Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Postponed my trip to Taipei to next week at the last minute because it looked like my cousin was in particularly bad shape; exceptional circumstances. She said she was on the verge of coming down with a fever, and she also had to go to the doctor again in the afternoon because of a medical condition she came down with (and neglected) in the last two weeks. I already took her to the doctor, so I had reason to believe this was serious. Turns out it was business as usual, no fever, no doctor, and as bad as she looked, she looks like that about half the time I go over to see her anyway. Usually because the kids tag-team to keep her up all night.

It wouldn't cross my cousin's mind to intentionally, consciously disrupt my plans to keep me around. Unconsciously, I wouldn't put it past her. Mind you, the decision not to go was completely, utterly my decision, and I wasn't going to hear two ways about it. And mind you, I am very glad and relieved that my cousin didn't come down with a fever and her condition didn't require a second visit to the doctor. Still, when I place a lot of effort into planning something, especially something practice-related, and it gets disrupted, my mind still reacts. Negatively.

So as the day progressed and I realized that everything was normal and my cousin was even happy, the feeling came up that I disrupted my plans for nothing. It wasn't for nothing, but I violated my own principle to not disrupt my plans for my cousin - especially plans that are practice related. I knew my mind was going to spiral into negativity, and for the rest of the afternoon, all my energy went into preventing it.

From the outside, it may have looked like I was closing off a bit, I was quieter, not as responsive, not as present, but it was steeling mental reinforcements to contain the negativity. A lot of energy went into actively clearing and stilling my mind, because if I let my mind move and start thinking, it would move quickly into negativity. It had nothing to do with my cousin, it had nothing to do with not going to Taipei or disrupting my plans or my practice. There was an outside stimuli that tripped the negativity wire in my mind, and all it was about was the negativity and dealing with it.

At one point when we were with her kids in the park, I was struggling with the negativity, stripping away the outside forms of it - feelings, blame - that are illusory and will pass - they will not be issues in a few days time - and I was confronted once more with the iron core edifice of my negativity, staring at it, wondering what to do about it, thinking I had to transform this core. Then one of Thich Nhat Hahn's terms came to me - transformation at the base. Transformation at the core, it's the same thing. I might want to look into what he's had to say about that, maybe even read his book with that title, although I think it's a book of verse.

Anyway, today I'm going to mostly keep for myself. I won't avoid my cousin, and I might even go over later for a short while, but today is for me to walk in the nearby mountains and sit in a nearby temple:

Yuan Heng Temple:


This isn't even a Zen temple, but it has a central public location where anyone can come in and practice in whatever school they're familiar with. That, I think, is the biggest flaw of every "Zen" temple/monastery that I've seen in Taiwan and Japan. At the heart of the public life of every Zen temple should be a place where the public can come in and do sitting or walking meditation. The public should not be met with this: