I've been wanting to be and working on being spontaneously nicer. Compassionate. Whatever.

I was struck by a Simpson's episode several weeks ago, when the ghost of Lucille Ball appears in Lisa's room, smoking a cigarette. Lucy asks Lisa if she has an ashtray. Lisa is, of course, like seven years old – why would she have an ashtray? She is also smart, articulate, politically correct, and somewhat uptight and smug in her intelligence, and so I expected a response about smoking being bad, or that her parents probably wouldn't be happy about her smoking in the house, or that she just didn't have one. Instead, Lisa takes a can filled with pencils and pens, dumps it empty, and hands it to Lucy, "Will this do?" Wow!

I do try to be nice, considerate, and respectful to strangers, but it's all a bit contrived. I think too much, so when I'm nice to strangers, I'm usually very conscious of it. It's not as spontaneous as it could be – microseconds of action without thought. Lisa Simpson had to think about how to accommodate Lucy, but the accommodation was immediate (we're interpreting here, folks). She didn't run through the negative arguments in her head before deciding to accommodate her.

I'm primarily working on it while riding my bike, because that's when I'm at my instinctual most aggressive, defensive, and self-righteous. It comes out without forethought or premeditation. And it's nothing I do, I'm not particularly rude or stupid, it's all feeling. But I know about it, and sometimes I ride away ashamed of the thoughts that ran through my head in situations that weren't even a near-miss.

And it has to be more than that. A couple days ago I almost got doored riding east in the Folsom St. bike lane. I was completely in the right. I was riding along in the bike lane when the passenger side door of an SUV that was in a car traffic lane was flung open in front of me. I swerved so hard that I had to come to a full stop (yay, fast reflexes), and later had to check to see if the alignment of my front tire was off.

When I turned around, there was a girl standing there looking scared, and meekly said, "sorry". I'm not one to tell anyone off, and especially not a child. I said in the most non-admonishing tone as possilbe, "just look out for traffic next time," and rode off. No harm as far as I was concerned.

Later as I thought about the incident, I thought that I should have taken the extra step of asking her if she was alright. That would have been proper equanimity and compassion.

You represent... apathy.
You don't really show any emotion. You can be considered cruel and cold, but you just don't really care about anything. This is just the way you are... you're quite a challenge to get close to, and others may perceive you as boring.
What feeling do you represent?
brought to you by Quizilla

This isn't true. Just my answers to the questions were apathetic. Because they were boring.

Counting down. I'm still counting down, but to what, I don't know. It's habit for me to be counting down to some end. It's even natural. Isn't each of our passing days counting down to an end? 

People don't like thinking about those things, not knowing when anything will end. Not knowing when anything will end, people find it useless or impossible to count down the days. But they're nevertheless counting down. 

I've been finding myself in conversations trying to tactfully figure out what people's motivations are. What are they doing? Why are they doing this? Instead of just floating through our lives to reach 60, 70, 80, just because we were given these lives, what is compelling us, propelling us to reach 60, 70, 80? 

Sometimes it's hard to steer the conversation away from depressingness, and if it looks like it's headed that way, I'll try to dissolve it before it gets there. If a conversation on life is going to be depressing, what's the point? 

I'm still counting down, but to which choice, I'm not sure. I must have a fear of making a choice, of being proactive; either positively kill myself being true to myself and understanding it and being able to explain it for myself, or wild blue yonder it and implement the monastic choice. I have good arguments either way and I'm in danger of freezing up and not doing anything. 

Instead, I play games with myself, try to set tangible chains of events into motion to force a choice. This time it is giving notice on my apartment on March 1st so that by April 1st, something will have to happen. But I think if I'm giving notice on March 1st to force something to happen by April 1st, it won't be committing suicide. So counting down. 

Suicide actually hasn't been feeling very tangible lately. I don't think that means anything in terms of what I do, in fact it might be a positive step towards it, in that it might indicate a loss of attachment to the idea of it. In my mind, it's less and less real, but that just might be a mini-breakthrough of sorts. But it's counting down and having no idea what's at zero. 

We're at second line from the bottom of January. Counting down. Something has to happen. Something has to change.

