“The
On the plane there was some relatively mild turbulence, and I was plunged into fear and sureness of my impending death. I thought to myself: Oh, I am so foolish and sleepy! I roam around like a zombie and make little effort to change. I felt this so strongly and was reminded of Gurdjieff concluding, at the end of Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, that only by perpetually remembering his/her mortality would a person be capable of real change. I also thought to myself: Remember this feeling, because when the turbulence is over, I will no longer feel it.
I started reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I think that Nietzsche might have the right idea, but he seems very unstable and full of contradictions (he holds lofty ideals, but often seems sort of petulantly angry at the world). It reads very much like Thus Spoke Nietzsche, and ascribing the discourses to Zarathustra doesn’t make his points seem more absolute or prophetic. This is emphasized by my just having finished the Bhagavad Gita, which was among the most lucid religious texts that I’ve read. Philosophy/life does not have to be as miserable as Nietzsche makes it out to be.
We should have anticipated that the “live baby octopus stew” on the menu would actually include a live baby octopus, but we didn’t and were surprised. It was wiggling all around in the soup and continued to wiggle around as the waitress cut it up with scissors. All the cut up pieces then proceeded to keep wiggling for the duration of the meal as we guiltily ate around them.
There seem to be three types of English-language t-shirts in
1) Those that honestly attempt to convey an idea in English, albeit with some misspellings and/or grammatical errors
2) Those that employ random phrases apparently taken from the internet and placed onto t-shirts (e.g. “Join our mailing list and win prizes,” and other, often much longer phrases), conspicuous because of their simultaneous grammatical correctness contextual meaninglessness
3) Those composed of random letters that spell no words at all, taking advantage of the sheer novelty of our alphabet
The Pizza Hut in
The mind wants to reach objectivity by circumventing subjective experience, but it’s only through subjective experience that objectivity can be reached.
The level of technology in
Americans are surprised that I’m married. Chinese people are surprised that I’m studying Buddhism.
I was trying to explain to my conversation partner that I like Beethoven. She said she understood, but that it was four people. I said, four people? She said, Bea-ta-le-sa?
Outside of the beauty parlor on my street there are many clumps of hair on the sidewalk!
In the library when it’s raining the students all place their umbrellas on the ground still open (presumably to let them dry), so they take up a lot of space.
A British guy on our program, in reference to the climb up the Great Wall, noted that he “probably lost about two stone.”
Here is the interesting thing that I think Gurdjieff is best able to explicate: a sleeping (by which he means ordinary) person does not have the capacity to make choices; choices are made for him or her. As a result, even a very deep feeling of the desire to give oneself up, to serve God and not the ego, is not enough to bring about any real change. Gurdjieff frames this point in an interesting way: he basically says that once a person ‘wakes up,’ then he or she can make a decision about how to behave, whether to serve God or the ego. This is not a decision that a sleeping person is capable of making. Unless the consciousness is active (that is to say, unless I am more or less constantly aware of myself being here, right now, as I go about my daily affairs), change does not occur, for better or worse.Also: I did not anticipate all of the weird and exotic bugs that I would encounter in
I took an hour-long bus ride and was standing for most of it. When this old couple wearing matching Crocs (those plastic shoes with holes that everyone says are really ugly but really comfortable) got out of their seats to get off the bus, they more or less ordered me to sit down and take their place.
I spend a lot of my time thinking about religious/philosophical issues. Still, when things (even small things) do not go my way I tend to get upset. I struggle to remember that everything is a test, that a life without difficulties offers the straightest path in the wrong direction – and that, moreover, encountering and transforming difficulties is the most important thing for any kind of spiritual progress.
I have been here two weeks and today was the second sunny day!
My language partner had an interesting take on learning British English (which is the English that a lot of Chinese people learn). He said that, first of all, the words are more slurred, so it is more difficult. Second of all, he felt that a person learning English should not attempt to speak with that accent unless they already spoke the language very well. Sort of like British English is ‘advanced’ English.
I was having trouble explaining to my conversation teacher what kind of movies I like. I have used the term ‘non-mainstream’ a remarkable number of times in describing to various Chinese people my tastes and lifestyle choices. Nevertheless, the teacher first guessed that the type of movie I was referring to was Korean dramas. She finally said, Oh! I know what kind of movie you like! and wrote down 蓝, 白, 红 - Blue, White, Red. I was surprised that she knew these movies.My automatic assumption about what it means to be “active” is that I will figure out what it is and then it will be a static thing. Of course, this is not true – being active is the opposite of being static; they are mutually exclusive. For the consciousness to be active is for it to be perpetually inquisitive.
