insomnia

I had wondered what sort of effect working out regularly at World Gym might have on insomnia. Early results weren't conclusive, but I thought I did notice my sleep getting better and more regular with harder workouts.

I got together with my ex-Mandarin teacher yesterday, the only person with whom I'm still in contact in Taipei, and the idea came up that I should keep track of my insomnia, at least for the data.

There are different types of insomnia. There is spontaneous one-off sleeplessness which isn't insomnia at all. It gives some people a taste of what it's like to lose sleep, but comes nowhere near the debilitating experience of a chronic insomniac. There's also causal insomnia which is treatable by something termed "cognitive behavioral therapy". What the fuck ever. Then there's my kind of chronic insomnia, which is detailed and covered in Gayle Green's book Insomniac.

The suspicion suggested in the book is that there may be a physiological basis for chronic insomnia, and not just a psychological basis which most doctors just assume for ALL insomnia, just because that's what it is for MOST recorded insomnia cases. And no research is going into looking into a physiological basis.

Ironically, after talking about it with my ex-Mandarin teacher and telling her my sleep has gotten better with workouts at the gym, I had what I call a total insomnia episode.

When you have this kind of an ailment, you start creating descriptions of it for yourself. This type of insomnia is like an illness and not something simply treated by something like "cognitive behavioral therapy", which I scoff at.

Front-end insomnia is when I can't get to sleep when I try to, but eventually fall into levels of sleep that render me functional when I get up. I'm not 100%, but I'm functional.

Back-end insomnia is when I can get to sleep when I try to, but then wake up a few hours in and can't get back to sleep. It's still more-or-less functional, but has its effects.

Total insomnia is not being able to get to sleep at all.

Other notes about my sleeping habits are:
- I generally try to get to sleep around the same time, around 2am.
- I need music on when I try to sleep with the sleep timer set for 30 minutes. If I'm not asleep by the time the music shuts off, that's a likely indication of front-end insomnia, although not always.
- I set my alarm for 9am and whether back-end or front-end insomnia, I try to get up around then and continue with morning sitting.
- No self-medicating with alcohol to try to force or extend sleep in either front-end or back-end insomnia. 
- Total insomnia means bets are all off and likely no morning sitting and possible alcohol self-medication. I say "possible" because sometimes I'm no longer trying to get to sleep, and I'm just drinking. But sometimes I just start on drinking and then end up sleeping for several hours. Quality of rest is questionable.
- Recovery "dead sleep" is arguably the worst part of it. Sometimes I can deal with the sleeplessness, but when it catches up, it ends up in dead sleeps when it takes a long, long time to drag myself out of bed, and even then my function levels are low for hours. Morning sittings are almost always out of the question.

WordsCharactersReading time

I'm finally getting into the rhythm of avoiding injury and completed a slow 30 minute run on a treadmill without injuring myself. That's my current benchmark – not injuring myself. As slow and pathetic as it was, I felt it was an accomplishment. Oh how our standards fall with age.

Not that I have any intention of a "standard" remaining the same.

Pulled left calf muscle healing, but again tackling the treadmill, I felt a twinge in my right calf and immediately eased off. I'm hoping this is building strength, and as long as I don't injure the muscle, I'm strengthening it.

It is discouraging, but it is a reflection on my failed effort to try to run again last year. I recognize now that my calves are woefully weak, and they simply failed last year and I simply gave up, fearing further injury. I already injured one this year, but with the controlled environment of a gym, I can focus on babying my calves up to strength as long as I avoid injury. And icing after stopping after feeling the muscle getting to the brink of tearing.

Not even a week after joining World Gym, I pulled a muscle on a treadmill trying to complete a 5K. I thought I had been going easy on my running legs this past week and tried to do an easy 5k today, not pushing anything.

But on the third mile, I started feel a twinge that should have signaled me to ease off or stop, but I tried to push through it and not .05 miles from the end, I full-blown pulled the muscle.

I think "pulling a muscle" is a nice way to describe a torn muscle, and that's more of what it was. Something felt like it tore, same as last year when I tried to run. Riiiiip. Limp, limp, limp. I knew no more running or jogging or anything leggy for about a week. I bought an ice pack.

When I first walked into World Gym to see what it had to offer me, from their point of view it's what they consider a "consultation". When they asked me about my exercise activity history and told them I'd pretty much been a runner or cyclist since high school, they exclaimed I might come in every day!

I laughed at that. Who goes to the gym every day? Turns out they know the type, and I might be totally comfortable going in five days a week with self-imposed rest days to not hurt myself, since I do know that I tend to over-extend myself.

I'd never even been in a commercial gym before, but given the current circumstances here in Taipei, I have to say I'm loving it. My primary goal is to maintain a fitness level whereby when the weather allows me to ride, I won't have to start with 30-mile default, flat fitness rides along the riversides.