I seem to think that non-Buddhists might listen to me on the topic and think of me as a Buddhist. And folk that pat themselves on the back as card-carrying Buddhists might listen to me and point out what is "Buddhist" and what is not "Buddhist", and generally not think of me as a Buddhist. Whatever, either way I don't care.

Do you go to the Buddha and ask, "Are you Buddhist? You must be Buddhist, you're the friggin' Buddha"? And maybe he'd reply, "It makes sense when you put it that way, but it just doesn't sound right. Maybe it's better to say that I'm a . . . a . . . I'm a me-ist".

Like those movies with a God character that goes, "Oh God! I mean, 'Oh Me!'"

I'm a thousand times more comfortable thinking of myself as a me-ist. Call me a Buddhist and I feel like being put into a box and framed by all these things I'm supposed to be or believe in. That I'm being fitted for an identity that is supposed to define me, rather than the other way around. Like there's something special or separate or compartmentalizable about it. Commodifiable. Able to be put into the commode.

It may be so that I am this or that which seems kinda Buddhist, or believe in this or that which seems kinda Buddhist, but it's not because I'm a "Buddhist". When you see a duck, you know it's a duck. Why is a duck a duck? It's just a fucking duck!

I saw a sign the other day for an "Orthodox Buddhist Church". It made me wonder why I haven't seen any Unorthodox Buddhist Churches. This is San Francisco after all.

It's alright for me to think of myself as Buddhist, but I won't call myself "Buddhist" to anyone, and as I said, each to their own if they call me Buddhist or not. This is all a conceit, mind you. Most people, Buddhist or otherwise, couldn't give a rats ass who, what, where, why or how I am. Well, no, there are people who give a rats ass how I am, but not how I am. Right

Got this from Randy a while ago, forgot to post it:

To the survivors:
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's probably shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.)

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.

We had friends! We went outside and found them. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you're one of them!

Congratulations. Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors?

A must read for people over 25 yrs of age.

arguing against suicide:
"Why would you want to kill yourself? Isn't there a million things you want to do?"
"No, not really, I've pretty much done everything I want to do."
" . . . Aren't there a million things that you don't want to do?"
" . . . ***!!! . . . "

Flatter myself not, it's not easy to stump me. But it's possible.

Also on the suicide front, I read the following today that I found here: http://www.moonpointer.com/zeph/index.htm. I'm not encouraging going there, I'm just citing the source:

Please forget that idea entirely. Suicide means dying in fear and hate. The Buddha tells us the destination will be hell, which is a world which corresponds to the mindstate of fear and hate. When we overcome problems, we can only become stronger. If not, we remain weak.

Don't jump from the frying pan into the fire. If you think this is hell, killing yourself will only land you in REAL HELL.

People who end their lives LACK courage to face problems. Death will NOT end the problems. There will be rebirth and as long as lessons are not learnt, we face them again and again. What's worse is that when you build up the habit of running away, you might contemplate suicide again in a future life when you face similar difficulties. Make a resolution to NOT get caught in this vicious cycle!

Moralistic, self-righteous fucker. This is exactly the linear, literal thinking that gives me a twitch when confronted by normative, mundane, not-very-well-thought-out-or-inspired generalizations and interpretations of organized religion.

- Suicide might mean dying in fear and hate, but not necessarily so. Whether dying in fear and hate is better or worse than living in fear and hate is anyone's opinion.
- "The Buddha" also "tells us" that women cannot attain enlightenment.
- Who gives a shit what the Buddha tells us, what do you tell yourself? They are the same.
- Overcoming problems can make us weaker. Not overcoming problems can make us stronger (or might be needed to make us stronger).
- There is no difference between hell and REAL hell. Once you find yourself in REAL hell, what if you find there is a REAL REAL hell?
- If you can't figure out the rest of my commentary on what he wrote yourself, stop reading my fucking blog (just kidding, I'm just lazy (please keep reading my fucking blog, oh please, please, please)).