It seems that I have always sort of unconsciously sought a way to pass a productive and satisfying life in a mechanical manner. Looking back to my days playing Everquest, I remember that underlying my whole approach was a desire to find a stable way to earn (virtual) money and experience, without, if possible, having to take any risks, interact with many people, or use much energy. When I could set myself an easy and predictable, but still arguably (in the context of the game) productive task (like hunting for Greater Lightstones when I no longer got experience from killing Will-o-wisps), I was very happy.
Of course, it was important that the game involved other people – if it had been a single-player game, the whole exercise would have seemed stupid. Although I sought to limit my interaction with and dependence upon other people in the game, the existence of other people capable of observing me and my progress was fundamental to my satisfaction.
Now, trying to settle into a sustainable self-remembering practice, I find that it is the same thing. I want a practice that sustains itself, requiring minimal active participation from me. In Everquest this was occasionally possible, but in self-remembering it is impossible. Still, whenever something goes right in my moment-to-moment practice (which is rare), I immediately stop doing that thing and place it into the mental bank, thinking: Great! I found that! I’ll just store it for later. This is like the story of the man who finds a paradisiacal island by accident and then leaves, planning to return soon. Of course, he doesn’t find it again.
From my room in my host-mom’s apartment, I often hear someone practicing the flute. The flute-player is playing the same Mozart piece that a guy on the
Apparently, many Chinese high schools do not permit students to date. High school here is so competitive and test-oriented that things loosen up a little bit once safely in college.
Because I am a perfectionist, I take a sort of defeatist approach to self-remembering. Unless I am really doing it well, I will often feel like I don’t need to try. Either I am making a large burst of effort or I am making no effort. But neither of these things will work. It is a steady effort that is needed, not a burst.
Last night I ‘woke up in my dream.’ On the phone I had been saying that it was good that I had brought so few books to
The other day we spent a very long time in class answering the pressing question: “Forest Gump says: Life is like a box of chocolate; you never know what you’re going to get. Do you agree or disagree?”
Looking forward to things, even (or especially) little things, enslaves me. For example, during the school day I will often relish the idea of the few free moments in the evening during which I will read, listen to This American Life, listen to music, etc. I pin my freedom on these moments of relaxation, which is very unwise. Forget that I often don’t have time, for one reason or another, to get these moments every day; even when I do have the time, it causes the rest of my day to be spent absent-mindedly and unhappily. To let go of these little hopes would allow me to be content all the time.
There was a huge crowd of people outside a gate on the street. It looked like the president or a celebrity was about to come out and people wanted to catch a glimpse of him. I asked someone what they were waiting for and he said, 孩子 (children). 孩子? Like, a baby prince? Finally he said, 考试 (test). Oh! They were waiting for their children to finish their exams! How weird.
White people not in my program that I pass on the street in
1) What the hell do you think you’re doing here? This town isn’t big enough for the both of us.
2) Thank goodness I found you! You’ve probably been through many of the same experiences of culture shock that I have.
After a mistake on a test where I really should have trusted my gut but instead followed my intellect, I vowed always to follow my instincts on multiple-choice tests. On the next test I encountered a question I really didn’t know the answer to, and guessed against what I thought was right based on my gut. Afterwards I checked my book and realized I was wrong. Why did I trust my gut again? Obviously, the one I thought was right was right. I got the test back and got the answer correct. I said to myself: Instinct, I will never doubt you again.
When we were stopped at the border passing into
It’s interesting to consider the extent to which I am able to interact with my Chinese teachers, and that if I did not speak Chinese, they would probably seem like strange and mysterious foreigners. Instead, they seem very familiar.
On a similar note, I had a mostly functional conversation with an old man in the lobby of our hotel. I told him I went to
Apparently only a few decades ago this city was just the temple and a few surrounding houses. My host-mom actually grew up within the walls of the temple complex. Now it is a remarkably westernized and modern city.
At the end of the trip as we were waiting for the bus back to
I was not able to get a sleeper bus to go home from Xilinhot back to
Later in the day I went to Sanlitun to investigate some DVD stores. One of the DVD stores had been ridden of its bootlegs (prompting a British guy to ask, 为什么? [Why?]) and was almost empty. Another had ordinary Chinese movies, which I was browsing when a woman asked me, in English, “Looking for movies?” I said, yes, just browsing, thank you. She went into the back and I kept looking around. She then called, “This way, sir.” I followed her through a long maze of corridors before arriving in a back room where other foreigners were browsing through booklets of movie covers. The customer would tell an attendant which movie he or she wanted, and the attendant would walkie-talkie to another person, presumably in an even further back room, who then brought the movies in.
