OK, stop being so negative about the parents. Try to stop being so negative about the parents. Even when I focus on the positive, look at the positive, rationalize and justify with the positive, I still feel with the negative. It's a hard habit to break, but I think it's possible.

I even started feeling the negative at my uncle, at whose apartment I'm staying in Taiwan. I won't go into description or explanation because that would be self-reinforcing and justifying the negativity. I want to describe what happened because I think if I describe it, I would show that I'm right. And I'm not. And even if I am, who cares? He's my uncle, and even if we can't communicate, he's great. It's not his fault that he's forced to do my parents' evil bidding in the first place.

Oops.

Right, so I need to work on stopping the negativity by going straight through all the rationalization and description for the negativity and working on it at the source – the negativity itself, the seed of all the rationalization and description. It's self-perpetuating. The negativity that creates negative thoughts which feed the negativity that creates negative thoughts.

If I'm doing it at my uncle, then I know there's something wrong with me. If it's something I think is wrong with me, then I can apply the same solution or attitude towards my parents. It's not about them. It's not the point that they are devious, scheming, conniving, controlling, materialistic, money-grubbing simpletons.

Oops.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Ooh, baby, I love it here. I would totally expat in Taiwan, but I bet that's what my parents are banking on. Back to the question of their ploy, right before I left, they mentioned that if I enter a "temple" – they don't know what a monastery is – better that I join one in Taiwan. My internal reaction was a resounding, "wtf!"

They are great parents for practicing non-attachment. I need to focus on their suffering, which they are unaware of, and their ignorance in order to not feel anger, but my natural reaction to them tends towards anger. It's hard separating fact from feeling.

The fact is that they have no bearing on my decisions or my life. They have no awareness or knowledge of it, nor have they made any effort to know it or understand it or anything different than their idea of it.

The feeling is that they are insulting me by implying I don't know what I'm doing or what I want. And maybe I don't, but they do?!! It also ventures on their having no right. If their philosophy on children is a non-participatory one, then they should remain non-participants. Except for that control issue they have.

So they encourage me to join Plum Village by insulting my decision to join Plum Village. In fact, they guarantee it because even if I wanted to do something else, I wouldn't want to give them the satisfaction. Mm, that's not it, either.

Conclusion: laugh them off and continue on my path. Whatever I do has nothing to do with them. My practice isn't that weak even if I try to make it so.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

if i should stumble
and what if this monastery charade is just another ploy; a sidetrack. what if there is no transformation. what if this is the same thing i've always done. i look down into the well of my psychology and the laugh echoes and echoes and echoes on on on on on.

i don't need to enter the monastery to accomplish the purported reasons for which i'm entering the monastery. everything is already complete. the answers manifest. there is no attaining enlightenment, everything all is enlightenment.

i don't think the path is wrong or deluded. i think the monastery is right, i think they're onto something, but what do i want. maybe i'm not ready for the monastery, maybe i'm way beyond the monastery. maybe i haven't even begun to climb the mountain, maybe i'm on my way back down the mountain, maybe there is no mountain. who knows. who cares. what do i want.

the patterns of my life swirl around me and i might be shamming myself with this idea about the monastery and what it's supposed to do. but do i believe in the core of my being, do i trust myself. how many more times do i let other people test me as to whether i'm a fucking aspirant or not.

next stop: taiwan.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Chris: The fact that we don't know this man isn't important really, because his experience is our experience, and his fate - up here - is our fate. "Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas", says the preacher. All is vanity. I think that's a pretty good epitaph for all of us. When we're stripped of all our worldly possessions, and all our fame and family and friends, we all face death alone. But it's that solitude in death that's our common bond in life. I know it's ironic, but it's just the way things are. Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas. Only when we understand all is vanity, only then it isn't.
Maurice: Sometimes I have trouble following his train of thought.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Maggie: What's the matter, Fleischman, you're a doctor, haven't you seen dead bodies before?
Joel: Yea, and I'm still rattled, I don't like people committing suicide. All the ethical considerations aside, it's just plain bad for business.
Maggie: He was doing fine until you told him to think about his future.
Joel: ...I was talking about a walker!

