Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
I would like to start including some daily schedules as well as happinesses of the day in this blog, once I can get more disciplined and focused about them.

5:35 – woke up
5:52 – morning sitting
6:45 – Touching the Earth (prostrations)
7:00 – morning exercise: jogging around the Meditation Hall.
7:30 – walking meditation down to Clarity Hamlet for Day of Mindfulness
8:00 – breakfast in Clarity
8:30 – walked back up to Solidity Hamlet with J*ost, Robin, Sarah, and Eric to have coffee in the tea room and wait for Eric to pack up and to see him off.
9:30 – Skipped the first Dharma Talk in Clarity waiting for Eric.
10:15 – Bid farewell to Eric, and afterwards continued reading in the tea room. Chatted with Norman, paid for three weeks worth of staying here, and put a package in the mail.
11:00 – walked down to Clarity to catch the second Dharma Talk, only to arrive at the very end of it.
12:30 – informal lunch at Clarity
1:15 – returned to Solidity Hamlet to read and nap in the tea room.
2:30 – arrived late at the laypeople Dharma sharing outside the big Meditation Hall. Contributed a bit about death (someone else brought it up and no one else was responding to it, so I did).
3:35 – went for a walk which turned into a hike into an unknown area, triggering my personal emergency alert rating system, which I use to gauge the level I should be panicking, since I don’t naturally panic very well. It reached level one, and almost reached level two before I reached a safe area.
5:35 – returned to monastery
6:07 – dinner (spaghetti! Yay!)
Rest of the evening: hang out in tea room and socialized with guest Dustin, a professional speed skater/cyclist from Calgary.

Happinesses of the Day:
- During the hike, getting to the top of a climb, standing on the topmost rocks and seeing the trail on the other side that I needed to see to start feeling I wasn’t going to be lost or stuck for hours on the dark, cold desert mountain until the moon rose. It was a huge relief, but it was definitely ebullient happiness, too, even though I wasn’t completely out of the woods yet.
- Spaghetti for dinner! (food here is mostly Vietnamese, so spaghetti is a treat)
- Feeling of Winter in the night air. It’s cold, just not freezing. The feeling is one of beautiful emptiness and loneliness.

At the top of the climb, although I was worried about getting to familiar ground before dark, I still had the lack of sense to appreciate the scenery.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Happinesses of the Day:
No, no happiness of today. It was a good day, but my practice is getting to be a struggle. It may be an offshoot of getting overwhelmed by the retreat. Yesterday’s Lazy Day, I was on cooking detail (meals are the only things scheduled for Lazy Day, and it’s just unluck of the draw if you end up on cooking detail), so I didn’t get any recharge from yesterday.

All day today I was trying to refocus myself on my practice. Even having fun with J*ost and Robin I notice is a distraction. After four weeks here and getting a little comfortable with the day to day, I need to recommit myself to the practice and be careful not to fall into mindlessly living here in this peace.

Today I may have also been preoccupied by the news I heard yesterday that Thich Nhat Hanh’s trip to Vietnam is back on! I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it already, but Thich Nhat Hanh was exiled from his homeland in 1966 because of his peace efforts during the war. Working for peace meant that both sides considered him an enemy – you know, if you’re not for us, you’re against us (where have I heard that before?). But in the past year, there have been steps and gestures for his return and finally a plan. Then I think there was a groundswell of interest by the Vietnamese people and the government started getting scared, so they tried limiting where he could go, how many people he could speak to (audience-wise), and what he could talk about, and Thich Nhat Hanh declined and the trip was cancelled. Then the government conceded and I don’t know what the terms are, but now the trip is back on and they’re (supposedly) going from January 9, 2005 to the middle of April.

Most of the Deer Park monastics are going, about 75% of the monks and half the nuns. I’m patiently waiting to hear what my options are, but it’s something that’s looming. The monastics I’m sure haven’t discussed what my options will be, and I can’t even project what they might be. I do know that my money will fall below a critical level during the period they’re away, and this is me being practical, not neurotic. So if the news is a source of distraction, I think it’s somewhat reasonable. Although as something out of my control and will manifest when it’s time, I should be able to be not distracted by it. OOOOOOMMMMM. Sorry, that OM was more sarcastic than it was meant to be.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Thanksgiving Retreat
I’m exhausted. Worn down. I’m so glad this weekend’s Thanksgiving Retreat is over. Nothing bad, nothing really negative, just that I let it all catch up with me. On Thursday, Thanksgiving, we had a community day that we call “Day of Mindfulness” when families and practitioners come up to enjoy being at the monastery, and the afternoon activity was making hundreds of eggrolls that get hand delivered to the monastery’s neighbors, who are pretty good about the traffic the monastery generates. They do it every year and the neighbors apparently appreciate it.



So I was already tired by the time retreatants started arriving steadily on Friday. The sudden influx of people made me want to withdraw, but I had to help out with hospitality, walking people to their rooms and chatting to get them in the relaxed mode of the monastery.

Saturday:
Saturday was predictably a bit of a madhouse. Morning sitting in the Meditation Hall was guided to accommodate people who were new-ish to the practice, so one of the monks would speak every five to ten minutes. It was morning sitting lite, but the change in energy with so many people was nice. Meals were minor ordeals, but things went smoothly with two Dharma talks in the morning and mass walking meditation. I chatted with some people, but you don’t get good conversations out of weekend retreatants. In fact, one one-sided conversation was damn near excruciating, but once I realized this person just wanted to talk and talk and talk, I just let him. I realized I didn’t have a pressing need to contribute to the conversation, inject ego, and if he enjoyed talking, I was happy just listening.

Saturday night, though, I finally shut down. After dinner, we had a “be in” in the dining hall, a fun community time with skits and songs. I withdrew. At first, I withdrew by joining the kitchen clean-up crew. Then I stood off on the sides, munching on ginger snaps and mint oreos. Then I finally left, having completely lost my mindfulness. Everyone was having fun, it was a party, it felt good, a respectful space to share and express. But it wasn’t home, so I left. I’m always searching for that feeling of home. I need to be more aware of that always searching for that feeling of home. The friends, the company, the music, the activity, the place, myself. Always: is this home? This monastery and monastic community feels like home. But not all the time.

Today:
Most everyone left, and I’m relieved. All the energy that built up from having so many people up here got released.

Happinesses of the day:
- clear, cool, crisp dawn, walking to morning sitting, after a night of pouring rain
- walking up some steps to the dining hall, I paused when I heard a bell because that’s what we do at this monastery. An older nun behind me, not hearing the bell, not knowing why I stopped, and thinking I was a nun, put her hands on my butt because I was blocking her way. A senior monk was right behind her. I like that nun, she’s funny, and we had a good laugh about it.
- Thinking about the song “Secret World” from the “Secret World Live” DVD during walking meditation.
- Horsing around with Brother H*i and (flirting with?) Natalie, a “regular”.
- Hearing that guest Jennifer will be trying to come up for a week long visit within the next few weeks. Good conversations usually happen with week-long guests.
- J*ost (pronounced ‘Yoast’) and Robin, a couple from Holland who frequent Plum Village and Deer Park. They’re here for a couple more weeks, and I have feeling they might be listed as a happiness every day until they leave.
- Running the Engellman Oak trail bathed in orange sunset light.
- avocados, omelet eggs, and rice

Older Vietnamese women telling me what to do also makes me lose my mindfulness. There's one here that has a penchant for ordering people, including me, around. And her English is a quarter decent, so I can't pretend like I can't understand her. Finally, when she told me to do something, I mindfully told her I would bring it up as a work item for working meditation. She's laying off for now.

Funny, though, that I have no problem with younger Vietnamese women telling me what to do. Meow *reconsidering monasticism*.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

The key word in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition is “mindfulness”. We practice mindfulness and live mindfully. That means everything we do is done consciously and with appreciation. Some people go through entire days mindlessly and without a thought to what a gift this life is. When a pain in our legs hampers our walking, then we pay attention to our legs and our walking, but when our legs are healthy, we don’t pay any attention to them. They just work for us like they were our slaves. When our lungs are healthy, we don’t pay attention to our breathing, but if you have had asthma, you know what it’s like not being able to take breathing for granted. The starting point of the training here is that not even walking and breathing are taken for granted, and mindful walking and mindful breathing are the very start of the training.

But the training here is practice, not perfection, and I’ve seen what some monks are working on. One monk from England had a six members of his family visit, and he got so preoccupied with making sure everything was just right for them that he was flustered and distracted. Jokes were completely lost on him because his mind was somewhere other than the present moment, obsessing about things he had no control over. You can’t really fault him, family will do that to you, but it was interesting watching it.

Another monk who used to be a Roman Catholic priest is aware of what he’s working on, that he needs to “let it go!” He’s a control freak when there’s a job to get done, and I saw him in action on community work day. All that week prior, I had been working pleasantly in mindfulness side by side with him, sanding and sealing the new wood of the Meditation Hall. But when a lot of people were there and control was necessary and directions had to be given, I had to shut him out and do my own thing, or else I would have been caught in his habit energy. It was like he was a completely different person.

