Last week's trip to Matsu was as excruciating as I expected. The only consolation was that there was no on-the-bus karaoke as the islands of Matsu are so small, there are no extended periods of time on the bus, and there was more Mandarin spoken, not just Taiwanese, so I didn't feel totally shut out and isolated.

The place itself was well-worth visiting for its historicity. The reason why Taiwan holds several islands so close to the mainland is because right after the Nationalists lost the Chinese Civil War to the Communists in 1949 and retreated to the island of Taiwan, they immediately established strongholds on Matsu and Kinmen with the intent that they would be the footholds from which to launch attacks to re-take the Chinese mainland.

That never happened, but the islands became highly militarized, with posturing not totally unlike between North and South Korea or India and Pakistan. Enemies warily watching each other across the border.

Taiwan ended decades of martial law in the 80s, and by the 90s began demilitarizing Kinmen and Matsu, allowing them to develop their economies, which largely are comprised of Taiwan's signature liquors (Kinmen Kaoliang 56 and Matsu's Tunnel 88) and tourism.

The Matsu archipelago consists of, well, many islands, but just a few main islands. We visited the two biggest ones, connected by a 20-minute speed boat ride, and they are tiny. From any place to another destination was a very short bus ride, sometimes less than a minute, which always made me wonder why we couldn't just walk the distance.

And unlike the Taiwan mainland, the islands still retain their character of old, with traditional architecture from the early 20th century currently undergoing refurbishment for tourism purposes.

It was excruciating just because it was traveling with my uncle, who although means well, still lives on a planet of his own. Interesting is that he had trouble sleeping, and as a man-animal who is driven by his desires and getting what he wants, he isn't the type who takes well to not being able to get that basic daily elixir called sleep.

As insomnia is old hat to me, sleep is take it or leave it, and it was almost with delight that I lay pretending to sleep to hear someone else going through it, the pacing, the grunts of frustration, finally turning on the TV. Newbie. Apparently insomnia loves company.

Not social company in my case, though, I for most part was listening to music through the night, and him not being the most observant person in the world, likely didn't even notice that I wasn't asleep, even when my hand moved every few minutes to adjust volume or check a song name.

There was one point on one of the two nights, I forget which, that I had an experience that I'm not sure what to make of. I've been trying to re-create it and have been unsuccessful. It may have been the product of that specific situation with those particular stressors, including someone else awake in the room, from whom I was concealing that I was awake.

On one of the nights, probably around 4 in the morning, I turned off my iPod shuffle and determined to mentally will myself to sleep. It sounded counter-intuitive to even myself at the time. How do you will yourself to sleep when sleep is a state where the will is lost?

I think I broke something. I ended up in a state where I wasn't asleep, but it wasn't anything like previous quasi-lucid dreaming states I've been in before.

My previous experiences were that I was lucid and clearly conscious in the dream, but I didn't have awareness that I was dreaming or control over the elements in the dream, which I think defines lucid dreaming. But it was more than normal dreaming because I was in a state of self-awareness, rather than just the mental-habit, subconscious meandering of ordinary dreams.

This time I immediately went into a state where I knew I wasn't consciously awake – my direct connection with my physical body was no longer there – but I was self-aware in a manner similar to my previous experiences. The way I thought to describe it immediately afterwards was that I felt I had accessed a separate "dream realm", where the energy of what forms dreams is channeled.

I wasn't dreaming, I wasn't in a dream, but I had access to dream images that I could "pull down" and sample. It sounds weird to me now, but that's how I would word the description. I don't remember if or how I "chose" what dreams to sample.

Maybe it was like window shopping for dreams, but what it felt like is that if I wanted a dream, this was where to go; this is where they come from. The energy is instantly transformed by our subjective experience and psychology into dreams, but the basic energy is clay, the medium that makes the dreams possible.

I know this is self-serving, me projecting my own theories on my own experiences, but it made me think of the bardo of sleep/dreams in some differentiations of the bardos in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. A lot of teachers in the West point to 4 bardos, the life bardo comprising one, and then the 3 death bardos.

But in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the life bardo is separated into 3 as well: the bardo of waking, the bardo of sleep/dreaming, and the bardo of meditation. I think it's fair for the teachers to combine the living bardos. The subtleties may be too challenging for Westerners, and the pursuit of understanding them impracticable with the Western lifestyle. But it's possible that a state like that dream realm is what is meant by the bardo of sleep/dreaming.

Feeling that it was a special realm where the currents of energy are the source of dreams might add to my thoughts on human consciousness being formed from some basic, natural energy that pervades the universe that evolved in conjunction with biological life on Earth and became attached and enmeshed with it.

Dying releases it from a physical existence, but the imprints of the physical existence remain and as if it has been given a life of its own to be attracted back to another physical form, instead of melting back into the raw universal energy.

When humanity becomes extinct, the energy will have no choice to either melt back into the basic energy, or may continue attaching itself to whatever life remains and being reincarnated as lower animals and continuing to evolve.

Sunny (South Korea, 2008)

This intriguing film is set in 1971, starting in rural South Korea and ending up in Vietnam in the throes of the Vietnam War. The title character is living with her slightly overbearing mother-in-law, while, we learn, her husband has enlisted in the military.

It is suspected and suggested, that he enlisted to get away from his wife because the marriage might have been forced upon him, turning his girlfriend and lover into his mistress, a situation he is none too happy with.

Sunny is a good and proper rural Korean housewife trying to do her duty in a loveless marriage and living with her mother-in-law, but when she learns that her husband has been sent into combat in Vietnam without even telling her, and then being blamed for it by her mother-in-law, she decides to go to Vietnam, determined to find her husband.

The movie establishes from the start that she enjoys singing, and the only way for her to go to Vietnam is as an entertainer. Hilarity ensues. Or not.

It's intriguing subject matter. I didn't even know Korean troops participated in combat in the Vietnam War, and for Korean civilians going there voluntarily as entertainment profiteers is sort of whaaaa? I actually haven't done any research to confirm that occurred, though.

I think the Korean title (님은 먼곳에, Nimeun meongose) is the worst, generically translating to "My Love is Far Away". The English and Chinese titles are better, with the Chinese title perhaps being the best: 亂世玫瑰, which translates roughly to "A Rose in a Messed Up World".

The English title is good because it focuses on the title character. The Chinese title is better because it describes the title character. She is the rose, but I also suspect that being a rose symbolizes being a woman in a world full of men and men's affairs (the mother-in-law counts as being part of the men's world).

She is thrown in a world that is run by men, occupied by men. She's swept into its currents. The men make up much of the action and movement in the film, but she's quietly the film's center. The men busily buzz around pursuing only their own goals, while she has her own.

She holds onto her conservative rural values, but transforms when necessary with her one goal in mind: find her husband. We don't know how far she goes, but she eventually gets to the top of the U.S. command, and therefore Korean command, to get what she wants.