No wait, don't be lazy:
- People who end their lives aren't the only people who LACK courage to face problems. Everyone has their own path to discover and challenge their problems or not. Suicides aren't special except to the extent that society vilifies them.
- Society's inability to empathize with and show compassion and understanding without pity or moral indignation and superiority towards suicides might show a LACK of courage on the part of society to truly engage the complex issues of life, death, self and identity that suicides intimately have to deal with.
- Death will NOT end the problems. Life also will NOT end the problems. What's your point?
- People who do not believe in rebirth are not reborn. Imposing Hindu, Buddhist and related ideas of rebirth on those who don't believe in it is just as bad as Christians telling you you're going to burn in hell for not proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal friend and sole saviour. The flip side of that, which is also true, is that they will be reborn and you will burn in hell. (I'm still trying to work that one out, though).
- The rest I have no problem with, except for his calling it "worse". That's his personal judgment, but again, we have our own paths for better or worse. What he considers "worse" might turn out to be a viable stepping stone for someone else.

Personally, I think the true "Buddhist" way of confronting the issue of suicide is to counsel against it and discourage it, but compassion and humility suggests withholding personal biases and moralistic judgments and what are essentially opinions. Assuming a high moral ground and making sweeping statements about universal truths and burning in hell is not particularly compassionate.

When confronted with the issue of suicide, whether it's one's own or someone else's, it's a challenge to you, and this person's hypothetical response, in my own opinion, would be a failure in many cases. There might be people who would hear that and decide against it. Obviously not suicidal, though.

Better to just say "don't do it". That's all you need to say. All that other moralistic crap is just offensive and is not going to stop anyone from committing suicide because it simply dismisses everything that has led the person to consider suicide, and that is not a way to deal with it.

"Don't do it", and let them find for themselves within themselves whether to do it or not.

"Don't do it" puts it in their mind doing it or not doing it, encouraging not doing it, and the wheels are set in motion. Whatever reasons a suicide has, it comes down to "do it or not do it", and that's a hard precipice in itself to stand on.

"Don't do it", and don't be attached yourself to someone else "doing it" or "not doing it".

Anyway, this is all a knee-jerk reaction to that one post. I admit that I didn't read the whole site to get a better idea where he's coming from, or if it even is a 'he', and I may be putting just as much on him just to forward my own soapbox ranting.

Strange. I haven't been looking back at 2003.

Truth to tell, there's just not a whole lot to look at, and there should be even less, except for that curly-fry shaped branch of fate distracting what had been my path. As straight-forward as I may describe the monastery option, the actual path looks more like how the solid-rocket boosters of the Challenger went after it exploded. There, that's better – using a national tragedy to envision my life. Geez.

But that's kind of it; how my path blew up under me and reality flew apart at the seams. For once in a good way. And looking back, it all seems so hazy, less concrete, less defined by definites and absolutes. The idea of the monastery brought me back to a home with a vengeance and grounded me. It completed an arc of a storyline. Even though I still don't know how the story ends.

Music has been a constant in my life, a passion to pursue if I were interested in continuing living a material life. Otherwise, it's just a distraction, something to do.

Suicide has also been a constant, and a logical, ironic end to the story. Having an ironic end is always very attractive.

But this thing, and I don't know what to call it, has also been a constant. Calling it religion is too simplistic. Calling it an ongoing existential inquiry into the nature of being is too hokey. But it presented itself and resonated, and I pursued it and read about it, and it developed from a crude, cursory practice in a dorm room, sitting on laundry as a cushion, with a stick of incense stuck in a tin container for some anise liqueur, filled with sand that I stole from the local Oberlin golf course, next to the cemetery.

It was always a solo practice and I never talked about it. It was personal. I balanced what I read about monastic practice with what I felt made sense. I never blindly did something because it was written down somewhere as the thing to do if you were to be this or that. From the start I was uncomfortable with calling myself "Buddhist". I did, however, get caught up in thinking Zen=Buddhism. And in some ways it is, in others it isn't.

Through the years the idea of entering a monastery faded, but I continued my personal practice; always aware of and looking for signs, even when they stopped appearing; sporadically sitting, but everywhere I lived since college I know I had some set up, so I don't think I ever spent too long away from it.

So when the monastic option reared its pretty shaved head in 2003, all of this that had been in the background through the years washed over and washed reality out. And I couldn't even begin to describe what that is. It's like painting a masterpiece of a painting and then smearing it all up with both hands and told to describe that in detail.

