i have been searching for a feeling.

there are certain actions that seem to approximate it. when i interact with others, and address their immediate needs (i.e., those needs which are immediately obvious, and do not require a leap of faith in my capabilities, nor reference to some overarching viewpoint of anything), then i feel as though i am fulfilling my purpose (at least, for the time being), and i do not feel so empty and haunted inside. but afterwards, when i am left to my own devices, and drift on my own inertia/momentum, that lack of a feeling comes back, gnawing away at me.

i attempt to address it in various ways. one aspect of me attempts to organize the emptiness by constructing lists, and then prioritizing from among the items on the list those which may either make me "happy" or at the very least get at an approximate heart of the problem. another aspect of myself has considered this attempt fruitless and impossible, and instead seeks to "drift" and appreciate the aesthetic surface of reality, in a kind of meandering, "thrown" way. there is no happy medium between the two perspectives, and i have a tendency to oscillate between these two needs, one for order and the other for freedom.

i suppose that, as i get older, the illusions i once constructed, and could sustain me, they become threadbare and worn out, and they can no longer fulfill the function they once had. what peeks through, or what slips in (i'm not so sure which) is the hatred which i have sought so hard to contain/push out. i am left vulnerable to its blows, to its incessant questioning...

i know that practically all of my entries reference this conundrum of mine, but i suppose that we always return to the problem that makes us. this is my hurt, my heart, my art. it is everything i know (against my wishes).

***

who am i writing to anyway? i have addressed this question as well. in the past, it was written in a more or less positivistic sense, an apologetic for what is either self-aggrandizement, or some shoddy, secular confessional. this is a central question, it turns out, because perhaps on some level, the blog, and indeed, everything i do, is in some sense a performance. who it is for, and who it saves, these questions are tied into everything that i am. they are, in essence, the "whole point."

why do we do anything? (notice how i include the reader into this problem, as though it is shared by him or her. this is a rhetorical turn, perhaps to make me feel as though i am not alone in this, ashamed and exposed.)

if i say nothing, then what is the harm? if i say too much, then what is the harm? something, someone inside of me is itching to get out. at the same time, something, someone inside of me is itching to out me. there is something of salvation and self-destruction in everything i write. i just wish i could piece apart the two, and figure out whose side i am on...

and whose side you are on.

***

of my life, i may say this, that despite the end results, i have always loved those that i came in contact with: my patients, my students, my children, my lovers, my friends, my family... but then again, what compels me to reveal this? is it because this is my last bastion, the anchor for all the falsity and denial that is who i am? is it because, without this one illusion, which i claim that is undeniably true, there will be nothing that i have left to hold onto?

because there are always limits, contradictions, hypocrisies, that i have committed. if i claim to love the world as much as i say i do, then why the gap between my good intentions and the results obtained? why?

***

perhaps (as i have stated so often elsewhere) my love has as much to do with self-effacement as it has to do with loving someone else. at the very least, loving the other draws attention away from my lowly self...

***

nowadays, i can feel the pressure building up in my chest. there is some kind of stagnation there, and soon, i sense, i hope, i fear, it will burst...

***

today, i took my children to the beautiful park. i pushed them on the swings as i used to, back in the earlier days; we went to the courts and played some soccer, and then i practiced throwing the football to them (underhanded, of course), calling my son "knuckles" and my daughter "yoshi". we went to the birthing stones below, which the kids wanted to scale, and i practiced through the motions of the second taijiquan form in that empty and tranquil looking clearing at the bottom of the park.

the happiest times in my life are when i am able to forget.

to let go.

i love the happiness of children. i think there is something of god and rightness in the true, kindhearted, oblivious laughter of children. i think i understand this as a miracle, and thus, children relate to me (or at least, used to). i think, i hope, that in my heart, i too retain the possibility of a child within me. it is this which can keep a person young and unsullied by the world, at least if they keep a piece of this in their heart.

i am so proud of my children. despite all my correctives, despite all of my "guidance," both gentle and harsh, i am so proud of them. they are kind-hearted children, the both of them, and i can say, without hesitation, that they are "good." no matter what happens, or where life takes them, in this moment, i know that they are the most beautiful things in this world...

***

i remember one morning when i stood on the roof of the temple, feet buried in snow. and shodo instructed me on how to shovel the snow off the burdened roof. i remember feeling so very tired, my arms heavy. i wasn't just physically tired. i was spiritually empty. i was filled with such despair and self-loathing. i had been there at the temple for three months by then, and i was no closer to enlightenment and peace than i had been at the beginning. if anything, i was further away, and lost.

where is enlightenment? where is peace?

in the winter, everything was smothered in white. the path to anywhere, much less some mythical place as enlightenment, was hidden. here, in the trackless white, there was nowhere to go, everything frozen and freezing. and like the cold, my heart was being turned to ice and stone.

i wanted to tell shodo this, but what was i going to get? sympathy? a quick rap on the head? what was it that i wanted? i wanted all of my burdens, all of my self-hatred, to fall away, just as shodo wanted all of that snow off the roof...

i did not appreciate how fortunate i was to be on that roof, to be in the company of a bodhisattva. i regret this now, wrestling with that same despair, that same feeling of weariness, that i had those many years ago...