For me, it’s money issues that make me lose my mindfulness, so I know what it’s like. I probably put too much concern into whether or not Earthlink didn’t charge me after I cancelled internet service. And I noticed my thoughts going wiggy when I found out I had to pay the full guest price at the monastery until I was officially accepted as an aspirant. The rest of my afternoon was filled with thoughts about my bank account getting low and figuring out at what point I’d have to leave and still have a comfortable margin to figure out what to do next. It became an assumption that I’d be leaving. It was the end of any thoughts of being an aspirant. The money was going to run out and I had to leave well before that happened.

The train of thought itself was damage done. The thoughts were like dominoes falling, and even though I recognized what was going on and started countering it right away, I know I’m still repairing thought damage. I think the guy who runs the office (not a monastic) was uncomfortable bringing the topic of payment up with me, and there may be reasons why he might have thought it would be a touchy subject. But the first thing I started doing was making him comfortable, our acquaintance wasn’t going to be compromised, if I have to pay, I’ll pay.

So I have my sights on the issue, but there are a lot of feelings associated with money issues that I can’t control. Part of me is doing a mantra like “let it go!”, but mine is “let the money run out”. Let go of the money. Go ahead, hit rock bottom. Screw fiscal responsibility! And once I do that, I can be more comfortable with the calculations, knowing some decision will be made before I do actually hit rock bottom. Either I’ll leave here with just barely enough buffer to get started in secular life again, or I’ll stay and it won’t matter if I run out of money. Of course, at some unknown point, I’m supposed to be declared an aspirant, at which point I wouldn’t have to pay further. But all of this is theory, and I know money is still a hard issue for me.

The irony is that my parents worked constantly, neglecting me and my brothers’ upbringing to some extent so that we would never have to worry about money. They centralized money as the number one priority and the only important thing from which any happiness could flow. Now, the only thing that really makes me neurotic is money. One thing is clear. All these years that I’ve visited them and they’ve given me money and I’ve accepted it, I was never in any dire financial straits. But if I hit rock bottom, zero in the bank account, I would absolutely not go to them for financial help. The thought of going to them for financial help when I really need it just screams against every fiber of my being, even though a decent percentage of whatever has ever been in my bank account at any given moment was thanks to them. Now that’s money in the bank for some psychotherapist!

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Rotation of the Earth Sutra:
I love living under relatively clear skies. Light pollution from the city of Escondido obscures the night sky in the southwest, but the rest of the sky is quite satisfactory compared to both San Francisco, where either fog or light pollution ruined the entire sky, and New Jersey, where light pollution from New York City rendered all but the brightest stars invisible. But every clear night so far, I’ve been watching constellations rising over the eastern ridge, others making their way across the sky, sometimes staying out long enough to notice the stars move.

This sometimes translates into daytime activities if I’m working outside, and I can notice the shadows change as the sun moves across the sky. That’s what I call the rotation of the earth sutra. With my feet planted firmly on the ground, this incredibly large rock is rotating actually quite quickly on its axis. We usually don’t notice this because we usually only notice the position of the sun and stars in split second moments. Look up, there it is, go back to what we were doing. But look long enough and have something to mark their relative position, you can notice them move. I don’t think of the sun or the stars moving, but I consciously think of the earth rotating like it’s breathing and living. Perhaps each day as one large inhalation, and each night as one large exhalation. Breathe in, breathe out, that’s one day. And that’s the sutra. Breathe in, breathe out, and that’s a day of our lives. What did we do with it? What will we do with the next?

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Marketplace Meditation:
I wandered into town again today for the second “lazy day” (Mondays) in a row. I don’t think I want to make it a habit, but I had a reason to go today – to try to find a replacement part for a camera tripod that I brought for star-gazing through binoculars. Alas, no luck.

I still don’t know if my leaving the monastery grounds is frowned upon. So far no one has said anything. And today, while walking the three miles to the nearest bus stop, I got a lift part of the way from two of the monks who were driving to get avocado trees for the monastery! And right behind them were a group of nuns in a minivan! Aren’t they in the middle of Winter Retreat? No monastics are supposed to leave the monastery grounds during retreat unless for necessary errands. *shrug*

But I did treat my excursion as practice, maintaining mindfulness while back in the secular world. It’s really interesting doing that, comparing it with how I used to be in secular life and feeling the difference from monastic life. Check my feelings about being in the secular world. I sped up my walking pace in order to not seem too strange. I went to a mall to look for the tripod part, and that’s really the fun part of practice because if there’s a polar opposite to the monastery, I think a mall would come pretty close. Bastion of unchecked, rampant, uncritical consumerism and capitalism. Greed and desire, materialism. What’s the purpose? What’s the point? What’s getting all of this stuff really going to get us? I did, however, check out a Meade telescope in the Discovery Channel Store :). Walking through the mall, the images flowed. I didn’t let anything distract me, just let them come and let them go, maybe muse on what they were doing, analyzing the advertisement ploy to make people buy; wondering about the lives of all these people.

I was in the “marketplace” for seven hours, and most of it was spent walking and waiting for buses. An hour and 15 minutes was spent in an internet café, and all the bus rides were pretty short – easily less than an hour total. The final walk back up to the monastery was about an hour, so roughly three miles, maybe a little more.

When I got back, a group of monks were digging holes to plant the five avocado trees they bought. Yay avocados!! I joined in and we worked until it was too dark. So much for lazy day! And this is after a weekend of work.

On Saturday we had a community work day when laypeople are invited to the monastery to contribute their labor on ongoing projects. A good amount of people came up to sand and seal the new meditation hall, work on the vegetable garden, and plant ice plants on a hillside to prevent erosion. The people who come are usually “regulars”, and this is their way of giving back. And in return, we feed them and offer a sense of community and gratitude. We also offered to house them for the night if they wanted to participate in Sunday’s Day of Mindfulness. People come up and listen to a Dharma talk, and participate in walking meditation and a “formal” lunch, and just vibe with the community.

Needless to say, I’m pooped.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Suppose someone standing alongside a river throws a pebble in the air and it falls down into the river. The pebble allows itself to sink slowly and reach the riverbed without any effort. Once the pebble is at the bottom, it continues to rest, allowing the water to pass by. When we practice sitting meditation, we can allow ourselves to rest just like that pebble. The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh, p. 26.

I was never really a huge Thich Nhat Hanh fan before because his writing is very practical and grounded, where I like ideas and concepts and developing theory. But I’ve been reading a lot of his books since there are so many of them here, and they are really quite good. I think of writings I like by great teachers from centuries ago. Centuries from now, I think Thich Nhat Hanh will be read in such a way, with reverence and authority. He will probably go down in history as one of the great “patriarchs”, so it’s kinda cool living at the same time as him.

But I’m not into adulation, and I’m not chomping at the bit to get to Plum Village to meet him. If anything, I’d rather avoid it, as I tend to shy away from “authority figures”. When I do meet him, I’m gonna try to make a point to cross my eyes at him. Maybe I’ll recite one of his mindfulness verses back at him as a rap.

I really liked the above passage by him in two contexts. I love the image, a Summer day in a sun-speckled forest with a river or a brook running through. I put myself into the point of view of the pebble. Someone comes along and picks me up. I feel the rush of acceleration as I’m launched into the air - *whhooaaaaaaaa!* The earth falls away and I catch a wonderful panoramic view from higher than I’ve ever seen before. Then gravity slows me down and I accelerate downward, plunging towards the water. I hit the water with a splash, impact, sudden deceleration, ripples, and then float to the bottom, and there I am in the Meditation Hall, sitting.

But the fall is like an image I have from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, in the “emergent existence” between during the period before being reborn. Our amorphous, disembodied, substance-less selves float through a mystical space that corresponds with physical reality, “searching” for a womb in which to be reborn. It is said that beings advanced in the way can actually navigate this between with some proto-consciousness, choosing where to be reborn. Ideally in a place with a historical mystic nexus, such as the Himalayas or the Middle East, although that one has been historically battered by humans and their religions. So the fall of the pebble is like the fall to earth to be reborn, not unlike the imagery of the haibane in the anime Haibane Renmei. Then the splash of being born, into the stream of life where one can struggle, swim, or just float calmly to the bottom.

Yeehaw, I've negotiated an hour of internet access per week at the monastery! Strictly for communications, which any rank lawyer could interpret to include blogging :) This might mean more frequent entries, but posted on a weekly basis on Fridays.

So first some back-blogging.

at breakfast:
Dear Thay, dear Sangha, I would like to express my most profound and most mindful gratitude to the Sangha. A few days ago, I was informed that my request to stay for a longer period of time at Deer Park was approved, so that I could find out if my spiritual path will become a monastic path. I truly believe in this practice, and I trust the wisdom and insight of the Sangha implicitly. So even if my request was turned down, I could accept that decision mindfully and with gratitude...although perhaps not quite as much. *laughter*, Brother H*i, now my mentor, gives me a big "loser" sign. I bow deeply.

I found out from Brother H*i on Wednesday afternoon that my request for an extended stay had been approved. I actually got a big hint that morning, when after morning sitting (6:00-6:45), I looked down by the side of my cushion and saw that there was a name marker with my name on it! Lay friends and guests don't have name markers and they sit wherever. I just happened to have sat down at the right place.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes, The practice of mindfulness is the key to enlightenment. When you become aware of something, you begin to have enlightenment. When you drink a cup of water and are aware that you are drinking a cup of water deeply with your whole being, enlightenment in its initial form is there. To be enlightened is to be enlightened on something. I am enlightened on the fact that I am drinking a cup of water. (For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Mindfulness Trainings, p. 176.

