The Family Stone (2005, USA)

Bleah. I create these "rotten tomato" posts not to review movies per se like I really have something to say about them, but to remind myself of what I've watched. I think the reason I didn't write up this movie before when I saw it on cable was because I turned it on halfway through.

Too bad this time, because I turned it on at the beginning, and having some vague memory of the title, having turned it on halfway through before, and having found it intriguing, I decided to watch it.

I remember the title from when the film was released. I noted the pedigree of the title and that it was riffing on Sly & the Family Stone (as well as the too-clever double-entendre of balls), and as a Hollywood film, I promptly disregarded it.

When I turned it on part way through, I remember thinking that the movie couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a melodrama or a comedy, and I'm pretty sure I didn't watch it to the very end before, because I don't remember it being a schmaltzy, tear-jerking Hollywood stinker with a ridiculous feel-good happy ending. Or I simply, and more likely, blocked it out.

But I did recognize the attraction of when I turned on to it before. There was emotion involved regarding someone dying (woohoo, good times), and it was a family holiday film, which always begs comparison to one of my all-time favorite films, a family holiday film, "Home for the Holidays".

What I had forgotten from before was my general dislike of anything Sarah Jessica Parker or Wilson brothers, Luke in this case, although I recognize the talent of Luke and Owen Wilson. They're good, I just have to be dragged to see anything they're in.

As for Sarah Jessica Parker, I just don't see the appeal. But in this movie, I do. And it has a name. Rachel McAdams, whose appearance makes Sarah Jessica Parker tolerable. Sarah Jessica Parker walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "Why the long face?". She does get credit for Matthew Broderick, though.

All in all, it was not worth watching. Great acting, Hollywood quality, but a stinker of a film with an ending that makes me wonder, "did I just watch this?". Seriously, he ended up marrying her, and she ended up with him?!! Gimme a break. Rotten 4 out of 10 tomatoes.

Lest I suggest that it was eye candy Rachel McAdams (I do think she's a good actress, not just eye candy, it's just that she needs a few more films under her belt to make that unquestionable) that prevents giving this movie a lesser rating, I should also say ... Claire Danes.


Claire Danes who was also in:

Home for the Holidays (1995, USA) 

Like I said, one of my all-time favorite movies, directed by the impressive Jodie Foster, starring one of my favorite actresses, Holly Hunter, and including Claire Danes, who amazes me no matter how small a role she takes.

The reason this is one of my favorite films of all-time is because of the progression, the pacing and the emotional pitch. The ending is also arguably feel-good, but for a completely different reason than "The Family Stone".

The feel-good tone of that film was reached by someone dying and a future that has ridiculously unlikely and forced circumstances, which apparently makes the American mainstream ooh and ah and feel really good about themselves for some reason, but makes me wretch and puke.

This film is emotionally more cathartic. It kicks cliches like how "family is all we've got" in the family stones, and states a more realistic "who are these people? where did I even come from?". Family memories, childhood memories, no matter how crappy things have become, that's where we came from, and that's what makes them treasures.

There's often nothing we can do about what we've become or the family relationships we have. But family memories are fact and they are the basis of who we are, no matter how different or divergent our lifestyles or beings become, and they will haunt. Unless you just learn to chill the fuck out.

My parents are driving me fucking crazy, but maybe that's what I need and I should start answering their phone calls more than once a week and taking the rubbish they're dishing out. After all, my parents can be said to be a major force in driving me towards my own goal in life.

After I graduated from college and tried to find something in Japan, if they had just let me be, I might have ended up getting married and starting a family and finding a job and completing my language studies.

After they thwarted that and engineered my return to the U.S., they should have just supported me to go out into the world and find a job. I might have found it to be so unbearable that I might have ended up begging them to support me through law school and becoming a public defender in San Francisco.

When I told them I was considering being a monk, if I had gotten support – highly hypothetical, since I didn't need their support, and the kind of support necessary to be beneficial would require at least a mote of spiritual understanding – maybe I'd be a monk now. 

Really?

Under any parental circumstance, can I picture myself married with kids in Japan? Can I imagine myself as an attorney? I tried the simple working for a living thing and even that didn't pan out. Being a monk is the only thing that actually still makes sense, but I stepped off that path on my own for a reason.

Is there any scenario that I could have encountered that would have snuffed out the spark towards suicide that is the hallmark of my life?

No, and any accusative tone I might take towards my parents' disastrous meddling in my life is only seeing things from their point of view. For what they wanted my life to be, they were constantly shooting me in the foot. 

Thanks to my parents relentlessly trying to steer me towards an impossible lifestyle as a doctor, lawyer or in business, my life is the way it is. And there were likely no options they could have supported as hypothetical "good parents" that would have made my path any different.

Suicide was never going to go away. I was never going to be "satisfied" just living a life. So the way my parents are is perfect, almost like they were part of a grand plan to help me towards some perceived, possible spiritual breakthrough. I look down on them, I pity them and wish them the best. I'm separate from them.

But if they were parents who supported me and who I loved and was a part of, this would be even more difficult than it has been, maybe even impossible. I'd probably suffer from depression.

If my thesis is correct, which is a matter of faith – I'm not trying to convince anyone about it, nor do I myself believe there are any universal truths that we can understand involved – then the act of suicide may be the "bigger" worth I would want out of my life. Seeing behind the reality of the "roads of birth and death and earthly desires", as the Lotus Sutra puts it.

And maybe that's why they're my parents. I was pondering before the sense or the karma in having such spiritually bankrupt parents. It would finally make sense if I realized they have been crucial, if not essential, to my goal.

Bonus points for being totally bizarre and self-fulfilling.

When I heard in January that one of Japan's undeniably best rock bands was breaking up at the end of February, it didn't really faze me. It didn't faze me because it doesn't matter what Tokyo Jihen's frontwoman Shiina Ringo does. As long as she's making music, it will be brilliant.

She's that good of an artist/songwriter. In my opinion, she is Japan's second best rock songwriter behind Keisuke Kuwata, the leader and songwriter behind Southern All-Stars, who have been around longer than Shiina Ringo has been alive.

But the only reason why Shiina Ringo is second best is because Keisuke Kuwata has been around so long and doing it so well for so long. Southern All-Stars are essentially an institution in the Japanese rock world.

In the long run, I think Shiina Ringo will be considered equal or greater to Keisuke Kuwata, and it won't be as ambiguous such as whether The Rolling Stones or the The Beatles are the ultimate Western rock band.

It did furrow my brow, though, as to why they were breaking up. Who's breaking up the band?

To review, Shiina Ringo was already an enormously successful and highly heralded musician/songwriter when she "retired" from her solo career to "join" Tokyo Jihen in 2004, her hand-picked backing band who supported her on her last solo tour.

