A conversation with Nori

“It’s sad. Many people die without ever knowing what it's like to have sex.”
My friend Nori, who I met in Tokyo, is reading a book about disabled people and sex-volunteers in Japan. He plans on making a documentary about this with one of his friends. I asked him to explain some of it to me and I typed as he spoke.

““This is still a taboo in Japan that is just beginning to be uncovered. (And in the states, I hadn’t heard anything about it outside my Sexuality Class in collage.) If someone is disabled it is unlikely they can ever a husband or wife, let alone have a boyfriend or girlfriend, SO, there are volunteer organizations that provide sex for them.

“There are many organizations for challenged people in Japan. Not all of them think sex volunteers are a good thing for them. Some are supportive, and some think it’s degrading to the disabled person. Some people think that prostitution is better because the disabled person feels more normal.”

"That club called “Ladies Market” by your apartment is actually a whorehouse. But the prostitutes at places like that will not treat handicapped people because it is too dangerous. I mean, many handicapped people have tubes and oxygen tanks and things.

“But, it’s controversial because the idea of a “sex volunteer” can really hurt people. And when I think about it, just the word “volunteer” can hurt people. At the same time, I think they need to accept the problems they have, but I can easily say that because I am not one of them, and to the person who is actually disabled, for them, it is probably really difficult to do that and to have a “volunteer.”

“So, it gives me a paradox. Is it really a good thing to volunteer for them? Maybe the concept of volunteering is wrong from the beginning. Maybe we should just help each other. If that is the normal thing to do we wont need the word “Volunteering.”

“Its like the “Priority seats” on the bus and the train. Every time I see them it makes me sad. Does that mean that we wont give seats to elderly people if we didn't have that seat?”

Nori, as you can tell, is totally fluent in English, and totally thoughtful. “Thank you for saying that.” He says with a smile. He visited me this week from Tokyo and taught me how to cook Japanese food. Now my kitchen is full of dried seaweed, soybeans, miso paste, sesame paste that is used just like peanut butter and seeds and spices (like sanshou) and oils (like mirin) and cooking sake.

“Don't worry, none of this stuff will go bad. You can use it all slowly. He has been making me incredible dishes. The one wih the avocadoes I had for breakfast the other day. He continues…

“NPOs have a workshop for handicapped people with problems with their brains, not only physical things, and sometimes they have little shows to tell them how to hold hands, how to kiss, how to have sex safely. Even, how to speak to people they like if they see someone on the street. Do you know the word nanpa? When you see somebody and you think that person is really pretty and you want to talk to them, that's nanpa. SO, they teach how to do that. Like “hey, would you like to have lunch with me” that kind of thing. They also teach how they should treat the other person after meetinng them. Because, often, those people with brain problems, what do you call them, mentally disabled, well, those types of handicapped people, it is still a big taboo to talk about their sex, and some people say “don't wake up the children if they are asleep.”

Do you agree with that? I asked.

“I don't know if I have the right to have an opinion.”

But what is your opinion?

“My opinion is I disagree. I think everyone has the right to know about sex. Yeah, I understand it is difficult for them to raise kids. But I think this society should be more supportive and help them have the opportunity to have sex and maybe even have kids. Their parents often tell them not to have kids, but that is only because they know that they will end up raising the kids. SO, know it is probably difficult, but I disagree with that saying. They have a right to wake up and know what the life is about. This is one place that society needs to be changed.”

“They don’t know anything about sex, about the diseases, or even how to treat other people right, because they are never taught. But, they grow up and become adults, and they have communities where they can meet other people like them, and they want to have sex, but they don't know how, and sometimes they rape. I mean, they are not trying to be bad, but they feel like doing it so they do it and they don't know what is right. But the one who is raped gets hurt and trauma. They have enough problems. Keeping them asleep to the truths about sex only creates more problems. The reality is that you cannot just have them not wake up. They do wake up. Their bodies wake up. So, still, you need to teach them about sex and how to treat people, just like how you teach to other kids. That's what I think.”

“I’ve been reading books like these and they are making me sensitive when I talk about it. DO I have a right to talk about it, to have an opinion? I have an emotion. I have a feeling. But my opinion is judgmental. But like, I don't have any handicapped person in my family, and I am not either, so I can only imagine their lives. But I don't really understand how hard life is for them. So, these books are making me think maybe I am being…my opinions are very shallow. That is one reason why it is important to meet them and talk to them, not just read about them. And after we talk to them, ask them if they want a movie about them.