Fully aware, not just peripherally aware that you're drinking a cup of water. It's important that he wrote that this is an 'initial form' of enlightenment. The higher, abstract manifestations of enlightenment that I've ruminated about before is for thinkers. Intellectual exercises that without a sound foundation in practice ultimately manifest in superficial, tenuous ways.

I don't mean that as a put-down, it's a good starting point and theoretical foundation. You start up with high-falutin' concepts of enlightenment, but once you really start engaging it, you drop down to the most simplest, basic practice that Thich Nhat Hanh describes.

I'm pretty comfortable stating that all of the monastics here are enlightened. They have attained that 'initial form' of enlightenment. That enlightenment is just the lifestyle here, and it's not merely form. Living this lifestyle has given them a deep look into life and profound insights into being. You don't need to be a monastic to attain this level of enlightenment, but it's much harder maintainging something like this lifestyle in secular life.

None of this is to ignore the belief or suggestion that we all already are enlightened.

I think that there are enlightenment seekers who upon seeing what enlightenment is would decide that they'd rather not have it. When it comes right down to it, many people would decide that strong desires and attachments are a good thing, that's what life's about, that's why we have so many things to enjoy and take pleasure in and tempt us. And that's true, it's just not enlightenment.

After staying two weeks as a paying, registered guest, monastic aspirants need to submit a letter to the monastic community to stay longer. I was told my letter was quite good:

Dear Deer Park Sangha,

I have been visiting Deer Park Monastery since October 29, 2004, and I am now writing to request permission for an extended stay at Deer Park Monastery for the purpose of further investigating a possible monastic aspiration.

I have been interested in the monastic path for many years, and having tried many options in secular life, my mind has always returned to the idea of pursuing the monastic path. During the course of secular life, I have maintained a consistent, solitary home practice, supplemented by reading and personal study and reflection, which has encouraged me to view many things in the secular world, if not most (if not all!), in a spiritual light.

Prior to visiting Deer Park, my practice has involved sitting, either alone or with a Sangha where available, and has influenced my life through maintaining harmonious interpersonal/family relationships, and maintaining meditative/critical mindfulness while pursuing hobbies and activities such as cycling, photography, astronomy, watching movies, and playing music.

To that extent, I have been able to manifest the spiritual theory in engaged practice, but my time at Deer Park has encouraged me to look more deeply at my practice at its very foundation; in the very simple and practical application of life, living, and existing. Perhaps this might be the “next level” beyond theory that I need, and to decide whether the monastic path is the right path for me. Already, I have taken the opportunity to receive the Five Mindfulness Trainings, and I immediately looked into them further through Thich Nhat Hanh’s book on them (available through the Deer Park Monastery Tea Room). Reading on them further has, indeed, greatly expanded my understanding and appreciation for them.

I have already engaged many of the monastics at Deer Park and they are aware of my aspirations/investigation and my level of participation with the community. I am, of course, prepared and willing to continue contributing and participating to the full extent of my ability, including work meditation, grounds preparation for retreats, Tea Room maintenance (guests being the primary users of the Tea Room, I think it proper, as a guest, for me to contribute to its maintenance), and sharing my music background. Other work skills include office related work and law and writing related work.

Over the course of the time that I am allowed to stay, I would be searching in my heart whether the monastic path is where my life has been leading, while learning as much as I can about what it takes and what it means to be a monastic on both a spiritual and practical level. Just being here and being involved has been my greatest education, and any feedback, observations, criticisms, encouragements, etc., would be appreciated. Access to the monastic library would be nice, but so would internet access to maintain a “monastic aspirant weblog” (online journal) – but I understand if those are against policy.

I am committed to live harmoniously and responsibly with the community as long as I am here.

Sincerely,
Koji Li

Like any application, it is prettied up.

The monastery was very peaceful during the week after all the folks from last weekend’s retreat left. This weekend was another retreat for college students, but there were about half the amount of people, and I wasn’t walking right into it, so it was OK. When did college students get so cute and fuzzy? When I went to college, everyone looked so mature, you know, adult like. Anyway, I feel like I haven’t matured much from college, so I was able to relate to these kids more than the adults from last week. I had some great conversations.

I met a woman whose company and conversation made such an impression on me that by the end of the weekend, I adopted her as my first “Dharma sister”. We may never see each other again, but that’s OK, it was that connection, at that time that counts. She’s on her own spiritual path, and her background is more Tibetan Buddhism.

We both took the Five Mindfulness Trainings this morning in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition (I think she had already taken similar ones in a Tibetan tradition). It’s like receiving precepts or taking vows, but not. They’re not prohibitions or commandments. They are things to keep in mind to guide us and strive for, even if we end up “breaking” them. That’s one of the beauties of Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition. They’re not there to restrain or suppress us or to make us feel guilty if we fail to maintain them, but to strive for wisdom in both our successes and failures.

I had my reservations about taking all of them. In particular, the fifth one, which is a mindfulness training against ingesting physical or mental toxins, and an express mindfulness not to drink alcohol. First of all, as long as I’m here at the monastery or if I follow the monastic path, that’s no problem. But if I return to secular life, I’m not going to lie to myself, I will drink alcohol. Second of all, I understand the social problems associated with alcohol, however, I’m not convinced of any arguments for the explicit prohibition against alcohol. It just seems arbitrary and my drinking patterns withstand all the arguments I’ve read and heard.

A main argument was that even if you drink in moderation, you affect people around you, especially your family members who might see you drinking, and they might be prone to having alcohol problems. Fair enough, but that’s not an issue with me, since for the most part no one sees me drinking. How about social drinking, where going to a bar is central to maintaining one’s social life? Drinking socially might be colluding and enabling one of your friends who might end up with a problem. Fair enough, that’s a reason to engage this mindfulness training on a deeper level. One monk was telling me how he used to be able to go out with friends to a bar before he became a monk, and he just wouldn’t drink. He didn’t need alcohol as a social lubricant. But in this case, drinking or not drinking doesn’t seem to be the main issue. The fact that you’re even at the bar is colluding and enabling because your very presence at a bar suggests alcohol consumption, even if you aren’t actually drinking alcohol.

I understand the focus on alcohol as a problem and a target for mindful consumption, but the explicit prohibition seems arbitrary to me. My personal pet peeve target for mindful consumption would be using fossil fuels. Here at the monastery, the act of turning on a car is done mindfully, presumably; there is a mindfulness verse for it. However, I don’t think the concept of turning on a car is done mindfully, because that would entail not turning on a car unless it’s really necessary. Turning on a car for me is just as bad as having a drink, even worse because we generally seem to think it’s OK without thinking of the global consequences of simply turning on a car. Turning on a car drives wars. And monastics drive fossil fuel vehicles from one hamlet to another – a quarter of a mile, a ten minute mindful walk. They have an electric golf cart, but why not have more for intra-monastery transportation? Why not have more bikes? The hill will give them strong legs and is good for their cardio-vascular system.

So I can maintain the mindful consumption of the fifth mindfulness training without abiding by the explicit prohibition on alcohol. I might even go so far as to give up any social drinking to maintain it, stop hanging out at bars, not go to events where alcohol consumption is central (I said I might). In exchange, I’ll keep riding my bike and keep talking about the toxic consumption of fossil fuels which poisons our bodies, other peoples’ bodies, and our environment.

I don’t think the fifth mindfulness training has an explicit prohibition on cigarette smoking. I’m telling you, it’s arbitrary.

Self-portrait outside the guest buildings

Last Friday was my travel day, and it went without a hitch. After over eleven years in California, I can safely declare that I’m a Californian. Walking out of San Diego Airport, I felt a rush of familiarity – the air, the sunlight – that I never felt going back to New Jersey for visits. The New Jersey part of me died a long time ago, if it even ever existed.

It was just a pain getting from San Diego Airport to the monastery by public transportation. Almost three hours, taking three buses just to get to Escondido. In Escondido, I ate my last meal on the outside at a Mexican eatery – so good after four months of crap East Coast idea of Mexican food – then I called a cab to take me to the foot of the mountain of the monastery. I admit I was trying to keep the cab fare down, I have a habit-attachment to money, but climbing the road up to the monastery was meant to be a symbolic gesture – difficult and on my own feet. It’s over a mile and several hundred feet of climbing. Of course, halfway up I was thinking how stupid that was and I should’ve just cabbed it up.

Just my luck, I arrived on the first day of a retreat and there were tons of people already at the monastery. It was a bit of an unwelcome shock, but I got through it. The first monk I recognized was Brother T*i, an older, white American monk, who I don’t think recognized me from last year. He was in a van and offered to drive me up the last uphill to the monks’ hamlet, but I waved him on, and immediately regretted it as I trudged up that last incline.

I left my pack in the tea room and headed down to the dining hall where the first monk I met who recognized me was Brother L*i, a British monk, who arrived from Plum Village last year during my visit. After dinner I found Brother H*i, an Australian monk, who has been my contact at Deer Park leading up to this visit, and he got me settled into a guestroom. The retreat ended yesterday and just about everybody left; just a few stragglers still around.

Today was the monastery’s “lazy day” with no scheduled plans. I went on a hike with Brother L*i and David, who was a long term guest last year when I was visiting. We took a path up a ravine to the ridge east of the monastery and it involved some light rock climbing. I’m hoping to get to know the surrounding area pretty well.