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

God, I've been totally remiss on the Northern Exposure quotes, it's been a long time and there are so many, and it's such a good show. This is probably a good time to mention that the second season has been released on DVD. All my friends have already gone out and bought or rented first and second seasons, or they're planning to. This is because that's a requisite for being my friend. Right, friends? Hm, I'm sure they're out there.

It's still cold. I haven't lived in this kind of bitter cold since 1992. California has thinned my blood and it's a hard acclimation, but in a few days I'll be in Taiwan where I'm told by unreliable sources (parents) that it should be warming up like Springtime quite nicely.

Yup, and since I hadn't been here in Winter for so long, I forgot that my parents aren't such big fans of spending money on heating the house. It's a brisk 62 degrees in my room, which is colder than the rest of the house so I never close the door.

Of course it's below 20 degrees outside, which brings back a vague memory from high school years when, in order to warm up, I'd go stand outside or in the garage for five minutes. Coming back in was just as good as coming into a well-heated room.

In New York:
Walking from 8th Avenue to 12th Avenue (and back) on 42nd street in 20 degree temps, 0 degrees with wind chill = the longest four blocks I've ever walked (in recent memory).

Even worse, the cause was hardly noble: getting a visa to visit the P.R. China, walking past brave Falun Gong protestors against the Chinese government. Any cause worth braving that cold is a noble cause. Or is a cult.

I would not have stood out there like they did for true love.

I would not for Thich Nhat Hanh.

Ordinarily I wouldn't be caught dead going to China, but I've got an unplanned month with an uncle in Taiwan and if he offers to take me to China to visit some cousins (Taiwanese doing business in China), I go. What can you do?

My parents are being very nice. When I told them a while ago that I wanted to enter the monastery, I offered to visit them for some months before doing so, because the monks were leaving for a while. They declined.

Then they came up with this hare-brained idea for me to go to Taiwan before entering. So I'm at their house for two weeks before flying off to Taiwan. Really they're just waiting for me to be out of their house again. Haha, what a fucking idiot I've been all my life!

I'm being distracted these days fitting over 600 CDs into my pocket.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

At the monastery, I had to bend over backwards to not say that my parents don't care about my decision to enter the monastery. I didn't want to sound whiny or self-pitying or give the impression that I was deluded about my parents' concern for me.

But folks, it's very simple. It's not malicious, it's not neglect or lack of concern for that matter, but it's philosophical. Glossing nothing over, no finessing, my parents really couldn't care less about whether I enter the monastery or not. They don't give a rats ass, and that's OK!

Don't ask me what the philosophy is, you'd have to ask them. I don't understand it, but I accept it. It makes sense with everything else about them I've observed and experienced. They're not sentimental, nor do they have lofty ideas about their roles as parents.

They farted us out and they viewed parenting as a financial obligation. They had to provide for us and do what was reasonably necessary for us to be alright in the world. That's not neglect or lack of concern, it's totally concern; that's their twisted version of parental love, but it's still parental love. I know plenty of parents who are unable to even have a concept of parental love.

But having completed their obligations and more, such as continuing to allow us into their house, whatever we do with our lives is not anything they can really be bothered with.

I'm not saying they're in any way normal, hell no they're not normal. I really think my parents are unique or rare in the world. But then I think I have a unique brand of fucked-upness which could only come from a uniquely twisted upbringing. Yay me.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

It occurred to me this morning that the whole 'aspirant' issue for me here at the monastery has just been a mindgame, a test, perhaps intentionally exacerbated by the monastics, but mostly my own creation.

I do think the monastics' treatment of the issue was organic, though. They didn't create it as an issue to test me, but listened to me, identified it as an issue from my own words, and then shaped their answers to my inquiries to test me on the issue.

In retrospect, I do think the issue caused me a bit of distress, and their answers and guidance didn't really help any – but they weren't supposed to help except to test me to find my own true feelings.

Of course I only realize this after it has been confirmed that when I return, I'll be an aspirant. One of the monks hinted before I really pressed the issue that I was 'already considered an aspirant'. The joke was on me. I could have requested aspirancy a month ago, but I was left stewing in it because of my own hang-ups!

