I suppose it was a vigil of sorts. I kinda automatically went into walking meditation which probably looked like pacing, a cliche in hospitals, just very slow.

I don't think any of it was awkward or surreal aside from the lack of expressions of grief. There were times my second oldest brother appeared solemn in thought, maybe even sympathy, but any conversation was just a slightly bit hushed under what we may have had anywhere else.

My mother was obviously sad, but more as stoic exercise than overt expression. Maybe she kept it in for private, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was the extent of her emotional expression. Either we're not that close a family or we're not that emotional a family. Take your pick.

We asked for a neurologist to make one final examination and prognosis, and she only confirmed the medical consensus, but added that there was still neurological activity. It meant that the breathing centers of the brain could still be functioning and he might be able to breathe on his own for a while, but not to expect more beyond that.

With that we requested he be taken off the ventilator, all of this having taken place in a family waiting room. When the ventilator came out, we were rushed into his room as he was breathing on his own, but it wasn't clear how long it would last.

That was as dramatic as it got. The pressure for the ventilator had been set fairly high for a good reason at the time, but the result now was that he was struggling to breathe without the ventilator. It was a hideous, noisy, snore-y labored breath. It was the brain's breathing center functioning mechanically. It was organic, but the last vestige of function of life.

We stayed a while longer as his breathing rasped on and it seemed he wasn't going to die right away. His breathing seemed to settle as morphine the nurse gave him likely kicked in. We decided to go out for dinner, after which my mother returned to the hospital and my uncle went home. That was Thursday, the day I arrived.

He died on Friday, Nov. 18, around 4:30 p.m., soon after being transferred from ICU to palliative care. My mother spent most of the day with him and was there when he died. My brother and I rushed to the hospital when we got the call to go right away. He was already dead when we got there and our oldest brother arrived soon after.

The nurse told us to take our time to be with him for the last time, but there wasn't any sentimentality or emotion. There was some possible gruesomeness involving photos with the body and cutting off hair as keepsake. I had nothing to do with that. We didn't stay long, just long enough to take it all in and then realize there was no point in staying any longer.

By law, the body had to stay in the hospital for 24 hours. On Saturday, arrangements were made for cremation on Sunday. There was nothing ceremonious about it. The body was delivered in a hearse and when they were ready, we were brought to a room where behind a window the ovens could be seen.

Ovens? Is that the right word? When we drove in, we followed signs to the "Crematorium", and I thought how awful and tactless it would be if the sign pointed to the "Ovens". But I don't know if there's a word for the actual burny things. Cremators? Cremadors? Creme freshalators?

We got a short explanation of the process and then were instructed that when we were ready, to flip a switch that would start the burn which would last about four hours. We watched the body brought in in a plain box and entered into the oven. Again, we only stayed long enough to realize there was no point in staying any longer.

My brother from Philly went directly home from there. He had taken exactly four days off from work, from my arrival to the cremation. That's some uncanny planning whereby there was zero disruption to his life (his life was disrupted earlier in the week, though, as he rushed up when the stroke first occurred). No disruption to my oldest brother's life, he finished appointments at his office before he came to anything. Not that disruptions are a gauge of anything, I'm not suggesting anything of the kind.

My mother suffered the biggest disruption, of course, but she's going on an already planned-on cruise next Saturday with her brother and sister-in-law, minus my father. Mind you, it's a very good idea for her to go ahead with the cruise and everyone's glad she's not canceling.

Me, I didn't even want to come. I didn't want my life disrupted and that's how I viewed having to come here. I had planned on a short trip, returning after the Thanksgiving break, but as long as my mother will be on the cruise for the whole week and the house will be empty, I decided to change my flight and go home a week later, making the disruption worth it.

I don't know what's going on in anyone's head, but it's a passing that seems to hardly be registering any notice whatsoever.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

November 12, from my oldest brother:
Dad had another stroke and will probable (sic) not survive. Mom asked me to email you to make arrangements to fly back.

Nov. 13, from me:
What does it mean from a medical point of view that he will probably not survive? Is he expected to regain consciousness?

Nov. 13, from him:
The main stroke bleed is very large. A breathing tube was placed by the EMTs and it is not clear if he will stop breathing immediately when removed. He will never walk. He probably will not regain consciousness with about 99% but not 100% certainty per a neurosurg.

with a follow up:
I talked to mom this morning and she mentioned that in her mind she would like to wait until you arrived before trying to remove the breathing tube.

Nov. 13, from me:
OK, so is the expectation that I fly over asap?

Nov. 13, from him:
That was mom's request.

Nov. 14, from me:
OK, I'll arrive Thursday morning and take the EVA shuttle from JFK to Wash Br. Plaza around 2p.m. and can walk to the office and get picked up by Grace or mom if that works for you.

Nov. 14, from him:

Mom wasn't too happy about the date of arrival. So if you can get standby on an earlier flight she would probably appreciate it.

The A train would be faster (about an hour) and although not free is not that expensive. Mom might want to pick you up if I let her know your flight info and she knows you will arrive at 9:45am

Nov. 14, from me:
I'm going to stick to my itinerary as decided. Just say you haven't heard back from me. And I really don't want to be stuck in a car with her for an hour after I arrive.

Communications with my second oldest brother were decidedly brief:

Nov. 13, from him:
Not sure if anybody has been able to get in touch with you yet but dad is in the hospital. He had another intracranial bleed and is on a ventilator. Things look pretty bad - unfortunately his chances for significant recovery are dismal. Please give us a call or email when you can.

Nov. 13, from me:
Yea, Tom emailed me and mentioned me flying back, but I'm still wondering if that's really necessary or if not going would be really improper. Thoughts?

Nov. 13, from him:
Hard to say what the timing will be but my recommendation would be to come.


This family has never been big on communication. At least not with me. And I admit I'm not big on asking for information. If there's something they expect from me, I expect them to tell me. And when they don't and surprise me with something they expected from me, I never have regrets about coming across as an asshole.

And that's how it usually works out, too, I shouldn't wonder.

The reason why I posted the whole conversations is because I was trying to get information on what I should do, while also wanting not to come at all. I don't know if what I did was unreasonable, so I put the whole thing up for posterity.

I was fishing for any urgency or immediacy of the situation in hopes of finding a way out if there wasn't any. They both said I should go back, but neither said to get my ass on the next flight out. There was the "mom's waiting . . ." bit, but no indication that I might miss a window of consciousness if I delayed or why I should rush back.

So I was left with "come asap", and no direction and completely in my discretion what "soon as possible" meant. For me, I went as soon as it was possible for me, which meant moving slowly and decidedly and in my comfort zone.