“And, I am actually a selfish person I think. I think about my benefit. I’m thinking that maybe this will give my own life some like, wider vision. More experience. Talking to those people. Making friends with them. Getting to know them. That would give something good to my life, to my self.”

It’s interesting. None of these books have information about gay people, or information about the life of disabled gay people. It’s like a double minority. A minority of a minority. Who knows if they will ever be included. But, as you know, words have power.”

Is that a UFO?

I was looking at this photo (one of my all time favorites i have taken so far) and i noticed a UFO. I love this world.



Saijo, the city next to mine, is famous for having the best water in all of Japan. And I learned tonight that the neighborhood in the center of the city gets all its water directly from the ground for free. That is fuckn great.
I went to Saijo tonight to see one of my friends dj at a club. And, there I had a very powerful experience. It dawned on me; I am meeting all these people, touching their hands, looking into their eyes, so I affect them, and their precious human lives. Whenever we meet, that is, whenever our lives cross, for however brief a meeting, a transfer of energy takes place. Or a transmission of consciousness. I found myself falling in love with everyone I met. They were all so beautiful, even the ones who wouldn't even look me in the eyes as they met me. I touch their hands, and felt their lives. So many times before I took meeting people for granted. Yeah, nice to meet you. Take care. But for the first time, I really felt the energy that passes between us. Total strangers influence each other in so many ways.

And then, as i was talking with some friends, I had this clarity, this understanding, that the purpose of my life is to love. To love others. To love my self. I brought this up with them in Japanese, that love is actually the purpose of the entire universe, the reason it manifested in the first place, and the reason my cells stay together and the atoms in my body don't explode.

I then started saying that the sun is in our blood, like how the sun is in paper. The atmosphere in my lungs, the earth in my blood and bones. I can’t be here without the sun. The sun is my mother. And Space is the mother of the sun. And who is the mother of all space? The Now. My heart. Meeting strangers. Shaking their hands. Falling in love with Life.

I then started spouting this philosophy in Japanese. I don't know why. Its like i was on a role, and they were interested and understanding me. I talked about the chakras, how animals have the lower ones and angels and non-human bodhisattvas have the higher ones, but humans are the only ones with all seven charkas, which makes our life so difficult, to have animal and angles capacities all inside this little space. It hurts sometimes. But, it also means that through our bodies we can unite heaven and earth, emptiness and form.

I talked about the crown chakra, the self that never dies because it was never born. The only thing that doesn't change. The present moment. The Presence. And how the Now moment that was two hundred years ago is the same Now moment Now. And the now that will be in ten thousand years is the same now Now. I was saying all this in Japanese. And one of my friends, Kamaji, (in the blue shirt) looked into my eyes with his big beautiful eyes, as if he was asking me to keep going, keep going. Like he needed this. Like finally someone was saying what he has been thinking and feeling. And after I talked about how our bodies are made of the same energy as the stars, he asked, “Then, what is me?” And I asked him if he was too look for himself, where would he find it? And he put his hand on his chest. And I asked him to feel into that self. What does it feel like? And he said it is like the sky. With all sorts of different weather in it. Right on! I thought. HE asked "But where does that self live, if it is not just in my body and in my thoughts?" And I told him the first thing that came to my mind. I said "you live in three bodies."


When I was dancing, I was surfing between that trance like state where all time stops and its only me and the music flowing through my body, and a state concerned with the others watching me dance. I moved in and out of two selves, two dances, two states of mind.

I realized that even if most of the time I am concerned with what others think of me, (making me their prisoner, to some degree) there are also times when I break free from that mode and move freely. And how sweet those moments are, those moments of freedom.

Do you ever get into those states where you remember shit you did when you were in middle school and feel stupid for being so stupid? Regretting the past. You know that feeling? That thought train? Or how about that desire to relive a situation with all your hindsight. If only I could go back to that time! If only if only if only. I wonder if my friends remember that time I was so stupid. I wonder if I should apologize for taking advantage of them, or manipulating them, or using them. I think these thoughts sometimes.

And then, what I find so funny is that in reality, all those people I was stupid around, they probably don't care at all. They have their OWN memories to relive and regret. They have their own novel to read and reread. Who give s a shit about mine?
I know this, because when I look back, I don’t care about how stupid other people were.

People don't care. They have their own lives and choices and fuckups to occupy themselves.
This is very liberating, I think.

a kid

i met this kid and worked on this painting today.

my stay at the school for bad kids

First of all, here is the finished Sakura painting. I hope you like it. And my loving kindness and thanks to all of you who are reading my blog. I really appreciate it.