What I said, not a whole lot to look at, because there's not much there. And even that doesn't describe it.

happy new year's eve

December 31, 2003; 1:55 P.M.

I don't want to be happy.

If I wanted to be happy, I would be doing what it takes to be happy. I would go back to my old job, not because it made me happy, but because it supported me and would be necessary for the things that make me happy. It wasn't an unbearable job, it wasn't killing me.

And with that sustenance, I would be happy by:
- going cycling on weekends or riding on my trainer in the evenings while watching music DVDs;
- renting or buying and watching music or anime DVDs;
- maintaining and nourishing friendships, even getting long-distance phone service to stay in contact;
- asking people to go to movies or shows with me, or dinner, or just hang out;
- finding a better apartment in a better part of town and being open-minded about "what I can afford";
- playing music and hanging around people who like playing music;
- continuing home practice and going to SF Zen Center twice a week for Dharma Talks;
- being frequently aware of my happiness or unhappiness, and stop doing what makes me unhappy, and do what makes me happy.

But I don't do these things because happiness, in itself or in material pursuits, is not one of my wants.

- I want to understand the fabric of existence.
- I want to know what this all is and why.
- I want to test it with my own suicide (not someone else's - important).

Don't tell yourself that you want to be happy and then not be. Let's be honest about our happiness and unhappiness.

- If you're unhappy because your job sucks, tell yourself that you want to be unhappy because your job sucks.
- If you're unhappy because you don't get along with your family, tell yourself you want to be unhappy because you don't get along with your family.
- If you're unhappy because your health is bad, tell yourself you want to be unhappy because your health is bad.
- If you're unhappy because you have a mortgage and a ton of debt you're eating your way out of, tell yourself you want to be unhappy because you have a mortgage and a ton of debt.
- If you're unhappy because the dog keeps peeing on the couch, tell yourself that you want to be unhappy because the dog keeps peeing on the couch.
- If you're unhappy because you can't make a relationship work, then tell yourself that you want to be unhappy because you can't make a relationship work.
- If you're unhappy because the weather sucks and puts you in a bad mood, then tell yourself that you want to be unhappy because the weather sucks and puts you in a bad mood.
- If you're unhappy because (fill in the blanks...)

And importantly, tell yourself that if you think you want to be happy despite this that makes you unhappy or that that makes you unhappy, then you're a fool.

Suicide is my prize possession.

Plotting the arc
I brought a book, Mountain Record of Zen Talks, back from New Jersey that I had bought way back when I was in college. I forget if I read it all the way through, but I'm pretty sure that this book was one of the reasons why I had to get away from my Zen studies of the time, and wandered and reconnoitered down a "Sufi path" for a bit.

The frustration I was having with Zen was that you start coming across a set set of terms that, once you think about it, don't mean anything. There are catchwords and concepts that you have to intuit, but who knows and who is to say if your intuition is really getting it or just falling into granola-crunchy, New Age crap? The Sufi and Islamic readings I came across helped explain the mechanics of the metaphysical concepts that I was stuck on in Zen.

I kinda think of Sufism as being to Islam what Zen is to Buddhism. Mind you, I don't think any of these identifiers and terms mean anything, and I don't care what they "really" are. I don't wear Buddhism on my arm. I don't like saying, "I'm Buddhist" – that's meaningless. That has to do with ego and identity, relative to the outside world, but nothing to do with what I really am. I borrow ideas and concepts to add to my experience and vocabulary for what I believe, and to supplement and fill in the many blanks where appropriate.

Anyway, this book is fairly kicking my ass now. Nothing groundbreaking, nothing particularly new, but this book is really good with its explanations. I understand why I was frustrated with it ten years ago, and I'm thinking this book isn't for beginners. I needed elements of these past ten years to understand this, or read it without getting frustrated.

For me, I'd even say that I needed my recent monastic glimpse to get this material, and that it's more geared towards monks than lay practitioners. But I think that's just me, because of my own background, preferences, and leanings. I wish I could have been more focused and gotten back to this sooner.

I won't feel bad about not contacting Madoka more while she's in the U.S. Once Madoka and I feel that we want to tell each other about ourselves and be more involved with each others' happenings, then we will resume our old type of communication. It may never happen again, it may never have gone away, but there's no point in forcing anything when I know there is trust and respect between us no matter what happens.