My refusal to even consider changing my flight is based on nobody giving me guidance on what would be preferable. I made my decisions based on their sparse information, and if they wanted me to go sooner, they should have said so before I booked a flight. And I didn't exactly rush to book the flight. There was plenty of time for feedback.

And what no one knows is that I was pretty set on resisting going, but my cousin Audrey called from Switzerland pretty early on during those email exchanges convincing me to go. We were on the phone for about an hour and a half (at around 4 a.m. for me) and I told her I didn't want to go but she changed my mind, so that my resistance to going was actually pro forma. I was already going to go unless they found there was no need.

I want to say something crazy happened with running in the past week or two, but maybe it's perfectly natural and normal and the result of a (finally) good training regimen. Suddenly I'm running at a surprisingly brisk pace (for my age and health/diet) and injury seemingly being kept at bay.

I've kept expectations at rock bottom since I ventured back into running two and a half years ago when I joined World Gym; a week into which I injured my Achilles tendon. Both Achilles dogged me for the entire two years of gym membership. Never both at once, always one or the other; and not the whole time, but the worry was always present.

Recently, not just improved speed and lack of injury, but extended distances beyond the almost daily 3-milers and occasional 4-milers and even rarer 5 miles. Things were going so well I ran 6 miles for the first time possibly since I was doing 10k races in the Bay Area in the late 90s!

I don't know if it's a fluke. I'm still worried about injury. I'm constantly monitoring any sensations of possible discomfort in my Achilles tendons and knees. Knees were the problem back in 1999 which stopped me running after my second San Francisco Marathon and had me switch to cycling.

It's a little strange the way it happened. After my gym membership ended in June, I decided to just fuck it and hit the riverside bikeways and try running short 3 mile distances as slow as comfortable but as often as possible. That might be the training regimen that's working if this holds up.

All summer I've been plodding and jogging along at whatever pace was comfortable, slowing down even more if I felt like vomiting, which was often. I was hardly impressed by my performance or improvement. Sometimes I'd put in a respectable run, but then go back to mostly jogging.

Then a couple weeks ago I went out not feeling great, but every runner has experienced not feeling great at first but then doing pretty well, and vice versa. How you feel going out doesn't determine how well you'll do. So not feeling great didn't deter me from going ahead with a planned 4 mile course. It was slow. I felt it was slow and wasn't gonna get any faster. But my principle was to go however felt comfortable, so I kept plodding on and didn't let it bother me then or after the fact how slow I was going.

And it was really slow, averaging 10:30 miles. When I started in June, I knew I was going to have to allow for 10+ minute miles, but after four months training I wasn't doing much of those anymore. I could at least break the 10 minute mark. And mostly I was jogging in the 9 minute mile range.

The next day was a rain-out, but the day after I went for a 3-miler which was easy and averaged 8:28 per mile. *blink, blink, blink*. OK, I have done 8:30 mile range runs over the summer, it wasn't beyond credibility. But they never felt as easy and they were one-offs, and this was probably, too. Then the next day, 8:14 miles easy and feeling fresh. Then the following day telling myself to slow down to avoid injury, 8:41 miles easy. 

I was feeling so good that the next day I decided to do 6 miles. I don't even have a 6-mile course except in theory. The theoretical 6-mile course just goes past the bridge I cross for my 3-mile course (coming back on the other side of the river) to the next footbridge, and it turns out that it meshes so perfectly with the 3-mile course that the ending points are just meters apart. I won't say six miles was la-la-la easy. I was pushing against slowing down (meaning going against just being comfortable) and in the end I did it averaging 9:19 miles. Which is far better than the 10+ miles I was allowing for. Every time I've upped my miles this summer my expectation was over 10 minute miles and that was usually the case.

And since then, every run I've gone on has been in the 8 minute range, including a 5-miler. Individual miles have even fallen under 8 minutes. I am a bit astonished. I would never have thought I could feel like a runner again, especially with my age and alcoholism. It doesn't mean anything. I can encounter any number of injuries I'm prone to at any time. Injury might even get me back on my bike and try a winter season now that summers are too hot to ride in. 

It's not like I'm trying to achieve anything. It's just what I'm doing for however long it lasts. And I don't expect anything to last. That's more of a reality than ever.

email exchange

September 21, from her:

Hi Koji,

I know this is random and I'm not sure why, but while I was attending the 7-day Osesshin at Tahoma Zen Monastery this past week, it came to me to invite you to the possibility of studying with Shodo Harada Roshi. Call it intuition. Roshi leads sesshin in February, May, and September on Whidbey Island north of Seattle. If getting to Seattle is a stretch for you, he is also head abbot of Sogen-ji Monastery in Okayama, Japan  This is my first year of practice with him, and my first Osesshin after having attended Kosesshins previously. The was intense and fruitful. While my practice is relatively new, I'm happy to talk about my experiences at the monastery further if you're interested.

I hope you're well.

Much love,

Luyen

September 22, from me:

Hey Luyen,

Intuition? That was practically psychic! You know, I've always avoided teachers. I think it may be a karmic thing; either a decision I made in a past life or something my teacher in a past life challenged me to do. Don't know the reason, doesn't matter. Anyway, the more I focused on Tibetan teachings, the more I read that a teacher is indispensable. To follow the teachings, you need a teacher. And I accept that, but I also accept that I'm not on teacher quest in this lifetime. 

I don't doubt that I have a teacher (a lama from whom I may have received various initiations and empowerments), and recently I've been asking for and looking for and opening up for a sign that he or she is out there. I didn't know what I was expecting. A voice? A face appearing during sitting and going, "Boo!"? 

And then I get your message. Not that I think your teacher is my teacher, but I got the uncanny feeling that that's how it can happen. When I've gotten through obscurations to finding or wanting a teacher in a future life and I'm ready for a teacher again, the universe will out of the blue send someone to point the way. 

I mean, seriously, I didn't even know that you were involved in zen. I'm not even sure what you know about me to have sent that message. But I'd love to hear what brought you to the teachings and what you've been learning and experiencing, and what you like about your teacher and that monastery.

much love and gratitude *palms together*

September 24, from her:

Hi again Koji,

To start, I was in the middle of yaza when I was guided to pass on the invitation for you to study with Shodo Harada Roshi. The complete message was "Tell Koji about Shodo Harada Roshi. He needs him more now than he realizes." Having returned from the retreat, there was a little resistance to emailing you out of the blue with the invite, but I've had some practice in getting over my discomfort of passing on messages. Ultimately, if I can be of service to those here in this lifetime with no harm coming to myself or others, I can support this process.