But as long as the facilities are available, I hope to get my running back.

I tried last year after Sadie's visit, but recall only able to get to woefully slow paces (more than 9:30 miles) before ultimately injuring myself and giving up by summer. 9:30 miles, mind you, are not acceptable. Running 9:30 miles means give it up, fuggedaboutit. Running at a 9:30 pace is not worth it, it's not running.

So I'm hoping the treadmills will allow me a controlled build up back up to a decent pace. Ultimately 7:30 miles or under, but I have to allow for my age and alcoholism, so I'm not going to be too hard on myself. I'll be happy if I can ultimately complete a 10k run at any pace without hurting myself.

Otherwise there are the other cardio machines, as well as resistance weight machines which I know how to use from high school track, and punching bags that take me back to college Tae Kwon Do. But I have to remember my age. I'm middle age. I shouldn't be pathetic and think I'm young like that. Otherwise I'm loving the gym.

WordsCharactersReading time

Well, today didn't go as planned. I ended up joining a World Gym – the new Taipei Nanjing branch that opened in March a block away from me.

I'd been really good this season about riding just about every day the weather has permitted. I'd gotten comfortable with 50+ mile rides and was set to start tackling Taipei's bigger climbs for the first time in over 3 years (with trepidation, mind you, as my health may have returned, but I'm not so confident about my strength).

Then May came. Pretty much solid rain. There were a total of two days that the weather was OK but I was sick on both of those days, and anyway the forecast surrounded those days with entire weeks of rain. Not worth going out on single nice days, only to be off bike for the next week.

So I was lured by World Gym advertising of "free trial" period until the end of May. That's a total lie, mind you, there is no "free trial" period. They explained the "free trial" period when I asked, and for the life of me and I couldn't relay how they purportedly explained it.

Bottom lining it, if you were going to be using their facilities, you would be paying for it some way or another. There is NO "free trial" period. Just discount or no discount. No discount if you ask for the "free trial" period. You still have to sign up, apparently, is my guess.

But I was leaning towards joining anyway. People who aren't should be prepared to walk and not succumb to the pressure they put on you (pressure that's put on them by the company, no doubt). And they do put pressure on you. They're basically corporate hookers, despite being very nice and personable.

They did have to accommodate the fact that I don't have a credit card, which was a bit funny. The monthly fees are only payable by credit card, and I don't have one and wasn't open to getting one just to join a gym. That was an out for me to walk, but they offered to accept if I pay the entire two-year contract up front in cash (and ultimately involved another discount, I think).

So at that point I had to decide, and I asked for a few minutes to think about it (commitment issues) and ultimately favored joining. Paying upfront was a little over a thousand dollars US for two years with the discount that they only told me about after I accepted (go fig).

I'm alright with the decision. Would just like to emphasize that their offer of "free trial" period is totally bogus. I thought it was a free trial period to see if it's really what I want, but it's just a lure to get you in to put pressure on you to join immediately.

I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if maybe there will be an explosion of Vajrayana teachings on the tantra in the coming centuries if it's not too late for humanity. I wouldn't put my money on it. It's hard to believe. The deepest wisdom of Buddhism is secret in that it should only be revealed to people who are ready for it in furtherance of enlightenment and ultimate realization. Vajrayana is that secret wisdom. 

In Buddhism, there is Theravada (the foundational vehicle), Mahayana (the "great" vehicle) and Vajrayana – esoteric teachings, secret, ultimate. I want to be careful not to suggest that there is a progression or that either Theravada, Mahayana or Vajrayana Buddhism are better than one or another. Perhaps distinctions exist from a dualistic, analytic human level, but each vehicle is an all-encompassing, stand-alone practice. The distinctions exist for distinct types of people, personalities and aptitudes. 

What is now called Theravada Buddhism is what the Buddha directly taught his disciples; the basic principles of monastic living and how to pursue enlightenment and the underlying philosophies. It wasn't incomplete, it was just what was appropriate at the time to turn the dharma wheel to get people on the path towards enlightenment.

Mahayana was revealed some 500 years later with the codification of the Lotus Sutra. Well, not exactly 'codification', that's when it was reportedly first written down, but it had been passed down orally for centuries prior. The oldest extant manuscript I think is from much later in the 7th century C.E. It is claimed that what became the Lotus Sutra was based on the historical Buddha's final sermon, but it took 500 years for it to become understood and appreciated. 

The written Lotus Sutra is therefore metaphoric and enhanced, rather than literally what the Buddha actually taught. It includes text of what was likely orally transmitted in verse form, as well as prose versions expounding on the verse portions. Its current form is clearly a work of fiction, but the principles of what he taught are incorporated in it and are the basis of the Mahayana philosophy, which on top of the basic teachings of the Theravada, added the concepts of universal compassion and that enlightenment is the ultimate destiny of all living beings.

Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism are predominant in the western world today. Buddhist teachers strive to teach people Theravada and Mahayana principles, depending on preference, but they don't challenge people too much beyond their capacity to understand. They teach within the context of the reality people live their lives. Most people, including self-identified Buddhists, are just trying to live their lives. They want to be calm, they want to face challenges, they want to understand, but they're still attached to their ego and their lives and are unable to see reality beyond how it presents itself. They want good relations, they want to feel good.

That's all good and great. That's what much of Buddhist literature supports.

But recently Vajrayana has also found its way more and more into the discussion with a lot more literature being produced in the west. Vajrayana has been introduced via Tibetan Buddhism, which ironically has entered the western consciousness largely thanks to the Communist Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, sending scores of refugees to create a Tibetan diaspora with Buddhism as a spearhead. The Dalai Lama has as much acknowledged the irony of the Tibetan tragedy being instrumental in bringing Vajrayana Buddhism to the west. 

But Vajrayana is not different or separate from Mahayana. Zen is understood as Mahayana, but Zen also promulgates the same ideas as the Vajrayana. Zen is complete without Vajrayana because Vajrayana is nothing more than Mahayana beyond different and enhanced methodologies. Going deeply into Theravada, Vajrayana is also there and is therefore also complete in itself. 

All the vehicles of Buddhism aim towards an ultimate understanding of reality. Just recently I bought a book by Zen master John Daido Loori, "Teachings of the Earth", and although steeped in the Mahayana Zen tradition, he teaches an understanding of the ultimate reality which is the same as in Vajrayana. 

Vajrayana methodology is radical, though. The concepts presented may elicit many "wtf?" responses. It's a radical interpretation of reality that's not based on gross human senses and interpretation. Actually, forget about wondering if there might be an explosion of Vajrayana teachings in the coming centuries. And hope there won't be. Once you expose something to the masses, it all goes to shit. So it is writ.

ptd 3/24/19 -ed.

I can say that "ordinary existence" has returned as my reality. Between October and sometime in January, some fundamental shift occurred and was noticeable and subjectively observable. And at some point I realized it wasn't the feel of reality anymore.

During it, there was a point I was afraid of "losing it", but realized that was a pointless thought. If I could lose it, then I didn't really have it. When it disappeared, I didn't feel I lost anything, but rather had a very helpful and encouraging experience.

Maybe I can say it was a sort of high. Some may suppose in the language of zen that I had a kensho experience; an initial, temporary enlightenment experience, well short of full enlightenment, but confirmation that the path yields results.

Bottom line is to accept that something happened, but then reality reverts to existence and existence is just reality, and keep practicing. Just keep practicing. By my own description, it felt like a long journey just to get to the shoreline and dip my toes in the ocean. The ocean is the real journey and everything before was just preparation.

So whatever that period was, there is no sitting on laurels thinking I accomplished anything. Now, keep practicing and sitting on cushions. Now, and again, as always, expect things to get worse before they get better.

So something happened in October. Since then I haven't said much about it. I want to be even-minded about it.

I'll say this: many a time I found myself overwhelmed by the feeling "what have I done to deserve this happiness". It's tongue-in-cheek, I know. It's not about 'deserving'. It's subjectively to me the culmination of practice.

It's not practice, practice, practice and someone rewards me with something because I 'deserve' it. It's practice, practice, practice and the practice itself finally leads to a realization, an awakening that completely shifts the theoretical teachings into reality.

Buddhism plainly teaches a perspective of reality, an enlightened perspective, but being taught that perspective doesn't do anything if it's just intellectual understanding. You can intellectually understand it without going through a fundamental shift in perspective. But from practice, once that fundamental shift is experienced, it's visceral and totally different from the intellectual version. It's emotional.

One landmark in processing the shift that happened in October was the "fear of losing it". I felt I had attained something and was afraid that one day I'd wake up and it would be gone. My feeling was that if I can lose it, then I never genuinely had it. And I did go through a string of . . . "bad days" when I seriously thought I had lost it. I touched something and then lost something.

But then feeling "bad" at a Starbucks on one rainy day of an entire month of rainy days, I realized that I hadn't lost anything. "It" was still here, and "feeling bad" was totally a part of it. When you "get it", that doesn't mean everything is hunky dory, wine and roses bliss here on in.

When you "get it", "feeling bad" is a part of it, and truly understanding the nature of "feeling bad" is a part of "getting it". "Feeling bad" is in the nature of our perceived reality. "Feeling bad" is normal, and there's nothing "wrong" with it. Accept it as it arises and reality has shifted.

Another landmark in processing what happened in October was to wait until it stopped being extraordinary. Wait until I stopped feeling joy that I wondered what I did to deserve it. I'm a human being, I'm living a life; what "realization" is still here when I come down from that high and the stink being an ordinary human being manifests.

