i am beginning to really look forward to these great conversations. conversations that only take a few sentences to cover an lifetime of experience. it’s like the blur’s quote, a the 1000 books would mean nothing to the confused and even one word would be too much for the realized. so we’re aren’t there yet but i can tell, we both knew that we’re speaking from learned experience. it’s also a really great feeling to find out about something new about someone even though you known them for such a long time. it’s refreshing and sweet. the gamut of shit is also great. from the adventures in substances to business process models, it’s all in there. naturally, nothing comes without a price. it only took 10 bowls of wasbi to mash the groove of mundane existence.
so, i got the dreaded email from one of my closest buddy in high school today. he was tying the knot with his japanese girlfriend of 5 plus years. i had always love the story behind these two people. he of white bread but speak chinese goes to china. she of japanese bread goes to china to do the same thing. on their first date, they spoke chinese and ordered french. it’s fucking great really. finally, a marriage of a friend that i actually care about. although i would love to shoot it, i know i need not to before i become too cynical on the whole wedding scene. i need to enjoy my friend’s experience as a participant, not as a documentator. even though i shot my cousin’s wedding, i knew that there existed a subconscious choice to keep my distance around my family. i feel like i couldn’t really participate in their conversations because for the most part, it bores me. nevertheless, my friend and i go way back and we’ve walked such interesting life paths. one goes to havard and becomes a journalist for the wall street in taiwain and marries a japanese woman. the other goes to berkeley, stumbles upon the internet and becomes a photographer. because the second chapter of any triology is always awkward because it’s never as fun as the first and rarely as glorious as the third. anyway, there’s a lot of catching up to be done over some fine single malt.
i had a long discussion with the lady today and it was a much needed conversation for the both of us. we had both forgotten what we’re fighting for in the past month and had begun to drift away into the day to day existence of our evironment. i don’t think i appreaciated our conversation to much later when i was in the shower. running the conversation in my mind and answering her questions again to myself. why this one over the others? why is this one so special that someone like who has the opposite tendencies would bear all this mess that we’re going through. all the ups and downs of our 1st year of intenseness and now a test of our will power to realize the value of what we had in such a short time frame. it’s almost a daunting task have to make any decisions around such a short time frame but at the same time, there are elements at play that goes beyond time. yes, in time most people will figure out if the person they are with is the right one or not. but we’re force believe in something beyond ourselves. there is a wonderful feeling that resides between the unknown and the power of faith. i guess i do feel that there has been a major shift in my own perspective as well that has made my faith in existence in general as all okay. no matter what the outcome it will all be fine. as a matter of fact, the more difficult, the sharper the diamond. so either way, the diamond of realization becomes sharper through gradual application or through painful lessons, it will bring about a brighter force of shinyness. but to answer the original question, an uprooted flower is easier to replant than a weed that clings on to the very cracks of relative existence.
in the third month of my focused study of varjravana, i am at a point where i am beginning to realize that i was a tibetan in a former life time. i don’t know when i got my sticker that stated ‘free tibet’ but since then all the post signs i’ve seen have pointed to tibet. i know it is only a matter of years become i make the journey back to tibet, but for now, i am content with connecting with the anicent ones. i had a pithy realization in yoga class the other day, when we were doing our poses and being all spiritual with our mantra chants, that i was doing the very exact thing that someone from thousands of years were doing. it’s the transmission of these teachings that has connected generations upon generations of tibetans. as in dive deeper into the teachings and realize how powerful and precious these teachings are, i realize how would be would lost if the chinese culturally destory the tibetans. it is a sad but i know that the teachings will survive. just as old ben said in star wars to darth vader, ‘if you strike me down now, i will grow more powerful than you ever know.’. that is the same with the teachings, for it transcends all the false constructs that we swim in. i guess this is why buddhism teaches compassion because in the end the confused cannot destory itself. better yet, one of my new favorite teachings ‘in the empty house, the owner and thief become friends.’