Japanese zen found me. I was not and had not been actively seeking it, and there is nothing linear nor academic about my path to it. Several years ago I was guided with a WA city and phone number in a dream while on Christmas vacation in FL. Come to find out it was for a koan salon group. (At the time I had no idea what a koan was, much less what they were used for.) I was on a waitlist for a year before they opened up a second group with whom I was invited to sit with and continue to do so now.

Almost a year ago, I had another dream providing more guidance. The next morning there was an invite, from a woman in my koan group, in my email box to study with the Roshi. After some ungrounded emotional rollercoaster processing and some grounded inwardness, I settled into applying for a Kosesshin figuring it would be beneficial training to help me build energetic stamina for the bodywork I do for a living. Little did I know what was forthcoming.

A couple months later, again while on Christmas vacation in FL, my mom introduces me to an acupuncturist while we're visiting her Vietnamese Buddhist temple. After learning my name she shares that my name had been showing up recently in her dreams of Japan, and that she's to help me with my health, and any questions I may have. I'm blessed that my health has been on the upswing since I began adhering to the diet she provided for my body type. Additionally, she's been awesome with support since I've been on this path.

It was after my first full day of Kosesshin last February that I knew I had found a teacher. He made eye contact with me after kaichin and evening sutras in the kitchen and that was it. What?!?! The moment blew my mind. I hadn't even spoken with him yet when that happened. Although, when I look back, I'm sure I was being assessed all day long as I tried to quickly learn all the rules and assimilate to the monastery schedule that first day.

An interesting side note... After the acceptance of my application to attend that Feb Kosesshin (my 1st one ever) there was an email sent indicating that I was likely not to receive sanzen with the Roshi since it was a Kosesshin and one needed to attend a Osesshin before receiving sanzen. I expressed that I would be honored if it was to happen; however, I wouldn't be disappointed if it didn't happen. There was an additional response explicitly stating there was a strong sense that I would not receive sanzen when I attended. It was no matter, because I already knew unequivocally then that I would receive sanzen. This was all a bit baffling, because I truly had no idea what I was getting myself into, yet I knew not to believe what I was being told. Turns out I was an exception to the rule and did receive sanzen that Kosesshin.

As I mentioned previously, this is my first year with the Roshi, so my experience is limited. So far he's been a good and kind teacher to me, which I believe has helped me and my husband of Catholic faith ease into my experiences with Rinzai zen. As I understand from others his approach has softened over the years making him much nicer than a number of other teachers in the US. Although, I hear he is rigid and strict when in Sogenji. 

​

I've learned that no one shows up at the monastery by accident. Its amazing dynamics aren't for everyone, and it's not easy. Within the sangha, everyone is helping everyone move stuff. Experiencing a breakthrough during zazen the 5th day of this silent Osesshin, it was interesting to silently note later in the day those who saw me going through it and gave me the space to process. 

Post-Osesshin, something Roshi said to me in my first-ever sanzen plus snippets from daily Osesshin Teishos, interactions with other Osesshin attendees, and my 2nd sanzen this last go round all arose to help me put some pieces together. It was a fantastic "Aha!"moment. I'm learning, and it's why I will continue to study with the Roshi.

All in all, I'm on this amazing journey that is way beyond me. If you have any thoughts or feedback, I'm open. I do know that you were connected to a Vietnamese Buddhist monastic tradition (Thich Nhat Hahn) and that's it. If you care to share any of your experiences I'd love to hear about them. 

gassho _/\_ with love,

Luyen

By the way, this is as lovely a way to reconnect with you than I could have ever imagined. :)

October 3, from me:

Wow, I'm still trying to absorb all this. It's a great and amazing path you're on and I'm so glad and in wonder that you've gotten on it. 

I don't know if you know this, but when we met back at Oberlin some 25 years ago, I was just starting on my path and my gateway was Japanese zen. When I took classes in Japanese history and religion, I read about zen Buddhist philosophy and it was like hearing back what I was already formulating as a belief system. 

It was in my dorm room at Third World House, where we goofed off quite a bit as I remember, where I first developed my initial sitting practice. My guide was this book: http://lumsa.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/zen_mind_beginners_mind.pdf which I still highly recommend. I didn't have a sitting cushion so I sat on a pile of dirty laundry, and for incense I stole sand from the Oberlin golf course, filling an aluminum container for Ouzo to burn it in. Even 10 minutes was hard initially!

I suppose it was personal, being "religion" and all, so I wouldn't be surprised if it never came up in our discussions. But I can't help smile that it's Japanese zen that found you, Rinzai zen for that matter, and now you're throwing around Japanese zen terms like we're talking shop. No idea what "yaza" is, tho'. If you had capitalized it, I would have thought it was a town in Washington. "I was in the middle of Yaza, waiting for the light to change, when I was guided . . . "

On the other hand, I suppose you'd only assume I'd know Japanese terminology if I did mention such things back then. But back then, there was no internet and I had no idea how to pursue proper study. Even what study was. I had no idea there were monasteries in the states. I seriously thought I had to find my way to Japan, get fluent in the language, find out about a monastery and then find my way there, and then sit outside the gate until someone invited me in. That's how I thought it was done *head hits desktop*.

I did have a belief, though, back then that the universe would help me along the way. And maybe it has. Maybe roaming around teacher-less in a spiritual desert is a necessary part of my (and anyone's) path. But that's just interpretation and in my idealized vision of the path, the universe would act more like the way it has treated you to get you on the path, and it also makes me smile that it has guided you the way it has! That's some amazing shit!

Social media, internet, invitations, even dreams . . . but no, my path is the way it should be. I'm more inclined to think the Roshi's teachings are not necessarily what I need more than I realize, although it may be so on different levels, but that I needed to hear from you more than I (or you) realize. So I thank you. I was directly asking for a message and as far as I'm concerned you delivered a response when I really didn't expect one.

Like I said, I've eschewed teachers as a pattern. That's just me in this lifetime. I'm just stubbornly trying to figure it out for myself and stay open to any Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings that I deem useful, and keep re-reading those books in lieu of a teacher, gleaning new insights as I get more experience. 

But all through my life there have been certain constants which make wandering in a teacher-less desert make perfect sense. There's a certain degree of destiny involved, as well as my own making sure my story ends this certain way. I don't deny there are a lot of seemingly negative elements in my approach and personality that I'm doing nothing to transform and will have to face in future lifetimes. Recently I've had indications of future lives in Korea. Instead of past life resonances, they are future life resonances. 

