Found a new home

Adventure in Tokyo trains today, took an hour and a half detour by mistake today on a main underground line in Tokyo. Saw the police manage rush hour traffic; shoving the last stragglers into the already bursting train, making sure the doors didn't smash any fingers. Just showed my host family pictures of my family back in Ohio. My father looks like Richard Gere!
No sweet potato liquor and baseball with host poppa tonight, I came home late. We watched a tv show where a panel argued for which historical figure would win in a fight. Then, actors dressed as the two combatants and smack talked each other to charge the show. Sorta brilliant, really silly.

I had a bought of loneliness today. Since we arrived we were surrounded by the international communication club throughout our orientations; being guided from our hotel to the classroom, shown where we could eat lunch, talked up mercilessly, showered with kindness. But now we are with our host families, all very kind souls but 60+ and speaking only Japanese. I had to turn in my class registration form at Waseda(my uni here) today(They still use paper for registering classes!) and so I went into downtown Tokyo(Shinjuku) on my own. On the train, even as a gaijin(foreigner) with curly brown hair in a land of black and straight, people don't look, or if they do, only for a second. The only way through this experience is through complete yielding. We use language as ways to explain ourselves and maneuver through sticky situations but in a difficult foreign tongue you are defenseless as a child. There is no obfuscating or even basic maneuvering; I am an awkward shy manchild doing my best to exist in a world full of adults who talk fast. Seeing so many faces go by, none of which I could really talk to reminded me of the alienation I felt in Germany. It is a necessary part of the experience but it must be broken up lest I start to crack at the seams. My mind drifted to girls, that sweet floral smell of girls. Kasumi from the international club, who was my assigned "buddy", whose smile melts me that I find my mind drifting to over and over. Most girls here are gorgeous, all are dressed to kill, just without the ego.

I wondered if I should keep probing the feelings, whatever they were, with calm breath and open mind. I figured replacing noise in my head with other noise wouldn't really address the problem, but I eventually opted for my ipod anyway. It gave the feeling a nice flavor. Luckily I soon ran into my friend Grant who is also on exchange at Waseda. He's been to Japan before and is a real resource as well as a wise friend to talk to. I was very grateful, reeling in my mind in to address the task in front of me, instead of the nebulous abyss of my mind.

The subway mishap wore me and the feeling out and all energy was devoted to the very immediate concern of getting home in rush hour Tokyo.

Okaasan(host mother) prepared a huge delicious dinner, a whole fish, rice, vegetables from the garden, miso soup, and meat. I'm stuffed, content, and droopy eyed, now to shower and to bed.

In Transit, In Portland

Once again that sweet strong balanced coffee stumptown is flowing through my veins, back in PDX. Staying with cousin Greg in his cave of a house. I've noticed people in Oregon keep their houses pretty dark, I was the only one who would turn on the light in the kitchen no matter what, maybe reflex, but I swear it helps. Greg is stubborn guy, which means I either have to really challenge him or just hope his way of doing things will work. But truly entering into that dialectic I feel little sense of choice in the situation. I tend to trust people. From the wisdom of causes and conditions I know that all conditions, of people and situations, have apt causes, conversations that base their point of interest and humor around, "how could it possibly be this way, this is so random, blah blah." really don't engage me anymore. Sometimes they can be quite entertaining, to go nuts with deductive reasoning, but I know there is a reason, or a cause rather, and by calling it "random" you simply state you don't know while ostensibly saying there is no cause. I know language is about expression and I try not to be too literal, because I think people use the word "random" in their own sense, not the strict "without reason" meaning.
I had a good chat with my mom and vented some of my greg frustrations, I feel better. There's no sense in making enemies, I won't see greg for a year, it would be silly if I couldn't just leave on good terms and enjoy my time with him while I'm here.
Errands to do, I used my blogging time talking to my mom so I've gotta go now!

High-Minded!