Tokyo Jihen got off to a rocky start after the original guitarist and keyboardist quit after the first album and tour. And I understood the dissension. Some of Japan's finest musician's were recruited, and they were asked to be the backing band/second fiddle for Shiina Ringo. That wasn't what she wanted, but it wasn't easy to remove her from her stature nor the fact that Shiina Ringo was the main draw for Tokyo Jihen.

The replacement guitarist and keyboardist were Ukigumo and Ichiyo Izawa, both also brilliant and set ups for a perfect band. I think Ukigumo had to be personally cajoled by Shiina Ringo (for a second time) into agreeing to join the band with assurances that there would be no barriers to his creative freedom, i.e., he wasn't a part of a Shiina Ringo vehicle.

Even though Tokyo Jihen's first album was mostly written and controlled by her, which may be why the original guitarist and keyboardist left, she wanted Tokyo Jihen to be a band with equal contributions by all members.

Tokyo Jihen, mk. II, also got off to a rocky start, but the addition of Ukigumo and Ichiyo Izawa, I think, soon proved their worth.

Both were competent, contributing songwriters and secondary/backing vocalists (the original guitarist and keyboardist provided no vocals at all). Their presence in the works of Tokyo Jihen increased by the album, while Shiina Ringo allowed her control to be diminished, at times just handling lyric and melody writing. There are even songs where she doesn't have any writing credits as well.

I was astounded by their 2010 album, Sports, and subsequent DVD of the supporting concert. 2011 saw their release of the Discovery CD, which was no less impressive. I thought they hit their stride and could go on for another 10 years of success just doing what they were doing.

They were a team, they were brilliant, Ukigumo and Ichiyo Izawa seemed happy with their role in the band, and everything they did included surprises and something new and different. So why the sudden break-up announcement in January 2012? Was it something disagreeable about working with a luminary like Shiina Ringo again?

What other set of musicians would any of them prefer to be working with!? Who can compare to them? They're like top-level jazz musicians playing cutting-edge rock music with no limitations.

I think Shiina Ringo gave Ukigumo and Ichiyo Izawa enough room and freedom that they had no reason to complain, and bassist Seiji Kameda and drummer Toshiki Hata, as capable as they are in their own careers, likely had no problem being taken to the heights Tokyo Jihen took them.

I wonder if the break-up of Tokyo Jihen was instigated by Shiina Ringo herself. An artistic career decision. She could've sailed on with Tokyo Jihen for 10 more years. But way back when, when she could've sailed on with her solo career for 10 more years no problem, she instead announced her retirement as a solo artist and joined Tokyo Jihen, which back then was unproven.

Anyway, there are good aspects to Tokyo Jihen's break-up. I will be able to stop buying their albums and DVDs as soon as I see them. Yesterday I found they released a DVD of their Discovery tour last year, and I bought it without question and it's incredible and I can't believe they've broken up.

I don't know the facts, but from my speculative knowledge and inability to find otherwise online, I think Shiina Ringo herself broke up the band because they had gotten comfortable with their ability to succeed indefinitely, and that's not her definition of success.

I think she'll continue to work with Seiji Kameda who was with her from the beginning as bassist, producer and mentor, and I hope she'll retain Toshiki Hata who's an unparalleled drummer that she obtained from her brother's band. I hope Tokyo Jihen is open to reunion shows in the future, but I feel confident that whatever Shiina Ringo pursues next, I will buy in a heartbeat at least until she starts covering old enka songs.

I have over 18,000 files in my iTunes collection. We used to refer to them as "songs". Although as diversified as my collection is, "songs" may not accurately describe some items.

I'm old enough to remember buying albums. Records. They're called LPs or vinyl now to distinguish the medium. They were precious and you played the hell out of them and knew every song in order, if not all the lyrics if they were included on the record sleeve.

Ever since I got an iPod and iTunes, I perpetually listen to my entire collection on shuffle play. Any one song that comes up is a 1 in over 18 friggin' thousand chance. I know, I'm not impressed by that either for some reason. It's been great not having to choose what I want to listen to. It's my collection, so why wouldn't I like whatever comes up?

Truth. But somewhere in the past six years I've acquired a LOT of music that just got dumped into my collection, and with a 1 in 18,000 chance of coming up, it's gonna take quite a while to get familiar with a lot of this collection. In the process, I'm weeding out and deleting files that just don't do it for me.

The variety of music in my collection is certifiably schizophrenic. I'm a music hoarder. It seems to me that if you're truly a music lover, it's not just subjective, selfish pleasure in what aurally pleases you. It's seeking out what's out there because music is life. And music I become a fan of, I become a fan of for life. It's not a trend. 

If music is made, there must have been some inspiration behind it. So as a music lover, I want to find what that inspiration, the humanity behind it, is. Of course, there are aesthetic limits. It's also important to recognize what one likes and doesn't like. And with 18,000+ tracks in my collection, it's hard to argue that I'm a discriminating listener.

In my memory, my music loving began in my late infancy with 45rpm singles on plastic, toy phonographs. There's one song I don't remember, but it might've been Disney, that I couldn't get enough of and played over and over again. I think it was at my uncle's house – my mother's younger brother who was the only other sibling to immigrate to the U.S.

And an Osmonds song a bit later. I'm almost 100% sure it was this song. I remember the MGM lion's head logo going around and around on our own blue and white plastic, toy phonograph.

Finding this video clip is a bit of a revelation, as I have no video memory of the song. But there are elements in the song I do clearly remember. And it's a pretty funky performance that's obviously inspired by the Jackson 5 and is not too far from the K-pop I'm inexplicably obsessed with recently.

Although back then they were clearly lip-synching as they didn't have headset mics that allow K-pop singers to get away with it more easily. It's still a lot better than a lot of Western pop coming out recently.

As for rock, my earliest concrete memories are the first albums I bought: Queen's "News of the World" and then Billy Joel's "52nd Street". After that I don't remember.

I'm most particular about the music that I enjoy the most, as I suppose anyone is, and that's Western rock, or rock in general. Perhaps my bar is set lower for other genres where my tastes are not as discerning. And there are many obscure genres that I take what I can get exposed to.

I have a respectable collection of the main Western genres, including jazz, fusion and classical. I have a keen taste for Broadway with which I think a lot of people have difficulty.

My taste for world music was acquired during college when I even toyed with becoming an ethnomusicology major until I realized I didn't have the formal musical foundation or ear-training for it. So I have quite a lot of traditional and folk musics in my collection.

My stint in the Oberlin steel drum band gave me an aesthetic taste for Trinidadian steel orchestras that I can geek on about endlessly, but I think is among the more challenging genres in my collection. It's not unlike classical music in that you can have a greater appreciation for it if someone points out what to listen for.