That all said, since you mention that you're new to this, I hope it's useful to hear that it is worth it to stick with it for the long haul. Even without a teacher, struggling to figure out what this sitting and mindfulness thing is is the only thing I don't regret living as long as I have. Even wandering in the desert, sitting every day (or the idea of it, since disruptions of varying lengths of time are inevitable) for years into decades leads to an indescribable transformation and understanding of the self and the universe, the mind and reality. Cultivating wisdom and compassion to everything and everyone surrounding is an unspeakable treasure. 

Sometimes the transformation is subtle. Sometimes even a root problem is subtle and you don't take it on because you don't recognize it, but then . . . you do. Like, for instance, anger. Anger comes up and it just happens with work, or colleagues or partners or kids, and you just accept it because that's what's happening. Something happens and you get angry, what can you do about it? 

But then you recognize it as a problem, and you become mindful of it as a problem and that you can tackle it. Mindfulness of the problem starts changing it from reality to perception and to something you can transform. Without a teacher, it took a long time for me to figure that one out. Years into decades.

There will be hard times. There has to be hard times or you're doing something wrong. But if you've found a teacher that you trust, that's a great foundation. But the teachings are more important and are always above the teacher (if the teacher is more important, it's a cult). Hearing you after only a year of practice, I'm already envious. But very, very happy for you. Keep doing good!

much love,

koji

The blast furnace summer heat of Taipei ended in September with three typhoons in quick succession. It's still hot, just not intolerably so. Summer was just about going miserably from one air-conditioned space to the next.

Jogging, sometimes running, continues with times improving with ever-so-slightly cooler weather. Running over this summer, even in the evening, was still a bit crazy in retrospect. It was still quite hot.

I had 3-, 4-, 5-mile courses which all ended up near Rainbow Bridge, a footbridge over the Keelung River near Raohe Night Market, which usually had healthy breezes to help cool down. 30+ minute cool downs were not uncommon.

Jogging times have been upticking again lately, though, I think due to health matters; alcohol related I assume. It may be nothing, but I've just been feeling worse in general to the point that my usual activities like reading for hours have become untenable due to discomfort.

I've gone through episodes like this before, I suppose, and it'll probably pass. And it always feels bad enough that I wonder if maybe it really is finally getting out of control, which is fine and expected. I just kinda wish it would be more fast and dramatic, and not this languishing in ugh.

A current nasty bout of insomnia probably isn't helping my mood or outlook. I have terms for types of insomnia: "front end insomnia", "back end insomnia", "total insomnia". I've found ways to deal with each accordingly.

But I want to call this "devastating insomnia", which may be compounded by the health issues to make it extra hard to deal with and get through days with any semblance of homeostasis.

I have a maybe interesting anecdote about insomnia and memory in case some researcher wants to study me. Unfortunately it forces me to reveal how anal I am about my iTunes music collection and how I listen to music.

I sync and re-load my iPod Shuffle every three days, and the first thing I do is manually load three iTunes pages of the oldest last played songs; the 90 oldest songs that played to be exact. With an iTunes collection of over 19,300 files, this forces the oldest last played songs to be played and keeps files from not playing for years and years, as would naturally happen if at random. How's that for anal?

And an indication of what over 19,300 files means (I am trying to pare it down), the current oldest songs played are in March 2015. Anyway, every night, I don't know why, I like to go through those 90 songs and try to identify which of the songs played. Don't ask me why, I don't know why! I get a kick out of it.

It does become a memory thing. More songs are listened to before the next sync and I continue to try identifying songs. I'm usually pretty close. There are usually a few songs I missed or thought had played but hadn't. That's besides the point.

During insomnia this time, I listened to my iPod Shuffle for two hours lying on my bed in the dark. I always listen to music while trying to fall asleep, but only on devices that have a timer and will automatically shut off.

But my brain was so stuck in the "on" position, I was sure I wouldn't fall asleep while listening. In fact, I kept track of each song to make sure I wasn't falling asleep or else I would turn it off. Later when I reviewed the 90 songs, there were a few fuzzy ones, some "I think so", etc.

Finally when I synced the iPod and looked at the songs that actually played, I missed a whole bunch of them. But when I saw the songs, I do remember listening to them, I have the actual memory of lying there listening to them.

So I was fully conscious when I was listening, but the memory of listening to them failed when tested independently. I couldn't remember that they played, and still couldn't, but looking at the song names and the fact that they played, I have an actual memory listening to them.

I wasn't in any sleep state, but during insomnia the memory of my experience of listening to music became . . . an abstraction. Later experience wouldn't remember it. But when faced with factual data I had listened to certain songs during that time period, I had a concrete memory of the experience.

Well . . . fuck you, it blew my mind!

2015 mix CD, part two

As anticipated, the second 2015 mix CD (of my vanity project of creating mix CDs for every year I've been alive) wasn't easy to put together. The first CD came together surprisingly fast and easily, and that probably caused most of the difficulty with the second disc. My satisfaction with it locked in the track list and didn't give me flexibility to move things around between the two discs. 

So that's how not to make a double-disc mix. Collecting songs for 2016, I am already playing with song order, but I'm doing both discs simultaneously to avoid limiting options later.

I found it hard recognizing the segues, which shouldn't be hard. Also elusive was identifying placing of songs, either beginning, middle or end, which also shouldn't be hard. Probably a case of thinking too much.

This mix largely came together by finding two or three song segues by similar type and then jigsaw puzzling them together in a way that flowed. In the end, the final track list does succeed with satisfactory segues and song placings that I hadn't been able to see initially.

The biggest thorns were finding the opener and closer. There was a parade of songs that became final candidates for those positions, only to be ultimately rejected; almost all of them having not been considered for the mix at all, and then not staying on the mix when rejected.

2015 mix CD, part two:

1. Warm Hole (Brown Eyed Girls)
2. Drama (Nine Muses)
3. Joker (Dal Shabet)

4. Not an Easy Girl (Lizzie (After School))
5. Twenty-Three (IU)
6. Radio (Baechigi) (audio only)
7. Don't Be Such a Baby (Sistar)
8. Just for One Day (JeA (Brown Eyed Girls))
9. Oh Boy (Red Velvet) (lyric video) (official audio)
10. Traveler (f(x)) (lyric video) (official audio)

11. Like Ooh-Ahh (Twice) (full stage camcorder)
12. Vibrato (Stellar)
13. Sorry (Park Bo Ram)
14. Please Just Go (feat. Whee In (Mamamoo)) (Louie (Geeks)) (lyric video) (audio only)
15. I'm Ill (Hello Venus)
16. Five More Minutes (Hyosung (Secret)) (audio only)
17. Dice Play (Brown Eyed Girls) (official audio)
18. Don't U Wait No More (Red Velvet) (official audio) (music students react)
19. Skip (Tahiti)
20. You and Me (Kisum)
21. Give It a Little Shake (High Soul x KissN)
22. Sleepless Night (Nine Muses)
23. Can You Feel It? (feat. Youngji (Kara)) (Goo Hara (Kara))
24. Only You (miss A)

2015 mix CD, part one (audio files uploaded for zip download)

My brother offered me a slice of pizza.

My dreams are just going haywire! There is no consistency nor any indication of anything except total chaos; full metal subconscious implosion. After months of whenever my brothers appeared in dreams, it was confrontational, lukewarm or cold at best, and then one of them is offering me pizza?! The greatest offering of all?! Am I a king, a god?!

"Hey, you want a slice?", lifting a slice out of the pizza box for me.

I've been hampered by several days of full-blown insomnia which hasn't happened in a while. Insomnia has been recurrent, but not this bad. Mostly one- or two-offs and then a period of recovery. Even one night of insomnia hits hard and despite full nights of sleep following, waking up and days are still rough. This recent bout might be a real mess.

I try to force myself down into a dream state during insomnia, and when I do: a) it doesn't last long before I wake up again; and b) the dreams are nothing, they make no sense; they're like flipping through radio stations driving through a foreign country. If dreams are the antennae of our subconscious, I'm picking up random shit from wherever.

If that hasn't been brutal enough, Taipei's summer heat is out of control. Summer months used to be prime riding season despite summer heat. I like hot weather. I usually thrive in hot weather and San Francisco was lame for its cold summers.

Two summers ago, I still went riding during the summer, but I felt the heat and noted it. Then last year; I looked at my GPS records of riding last year and wondered why I stopped riding after a spring that looked like I was gearing up for the bigger climbs.

It took a while to figure out it was the heat that stopped me. About May or June, it came to pass that I would try to take my bike out and was met with a wave of heat that said, "hell no". Going outside was like stepping in front of a blast furnace, and if it felt like that just outside I figured any kind of ride would be nothing short of masochistic. Same thing happened this year.

The few people I've spoken to have agreed that Taipei has been getting hotter just these past few years. It's unbearable to stay outside for any extended period of time. Going outside means going from one air-conditioned space to another.

I have started jogging after my gym membership ran out in June. Looking back, what a useless thing that gym membership was. I'd never do anything like that again. Within a week, I was going out in the evening for jogs and I've been going for jogs about five days a week since then.

It's not running, I go too slow to call it running. I'd say to call it running, I'd have to be doing 8:30 miles at slowest, maybe 8:45, and I've touched on that, but mostly I've been going upward 9 minute miles, which is a solid jog. Anything slower than 10 minute miles is a plod. I've gone plodding a few times.

And short. Three miles is the usual, with four mile jogs thrown in one or two times a week. I've plodded five miles once and hope to do more of those, but only once it starts getting cooler. But I'm not going to be ambitious at all. My age prevents that, as well as bad nutrition and lots of alcohol.

Twenty years ago, my goal was 7:30 miles over 4 or 5 miles, with reality more like anything under 8 minute miles. These days going slow as comfortable is fine and preventing injury is priority, although since it's me, some problem is always going to come up.

addendum 2:  I don't know if there's any connection between my dreams and efforts to generate compassion, but in a strange turn-around I had a full night sleep with positive feel-good dreams. That's strange because this is insomnia recovery sleep, which should be dead sleep with no dream recollection.

The two dreams I remembered were love related, both involved women I can't identify and were probably just archetypes; one or both may have been K-pop idols as the archetypes.

One was in a college dorm room-like setting, clean (in contrast to recent dream patterns) and there were other people there. I was lying in a bed when a woman crawled in basically saying she had gotten hints that I had feelings for her and she knew what her feelings were for me and she wanted to make things clear. That's it.

The other dream was like a date in an urban setting, a feel like Philadelphia, and the feelings were more ambiguous. We were on a date, buying tickets for something but she insisting on going dutch and not allowing me to cover, so there was no feeling of commitment or that she even liked me. It's just that it was a date.

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I have no desire for love or to have or pursue any "love interest". Dreams involving love I think are more a product of a basic human desire to be loved. I imagine on a basic level there is not a human being, however self-hating or cynical but without psychopathic pathologies, that doesn't mind being loved.

And I'm not that self-hating or cynical. It's just that on a practical level, it's not something I desire nor something I'd pursue or succumb to as an attachment. I accept and don't reject that love is a very important and powerful human component, including on spiritual and psychological levels.

So if there's a subconscious, psychological battle going on regarding compassion and manifesting in my dreams, I'd say my mind is fairly equivocal and flexible. Dreams can be hostile or they can be pleasant; either can manifest from trying to engage compassion. And considering my psychology, that makes perfect sense.

About cultivating compassion, the only interaction I have with other people is when I'm out and about in public. The only direct contact I have with people is when ordering food or buying something at a convenient store.

I don't have friends, I don't work, I only know one person in Taipei with whom I meet about three or four times per year for coffee or a hike. I don't have to deal with any interpersonal conflicts at all.

Virtually all my interactions with other people are indirect and abstract. When I'm out and about in public, I'm always listening to music (I turn it off when I interact directly with people). It is with these people that I gauge my ability to cultivate compassion.

What does it mean to cultivate compassion? First of all, it doesn't come naturally for me. I'm quick to judge (which is bad) and quick to be critical (which is bad). Since it's not natural, it's not visceral but more intellectual.

But that's not even right. When I say it doesn't come naturally for me, that's the result of current situation and experience and the cynicism that comes with experience. I look at my behavior and attitudes when I was younger, and I think it's fair to say I had a natural compassion towards people. I even used to consider myself a romantic, just to emphasize how much I've changed.

In my current situation, cultivating compassion is to look inside myself and locate and examine the energies of how I feel towards other people, and bending them towards the positive. To not be hostile, to want non-harm towards other people; to not be an agent of negativity in other people's interactions.

I've found that cultivating compassion is also key towards loosening my grip on my own ego and sense of the importance of myself. It's kind of embarrassing noting that this is something I struggle with when for many people it's natural and obvious.

Very important to the cultivation of compassion is recognizing emotions as energies within our bodies. That's also part of mindfulness training. When you feel an emotion, locate and identify it as an internal energy that is just as real as heartbeats, blood flowing and breathing in and out.

Once you do that, you can put a rein on emotions and not let them control behavior. It's no longer a matter of feeling anger or any emotion and accepting the emotion for what it feels like and reacting no matter how irrationally.

