Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in

Back from Santa Fe. I kept no blog while I was staying at the Zen Center because I was instructed not to do so. But I think the reason given was sound, namely, that when you keep a blog you are conceptualizing your experience already, seeing it in a certain way, thinking about how you are going to write about it rather than simply having the experience. So, I put aside the blogginf for a while. This makes two substantive disruptions: once because TGFW (The Great Fire Wall) and once because of WWBD (What Would Buddha Do?). So having finished things up there I have a lot to write about and say about this experience, but right now I don't feel like dwelling in the past, although I am writing about it and will post something at some point.

The big news is that I've accepted a teaching position in China next year. Starting in September I will be the Foreign Expert at Sichuan University in Chengdu, one of the elite universities in the Chinese educational system. I will be teaching graduate students various and sundry topics in Western thought. I accepted this job with very mixed emotions. On the one hand, I really thought I was out of the academic racket. But, to quote Michael Corlerone: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." Of course, no one is pulling me back in. But I felt I had do to something. I was getting antsy, feeling useless and running out of money. And this job sort of fell into my lap. I tell myself it is just for a year while I research this China book I wanted to write anyway. But I am very ambivalent.

This means, though, I need to figure out what to do from January to July. The book is finally scheduled to come out in late April, and I want to be around for that. But before and after that time, I really don't have any plans. I need to formulate some. More on this later.

Evening Chant

"Life and death are of supreme importance.Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost.Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life."

Temporary new blog address

While I am at the Paths of Service program, I will be blogging at http://peteratupaya.blogspot.com/

WTF

Leave Tomorrow for Sante Fe. Another time of loading up my car with all my worldly possessions. I have already moved enough for one lifetime, hell, for several lifetimes. So tired of this shit. Just want to find one place to settle down. But I really don't see that as happening anytime soon, if ever. I mean, part of me just wants to skip the Zen Center and keep on driving, or maybe just find an apartment someplace. But no, should submit to the discipline...Wish I had spent this summer doing something of significance. Working in Yellowstone or volunteering in SMC or just driving around the country ala Glen (where is Glen). Will say it for the last time, can't believe I spent it in Tucson...While I was here, I at least should have kept up with the CLM and done some chatting. Would have given me something to do and provided a chapter in the book. Perhaps can do that at the Zen Center!...Not sure what to make of this job in China in the fall...Not something I want to do, going back to academia, but at least it is doing something. I can always look for a job in the meantime and take it if nothing else comes up...Or, as seems more likely, I can simply travel in the interval

Howl

Watching the movie "Howl" last night. Late in the film, they show the Ginsberg character talking about a pivotal momemt in his life. From what I have read of Ginsberg, it is a true story. He is in his twenties, working in San Francisco, seeing a therapist, and he is complaining to his therapist, who asks him what he really wants to do. And Ginsberg tells him, he wants to live in a small apartment with his lover and write, and his therapist tells him, well, why don't you do it. And he does, and the rest is history. Now, it is too late for me to make that move in any meaningful way. But I can at least live out what is left of my life in my own way. The key is to having a clear answer to the question of what you want to do. I mean, in a way, this going to the Zen monastary is not something I particularly want to do. I would like to just go off somewhere by myself for three months or so. But I don't think that would be particularly healthy. So this strikes me as a much saner thing to do, something that might move the ball down the road, although in the end it might say more about a lack of faith in myself than anything.

Along this line, I am going to have to confront the possiblity of teaching next year. In a way, I am glad to have given up that ghost and don't relish returning to the classroom. I tell myself that it would give me something to do. Also, I think about how I could carry out one of my book projects while doing this task. But a year, I tell myself, no more than a year. I mean, the real goal is these three book projects in the next five years, and then seeing what happens, I guess, although if I could find an MSW program I could complete while in China, that would be incentive to stay over there for two years.

And the winner is...

And the winner is...3 months at he Upaya Zen Center (Santa Fe, NM) in the Paths of Service program. First, I want to say that I feel sorry for my parents. I mean, there is no way to explain this to them. My mom, with such questions as "is this a cult?" Well, where do you go from there. I simply possess neither the vocabulary or the energy to explain this to them. I am as sad as they are that I cannot be settled in some normal job raising a family. Second, I am sad for myself, that this is the best I can come up with after a year. I really can't say I expect this to accomplish anything. I recall hearing once someone saying that if all else fails you could always serve as a bad example. And that, it seems to me, is precisely what I have done. I should have left with some concrete plan. I should be able to look back after a year and be able to say that I have actually accomplished something. But I can't. Nor do I seem to be on track to be able to do so at the end of next year. So I don't know where any of this is going to lead. I am also up for a job teaching at Sichuan University next September. And if I get that, I just might travel for about six months--another Februry to June trip and return back to the States and then to China. I have no idea.

Paths of Service?

It looks like things may be heading in the direction of the Paths of Service program at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe. This would be for three months and one week probably beginning around the start of October, which would take me into early/Mid January. This is in line with the sense that I needed to go somewhere and sit for 2-3 months. Here, I will literally be sitting. I probably could have gone to Naropa for a similar period of time, but this will be a new adventure, a new tradition, although if this falls through I may well look to Naropa. I have to admit a little sense of, I don't know, regret, at not being able to travel. Hearing the term "aimless wandering" at the retreat sort of set me off thinking of how that may be what I needed to do for a while. Indeed, if I had the year to do over again, that is what I probably would have done. But isn't that the way it is--I always seem to see things in retrospect. At some point I will have to deal with whether I am going to take the China teaching job. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." Of course, it would be me pulling myself back in. My gut tells me not to take the job if it is offered (which it has not been). But it is such a great opportunity that it might be hard to turn down. On the other hand, I do have the book ideas, and could work on the China book this spring--although I would like to at least try to get an advance for that idea, as well as for the philosopher-chef book. Right now I should at least write up notes for a second chapter of the China book, which would have to do with the correspondances and forum and blog entries.