And aside from traditional world music, there's plenty of pop music from around the world that I've acquired. It's not a big deal to me that I don't understand the lyrics. In fact, I think my appreciation for K-pop is partly predicated on the fact that I don't understand the lyrics.

The music I listen to has become my main identity, my final identity perhaps. It also isolates me because the likelihood of being able to share this identity with anyone else is practically nil. People have commented on my listening habits and the disparate aural experience of my collection on shuffle play.

Ultimately music is what identifies me, and what isolates me. Go fig.

It's safe to say that my current life is only about distracting myself from my purported goal in life. And I tell myself if not for these distractions I use to distract myself, I would likely get on with it. There isn't anything left to say, I've said it all before.

You know, just 15 years ago it wasn't so easy to get onto the internet, and there weren't the structures on the internet that made it so essential to people's lives as it is today. Back then it was a rudimentary, burgeoning research tool and porn. Porn was there from the start.

But even 15 years ago, I had my distractions. However, 15 years ago my distractions were more substantive and had more potential for personal meaning. Remove my current distractions, I'm not sure I'd be able to conjure up other distractions.

And even though there's nothing left to say because I've said it all before, there is still looking back at the path that got me here. Lots of precious moments, lots of crashing and burning.

I do think I've been somewhat successful in transforming myself into a more benign entity that will leave less of a footprint on this physical, manifest world, and less attachment to karma creating activity or being. Shutting down the ego and the ego-attachment.

I think I have been quite successful in transforming negative impulses into understanding and compassion. Transforming victimized self-pity into understanding and positive letting go.

I do think I'm a very different person from just two years ago. Just looking back at two years ago, and I don't understand that person that was me. I don't understand what that person was doing or what that person's motivation was.

I just realized this blog just passed its 10 year anniversary. The first post was February 12, 2002. How many personal blogs have survived this long? All of the bloggers I connected with back then have long since stopped.

The so-called blogosphere has completely changed since then. Now the blogosphere is filled with pundits and opinion-makers. Any buzz in the blogosphere is about news. Back then it was about personal expression. Individuals who just wanted to say something. I suppose that's what this blog continues to try to be.

And how things have changed for me in 10 years. And not. Suicide was my goal long before this blog was created. Now, 10 years later, I feel I'm closer to that goal than ever before. Meaning 10 years ago, I was a lot farther from that goal than I would've admitted at the time.

Foolish. I was still social back then. I was still engaged. I still did things. Now I'm totally isolated and non-social in a foreign land. I've stopped doing all the things that I considered my identity before. I've stopped playing music altogether. I don't run anymore, I don't cycle except to further my next attempt.

I've completely gone on a tangent, immersing myself in Korean entertainment media that no one I know understands, much less shares. I personally think it's the future life resonance that will have me angling for my next life in South Korea.

I do hope this blog will end soon. I don't see any realistic future otherwise. Yet I still have my attachments. Things I'm clinging to, when nothing whatsoever should be clung to.

This blog has gotten hits from two cryptic google searches: "suicide due to failure karma" and "suicide with least karma". Obviously I have no idea what was on these people's minds, but I'm intrigued enough to reflect and comment.

The most logical interpretation of "suicide due to failure karma" to me is, "what karma is attached to a suicide committed as a result of (some perceived personal) failure?".

And I think "suicide with least karma" might mean, "what kind of suicide has the least karmic effect?".

As always, I strongly disagree with any notion that karma is some moral model. It's not "what goes around comes around". Karma is just about mental imprints in our own consciousness (causes) that perpetuate themselves due to whatever effect they have on us (effects). Any irony or morality attributed to the concept of karma is all human projection.

And my favorite quote regarding karma is, "every moment is a karma creating moment; every moment is a karma manifesting moment". Everything any entity does relates to karma. Just being is karma because just the sensation or idea of being here, experiencing reality through our perceptions, perpetuates and maintains a concept that what we are and experience is reality.

Insects, animals, bacteria, humans – anything that lives in any perceived reality on this planet – perpetuates their own being as a result of karma. As sentient beings, any and every thought and experience is karma, both manifesting and creating.

To break out of the cycle of samsaric existence and the relentless cause and effect of karmic being, i.e. enlightenment, is to fundamentally break any idea or concept of one's being or any being that leads to continued ideas of perceived being or the reality of perceived being.

So regarding "what karma is attached to a suicide committed as a result of some perceived personal failure", I'd say it depends on one's own mental state, which includes "perceived personal failure". Actually, that might be the key karma involved.

No one is in fact a failure. Failure is a personal decision and judgment upon one's life. So as intense an experience as suicide may be, that perceived perception of failure may be very strong karma (or attachment), that can carry over to future existences.

If a person is concerned about karmic effects, I would advise against committing suicide. Karmically, a being would gain far more by confronting those negative issues and dealing with them and understanding them and how they relate towards being.

Regarding "suicide with least karma or least karmic effect", that's interesting to me because I do agree with the notion of greater or lesser karmic effect. Every thought, speech or act has karmic effect, but to lesser or greater degrees.

To that, though, I would state my belief that karma is personal. For any karmic creating moment (meaning all moments), there is a ripple effect, but the most important effect is on oneself. How anyone's actions create a reaction in other people is those other persons' karma.

Karma isn't some objective mechanism that decides between morally good or bad. So a suicide with the least karmic effect is one in which one truly realizes the essence of being, that nothing whatsoever should be clung to.

To the degree a being is attached to perceived reality, one's karma is affected by one's suicide. And very few suicides are committed with a true understanding of reality. Thich Nhat Hanh has argued that monks who have immolated themselves for political/humanitarian causes committed suicide with that true understanding of reality.

They're not martyrs, just examples of realization. They understand that in the ultimate dimension nothing should be clung to, including their own being.

But a strong humanitarian message can be conveyed to alleviate other people's suffering in the physically manifest reality by such an intense act. That sort of selflessness is required for a suicide with little negative karmic effect.

So suicide with the least karmic effect depends on the individual. If there is attachment, there will be varying degrees of karmic effect. If there is some degree of non-attachment, there will be lesser degrees of karma.

And quite honestly, most people contemplating suicide do not have that degree of non-attachment, so if Buddhism is some sort of guide to these people, I say don't do it. Work it out. Make it work.

I went up to Danshui on Monday. It was a rare warm, sunny day. It gave hope that La Nina was moving off and the constant rain and drear since all of last summer was coming to an end. But by late night Monday/early Tuesday, it was raining again.

And it has been relentless and temperatures have plummeted again. Monday was nature's way of giving northern Taiwan a big fuck you. I say relentless, but there have been brief periods where I haven't heard rain outside, and periods where it became a drizzle. Actually, right now I don't hear rain outside.