I'm still squirming into that skin. It's not uncomfortable. In recent weeks, my life and lifestyle has trended back towards what was ordinary before and I've been watching and observing how I treat that in light of feeling something fundamentally shifted for me.

That's a work in progress, but something definitely has shifted. Something has changed. And some things need to be tested. Interactions with people possibly need to be tested. I'm feeling alcohol consumption might need to be tested, but I'm still feeling out the parameters of that test.

If I were to stop drinking, I'd have to devise a clever theoretical basis to aim towards and accomplish that. I know I can stop by myself with a certain motivation to which I can dedicate myself to stop, but figuring what that is will take cleverness. It's not merely a matter of physiological addiction, although shades of it may have its impact.

The ongoing process involves being confident that I've accomplished or attained something, while at the same time challenging and doubting what I think I've accomplished or attained.

I visited Audrey for the last time in Kaohsiung. She leaves for the U.S. on Wednesday, initially going with just her 5-year old son to find a place in Sedona. Her husband will bring Pie and Gracie to her later this month.

In these few months since she revealed her ordeal to me, we've probably spent more time together than in the almost eight years that I've been in Taiwan.

We haven't been close, cordial at best. But that's been good enough for us to connect in the end and end on a good note.

We spent the sunset hours at a solitary beach she frequented and in which she took solace when she was going through her ordeal. If all of my life were film footage I was editing into a film of my life, scenes at that beach would feature prominently towards the end of it (hopefully the end of the film is still coming soon).

It was a bit other-worldly. The important thing was her taking me to that place. We got there and immediately separated. The place had its own importance to her, but it had its own resonance to me that Audrey doesn't know about, having spent a lot of time at shores myself.

In this current lifetime, we're close; connected. However that closeness has been characterized by distance and pushing away against pulling together. And in the end, in light of our dual, practically simultaneous realizations in October, I think it's a happy end that we end our karma with each other.

The karma that pulled us together is done. The karma that pulled us together potentially held complication. It held attachment. It held us as two distinct beings interacting with each other. That's all done. It's no more.

In being special to each other, we are no longer special to each other. And in the pursuit of enlightenment, it's a good thing to lose attachments and to end karma, even to things that seem materially like good things.

My desk set-up, just in case I have to move it all I'll know how to put it back together.

The Five Gospels

Over the past few years, I've been reading a lot on the so-called Christian "Gnostic" Gospels. Not to completely rehash and to oversimplify, they were the doctrinal losing side in the early Jesus movement over the debate about what Jesus taught.

Ultimately when the canon was compiled, these teachings were outlawed and suppressed for 1700 years, but have recently been uncovered with ongoing scholarship being done on them.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene was uncovered in the late 1800s, while the bulk of the writings were uncovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in the late 1940s, and finally the Gospel of Judas, after a long journey which nearly destroyed it, was first published in 2006.

Also to briefly rehash, I might think my interest in the Gnostic Gospels might be part of this future life resonance theory I play with. If I am angling for a rebirth in South Korea, if any at all, I'm confident that even if I'm born in a Christian environment such as South Korea, I will be able to find my way back on my path.

The texts are readily available, along with more and more books being written on them for anyone interested and not in the mind control of the church. Anyone who is intrigued by the question "There's more (than what a Roman emperor endorsed as the official teachings of Jesus)?" can now find and read about the early Jesus movement and the arguments and controversies over the teachings that were raging.

I imagine that even if I were raised as a Christian in a future life (assuming what I shouldn't assume – that reincarnation is linear in time), I would find my way to the Gnostic Gospels. I'm fairly confident it is in my karma to be inquisitive by nature and to be one of the people to ask, "There's more?!".

Me: "Well, what is it?"
Christian: "It's heresy, blasphemy"
"But Jesus taught it?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. Anyway it's wrong"
"Says who?"
"The church fathers"
"Oh. OK. Who were the church fathers?"
"I'm not sure. It has to do something with the Roman emperor Constantine who convened the Nicene Council. You can Google it"
"OK, I will"
"On the other hand, maybe you shouldn't"

Much of the Gnostic Gospels focuses on the hidden, esoteric spiritual interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, as opposed to the moralistic, institutional, authority-driven interpretation of the current canon. Today, as must have been the case in the early Jesus movement, they appeal to a completely different character and psychological/spiritual make-up than those who favored the straight-forward and direct, and even political, nature of what became the canon.

I was surprised recently to realize that I've never actually read the four canonical Gospels except in portions. I only realized it upon finding a book called The Five Gospels.

The Five Gospels was the result of a project in the late 80s/early 90s by a group called the Jesus Seminar, consisting of about 200 biblical scholars who rendered a modern, scholar-friendly translation of the four canonical Gospels from an original Greek manuscript, plus the gnostic Gospel of Thomas from a Coptic translation from Nag Hammadi.

