in process.

there is a bowl made of polished sandalwood, and filled nearly to the brim with water. the water within the bowl is so still that its surface resembles a mirror at times. at other times, it is so transparent that there doesn't appear to be anything within the bowl at all. some say that this was the beggar's bowl that the second would-be suitor of kaguya-hime, the moon princess, tried to steal from beneath the ever-watchful eyes of a stone buddha. others, with perhaps a more historical bent, claim that this was the bowl that captured the reflection of a harvest moon, and the attention of a young zen acolyte.

the story of love and hate

the world is filled with hatred. perhaps i am too.

i don't know how to sublimate hatred, and turn it into something positive. i don't know how to forgive, or to "compost". i think i just divide myself up, and try to keep returning to what i term "the task at hand." but in the end, it never works.

i don't know whether hatred comes from within or without any more. in a way, it's comforting to think that it comes from the outside, that somehow people send "hate signals" through the air, and i receive them like physical blows. it's comforting because i can preserve the illusion that i am innocent. but in truth, i know that this is not the case. i think that hatred, in a way, is like a crack in glass. on either side of the crack (and it doesn't matter which side you are on) there is the impression of the same sundering division.

i think hatred is an emptiness, a hollowness, and it pulls in and devours.

***

i am sorry.

i have said it so many times. it doesn't work to say you're sorry. especially when the error is your very substance.

***

the things i want to say, to strike back and lash out against those who hate me, i cannot. i am forbidden to say them, because, although i think no one reads this blog, i suspect that a few do, or might, and i would not want to hurt them in the way that i could. a part of me wants someone to understand my problem, this inability to speak. maybe a part of me just wants some pity. but in the end, i won't talk. i can't.

***

i like to be like water. to flow into the path of least resistance. i do things that are sometimes "irresponsible" in that they are not what i "should" be doing (there are always those things that should be done), but i do them anyway because they don't summon up the bad feelings within me. i have, for example, been trying to care for my garden. my grandfather used to have a green thumb, of sorts, and his backyard was, quite literally, his sanctuary; he would always be doing something there. i think i understand him more as time passes. there is peace in caring for a garden. i like to think that the ceaseless care of weeding and pruning, etc. reflects a work of the heart.

writing in this blog, at this moment, is another "irresponsible" thing. but i woke with a bad feeling, as i have for a long time now, and i felt i needed to do something. there is, actually, much work for me to do, much work that i "should" be doing, and i think that, ultimately, i will do it. but i needed to- i don't know- get things off my chest.

i so want to make things better. i so want to find an answer to this story. but so far, the answers i can conceive of or write about seem- inauthentic. a bad, sad, pathetic story. so i- i think i must disappear for a time- in irresponsible tasks.

i want to say, i love someone, or something. it is a feeling i have. perhaps it is a desperation, a "saving throw." i am not sure of its authenticity any more. but in times like this there is a sort of desperate need to help, to make it better for someone or something else, and that's what my version of love is. that's something natural for me. it's just now, i don't know if that's a weakness, if it's fake any more. but i will say it. i love.

i love.