Needless to say, I haven't ventured up to Danshui again for what I consider now needed dress rehearsals. I've barely been able to get out of bed, much less force myself out of the apartment.

I wonder what this isolation has been doing to me psychologically. I don't want to say there has been much psychological effect, because I've been through psychological difficulties and they were a product of who I was and my experience at the time.

Ultimately, I decided I do have control over myself, my mind and my emotions, and those psychological and mental health issues were insubstantial and became irrelevant in the face of mindfulness training.

I know I have psychological issues, but they're in one realm of my being. During my stay at the monastery, one monk made me realize that becoming a monk meant having to deal with those hard issues involving my parents. Who knows? Maybe that was one reason that I declined becoming a monk.

I know I have psychological issues regarding my parents in one realm of my being. But on another realm of my being, those things are insubstantial and shouldn't be clung to or dwelt upon.

If I were to emphasize my having an identity in this physical existence (i.e., I'm a monk, I have a job, I am this person, I'm a musician, I'm a cyclist), I would have to deal with it. But I want to emphasize just moving on, get on with what I think my goal is, and this physical existence is acknowledged as temporary, transient, illusory.

There may be a psychological effect from this isolation and this alcoholism, but they are not important, not significant, not substantial. And that realization is the most important.

OK, enough of this silliness.

I've gone up to Danshui several times since I last mentioned going there a few months ago. The trips haven't been dress rehearsals, more scoping out the coast for other location options. In the end, the best location is the first one I scoped, right at the mouth of the Danshui River.

From here on in, I think I'll start going to Danshui as often as possible as dress rehearsals. Preparing myself as if this might be the attempt.

One thing I found on my most recent trip was that the attempt will be conditioned on coastal conditions. The waves along Taiwan's coasts can be pretty rough, making my plan difficult. So a final 'go' will be determined by getting there and finding the sea is relatively calm.

I've been learning things each time I've gone up to Danshui about how I want things to be and things I want to take into consideration (such as what is not a legitimate consideration). So much does not matter anymore that most "considerations" I've had in the past are no longer valid.

OK, enough of this silliness, but having brought it up, might as well wrap it up. And thanks to the internet, SNSD's Letterman performance was online in hours:

Sunny looks hilarious in her opening pose while Letterman is wrapping up with Regis and Bill Murray. I have a feeling Sunny's English isn't good enough to understand anything they're saying, so she doesn't know when they're going to start.

It's an impressive performance, probably the best one I've seen, no doubt in no small part because they re-tooled the song to incorporate live drums, keyboards and a DJ (I don't know if that's a requirement for performing on Letterman, it may be. I can't think of any performance on Letterman that used playback. But since K-pop is based on playbacks, maybe this was the compromise).

The performance just feels much more visceral than their Korean TV promotions, and the added dance break in the middle also helps the energy. The live bass drum adds bottom-end oomph to make up for the lack of bass on the recording, which was my major pet peeve. And this broadcast also makes me realize how crappy the camera work is on the Korean TV shows. This is like the best I've seen for a Korean idol group. Ever.

Like I've said a hundred times already, I didn't think the song was great, but after hearing it dozens of times through their promotions, I've gotten used to it and there are some elements that are catchy.

That's not saying much though since there have been other groups with songs that I absolutely hated when they started promotions, but then by the time they ended a month or two later, I would love the song and be a fan.

And I take back what I said before, if I never came to Asia and gotten into K-pop, and if my first exposure was seeing this, I would probably have been intrigued enough to look them up. Of course, that's based on the energy and the live musicians, but the hook would've been in.

One thing I wouldn't have been doing is the K-pop geeking out thing and noticing things like how close Sunny gets to Paul Shafer's keyboard. And that melding of something that is very familiar to me from my past with something I'm currently unreasonably fanatical about is still very weird.

Follow up: Girls' Generation arriving at the Ed Sullivan Theater


I'm not sure what my point is. Maybe just, see?!, they are really popular. But, I know, big whoop. And this reception is nothing compared to what they get when they arrive at places across Asia. I'm really curious to see how the performance was received or if these fans got in.

I dunno. It just seems sort of surreal or even insane that K-pop girl group Girls' Generation are going to be musical guests on the Late Show with David Letterman on the night of January 31st. Even as I type this at 3 AM in Taiwan on February 1st local (2 PM, Jan 31st, EST), I suspect they are preparing to head to the Ed Sullivan Theater for the performance.

True, Girls' Generation are the leading K-pop girl group in Korea and likely all of Asia. True, I'm a fan of their cult of personality and will watch any Korean variety or reality show that they appear on. True, I think most of the songs they promote are quite good and worthy, given what it is – pop music.

But I also know U.S. racism, and I also know the Letterman audience, and I wonder if SNSD know that this might be a make or break performance.

K-pop boy band Big Bang winning MTV's European world band award in Dublin and girl group 2NE1 winning MTV's Iggy award for best new band both make sense compared to any idea that SNSD will be well-accepted by Letterman's viewership.

Even Western pop music has no credibility on the Letterman stage.

No doubt they will be performing their latest track, The Boys, and since they recorded it in English for their last CD, I suspect they put in extra practice to perform it in English. As I've opined before, The Boys is the only song they've promoted after I got into them with "Gee" that I think isn't great. It's OK, it's alright, it's not great.

And aside from their promoted tracks, their albums and releases are largely filler. In my earlier days of being harsh about pop music, I would have considered the vast majority of their output, none of which they have any creative input or control over, total crap. There, I said it.

Like I said, I've been drawn into their cult of personality, I know what they're worth and I love them and wish upon them success, but I'm definitely worried about their reception.

I predict easily over 50% of the audience will view their performance slack-jawed thinking, "wtfits?". Some lesser percentage will be intrigued and go, "huh, that was interesting". Some unknown percentage factor will be the hardcore K-pop/SNSD fans in the New York/New Jersey area that no doubt heard about their appearance and did everything they could to get into the audience that evening.

I predict less than 1% will see the performance and be intrigued and interested enough to look into them more and become fans. If I never came to Asia and gotten into K-pop, and saw this performance of The Boys on Letterman, truth be told, I doubt I would be taken in either. Strangely, I would also consider that my loss.

I hope I'm wrong and that times have changed and people are more open, and I'm glad that if Letterman chooses to talk to them, members Tiffany and Jessica are both Korean American and would be able to field questions and respond in a way that doesn't make them appear completely foreign to the audience.

I need to get serious about this as things may be starting to come to a head.