They then set out to present a scholarly consensus over any quote attributed to Jesus and the likelihood that Jesus himself spoke those words. Consensual certainty that he said something is printed in bold red, certainty that he did not is printed in bold black; and pink and grey are used for weighted votes in between relative consensual certainty.

The reason they included the Gospel of Thomas is that it is simply comprised of alleged quotes by Jesus with no narrative context. Since the project was focused on what Jesus likely actually said, they deemed it appropriate to subject Thomas to the test.

I would say it's a flawed work, for sure, but still fascinating. The criteria for putting words into the mouth of Jesus are based on narrow presuppositions imposed by the seminar. The voting method over a period of years also results in inconsistencies, which the authors reveal in the commentary.

Actually, never having read the canonical gospels didn't mean much. Just growing up in the U.S., just about all of the stories were familiar. It doesn't matter if you're Christian or not, if you grow up in the U.S., you're bombarded with Christian references your whole life.

(Even in the subtlest ways. In high school, a group of friends were playing Trivial Pursuit. Two of the participants were brothers, Mark and John Smylie. The question was what are the four gospels of the New Testament. One of the brothers on the other team rattled off "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John", and we were all blown away how they knew that as easily as any of the rest of us could name The Beatles. He casually pointed to his brother, "John", pointed to himself "Mark, and our dad's a pastor, if we had two more brothers, they would have been Matthew and Luke". And that's how I learned the names of the four gospels culturally. The only Luke I knew prior was Skywalker, son of Vader Anakin)

One thing I found fascinating was that just about any familiar quotation, repeated ad infinitum in U.S. culture, was voted black. Jesus likely never said those quotes, but were attributed to him by members of the later movement trying to push their interpretation of what he taught.

This is a good place to note that I realize even though the Gnostic Gospels appeal to me, they also are iterations of positions in a fervent debate. I think they are right and the canon got it completely wrong, but there are billions of Christians who disagree (no doubt Christians who don't even want it discussed or out in the open and would prefer the suppression and censorship to continue).

Also, just reading the red quotations, this Jesus character strikes me as someone enlightened, imparting radical wisdom that was intended to shake the normative sensibilities and mores of the day. I agree with the assessment of scholars that Jesus wasn't into institution building.

That seems to indicate to me that if he were alive today, he would rail against the institution of the Christian church. He would rail against the conformity, control and conservatism of the church. A red quote widely attributed to Jesus can be directed to many Christians today: You point out the sliver in someone else's eye while ignoring the timber in your own.

He wasn't about placating people or making people feel good about being moral and righteous. He was about shaking things up. If you thought something and mindlessly accepted it as the norm, he would say something to disturb you.

Something the Jesus Seminar posits, which I have no comment on whatsoever but think is quite funny, is that he ate well and drank freely. I think they call him a glutton and a drunkard.

To Christians today, those are vices to be eschewed, but they make sense to someone trying to shake the norms of society. I think he did live under Jewish law because that was the water in which he was a fish, but I think he constantly pushed their boundaries to the extent that the law was being abused by temple authorities.

And even if he was glutton and a drunkard, his teachings understood correctly were good. They aimed toward liberation. I'd take a good teaching by a glutton and drunkard over a bad teaching by someone self-professed to be moral and righteous any day. 

It seems to me natural now to be fascinated by Christianity, but it's not. I never was much interested in Christianity until the Gnostic Gospels. The vast majority of my exposure to Christianity was cultural – the devotional side of blind, uncritical faith which never resonated with me.

I did take a course at Oberlin which did critically cover the historical underpinnings of Christianity and I loved that course. Mostly because it didn't deal with the myth of Christianity, which is what most Christians today believe. Myth comprises the reality of most Christians because they for most part reject the scholarship, which aims at getting to the historical realities.

Before the Music Dies

I have a few more cable channels thanks to my landlord upgrading the telecom around here. Shouldn't complicate things too much. I now have an extra Korean entertainment channel, expanded Discovery, news and HBO channels and Sundance Channel.

A primary gain from the extra Korean entertainment channel is a program which highlights working South Korean bands of various genres. With my recent unhealthy and unholy penchant towards K-pop girl groups, this program makes it clear that the Korean music scene is, in fact, more variegated and diverse.

Rock, live music, musicianship and people who are likely not so impressed by the international popularity of K-pop are alive and well in Korea, granted none of the bands on the show, albeit listenable and not terrible, have grabbed me. It's still good to know it's there.

And irony not missed, one of the first films I watched on the Sundance Channel was a documentary called Before the Music Dies, generally about the commercialization of the music industry in the U.S. The important point to me is that everything disparaging that is said or described about how bad music is manufactured in the U.S. is precisely how it's done in Korea.

The difference, I might defensively flail, is that there's no question about the nature of K-pop in Korea. There is no argument about art vs. commerce. I'm a fan of K-pop girl groups and not once has it crossed my mind that this is art or has integrity in any way.