The male lead character also bears noting. He's a total sleaze, yet he has a likable charm about him. He's kind of an asshole, but not a total asshole. This is to say the actor did a really good job in the portrayal, balancing these different characteristics. 

I liked the film a lot, although it didn't hold up so well upon second viewing. Interesting to note about the film is how the Vietcong are handled. They were fierce fighters indeed, but the film also portrays a humane side to their struggle that we usually don't like to acknowledge, because, hey, we lost.

Fresh 7 out of 10 tomatoes.





Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Thailand, 2010)

She has sex with a fish!!! Wow, this film won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Really? Why? I want to say maybe because it's Cannes – the jury must have a much more sophisticated eye for subtle films like this – but no, I'm no newbie film-goer. I'm pretty open-minded and discerning in my viewing.

But, man, this is one weird-ass film. I just don't think I get it. She has sex with a fish. I did learn from it, though, that if the ghost of your wife who died 19 years earlier suddenly shows up at the dinner table, and your deceased son of 13 years ago also shows up, not just as a ghost, but a monkey ghost, looking a bit like an ethnic wookie of some kind with glowing red eyes, the proper and appropriate thing to do is to pull out the photo albums.

I don't want to just outright pan it and say it's horrible, but I didn't really get it. When I pan a film, it's usually for specific reasons – faults in logic, incredibility, character problems, poor filmmaking, etc. – but this film is just weird. The narrative is one that is just so unlike anything I've seen before that I have no idea how to comment on this film. Except maybe to point out she has sex with a fish.

It doesn't look like a filmmaking fail, it does look like the director was very intentional about what he was doing and how. And I do think this is the first Thai film I've seen, and though I'm sure this is pretty out there for Thai audiences, too, I'm amenable to the suggestion that there are aesthetic and cultural factors I'm not accustomed to.

The film strained my patience. You really have to be awake and alert for this film. At times I felt my eyelids get heavy and when I opened them I thought I'd fallen asleep for any number of minutes, then I'd rewind to find I had missed all of 15 seconds.

It's a slow film, much of the scenes and dialogue seem pretty random. Some shots are lingered upon for inexplicably long times, and I'm a fan of Hou Hsiao Hsien films, and he's king of the long shot, so I'm usually not fazed by a shot which seems nothing is happening. But HHH is often conveying something. In this film, nothing is happening in those shots.

There is something of a story arc, but it meanders and bends and then heads off in a weird direction, but then ends up not too far from where it started or where it's supposed to end, but then jumps into a different dimension altogether. It was with quite some relief and satisfaction when the credits started rolling. Couldn't have come too soon.

I don't think I can pass this film, but I don't think I'm qualified to pan it, so I'm going to give it a nominal rotten 5 out 10 tomatoes. I don't even think I can recommend it to anyone except someone in the super artsy fartsy crowd. I also think it needs to be viewed on a big screen in a theater where it demands your undivided attention. And don't be too put off when she has sex with a fish.

Matsu trip photos. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super. Last roll of black & white film (a few more months of DSLR black & white will finalize my boredom and frustration with photography).

THURSDAY, MARCH 24

Tunnel 88 distillery. I typically drink their 100 proof liquor, made from sorghum if I remember correctly. They also bottle weaker and stronger versions.

This giant sign points towards the nearest coast of mainland China and might only be visible from there through binoculars. It's an idiomatic taunt that is most poetically translated to "keeping our spears by our pillows, we wait for the dawn" and means that we're prepared against any attack by China. 

FRIDAY, MARCH 25

MARCH 26

Iron Fort, it was a military shelter for elite forces dug into solid rock, perhaps with a high amount of iron which is why it's called that. It was a part of the defenses against the Chinese threat and would have been undetectable to them.

Final frame.

Attempt #2: Indefinitely on hold. On hold indefinitely. On indefinite hold.

And just as the window of opportunity opened again. Go fig. Or not. Shitfuck. And not. It's a huge disappointment and cause for all the little workers in the corporate structure of my mind to go into crisis mode. They are rushing around as we speak trying to figure out what does this mean?, what should we do?, is it going to get worse? What about our stocks? What about our credibility?

As these windows of opportunity open every 2 months, I'm not ruling out a May attempt, but knowing me, this is effectively an indefinite postponement until I go through all the steps again. I'll try to join the human race and be social and nothing will come out of that, same as it ever was.

I'll go back to work again, trying to maintain the hermit ideal of working just to survive and just cultivate a plain, satisfied living, but that will get untenable and unsustainable again. It won't stop the festering. About what, I don't know. It won't stop the desire for something else. What? I don't know. Same as it ever was.

There isn't anything I desire, but desire is the karmic habit that is the cause of suffering here. Even when there is no object of desire, I still have the desire to desire something.

Then I'll get existential angsty again and realize I'm not getting any younger or growing back any hair, or feeling any different about the issue, and get self-destructive and quit my job and tear everything down again and I'll be in for another round of attempts several years hence. See you then.

I'm going to the U.S. for the entire month of April. I'm like a vampire about going back to the U.S. – I can't go back unless my parents suggest it, and they suggested it and I accepted it on the day the window of opportunity opened.

Before that I'm going to the island(s) of Matsu with my uncle for 3 days, but I'm not really looking forward to that. Matsu, as well as the island of Kinmen, belong to Taiwan, but if you look at them on the map, they look like they belong to mainland China. They're that close to the mainland.

My uncle is well-intentioned, just difficult and single-minded. Traveling with him is to be avoided at all costs and I refused his invitation countless times in the past few weeks. Finally my parents urged me to go and as it just felt at the time connected to the U.S. invitation, I finally gave in.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23 - Raohe St., Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super. Last roll of black & white.

Raohe night market entrance.

google hits

Buddhism how to deal with tragedy;
How might Buddhist make sense of/handle tragedy;
How would Buddhist deal with the tragedy in Japan

When it comes right down to it, I'm not sure what to make of these Google searches on Buddhism and tragedy. I guess I would still apply my previous post. Understanding tragedy isn't a matter of scope. Tragedy is tragedy, I shouldn't wonder.

Furthermore, I would find myself perplexed if there were any suggestion of Buddhists experiencing or dealing with tragedies any differently than anyone else. In my experience, there's no correlation.

Every individual has his or her own way of coping or not coping with tragedy. Anyone with a social support group or religious or spiritual affiliation can draw strength from it or not.

Buddhists have their practice, and if they've developed it wisely, it theoretically should help them through difficulties, but not necessarily so, such is the nature of tragedies.

And such is the nature of being human that we react emotionally. Intellectually we know tragedies are part of the deal of being alive, at least Buddhism actively emphasizes that. It doesn't lull people into any sense of 'everything will be alright'.

But theoretically being prepared for a tragedy is different from experiencing one, and Buddhism offers techniques to deal, but so do any number of religious and spiritual traditions. And I imagine none of them lessens the character of the tragedy. Just how we cope, and that's up to the individual.