A recent thought that has been playing in my head is the realization that my suicide is an integral part of my parents' journey. I know there is a psychological aspect of this suggesting these thoughts are a way of attaching meaning or responsibility of committing suicide to some fictional "higher" or external purpose, therefore I have to do this, and I'm not going to try to refute them.

I'm just acknowledging them as valid counterpoints. I'll just admit that there are parallel viewpoints. They may be even intertwining viewpoints.

One thing my personal cosmology and theory of everything has not been able to account for is why was I born to these spiritually bankrupt parents?

Previously I've chalked it up to a mistake. That my ability to navigate the death bardos was faulty from my previous life, and although I was accurately able to manage a target of Japan, where I was conceived, I wasn't able to discern appropriate parents.

Instead of being born Japanese, preferably to dharma-friendly parents as perhaps was my target, I was born to a spiritually bankrupt Taiwanese couple temporarily living in Japan, who then immigrated to the U.S. Fuck me.

But calling it a metaphysical mistake is an easy way out. And even though such an incident would not be beyond my karmic theory, I have to consider what is more likely in that same theory. And that is there is more to the bond of the parent-child relationship.

In reincarnation, karma not only draws us to a species of organism we're previously familiar with, but also to specific karmic matter, people, with whom we were acquainted. That's behind the metaphysical concept that we're drawn to certain people, or that certain people are in our lives for a reason.

So even though it's possible that my being born to my parents was a great metaphysical blunder on my part, I still have to examine the possibility of a substantive relationship, no matter how onerous that is to me.

As I said, they are spiritually bankrupt. I've documented before that I almost got my parents to admit that money is more important to them than family, and I backed off at the last moment because I realized I didn't want to hold that mirror to their faces.

That might be the extreme of it, but even in all other aspects of their lives, they are mere simple, primitive, unimaginative beings living normative lives just because they were born, and they question nothing about the reality that surrounds them. There is no mystery to the life cycle to them.

Even further, within the Tibetan Buddhist description of types of karmic existence, I describe my parents falling under the category of "hungry ghosts". Tibetan iconography depicts hungry ghosts as beings who have enormous stomachs but throats that are as thin as a coffee stirrer. Their desire is huge, but there is no way to satisfy it, so they constantly crave and strive for things in a meaningless, futile way.

How can I have been born to these people? From whoever I was in a previous life, did I guide myself to these people? In my grand scheme of things, informed by Tibetan Buddhist ideas, this is not impossible to do. And if I guided myself to them, then why? Maybe I bit off more than I could chew.

Perhaps from a Zoharic point of view, I may suggest that there isn't a direct meaning or connection, but that all beings are at their own spiritual energy level between the material and divine, and even if my parents are firmly mired in the lowest, material realm of malchut, they still are on their spiritual path.

Even if I have a hard time conceiving of any karmic connection with my parents, the Zohar suggests that spiritual energies are still affected by our relationship. We're worlds apart and they can't change me or even conceive of the reality I live in, and I sure can't change them, but their energy on their path is still there, and my energy on my path is still here.

And I seem to be firmly fixated that suicide is my path, even as that path keeps being distracted. And to compound that fixation, my parents (and everyone else around me for that matter) inadvertently keep pushing me towards suicide. "Do what your heart tells you to", "Do what makes you happy", "You're the only one to decide your own future". Suicide is my response to all of those well-intended platitudes.

I want to say my parents need this for their spiritual growth, and I've probably said that before already. And of course that's where the psychological conundrum comes in because you always have to look at psychology whenever someone feels compelled to do something.

Actually, no, I don't need to do this. It's my choice, whether I do it or not. But I am convinced that from a Zoharic point of view, they would be the better for it. They would have to face a challenge they are unequipped to face, and those are the best kinds of challenges for our spiritual states.

And recently, as they've always done, they're trying to push me down a normative path that conforms to what they envision to be life. That's a path I've well-established for myself as virtual death. But that pushing may just be the catalyst to actualize my goal of suicide, which is not death. I'm not going to go all out and call it life, knowing who I am it may or may not be, but it's more life than what my parents can envision.

I don't know what my parents would go through if I disappeared. Quite honestly, there might not be any of the emotional trauma that often accompanies people who lose a loved one.

Well, a child in this case, I don't think my parents are qualified to consider me a "loved one". To them, I consider myself an "acquired attachment". Aside from the accident of being born to them, there is nothing about me they could possibly reasonably love.

If they go through a period of some distress and then accept it and move on in the manner that they handled their own parents' death, then there was nothing I could do for them by living. But if they are challenged and really have to struggle, then I think there is benefit.

But god forbid our karmic energies are linked beyond this lifetime.

I got through another Lunar New Years in Taiwan. It's something I dread from several months prior as something I really don't want to face. If you're alone and solitary in Taiwan, you'll really feel it during the Lunar New Year when families get together for gatherings and feasts.

The floor I live on has been just me for the entire week. I avoid contact with my neighbors at all costs, but there is a psychological effect when they're suddenly not there. This past week with no one else here, I've felt cabin fever creeping up and put in an extra effort into mindfulness and realizing these are just insubstantial mental formations.

I noticed more intense mental chatter in my head more intensely and put my index finger to my lips and go, "Shhh...." to the chatter. Shut the fuck up, brain.

For the first three days of the Lunar New Year, everyone gathers with family and just about everything closes. The only things open are the convenient stores and Western fast food joints, otherwise people like me would starve and be competing with cockroaches and rats for scraps on the floor.

More shops start opening during the next three days, but aside from travel hubs, it's still pretty quiet. I think the first three days are about family, then the next three days are about returning home and getting together with friends. Just observing, I don't know if that's true.

My family in Kaohsiung didn't bother calling to wonder if I was heading south for New Years. Maybe they learned from last year, when I mistook the date of the New Years and thought my uncle was calling me out of obligation as an afterthought and declined, when really he was calling me two days in advance.

More likely they just assumed I wouldn't go south as I didn't visit at all in 2011. Furthermore my parents were just in Taiwan for the presidential elections a few weeks ago, and I didn't accompany them to Kaohsiung. They'd always welcome me, but have no reason to believe I'd go.

And I got through yet another meeting with my parents. I met them at the airport and accompanied them while they were in Taipei, and then I met them when they took the High Speed Rail going to the airport to return to the U.S.

Man, this blog is starting to bore the hell out of me.

Bah. I keep forgetting this is MY blog and I can say or geek out about anything I want. This is what's in my head coming out, it's not a conversation or discussion. It's not a free speech zone, comments are moderated. I'm not writing for a readership, nor in reality do I have a readership.

Furthermore, in light of my not posting much lately, I probably should be making more of an effort in shoving whatever's in my head onto these pages. It may be boring as hell (to both you and me), but I should treat it as my last will and testament.

