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TWENTY SEVEN
It had been weeks since I had the yombul fever. Something in me had died. The break from Tae, putting down a life — I’d been through so much. It wasn’t normal, the weight I carried, the stress. My poor heart. I wasn’t going into an ecstatic state, I was a ball of pain. I had to come to terms with the fact that she’d sent a bomb in response to one of the finest pieces of literature I’d ever put…
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TWENTY SIX
The last day of the month was the last day of waiting. I received an envelope from Tae. It contained a piece of stationery with Mount Fuji on it, and the words “happy summer kyolche 2015.” She’d sent letters to three other foreign monks, so it wasn’t personal. I was elated, at first. One of the few surviving nuns, an American with a feminine preference, told us that she’d received a similar note…
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TWENTY FIVE
Day 17 down We had a free day because we’d shaved each others’ heads in the morning with single-bladed razors, guards removed. It was a ritual, every two weeks. We’d all received a bag of snacks and fruit after and wander the mountains, or sleep, or whatever. I couldn’t lay down because of the stalker. He’d always bother me, pretending to do things around me so he could watch me. If I caught…
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TWENTY FOUR
Day 20 down It would calm down over the days, after I’d given up the world. She was still on my mind, some kind of sub-desperation that fell off only with the distraction of the training forms and the practice. It was just too hot. I was tumbling into something unavoidable, that would tear my life apart. Not blindly, I realized the dangers and began winnowing down to minimize the damage. I…
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TWENTY THREE
The stalker, magnificent, sat next to me for a two-hour class on etiquette. Shaking with revulsion and anger, my mind developed fissures I’d never seen. I wasn’t sure I could hold it together. He hid behind our “cultural differences,” but his groping and stalking behavior was hard to dismiss. He never talked straight. Whatever was said, he continued his attempts. I knocked him back further each…
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TWENTY TWO
Day 24 down In the afternoon I was gripped with something like terror. I came out of a blank state, peculiar for how dense, how formless it was, holding this:
“Consciousness is a living thing.”
The thing that animates us was itself alive? How many layers were there? If it was true, if the life-force was an entity, everything made sense. Chaos theory, the press forward. It all made sense… It…
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TWENTY ONE
I wrote to the Zen Master and told him about Tae, that I couldn’t live anymore as it was. I was abandoning my life. I’d never heard this teaching before. I wondered how he would react. He responded with a kongan, as he will do. Basically he wanted to know if it had helped me. I told him it was the only way I could survive this world. After abandoning my life, I couldn’t imagine seeing Tae…
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TWENTY
As my mood lifted, I felt that the situation with Tae wasn’t so dire. It was a natural process of falling in love with someone and being separated from them for a prolonged period, with a profound lack of communication. As a monastic, I wasn’t trying to possess her, but to work out a way to love a person that I found a great harmony with, to develop a life of helping each other, learning, growing…
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NINETEEN
There was a brief moment of contact before the ango began. It was Tae’s first break from the Kangwon, on a visa run. She’d sent one email. She hadn’t read SOB yet because she’d been off-line. She’d send a letter. Though she knew of my struggle with Sangmi — she didn’t know how I would write her, the things boiling in me. I felt completely vulnerable allowing her to see so much, caring so deeply…
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EIGHTEEN
After the letter my feelings for Tae became more defined, more reckless. My soul came apart. I had nowhere to go but inward. Sometimes the world was too painful for me to endure. I needed to bond with Tae like I needed to breathe. It would pass. It would leave me in darkness. My life was void from the start. There was nothing anywhere to hold to that had any meaning. I waited for the letter to…
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SEVENTEEN
The spirit world dominated. It was Tae, the bond with her and the beautiful pulsing One. The deep practice, allowing her to take me, all of me like an immense stream that flowed through me, a blissful state of samadhi with Tae and the deep forest and the light of the Absolute; the pattern of wild things, the shaman rhythm, the music of my gods; pieces, melodies made at the height of their power,…
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SIXTEEN
SEASON TWO — OF HUMAN BONDING
Like a bullet into the Kibonseonwon, there was a certain velocity, everything vibrating. I didn’t know how I would regain the ground again, where I would land, but a man can’t hurtle through space indefinitely. There was no time to sort out my feelings for Tae. It was some kind of impulse, like a light flashing on a control panel. It would have to hold. It would be…
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SOB Update 8-27-2015
Fist, we apologize for the site being down. The IT department was on summer break, and the one person who knew how to fight malicious code was on retreat.. everything’s back in order now.
The author, soon to be released from the summer ango, promises a new season of Burning, to begin next week. He’s requested a name change for a central character. Although a bit unusual, it’s early on, and with…
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FIFTEEN
Some Other Burning - FIFTEEN
We filtered out through the gate, for the first time in grey, holding hands, crying, laughing. The hell we’d endured! I loved to see them walking freely. Haeju came out of the crowd. Neither of us could speak, our voices lost. I took awhile for us to reorient ourselves, two things from different places thrown together. But she was burning and bright, soon the conversation resumed. I was pleased…
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FOURTEEN
Some Other Burning - FOURTEEN
Three–steps, one–bow. It went okay. It lasted from the front gate up and across the bridge into the courtyard and halfway around the stupa. Two hours on the asphalt on my knees… they seemed fine, though red and swollen. My legs had really gotten a workout in the kyoyuk, like pounding tough meat on a butcher board. Maybe it was good for my tendons to be pressed and flattened on wood. My right knee…
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THIRTEEN
Some Other Burning - THIRTEEN
I felt something in my throat in the morning and it only worsened. By the afternoon I could hardly speak, but I felt alright. I got a packet of Korean medicine and a turtleneck from one of the monks. Sometimes they were very motherly. The day was made of scenarios to endure. There were a few random moments, too small to be recorded. What I would need stop–motion cameras, some engineering…
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TWELVE
Some Other Burning - TWELVE
My skin began crawling. The pain and nausea both rose to defeat me. It was the 10th day of 16, a rainy Wednesday formal lunch to growl through. I couldn’t remember anymore what bowl to move toward the end, the pain would be so intense my body would vibrate, everything turned to blocks of color and noise. The incredibly slow movements they were going through! It was hard to determine how long it…
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