Regarding the aspect of karma in a large-scale tragedy, it bears repeating that it isn't about what happens to us or what we do or what we deserve. I don't think there is some connective karma between people in a plane crash.

We live in the natural world and the natural world just goes on. Earthquakes occur, tsunamis occur, and they have nothing to do with karma. They're just natural or they're just phenomena that occur in the course of our human existence.

This aspect of karma, I'm proposing, is about the mind. It's a reflection of the plasticity of mind. At any given moment of a tragedy, every individual is constantly reacting and every moment is a karmic manifesting moment, meaning their reaction is the manifestation of how they were conditioned karmically to react.

Likewise, how they react creates karma that will manifest further. It might seem like a downer that this interpretation of karma doesn't reflect some grand design of the universe. All it does is explain why it is best to always cultivate, or strive to cultivate a positive state of mind, along with wisdom and compassion.

res ipsa loquitur

"How might a Buddhist make sense of an unexpected tragedy such as the loss of a child?"

I haven't done one of these in a while since most Google searches on Buddhism that have landed on this blog have been about jury duty, to which my answer was: If called for jury duty, go. Why are people who are interested in Buddhism so hung up about jury duty? Sheesh. Buddhism and organ donation is a legitimate topic. Buddhism and paying taxes is not. Do your civic duty.

This search is a little more compelling. It's a toughy. And just tonight, I found "Sophie's World" in the local municipal library and started reading it, and it contained this passage:

The red house was surrounded by a large garden with lots of flowerbeds, fruit bushes, fruit trees of different kinds, a spacious lawn with a glider and a little gazebo that Granddad built for Granny when she lost their first child a few weeks after it was born. The child's name was Marie. On her gravestone were the words: "Little Marie to us came, greeted us, and left again."

That is a very Zen attitude, a good Zen answer, but probably isn't very satisfactory for a question that should be handled seriously and delicately, and there are answers on many levels of Buddhism. Not that I'm speaking for Buddhism or Buddhists, just my own reflections.

The first thing that comes to my mind is to look at the question itself: "Unexpected tragedy" and "loss of a child" (and I'm assuming loss of a child means an infant, as the loss of a child, any child, is a less challenging subject as everyone is someone's child).

The question posits "unexpected tragedy" = "loss of a child", which is fair enough. But it automatically divides the issue into 1) an emotional one (unexpected tragedy), and 2) an objective fact (loss of a child).

If it's a question of making sense of the emotional impact, the tragedy of the loss of a child, then Buddhism has one approach which deals with our own selves and how we deal with our own emotions. There really isn't any sense to be made, only how we handle it among any other hardships and tragedies we naturally and normatively encounter in our (samsaric) human lives.

There are plenty of books by the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh among others, those are just the ones I know, that can help guide people through such hardship. Too often we only think of tragedies when they happen and that they're bad, without considering or facing the possibility during other times that they might happen.

Buddhism teaches to consider the possibility of those things happening as part of the transiency of life and to constantly prepare for them through meditation and contemplation. It even goes so far as to teach that there are always positive perspectives to any situation that we sometimes must search for.

And by "prepare", it can be retroactive. Even if you come to Buddhist teachings after a tragedy, they may still help make sense of it.

<tangent> During my time at Deer Park, there was a nun who was . . . if you remembered one nun, it was her. She was so peaceful and compassionate and wise and giving. Just being around her put everyone at ease. 

I forget how I fell into a conversation with her, but she told me her story, although I'm sure I'm forgetting details and making other stuff up, but the point is still the same. She told me that when she arrived at Plum Village, she was anything but peaceful. She cried every day, she was a mess. The senior nuns didn't know what to do with her.

She had been a medical student in San Francisco and she had a fiance. During that period, she had made a visit to Plum Village in France and returned gushing about the place. Her fiance told her that if that was a path that she was interested in, she could pursue it. But she was in love and was looking forward to a life with him.

Then one day much later, after she earned her medical degree and license, her fiance went on a day trip down the northern California coast, and while climbing along rocks on the coastline, a wave came up and swept him away.

She was devastated and inconsolable and the only thing she could think of doing was returning to Plum Village. Which she did. And ordained and never left.

There is a lesson for me in her telling me her story, but that's a different story. At the time, I was trying to be delicate about her telling me her personal story, but I wanted to tell her my impression of it and said something along the lines, afraid of saying something offensive, suggesting that it was his sacrifice that led her to become a nun. She smiled at me and knowingly said, "I know".

If you don't know what spiritual love is, if you met this nun, you'd learn.</tangent>

However, if the question is about making sense of the death of a child as an objective fact, then it's more of a metaphysical question and the first idea that comes up for me is karma. I've always wondered about the karma of people who die in infancy or in group disasters like plane crashes.

Contemplating karma is partly about making sense, joining point A to point B. My basic statement on karma is: every moment is a moment of karma manifestation; every moment is a moment of karma creation. This is because that was, that will be because this is. It's not "what comes around goes around".

But what's the sense in the untimely death of an innocent? Someone who hasn't done enough of anything to warrant a "karmic manifestation" of the end of his or her life. Well, that's partly the point. And it's not something anyone can know or be comforted by.

If it's karma, it's from previous lives, something we don't know anything about. Speculative reasons of why a child should die in infancy due to karmic reasons runs in the thousands. All we can do is deal with it in the present tense.

The child had his or her own karma. We have ours. The child died and it hurts like hell, but how we handle ourselves and our own emotions and reactions is also karma. It's not only our own karma, but can influence the child's karma. The effect of the compassion we put out, replacing grief, shouldn't be underestimated. I don't know the effect, but it's a matter of faith.

You lost a child you loved. Don't focus on the lost, but the love.

That's all.

However, I'm still a little intrigued by the wording of the Google search, "unexpected tragedy". What tragedies do we expect? Japan and individual citizens are currently facing a tragedy, was it expected? They expect earthquakes and tsunamis and prepare for them as best as possible. But when it happens, does it matter whether they expected it or not? It's still a tragedy.

And even in our own daily lives we don't know what tragedy might befall us, whether we will receive news of a loved one dying, or dying ourselves. Or an infant child dying. The nature of our human lives has unexpected tragedies assumed.

Whether they manifest or not, Buddhism teaches to prepare for them by looking deeply into the impermanent nature of our human lives. That may not be making sense of it, but rather how to cope.

I've been in an epic internal battle all this week. It still rages in running foot battles. Epic, but not dramatic. I want to say I'm stressed, but I'm not stressed. I want to say I'm not stressed, but I'm stressed.

I'm in an existential space where there are no absolutes. There is no life, no death. There is no suicide, no no suicide. But it has to come down to what I'm going to do on this physical existential plane. Am I here on it? I am on it, and I'm not on it. That's where I've been functioning all this week.