Their teaching/guidance came in the form of not being clear on what aspirancy was or what it meant. That was the information I kept on trying to get from them. So I got answers like aspirancy being 100% certain on the monastic path. Not a lie, but I interpreted that to mean if you request aspirancy, you're looking to ordain eventually. Period.

Now I realize that can't be right, it doesn't make sense and would be irresponsible of them to expect that. There are things I can't know about the monastic path until I become an aspirant. But to know those things, I need to request aspirancy. Catch-22.

I finally pressed the issue because of financial reasons, and they finally gave in and said, "yea, you'll be an aspirant when you come back", but they've considered me an aspirant all along. And when I come back on the aspirant path, that doesn't mean 100% committal to the monastic path. At any point, I might come across the one thing I can't get past and will have to leave the mountain.

I'm learning. The confusion on the issue was my own creation. If I had just looked at it logically and come to a certain decision on my own, I could have avoided any distress over the issue. Or if I just had a positive mindset about it.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Counting down, yes, counting down once again. Once again posting with location heading to indicate location changes, and counting down to it. Counting down to leaving the monastery on Sunday, the same day the monastics leave for Vietnam, to fly to New Jersey on Monday. When will I stop counting down?

It has been confirmed that when if I return here in March or April, I will officially be an aspirant to become a monk (ie, won't have to pay anymore). I'm not sure if this place is what I always imagined monasticism to be, and that has its good points and it has its bad points, and I have to take the good with the bad, the bad with the good.

The bad is well-documented. The good is that I will be able to have a laptop and a guitar, and I'm hm-hm-hming over an iPod. Self-discipline and self-restraint are the rules of the day, though, and I fashion myself to be reasonable in that department.

I'm a little concerned about the two and a half months I'll be gone. I can't expect the comfortable little niche I've carved out for myself to be here when I return. That's probably for the better, though. And I'll get by with a little help from my friends.

I still wonder about that romantic, diary-narrated hermit life I could live in San Francisco. One of the guests here told me about a place where she lived for several years, a Tibetan place near Balboa Park, near where the band I was in used to rehearse, where you can rent a tiny room for $300 a month. She described the Dharma talks there to be very heady and theoretical – right up my alley.

I could live my hermit life, be immersed in a tradition more aligned with my own philosophy, probably land a similar job as I had before. I would be able to afford a shared room in that rehearsal space! All to myself. Bring my drums back out from New Jersey. No joining bands, though.

Snap out of fantasy. That's not reality. New Jersey on Monday. Taiwan two weeks later. No agenda, no fluent English speaking relatives. I have no idea why I'm going to Taiwan, but if my relatives don't have a plan, I'm committed to making something up on my own. Make it up as we go along. Something breaking out of any past travel habits.

Emil (moving portrait), a fellow guest at Deer Park Monastery.

New Years Revelation
When did my own negativity become such a monster? It's not even real, it's just subjective mental formation. It means that I will never be happy, and no matter what great situation I find myself in, no matter what great relationship I enter, I will eventually become critical, dissatisfied, discontented, disillusioned.

My criticism of this monastery has reached a fevered pitch. I started to say that it's not even a monastery, it's just a practice center catering to the needs of laypeople with no standards of quality or behavior. I started to say that the practice here has very little of what I consider the hallmarks of monasticism.

I started thinking that this branch monastery is no where near the ideal, and I started looking forward to going to the root monastery in Plum Village, France, or the other branch monastery in Vermont, thinking those places would be more to my liking because they are far removed from the surrounding lay community and were more conducive to a monastic environment. The incredible desert climate here was no longer such an important, determining factor of appeal.

My critical thinking attacked the administration and implementation of the monastic philosophy here and analyzed how it contradicted the very principle of mindfulness. I was standing on a soapbox, yelling at any passerby who bothered to stop and listen to me rant about what's wrong with this place.

No one agreed.

They told me they loved this place. This place was special, it was magical. They are so happy and grateful that this place is here for them. With the stresses and problems of their daily lives, they could come up here and they could relax, they could let go of their mind and be surrounded by nature, and smiles from other people were almost guaranteed. That's how I used to feel.

Suddenly my criticisms and negative view of the place became a mirror. Only I saw it and all I saw was myself in them. This has to stop.