I think there has been a reason why I've been posting less and less. I've been disappearing from all of my web presences because I've more and more come to realize there's no point.

I review my web presences and I understand why I created them, but after time I feel that those things aren't for anonymous public observation. I'm thinking of privatizing them and making them accessible only from this blog.

This blog should, to me, continue to have a point. It's the only portal that should have a point, and any other entry points to who I was shouldn't exist.

I haven't posted to my main fotolog since September because it got boring. Photography got boring. For me, digital is killing photography. Digital is killing seeing in photography. And my foray into digital with my brother's DSLR was boring.

Digital was fine and good for snapshots using point and shoot cameras as far as I was concerned, but DSLRs have leveled the playing field and while when I started learning about photography and using a darkroom, I was the only one I saw regularly walking around with a bulky SLR in hand.

Now you can't not see them with their full kits of lenses and tripods. When I started — and I was among the last generations that didn't have a digital choice I shouldn't wonder — if you saw someone else walking around with an SLR, you knew they were doing it with some sort of art in mind, for the seeing.

Now it's not about seeing. It's about technology and the camera and images that may look good but anyone could take them. People aren't really looking, and they're definitely not seeing. They take pretty photographs somehow thinking what they're capturing is better than the real thing. And we're all to blame for being impressed by that. I know there's another side to it . . .

And of course there are people who are seeing and are thinking and capturing worthwhile images and they know who they are. I'm not criticizing them, and when I come across their images I think, "Holy fucking shit, why can't I see like that?".

So I've been disappearing from the web. There's no point, no worth.

By no worth, it's not a psychological or an esteem issue. It's a realization of the vast machination of globalization through the internet that renders each of our anonymous voices only as significant as we think our egos are.

And as much as ego is a focal point of understanding in Buddhist practice, my decreased web presence has been an expression of recognizing that ego is illusory. It's not that I don't matter. I do matter, and if I wanted to, I could matter even more, but I don't want to.

I saw most of the movie "The King's Speech" on HBO, and towards the end, two classical music pieces were played on the soundtrack. The first I immediately identified as Beethoven's 7th Symphony, 2nd movement, because once you hear that somber and dramatic piece and identify it, you'll never forget it. It's as distinct as the 1st movement of the 5th.

The second piece was more elusive. I knew it was on my iPod, but I had trouble identifying it. I finally decided it was a Chopin Piano Concerto, either 1 or 2. Wrong. It turns out it was Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 (Emperor).

The reason I note this is because what I said about not being able to identify K-pop girl groups just by their sound or voices and how that reflects on their artistic integrity or identity.

Truth to tell, my ability to name a composer to any piece of classical music in my iTunes collection is probably not that much better than my ability to name a K-pop girl group, and I've been listening to these classical pieces for a whole lot longer than I've gotten into K-pop.

I'm not seriously comparing K-pop to classical music or suggesting the artistic integrity of either is any more or less than it should be. I'm just admitting that whatever criteria of whatever in my mind is a load of crap. And I'll love members of various K-pop girl groups way more than any classical composer period. Seriously, where are the hot female classical composers?

And why "The King's Speech" ended with two pieces by a quintessentially German composer, considering the film is a distinctly English perspective of the period leading to the start of World War II, is a bit baffling.

Decent film, great acting portrayals, although plot-wise the film was only going one way, and as such was predictable and any feeling that it was a good film was likely emotionally manipulated. I'd give it a nominal fresh rating of 6 out of 10 tomatoes.

Bah. Part of the purpose of the previous post was to make sure I post something else soon, since having a post gushing over K-pop girl groups as my lead post is . . . a little embarrassing? And if these are the last posts of my life, maybe I should be posting more often. Although as my personal history has shown, these likely are not the last posts of my life, despite my immediate plans.

To be clear, I don't consider K-pop as having "artistic integrity" as I've traditionally snobbishly defined it. I like the stuff I do given its artistic limitations as pop music, and I take it for what it is — fun, catchy; I would argue well-written. And K-pop fandom has a lot to do with their cults of personality over consistent musical excellence, which is not in their hands anyway since they aren't the creators of the music.

Some K-pop groups have some say in their artistic direction, even less play any part in the creative process of writing music or lyrics. Or even defining their own roles. Last year, SNSD gave an interview to MTV in New York, and the American interviewer asked how, with nine members, did they decide who would sing what part, and the answer was a no-brainer. They matter-of-factly blurted out that they didn't decide that, their agency did. So I realize that most of these acts are corporate puppets.

Corporate puppets? So are they the artists they think they are? Well, sure, why not? It's part of my taking it for what it is. They think they're artists, they are working hard at it. It's a different artistic standard. My contradicting myself comes up, though, in that I still can't stand pop music as a genre from anywhere else.

Recently I've been testing my ability to even distinguish the difference between the sounds of various girl groups, and the failure is pretty total. I've dumped a lot of K-pop into my iTunes and so when a song that wasn't immediately recognizable from TV promotions comes up on shuffle, for most part I don't know what the song is or who does it, so I try to guess.

More often than not, I come up with a list of who it might be, and rarely can I identify the group just by the music or the voices. Usually a group on the list is right, but not always. Many of them, truth to tell, sound the same, and songs are likely interchangeable among the groups.

This is in contrast with Western rock acts that I've acquired in the past five years with entire collections of albums given to me on an external hard drive. I can name very few songs by The Killers, Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers, Wilco, etc., but once I hear the sound or the voice, I can at least identify the band.

So strictly speaking, individual K-pop groups don't have a musical identity, and to me that equals no artistic integrity. And even though I've come to love the cults of personality of various groups and it's a little hard to put them down and say I think they have no artistic integrity, that assessment at least squares with my opinion of pop music in general.

Several months ago I gushed about K-pop girl groups' autumn comebacks, with two that were still pending, T-ara and Wonder Girls.

T-ara (whose member Hyomin was on Invincible Youth), I dunno, it's weird because I kinda get an underdog vibe from them. They're definitely a top girl group, but rarely included when mentioning the "elite" girl groups. And they should be. Despite an underdog feel to them, there's also an air of queen bees about them.

They actually had their autumn comeback in November, but they immediately followed up with a January release that they're promoting, and which I think is a better song:



Wonder Girls are the only girl group in this flurry of comebacks that wasn't represented in Invincible Youth, although technically Hyuna, now with 4minute, debuted with Wonder Girls and is on one single with them. But no, she is never associated with Wonder Girls now, not even as a "former member".

This was a much anticipated comeback because they had been out of the Korean scene for a year and a half. Their agency took a gamble to try to promote them in the U.S. and the results were mixed at best and the group underwent hardships and indignities that other Korean girl groups likely can't imagine.