I'm conflicted, but I'm not conflicted. I'm not conflicted, but I'm conflicted.

The next window hasn't opened yet, but it will soon.

I made an overture to my old job.

Even if I make a wondrous life-affirming decision to not commit suicide, . . . um, I'm still gonna die. Living is not an answer to my problem. It doesn't matter whether I live or die, but I still have to make a decision on this physical plane of existence, and even if I decide not to commit suicide, I'm still gonna die. A decision to not commit suicide doesn't mean I'm not gonna die. What the hell is wrong with people condemning suicide when they have no idea what life or death is?

But I'm not concerned with other people. There are no other people. And there are no answers. Just what am I gonna do?

I read "The Alchemist" recently. It was recommended to me. If I had read it a long time ago, it might have had a bigger impact, but at my age it's all old news. Doesn't come close to my metaphysical staples: The Little Prince, Illusions, and The Character of Rain.

Actually, I call The Character of Rain by Amelie Nothomb my favorite metaphysical book that is not about metaphysics, but then I found the original French title is translated The Metaphysics of Tubes, so what do I know?

The French title, I suppose, is a reference to humans as tubes, food going in one end and out the other. The English title is clever because, set in Japan where Nothomb spent her formative years, the Japanese word for rain is pronounced "ame", the first part of her name.

The Alchemist didn't do it for me because I just didn't relate to the main character's journey. It didn't apply to me. Furthermore, elements, metaphors, and story arcs didn't resolve. And finally, the treasure he finds in the end is actual wealth. Arguably non-metaphorical wealth. Follow your heart, follow the omens, and you'll get RICH! Yay! And laid. Bigger Yay.

I joked before that the problem was that no one dies in The Alchemist, but I'm starting to think the greatest richness in life is set against and in conjunction with death. My appreciation of The Little Prince is probably because of the metaphor for death when he "returns to his planet".

Although that is apparently not a metaphor everyone grasps or accepts. Many people seem to miss the importance of that point or interpret in their own way for their own purpose, fair enough. It's regarded as a children's book after all.

My argument is that's why the author is so distraught when the titular character leaves. It's not like he got so attached to the little bugger in such a short period. He's going back to his planet, celebrate and be happy.

No, he's distraught because the Little Prince's "death" is a metaphor for real death. His planet being right above is a metaphor for his time has come. You tell your children he's gone back to his planet, but for adults it's a teaching on death.

And I don't think Illusions would have the same impact without the performance of death presented to hammer in the teaching not to be fooled or affected by appearances.

Even The Character of Rain looks death in the face from the perspective of a 3-year-old, albeit related by Amelie Nothomb as an adult.

It's been a difficult week, and a routine week not having a job or friends or requirements or responsibilities. I listen to my internal demons and internal superman having it out and I don't know what the outcome will be. I'm rooting for my internal superman to help me realize the obvious and what I have to do.

I've had insomnia and I've drowned in sleep within the past few days. Something makes sense in all of this. Something has to come to fruition. I've been lost in enjoying music which is my primary joy these days. I've gotten obsessed in downloading music while realizing I can't get attached to this or it will be the true death of me.

I'm waiting to see what I will do once the window opens again, fully aware I made an overture to my old job.

Harmony (2010, South Korea):



Another blind rental off the shelf at Blockbuster. I literally could have closed my eyes and chosen this for all I knew about it. It turns out it's a straight-out tear-jerking, emotionally manipulative South Korean melodrama. BUT! It's set in a women's prison. AND! It's about a choir in said prison.

Who thinks of these things and how can I get a hold of the drugs they're on?

Having no idea this film was set in a women's prison, it was a bit of surprise at the first frame the film thanks the Korean department of corrections. I don't know if they were thanking them for providing technical assistance or whether it was because they didn't sue the filmmakers for completely misrepresenting what prison life is like in South Korea.

Seriously, if I'm reincarnated in South Korea as a woman, I sure hope I get to kill my spouse and go to prison. Oh, that's one of the ingredients in making up this melodrama casserole: key characters are there because of acts done in self-defense or out of passion. They're not degenerates or sociopaths.

Other ingredients in the recipe include baby born in prison, baby can only stay with mother in prison for 18 months, death penalty . . . and of course the choir.

I think easily the biggest failing in the film for me is how unrealistic prison life is portrayed. I've never been in prison, but I would gather that even in the most lowestest security prison, prisoners aren't allowed to wander around or gather freely and unattended. These women are in the big house for serious felonies. And the film is otherwise littered with things that defy logic or credibility.

Where the film works is that it has good development. There's a definite progression in the plot, and the filmmaker takes care to address how any given character gets from point A to point B. The specific holes in the internal plotline are pretty well plugged. In that way, it was intelligently put together and definitely watchable.

Curiously, as a melodrama, the film doesn't directly address social issues it could have, such as the death penalty, domestic violence against women, incest, stigmas against criminals regardless of the facts, but they are there and a lot of the melodrama is set against that background.

For me, that's what makes this melodrama not only bearable, but effective. It's not a melodrama about love and broken hearts and people doing stupid shit because of it. It's about mother-child relationships, bad decisions, heat of the moment actions, forgiveness, etc.

I was inclined to give this a low fresh rating because it's tear-jerking and emotionally manipulative, but there is actually a little more in this film that makes it worthwhile. I give it a fresh 7 tomatoes.

Penguins in the Sky: The Asahiyama Zoo Story (2009, Japan)

First a movie about a choir in a South Korean women's prison, now a movie about a Japanese ZOO. Oy vey, I need a better way of choosing DVDs. Well, no. It's true that there wasn't much compelling about this one, sitting by its lonesome on the display shelf, but I was hoping for a serendipity. And this story actual had potential if it had been done right.

The story could've been a good one about the state of decline into which the Asahiyama Zoo fell, and how through ingenuity, forward-thinking and innovation, they were able to revive the zoo to become one of the most popular zoos in Japan – way off the beaten path, too, on the northernmost island of Hokkaido.

The film should have been an uplifting one about transformation and determination and thinking out of the box, but instead it gets convoluted in the little scenes of the zookeepers amongst themselves and with the animals, and totally forgets that larger story arc. More than an hour into the movie and I was waiting for them to get to what is special about the zoo. Why should I care? It looks like no one else does.

And the little scenes of the zookeepers are not particularly compelling. I'd say they're downright boring. The dialogue is incredibly mundane and the characters aren't compelling, nor is the chemistry between them. The scene where they come up with the ideas for which the zoo is now famous is brushed over and not particularly inspiring or clever. I'm no screenwriter, but that scene begs to be a turning point, they even gave it a God's eye view, but then it fizzles.

From both storytelling and filmmaking perspectives, I think this film just lost its way. The portrayal of the relationship between the zoo and the public is extremely myopic and makes no sense. The filmmaker panders to the insular scenes within the zoo to bad effect. The seasons are messily handled and jump back and forth until you have no idea how much time is being spanned.