Now, about my stay with the bad kids. They aren’t al bad kids, by the way. Some of them have bad parents who couldn’t support them anymore. When I first got to the school I ran with all the kids. 8 boys, 3 girls. My inward smile immediately dropped when I noticed that half the kids were gone. All the 9nth graders had graduated. All my favorite kids were gone, away to there own towns across the prefecture, never to be seen again. Sadness. I ran, determined to move past my broken heart, for how can I dwell on such a loss when about 8 boys begin screaming my name as they see me approach the track. SO we ran, and then had class. One of the teachers found a small snake in the garden, called us all over to look, and then cut its head off. The snake still moved long afterward. He then scooped it up and tossed it into the riverbed. I felt pretty sad. Me, who watches where I step so as not to kill any bugs—how I have changed form my childhood! I used to kill doves and frogs with a bee-bee gun! Now I can’t even step on a bug.

Back to my story.

I did kendo for the first time after school. It was exhausting. Kendo is using a bamboo sword to hit each other in specific points on the body while yelling. This is "the true soul of Japan" or so says one of my teachers. Great fun, but exhausting. During my one-on-one with the kendo teacher, who was this old man ninja with incredible speed, I couldn't help bursting into laughter I was so tired and having so much fun. Then I played tennis with one of the other teachers. Today I am sore. Two new sports. Many new muscles. So, after sports I said goodbye to the teachers with the kids and we all headed to our dormitory. I took a picture of the kids walking up to the dorms, even though no pictures are aloud here to protect the kid’s identity. SO, we headed up to the dorm to take a bath and eat dinner.

Now, one thing you should know is that many Japanese boys are extremely perverted and curious. For example, in the changing room before Kendo practice, some of the boys got down on the ground to look up my boxer shorts. Or whenever I go to the bathroom in any one of my schools, kids will walk over and look down at my penis. Openly. Flat out, they look and then usually comment. This is common. In a way, it’s interesting that they don't have the homophobia we have in the west (or I have) where if I look at another man’s penis I am considered gay and/or a total pervert. So if I am curious about what someone's penis looks like I (or the western male) will either repress or even hate that curiosity, or peek secretly. It’s funny to go into a crowded restroom in the west. You see people peek all the time.
But, in Japan, in the Middle schools especially, if a guy or group of guys wants to see my penis, they just walk up next to me and look. No shame. No fear.

So, as you can imagine, when bath time came they all had a great time, except for one boy, the oldest. He didn't take a bath until we were all out so he could be alone. This 16 year old was sent back to this school because he was caught stealing. His little brother is also attends. They are from Matsuyama, the biggest city in Ehime. more about him later.


Oh, and these kids know the strangest sexual English words, like lube. dildo. G-spot, clitoris, even fellatio! The kids were asking me if I have ever played sex, and one boy, the youngest, 12 years old, looked at me and said, “do you fellatio?” I asked him how he learns these words and he walked over to the dormitory library and pulled out one of about three hundred manga (comic books) and open to a random page of two cartoon characters having sex. The punk kid with tatoos then hand jestured masterbation. The teacher present said nothing.

But, aside from all that, these kids are desperate for love. They crawl on me. Joke with me. Hold my had when we walk (imagine a 15 year old holding my hand as we walk up to the school!) I can tell they want a brother, or father, or friend. They must miss their parents. I sure do.

Or maybe they don’t. Maybe this is the best place they have ever been. The teachers here are all care free and kind (and the kids point, poke, and talk about their penises to! Like I said, it's totally normal here). Maybe they dont miss their families at all.

They loved saying my last name once they learned it. Tetorinton.
Before dinner the teacher who was staying at the dormitory that week (who has a family of his own) took up a father position and talked about what you should do if a girl likes you but you don't really like her. You can't be rude and mean because thet would hurt her feelings. I remember those talks from my parents.
After dinner, before we wrote in our journals, the kids one by one told what was good and what was bad about their day.

One of the kids (the one who said fellatio) insisted that I sleep inn his room. SO I did. I felt like Ender must have felt in Speaker For the Dead, walking into the fatherless family and immediately taking up the position, not just because the kids needed it, but because he needed it as well.