SNSD are safely considered the reigning queens of K-pop girl groups, but if Wonder Girls hadn't gone overseas, I don't think they would necessarily be considered second to SNSD at this point. This comeback, I think, is very strong, and if they had stayed in Asia, it's possible their regional standing would still equal SNSD.



Wonder Girls, along with SNSD, were on the leading edge of what would grow into and come to be known as the second Hallyu wave; the second time K-pop had a surge of popularity, this time marked by international popularity thanks to the advent of YouTube in 2006.

Both Wonder Girls and SNSD debuted in 2007, before there was a wave and K-pop was just being K-pop. YouTube was instrumental in creating the wave, I think, because suddenly a much wider, international audience was getting in on it.

I don't think I really got into it until around late 2010 when Invincible Youth finally aired in Taiwan, about a year after it aired in Korea. But I had been primed for it as early as 2006 when Hyun Ae gave me a K-pop mix CD, and a lot of it was quite good.

I think the media started reporting on the Hallyu wave as a phenomena in 2009 (the year Invincible Youth started airing), and since then it has just continued to explode domestically and internationally. With so many K-pop groups debuting every season, eventually the market will get over-saturated and the quality will likely decline. Currently, no end in sight.

For some reason, I just didn't want to let December pass with only one entry posted. It shouldn't matter, and it doesn't. But this blog is the last connection I have with some existence outside of my head. It's the last place where I'm leaking into the material world, where there is any proof of my existence.

I'm not sure why any such proof is necessary. It's not for me, I know I'm still here. I'll know when I make a push to not be. It's like part of a contract with existence, having existed. It would be rude to existence, the privilege existence has given me, to not affirm it as long as I still exist.

I've continued to read interesting stuff that I've made strange connections with and between. Something about the Christmas season always has me ending up reflecting on Christianity, and this year I found and started reading Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity in a bookstore. I haven't finished it, and may not since the last time I was there I couldn't find it. 

It's a scholarly work, so it examines and questions and looks at evidence and facts objectively, as much as possible, to come to theories or conclusions. Reading Judas looks at the development of the writing of what became the canonical New Testament gospels, set against what was going on socially at the time, which was a lot of turmoil and disagreement and distress.

Any uniformity or consensus Christians today believe existed in the early Jesus movement was a brainwashing fiction that started as early as Paul, even while he himself was an extremely controversial figure in the movement. Scholars believe that rifts were huge between different groups who were preaching diverse meanings about the stories circulating around this Jesus character.

What I get out of it is that The Gospel of Judas was written from a certain political stance within the disparate Jesus movement, critical of an opposing stance on particular issues that were being argued. But in the same way, the canonical gospels were also doing the same thing, and the book analyzes how the Jesus story develops and gets embellished from gospel to gospel to support the stance of a particular side of the disagreements.

In the end, one side won and the other side lost. Roman Emperor Constantine became a Christian in the 4th century and formed the Nicene Council to come up with the canon. The Roman Empire became the Roman Catholic Church (as Mission of Burma tells it) and an entire side of Christianity was suppressed and wiped from history and only recently recovered in the 20th century with the discovery of the library at Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Judas and to some extent the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The emphasis is on the mess that was the Jesus movement in the first few centuries following Jesus's death. And because one side won and the other side lost, Christians today only know one side of the story and don't realize the diversity of belief into the meaning of Jesus's death that existed and was being argued. They've been brainwashed to completely reject those other works.

And I connect this to another book I read at the library, Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. In short, the book is a first person account of a disaster that occurred on the upper slopes of Mt. Everest in May 1996, when 12 people ultimately ended up losing their lives in relation to the incident.

The connection is that the description of events turned out to be very controversial with various parties claiming differing versions of events. Adding in the altitude that rendered rationality questionable at best, no one really knows what happened up there, just as no one can authoritatively define what was going on with the Jesus movement in those first few centuries.

The internet is rife with commentators taking sides and vehemently opining and pointing condemning fingers when . . . they weren't there. They don't even know what it's like to be in the Death Zone on Everest and exercise little imagination to try.

It was a mess on Everest. It was a tragedy and bad decisions were made, but I think every individual did his or her best at any given moment. Krakauer does point out bad decisions, but I don't think he was blaming anyone or pointing fingers, but that's how other parties took it and it became a very public feud (not part of the controversy is Krakauer's condemnation of the asshole South African team and the reckless and uncooperative Taiwanese team that were on the mountain at the time. I take it those are accepted facts).

It was very emotional. It was strangely emotional for me reading it. Part of it is the connection of Everest with Tibet. But more of it is the drive of some people to climb Mt. Everest. Are these people nuts?

Now I've did my share of doing dumb in my day, putting myself recklessly into situations that were potentially harmful or dangerous. I understand the drive to push oneself to one's limits or even beyond – my limit being meager compared to anyone who even thinks of attempting Everest.

That's what cycling was all about. I cycled to climb. It was all about climbing relentless hills and hammering on through any hurt, and it never stopped being a thrill getting to the top of some challenge. And once I stopped being able to do hills because of age or alcoholism or diet, cycling became boring. Or at least something different.

I've mentioned my two San Francisco Marathons before, on the course before the organizers changed it because elite runners were threatening to boycott because the course was so hard. I admitted to myself after the second one that I wasn't emotionally prepared for it (not to put too fine a point on it, I wasn't emotionally prepared to run that second marathon).

It wasn't traumatic, but it haunted me for a whole month hence, and every day I spent 45 minutes to an hour obsessively going through the entire course in my head. I think I even got on my commuter road bike once and rode the entire course through. And it did effectively put an end to my running. I started cycling because my knees weren't recovering.

But to climb Mt. Everest? That's really rolling dice with your life. You sign up to climb Mt. Everest, there is no guarantee you're coming down alive. There's no guarantee you're coming down at all.

And I'm making this strange connection in my mind that suicide is my Everest. Pushing into unknown territory that may end in tragedy or a pay-off that no one else but a select few can hope to appreciate. Pushing towards suicide for a spiritual goal is . . . gambling with my life.

I would never think to climb Everest, I've felt altitude sickness at 18,000 feet in Tibet and there's no way I can imagine attempting 20,000, 24,000, 29,028 feet. That would be . . . suicide. But that's where I understand the drive of these people. That's why I felt emotionally involved in their attempt and why it felt personal when it became a tragedy.

Another book I just found at the bookstore that I want to start reading is The Essential Gnostic Gospels, a compilation which includes the Gospel of Judas. This is a collection of works and ideas that existed in the early Jesus movement that was suppressed by Constantine, the Roman Empire and the Nicene Council. The ideological losers.