Well, so long folks. I'm off to the monastery. Now for the hardest part of all - cancelling my ISP account. It's like cutting off my arm!

I feel I've been neglecting this blog these past few weeks for no good reason, and maybe that's a sign that this is the appropriate time to move on out of my parents' house and to whatever's next. I think things stagnated here faster than they ever could in San Francisco. It has admittedly been luxurious being a freeloader these past four months, with a small price of giving up certain freedoms. OK, it was a big price, and I couldn't float along here forever without melting down.

I'm going here for an unspecified amount of time. When I get there tomorrow, I register for a two week period, and at the end of the two week period, I ask if I can stay longer and state my reasons why I want to. From that point, I don't know what I become, maybe a long-term resident, maybe a monastic aspirant, hopefully not another 'freeloader'. Eventually I might decide to become a monk and then if I'm accepted, I'd take novice vows. I think the head shaving happens then as well as the robe wearing. If I decide to leave, I have no idea what I'll do or where I'll go. If I'm lame, which I am, I'll probably end up back in New Jersey to float some more to figure out what to do next. I'm thinking the time frame for all of this is 3 months to over a year.

I don't know what sort of internet access I'll have at the monastery. They have a connection in their business office, but I don't know who's allowed to use it or for how long. I'm hoping that long-term residents can request time on the internet. If so, there might be sporadic blogging and emailing, but I'm not counting on it. Staying in touch with people is good, but can't be a focal point of my being there.

Bottom line is this blog is officially on hiatus.

Maybe I overstate my claims of being a luddite. Once you've called your cell phone (which isn't really mine) because you can't find it, you've lost most of your luddite cred.

Before:



After:

voting:
I'm spending my morning filling out my California absentee ballot. I don't have the voter information book, and didn't realize until halfway through that I can look everything up online. Ican't believe I'm such a luddite. I can't believe I am such a pinko!

I think there's a valid argument against absentee ballots. I feel removed from the issues, I have no one to discuss them with and I don't get the junk mail which I actually save and use to make decisions. No, I don't think the absentee ballot is a bad thing, but maybe it shouldn't be so easy? Maybe I should have been forced to vote New Jersey? I dunno.

For the Presidential election, there's a bad choice, and there's a worse/worst choice. I'm voting for the bad choice because I'm not that much of a pinko to be subversive enough to vote for the worse/worst choice.

Two War Movies: DVD reviews
I feel like I need to apologize for it, but I just didn't like "Apocalypse Now Redux". I know I've seen "Apocalypse Now" before because I recognized scenes, and I don't remember thinking the film was bad, and I still don't think the film was bad, but something bothers me about it now, redux or otherwise.

I think it was the use of the Vietnam War as a foil to tell this tale, this journey into the heart of man's darkness. One review headline considers the movie the greatest Vietnam War movie of all time. That bothers me because it's not a Vietnam War movie, it's decidedly not about the Vietnam war. In fact, the source book, The Heart of Darkness, is apparently set in Africa.

The Vietnam War is still so explosive and fresh in memory, that its use in this movie merely as a foil feels cheap. It's important for Vietnam War movies to say something about the actual war - what happened, what was it like, what were we doing there, or why it was such a controversial, heart-wrenching conflict. Arguing that the story's thesis of man's inhumanity makes the Vietnam War the perfect backdrop for the film is wasted on me, because the connections are just in principle. Nothing in the film makes the connection between the meaning of the story and the Vietnam War.

And the end sequence was just offensive - neither Vietnamese or Cambodians are savages in the jungle, wearing loincloths and using spears and arrows as weapons (a holdover from the book?). I don't care if the intent was to remove all vestiges of the Vietnam War for that sequence, which plays out almost as a fantasy through a mythic haze. There are apparently reviewers thinking that it is still set in the Vietnam War.

I can go on, I can even mention a lot of good things about the movie, but I'd rather rave about "Das Boot". If someone called it the greatest World War II movie of all time, I would probably agree (not being a connesiuer connesseur connesewer an expert on war movies). It's also one of the greatest anti-war movies of all time.

It's almost three and a half hours long and occupies two sides of the DVD. I thought I'd watch side one first, and then watch side two later, but at the end of side one, I flipped it over and watched the rest of it. The movie creates such a tension and momentum that there was no good place to turn it off (unless war dramas bore you).

It must have been intentional that not a single Nazi swastika is shown in the movie (there's a flag on the submarine when it's sailing out and into port, but it's furled so you never see the swastika). I haven't read anywhere that it was intentional, but it could be that it's just obvious, as well as the intent, which would be to focus the film on the human dimension, and to separate the subjects from the Nazi party.

Leave it to me to find something to cram into my last days before heading for the monastery. I have all these years of learning songs on guitar and that's all gonna be gone. If I actually end up joining the monastery, I could bring a guitar if I wanted, but the songs that I know on guitar wouldn't exactly fit in a setting of peace and mindfulness. The only song I can think of off the bat is "Better Things" by The Kinks, but like most guitar stores, NO STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN ALLOWED. I don't mind giving up playing guitar any more than quitting bass and drums. I never took guitar playing seriously, so I was never good at it. Unlike bass and drums, which I DID take seriously and still wasn't good at.

So I've been making little mpegs of me playing the songs that I know for posterity. I'll leave them in a trunk that I'm gonna lock with all my really personal stuff - photos, journals, war medals, porn, letters, elementary school report cards, Nobel Prize, pet rock. I'm shooting them all over my parents' house, which one day I hope will pass for kitschy, but currently it's just embarassing and I wouldn't ever invite people over. Although I admit most people are good about it and find it fascinating. I have to shoot several in various closets filled with my mother's clothes, much of which still have pricetags on them! Oh dear.

I actually broke a Memory Stick doing this project. How the hell do you break a Memory Stick? But I bought it a few days ago, so I shouldn't have any problem bringing it back and saying it's damaged.

Cold weather = spiders moving indoors. I've gotten really good at the "not killing things" thing. Not even that spider I found crawling along the front of my shirt while brushing my teeth. Admittedly the little bugger was like half a centimeter big, and no freakage was involved.

The internet is really awesome, and blogging is also really awesome. There is just such an array of ideas and opinions the world over, depending on cultures and contexts and education and exposure and experience. Blogging emphasizes the right of everybody who has an internet connection to express their opinion and put it out there. Everyone has a right to allow comments and start a dialogue, even getting belligerent and offensive, everyone has a right to disallow comments and make their expression unilateral.

On the other hand it also promotes the right of anyone to prove they are dead wrong.

Damn, the days are counting down fast towards lift-off.

*hyperventilates*

I'm glad that my parents are on vacation and won't be around when I leave, but not having them around makes it difficult to discipline my days. I'm glad I pushed back my departure date to next Friday instead of this Monday or Tuesday. Reality strikes.

Me and Cath'lic brother went down to Philadelphia this weekend to visit Married With Child brother, even though I saw Married With Child brother just a week ago. I took advantage of this second trip to Philly and dialed up Oberlin friend, Valerie and met up with her for a few hours. After shedding so many good college friends, I need to hold on to the few who are left.

I finally got my absentee ballot from San Francisco. I'm not too smart, so I couldn't figure out beforehand that it would have been better to register and vote in New Jersey, a swing state, than vote as a San Franciscan, which is no-contest Democratic. Ralph Nader was on a late night talk show not long ago. The Green Party had the sense to not support him, realizing that this election really is different; too bad he didn't. He said all the things that would make me vote for him, but standing on principle is one thing. Being clueless as to reality is another. If Kerry wins, I swear I will vote Green from now on as long as they have an intelligent, eloquent candidate, but I wonder about Nader now.

Ug. You know you got it bad when the hardest you've laughed in the last five years is while watching Conan O'Brien. And considering I lived in San Francisco, I didn't get Conan O'Brien for 4 years and 8 months of the last five years.

Film analysis: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring

After the third viewing, I think I finally got most of the main points in the movie, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring. I assume anyone who reads this who hasn't seen the film by now, won't see it, so I'm not spoiling anything. Besides, this is interpretation. And this entire post is geek-wank, so anyone who hasn't seen the film wouldn't want to read any further anyway, so I can go on at length.

+ A leading point of confusion was "who was the woman at the end, and what's the significance of keeping who she is from the audience, even when the monk unveils her and discovers who she is?". I think the woman is the reincarnation of the old monk, and here's why:
--- The first clue is the use of the snake to symbolize the old monk (they slither away from the burning boat and are in his discarded clothes). At key points with the woman, when the question is strongest who she is, the director cuts to a shot of snakes.
--- Immediately after the young monk unveils the woman, there is a shot of a stone Buddha over the hole she fell in, that's a connection between the woman and a Buddha, and there's also a shot of the head of the ice Buddha floating in the stream. The ice Buddha represents the old monk because after the young monk carved it, he placed the precious stones of the old monk (more on that later) into its forehead (third eye). The ice head floating in the stream represents that it is also the now-dead woman.
--- The timeline is perfect for this theory. The old monk dies after the young monk is taken away to prison. If he's reincarnated as a woman, she would easily be in child-bearing years by the time the young monk gets out of prison 20-25 years later or whatever the minimum sentence for murder is in Korea. I'm assuming he gets out as soon as he's eligible because of good behavior.
--- The reason why the audience is never shown the woman's face is because if this theory is right, it would ruin the film to make it visually obvious. It's something for the audience to figure out using symbolic, visual cues. It's a little bit like Luke removing Darth Vader's mask. George Lucas ruined the film for me (for the 68th time at that point) by forcing an image, any image, of Anakin on us. It would have been so much more effective (and good film) if all we got was Luke's reaction shot. The audience's imagination would do the rest to move itself to tears, but Lucas assumes his audience has no imagination. And given the popularity of the extended "Star Wars" franchise, he's probably right. I digress.