Riding a camel in Dunhuang helped me to remember precisely why I didn’t like riding that horse in
We slept in the desert, and it’s possible that I have never seen the stars so clearly. I have definitely never seen shooting stars so clearly, if at all. The loud Chinese woman made sure the evening wasn’t too peaceful by telling (or shouting) jokes and riddles all night (she later told me that she was a high school math teacher, and when I told her I studied Buddhism, she responded that her mother loved Buddhism, and gave me a Buddhist magazine). We ate ramen noodles for dinner and I slept with the British fellow in a tiny 5-foot by 5-foot tent. There was a sleeping bag but no pillow, so I used the sleeping bag as a pillow.
At my hostel they have a world map which is different from every world map I’ve ever seen because
At the Dunhuang carpet factory the woman showing me around and selling me things spoke disconcertingly near-perfect British English. She revealed that she was not a native, however, when we were bartering over the price and she kept saying, “I know, I know, you are the student.”
I went to Dunhuang’s famous Mogao caves, full of Buddhist images and statues. My reaction had three components:
1) Awe at the grandiosity of it. There are over 800 caves, each an unbelievable sight in its own right, some with huge hundred-foot-tall Buddhas, some with thousands of tiny Buddhas. Why, I ask, when there were already five hundred caves, did someone say, “Hey, let’s build another one!” I guess it’s because they had money.
2) Sadness at the fact that it is now a museum for scholars to puzzle over and not a place of worship. As a result, it does not feel like a sacred site in the way that it should. Why would any sacredness stick around just to be stared at by all these tourists?
3) The feeling that no matter how impressive any thing or place like this may be (and this is one of the most impressive things and places I’ve ever seen), it is, at best, a finger pointing at the moon. I might as well find such a pointer anywhere – in a book, or inside myself.
The fact that I had such a complicated reaction highlights an obvious problem of mine: I should have just loosened up and enjoyed it.
I am like a person deeply in debt who has been given a little money to get back on his feet. Instead of putting this money to good use in fear of my debtor coming to collect, I spend it trying to forget my debt in every way possible. “I do not desire suffering, but, fool that I am, I desire the cause of suffering.”
It seems like humanity’s biggest problem is not that it forgets its mortality, but that it forgets how deeply in debt it already is. When we are able to convince ourselves that we are free and completely unfettered, we start to feel that we can do whatever we want, even that we are owed something. On the other hand, when we realize the extent of our debt – a debt that most of us continue to rack up every moment – being a servant doesn’t seem so bad.
I was listening to an episode of This American Life today titled "Blame it on art," which had a segment in which the host talked about people who spend their lives working at a day-job to make money and putting off their dreams, putting off living up to their full potential. In the end they die and the things they spent their daily lives doing are the things by which they are remembered, the reason they were important. This seemed somehow pertinent to my life.
My teacher said that more and more Chinese people are practicing Buddhism (at least in the sense of going to the temple and praying), including Communist party members. She said, half-jokingly, that this was maybe because they had done bad things.
My new language partner turns out to be very interesting: he rides his bike everywhere, and, like a regular Chinese No Impact Man, he brings his own chopsticks to restaurants, doesn’t use disposable items, and doesn’t use air-conditioning.
The government just opened a newly-refurbished ‘traditional architecture area’ by 前门 (the front gate, south of
In 798, the modern art district, we were looking for an indie music store when we passed a sign that said, “Welcome President of Latvia to Dahe Gallery!” We found the music store, which was surrounded by suited Latvians. Inside, the guy played us some ambient noisecore (!) before switching to a band called Car Sick Cars, a Chinese band that sounds exactly like Pavement, the Pixies, Sonic Youth, etc. The guy then pulled out an electric guitar and said that he could play along. He plugged it in and started rocking out rather loudly, when a fellow in a suit came in and said to him what could only have been something like, “Sir, could you keep it down! The president of
Today inside the Olympic park area we went into a ridiculous Coca-Cola museum type thing. As we entered, an enthusiastic employee gestured wildly with both arms as she greeted us with a loud, “Welcome!” Further inside we encountered more and more employees who had apparently been instructed to dance around in place in order to inspire and motivate the visitors, perhaps to make the place seem ‘cool,’ ‘hip,’ ‘in with the youngsters,’ etc. The result was, needless to say, completely absurd. At the end we were given free bottles of Coke, which we took with our meal of McDonald’s. I have probably not eaten at McDonald’s in fifteen years.
On the escalator down to McDonald's (which was underground) they were repairing upward half of the escalator - the escalator computer was out and everything. On our way up from McDonald's a few minutes later, the escalator was working.