And it seems to be suggested that all it took was money to turn the zoo into a world-class attraction. They secure the money from the mayor against all odds and suddenly we're getting scenes of the exhibits being built, the actual zoo and huge crowds and lines.

And the most interesting part of the film for me was the shots of the successful zoo today. Even the real footage run during the credits was more interesting. They probably should've made a documentary. I hate to do this to the animals, who are excellent in the film, but I give this a rotten 4 tomato rating. It's not completely beyond redemption, but I'm not even sure to whom I would recommend it.

Both days of this weekend hit temperatures in the 70s. I don't know what that is in Celsius. Nice degrees Celsius.

Both days I took my bike out, but it being the weekend, I figured I wouldn't be able to do the 20-mile fitness sprints that I've been doing because there would be too many people crowding the riverside bikeways. I was right, so tried to think quick of an alternate ride to do. I don't know what I was thinking yesterday, but it occurred to me to start training on hills.

Last year was a bad hill year. I trained up to them like usual, but when I tried my first real climb – Jiuzhuang Street 舊莊街 in the southern hills of Xizhi 汐止, just east of Taipei – I couldn't do it. I abandoned twice before I finally struggled all the way up on my granny gear and going back and forth across the road on steeper sections. I never got comfortable with hills last year. I attribute it to alcohol.

But guldarn it if the 20-mile sprints I've been doing on any nice day through the winter weren't of great, wonderous benefit! I guess I shouldn't be surprised, it's certainly better than not riding at all for 3 or 4 months.

I was able to ride a handful of days in December, with my winter riding gear comprising a long-sleeve microfiber under my cycling jersey. In January, I missed the one day that was rideable because I ... was drunk. And February has been great. I can't even count how many times I did the sprint or a variation of it.

Yesterday as I approached the first incline leading up to one of my training hills – they go up, but not steep, not long, and not high – I had an 'oh shit' moment thinking I wasn't ready for this. Training hill or not, vertical is still vertical; gravity is still gravity. As I made my way up, though, I thought I could just abandon if it got too hard. Then I realized I was having no problem with this. No granny gear.

As I approached the the top of the climb, I was mildly pleased at how unabandonable the climb was. I passed someone on a mountain bike at the crest of the climb and headed down the other side into Shenkeng 深坑 and had a snack of stinky tofu 臭豆腐, which is what Shenkeng is famous for. For good reason, too. I'm not a huge fan of 臭豆腐, but it was rilly, rilly good.

Today I went out again and did another training climb which is usually my first of the season because it's the easiest, even easier than yesterday. It goes up Chongde Street 崇德街 through Fudekeng 福德坑, where the cemeteries are concentrated. Dead people are given the best views in Chinese culture.

Again no problem going up and I went down on the Muzha side and as long as I was there, I made yet another detour to Shenkeng for stinky tofu. Shit is goooood. From there I wanted to avoid anymore hills in case my luck runs out, and stayed on the flat Jingmei riverside bikeway back into Taipei.

I passed by where I used to live and was amazed to find that on a section of the Jingmei River where there was previously a quarter mile break in the riverside bikeway, and where I had surmised couldn't be connected . . . they had connected it. It was amazing. I can't say that it was pretty, but they made the bikeways contiguous! I was amazed.

It almost makes up for the fact that the Taipei Flower Expo which started last November and lasts until April blocks off a significant portion of riverside bikeway on the south bank of the Keelung River. Pisses me off.

I think last year set a precedent that the first real climb of any season will be Jiuzhuang, section 2 in Xizhi. Not that I plan to be in Taiwan past this year. Not that I plan to be alive past next month but probably will and end up in New Jersey. I think I'll tackle it later this week if weather holds.

I'm not comfortable with this window being temporarily shut. It puts me on edge. It reminds me it's my age-old pattern of putting this off for specific time increments and that always leads to not doing anything. Not doing it.

And I might not do it, but I have to at least try. But if I suspicion I'm not going to do it, I might as well set forth the plan, go stand at the precipice, decide I'm not going to do it and then come home, put on a pot of coffee, pay my bills and slog on. Why wait a month in order to not do something?

My brother gave me an opening to go back to New Jersey. But moving back to the U.S. is something I just don't have the strength for unless I get this attempt out of the way. I can't even imagine changing apartments at this point. What's the point?

But for all I know the next failed attempt may just get me to ask for my job back at the Post. The hermit ideal, why can't I just be satisfied? Just settle here and move from day to day and stop chasing. I know I've considered this before, and it just doesn't happen like that. I know that much.

It's been a year since I quit my job. The world hasn't come forth and offered me anything indicating it wants me to stay. It's been a hell a lot longer than a year that the world has not given me any indication it wants me to stay.

I know, it's not the world's responsibility to come forth and indicate it wants me to stay. Fair 'nuff.

It's up to ourselves to find our way and reason to stay. My damn point is that I don't want to stay. Every day I look at people and I wonder why they are doing what they're doing. I can't think of one of their reasons that could be my reason. If the world doesn't want me to stay, and I don't want to stay, then I'm just a fucking idiot for still being here. It's that simple.

As I've said before, I've been suicidal ever since I learned about the concept. Suicide. What's that? It's when you kill yourself. ...You can do that?! I think my introduction to the concept had something to do with Japan. Kamikaze? Bushido code? Yukio Mishima's "Spring Snow"?

A lot has changed through the years, though, the least of which has been my motivation. In the early years, even I admit that my reasons were bad ones. But aside from reasons and motivations, it's gotten to the point that the very definition has changed, and A) suicide is no longer the killing of the self; and B) no matter how I die, I will personally consider it suicide. All of this I've discussed before.

What I would like, and I don't know if I have the station to make this claim, is that my suicide be as an offering. One that benefits me and the people who are vaguely around me. I'll even go so far as to arrogantly offer it as a teaching. Even if it's not appreciated by them. I don't feel it's arrogant, but others may interpret it as much if I said it as such.

I don't want to be here. No one has given any indication they want me to be here except in the most general, mundane, spare-them-the-suffering-of-"losing"-someone way. If they wanted me to be here otherwise, then they should have given some indication.

They didn't, so I think I'm safe in saying no one is concerned about my being here. If they were concerned, then they're the idiots for not indicating as such. The value in my death is that it wouldn't rock anyone's world, but it would still stand as a symbol that shit happens. I can live with that.

No one has the right to be substantively affected by my dying. I was affected by Ritu's death, but I didn't have the right to be substantively affected by it. I was affected by her death, and then it went away and I can't conjure the feeling I had when I got the news no matter how I try. However, she did have people who were substantively affected by her death, I'm sure.

No one has the right to be substantively affected by my death. Not even my parents. Especially my parents. They're the ones who need to learn something. For them, this would be rapping their knuckles with a ruler. That's all they deserve from my dying, but otherwise they have little rights.

random bits and pieces

Fuck, no, today is not happening. Not that there's anything wrong with it, just bring me tomorrow.