+ With the theory that the woman is the reincarnation of the old monk, that begs further questions about the old monk's death. What was the old monk's suicide about? Why did he mimic the young monk's suicide attempt?
--- One interpretation is that the old monk knew exactly what he was doing. When the young monk is being taken away, the old monk "holds" the boat until the young monk turns around so that he could wave goodbye to him, knowing this was the last time they would see each other in this life. Then he lets the boat go. He then goes and dies, knowing he'll come back after the young monk gets out of prison.
--- I think there's also an atonement aspect to his death, which is why he mimics the young monk's attempted suicide with the pieces of paper over his face with the word "shut" written on them. All that has happened to the young monk is very much of himself as well, there's no duality. All the suffering the young monk has gone through and caused, in particular the person the young monk murdered, is directly linked to the old monk. The young monk is sent off to prison to pay his debt to society for the murder, but the old monk gives his life to pay off the karmic debt of the young monk. That's the compassion and selflessness of a bodhisattva.
--- It's important to understand the difference between the young monk attempting suicide and the old monk's doing it. The old monk beats the young monk for trying to do it because he knows the sources of the act - attachment, desire, suffering, torment, escape - and that he will end up worse off if he succeeded. He's in a karmic Catch-22 and his solution is to kill a(nother) living being, as if one wasn't bad enough. On the other hand, a hard part to understand, is that when the old monk does it, he doesn't kill himself. An enlightened being can't kill him or herself because there is no self to kill. That's what enlightenment means - it's a profound understanding, realization, and manifestation that there is no self that is separate from everything else in the universe. The self doesn't die, it can't be created, and it can't be killed because the idea of self that we unenlightened humans have is gone or radically altered and doesn't apply anymore.
--- A corollary to that is that the woman doesn't "die" either. It's the monk completing his commitment to the young monk.

So explicating the Winter sequence:
The young monk is released from prison and returns to the monastery. Immediately upon arrival, he walks to where the sunken boat is and bows to his master as if he knew exactly what happened after he was taken away. How does he know? It is his insight from having attained perfection (not enlightenment) while in prison. His perfection is depicted in his complete control of body and mind with the martial arts sequences and the ice Buddha carving. He picks through the ice where his master's remains are and digs out the precious stones and gems that he knows are there. That's a Buddhist thing, the belief (and some say documented fact) is that when a fully enlightened being dies, he or she leaves behind precious stones and gems in their remains after cremation.

When he sees the woman's face, he realizes it's the reincarnation of his master, and that is the catalyst for his enlightenment. Everything comes together and he returns to the very beginning with the stone tied to his back, only this time he ties it there himself and begins his ascent bearing the weight of all suffering (which I think may also be a Christ image, as Kim Ki-Duk is Christian), while carrying the Buddha of Compassion, Avalokiteshvara. His reaching the top is attaining enlightenment. What is enlightenment? It's sitting back at the monastery with a new disciple abusing a poor turtle.

I borrowed a bunch of DVDs from my brother in Philly. What's wrong with that guy that he doesn't have DVDs that I'm interested in that are less than two hours long? Das Boot (Director's Cut), Apocalypse Now Redux, and The Seven Samurai, which I've seen before, clock in at over three hours!

I've already watched Pulp Fiction and Boogie Nights, both 2 and a half hours, and tonight I watched A Beautiful Mind, Oscar Winner for best picture in 2001. Bleah! I actually wasn't thrilled with "Boogie Nights" either, but I can cut that one some slack for a good effort, it certainly wasn't bad. But a two and a half hour subject matter, "Boogie Nights" is not.

No, my ire is saved for "A Beautiful Mind" because it did win the Oscar. In general, Hollywood is not my taste, so chances are that anything coming out of Hollywood is not going to score high in my book. But I thought that "the best" film out of Hollywood in a given year could at least elicit a nod of approval. But it's with a sneer that I say I can see why "A Beautiful Mind" won the Oscar.

The first hour of the film was mush that barely kept my interest and I was going to turn it off if it didn't get my attention soon. Now I'm not one to turn off a film in the middle, but at 2 hours and 15 minutes, I'll learn. And it did get my attention, it started getting interesting with the story twist. That lasted about 40 minutes, and then the film degenerates until it reaches the Hollywood schlock ending with music straight from "Field of Dreams" (except that it worked in "Field of Dreams"), and my finger down my throat.

Talk about a sawdust cake. So superficial. With a pretty good but not brilliant performance by Russel Crowe, who I like. There's really no reason why we should like the character, and all the suggestion and innuendo that he's a genius has to be taken on faith because it sure isn't explained. Even the breakthrough moment when he hits upon the theory for which he eventually won the Nobel Prize in Economics is unnoteworthy. Leading up to the scene, he's portrayed as a crackpot. So when it happens, it just looks like more of him being a crackpot.

Show me a beautiful mind and I'll throw a tomato at it.

My parents left today for vacation. I have the house to myself for three weeks (unless I leave for the monastery first). I am currently blasting Pink Floyd's "The Wall Live 1980-1981" at an ungodly volume. AND singing along (which I only do when I'm damn sure no one can hear me). No, I can't really hit the high notes. Yes, I can do the screams.

And I set up my bass drum and snare in the basement. I haven't played since December, and if I set up any more than that, I'm sure I'd end up hurting my wrists.

You'd think you wouldn't forget something like . . . a season. Autumn to be precise. In San Francisco, the change to Autumn was subtle - maybe a whiff in the air, and the fog stops being so relentless - quite nice, actually. But here, I forgot how the light patterns completely change, the shadows, the angle of the sun, and of course there's the chill and the necessity of closing windows at night (even though in San Francisco, I had to close the windows at night all year round). It's sorta exciting. But it's a love-hate thing. You love how it feels right now, with lungfuls of crisp, cool air, a relief from the Summer heat, but it sucks letting Summer go. That crisp, cool air is Winter's hand on your shoulder. Autumn is Summer dying, lovely and fading.

When I lived here last, I was in high school. On a day like today, at right about this time of day, maybe cross-country would be ending (until I got kicked off the team after having passed out during a race in Van Cordlandt Park in the Bronx). I would have changed and would be hanging out in the gym lobby, goofing off with teammates who were waiting for their rides to pick them up. Or maybe I would have had Jazz/Rock rehearsal down in the art center. At 5:30, the singers would probably start drifting out once their songs were done, but the band would still be jamming horribly. Early in high school, I'd call for someone to pick me up. Sometimes someone would give me a ride. I think I walked a few times. It was only a mile, but it wasn't fun lugging a bass up the hill. In later years, I think I drove a lot, parking off-campus on local streets.

But it's time to move on, and I'll be heading for the monastery near San Diego at the end of October. Exactly one year after my first visit there. The weather should be nice, and for once I'm not dreading the end of Daylight Savings and November. I'll be joining them halfway through their 3-month Winter Retreat, which they shifted to the Autumn because the head honcho, who is living in exile in France from Vietnam, recently got permission to return. It's pretty big deal and he will be going to Vietnam in January, along with a good portion of the San Diego monks, but not all, so I think I'll be able to just stay there. I don't know, I'm playing it by ear and have no idea what will eventually happen.

I got a new 2 lb., 3-season sleeping bag and Teva's today for the monastery. Why did I throw away my old decrepit Birks when I was packing to leave San Francisco? Shows the kind of judgment I was applying at the time. And I dug out my brother's dusty external frame backpack out of the basement, so I'm starting to look the part. I'm expecting to be pretty minimal there. I'll take my digital camera, but not plan to use it unless I decide to leave, at which point I'll take portraits of the monks. I'm still undecided on a CD player for the train ride across the country. That will depend on room. The only luxury item I'm allowing myself are my binoculars and a planisphere (star chart) for star-gazing, and hopefully I can strap a tripod to the backpack. Yup, time to shift the paradigm.

Wow, Motorcycle Diaries was so good. It started to seem like an unremarkable roadtrip movie, but it is when the roadtrip ends that the true journey begins. I can see some people not liking how it got from "this kind of film" to "that kind of film", and the thread of the film isn't seamless. But just watching it and not being overly critical, the emotions are incredibly well done and mostly convincing. One dramatic scene went a little too far over the top. Otherwise I don't have a whole lot to say about the film, it was more of an emotional journey, and the intellectual, analytical stuff can be saved for a biopic on Che Guevara's life as a revolutionary. Highly, highly recommended.

As I was walking out, some parents were bringing their excited and noisy kids to see the new animated shark movie with Will Smith. I shook my head and felt sorry for them that they weren't going to see "Motorcycle Diaries". I wanted to go up to the parents and tell them to take the kids to see "Motorcycle Diaries" just to see the looks on their faces. Too bad the joke would be lost on these suburban, soccer mom breeders. They would have thought I was serious and asked, "Oh, is it good?", instead of realizing that, no, this is not a film any sane parent would take their kids to see.