This is the book that makes me separate Jesus from what Christianity became, because the Jesus portrayed in what are now known as the Gnostic Gospels is a character that makes me realize Jesus was really a big fucking deal in his time. The things these followers recorded make me feel he was on an elevated spiritual plane.

When exposed to canonical Christianity, I feel like I'm trying to be brainwashed. I should be impressed by walking on water or miracles . . . why? If he did, then he did and if you saw it, you saw it. Maybe I'd be just as amazed as seeing someone dribble a football (American). I'm more impressed when Thich Nhat Hanh, who has a deep respect for Jesus, said, "The miracle isn't walking on water, it's walking on land". That's shocking!

I should want heaven why? I should fear hell why? Such simple delineations which made me feel like they were trying to hoodwink me into something that didn't make any sense. Good? Evil? What the fuck?

And I shouldn't wonder the teachings in the Gnostic Gospels are also kabbalistic and buddhistic. The antithesis of the closed-minded exclusivity of what became Christianity – you're either with us or against us.

So many ways that Jesus's effect on the world went wrong, but from my initial readings of some of the Gnostic Gospels, I'm more convinced of one thing Christians got right, which is that Jesus was a big fucking deal. If they got his true teachings embodied in the Gnostic Gospels, that would be even better.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 3:36 p.m.

From the Zohar:
"'When you walk, it shall lead you; when you lie down it shall keep you and when you awake, it shall talk with you.' (Proverbs 6:22) 'When you walk, it shall lead you,' refers to the Torah that goes before a man when he dies. 'When you lie down, it shall keep you,' refers to the interval when the body lies in the grave, for at that time the body is judged and sentenced and the Torah acts in its defense. 'And when you awake, it shall talk with you,' refers to the time at which the dead rise from the dust.

"Rabbi Elazar quoted the verse: 'It shall talk with you' (Proverbs 6:22). Although the dead have just risen from the dust, they remember the Torah they studied before their death. They will know all they studied before departing the world. And everything shall be clearer than it was before death, for whatever he strove to understand yet did not successfully grasp, is now clear in his innermost parts. And the Torah speaks within him." p. 190-191, The Essential Zohar

What I found fascinating about this passage is that Christians probably interpret the quote from Proverbs as referring to faith. It's a very simple, direct interpretation: when you walk (go forth or act in the world), faith will lead you (whatever you do will be righteous); when you lie down (rest) it shall keep (protect) you; and when you awake, it shall talk to you (ask you what you want for breakfast inform you how to act). Often even more narrowly interpreted: faith in Jesus or an exclusive Christian, white male God. That normative, bland Christian interpretation is fine and obvious regarding physical, material life, but nothing to go on and on about.

But the Zohar interprets it in a manner that I can re-interpret as squaring with the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Tibetan Buddhism describes the life and death cycle with three bardos of living (conscious life, sleep and meditation), and three death bardos (the point of death, the bardo of reality, and the bardo of becoming).

My reading of the death bardos and the guidance the Tibetan Book of the Dead counsels is that what we're striving for in the death bardos is the same as what we're striving for in the living bardos. Or striving for enlightenment in the living bardos is training for attaining enlightenment in the death bardos. Life and death are mirrored realities.

Actually the three elements of the quote from Proverbs can apply both to the three living bardos and the three death bardos, but what's fascinating to me is that I can interpret what the Zohar says to the death bardos at all.

Tibetan Buddhism is very meticulous about the death process and what happens between one death and the next incarnation of a . . . person, a soul, karmic energy. But there seems to be little in Judaism or Kabbalah about the mechanics of what happens after death. Just a far off resurrection and judgment that Christians took and ridiculously interpreted literally.

The book I've been reading, The Essential Zohar, doesn't explicitly state or endorse any theory of reincarnation, but the author seems pretty open-minded about the possibility of Buddhism-like multiple lifetimes and reincarnation.

The Zohar interprets Proverbs 6:22 not as some vague notion of faith leading us forth in life, but Torah, i.e., spiritual cultivation, leading us through the death experience. It doesn't explicitly say that the "when you awake"/"dead rise from the dust" is reincarnation, but that's how I read it, because it then fits in with Tibetan Buddhist ontology (alternatively it might not refer to reincarnation, but the awakening in a "mental body" in the bardo of becoming that precedes reincarnation).

Torah is what we do with spiritual energy in our lifetimes, how we cultivate it or not cultivate it. It's also karma. When we die, we take nothing with us except our karma, the energy patterns and habits that we've indelibly stamped on our manifestation of some primordial energy that is the basis of our consciousness through our behavior and thoughts.

We don't take our possessions, our body, or memories or anything that relies on brain matter for existence. Memories and thoughts rely on brain matter. Karmic energy doesn't. Our karma has no relation to our identity as a person, because our identities also rely on thought and brain matter.

So when we die, it is only Torah that leads us. All else falls away and dissolves. Tibetan Buddhism describes the death-point bardo as being so subtle that only the highest levels of practitioners can achieve realization/enlightenment in it.

For ordinary beings, the dissolution of awareness of the physical body elements and mental consciousness elements is so shocking and unfamiliar and disconcerting that it is impossible to maintain any stability to achieve realization, and it goes by like the snap of a finger.

The interval in the grave where the Torah acts as a defense can be likened to the bardo of reality where we are immersed in the primordial energy of the universe that is the substratum of what our human consciousness has become on this planet.

It is enlightenment, but we don't know it because of our conception of physical reality from having lived previous lives on this planet, karma. Even in the Tibetan description of the bardo of becoming/rebirth, a judgment takes place because that's what naturally emerges in this state as the wisps of karmic memory recall what occurred in our previous life and there is some recognition of "right" and "wrong". Enlightenment can occur in this bardo upon the realization that the judgment is itself mind, or created by "mind", and that right and wrong are manifestations of mind and not concrete or objective judgments.

What is Torah defending us against? Our spiritual cultivation defends us in the bardo states against the notion created by the karma from physically having existed that worldly manifestation was some ultimate reality.

The final bardo of becoming in Tibetan Buddhism describes the process by which reincarnation takes place. At some point there is a crux between a prior life and future life, and if enlightenment isn't attained, our karmic energy moves towards a future life.

Torah shall talk to you when you rise from the dust. If you cultivated yourself spiritually, that survives the death process whereby you lose everything that depends on material existence. With rebirth, your karma still applies, and if you studied the Torah, the Torah will remain with you. You can continue to undertake the spiritual path you were on in a previous life, provided you studied the Torah.

They will know all they studied before departing the world. And everything shall be clearer than it was before death, for whatever he strove to understand yet did not successfully grasp, is now clear in his innermost parts. That is literally exactly what is said in the Tibetan Book of the Dead regarding the death bardo states.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 7:44 p.m.