Window is temporarily closed for about a month, but that's a pile a shit. I've got my fingers on the pulse of every day. Again. That's also a pile of shit. And this window is a pile of shit, too. Something's going to thwart this, too. I'm enjoying listening to music way too much to not be distracted and attached to it to a fault.

Six hours yesterday with iPod earbuds in was not sensible and was too much. Don't do that again. Hearing in my right ear is patchy today and even computer speakers volume up hurts a little. And I notice the missing frequencies.

I'm not worried about my hearing, it's pretty good about recovering. If, however, noticeable hearing loss became permanent, I don't think I'd complain. Complaining would be stupid. I was a musician and I used to be concert-going, and despite protecting my ears, there's only so far that goes. Hearing loss is expected. It's payment for what I enjoyed.

The extended music listening yesterday was because I sat planted in the bookstore finishing reading "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho on several people's recommendations. Good, but of this metaphysical genre, I still like "The Little Prince" and "Illusions" better. No one dies in "The Alchemist". Well, there's your problem!

Yesterday I also had a "Dude! Where's my denim jacket?!" moment. How the fuck do you lose a denim jacket? Did it fall off while I was walking down the street? (somehow this made more sense than the possibility that I left it somewhere accidentally). But I backtracked my steps from the day before and recovered it from a pizzeria (Napoli on Bade Rd.), including camera, although the photos had been perused. They got bored when they reached my Hualien shots. Fair 'nuff.

Two things: I was totally surprised I recovered it. I expected it to be a loss. Two: in the U.S., even if I recovered the jacket, the camera would've been gone. Taiwan:2, U.S.: 0. And three: I wasn't that drunk.

And four: On one of my previous digital cameras, I took a picture of my contact information with a message of compensation for return of the camera. I don't know if it would work, but maybe I should do that again. Or not. I just don't care anymore.

I still don't "get" the seasons in Taiwan. Taipei, rather. Growing up in New Jersey and college in Ohio, the four seasons were well-defined, and I eventually realized I didn't have a favorite season, I just loved the change of seasons. Each transition was wonderful and lovely in its own way.

San Francisco had three seasons, although one was split in two. Summer was the foggy season. You could always tell who the tourists were in the summer because they were wearing shorts and t-shirts. And shivering. Spring and autumn were the nice season – nice temps, sunny skies. Winter was the rainy season.

But Taipei, I still don't get. Winters are cool, if not downright cold, and during the winters I can't imagine that Taipei could be a hot place. And that's what it is during the summer. Sweltering hot. Oppressive hot. Hot that makes me balk at going on rides at midday.

But during the summer heat, I can't imagine that in winter bundling up and heaters are required. Taipei doesn't make sense to me and I have no sense about when or how the transitions occur. I just know that summers are fucking hot, which I adore, and winters are nasty cold and rainy and mold grows everywhere.

If I gave Taipei another five years, I might start to understand it, but, inshah'allah, I'm not going to give Taipei another five fucking years.

I think I just condemned myself to another five years in Taipei. Well if so be it, bring me wenches!!

5:38 p.m. - BaDe Rd., sec. 4

part deux

I've never read anything about anything like this, but I wonder whether the recent Korea fetish I've developed over the past five years might be something like "future life resonances". Akin to and opposite past life resonances I've written about before, whereby people who believe in it might muse about past lives based on current life patterns, habits and characteristics.

Quirks about me that I can't explain have led me to wonder if I was Japanese in my previous life. My cousin Audrey thinks so. She also has an affinity towards Japan, and she even thinks we were a couple there in a past life. In Kyoto, apparently, although my spidey-sense is not quite that particular (and mind you I find a lot of what my cousin says as suspect). I also think it's possible that in some previous life I was a Native American tracker in the southwestern desert of the U.S.

Those sort of quirks are distinguishable from characteristics that do have an explainable basis in this lifetime, like my love of music or being a musician. It's possible that it's from a previous life, but my affinity towards music could have developed logically and naturally in the course of my experience in this life. I have no particular sense that it came from somewhere else, that it's extraordinary. Unless you count that I come from a decidedly unmusical family. Music wasteland.

This Korean thing came out of nowhere and had a definite start – asking Hyun Ae to make me a mix of Korean music she liked – which snowballed into an unreasonable affinity towards many other aspects of Korean culture, which outlasted and surpasses anything Hyun Ae may have been about.

The strangest and most uncharacteristic thing, of course, is K-pop, which I would have rather choked to death on than listen to when I was younger. It boggles my mind, and no matter what excuses I make or try to make it palatable for other people to give it a listen, it's still pop music. And other people who hate pop music also aren't convinced. I've lost a lot of music cred over K-pop, I shouldn't wonder.

Another thing is I've read that through the death bardos, as described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and related literature and commentary, that in the early stages of the bardos, we have more association with the body and life that we just left. The habit mind of the existence we just left is still fresh and strong, so whatever disembodied impression or consciousness there is, it's related through that.

But as we progress through the bardos and still don't attain enlightenment or realization or whatever and head towards another round of samsara in a brand-spankin' new life, we have more of an association with our life-to-be, our future life.

So I wonder whether there might be an analogy at the end of the life bardos whereby we start experiencing things that may be resonant of things regarding our future life. As with past life resonances, sensitivity and inquiry is required to spot them. 

Stranger things have happened. Of course, there's this outrageous assumption that I'm at the tail end of my current life. I'm not going to die for the theory, but I'd have to die sooner rather than later for this theory to have even a drop of being in the realm of the credible.

Post-ited Sogyal Rinpoche:

Sometimes I think that the greatest achievement of modern culture is its brilliant selling of samsara and its barren distractions. Modern society seems to me a celebration of all the things that lead away from the truth, make truth hard to live for, and discourage people from even believing that it exists. And to think that all this springs from a civilization that claims to adore life, but actually starves it of any real meaning; that endlessly speaks of making people "happy," but in fact blocks their way to the source of real joy. - The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

I'm pretty sure that first sentence is a rare occurrence of sarcasm in the book.

Contemplating deeply on the secret message of impermanence - what lies in fact beyond impermanence and death - leads directly to the heart of the ancient and powerful Tibetan teachings: the introduction to the essential "nature of mind". Realization of the nature of mind, which you could call our innermost essence, that truth we all search for, is the key to understanding life and death. For what happens at the moment of death is that the ordinary mind and its delusions die, and in that gap the boundless sky-like nature of our mind is uncovered. This essential nature of mind is the background to the whole of life and death, like the sky, which folds the whole universe in its embrace. – Sogyal Rinpoche, "Tibetan Book of Living and Dying"

I mentioned before I read this book at Borders bookstore in New Jersey, but recently I bought it here in Taiwan, so this is my book with my own "annotations". I don't highlight in books anymore. I used to. But I too often found that when I went back to look at my highlights, I didn't really get why I highlighted certain passages in the first place.