We've never forced anything before, I don't think, and right now it's just not clicking, so I won't feel bad about it.

So I kinda mentioned in passing that the historical Jesus's birth date was not on December 25; a risky bit, as hardcore Christians and Born Agains tend to get their panties and jocks all up in a bunch with any suggestion that anything about Christianity is less than historical, actual, and universal fact.

I mean, really, think about it – all these kids are raised believing that the holiday season is a special time of year, that the sentimentality and mood of the season is connected to this great historic chain of events that led to angels proclaiming the birth of our Saviour and King, and December 25 was the big day, away in a snow-covered manger somewhere out in rural New Jersey (or at least that's where it was in my memory). And now these revisionists are trying to revise the revisions that are the source of our most cherished childhood memories!

We won't have none of that.

But that's not my point.

I don't care for debunking Christianity. A) Other people do it better; B) it isn't going to change 2000 years of Christian history and its impact on the world (negative impact, that is, no one would be trying to debunk it if it weren't for the negative impact); and C) it's counter-productive in discrediting many great teachings in Christianity.

Well, for what it's worth, I found this, searching for something else, about the relationship between the Winter Solstice and Christmas. Of course, anyone can post anything on the internet, and that page includes no sources of corroborating information, so take it or leave it.

But that's basically what I heard, too, so when it comes to Christmas celebrating Jesus's birthday, I have trouble getting into it. I can celebrate friends celebrating the holiday, or Christian culture celebrating what they call Jesus's birthday, but I can't personally celebrate Christmas on the grounds it was the day Jesus was born.

My family doesn't celebrate Christmas. The way I imagine it, my parents immigrated to this country and someone had to explain to them why so many people didn't have to work (earn money) on this day. By the time I reached an age of consciousness/memory, the gift giving idea had sunk in.

My childhood memories include plastic Christmas trees with lights, ornaments, and a flashing star on top, and yes, presents under the tree to be opened on Christmas morning. I don't remember the gifts coming from parents. The extent that my parents gave us gifts was in the form of money, but at that young age, I doubt they were putting cold hard cash in our hands to any appreciable appreciation.

The vague fuzzy memories I do have are of me and my brothers buying gifts for each other. Family excursions to the malls (this was New Jersey, folks), getting money from "mom", and buying toys or games or whatever kids like for each other and trying to keep from seeing what we were getting each other.

We would wrap the gifts in wrapping paper or Sunday comics and put them under the tree. Yea, an inexplicably touching scene, considering that we fought like dogs the rest of the year round. No, we fought, but we had the seeds of tight sibling . . . appreciation.

These are childhood memories, so I'm sure they're not accurate, and I'm even more sure they would conflict with my brothers' memories. I'm thinking that Christmases were the primary source of our games and toys and I'm thinking my parents used Christmas as an excuse not to buy us games or toys for the rest of the year, after all, we knew better what we wanted, right?

So it was all there. My parents provided and we had the tree, we had the gifts, we had the anticipation, and we had the waking up early for the reward on Christmas morning. The only specific Christmas I remember was one when I was really sick, it may have been asthma, and my brother Bob doing something to take care of me, but I can't remember what.

I don't remember when it stopped. I don't think I've even been in New Jersey for Christmas for the past 10 years. I have no recollection what Christmas was about with family through high school and college. It was more about friends then. Again, I might be wrong.

And now?

I'm sorry, but Christmas for me is a day of reflection, mostly cynical about much of what's wrong with the world. A day to hunker down and silently endure. The rampant commercialization and hypocrisy is just sickening.

I appreciate the significance of Jesus's birth . . . except that no one has refuted to my satisfaction the assertion that the historical Jesus was born sometime during the late Summer, and that Jesus having been born on December 25 is a bit of revisionist history performed to correspond with mid-Winters festivals of northern latitude countries.

My understanding is that festivals and celebrations occured around the Winter Solstice to help people get through dark, depressing Winter months. Holiday depression and suicide? It has little to do with the holidays, but has everything to do with the weather.