K-pop idols are people who want to be performers, but don't have the artistic inspiration or wherewithal to make it on their own from the ground up. They have talents and are highly trainable. The entertainment agencies aren't interested in art. They're not trying to make good music. They only want to make money.

To the process vs. product argument, by process, K-pop is by definition bad music. As for product, as I've mentioned over and over again, I don't know why I like K-pop and no other manufactured pop from other countries. I put it to better songwriting, but that's hardly quantifiable.

I might mention, if I haven't already, it is essential to my fandom that I can't understand the lyrics, which I'm sure are so banal as to be insulting. That's a given. I'm only a fan because I can't understand the lyrics.

Another given is that if I saw the music collections of the celebrity idols of whom I'm a fan, I would cringe and wilt and scream in anguish to the skies, "whhhhyyyyy?!!!". I'm sure they listen to shit that I despise and would likely not be impressed by my music collection, either.

Mind you that's very different from musicians I genuinely respect. I would want to know their sources and I'd likely listen to and respect, if not personally like, what they listen to. Fuck, I don't even like Eric Clapton, totally overrated, but he's real enough that I'd totally be interested in who his influences were.

This is future life projecting. If the Hinduistic/Buddhistic model of reincarnation is somewhat valid, and if it is Korea to where I'm angling a rebirth, then maybe it's not a place that will be jolting or shocking towards my samsaric karma.

That is to say that if I am reborn in Korea, it would be the result of attachments and not-quite-enlightened views of being that would manifest, but I'd still be OK to find myself on my path. Penchant towards K-pop girl groups notwithstanding.

complicated

When I visited Audrey last Monday in Kaohsiung, she picked me up at the HSR station in a white Lexus that I'd never seen before. Not really a wonder as I hadn't visited in over three years. I got in and also wasn't too surprised at the feeling that technology has left me far behind.

I mean, I could probably drive the car easy enough, but incorporating any technological details would require some degree of learning curve. The dash and the controls would take familiarizing. The rear-view screen when the car is in reverse would no doubt have me bumping into cars first time around. Although I can see the convenience in that technology, I have also always been able to park perfectly well without it.

The Bluetooth phone connection had me shaking my head at how complicated my cousin's life is. And despite her desire to simplify once she moves to the U.S., the fabric of her current life is already complicated and it won't be so easy to break away from habit. I know from experience.

It was my ideal when I moved to Taiwan to live a simple, hermit-like existence, but years later I looked at the clutter of my apartment and wondered "where did all of this stuff come from?!". It was the day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month habit of wanting this or that or thinking I needed this or that.

Even with mindfulness practice in place and being watchful of being a consumer animal, one thing always leads to another. Years later I find myself with an apartment full of stuff.

The past few years have been helpful. I think my reaction to the complexity of my cousin's life is a result of my years of not wanting anything or wanting to do anything, even eat. Since the torpor ended, I've been engaged in a slow process of house cleaning and getting rid of the clutter.

But the temptations still arise.

Recently my landlord (Audrey's uncle) upgraded the internet/cable in this property. Simply said, what I had thought were my simple habits regarding watching TV have gotten more nuanced, ergo complicated.

There's good and bad. Complicated is bad just in itself. But the good is the scattering of those simple habits I had come to expect and around which I had come to live my life. I have to let go of those habits and adapt to being technologically upgraded without going overboard. I'll see how well I do with that once he installs a promised (not asked for) flat screen LED TV.

I went down to Kaohsiung on Monday to visit my cousin Audrey.

I was aware even before this visit that I've been understating her. Our relationship while I've been in Taiwan has been muted at best. But when I was trying to figure out what happened at the beginning of October, I did note that phone call to her, right before she left for the U.S.

I think she might be just as important in regard to what happened as what I mentioned in the previous post. I think what I experienced may be closely tied with what Audrey just went through. I don't think I did or can convey what a big deal she has been going through with her husband and deciding to leave the country.

When we met for dinner at the end of October, just after she came back from three weeks in the States, I held back mentioning this to her, but finally decided it was OK and told her that if it were three weeks earlier, I probably wouldn't have wanted to meet.

I told her about the food thing and my general just not wanting to do anything. I had noticed that she only told me about the ordeal after it was over, so maybe she didn't want me to have anything to do with it and so I probably would have weighed that against any request to meet up.

But when I mentioned that we probably couldn't have that meeting three weeks earlier, she also said she probably couldn't have met 3-4 weeks earlier. The point at which she called me to tell me what was happening was really just right after she had an awakening, before which she was something of a nervous wreck and had been for months.

I'm not suggesting anything directly relational happened between us metaphysically. It's more what I mentioned before about being "entangled", and it's more like the concept of entangled particles in quantum physics; a "spooky", seemingly impossible concept that science has accepted as factually real in the quantum realm.

