Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Right, so what am I doing here? I'm loving the tropical weather. Something just always feels very much like home whenever I'm in it, and in late January it's really, really pleasant. 70 degree temps in the daytime, in the 60s in the morning and nights; just a touch of ubiquitous humidity.

New Jersey is very distant. Deer Park is very distant, but the monastics are just a time zone away in Vietnam. I don't think I'll be able to make it over there to join the monastics for any part of their speaking tour, though. I also brought my two monastic shirt/robes that I'm wearing all the time to remind me of my practice and what I'm doing here. I don't know. When I took the Five Mindfulness Trainings, I didn't ask for a Dharma name to aid me in my practice because I didn't understand what receiving a Dharma name had to do with receiving the trainings. But on this hiatus from the monastery, overseas in Taiwan, wearing monastic clothing is definitely helping keep my focus. It's that identity-defined-by-outside-perception thing. I'm wearing this thing that isn't normal, so when people see me, they may be like, "why the hell is he wearing that?" Why, indeed, and the answer is mine for myself. It helps define my behavior. There are behaviors that are simply inappropriate while I'm wearing this.

At the monastery it doesn't matter what I wear. Even in the U.S. it doesn't matter because the clothing doesn't mean anything to anyone there. But here, even though people might not definitely identify this as monastic clothing, my perception of them is that they might get that sense since this is a culturaly Buddhist society. So it's my perception of their perception of me. Hm, why can't I just say it's my perception of myself then?

Anyway, as long as I'm here I'll be visiting temples and monasteries just to have a broader perspective of this religious institution, even though the institutional aspect doesn't interest me at all. The broader perspective of it may be important. There are a lot of resources online, and once I look more into them, my uncle and cousin can help with suggestions on how to visit them. Maybe even stay at some if they have retreats.

My cousin's husband is a computer geek and so their house is wireless. I'm telling you, this wireless thing is totally rad!