True to my own philosophy, I was happy before with my relationship with my life, even if it was discontent or dissatisfaction. If I was discontented or dissatisfied, I told myself that I was happy being discontented and dissatisfied, and as such it was perfect. That doesn't fly here. This place is special and I don't want it marred by the negativity of my artificial mental constructs.

Even if my criticisms are valid, the expression of them can be not negative. I may not have control over the things I'm being critical about, but I do have control over how I deal with them myself.

For example, and this isn't really a criticism of mine, but more of an ideal in my mind, it would be nice to have a well-kept monastery, where the grounds are tended to and appears neat, pleasing, and pleasant, without leaves and flotsam scattered about every which way.

I have it worked out in my mind exactly how I would accomplish this in a mindful, community-oriented way, but it will never happen like that because I don't have control over the situation. What I can do is implement it in myself. After morning sitting, I can mindfully walk up and tend to the tea room or sweep the grounds until breakfast. Not even having it as a goal to clean the place, it's a meditation, just sweep in mindfulness until the breakfast bell is rung.

I'm sure if I think of all the criticisms my critical mind has created and sculpted, I can find a creative way to transform them or think of better ways to handle them aside from getting frustrated or angry.

No Coming, No Going
Buddhas or bodhisattvas, enlightened ones, don't die. They have seen to the heart of existence, of being, of reality, so how can they die? Enlightened ones don't confuse natural, organic metabolizing with life, or living, or truth, or reality.

Imagine an enlightened person, perhaps you've been fortunate to know one personally. Imagine them dead, having died, maybe cremated, and imagine their skull, holding their skull in your hands. Is this the enlightened person that you knew?

So you have their skull, their actual skeleton, and you attach layers and layers of organic material onto it, muscles, tissue, ligaments, organs, systems, and you put them into metabolic movement, and you have biology, life. Not uncommon, we all share this biology and in principle this is extended to all life metabolizing on this planet.

Add consciousness, intelligence, wisdom, insight, and personality so that you have your enlightened person whole again. So what is that skull that you were holding at the beginning?

What does it matter if an enlightened person is comprised of organic matter or not. Not comprised – represented by organic matter. Organic matter does what organic matter does – it metabolizes. It is created, it develops, it matures, it ages, and it dies.

The consciousness of an ordinary being is related to that biology, that physiology, regulated by it, maybe limited by it, controlled by it, and often people suffer because of their representative organic matter, but enlightenment is liberation from attachment to that biology and suffering because of it.

Organic matter isn't special. Even galaxy clusters, galaxies, star clusters, and stars go through a process that is organic. Our sun is metabolizing in an analogous way that our biological lives are. Our planet is also metabolizing in its own way with its numerous systems and transformation. The mountains are walking in meditation.

Enlightenment is recognition of the indestructible whole, the entirety of the cosmos that is one functioning organism or system, nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, there is no coming into being, there is no going out of being, there is just transformation. Even the shamans we call "physicists" describe that.

In the here and now of our actual lives, it is happening all around us. Enlightenment doesn't mean that all this happening around us is insignificant. It means that it is rich with the stuff of enlightenment. Enlightenment is found all around us in the here and the now.

The enlightenment of the Buddhadharma is not dependent on human existence (lots of humans have a problem with this concept. Bully). If humans didn't exist, the Buddhadharma still continues. It existed before humans evolved sentience, it will exist after humans are no longer here. The universe had no problem envisioning itself without humans for 99.999% of its existence. The earth will have no problem imagining itself when we are gone; basically the same as before we appeared. What is dependent upon human existence is its relevance, so we might as well take advantage of it while we're here and strive to live more enlightened lives.

I'm feeling no better about this place, and I'm temporarily feeling hypocritical putting out that I'm thinking about becoming a monk here. It's not that I'm not, but I'm experiencing the proverbial "Great Doubt" about the practice here.

I don't even know what happened, what snapped that made me go from 100% certainty to 95% doubt. Why didn't I see these problems before? Why did I consider this place pretty much perfect for me?