So now I use post-its at the edge of the page where I find passages that are noteworthy. The benefit is that instead of leading me directly to something I might have noted before, I only know the general paragraph that inspired me before, but to get it, I might need to read a bit before or a bit after and look for what I thought was noteworthy.

Anyway, having finished this book, I'm going back to what I post-ited, and having no doubt about why.

Tais Toi Mon Coeur (Dionysos):


Last month I linked a video in a fotolog post and one of my contacts, a total stranger, responded with an interest in the artist, so I offered to send her copies of the CDs of hers that I was planning to buy at that time because I had seen they were on sale.

It was a Japanese singer named UA. I don't know how big she is in Japan, but I don't think she's as big as names like Salyu and Chara. I thought there was a good chance she might be difficult to find in France.

In return, this mademoiselle sent me three CDs of popular music in France. The above video is one of the bands I've quite taken to, but I really like everything she sent. Another band is called Noir Désir, who is apparently France's premier rock band - the equivalent of what I call Southern All-Stars in Japan. Pretty much everyone who knows anything about music knows their name.



The third CD she sent was just a mix of some of her favorite songs, not limited to French music. The first song I recognized was "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Donovan, which I don't have in my collection, but then I wondered whether there would be anything on the CD that I already did have in my collection.

I was totally floored when the one song she included that I do have in my collection is a Kristin Hersh song (Your Ghost)!  OK fine, I know that doesn't mean anything to anyone, but Throwing Muses is one of my top five favorite bands of all time. Kristin Hersh's expression has gotten me through a lot of hard times.

I've seen Throwing Muses or Kristin Hersh live every chance I could get. It's an emotional connection that I'm not alone in. We TM/KH fans are a rabidly loyal bunch. We LOVE Kristin. Also David, Bernard and Tanya, but especially Kristin, I think.

Good ol' mix CD music exchanges. I'm totally into exchanging entire music libraries on external hard drives with people, but as Tako said, "I only have two ears!". It can be tiring sludging through entire music collections, and friendly CDs therein have the advantage.

Sending things through the post is also a nice novelty in this digital age. Of course, I'm ripping these CDs onto iTunes, but it's still nice to have these physical CDs. Someone took the care enough to go through the effort to make and send them.

part uno:

I just finished reading a book at the bookstore called The Secret Lives of the Dalai Lama. It's not meant to be a comprehensive, academic, scholarly investigation into the institution of the Dalai Lama, but it's well-researched and annotated and written in an anecdotal manner that makes it an easy and fascinating read.

It traces through all the information and history the author could find related to all the past Dalai Lamas, and also goes into pre-Dalai Lama Tibetan tradition that laid the foundation for the creation or discovery of the institution.

I'm not a literary type, so I think that's the extent I can pretend to say anything about the book as a book. But it's a great book for anyone interested in Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism or the Dalai Lama. It will help demystify the Dalai Lama and a lot of misconceptions Westerners may have about what he is.

There's plenty of room for skepticism surrounding finding reincarnations of a particular person, even if it's purportedly a highly realized person, especially when it's in a country or region that undergoes as much political strife and turmoil as anywhere else in the world.

It had me wondering where I fit into the Dalai Lama institution. That thought popped into my head as a joke, but part of me sensed that I was serious. It wasn't just a thought, but also a feeling. Where do I fit into the Dalai Lama institution?

If I believe in these teachings or this philosophy, then I believe in reincarnation, so there must be certain mechanics behind it in the natural world for why it happens. It has to be explained as something naturally occurring, or else it's just religious dogma. It shouldn't be explained or understood as some mystical, magical occurrence.

And as a natural phenomena, albeit one that can't be directly observed, it must happen to everyone. With stories of high profile reincarnations like the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama, etc., there may be a little bit of feeling that it happens only to them, or rather that it's only important in regard to highly realized people like them.

But for ordinary people like me, it doesn't matter, it's like it doesn't happen. No one's going to look for my reincarnation and I will have no idea who I was, so why bother. Just develop good karma and hope for a good rebirth.

I don't think that way, I've always tried to intuit how certain aspects of the way I am now may be sourced in past life karmic resonances, even if I'll never know anything about a past incarnation. As a person, I'm as far away from who I was in a past incarnation as I am from, say, my next door neighbor or someone in Lithuania.

Completely different people. If I could meet a past life incarnation, I'd be interested in talking to him or her to try to get some insight into me now, but as a person, I might not even like the person.

Other possibly helpful anecdotes are that there are countless highly realized lamas whose reincarnations aren't sought after or found. They just continue on their spiritual path without being identified with whatever great lama in the past.

Also the 6th Dalai Lama, following the "Great Fifth", rebelled against his station and never fully ordained as a monk and famously spent much time drinking and singing and spending nights in brothels. Tibetans never doubted he was the Dalai Lama, but in no way did he live a spiritual life.

Under the theory of reincarnation, however, he still carried the karma, and many people will argue that many of his songs and poems about love are in fact spiritual references (much like in the poetry of Rumi).

Personally, it sounds to me like one of two possibilities. One is that the Great Fifth intended to take a break and live and enjoy a secular life next before resuming his work, and indeed the seventh Dalai Lama is one of the most highly regarded.

Or the behavior of the sixth may be accountable by how he was found and raised. The fifth wanted his death to be kept secret for something like 14 years in order for the construction of the Potala Palace to be completed.

So the sixth was found in secret and kept in isolation for much of his childhood. He and his family weren't even told that he had been identified as the next Dalai Lama, much less entered into a prestigious monastery for spiritual training expected for the Dalai Lama.

So by the time the cat was let out of the bag, his personality was already formed and it hadn't been inculcated into him from an early age that he was the Dalai Lama, and if it were today, I imagine him being slightly bemused and saying, "Dude, cool."

Finally, I read somewhere that a Tibetan lama had identified Steven Seagal as the reincarnation of some high-ranking lama. He clarified that it doesn't mean Seagal is anyone special aside from a major action movie star because he hadn't spent his life dedicated to study and meditation, but he was, in fact, the reincarnation of so-and-so lama, for whatever that is worth, which is likely not much.

So all this, I gather, is why I wonder where I fit into the Dalai Lama institution. Maybe because, if you believe this stuff, we all are part of the "Dalai Lama institution", because it's not the Dalai Lama institution. It's just the natural process of reincarnation.

I met with my old Mandarin teacher for a language exchange today for the first time in three weeks because of the Lunar New Year holidays. I haven't seen anyone except passing strangers for three weeks. I'm willing to testify that will fuck up your ability to socially relate.

My cousin says she'll be in Taipei on Tuesday with an entourage and wondered if I could join them. I think she has an ulterior motive, so I'm reluctant. I'm a reluctant baby sitter, that is. When she calls on Tuesday, I need to ask how I'm going to be fed, and that will determine whether I meet them or not.