When you recognize it as energy, you can think of it as E. As in the equivalent of mass times the speed of light squared. How emotions fit in with Einstein's equation may make no sense, and that's fine. It kinda doesn't. But if you can visualize emotions as energy and abstractly consider it against E=mc², then you can start processing it as a physical property of the universe, as something controllable and not so mysterious.

According to the equation, a small amount of mass transferred into energy yields a huge amount of energy. So thinking of emotions as energy, that can be looked upon as a huge amount of energy. None of this to be taken literally, just to think about.

Full insomnia last night. I stopped posting about insomnia because I thought what I had posted already got the point across. It has never stopped and has been recurrent (and likely a continued detriment to any employment). What was different about this bout is that in the few times I slipped into dreams, the dreams were particularly brutal.

I mention this in conjunction with my previous post where I mentioned dreams having become unpleasant and distasteful. This time they felt downright persecutorial and hostile, like my mind conspiring against me and attacking me.

I don't know if there's any relationship with the compassion meditation I recently employed, whereby I go about trying to generate compassion in any, even the most superficial, interaction with people when I go out. The meditation is even preemptive, trying to anticipate a normally negative reaction and steeling myself to be compassionate (not hostile) no matter what happens.

I found it feels great! I'm still forcing it as a meditation, where my normal, natural psychological state would be negative. But really, it feels so much better to force myself to generate compassion than to naturally accept being negative.

(I have a feeling if I looked far back into the archives of this blog, I'll find that I've already posted something pretty much exactly like this before).

It just seems suspect that I experience unpleasant dreams that prompt me to want to develop more compassion, only to be followed by overtly hostile dreams. Maybe it's a psychological, subconscious battle going on. That would be interesting. As it is, I'll stick to compassion and if it's my subconscious reacting against it, I'll give it time to get used to it.

addendum: Maybe I couldn't control irritability as a result of the insomnia, but on this day the attempt at compassion/non-hostility was a total fail. Impatience, intolerance, self-righteousness ruled. Not that anyone noticed, it's not like anyone turned and looked at me like "what an asshole", but I noticed.

I've noticed common themes in my dreams lately. Like messy living quarters, even bordering on squalid. Disgusting floors, old buildings. Internal conflicts with other people in the dream that aren't confronted or resolved. General dissonance, chaos, mess. Dissonance with my environs. Dissonance with the absence of people in my life.

One recent morning, the feeling from the dreams was so distasteful that when I awoke, I finally didn't try to push myself back into a dream state even though I was having trouble sleeping. I was like, "fuck it, I'm not going back into that", and got up.

That's what I do when I have trouble staying asleep in the morning; when I can't just fall back to sleep and it's pretty much back-end insomnia. I can force my consciousness back down into a dream state, which is and isn't the same as getting back to sleep. When I wake up again, it seems like I was asleep, but it's not to be mistaken with restful sleep. It's very shallow and dominated by the dream state.

The nature of these dreams suggest that I'm obviously still disturbed by many things on unconscious levels despite mindfulness training and striving for Buddhist ideals of cultivating wisdom and compassion. No surprise there, since despite trying to cultivate transformation, I clearly cling to many negative conceptions and habits (karma).

I can still resort to being an asshole. Or if not overtly exhibiting asshole behavior, I act in a way that makes me feel like I was being an asshole. I was thinking like an asshole. I judge people by their behavior. In my mind I impose how I feel people should behave in this world on other people. Even giving someone a cold, judgmental stare is no good. And I did that recently.

I connect this with the dissonance in my subconscious. This outward hostility and judgment has very much to do with all the subtler levels of mind and stains them and makes them ugly. I need to make compassion and kindness more of a daily mindfulness meditation.

It has to be happening at every moment every day when I have to interact with other people even in the most superficial way. At every moment when I'm out, I have to be generating compassion to any and everyone around me. There can be no let up, even when I'm not interacting with anyone.

It's not easy. In the past, I've justified aggressive and asshole behavior by thinking of it as a "fierce" element which can be compassionate, especially when safety is involved. Sometimes being mean or presenting an illusion of danger alerts people of the need to pay attention, the theory goes.

But maybe that was just an excuse to allow primitive anger emotions to arise, despite being mindful of my emotions and claiming to myself I wasn't being angry. So many complex levels of conceptual thinking may be preventing progress. However I justify negative behavior, the bottom line is those excuses aren't in my job description.

My dreams are telling me something. I can't fool myself with sitting meditation and mindfulness practice and think there isn't a lot of ugliness in my karma that I can't work on. Even with limited time in my life, even with the implicit negativity of placing a limit on the time in my life, I can work on the ugliness and put compassion and positivity as a foremost meditation in my daily life.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the most recent interactions with my cousin have ended in disappointment. She leaves for Switzerland next week and we're not going to meet up before then. Shortly after my last posts in June, she left the country for the U.S. to her previous home in Sedona to do whatever she needed to do.

Ironically, after all that talk about helping and being there, nothing came out of my asking her to help me get my computer fixed. She mentioned her brother could definitely help me with that, but she didn't do anything to further that. She didn't jump at the chance to help me in the rare occurrence of me asking for help when in a disadvantageous situation (mind you, it's not the first time).

In July, the problem had grown to the point that I was asking her when she'd be back, leading off with whether she could help me get my computer fixed. We had a short exchange, during which she never mentioned helping me with my computer, and the content of our exchange had me calling her out that she didn't want to help, so nevermind.

Her then saying she'd help was the most insincere offer to help imaginable. It was so insincere that I can't even call it begrudging. A begrudging offer to help is more sincere than what she offered. A begrudging offer to help is sucking it up and realizing one has to do something.

Her saying she'd help was more like "uh yeah, whatever". I didn't even want her help after that and my former Chinese teacher hooked me up in two days with a repair shop that was half a block away from me. I pass it just about every day.

That was just coincidence. She knows what neighborhood I live in, but she doesn't know my address and didn't know the shop she called was so close to me. But that coincidence seems to underscore how useless my cousin was in this matter. Even if she tried, she couldn't do better than my Chinese teacher did without even trying.

My cousin contacted me two weeks after she said she'd be returning to Taiwan, long after my computer was fixed, giving me her brother's number and saying he was available to help me with my computer. She could have done that from Sedona in June, she didn't need to wait to come back to Taiwan if she wanted to help me.

I'm not close or in contact with her brother, but we're on good terms. There's no awkwardness between us. Even though I posit my relationship with him through her, he's still my cousin and we've never had trouble relating as such. If she sent me the same message in June, I'd have called him.

Needless to say, I blew my cousin off. I was disappointed in her. I wouldn't be surprised if she is disappointed in me for whatever reason. For blowing her off. For just responding, "That's OK, I got it fixed already. Look me up if you're in town". No, we weren't going to meet up before she left.