It's me, the problem is me, and it's ugly. When the darkness I'm dealing with overwhelms me, there is not a place on this planet, inside or outside of me, where I'm safe, and I don't think there are brothers in the world who can support me, despite their best intentions. And concurrently, I don't even want their support. I want to be consumed. I want the void.

It's strange how all this is going down. Last week, I rushed out a letter to the community to submit before my mentor left for Australia. It wasn't a very good letter, I was still non-committal about becoming an aspirant, and I've heard no response regarding it. I probably shouldn't have submitted it and waited until just before they left for Vietnam. It didn't make a difference that I submitted it through my mentor.

Then after submitting the letter, I told my parents that I was thinking of becoming a monk and they expressed no opinion about it, and that made my decision more solid. And now with this crashing doubt, and no one in the community acting as a liaison to tell me what the community is thinking, and with their Vietnam trip coming up, I'm just flapping in the wind.

I heard through the grapevine that I wouldn't have to pay for staying at the monastery while they were in Vietnam, but I didn't hear it from my mentor or any other of the Dharma Teachers, and so as far as I'm concerned, I've heard nothing. Which means I would have to leave anyway for financial reasons, and if nothing attaches me or attracts me to this community, why would I come back?

Why is this happening? It's me. This is all my creation. It's not happening to anyone else. If I reject this monastery and attempt Plan A again, that would be my creation as well. So what's really going on?

Actually, I don't know what the 'rents are thinking. A few days after I told them I was going to join this community, they started pushing me to go to Taiwan for the three months while the monastics were in Vietnam, instead of spending time in New Jersey visiting them.

Now I'm considering taking them up on the offer. I don't know why they are suggesting that I go to Taiwan, there's no reason for it. I have no connection with family over there. I haven't talked to my cousin Audrey in years and her English is probably non-existent by now. Any love from before was lost and I would go there detached and impersonal.

But maybe I could do a tour of monasteries over there. Maybe I could do some family research through archives. I wonder what the 'rents are thinking. What is their ulterior motive, because I know they have one? But as always, I will use their ulterior motive only to my own ends.

You have no idea how close I came to declaring my intent to become a monastic aspirant. If not in so many words to the community, I was close to presenting them my full feeling from the heart that I was going to become an aspirant, not might become an aspirant, but that I was sure about it and that it was imminent.

It didn't happen. The opportunity never manifested. Almost, but no. And then the whole edifice of my being here collapsed, and now I'm picking through the rubble to see if it's just a feeling that will pass, or if the collapse is substantive. And if the collapse is substantive, does Plan A go back into effect?

The practice here might be way too advanced for me. The ideal here is to maintain mindfulness at all times. Unlike any other Zen monastery, sitting is not central to ground the practice here, and reliably happens only once a day, first thing in the morning. Evening sessions are only scheduled when a brother raises a fuss about it, and there are no periods of intensive, extensive sitting.

Furthermore, an environment conducive to mindfulness is not required or promoted. That means the monastics here are so advanced in their practice of mindfulness that they can maintain it without even a mindful environment. When mindfulness is maintained within the individual, the environment is inconsequential.

For me, that leads me to ask what the hell is the point of the monastic environment? And that's where it differs between them and me.

For them, the monastic environment exists for the community, both monastic and lay. Just this morning, one of the Dharma Teachers giving this morning's Dharma talk was talking about how people from all different backgrounds come here on Sundays to practice. He said that he hoped people didn't think of this place as a Zen Buddhist monastery, but just a place in the mountains to gather and support each other.

Touché.

We are all each others' jock straps and bras.

For me, monasticism means renunciation. A contemplative life. I don't mean asceticism. The philosophy behind this school is "engaged" Buddhism, which means we remain aware of and involved in social issues in the world and that we maintain significant interaction with the lay community. But the way it is implemented at this monastery feels to me to be just "social".

Even if the practice here is pretty laid-back and isn't into artifice like hierarchy, I think a certain solemnity should be presented on public days and when lots of guests come up. An air of contemplation and reflection should be maintained and a certain amount of discipline should be expected in regard to lay practitioners' children. They shouldn't be allowed to roam free treating the place like a playground.