The director did something that I've been thinking about for a while. I always thought it would be an improvement on still photographic snapshots to have a medium that takes several seconds of a snapshot, and to be able to have these in album form. The director puts in these gorgeous black and white, several second portrait snapshots of various subjects in the later part of the film. If they were photographs, they would be amazing, but it's cool because the subjects are posing and you can see subtle bits of movement. I'm gonna start trying to do that with the mpeg feature on my camera. Too bad I didn't think of this when I actually knew people I could take these portraits of. Of course, this doesn't accomplish having them in album form, but it's a start.

I didn't watch the Presidential Debate. I don't need that sort of frustration. I know how I feel towards both candidates (they both suck), and between two sucky candidates, I know for myself who I think is worse - the one who already had four years to prove himself but still fucked it up royally.

As far as I'm concerned, America has already lost. With an idiot as incompetent as Bush even having a chance of being re-elected, Kerry and the U.S. have already lost. Because with the race so tight, that means it isn't a fact that Bush is a complete idiot. It means that it isn't a fact that the war in Iraq was unjustified and not based on facts. It means that the discrediting of the U.S. in the international community isn't fact. It means that Bush's neglect of the economy isn't fact. It means that it isn't fact that when Bush opens his mouth, the most stupidest things come out. And these things are indisputible, self-evident facts.

The only silver lining I can see is that Bush being re-elected is the springboard for Hillary to become the first woman President of the United States of America. Give Bush four more years, and whoever the Democrats nominate for President will be a shoe-in; landslide victory. Whatever Bush does, I'm sure the effect on America will make Watergate look like peeing in a public pool. It's a shame that this is what it will take to get a woman in the White House, but at least Hillary would be competent. That's all intelligent Americans can ask for now.

It seems like all I shoot these days is the sun setting. And since fotolog is doing its typical unreliable thing and not allowing uploads, I'll post it here. This is from the West Side of Manhattan, around 60th St.

6:38 P.M.

I was heading to what I'm hoping is my last Critical Mass, New York or otherwise. I wasn't really in the mood to go. I've pretty much had it with New York and I'm ready to leave in general. Notice how I say "New York" when I'm living in New Jersey. New Jersey is not even a consideration. It's a nice place to visit a family, but I wouldn't want to live here.

Anyway, I went to Critical Mass telling myself I would leave as soon as I wasn't into it, and that point came about an hour into it when the cops blocked off some streets causing a confusion that sent cyclists into a panic. The ride was peaceful until then and the cops cooperated and even provided corking for the riders, ostensibly to try to better relations and public image after last months' arbitrary military-style crackdown in order to show Republicans that New York's Finest "know" how to handle dissent.

I place the blame for the confusion squarely on the cops and Mayor Bloomberg who has been creating a hostile atmosphere against cyclists and Critical Mass, and all it took was the blocking off of a street for something as benign as traffic control to send a thousand cyclists scrambling. It was fun for the five minutes I zipped through traffic and a parking garage to avoid the pigs, but that's all.

I took off for the riverside path and headed uptown, thinking how civil San Francisco seems compared to New York (knowing full well that it isn't - just smaller), and then to make the San Francisco nostalgia worse, I stopped off at a place called "Burritoville". If that is what New Yorkers consider a burrito, I feel sorry for them. Folks, I know burritos, I've worked with burritos, some of my closest friends are burritos, and that was no burrito.

New Yorkers are so provincial in their cosmopolity. Is that a word? It is now.

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Wild Horses of Mongolia with Julia Roberts:
I am so impressed with Julia Roberts, I had her totally pegged wrong. Mind you, I can't stand Julia Roberts, the actress. I wanted to see Mona Lisa Smile because Maggie Gyllenhaal *drool* was in it (not to mention Kirsten Dunst *faint*), but then ended up not seeing it because Julia Roberts so supremely annoys me on screen. But I just saw a PBS documentary with Julia Roberts in Mongolia of all places, and it took me a while to realize it was her, and even longer to convince myself it was her until she finally mentioned someone calling her "Julia".

It's hard to imagine a pampered Hollywood big shot star being subjected to the conditions she was, and she handled herself without being jaded, or trying to be witty and flippant (read obnoxious) because of her celebrity. She was very down-to-earth and right in the moment with an open heart and open mind. She was nonplussed upon realizing peeing and pooping take place wherever on the Mongolian plains, she got right into milking mares without embarassing all of America by being squeamish and incompetent, and she was matter-of-fact when she got horse poop on her jeans. It was as unglamorous a gig as any agent could have dished out for her. It was harsh. The living conditions and the climate were all harsh. It wasn't some exotic or cool cred-op to put on her resume.

I felt it showed a lot about her character, I think it was genuine. It wasn't a dare or a self-imposed challenge that she was seeing if she could make it through. She wasn't making the best of a temporary, inconvenient career situation, trying to prove that she could still be down with the ordinary people. She was charming, but only to the people, not to the camera. When it was just her and the camera, she was pretty plain, almost monotone. She genuinely loves horses, it showed that she genuinely loves children, and it looked like she really put herself into the situation without constantly letting it be known that she was an outsider. I think this was the first time I've seen her and thought of her as beautiful.

Of course, just by writing about her in this way shows the different standard to which we contemplate our celebrities. If it was just some ordinary person, I might write about the horses, or Mongolia, but no, here I am writing about Julia Roberts.

I caught a bargain matinee of Garden State today. It had a nice tone to it, I came out with a bland feelgood, but ultimately I was disappointed. It lacked depth and challenge that I thought the characters implied and deserved. It seems the movie was influenced by the likes of "American Beauty" and "Donnie Darko", films with explorative indie material or feels, but having crossover mainstream distribution and appeal. But where "American Beauty" was brilliant, and "Donnie Darko", an after-the-fact success, was incredible except for the time concept which is a fatal flaw in my book, "Garden State" just didn't deliver anything except heart candy.

Perhaps I'm looking too deeply in the metaphor of a character returning home from the City of Angels (leaving a cabinet full of anti-depressants) to the clarity of the Garden (of Eden) State. But in a way that's what the main character did - he ended up back in the Garden, a veritable Heaven of loosely strung together scenarios taking place over four days, all a bit too niiiice, too perfect, too sweet. If you want a good movie story, you need a snake, and there is none. The mother? No, she's dead. The Father? There's no prodigal son story here, the tension between son and father is sub sub-story and the resolution is a total copout. You have a girl with a serious mental impairment, really?! Forget it, there's no snake in this Garden, so much for that thesis.

It was all too contrived, and the characters too one-dimensional for the amount of depth implied they have. The father was a wasted symbol. The motorcycle with the unused sidecar was a wasted symbol - should have been tied to the abyss, something missing or vacant, ie - mom. The abyss was a wasted symbol, thank god, because if it was exploited it would've been obvious. The jobs were wasted symbols. The blending in with the wall was such a waste of a metaphor that it should be a crime since the visual was so good that it was almost a reason to see the film in the first place.

And what the fuck was up with that hotel scene? If that wasn't the very definition of gratuitous sex, I don't know what is. Was it to show how fucked up everything is? No, because nothing is really fucked up, despite the principals' insistence that they are. Whatever the movie did well, it's been done better in other films, and ultimately I just felt manipulated through a cheap string of manufactured moments.

Review/Lovefest: Talking Heads - "The Name of This Band is Talking Heads"
I couldn't wait to get the long-neglected, patiently-awaited, eagerly-anticipated CD release of Talking Heads' "The Name of This Band is Talking Heads" into my grubby little hands. Almost 20 years after the rest of the Talking Heads catalog was committed to CD, I want to say it was worth the wait for all the extra bells and whistles, but why did it take 20 years to get this thing released?!

So far, Talking Heads, with the exception of the vastly expanded and re-mastered re-release of "Stop Making Sense", has not played the silly game, a la David Bowie, of re-releasing their entire catalog every few years, depending on who happens to own the catalog at the time and whatever new technology has drifted down the brook. The first generation Talking Heads releases are still the same releases being sold in stores, often with "Super Saver" stickers on them (check the alliteration, dude). Truth to tell, if what they've done with "TNOTBITH", as it's affectionately called in amateur reviews, is any indication of the potential of what can be done, then their catalogue really needs to be re-mastered and re-released.

In many fan circles, the Tnotbith LP was the live Talking Heads album to have, even over "Stop Making Sense". It traced the band's development and captured subtleties and nuances of their live performances that were all but wiped out in the in-your-face, meticulously staged performances of "Stop Making Sense". Fans pounded their chests and wailed to the night sky, begging divinity for an answer why Tnotbith would not be released on CD.

Finally here, it contains over an hour more material than on the LP. The original 1977-1979 LP of the double-album set actually didn't include any representative performances from 1978. Those have been added on the CD, nestled between the 1977 tracks and 1979 tracks, indicating that Rhino records really put some thought and effort into this. There are also more tracks from 1977 and 1979.

Rhino completely overhauled the 1980-1981 LP for the CD and pieced together the entire setlist from the performances covering those years and placed them in setlist order! Very impressive. For the purists, they included in the liner notes, the track order to program into your CD player if you want to listen to the tracks in the original LP order.