The five boys in my dorm each had strikingly different personalities. There was the quiet one who alternated between serious and stern to silly and playful about five times every hour. he was 13. There was the 15 year old punk with homemade tattoos on his arms and stretched holes in his ears, who also held my hand on our way to school and danced with me during free time (and asked me if I use lotion when I masturbate.) He also enjoyed beat boxing with me. I could tell he had practiced some of the beats I taught him last time.
The two youngest boys, one smart, clever, ("fellatio"), who was funny and hyper and confident, and then the other, less mature, less confident, more angry, who gets very frustrated when he loses games like uno. And the oldest boy, who spent a lot of the time looking at career magazines and house/apartment catalogues. He says he wants to work at a convenient store. He wrote me this note:
Today is Very Happy!!
Dance, Magic good
Thank you very much


During my stay I was constantly reminded of Josh, who works at a boys home. Maybe that is what I should do. It seems so necessary and helpful. These boys really need fathers, older brothers, positive friends. I guess I really want to be a dad. Or at least an older brother.

In the morning I woke up with the birds and the young boy’s face smiling. "Good morning!" We all cleaned the dorms and listened to bad Japanese dance music. The quite boy practiced guitar in his room, the older boy set the table for breakfast. During the day he will study a little, but will spend most of the time working around the school, in the garden, fixing things. I saw him shoveling stuff on one of the roofs with another teacher.

It was a little awkward at breakfast when I said I couldn't eat the ham and does anyone want it. The kids are fed meat three times a day here, and they are expected to eat everything on their plate (so i am to). For dinner I had half a chicken breast (I gave the other half to the boy next to me) and in the morning I was given ham. I couldn't eat it. the chicken was hard enough. adn the fish for lunch was grass, picking the meat and skin from teh bones. The kids all understood, knowing I am a vegetarian. The teacher, on the other hand, said ‘gambare’ which meant, “try harder.” I felt a huge blow, a hit of wind in my insides, but I would not submit to his authority and eat pig. So I said again, politely, Sorry, I can’t eat this. And I gave it to my friend next to me, who ate it happily. Now, here is a moral dilemma of sorts. Am I harming the boy next to me by giving him the meat? Am I disrespecting the school? teh teacher? Am I setting a bad example for the kids?


Also, with the milk, the watery cow puss. I ended up saying I had an allergy so they would get off my back.

Not a good note to end my story on. I had a great great fantastic time. Unfortunately, I won’t see these kids again until September. When I left, sadness came. I said goodbye to the kids playing Baseball and walked away from the school, into the country neighborhod. I could hear them yelling almost all the way to the buss stop. I felt a sadness that soon dissolved into the sunlight and mountains and one of the most beautiful walks I have ever had. Enjoy the pictures.

a new friend

Yesterday I hung out with Abie and we went to he mall and looked at the plastic food there. If you don't know, many restaurants in Japan have these incredibly realistic plastic copies of all there dishes. It is a total mystery to me how they do it. I have ideas, but most of them just don't make sense. There must be a mold that doesn't hurt the food. But who paints it? Where does it happen? How expensive are they? On our walk home we found a “may peace prevail on earth" sign, and a strange white film in the gutter.

Last night was my friend Katsu's 23rd birthday so he came over to my house and we worked on some beat boxing. He tried to say, “It hurts the throat” and found the pronunciation impossible and funny. We met up with a couple of his friends (both drummers) and went to this bar/club hole-in-the-wall place where a friend of mine was dj-ing. The music wasn't very good, although I danced some, and you know how I dance, all crazy like, and many Japanese people got a big hit out of it I'm sure, I felt the rhythms flow threw me like rivers, from my toes to my finders, and then I went outside because the place was really smoky disgusting and out in the rainy night a young, attractive Japanese guy, dressed in an Iowa t-shit and brown pants, with no fancy haircut, or shoes, walked over to me and in perfect Australian English said "hey man, what’s up?" we met, hung out by the entrance to the bar for about an hour, found things in common. He made it a point to say good evening to everyone who went into and out of the bar—a surprisingly friendly gesture. I asked him why he moved to Australia and he proceeded to unpack his life story, juicy with drug addictions, revelations, spiritual experiences, “maybe this is too personal”. He wasn’t drunk or anything, he had to drive his friend home. I asked him what the purpose of life is (jinsei no mokuteki wa?) And he said it was love or to grow in love. And then we talked about how love and sadness seem to go together, and how the more you love the more pain you feel. I told him about spiral dynamics and the evolution of the individual and he said it all fit with his life for sure. And then we talked about heartbreaks; he lives in Australia and has a year old son and he is afraid he is going to be a bad father because him and the boy's mother fell out of love and it is against Japanese culture to have a single parent and will he ruin his son's life? We also talked about Japanese culture and American culture. He said he never really liked Japanese culture. He thought it was all phony. The fashion, the music, the entire “scene” was phony and forced. He said that one of the most wonderful thing that happened to him was when he began hanging out with foreigners in Japan and they turned him onto his own culture, showing him how beautiful and rich it really is. I asked him what he thought about America, did it have a culture, and he said it absolutely did and could be found in the arts, especially music. He said that jazz and folk and rock and hip-hop all have roots in America, making it one of the richest cultural sites in the world. Interesting. He gave me a hug when I left, looked into my eyes, and said "thank you so much." I will hang out with him again next Friday before he goes back to Australia.
Then, Katsu and his two friends came over to my place and we listend to music until about 3:30 am.