Mindfulness. We use that term roughly equivalent to the Christian "holy". Our being mindful, I think, is close to their being holy – to have in mind acting under God's will and God's presence. We just don't have the external deity to worship, so it's internal. Awareness, contemplation, presence.

When lots of people come up here, I find it a struggle to maintain mindfulness. I struggle with frustration and disillusionment. I don't feel a part of the community, I don't feel supported. I don't feel like I'm at a monastery, and if I'm not at a monastery, I'd rather be somewhere else. Like . . . a monastery.

I don't know what this means for my future. This could just be a passing feeling, a learning experience that I will adjust to. If I don't join this community, I don't expect to go looking for another. If I don't join here, it's another shot at Plan A, and if I fail at Plan A as miserably as I did in June, then I don't know what. Crawl back to San Francisco and do . . . Plan C?

I'm making a prediction. I am predicting that I will not become a monk. Yup, here I am making predictions about my life. Predictions about things I'm supposed to exercise control over. That is all.

Let it go, let it go, let it go. I know I can be a monastic. I think I can be a pretty darned good monastic. I think I'd be a boon to this community, and they should be doing everything they can to keep my interest, just as I'm doing everything I can to show them I'd be right for this community. But since they aren't me, since they aren't in my brain and in my personal history, I have to show certain things to them to convince them I'm right enough for this community.

But fuck being judged. I thumb my nose at being judged. I'm not going to bend over backwards to show them my original face. I'm not going to sell myself to them. I'm just going to continue being myself. Which is the point, after all. If they're not satisfied with me not planting a flag on my forehead with "monastic aspirant" on it, so be it. If I run out of money and have to leave, so be it.

I depend on their encouragement and whatever signs they send me to keep my morale up and momentum on the monastic path. And as is particular with me, I also depend on the flow of time moving forward, and what happens when. I also depend on any discouraging signs and the lack of encouragement, as well.

Plan A is still here. It's still my trump card. I still see signposts indicating turn-offs for Plan A. So I'm not going to sweat any judgments. I'm not going to sweat over becoming an aspirant or money running out, or how who thinks what of me.

I just continue to sit, continue to keep pulling myself back to my practice, continue to renounce the material life and trying to come to terms with that. On my own terms.

The way I'm saying it now is that I've made the decision to enter the monastery and become a monk. Now it's a matter of the causes and conditions manifesting and presenting themselves to make it an actuality. I leave it to fate. I won't do anything affirmative to make it happen, that has never been my style. Nothing has happened in my life as a result of me making it happen. Hm, that came out wrong.

Being bounced around like a pinball is more my style, and I see no reason to stray from my lifelong patterns. For what I'm doing in life – my search for meaning and living true to myself – monastery is the only (living) choice here. It's so clear. I just seem to have trouble getting that through my thick head. So come on, world, sock it to me.

A lot has already happened without my instigation to push me affirmatively to becoming a monk. Little things the monastics have done to make me feel included and at home and part of the community. Things like putting me into the daily work rotation without any fanfare, and giving me a couple of sets of monastic clothes to wear in order to fit in and be comfortable.

On the home front, I haven't mentioned anything to the parents yet. They didn't ask what my plans were or when I was flying back. We did have an in-depth conversation, or as in-depth as we could possibly have, though. I got them pretty darn close to outright saying that money is more important than family.

I got them there in a roundabout fashion, talking about my brother raising his baby, about them and how they raised us, about their relationship with my grandparents, about my mother's relationship with her younger brother who lives just an hour away from them in New Jersey, and with all of the answers, it was innocuous and natural when I asked, "So is money more important than family?". "In some ways," was the answer.

Well, OK then.

Your parents die, but that's OK because you still have the money you made while not spending more time with them. You don't visit your younger brother more often, even though you realize neither of you will be around forever, because you're too busy making money, and so is he (or so you say). And when either dies, the money is still there. Your son commits suicide, and that's OK because you still have money.

Then you die, and it doesn't matter that all you lived for was money; sacrificing family, relations, and meaning in the process, and it doesn't matter that you can't take the money with you – because you're dead. To your dying day, you lived with the security that you always had money in the bank in case of that emergency.

I'm telling you, they are Zen Materialists.