My very basic understanding is that particles that are "entangled" simultaneously exhibit corresponding properties no matter where they are. They can be across the universe from each other, but when a certain property is exhibited in one particle, a certain (other) corresponding property is simultaneously exhibited or known about the other particle.

This flies in the face of classical physics because it suggests information is traveling faster than the speed of light. Despite this paradox, entanglement is an accepted property of quantum mechanics.

It's not like we have some deep meaningful connection. But like entangled particles, we affect each other across space, like what she said, "when I learn, you learn".

I still don't want to make a big deal about it. The distance between us has grown proportionally with any closeness.

We don't want or need anything from each other. But the big change that happened in early October I might call a little bit of a big thing. If so, Audrey should be mentioned. I can never rule out that she's relevant to my journey.

So a major change occurred in early October. That's the what. But why? What happened?

There was a confluence of things that complicates and confuses what may have happened, and I'm deciding that all of the superficial, material things weren't it.

The change was much too sudden for any outside, material influences to be so effective. Including and especially cutting back on alcohol. That effectively happened afterwards; it wasn't it.

I'm tempted to pay attention to those days I thought I had succeeded in sabotaging my health and that liver/kidney failure was imminent, but . . . no. It felt momentous at the time, but maybe only as a superficial marker.

Any "facing my mortality" is not momentous, it's the norm. I didn't face my mortality and something in me changed. That would be sarcasm.

So I'm looking at the fringes.

In early October, I made contact with my cousin the day before she left for the U.S. to figure out where she was going to move with her children. I had known she was planning the trip for about a month, but I called right before she left, not knowing that fact. And she left. We got together the day she returned three weeks later, after the big change in my life had occurred.

Around that time, after my cousin left, I also read one or two chapters in a book that . . . did something. It's a book by a Tibetan lama of his commentary on teachings by one of the "greats" who basically is credited as one of the founders of one of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

It doesn't matter what book it was, the commentary doesn't matter, the lineage doesn't necessarily matter. It was just the encountering it after all my years of reading, studying, sitting, searching. It's different for different people, but anyone who stays on the path for however long it takes may encounter it (if one must know, the book for me happened to be Confusion Arises as Wisdom by Ringu Tulku and is his commentary on the teachings of Gampopa, considered a founder of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism).

It was an "I get it" moment. It was a scratching of the surface, nothing deep, I had been exposed to the teaching countless times in countless ways, but it was this time, in this chapter of this book by this author when the "OMG, I get it" moment happened. Reality, or the perception of reality changed.

And it was just the start. I've felt like I've been on a spiritual journey for all these years, but all that was just preparation. I'm just barely reaching the shore now to begin. All those years I thought I had been advancing on the path was just setting up the prep station, the mise en place.

Again, it's not the teaching itself. I can repeat it, I can describe the realization, but it's the same information in countless numbers of books. All you can do is . . . keep practicing. Dedication is a must. Levity is a must, a careful balance between doubt and confidence.

I want to say to be true to oneself and to listen to one's heart, but those are cliched crocks. You can be true to yourself, but if it seems like shooting someone would be true to yourself, I'm not going to recommend being true to yourself, yo'm say'n? You can listen to your heart, but your heart may be telling you some off-the-wall shit.

I'm getting ahead of myself, I still have no idea what happened.

Tie to my cousin? Maybe. We haven't had the greatest relations or communications while I've been in Taiwan. She sure wasn't any help when I needed her most when I first arrived.

But I'm willing to accept that maybe we are "entangled" souls or beings. As she put it, "when I learn, you learn". Our current relationship doesn't mean a whole lot to me now, I'll help as much as I can in these trying times of hers, but the relationship that is important has nothing to do with her and I as we are in this human, corporeal form.

Now that I'm "better":

- I don't feel any need to be "productive", but I'm more inclined to "do stuff". Unlike the past few years, I can get restless now, whereas before at any time I could just lie down, relax and be totally contented. Feeling restless is generally considered to be a negative thing (antsy, anxious), but I just observe the feeling and appreciate it as something I've missed for the past few years.
- I still have no social life, nor want one; but I'm not disinclined to social contact, and have since met up with my old Chinese teacher and cousin.
- I have an appetite and can eat, and it's wonderful and wonderous. I need to maintain mindfulness about consumption, though. Going overboard is not great. Sometimes it's even a good thing to go hungry and appreciate it, having lost it for the past few years.
- Gastronomic/intestinal problems gone.
- Decreased alcohol consumption. Still considerable, but I have limits compared to before.
- Returned to regular morning sitting.
- Back on my bike. I've been riding on most nice days.
- Insomnia and rosacea still around, but not a big deal.

I now consider myself to have been sick for quite some time, finally having come out of it in early October. I've been trying to trace how long I've been sick, and so far I've found a mention of having no appetite in November 2011, so it was probably more or less fully formed by then.

That squares fairly with my memory that I was afflicted for the entirety of 2012 and 2013 until October. It probably started in 2011 sometime after a trip to New Jersey in April of that year.

I'm guessing it didn't suddenly start, but slowly, amorphously manifest through my lifestyle of sitting in front of a computer all day, obsessively watching Korean videos and TV shows, and then getting out for only three or four hours in the evening to read at a library or bookstore and eat if I could manage it.

It manifested through certain symptoms in a way that didn't point to a particular pathology. Actually, in retrospect, if I went to a doctor, I think they would've taken a shortcut diagnosis and labeled it depression.

- I wasn't doing anything productive, nor felt any need to be.
- I had no social life, nor wanted one.
- I had no appetite (but wanted to eat as I also obsessively watched food shows on Travel & Living Channel).
- I had gastronomic or intestinal problems. My stomach wasn't behaving and was a source of daily discomfort.
- alcohol consumption maintained at alcoholic levels and even increased.
- I stopped morning sitting somewhere along the way, as I felt it no longer was contributing to mindfulness practice. There was no difference between sitting and the rest of my day, so I deemed it appropriate to stop.
- I developed rosacea! My parents visited Taiwan in December 2011, and that's when it started since I remember they asked about a pimple on my face. It didn't concern me as pimples go away after a few days, but this went on for 10 months. It resurfaced briefly during Sadie's visit in 2013, and it's been touch and go since then.
- Insomnia has been a constant, sometimes better, sometimes worse. Insomnia and rosacea are probably independent of whatever else was going on symptomatically.
- It became fully formed during this period that I had no interest in doing anything I had done before that established my identity.
- I was fully happy just lying on the bed all day listening to music. Music has constantly and consistently been a source of pleasure.
- Mindfulness reading and practice was continuous all through this. 
- Korea, Korea, Korea. Possible future life resonance possibly continuing, and if it was beckoning, that may be a source of psychic discord (die already so you can be re-born and continue the journey).

The only problem with the depression diagnosis is . . . I was pretty "happy" all through this. I didn't feel depressed at all. I had to take the physical discomfort in stride, but at no time could I say I was "unhappy".

Was I manifesting physiological signs of depression without the emotional or mental baggage? The psychiatric community would have a field day with that suggestion.

Zero hits to this blog since I changed the url! That's success in my book. All of the usual web searches from before still go to the old url, dead blog. It's kinda liberating. I've been feeling this blog has lost the plot, that it's come off the rails, that its wheels have left the road. It's like a conversation with myself that's been lost.

Acquaintances, friends are ongoing conversations. What and how you communicate with different people is sourced in previous conversations and interactions. It's hard to be motivated to instigate contact with people when that conversation is gone or has been disrupted: I think of trying to write to Sadie, Madoka or Delphine, but the conversation between us is just not there. The last thing they said to me doesn't inspire response and any contact would have to be a cold start.

I did meet up with both my cousin Audrey and my old Mandarin teacher recently within a two week period. It's much easier to reestablish a conversation in person. Audrey recently went through a crisis with an end result that she is separating from her husband and taking her kids and moving to California. When she first called to tell me what happened, we couldn't establish a conversation. We couldn't close the distance that way.

My Mandarin teacher also contacted me with an emergency regarding a situation with her Master's program and asked to get together. Although I don't think the urgency was essential to the conversation as was it being in-person to discuss a situation.

I guess the pattern suggests the long-distance conversation is out. The nature of my relationship with people is that there is too much to "not get" over distance. On the "getting" part, Sadie, Madoka and Delphine all don't. And I don't give a crap. That's not a negative not giving a crap, I'm not judging nor have any feeling about it. That's just observation of the way it is.

I guess it's possible to meet up with someone in person and still miss successfully having a "conversation", but my relationship with my cousin and teacher are substantive enough that if we're sitting across from another, it's pretty easy.

Fortunately, I'd say, too.

I've never taken my health for granted. Even while trying to destroy it with alcohol, I've been mindful to be grateful for what I've still been able to do and appreciate because my health remained relatively good.

But I have to admit that after the way I've felt for the past several years, it does feel like a great weight has been lifted with the disappearance of those symptoms. I want to be careful about this, though. I don't want to say I was unhappy because of those symptoms, and that I'm happy now that they're gone.

I think I've been pretty happy for a while. The health issues were a bummer and reduced quality of life, but if asked, I don't think at any point I would say I was unhappy. And with the issues abated (mind you I don't know if this is temporary), I'm experiencing pleasure in being able to eat and in the motivation to get out more, but that doesn't mean I'm any "happier" than before.

Taking pleasure is different from happiness. If the symptoms come back, the pleasure will be gone and it'll be a bummer again, but from how I've defined my happiness, that shouldn't be affected. If my happiness depended on my pleasure, that would suck.