new post

Abie is sitting in front of me right now knitting a sweater. I spent all day with her today. Well, first, I woke up to birds in the sunlight and did some yoga, talked to Eli on the phone, which was healing like sunlight, he is so friendly and light, then I went to Kieran and Jocelyn’s for a cinco de mayo party. We made tortillas and salsa and spanish rice and black beans and that was delicious. Then, I went with Abie and others to Kuroshima Koen (black Island park) where we went down a big rolly slide, played in the fountain with kids that splashed us as if we were little like them (this one girl walked up to me and put her hand on my arm and said hello). Then we went to the ocean and looked out at the infinity. And then I came home and abie knitted and I worked on this painting.

I am excited to got to school on Monday because it is the boarding school for the bad kids and I get to stay there this time, doing everything the kids do. Here is the schedule they sent me.
8:20~8:45 marathon (running about a mile around a dirt track barefoot)
8:45~1:15 classes and lunch
1:15~3:00 Kendo
5:15 Dinner
6:00 self-study (they call it “self-study!”)
7:00 snack and bath and free time
9:00 meeting and writing diary
9:30 lights out

6:30 the hour of rising, washing your face and cleaning and preparation
7:30 breakfast
8:15 go to school

Doesnt that sound fun? I love this school for bad kids in the country. There are only about 15 kids there (maybe not even that many) and they and the teachers are all really great (except of course, when I compliment a kid on his tattoo like I did the first day and the teachers had to tell me that was a big no-no.) im not alloud to take pictures of those kids because it is secret that they are at the school, but i will see if i can anyway.

Golden Week

Yesterday I went to the river with Kieran and I spent most of my time laying on the smooth stones listening to the birds sing. IN the distance I could hear the drums and whistles of the festival. Its children’s day, so there are little taikos (floats) being pulled by kids and their parents parading thought the entire city. This is a picture of the one in my neighborhood. This week is “Golden Week,” a week full of holidays. Green day, Constitution Day, National Day, and Children’s Day.
I’ve been hanging out with my friend Michelle and her friend visiting form Canada, Ashley. Ashley is a stuardist and got a roundtrip to Japan for under 300 dollars. She has told me fascinating things about Airlines. For example, if a plane that is to go from Kansas City to Chicago cant go because of a technical problem, and the aircraft has to cancel all its flights that day, then a team of people in front of computers will look for another aircraft at the Kansas City Airport that might have less people to fly that day, and cancel all THAT aircraft's flights, giving that aircraft to the Kansas City to Chicago people, because it will involve less people missing their flights and that means less reimbursement. It's all numbers. SO, if your flight is canceled because of technical problems, it may not have been your plane, but another that had more people to carry. Fascinating.

I planned to make frames during this week, but plans have changed. I’ve been working with this lovely old man at the Hardware store called “Dick” (and, of course, there is a ‘Big Dick” and a “Little Dick” in neighboring cities, believe it or don’t) and this old man, who I thought would have my wood cut by this week, told me he hasn't even stated and it would be ready next week. I don't know why (exept that he was busy), the language barrier can get pretty frustrating, but I said ok and now I have this entire Golden week to paint and relax and read “Children of the Mind,” the fourth book in the Ender’s series, and eat blueberry bagels. I just found a tiny store that sells bagels. If there is an American food, that I like, it might be bagels and cream cheese (tofuri cream cheese if possible). They don't really do bagels here. There is one restaurant that sells them (and thankfully, it’s the one where I teach the 10 year old every week!).


I saw “V for Vendetta” and “The New World” the other day. I recommend them both. The music in The New World almost made me cry. And Pocahontas was so beautiful, and I have a new respect for our ancestors, native and European. It really was a great movie.

Here is a pencil drawing I made the other day. It is a crossed vajra, shell, pinecoan, dokomo demo mushroom (a stuffed cell phone character that a student gave me) and two dust bunnies. And here is a painting I worked on yesterday. It’s almost done. Any title suggestions?

easter thanksgiving

look at this albino peacock! my mom sent me this picture. amazing, ne?

I put a link to my friend Jackie's blog (to the right). please check it out.



So, for Easter, I met Jesse and Claudia at the park for a picnic. Jesse brought plastic Easter eggs and hid them around the sad rusty zoo section of the park. It was a beautiful, sunny, windy day, and I had a really great time. It’s amazing how much fun I had looking for those eggs. Nostalgia. The caged peacocks opened their incredibly large and beautiful feathers, leaving them little room to move, their cages were so small.

I have had a sad week, but also a very joyful one, remembering my professor. Eli pointed me to one of my favorite books, Glimpse after Glimpse, to today’s passage…April 18:
"To contemplate impermanence on its own is not enough: you have to work with it in your life. Let’s try an experiment. Pick up a coin. Imagine that it represents the object at which you are grasping. Hold it tightly clutched in your fist and extend your arm, with the palm of your hand facing the ground. Now if you let go or relax your grip, you will lose what you are clinging on to. That’s why you hold on.
But there's another possibility: you can let go and yet keep hold of it. With your arm still outstretched, turn your hand over so that it faces the sky. Release your hand and the coin still rests on your open palm. You let go. And the coin is still yours, even with all this space around it.
So there is a way in which we can accept impermanence and still relish life, at one and the same time, without grasping."



Saturday I went to an art festival at a rock/garden/sculpture store with my friend Mai, who teachers pottery there. I threw two teacups. Then we went to Tokushima because Mai had to perform there and, sure enough, it was at the same vegan café I went to a month ago. The music rocked and the food rocked and i got to rock out on the drums with other drummers and beautiful people in sandles were dancing and all the food was vegan and people were dancing...with their hands, mostly, but still dancing.

I am now down to one cup of green tea a day.
I have been sleeping really well, remembering many dreams, and meditating daily, watching my thoughts form in the open space of my mind. They really do form like bubbles when they emerge or arise in/as mind, only to pass just as quickly as they came. I love watching my mind think, watching the words and images emerge out of the depths of my presence. At first it was quite odd watching the thoughts emerge, form out of conciousness, but then it began to shine with this truth: all things are made of different forms of light. and, all the light is the shining radiance of awarness. But when i sit and watch the thoughts form, the thinker is taking a break from his job, and the thoughts have no subsance, or are totally transparent, or rather, they self-liberate within themselve, dissolving effortlessly into the next one, or into the space in which they arose, leaving no trace anywhere, like how a bird flying leaves no trace in the sky. And when i think a mantra or sacred sound (like om, or ah, or hoom,) then that suble thought resonates soft, trasparent waves, subtle energy, everywhere, and i can imagine the subtle streams flowing thought my body like a river of sunlight.

I am now reading the third book in the Ender’s Game saga, “Xenocide.” Can’t put it down.









Sunday after zazen at the temple I came up with this analogy about the nature of mind.
Imagine an empty room. Now, imagine all sorts of people coming into
the room, people having conversations, some getting angry,
screaming, the room gets hot, and it becomes a hell in there. Now,
Imagine televisions in the room showing past events, and dreams about
the future. Some birds fly into the room and sing. Everyone falls
asleep except for a dear friend. You hold each other and listen to
the birds, enjoying a quiet rest, maybe kiss, make love. there is some sunlight, a slight
breeze. In the room you both listen to the music of the breath, and
dissolve your attention into the space around you, clear light, heaven, the sound of some birds.
All these things can take place in the room because the room is, from the beginning, empty space.

(The primordial condition of every individual is beyond time, birth and death; the indestructible diamond mind, the limitless spaciouse sky mind, the unstainable mirror mind, the luminous clear light mind, the primordial condition of every individual.)

I pour green tea into my small, rough cup. Steam spins upward from
the lake surface, and an island of bubbles turns round and round in
the middle, slowly gravitating toward the cup's edge, until, suddenly,
it rushes there, clings to the side of the cup, and then bursts out of
form.


I painted all day yesterday.
Here is some of my new work. Even though the show is two months away, ive started building and buying frames. and I still have to finish the paintings!, but dont worry, ill get it done.