Time relentlessly hammers on. Causes and conditions manifest to signal and suggest courses of action. None of them definite; signposts pointing off into hazy mists.

At week six at the monastery, the "demons" have started to emerge. Added to that is overload. Burnout. Making sure none of it shows on the outside. Story of my life.

What I'm so-calling "demons" aren't bad, they may easily be a truth of mine. They may be the same old things that have driven my life this far (hint: the content of much of this weblog), but now they're being re-contextualized. Now a viable alternative has appeared and they are in opposition to it. They've been marginalized.

A new reality may be forming around me, but I'm still asking myself what my truth is. Will it be this new reality, or can I jump down the black rabbit hole of my old one and bring it to fruition? That used to be my entire reality. Now a new reality has formed in the space around me, and the old one is just an escape hatch.

Dig deeper, there is no difference between committing suicide and ordaining as a monk. Everyone will tell me otherwise. Who are they to dictate my truths to me?

My feeling towards my own death is like waiting on line for a ride at the amusement park. I'm excited for it and I can't wait. I want to experience it. But the line moves so slow. And sometimes all these schemes and fantasies feel as real as smoke lazily blown on a breeze.

I heard that to be a monk, you have to more than 100% sure.

I heard that there are people who say they have to become a monk or they feel they will die.

I've been feeling more on the lines of "If I don't die, I'll become a monk".

And sometimes not.

It would require a transformation to become a monk, and the transformation continues after becoming a monk. It would require transforming suffering. It would mean becoming a very different identity.

It would mean transforming my suffering. Delving way back and digging in the dirt to uproot problems and deal with the seeds of that suffering. Back into problems that are of no more significance to the living of my life, but have nevertheless shaped who I am.

Why do I even need to do that? I could easily just leave the past behind. In secular life I could do that. In secular life, I'd have to do that. The only way I could even attempt to do that in secular life is by committal into a mental hospital. Ha, so my secular equivalent of a monastery is a mental hospital.

But as a monastic, those things would eventually have to come up. It would be required to truly transform, which is the aim of this monastic practice.

The seeds of suffering need to be dug up and dealt with to transform the suffering. Transforming the suffering is necessary because we can't help others transform their suffering if we are still suffering ourselves. It is a monastic vow to help others transform their suffering.

It means transforming my identity, since my identity has been formed by suffering. That's why we get new names when we ordain. I'm not so attached to my identity that I'm not willing to let to go. I'm only still attached to my DVD collection.

I called my parents back after I ignored their phone calls all weekend. I don't want them thinking they can talk to me every week just because of the cell phone they provided. But I need to be more compassionate to them. Talk to them as often as they like. A foundation needs to be laid. Foundation for what, though, I have no idea.

They reported on what I see as suffering in their lives; what they see as life. My older brother and his wife are going to fire the nanny that my parents found to take care of the baby. The wife is having trouble getting along with the nanny.

That's suffering for my parents because of the wife's rejection of their choice for a nanny, who they consider perfect. Suffering for my brother and his wife as they search for a new nanny. Suffering for the baby who, although still an infant, directly experiences this wrenching change in nurturing. Suffering for the baby who is not being raised by his parents who are bent on their dual-physician income. Careless parenting.

My eldest brother – as my parents report, which is patently unreliable – is close to proposing to the woman he's dating. Suffering for my parents who can't help but meddle in none of their business. Suffering for my brother who might feel rushed and is looking down the barrel of serious life changes, responsibilities, and challenges.

And my parents suffer from the insatiable appetite of a hungry ghost. Well into their old age, they cannot stop working because however much money they make is never enough. This is not interpretation, I got them to say as much. Work and making money is all they have. They do take vacations and when they work, they look forward to their vacations. When they're on vacation, all they have to look forward to is coming home and working for more money.

But if they all think they're happy, who am I to say otherwise? Besides, what do I know of their lives?

For example, I go to Philadelphia to visit my brother who has the baby, I ring the doorbell, he lets me in, and we interact the way we always have. He says things, I observe him, I have opinions, I make judgments, but I know nothing about his day. I know next to nothing about his experience in the past ten years. I don't know if he just experienced a life-moving event in his job as a cardiologist. So who am I to point at his suffering?