I also appreciate the season of goodwill and harmony, but then I find myself disheartened by why that doesn't exist all year round. Goodwill and harmony? Have you been in the feeding frenzy of holiday shoppers recently?

I know my feelings are out of step with most people. It's probably why I don't have any friends. But it doesn't stop me from wishing well for all humankind. It doesn't stop certain Christmas melodies from getting to me (some brilliant songwriting there).

It doesn't stop me from looking out my window, my imagination taking me across the bleak, barren Winter landscapes on this silent night to homes of families, friends, and gatherings, through cities, suburbia, through country, through people being together and being happy, through children having the most precious memories of their lives created, and despite all that's wrong with the world, at least there is this one night that the Christian world shines with hope, peace, and love.

The more I talk about suicide, the less inclined I am to act or do anything. When I start talking about a future and living a long life and what I'm gonna be doing with my life, that's when people should start worrying.

You see what people have to put up with?

If my understanding is right, then I can kill myself, or I might as well kill myself. There's nothing wrong with it.

If my understanding is wrong, then my existence is a complete sham, my purpose for being here is completely misdirected, and I will never come to a proper understanding, and . . . I might as well kill myself.

You see what I have to put up with?!

Haha, well I hope this broke the funk I was in.

I did buy a bike used, but wasn't so happy with it, so I ended up "giving it away", within three days of acquiring it.

I'm really not one to regret decisions and I regretted buying this bike, and for things I acquire, I really have to love. Like my guitars, my A bike, my drums, and even my ex-car when it came right down to it, I'm not sure what I mean, but I "loved" those things.

I did regret buying this bike, and I didn't think I would ever grow to love it for one reason or another. I have nothing negative about the person who has it now, I hope he's happy with whatever he does with it. I feel lighter, so I thank him.

I read an interesting passage today on compassion and the Buddhist conception of the relationship between people, using an analogy of our hands.

When our left hand receives money, the right hand doesn't feel jealous, envious, or angry. If our left hand is on fire, the right hand doesn't hesitate to act to put it out, it doesn't think of the danger to itself, the left hand is itself.

It's a hard one, but I sort of get it. Even harder to put into practice since I have an aversion to physical contact with other people, but making physical contact with any other human being should be easy as holding one hand in the other. Depending on the circumstance, I'm sure I can overcome my aversion. Perhaps I wouldn't even think about it.

That was it; gone. Like a door opening and a door closing were my bookend visits to Deer Park Monastery. It was just a glimpse for me, just a glance, just a sample, something to strive for more concretely in a future life perhaps. But in this one? It was very real, and I won't forget it, but something just doesn't feel right. 

My mind is baffled trying to conceive dimensions it is physically uncapable of conceiving. It stretches and is torn apart falling into black holes. It floats in amorphous wisps at the edges of the universe. I envision the compact physicality of the grey matter of my brain in my skull and at the very center is an endless, dark abyss. Like a jelly donut, but more sinister. 

My physical reality flakes and distorts, parts of it crumble if I'm not careful. Strange being. Calm and collected facade, living a pretty easy physical life, but my psyche feels assaulted and brutalized by an alter ego in another dimension, just a thin membrain away. 

And this goes on for . . . how much longer?

I've been continuing my home practice, but it's been a struggle. The revitalizing energy I had between my Deer Park trips was gone after I got back from New Jersey, and I consider that a good thing, even if it puts entering the monastery in question and doubt. A good thing? What's a good thing?

I'm working with a dichotomy. I tell people I'm entering a monastery, and they say, 'great', and I find that a little patronizing, as they have little idea or interest in what's driving that decision, but that's OK since I have no desire to explain it to those people either.

I tell people I'm committing suicide, and they say, 'boo!', and that makes me feel a little defensive, and my life isn't about defending my decisions. They don't impact enough people to warrant defending (the few people it impacts deserve explanation, and I've done my best).

I don't know which path I'm on, or what I will find standing in front of me as the decision I made. Right now, I'm just walking down a path towards neither, but trying to find the middle of the false encouragement of entering Deer Park and the dark voices of condemnation over suicide.

As the negativity needs to be stripped away from suicide, so does the positivity of entering the monastery, with a recognition that none of it is "real". I can be sad about leaving or happy about arriving, but there can't be any attachments to either.