There is a caveat to this release, though. All the extras create a better documentary of Talking Heads live, but it is not necessarily a better album than the LP, on which they were limited by vinyl space and had to choose carefully what went on it. The LP was a concise presentation and had the best performances. The CDs meander and include performances that are a bit lackluster, and in the case of the 1980-1981 CD opener, "Psycho Killer", they even kept in an obvious mistake with one of the guitarists going to the wrong chord in the first chorus.

For a quirky little art-geek outfit, Talking Heads were an artistic powerhouse in the late-70's/early 80's. You can trace their development album to album, each one distinct, each one reaching further until their peak with the "Stop Making Sense" movie. I'm finding I didn't really appreciate them back in the 80's, even though they were one of few 80's acts that I actually liked. Tnotbith has me pulling out my brothers' "Fear of Music" and "More Songs About Buildings and Food" LPs, and I'm being blown away by the creativity and innovation. And Tina Weymouth came up with some of the most incredible "new wave" bass lines, the engineers always did right by her by bumping her forward in the mixes. I don't care if she dressed terribly and danced funny - it was the 80's, everyone dressed terribly and danced funny - and it's not her clothes playing the bass anyway. And she was still cute as a button.

Mark Morford is one of the reasons that SFGate.com is still my opening page on my browser, even having moved from San Francisco. Even if he did call me "bitter and defeatist" in this article. I do have a streak of anarchy in me, and part of me does wonder how badly W. Bush can destroy the U.S., which I'm confident he will continue to do, in all the ways Morford mentions in the article, if re-elected.

Come on, be honest. How many non-Floridians went "aw darn" when Hurricane Ivan cleared west of Florida, avoiding a third direct hit on the nation's wang in a month? People suffer, but they chose to live in a hurricane zone, and they'll survive. Or not. And if they don't, surrounding life will go on. At least it's warm there.

How much suffering does there have to be until there's some awakening, some enlightenment on what's important in life and what our priorities should be? Or just how we act and react in the face of our own adversity. Even someone else's. Alright, I do sympathize for the hurricane victims, and my heart goes out when I see the news reports of people evacuating or who've lost their homes. But another four years of W would require more empathy for the country than I could muster. So let him drill America into the ground until he hits oil. He just might herald the end of America's global corporate reign. Besides, we haven't had a chance to impeach him, which I'm predicting will happen if he's given a second term.

People are looking at me sideways now wondering if I'm secretly going to vote for Bush.

Hardy
Har
Har.

Ya gotta make do with what ya got. I bemoaned the lack of hills to climb in the area. The hardest climbs in the area are probably the equivalent of riding up from Sausalito to the Golden Gate Bridge. Nothing even matches the East Bay Hills which were no more than a thousand feet of climbing. I asked someone at a bike store about climbs and apparently they do these "sprinter's climbs" that are readily available and they do them over and over again, but it's just not the same as steadily hammering up Mt. Diablo or Mt. Tamalpais or the Santa Cruz range mile after mile. There are no climbs here that really test you.

What I have noticed is that even though my rides barely break 30 miles, they are faster than in the Bay Area because of the lack of climbs. Rides averaging 18mph were raising my eyebrows, since in the Bay Area they averaged 15mph. So I thought OK, I like climbing but there are no climbs here, I suck at sprinting, might as well work on that.

Mind you, riding in New Jersey sucks because of the car culture, but my parents live in a cozy, quiet suburban town, so if I don't leave the town limits, it's pretty peaceful. But it's not a big town. From the far end of the north side of town to the middle is less than 2 and a half miles, and it's not even a mile wide, but there are some natural loops formed by the roads, pretty much all flat. So I went out and just rode these loops over and over again for 20 miles, averaging almost 19mph. It was pretty nifty, if a bit . . . repetitive. Whatever. I think I did the larger loop three times and the smaller loop six times.

It felt kinda "time trial"-ish, but I wasn't even really pushing it. I just went out for a casual ride wearing street clothes and no PowerBars or water. It was cool because I can do that sort of thing without any preparation, or I can prepare and really push it if I want to, or I can just do it really casually and enjoy the rich, conservative, Republican, suburban peace. Yay me.

Alright, the jury's back on the new Rilo Kiley. If I could go back and genetically re-engineer myself to have 16 hands, I'd give the new album 16 thumbs up. Go buy it now.

Last Monday, I spontaneously decided to double sitting for a week; sort of a sad excuse for a week-intensive that many monasteries undergo every month. To my defense, the type of intensive practice undergone at monasteries is really only possible at my (low) level with the support of a surrounding community. Last Monday, I wasn't able to sit in the morning, so that night I decided to do two sessions to make it up, and that led to deciding to do four 45-minute sessions every day for a week. They consisted of one immediately after waking up, one after lunch in the afternoon, and two at night, separated by a shower or a bite to eat.

The week ended this morning with a single hour and a half sitting, with a pause after 45 minutes to light another stick of incense. Very weirdly, there was a breeze blowing through the window, often threatening to blow out the candle that was lit, but it wasn't until literally right after the session was over that the wind finally blew out the candle cold. Good job.

I know I didn't have much good to say about "Zen Mountain Monastery" in "Mt. Tremper", NY, where I did a "weeklong residential visit" last month (still angling for Google hits), the least of which was their use and mispronounciation of the word sesshin for the weeklong intensive. Sesshin, a Japanese word, is not a specialized, untranslatable word. If they call it "weeklong intensive" or "monthly retreat", you get more of an idea of what it is than if you call it sesshin when you're not Japanese or Japanese-speaking. So to me, it seems they only use it for the exotic factor, a poor reason to practice or train in Buddhism. Even so, many of them (mis)pronounced it like "session". If they're going to mispronounce it closely to an English word, a word which actually would work as a specialized English term to refer to the retreat, they might as well re-term it "Session" (you just have to trust me that they weren't doing this already, they were clearly mispronouncing sesshin, not pronouncing "session").

But I think it was my visit there that did make me think of doing my own version of a weeklong intensive at all. And the work there also has gotten me to make sure I do some sort of housekeeping every day around my parents' house. Nothing major, just 15-30 minutes, sweep out the garage, clean bathrooms at least once a week, anything that can be an assigned task that I focus my mind on.

I like a lot of the theory behind the practice at that monastery, I just wasn't thrilled at the implementation. Along with sitting and work practice, other keystones of their practice include art practice and body practice among other things. I wasn't thrilled that their focus was on exotic Oriental things like Chinese calligraphy and martial arts. But it has made me make sure that I've got music somewhere in my daily schedule as well as riding. It doesn't matter what, really, as long as it involves mindfulness practice.

More Adventurous:
I got a bug in me after I found out that Rilo Kiley's new album was released several weeks ago. I ended up hopping on my bike and riding to Best Buy in New York, on 86th and Lexington. Going there I took the scenic route, 12 miles, but took a more direct route back, 9 miles. Contrast that to where I lived in San Francisco, where a ride to Best Buy was 3/4 of a mile, and are you kidding me? I wouldn't even consider buying a CD at Best Buy. I'd ride the 3 and a half miles to Amoeba. Needless to say, there is nothing like Amoeba around here.

It's a pretty good album. It's par for them. That is to say the best material on the album is probably the best new material I'll hear this year, but the lesser material, like on their previous albums, just don't hit the mark. It remains to be seen whether I'll like this album better than "Execution of All Things". Blake is singing even less on this album, so apparently they haven't found my online advice that they do something ballsy like having an album on which Blake does all the lead vocals. This is despite my loving Jenny Lewis's voice, and Jenny Lewis, and wanting to have like a million of her babies.

So that's too bad. It's the total opposite of Rainer Maria, where the less Kyle Fischer sings, the better. Dude, a cracking voice isn't "character". But I can't cut on peoples' vocal abilities. My vocal range is about five notes, but I end up singing around 27 notes once you factor in the unintended microtones.

Nine miles to Best Buy on the East Side! That's probably closer than either of the Best Buys in Paramus, and is a safer ride since New Jersey drivers are too confounded seeing "bi-cycles" to avoid hitting them or having near-misses. It's just that weird psychological barrier thinking that riding into Manhattan is a big deal and so far. Central Park was closed to cars today, and that made it super nice riding in the park. In general, Central Park is too overwhelming for me to like more than Golden Gate Park, but when there's no car traffic, it's dreamy.

The route I took home was a new one, riding to the north end of Central Park and getting on St. Nicholas which is bike laned all the way up until it hits Broadway right near where I get off anyway to cross the GW Bridge. It's a great route if you don't mind riding through Harlem and Spanish Harlem, and I'm not sure I don't. The bike lanes are almost meaningless, because I don't know what sort of business goes on in those areas, but cars are standing in the bike lane for pretty much the entire stretch.

("don't know what sort of business goes on in those areas", indeed!)

In God we Trust to...
There's a bank in the area called "Wachovia Bank". Whenever I see the bank, I think "just wachova mah money!" I found out today it's pronounced 'wa ko via'. Darn.