Soreness has returned to my lower back area and I'm no doc, but I dare imagine that my liver and kidneys are under stress. Two days between buying bottles of liquor are my norm, but I recently had to force myself to stretch it out to two days. The choice is mine to cut back against the trend towards drinking more. I really don't want to leave a body, so if there's that risk, I need to get my act together and stop procrastinating and downloading k-pop.

Torn. It's a funny relationship I have with alcohol, and it occurred to me today that it might be alcohol that is keeping me here day to day. It's when I manage to not drink for extended periods of time that I most deeply reflect on why I'm still here when I don't want to be, and it's compelling. The window open right now is still pretty perfect.

And I get very, very conflicted when I even consider continuing on (and that's before any realization of how much money I have in my bank account. I've never had no money, and unless I go back to the Post, that's where I'm headed in 2 to 3 months or so, I haven't done the math).

Recently, if I manage to not drink for any extended period of time, I end up trying to be productive in any number of random endeavors in which I like to partake, but then I stop and end up staring into space wondering what I'm still doing here. And I have my answers, but they're all shallow and inconsequential. The only thing that makes sense is to manifest what this whole blog thing is supposed to be documenting.

On the other hand, if I get sucked into drinking too soon in a day which just leads to more drinking, it sort of just numbs and washes things out and suddenly tomorrow is here. Of course, the ridiculous irony is that this kind of drinking will have to kill me eventually, too. Or not, I am pretty convinced I won't die of alcohol-related liver/kidney failure.

I also realize that one major revision for my next attempt is NO ALCOHOL until the actual execution. I'm pretty convinced it was alcohol that thwarted the last attempt and the last one in San Francisco. If I go through with it, I have to be lucid and it has to follow a day of mindfulness and meditation, and the elements of the execution need to be as concise as pulling a trigger.

Lunar New Year came and went. Another year turned over. I seriously don't want to keep doing what I've been doing the last year. In fact, whenever I head out of my apartment and realize I'm still doing the exact same thing in the exact same patterns that I have for the last year, it's not good. It's not alright.

And I still strangely remind myself that I recognize that I believe this is all a manifestation of some karma. I don't need to do this, to play out this karma. There's a separation between my own personal realizations, which looks at my life from the outside and says I don't need to do this and this karma, which is where I've led my life and makes doing this logical, comfortable and makes sense.

I don't think I'm particularly attached to doing this, obviously – I'm still here. But when my mind starts processing my personal theory of everything, it just makes sense. Of course if you believe in it, all of this is karma, even the separation, and I do think I'm on a path that has a continuity over multiple lifetimes.

If you believe in reincarnation, the vast majority of people totally forget their previous lives and don't question why they are who they are now. If you do question it, then you realize a certain continuity and that there's a reason why you are the way you are now. You're not the same person, there's not necessarily anything about you now that is like a previous incarnation. The only thing that gets transferred is the ingrained, karmic habits.

So I do think suicide is part of my path. I look ahead and think of the possibility of continuing on and it's not attractive. It's useless to me and to other people. I am of little consequence to anyone else on this planet right now, and my life is that way because of the circumstances of my life and the decisions I've made.

It's time to stop being useless and reboot, and I mentioned before that maybe suicide is a requisite part of the spiritual path, perhaps whatever the motivation. You need it in your karmic DNA the feeling of giving up this precious life before you can really understand what it means to live a life of service to others, and even if you do it because you think your life sucks, I think everyone has it deep within that this life is precious, and the act of suicide still has that imprint of selflessness, of letting go.

The worst part of this is that I just admitted that I get conflicted. I don't know how the story ends. Although, come to think of it, imagining myself in my apartment with absolutely no cash left is . . . pretty funny.

Lunar New Year Day . . . 5: Now it's the real Day 5, what I thought was two days ago.

And it's Monday, so I thought it should be the day that life in Taipei would start getting back to normal. Neighbors started returning yesterday, yay going back to normal. Or not. Apparently not all of them have to go to work today. One was in the kitchen banging around all through morning after-waking-up sitting today.

And I started drinking already, so I don't know if I'll be able to get out for a 20 mile sprint today. Weather still looks good. I didn't go yesterday. Recovery days aren't needed for short rides, but avoid-getting-bored break days are probably wise.

And my 80GB iPod Classic went fetal. I'm trying to fix it even though this iPod is superfluous. That is, I wasn't affected or that much bothered by its pooping out. My iPod shuffle is my main iPod, and at home I can just use iTunes on my computer. I'm still trying to fix it for fixit's sake, which means long stretches of time my laptop is doing something that I'm not involved with, which always make me suspicious what it's up to. I'm doing something called a "low-level format" now. No idea.

Hovering over the laptop and micromanaging each "format error" (no idea) makes it all too tempting and easy to reach over to my right and pour a shot.

The neighbor banging around in the kitchen really didn't bother me, I didn't mean to imply that. Although at one point it almost was disturbing, but not in a normative way. I'm trying to maintain a meditation I've recently come upon. Well, I'm always trying to maintain whatever meditation I've come up with, and rarely am I successful. These things come and go at my mind's behest, and my mind and I don't have the greatest of relationships.

But this recent one seems pretty important, and is grounded upon something a little more concrete and not necessarily driven just by the inspiration of having come across it. It's based on what I mentioned before of focusing on the five senses and how they make up our perspective of reality, and upon isolating and discounting them, there's a better chance of being open to . . . I don't know, whatever. Whatever else there might be that is not constructed from our senses.

I don't know if I'm successfully preparing myself to recognize the inner mind, but it's just what occurs to me, and the 45 minute sitting sessions recently have been virtually timeless. When the timer goes off, I've had no sense of the 45 minutes going by as time.

I've also been visualizing a burning blue-hot flame at the top of my skull to incinerate all constructed conceptual thoughts that flow through my mind. Thoughts, memories, mental progressions and constructions get sent up into the flame as soon as I'm aware of them, and often what I'm left with is just the empty blackness of my eyelids, which although they start slightly open, have closed by then.

Only the black isn't purely black. I wonder if anyone can do this, just close your eyes and you don't just see black, but specks of light and color that move and change. That's what I stop in and just focus on what formations occur, as long as they don't lead to discursive thought. I'll refrain from interpreting it, because at this point I have no reason to believe it is anything but subjective projection, however once I wondered if what I was seeing wasn't a subconscious memory of a past death bardo state.

The banging around in the kitchen didn't bother me, per se. I've been sitting in urban residences for years and you just have to tune out outside noises and distractions. But today it was more of the idea of the disturbance that almost started disturbing me. Like in bardo descriptions where it sometimes feels like being assailed by one thing or another horrible disturbance. It's all subjective and it's a loss of perspective, but if and once you regain it, it's no longer a disturbance. Although it still was a distraction.