Mind you, we've disappointed each other in the past and we've always gotten over it. It doesn't directly affect any future contact we have, although I have doubts about whether we will have any future contact.

My funds won't last beyond next May and I doubt she'll visit before then. I have some reserve, but I don't plan to exhaust every penny, and I want to leave a certain sum for my landlord, her uncle, to make up for any expenses resulting from my disappearance, if it comes to that.

Basically I don't hold anything against my cousin for not wanting to help. In this matter, that is. She has been helpful in the past, in matters more convenient for her I suppose. If I profess to hope to cut karmic connections between us, then of course I can't hold anything against her. She did me a favor by not helping by . . . just lessening.

If she eagerly and effectively helped, I would have been happy and satisfied and thought of her in a certain positive, possibly attached, light. As she did it, I realize I can be just kind of "meh" about her despite our past closeness.

Reassessing what happened with my cousin last week.

At the time, to me it sounded like she was saying that I was always there for her, but I never relied on her with my problems, maybe implying that she would have been willing to be available for me and to help me when I needed it.

I realize now that's totally bogus. She was implying no such thing. That was not her point and I was just reading into it, and that is what caused my reaction. Truth to tell, she never made herself available to me. The nature of our relationship is that I was willing to be there when she needed me, but the reciprocal not so much (which is fine).

I forget how it was before she had kids, but how it was after she had kids may have been a magnification of what it was like before. Since she's had kids, I've always been in the periphery, and properly so. In no bizarro world would I think I took priority over anyone's kids. Of course, what it was magnifying from before is another story.

And as her kids grew and matured, she never made any effort to help me have a relationship with them. I never really fit in and they just did what they did and I just floated about doing my own thing. The result is that things have subsequently been awkward and uncomfortable, despite my memories of playing with them when they were younger.

If I was supposedly important to her (I'm not assuming I am), it was never important that her kids knew, remembered or liked me. Not like that was her responsibility. It says more about my personality faults when it comes to kids, but I certainly got no assistance.

Another indication of the nature of our relationship was when we were in their hotel room and her kids were doing their own thing. I was asking questions about what was going on with her cheating husband and what her assessment of things was. I was interested in her situation and wanted to know.

But at some point when there was a lull, she said, "Any more questions?", like I was being intrusive or that all I was doing was asking questions and it was starting to annoy her. The nature of our relationship is that I ask about her situation to know more about her, but she never asks about me.

If you want to get to know someone, you observe, you ask and you listen. She's not interested, and that's just fine. I don't know what I would do if she were interested. But let there be no suggestion that she's ever been interested, much less available, to offer help or support. We talk sometimes, we have good conversations, but she doesn't delve.

(Since our relationship is long-standing and varied, it's not as simple as that. For example I've never liked vinegar, but adopted a taste for it a few years ago. This is not important, this is not something everybody or anybody knows. But we were having dumplings once and I reached for the vinegar and she was surprised. She's not disinterested or non-observant, and she does remember a lot of things about me through the years. Even small things shows she cares.)

But, truth to tell, she never has even been capable of offering help or support. She simply could not handle my issues. In my previous post, that wasn't a trifle when she assumed, practically under her breath, that I would never consider suicide and brushing it away like a mosquito without even asking or clarifying. When it comes to death, that defined her.

She has never handled death well. That's an understatement. No one can ever be blamed for not handling death well. But she gets overwhelmed and falls apart. She becomes unrecognizable. She is so beyond consolable that when her maternal grandmother died, I was completely at a loss how to even approach her.

I was telling her in my duplicitous, upbeat way how I was perfectly happy where I was in life because the whole point of my life was to drive it into a dead end, which is where I am. I was telling her this because it's just the truth. That's about all there is to say about my life and basically I'm just waiting to die, and laughed it off.

My laughing it off was her out. It was a joke and she didn't have to inquire further. If it was me, I wouldn't have let it pass. I would have asked what that meant. What do you mean your life is a dead end? What do you mean you're just waiting to die? I would've annoyed the hell out of me, which is why I'm glad I don't have to be friends with myself.

I would have recognized the dissonance and wanted to know more. And further, she knows about my bank account . . . issues. I'm guessing it was her step-mom, my aunt, who told her what my parents did with the money that was in my account.

She didn't ask how much I have left or if I was worried about it or what I was going to do. I also told her about my probable glaucoma and the blindness that comes with not getting it treated, and she laughed it off all on her own. I'm guessing it was an uncomfortable laugh at not wanting to know too much.

We've known each other a long time. She knows more about me than she's willing to admit, more than she probably wants to know; meaning there's a lot she chooses to ignore. When you've known me as long as she has, there are things that I can't hide, things that just have to come out.

She can feign ignorance about what most people would regard as self-destructive tendencies, but in her it's denial. As much as she's been exposed to through the years, it's ridiculous to look at the whole picture and think, "oh there's nothing wrong there, he'll be fine".

It's not like our relationship is complicated, but there are a lot of threads and tendrils sticking out and going no where. Lots of contradictions and I can't say anything definitive about us without constantly reassessing and taking things back.

I retract things in my last post regarding my cousin. They were immediate impressions and observations, perhaps frustration, but they miss our long-standing past and connection.

She came up to Taipei again without her kids and we got together just she and I, and everything was different. She ended up shaking the foundation of my existence in a way few have done before. She didn't mean to, she wasn't trying to. It's a specific chord that she managed to hit by accident.

She still doesn't know what chord she hit. I don't know if she saw my hand shaking or if she knew I sat back in my chair and froze because if I didn't I wouldn't be able to hold back tears. Or a tear. There may have been only one. But she noticed something and stopped and let me get composed.

We were talking about our relationship through the years and how I'd always been there for her when she needed me. But when her husband admitted he was having an affair, she didn't come to me. She didn't call, she didn't tell me.

I knew that when she finally did tell me, I had asked her why she didn't call me and I remember that she gave me a satisfactory answer, but I couldn't remember it this time and planned to ask her again. Fortunately I didn't need to admit that I forgot what she said before because she brought it up herself. 

She said she didn't want to depend on me as she had in the past. She knew she could always depend on me for support and to be on her side, but she felt that was not what she needed. She needed to get through it without me for her own strength and independence. 

She outlined all the times before when she went through problems and came to me and I was always there for her. During her good times, we fell out of contact because she didn't need me, and I was fine with that. I didn't need to always be in her life. I didn't even go to her wedding. But if she needed me, I was always there.

But she noticed that I never needed her. I never went to her when I was in crisis. She was never there when I needed help. And that was it. She touched something she wasn't supposed to. She noticed. I couldn't articulate what it was, but the conversation stopped and she sensed to stop.