And damn it if both Pitchfork and Tiny Mix Tapes let me down in having absolutely zero mention of the new Rilo Kiley album. Haven't they earned their indie-darling status? I can't even get into shows without buying in advance. And me just having put in an Amazon order :(

Desperate Days:
I watched the Tom Brokaw special on that guy whose hand got caught by a boulder while hiking last year and had to amputate his own arm to survive. I remember that was a pretty unbelievable news item. How psychologically traumatic is that to cut off your own arm? What does it take to envision and execute that kind of separation between the self and a part of the self? In the special, he goes back to where it all happened and basically relives it day by day for Brokaw. I admit it, I get emotional about any aspect of the human experience. I'll get teary over chocolate ice cream if you can relate it to the uniqueness of the human experience. Existence itself, to me, seems such a miracle, a second of which is taken for granted is a shame.

What Aron Ralston went through and did was way out on the fringe of human experience. Even watching him describe what he went through in moment to moment detail, it's impossible to know what he went through. Like it's impossible to empathize what a holocaust victim or survivor went through. Like it's impossible to artificially recreate what it feels like when you hear that someone you know has died. There are extreme human experiences that people get placed in and have to chute through. Aron Ralston wasn't just placed in a situation, but he had to proactively act within it and cut his own arm off!

The elements in his story are just mind-boggling. It was so random, fate so fickle. I kick myself for something as small as losing my keys. Just as small is the decision to go hiking, to go climbing on rocks. What if losing my keys led to agonizing for days whether to cut off my arm with a dull knife, necessitating breaking both wrist bones, or not? It's unthinkable. I lose my keys, I'll look for them, eventually I'll find them, or I won't and I'll replace them. Even when I go out on my bike, I'm constantly hyper-aware of the possibility of getting hit by a car. How about go out on my bike and ending up having to decide to cut my arm off?

I would have taken the easy way out and died in his situation, and missed out on the experience of a lifetime. He said something about rather losing his arm and surviving than not having that experience at all. He's right.

Holy crap! Talking Heads' other live album, The Name of This Band is Talking Heads has finally been released on CD! I always say it's better than "Stop Making Sense", but then I think for a second and think, 'what the hell am I saying?'. There's no comparison, really, since they are completely different, but the omission of this album from their CD releases has always been inexplicable and warrants immediate, mindless, guiltless purchase. Yay to Pitchfork for giving it a good review.

I think it's time to change the title of this blog, as I'm not watching much of anything these days, and writing even less about what I'm watching to fall under the theme of that Peter Gabriel phrase. Time to peruse PG CD's for another fitting quote.

Although now that I no longer live in San Francisco where NBC is a premium channel, I can finally agree with Delphine on at least one thing, which is that Conan O'Brien is fucking hilarious! He has really come into his own with his own brand of humor. The little skits are still dumb as dubya, but he himself is righteously funny.

stalking Calgarians:
I *love* Calgary fotologgers. I swear they're my absolute favorites! There's a bunch of them all like linked together (at least they used to be), and they're just so hilarious, disaffected, self-deprecating, beautiful, and punk:
Ashley
Brittany.

And that Canadian wit - you can never tell if they're being sarcastic or not. Even they can't tell if they're being sarcastic or not.

I wanna move to Canada.

Pan American:
Man, I finally made it to a show and didn't back out of going, despite being mad expensive and being located way out in Brooklyn. I figured this might be the last time I'd get to see a Panorama Steel Orchestra competition, but that shouldn't have stopped me from backing out. After all, I backed out of seeing the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra several months ago in San Francisco, even though getting another chance to see them is slim to nil.

So, a little background: the Panorama event is annually held on Labor Day weekend. The Brooklyn Panorama, I think, is second in the world only to the Trinidad Panorama, which is where steel drumming originated. I think the Trinidad Panorama is mostly a Trini event and held during Carnaval in February. The Brooklyn event is centered around the West Indian American Labor Day Carnival, and so has more of a diaspora feel to it. The main figures and the majority might be Trinidadian, but it's a Brooklyn West Indian community event.

Another reason why I didn't think I'd end up going is because I couldn't ride there since the Port Authority bastards close the GW Bridge catwalk from midnight to six in the morning. So I had to ride to the bridge, take a bus across and then take two subways to get to the Brooklyn Museum of Art where Panorama was being held. Mind you, I had to repeat this for the return.

Even after I got there I had qualms about dishing out the $30 to get in, but as I was loitering indecisive by the ticket booth, even though I knew I'd end up paying it, someone came up selling tickets for $25 (he got it in advance), and then I didn't hesitate and went in.

Panorama was so cool, I can't begin to tell you. I was in a little 15-piece ensemble in college, but that was nothing compared to this. Panorama regulations were that bands had to be between 45 and 100 members, and most of the bands that I saw were closer to the 100 than the 45. With 13 bands total, there were pans everywhere, and for easy mobility, most of them were mounted on wheeled racks (nice racks!). In the college band I was in, we had 3 leads (tenors), 3 seconds, 2 cellos, and one set of 6-bass. These orchestras had pans that I didn't know what they were, but I assume they were pans that I'd heard about and never seen, including quads, double-tenors, double seconds, 4-cellos, guitars, engine rooms (rhythm sections) that made our college band look like we didn't have one, and, of course, the awesome 9-basses.

When I first got there, the first of 13 orchestras, Pan Tonic, were off the stage running through their piece, and that was spectacular because the crowd was milling right up around them. The sound was enormous, there was no director or conductor, and there were no lights. It was like the song was counted off and right away 100 people were instantly in a collective groove. The pan player right in front of me had no idea what was happening on the other side of the band, but they were all spot on. That was a cool thing about Panorama, because between orchestras playing their sets on stage, some orchestras setting up for their turns would run through their pieces and that gave people a close-up look at what was going on.

Out of 13 orchestras, I only saw five (four on stage), and three of those bands played the same song, called "War 2004". That song was apparently a favorite this year as two other bands played it after I left. It's OK for orchestras to play the same song because of different arrangements and nuances, but also because Panorama pieces are maximum 10 minutes long, and quite honestly, when you have the bombast of a hundred piece, essentially percussion, ensemble, there's really not a chance of one thing getting so stuck into your head that you're thinking, "oh, it's that song again?!". You just get caught up in the infectious groove of the engine rooms and boogie around the grounds.

It did suck that I had to leave so early, around 11:20, to make sure I caught the last bus back across the GW Bridge. Taking the subway to Brooklyn in the afternoon wasn't so bad because the 'A' train is an express train through most of Manhattan. But at night, it turns into a local train and it goes excrutiatingly slow, stopping every 10 blocks. My stop was 175th St., and by 135th St. you start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. You count only 4 more stops to go, but then they had to stick a stop on 163rd St. between the 155th and 168th St. stops, and I always forget about that one. That extra stop always makes my skin crawl. Insult to injury I tell ya.

I missed the 12:40 A.M. bus by four minutes, and took the very last bus across the bridge at 1:10.

One of the awesome mounted 9-basses of Adlib Steel Orchestra. Five mounted and four on the floor, baby. Each bass pan has 3 notes. This is during their rehearsal run in the parking lot before they went on.


Pan Tonic during their rehearsal run before taking the stage. That's a cellist on the right. In the back is part of the melody section (we called it the "front line"), comprised of tenors (leads), double tenors and seconds. And that dude is drinking a Sprite.


Back view of the engine room of Pan Phonic in the parking lot. Aside from the drumkit, which isn't seen here, the engine room percussion includes congas, various cowbells and bells, you can see a guy with a shaker on the platform, and in the foreground here is the most notable component of the engine room, a row of brake drum (from cars) players. They make a terrific loud clanging and are used more to keep time (16th notes) than for rhythms.


Set of 6-basses in their mounts. Behind it is a set of 9-basses in a different configuration.

Sunset from my room at my parents' house.

I tried to go to Manhattan today to see "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster", but I got a flat on the way to the bridge. A big ol' double-prong staple in my back tire. I foolishly pulled it out and *sssssssssssss......*. I had a patch kit with me, but no pump (duh) and no coins for compressed air at a gas station. So I walked it back to my parents' house, a little over a mile, switched bikes and figured I still had time to make it to a theater in Edgewater to catch Hero.

I thought it was really good. Not perfect, but I didn't expect it to be since I wasn't impressed by the fake looking trailers. There was the potential for the story to get really messy, but director Zhang Yimou helped by color coordinating scenes, making it easy to differentiate the stories. Is that what the color was about? The temptation was to look for some meaning behind the color, but until I read something about it, I'm going with the theory that it was just a device for the audience to differentiate the various stories. The various stories being told being the thematic device of the film.

In fact, I think the film is better compared to Rashomon than to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", which has been the media tendency. But storytelling and subjectivity wasn't the point of this film as it was in "Rashomon". It was more like a game of chess using stories, fine-tuning it to get to a final version where the story is clarified.

I like what Jet Li said about the film regarding heroes, that it would be nice if there weren't any heroes since the existence of heroes of this sort are only made possible because of some great conflict. The existence of heroes means people are suffering, and it would be better if conflicts could be resolved peacefully. Another point that was quick on film was that this emperor was supposed to be a tyrant, even in his own court, but where his wisdom is established and there's an opportunity to show compassion, it's the faceless chant of his courtiers that seem more tyranical.

Point of history that I'm not positive about: I think it was during the Qin (pronounced Chin) dynasty that outsiders came into contact with the land, thus the name "China" was given for the whole country even though it represented only a part of it.

Definitely worth seeing, definitely worth seeing in a theater.