There are many lessons I know in my reason, the things I can discuss with others that we can both agree on pretty easily, ah yes of course!. Often they are steeped in spiritual understanding, sometimes lessons gleaned from the day to day. How little we actually understand about the conditions of other people's lives is a frequent one for me. Just Yesterday Ejo, Zen priest of the Eugene Zendo, talked about En, or causes and conditions. When you see anything, a person, a bird, a stone; you must also realize you are seeing infinite causes and conditions that have shaped and actually created this thing. If you see me, you see my mother's concerned look, my hometown's old brick italian architecture, my high school's non-air conditioned classrooms, and my grandfather's proclivity for diabetes. When we look at ourselves, we are able to see many of the causes of our condition because if we have become astute observers, over time this observation will help snuff out the causes. However, when we turn to others, when we see a condition, we often presume to know the causes. Then we give proscriptions or judgments and from those standpoints we can impose right and wrong.

Saturday, in Yoga, the man next to me had some of the weakest postures I'd ever seen, and I'd seen him before. Just going 50% into the posture with limp limbs, constantly fidgeting. His effort seemed so impotent, I kept wondering, I've seen this guy come for at least a year and he has some of the weakest postures I've ever seen, how come? Judgments and annoyances follow quickly. I presumed to know when I hadn't even spoken to him. I tried to put him out of my mind and focus on what I was doing and let him do what he needed to do. But still, over and over would my attention would land on his effort and I would rip him to shreds in my mind with insults, which I don't even want to mention. When I would realize I was needlessly wasting my energy in a negative way, I would try to pry it off, succeedingly intermittently, but the conditioned mind always returned to what it was used to. Perhaps my own misery being taken out on the world and others as culprits for my condition over the years has taught my mind to blame others and criticize them and resent them.

After class, as I laid on my mat in the yoga room on the verge of a mighty headache, he started talking to me as he left the room, which was odd because usually silence is maintained, but he went out of his way to talkt o me with no initiation from my end. Turns out, he has swine flu. Yea, no shit, swine flu. Swine flu and he's coming to 105degree yoga for an hour and a half. It put me in my place very quickly. What wasted energy of mine creating tension and resentment in my head on false assumptions I had just spent.

Oh yea, and again, we don't know why other's are as they are, but the real point is that they are so for a reason. Or rather, there are conditions than have brought to this person to be as they are. It's not our duty to criticize for how they are but only to help when we can. The next point is that "helping" is an acquired skill, it takes patience and restraint. In my experience and from what I've seen, people learn best from their own experience, from their own drive to change or learn. So what you can really do is be pleasant and lead by example, lead by your own realization and wisdom. Another way to say this is, You can't answer a question that has not been asked. As in your advice and proscriptions will do no good if the the instructee isn't listening. This is hard for my judgmental self. I have been trying to just listen and be pleasant, be insightful, be helpful. Often I work myself into a shitty mood when i try to advise or argue with someone. Now when arguments come up, unless they are going pleasantly I usually just try to defuse them because what will happen the vast majority of the time, is that we won't agree, we'll resent each other and we won't have learned anything. More important is to maintain your composure so your ears remain open and you can try to understand why the other person feels that way, their causes, and then maybe you can see into their perspective.

Back in Eugene

Well, back to real life, though it really feels much more artificial than the past month of being transient. Propped up by structure and responsibility, deadlines and expectations; but I think the wonderful freewheeling of travelling is only sustained by the mundane world.

How structure shapes me! Back in Cinci, in the room I spent my teenage years stewing in, how quickly my old habits and thoughts return! Back in Eugene, the same feelings hover about me; my room never seems to look clean, why is that? is this my life? is this my beautiful wife?

I'm starting to blog now because I need to write, I have a constant muse tickling me that when not expressed seems to foment into overzealous anti-emotionalism making me boorish and tightly-wound.

But it's late in the morning, oh blog, I shall be faithful to you!