She doesn't know that if anything, my life is one big crisis, basically all the time. She doesn't know how conflicted I am about needing help or accepting help. Even defining what it means to need help or to even want it.

Even just the suggestion of recognizing I may have needed help sent me into emotional shock. You have no idea. You're not supposed to have any idea. But to even indirectly suggest that she might have been someone I might have gone to in times of need was . . . too much.

She placed a loving hand on a wall that is built with bricks of silence and suicide. But what she touched was a breach. No one goes there. No one wants to go there. No one wants me to depend on them. It would be a disaster. And I told her as much.

It occurs to me that she has never seen me vulnerable. This was the first time she ever even scratched the surface, and she got in accidentally through the back door. It's not like I have to be "strong" for her. In our spiritual relationship, we are not only equal but I posit myself below her in many respects. Respect, gratitude, love, intimacy.

But, wow, the things she doesn't know. She doesn't know about suicide; she freely talked about contemplating suicide when she found out about her husband, but in passing she tossed out the assumption that suicide is impossible for me. She assumed it, she didn't even pause and ask, "right?" (I had admitted that in my current life, I'm pretty much just waiting to die).

She doesn't know about the alcoholism, even though every time we meet she mentions that I've been drinking because she can smell it (she's one of those annoying people who can smell alcohol on someone hours and hours later). She doesn't know about the insomnia.

She knows about the past cutting, but she went into denial about it before and that's probably the status quo. I haven't done that in years, but she hasn't followed up or checked that I still do or don't, even as a joke. I understand it's hard. Even Sadie, who had noticed scars and assumed it was cutting, was surprised at the extent of it when she saw it all. I've long stopped trying to hide it.

So Audrey hit an emotional chord. And then she backed off. As she should have as far as I was concerned. She mentioned several times over the rest of the evening how I would hit her emotional chords and keep poking at them. Maybe she was pointing out how I wasn't letting her keep poking. And maybe that's so, but that's what I'm imposing on her. She doesn't want me to depend on her, trust me, it would be ruinous, disaster.

Suicide has been a part of my resonant mental fabric since an early age, and I've learned through the years that I can't trust to tell anything I consider my truth to other people. Layers and layers have been laid so that when my cousin lovingly suggests that maybe I can tell her? Not a chance. Thank you, but no way.

People trying to get to know me, getting under my skin. Remnants of people trying to care. But these are my issues alone. As Audrey tried to grasp what had happened, I even invoked why I ultimately didn't ordain as a monk at Plum Village.

She had previously hijacked my attempt to explain it during her prior visit, but I was finally able to impose it on her this time. One of the reasons I didn't ordain (or more specifically engineered my aspirancy to be questioned), was partly because of one important discussion with the monks about having to deal with issues.

It was suggested to me that personal issues would have to be dealt with as part of the spiritual path. And for me, mine is not a path that anyone else has to deal with whether they want to help or not. If the monks saw I needed help, they would be available to help. Audrey, I'm sure, would be willing to "help" if I asked for it and explained how.

But it's not "help" I want or need. It's the howling abyss I need to face and plunge into willingly and fearlessly to see what it is and put it into my karmic experience.

Walking with her back to Taipei Main Station where she was going to meet her brother to go back to Kaohsiung, she started to flirt with me (she had a glass of plum wine). She thought it was hilarious that when she would hook her arm into mine, I would stiffen and become visibly uncomfortable.

My reactions were purely visceral. I also review them as funny, but . . . different places, different progressions. And I don't see that sort of reticence as permanent. She can flirt, she can be intimate in the future and, well, we have long-standing past and connection.

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My cousin is currently in country. I don't have a lot to say about this. She's one of the last few people with whom I'm in contact. I had been looking forward to her coming up to Taipei for a few days, or even longer as she suggested was possible.

But after initial catching up, we ended up boring each other to death. She came up with her kids and of course they are her priority. I have no problem with them. I've known each of them since they were little mites and adore them in my own way*. But they have no recollection of me and naturally no interest and I admit I have no rapport with children.

In trying to converse with my cousin, there were times I'd start saying something with a point to make, but she would interrupt and hijack it and after that I felt there was no more need to try to make my point. She had her own point; no need to hear mine or for me to impose mine. She's preoccupied with her own situation and struggles with her estranged husband.

Nothing unpleasant, nothing negative, just blah; no connection. No effort or desire to meet up every chance possible.

So yea, I hope I can throw that connection away, which is certainly no revelation. If possible, I hope to cut karmic connections with anyone I've known or met (karmically) in this lifetime, and that has always included her (even if that's even possible or if I can be successful, it likely does nothing with karmic connections with people I haven't met in this lifetime, but still are connected to).

She did help me get my TV remote control issues fixed. Not in the way I hoped, but in the end it had to be done the way it was. But she didn't even try to respect how I wanted to go about it, which says something. Hopefully the past two months without a remote have sufficiently changed my habits so that I don't waste so much time channel surfing.

I don't know if she'll contact me again or whether we'll get together again before she leaves the country, but if she does I'll milk it to see if she can help me get my computer fan replaced. Temperatures in Taiwan are rising going into summer and as my laptop tries to cool itself down, it exacerbates the broken fan issue.

So I no longer consider my cousin a contact, someone with whom I can communicate. Madoka, no. Family, no. I don't expect to hear from my brothers ever again. Maybe my parents might try to call and I might take the call, but that would probably be an accident. If I suspect it's them, I won't take it.

The only person left is the casual acquaintance of my previous Mandarin teacher here in Taipei. We get in contact every several months and meet for coffee or go for a hike. It's just for several superficial hours that I can manage. That's my last human contact in this life.

I've taken cursory looks at my remaining bank account and calculate that I might have enough to make it to sometime next year. Do I want to even if I can? I'm really kind of tired of this all. I'm pretty much done. It's not depression. I don't have a reason (which is the only good reason to abandon a lifetime). But I have nothing left to offer to this life, and this life has nothing left to offer to me.

Eyesight is noticeably declining. I don't know for sure if it's glaucoma, but from computer screen to readings to general environment, it has become a consideration, i.e., not something to take for granted.

* The oldest, Pie (12), has overcome a karmic weight of childhood rage and lashing out, but under my cousin's care and upbringing has become stable and responsible. Gracie (10), my favorite, has always been a delightful, playful pixie and when I hear her speak now reminds me that years ago when she was beginning to talk she had the cutest squeaky voice. Eddie (8), has always resembled the Korean cartoon character Mashimaro and still does. He's a little buddha and I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be an incarnation of some past great Tibetan master.

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